The men of 12 Company (Lossario’s Horse) strode through customs, security and migration and onto the opening drag of Fuck Town. There had been men with them last time who weren’t there this time: Pte John Cariss (dissolved in a mess of blood and fire after stepping on an IED during routine patrols in Plansarata) Lance-Corporal Harry Squires (ninety per cent deafened and steering a wheelchair with his tongue after being jumped by a gang of rogue Faith militiamen) Pte Frederick Wootton (shot dead by accident in a gunfight at the Dhanuko caves by a sergeant who would blow his own brains out in the mess the evening after the incident). Bad shit, terrible losses, and all that, but in truth no one cared much about the dead right now, because at the end of the day the men getting shouts from the drag whores and offers of free champagne from the bar touts were still alive and the awareness of this indispensable fact came in hard, pulsing surges, so that they were unable to take their arms from each other’s shoulders or stop laughing at their own incomprehensible witticisms. The first shots had been pounded down the moment the in-flight announcement told them that they were leaving Faith airspace. By the time the corona of Fuck Town came into view, about half the men were close to wrecked. The few concourse civilians gave the company no eye contact and tensed until they had reeled out of sight.
This was the debrief: two weeks of rest and recuperation between the six-month Faithlands tour and… and wherever the hell they were going next. There was no real purpose other than allowing the soldiers to drink and ram themselves blind for a couple of weeks before the next hard slog in parts of the theocratic world where there wasn’t a glass of booze or an unveiled woman within a hundred-mile radius. The first time Schiazzi had been here, he had made the mistake of asking his sergeant, in the first bar they hit, when the debrief was going to happen and what exactly it would involve. The company looked at him with identical expressions of quizzical contempt, and then Sergeant Wells had leaned in to the table and said, in a hard, sympathetic tone: ‘You count to ten. Then you count to a hundred. That’s your debrief.’
An island where you were apt to wake up on a beach with a woman collapsed in your arms and a half-empty bottle of something lethal lodged in the pale sands would seem the ideal antidote to the physical and psychic toll of the war against the Faith. Yet Schiazzi didn’t quite buy it. His sex drive had shut down some months back, sometime around the point where the village children started blowing themselves up at checkpoints, and all he fantasised about was sleep. So he stayed the course for a few hopped bars, and then slipped away once they got to Playa Basilisk, the square thronging with acrobats and stiltsmen and fireeaters and jugglers and guys selling shots and cans and cups of ice from shack counters and battery-powered coolers, banners everywhere saying !BEWARE PICKPOCKETEN! and a crashing crescendo of fireworks in the night sky, and Schiazzi got onto the Complayaratadrag and wandered down in it in search of a drink and somewhere to crash, marvelling at the light on the bayou, the soft breeze on his stubble, the air and noise and sounds of a place where you didn’t have to watch the ground with every step.
‘The war is lost.’
He stood up. ‘Ya think.’
‘You know.’ The woman dressed with quiet efficiency: pinstripe jacket, tight jeans, long boots. Her name was Irene and she had picked him out of the crowd on the front porch of the Bar Bayou Playa, where he had been leaning against a wall with a pint in one hand and Shelby Foote’s account of the Gettysburg campaign in the other.
‘See, you come here, you army men, year round, you fight and puke in the streets, you piss in the bayou and we forgive, you know why?’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Because we are a small island, a poor island in many ways, and you bring your army money – but also because we know that so many of you will not be here again.’
She led him from the small functional bedroom where the act of love had happened and into a larger room, completely dark, with the sound of the river rushing overhead, and an eerie reflective aspect to the walls. Schiazzi was feeling pretty good, relaxed in the knowledge that parts of him still worked, and the campaign a million miles away. Then Irene turned on the lights.
‘You know, I have lived here twenty years, I have seen so many of you young men come and go, and I feel unhappy at simply watching you come and go. Take a seat. Are you okay?’
The walls were aquarium from ceiling to floor. He had been staring, amazed at the bold blue of the water and the soft, writhing plantlife, but had seen no fish. Now he was staring at the thing in the aquarium. It was big and pink and had tentacles. It was mostly obscured by Irene’s head, and Schiazzi had no problem with that, no problem at all.
Irene sat on a chair, giving Schiazzi a brief and harrowing glimpse of the thing behind her. He took the opposite chair and focused his energy on looking at Irene’s full lips and steel silver hair. ‘I don’t like to see men like you without letting you know what the options are. This island has two hundred points of access and egress, and the border policiarata are not always – sorry, are you listening to me?’
The thing in the tank had begun to thrash and keen. Schiazzi was pouring glasses of cheng with shaking hands. ‘The hell… what the fuck?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She stood up. ‘I must feed my husband. Since the accident, he has been somewhat… reduced.’
Irene walked to the far corner, stretched up, and activated something on the low ceiling. Bubbles flooded the central tank. Then a stream of colour as fish appeared from the river above. The thing’s tentacles beat the water, sending up waves that blurred the action. Yet Schiazzi could see the fish disappear in clutches and knots, see the water turn from that jarring blue to a shade of stark maroon. It was horrific as only a thing of nature can be. If Schiazzi had had his .81, he’d have shot the monster in the tank without a second’s hesitation.
‘You must have your evening meal, mustn’t you, little darling?’ She regained her chair, all business again. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying to you? If you go back for a next tour, you will die. There are whole swathes of the Faithland where your puppet government is not recognised. There are cities without electricity and running water where the only men who will help come from the temples. Lossario’s folly could cost us generations, soldier.’
Schiazzi lit a cigarette. ‘Yeah. I’m hearing you.’ It was a decision he’d made some time ago, without any conscious internal declaration: just a click of the reptile brain, an animal’s recoil from the sharp stick. ‘But what do I do?’
She scribbled something on paper. ‘Memorise this. The shopkeeper will provide you with a change of clothes and a gun. The weakest point is where the bayou empties into the Climbing Archipelago. If you can get past the policiarata, you have a chance.’
Schiazzi was already grinding out his cigarette. He glanced at the paper, tore it up, downed the rest of his drink. One last hard kiss on the lips and he was gone for the hallway and the stairs up surface, the parting yells of his benefactoress ringing in his ears: ‘Courage, young man! Run, Schiazzi, and wherever you go, follow the angels of your nature, and tilt your face towards the sun!’
Run, Schiazzi, Run!
The men of 12 Company (Lossario’s Horse) strode through customs, security and migration and onto the opening drag of Fuck Town. There had been men with them last time who weren’t there this time: Pte John Cariss (dissolved in a mess of blood and fire after stepping on an IED during routine patrols in Plansarata) Lance-Corporal Harry Squires (ninety per cent deafened and steering a wheelchair with his tongue after being jumped by a gang of rogue Faith militiamen) Pte Frederick Wootton (shot dead by accident in a gunfight at the Dhanuko caves by a sergeant who would blow his own brains out in the mess the evening after the incident). Bad shit, terrible losses, and all that, but in truth no one cared much about the dead right now, because at the end of the day the men getting shouts from the drag whores and offers of free champagne from the bar touts were still alive and the awareness of this indispensable fact came in hard, pulsing surges, so that they were unable to take their arms from each other’s shoulders or stop laughing at their own incomprehensible witticisms. The first shots had been pounded down the moment the in-flight announcement told them that they were leaving Faith airspace. By the time the corona of Fuck Town came into view, about half the men were close to wrecked. The few concourse civilians gave the company no eye contact and tensed until they had reeled out of sight.
This was the debrief: two weeks of rest and recuperation between the six-month Faithlands tour and… and wherever the hell they were going next. There was no real purpose other than allowing the soldiers to drink and ram themselves blind for a couple of weeks before the next hard slog in parts of the theocratic world where there wasn’t a glass of booze or an unveiled woman within a hundred-mile radius. The first time Schiazzi had been here, he had made the mistake of asking his sergeant, in the first bar they hit, when the debrief was going to happen and what exactly it would involve. The company looked at him with identical expressions of quizzical contempt, and then Sergeant Wells had leaned in to the table and said, in a hard, sympathetic tone: ‘You count to ten. Then you count to a hundred. That’s your debrief.’
An island where you were apt to wake up on a beach with a woman collapsed in your arms and a half-empty bottle of something lethal lodged in the pale sands would seem the ideal antidote to the physical and psychic toll of the war against the Faith. Yet Schiazzi didn’t quite buy it. His sex drive had shut down some months back, sometime around the point where the village children started blowing themselves up at checkpoints, and all he fantasised about was sleep. So he stayed the course for a few hopped bars, and then slipped away once they got to Playa Basilisk, the square thronging with acrobats and stiltsmen and fireeaters and jugglers and guys selling shots and cans and cups of ice from shack counters and battery-powered coolers, banners everywhere saying !BEWARE PICKPOCKETEN! and a crashing crescendo of fireworks in the night sky, and Schiazzi got onto the Complayaratadrag and wandered down in it in search of a drink and somewhere to crash, marvelling at the light on the bayou, the soft breeze on his stubble, the air and noise and sounds of a place where you didn’t have to watch the ground with every step.
‘The war is lost.’
He stood up. ‘Ya think.’
‘You know.’ The woman dressed with quiet efficiency: pinstripe jacket, tight jeans, long boots. Her name was Irene and she had picked him out of the crowd on the front porch of the Bar Bayou Playa, where he had been leaning against a wall with a pint in one hand and Shelby Foote’s account of the Gettysburg campaign in the other.
‘See, you come here, you army men, year round, you fight and puke in the streets, you piss in the bayou and we forgive, you know why?’ She lit a cigarette. ‘Because we are a small island, a poor island in many ways, and you bring your army money – but also because we know that so many of you will not be here again.’
She led him from the small functional bedroom where the act of love had happened and into a larger room, completely dark, with the sound of the river rushing overhead, and an eerie reflective aspect to the walls. Schiazzi was feeling pretty good, relaxed in the knowledge that parts of him still worked, and the campaign a million miles away. Then Irene turned on the lights.
‘You know, I have lived here twenty years, I have seen so many of you young men come and go, and I feel unhappy at simply watching you come and go. Take a seat. Are you okay?’
The walls were aquarium from ceiling to floor. He had been staring, amazed at the bold blue of the water and the soft, writhing plantlife, but had seen no fish. Now he was staring at the thing in the aquarium. It was big and pink and had tentacles. It was mostly obscured by Irene’s head, and Schiazzi had no problem with that, no problem at all.
Irene sat on a chair, giving Schiazzi a brief and harrowing glimpse of the thing behind her. He took the opposite chair and focused his energy on looking at Irene’s full lips and steel silver hair. ‘I don’t like to see men like you without letting you know what the options are. This island has two hundred points of access and egress, and the border policiarata are not always – sorry, are you listening to me?’
The thing in the tank had begun to thrash and keen. Schiazzi was pouring glasses of cheng with shaking hands. ‘The hell… what the fuck?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She stood up. ‘I must feed my husband. Since the accident, he has been somewhat… reduced.’
Irene walked to the far corner, stretched up, and activated something on the low ceiling. Bubbles flooded the central tank. Then a stream of colour as fish appeared from the river above. The thing’s tentacles beat the water, sending up waves that blurred the action. Yet Schiazzi could see the fish disappear in clutches and knots, see the water turn from that jarring blue to a shade of stark maroon. It was horrific as only a thing of nature can be. If Schiazzi had had his .81, he’d have shot the monster in the tank without a second’s hesitation.
‘You must have your evening meal, mustn’t you, little darling?’ She regained her chair, all business again. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying to you? If you go back for a next tour, you will die. There are whole swathes of the Faithland where your puppet government is not recognised. There are cities without electricity and running water where the only men who will help come from the temples. Lossario’s folly could cost us generations, soldier.’
Schiazzi lit a cigarette. ‘Yeah. I’m hearing you.’ It was a decision he’d made some time ago, without any conscious internal declaration: just a click of the reptile brain, an animal’s recoil from the sharp stick. ‘But what do I do?’
She scribbled something on paper. ‘Memorise this. The shopkeeper will provide you with a change of clothes and a gun. The weakest point is where the bayou empties into the Climbing Archipelago. If you can get past the policiarata, you have a chance.’
Schiazzi was already grinding out his cigarette. He glanced at the paper, tore it up, downed the rest of his drink. One last hard kiss on the lips and he was gone for the hallway and the stairs up surface, the parting yells of his benefactoress ringing in his ears: ‘Courage, young man! Run, Schiazzi, and wherever you go, follow the angels of your nature, and tilt your face towards the sun!’