When his mind cleared it was as if he had slapped his own face hard. He was, himself, exposed. He could have been naked, lain alongside the man on the floor. He could have been beaten and accused.
It was about the man he was tasked to protect – clarity came in a burst. A puzzle that had been obstinate slid into place: so simple. Some who examined his actions might find it hard to credit that mere enthusiasm, and vanity, had led him to create circumstances where the prisoner remained in his custody and not in that of officers with experience and rank. He was tasked to protect Rashid Armajan, a man of great sensitivity. He had pulled from the water an agent in a camouflage suit who offered no explanation and he imagined that the couple now travelled anonymously, without a cordon of guards. He thought he had put them at hazard – perhaps killed them. Some would say – suspicious men with the cold eyes of investigators – that the denial of information about the capture was itself an act of treason.
He could go from the cell, down the corridor and into his office, slap on the lights and telephone to the Crate Camp Garrison. He could demand to speak first with the duty officer, and then that the commanding officer, from the al-Quds Brigade, be woken and brought to the telephone. He would tell of an arrest made five and three-quarter hours earlier, a failed questioning, and no message of such an important matter passed up any chain and…
A great sigh. Almost a sob of desperation.
He dropped the cigarettes onto the table, pushed back the flap of the packet, flicked the box of matches and reached for the wood.
Mansoor believed that salvation, for him, lay with a confession from his prisoner. Then he would telephone the Crate Camp Garrison and get the connection to the duty officer. He steeled himself, took rambling steps across the cell, away from the table, and towards the man on the floor.
The scream went to the marrow of Badger’s bones. He looked again to the east, away into the blackness of the night, and did not see the dawn’s first softening. He would not go until that early light signalled the day’s start.
Until his death, he would hear Foxy’s screams, never be free of them. There would be, even in a deniable world, an inquiry – like a fucking inquest – and the questions would be asked by those who had never been in a shallow scrape, covered with scrim net and watching the movements of the guard detail around the home of a target who made the bombs that killed the guys brought back through the Wiltshire town. Likely the questions would be asked by those who had never gone without water when the thermometer hit 110 degrees plus, had never lain in a scrape and pissed into a bottle. They would not know of a meeting of a landmine clearance group with a terminally ill woman, who stood tall with courage, and did not see small kids kick footballs and ride tricycles, unaware that their mother would soon be dead but that their father would beat her to the grave. They would know nothing, but would demand answers to their questions.
Wasn’t your job, Constable, to get Sergeant Foulkes into position, then support him in every way possible and do the donkey work of extracting him?… You were aware, Constable, that Sergeant Foulkes was nearly twice your age?… How was it, Constable, that you permitted Sergeant Foulkes, an older and less fit man than yourself, to go forward to retrieve the cable and microphone?… Did you not feel retrieval was your job?… Did you, Constable, pull your weight on this mission?
The shout came from deep in his chest, rose in his throat, burst from his mouth, was silent and hurled towards the coots, the ducks, the marauding otter and the browsing pigs on the edge of the reed bed.
‘You weren’t fucking there. If you weren’t there, you don’t know.’
He would stay until dawn, but there was no light yet, no smear, to the east.
Chapter 16
It was like an afterthought. The goon, Mansoor, paced a path back and forth in front of where Foxy lay and lashed the wood against the wall. Once a guard had flinched away but had been belted on the shoulder and cried out. The pacing had gone on, the blows had been struck and paint chipped off the concrete. Then had come, no warning, the assault, and a new level of violence.
Different: the lashing with the wood first, not the questions. He tried, logic scrambled and confused, to anticipate where the next show would strike him, what part of his body. Foxy no longer had the ability to plot the patterns, and he couldn’t wriggle, curl himself into the foetal position, because the blows were random.
There was more blood and another tooth had dropped from his mouth. The wood had to lash through the swarm of flies that now flew over him. Between each blow they came in to settle – each time bolder – on the newest wound.
How long? He was hit across the cheek. How long needed to be bought? The little air in his lungs was knocked out. He was bent and winded. He remembered… He was hit on his right kneecap, then on the left ankle. The beating had reached a frenzy and the goon grunted.
He saw light on the hook: the hook had caught the sunlight that filtered through the windows and spread across the auditorium, and Foxy remembered the words of a Code… and no one in the room had taken seriously what was said. There had been an almost audible titter, laughter behind hands, when the American had spoken of the Code. An awkwardness, because each time the SERE man had talked of the United States of America, there had been a pause and then the sentence had been remade with ‘United Kingdom’ inserted; where there had been ‘American’ there was ‘British’. It was resurrected. He could focus on a sentence that survived the beating and the pain, had it sharp: I am British, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defence… I will never forget that I am British, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles that made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United Kingdom. Some had said the man was naff, others that he spoke crap. One had stated the little guy had the relevance of a Disney cartoon cut-out… More blows landed. None of those who had sniggered were here and hurt, not knowing how much time needed to be bought.
He had gone through too much to lose now. The questions came.
Different questions.
Shouted. What did he know about the Engineer and his travel? Yelled. Did he know the destination of the Engineer? Shrieked. Was he with Mossad or the CIA or the British agencies? Hoarse. What had he learned of the Engineer? What had he reported? They dinned into Foxy’s head. Then there was quiet and he could hear the goon panting. The two men by the door fidgeted, barely breathed, and the hush settled. Foxy couldn’t say where in his body there was no pain. He heard the strike of the match, and it was repeated – as if the first strike had not ignited the cigarette. There was the rustle of the foil being loosened, then the noise of the pack dropping back onto the table. Foxy knew there were more than two cigarettes in the pack and knew he couldn’t survive, and hold to the Code, if he were to be burned more than twice. He cringed. The men and women who had used him as a terp in the JFIT team at Basra had liked to say there was a certain way of breaking the strongest man, the one most determined to fight.
The environment was where no hope of rescue existed, or liberation, but most important was that no sympathiser was on hand to witness and give comfort. The degradation of aloneness broke men and women. Foxy couldn’t feed off another prisoner – no name necessary, no prior contact required – in an adjacent cell who went through similar hell. He had no clothes to cover himself so his shrivelled penis and shrunken testicles couldn’t be hidden. He could scream with the pain of the cigarettes and no one would come. So alone… He remembered the little man who had told the guys how they should behave, respond – and had been there, done it and survived – and could recall the flash of light on the hook, hear again the titters.