19 May 2004
The old man walking towards the sandbags at the gate was hazed by the high sun.
On sentry duty with machine-gun, Baz had called for Sergeant McQueen to come, double bloody quick time, to Bravo's gate.
The old man came slowly on the raised road from the village, hobbled forward and used a stick in his right hand to ease his weight.
Scanning him with binoculars, Hamish McQueen had called for the major to get, soonest, from the operations bunker to the gate.
The old man was alone, wizened, and an SA 80 assault rifle dangled from his left hand and against his thigh, half hidden by his robe.
'Do I slot him, sir?' Baz asked, and his eye was against the sight of the machine-gun, his finger flexed on the trigger's guard.
'I don't think so, no.'
It was for the major, the commanding officer of Bravo company, a moment of extreme inconvenience. His place was in the bunker where his clerks had for him a mountain of paper. He watched the old man and the rifle he carried through the binoculars' growing clarity. In two hours he was due to welcome to Bravo the advance force of the infantry unit that would relieve them after their six-month tour of duty. Like a hole in his skull, he needed the distraction of an old man coming to their main gate… He had laid down that the relieving force would not find justification for even a damned small complaint at the state of the camp left for them. The old man carried a weapon that was not used by the ragtag fighters in his area of responsibility
– they had the AK47 and its variants – but had against his leg a rifle that was exclusively used by British soldiers, the SA 80. He checked that his interpreter was behind him, saw Faisal leaning against the back of the sandbags, smoking.
The major prided himself that he was blessed with a nose for danger. For the last week he had cut back on the company's patrolling, had reduced it to force protection – guaranteeing the security of Bravo's perimeter – and had withdrawn any troop movements from the village. He had dreaded losing a Jock for nothing in the last hours of th deployment, wanted all of them on the flight home to Briz Norton. He sensed no danger.
On his belt was a service pistol, and he unclipped the holster's flap. He told Baz, the machine-gunner, to cove him, and asked that Hamish McQueen be at his side. He waved for the interpreter to follow him. He walked down the entry road to Bravo's gates, then strode briskly along the road to meet the old man.
He ducked his head, smiled, and introduced himself through his interpreter. The old man transferred the rifle ponderously to his other hand, juggled it with his stick and gave his name. He shook the major's fist with a good but bony grip, then gave him the rifle. On its stock was the reference number in white paint. He knew it. Every man in the unit bloody knew it. A lost high-velocity weapon's reference number had been dinned into the heads of every Jock, NCO and officer who had been tasked for house searches since the late-afternoon patrol of 13 January – its recovery had been an unfulfilled priority. He gave it to his sergeant for checking and making safe.
The interpreter murmured in his ear, 'The gentleman, Mahmoud al-Ajouti, has heard that the British persons are going back to their country and thought it correct this weapon be returned… It is his apology that it has not been done before.'
'Please tell Mr al-Ajouti that I am grateful.'
He remembered, with the clarity of yesterday and not of three months before, what he had seen that day and what he had been told, and the gist of what he had said: 'Put him somewhere in isolation where he can't infect anyone else…
I don't know how you'd ever get shot of it, being called a coward
… I can't imagine there's any way back.' The man had been sitting on a chair outside the command bunker, head hangdog, expressionless, silent. He had heard, from the vine, that the man had been shipped home, but his failing was talked of, still, in every mess and barrack room used by the battalion.
'Would you ask Mr al-Ajouti in what circumstances the rifle came into his possession?'
What he was told, through the hesitant voice of the interpreter, first confused the major, then rocked him.
'The soldiers came up the street where Mr al-Ajouti lives above his place of business, a bakery shop. They knew, everybody in the street knew, that an ambush was prepared, was ready, for the next soldiers, the next patrol, to come on the street. His son, his son is called Tariq. He had brought heavy stones, football-sized stones, into the home above the shop and had a window open enough to throw them down.
Mr al-Ajouti did not know of the stones and he was in the back of his home with his wife and his younger children.
Tariq is the eldest of his children. He does not think blame should be given to his son, Tariq, because all of the older children in the village are encouraged by men of the Mehdi army, followers of the imam, to hate soldiers – he regrets that. A soldier stopped outside Mr al-Ajouti's shop. His son told him afterwards, that is how he knows it, the soldier was lying on the ground, and his son, that is Tariq, threw down a stone and it hit the soldier's neck, which was not protected by the edge of his helmet. The stone, the size of a football, stunned the soldier – that is, he was made unconscious. It was just after a grenade had been fired into the wall near the window where Tariq was. His son – Mr al-Ajouti, at the back, did not know this at that time – went down the stairs and opened the door of the shop. He took the rifle and took the stone back into the shop. The rifle, it was hidden under his bed, and the stones he took to the yard at the rear where they had come from, from a wall that had fallen. For sixteen weeks the rifle was under his bed, because his son was frightened of having taken it, and was frightened of giving it to the Mehdi army. Yesterday, Mr al-Ajouti's wife found the rifle. Yesterday he questioned his son. Yesterday he found the truth, is certain it is the truth, of how the rifle came to his son's room, and of how the soldier was made senseless. He begs forgiveness for his son. He is ashamed for what his son did. He begs it is not spoken of in the village, his returning the rifle. If it is spoken, his life will be taken by the Mehdi army. He hopes it is enough that he has returned the rifle, that his son will not be punished. Later, children came. They took the soldier's helmet and the coat against bullets. It is the flak-jacket. Mr al Ajouti apologizes for the action of his son. He wishes you well on your return to Britain, to your families.'
The major said curtly, 'I am grateful to Mr al-Ajouti, and I can assure him that his son will not be punished, and that the taking of the rifle will not be spoken of.'
From his hip pocket, the major took a wad of dinar notes, probably the equivalent of what was put over the counter in a village bakery in a week, and pressed them into the bone-ribbed hand. The old man bobbed his gratitude, then turned, then started out on the raised road to return to the village, his bakery shop, and his home.
The major strode towards the sandbags, the machine-gun and the gate. His words snapped from the side of his mouth:
'I think, Faisal, it is a matter that is dead, buried. If you were to speak of it you would betray the trust placed in you by the British army, and your employment would cease.
Understood? Hamish, it is a business best forgotten. I think your role, and mine, in the affair concerning allegations made against Mal Kitchen, would not now sustain close examination. Yes, best forgotten.'
'Forgotten, sir, already forgotten.'
'Found on wasteground, hidden there, handed in by a local who was unable to give an exact location – that'll fit the paperwork… No medals for digging up the past.'
'None, sir. I'll see the word goes round, found on wasteground.'
They walked back through the gate. Bravo's major returned to his bunker and the preparations for withdrawal.