Call Me the Breeze by Patrick McCabe

three squaddies and the captain, and they seemed like the best of lads no matter what your politics were. They got a great laugh out of Boo Boo with his stovepipe hat. ‘You’re like one of these fellows you’d see in Belfast of a Saturday,’ they said. ‘What d’ye call them? Aye, those hot gospeller fellas! That’s what you’d put me in mind of now!’
    I was a bit stoned and, as I lay there against the side of the van, I had a great old rap with the captain, who told me his name wasVictor. ‘I used to be mad about music myself,’ he said, ‘but it wouldn’t be your kind of thing now.’ Boo Boo laughed as he jabbed him playfully with the butt of the rifle then lit a fag and starts talking about something else. ‘No,’ he went on, ‘I’d be more for the civilized music. Music, for example, that doesn’t have any of them auld fiddles and banjos and — well, in general, that type of thing. Do you get my drift?’
    I laughed at that. ‘
Sure do
!’ I said.
    Then he looked at me and said nothing. I flipped back through my mind to check if I’d said something wrong. The soldier to his left chuckled a bit, but he went silent when the captain threw him a frosty glare.
    ‘
Sure do. Sure do
. I like the way you say that. I like the way you talk. Half American, like. Half Yankee. Hmm.’
    He poked me in the stomach.
    ‘You’re putting on the beef, musician. I say, you’re putting it on down here, all right! They must be feeding you well down south. I say, they must be feeding you well — are they?’
    I laughed again.
    ‘They are indeed, Captain,’ I replied. ‘They sure are doing that!’
    Now he was laughing too and everything was fine. He shouldered his weapon and smiled as he said: ‘But we weren’t talking about that, were we? What’s this we were talking about, Fat Boy?’
    ‘Music,’ I said. ‘We were talking about music, Captain.’
    ‘That’s right!’ he said. ‘We were talking about music, Captain — real music, that is. Music, in other words, that isn’t played by treacherous felons.’
    ‘Oh now,’ I replied, not thinking about what he’d said, being so out of it, I guess.
    ‘No, the gig in Banbridge was really good,’ I remember saying. Then I heard Boo Boo calling my name.
    ‘Right then! I’ll just take a look in the back,’ the captain said.
    I couldn’t figure out what exactly was going on. Boo Boo was pointing towards the van where the other boys were now raising their voices. Were they arguing with the captain?
    ‘I’m just taking a look,’ the captain was saying. ‘It’s just routine procedure. There’s no need to get upset now! I say, there’s no need to go getting upset!’
    I don’t know who it was shouted ‘
It’s a bomb
!’ Then I heard Boo Boo crying ‘
Jesus
!’ before stumbling back with his two arms out, theothers running forward as if to catch him. Someone shouted: ‘
Get down for the love of fuck, Joey
!’ Even now I don’t know who. All I could see was this sheet of white light and the captain coming lunging towards me — suspended in the air, with this sideways grin on his face. I ducked to try and avoid him as his body, with a dull thud, hit a tree. The words were on the tip of my tongue — ‘Now! Do you see what you get for trying out foolish antics like that!’ — when I nearly passed out with the intensity of the heat and the sulphurous smoke that was filling up my lungs. The other soldier had taken off, running down the road with his jacket in flitters and the hair burnt off his head. A stupid thought came into my own head: ‘I’ll pick up that stick there and chase after him with it to teach him a lesson for this stupid fucking carry-on!’
    Before coming around to realize just as I was about to do it that it wasn’t a stick, for sticks don’t have tattoos with ‘
I love The Sonics’
on them — or fingers, come to that. Then I heard this groaning, and what happens then? Out from underneath the wagon comes Boo Boo —