'The war poet of our generation.

'
Winner of the Hay Festival Poetry Medni ond Independent
shortlisted for the BBC Audio Drama Awards
Pink Mist is a verse-drama about throo young iiotn
from Bristol who are deployed to Afghanintnn, 04
friends still in their teens, Arthur, Hadn and Tnff jtnvo
their own reasons for enlisting. Within ot
n'
time they return to the womon in thoir livoti -
n
girlfriend all of whom munt now
a wife, a —

psychological and physical ot IO,

Drawing upon interviews with ooldiotti

Pink Mist illuminates the offoctn ot tho
in Afghanistan and the human cont ot L" o, Pink Mist
'Phenomenal Rolovant,
ot
SheerS
Timeless in its depiction of tho
moving.' Alex Bilmotj,

'Masterfully controlling
tunnels through tho
of love and lanounooOVO/
Anita

'Breathtaking,
Wilfred Owon, ShootFi
'
war into our own
'A tremendousb'ok. It feels
huoo, ongulfing, devastating.'
1<0toKellaway, Observer
of the Month
 Pink Mist

Owen Sheers is the author of two poetry collections, The Blue

Book and Skirrid Hill (winner of the Somerset Maugham
Award). His first novel, Resistance, has been translated into
in 2011. Owen's plays
ten languages and was made into a film
include National Theatre Wales's The Passion and The Two
Worlds of Charlie E, which won the 2012 Amnesty International
Freedom of Expression Award. Owen wrote and presented
BBC Four's A Poet's Guide to Britain. He has been a NYPL
Cullman Fellow, Writer in Residence for the Wordsworth
Trust and Artist in Residence for the Welsh Rugby Union. His
the Heart
most recent non-fiction work, Calon: A Journey to
of Welsh Rugby, was published 2013.
in

Further praise for Pink Mist

'[Pink Mist] should be studied at school alongside the ubiquitous Wilfred

Owen . .Sheers is best known as a Welsh novelist and his narrative
.

gifts are much in evidence here, although the poem has a sure rhythm
too, moves along at a lick His poetry is more powerful than any
. . .

polemic. He does not stand on a soapbox. He prefers to show, not tell.'

Kate Kellaway, Observer Poetry Book of the Month

'A beautifully crafted verse-drama of three young British soldiers before,

during and after their Afghan tour If, as one narrator says, "There's
...

in its most vivid,

a signature to every war," Sheers has drawn it here
complex, devastating colours.' Maria Crawford, Financial Times

'A phenomenal poem ..

.

Captures the reality of what soldiering is all

about and of what it's like to adjust to "normality" when one comes home
from war.' Capt. Ed Poynter, C Company 2 Rifles

'The verse becomes threnody, a lyrical lament. Sheers does not judge;
this is a work going far beyond simple ideological stances. The best
analogue to Pink Mist is In Parenthesis by David Jones, magician,
creator and rifleman .
Owen Sheers can stand the comparison.'
.

Peter Scupham, Literary Review

'The first important poem to come out of Britain's recent Afghan
in Owen Sheers's Morte
war, there's more truth, more power to disturb,
d'Arthur than in
acres of media coverage.' Ross Cogan, PN Review

'Sheers's strengths have come to the fore .

A balance of heightened
. .

reality and hardened truth, coupled with human and spiritual

intensity. Pink Mist
There's a new musicality to his writing and a strong feminine presence.
also the
Not only do we hear the stories of those left behind war but
in

prophetic, perhaps even somatic energy of the female voice In Pink

...
OWEN SHEERS
Mist Sheers himself as a writer of both depth and maturity.'
proves
Helen Calcutt, Wales Arts Review

'It's a profound work, I think, at once an art-work and a documentary.

careful research
As in so much of Sheers's writing, Pink Mist is based on
and sensitive interviewing so detailed and so intimate you can almost
feel it in the sinews of the words and the cadence of the lines.' Derek
Gregory, Geographical Imaginations

by the same author

non-fiction
THE DUST DIARIES
CALON

poetry

THE BLUE BOOK

SKIRRID HILL
(ed.)
A POET'S GUIDE TO BRITAIN

fiction
RESISTANCE
WHITE RAVENS
THE GOSPEL OF US

plays

THE PASSION
F.
THE TWO WORLDS OF CHARLIE

FABER & FABER

 First published in 2013
by Faber
& Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
Russell Street
74—77 Great
London WCIB 3DA

This paperback edition first published in 2014 For Lyndon,

whose story was almost Arthur's,
Typeset by Country Setting, Kingsdown, Kent CT14 8ES
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CRO 4 YY and for his mother, Sharon,
who brought him home
All rights reserved

O Owen Sheers 2013

The right of Owen Sheers to be identified as author

of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A CIP record for this book

is available from the British Library

ISBN 57—4

FSC
W*N.fsc.org

MIX
Paper from
responsiblo sourcoc

FSCO C101712

24681097531
'Gwyr Gatraeth gan wawr,
a aeth
Dygymyrrws eu hoed eu hanianawr'

'Men went to Catterick with the dawn,

Their ardours shortened their lives'
Y Gododdin, c. 7th century
I AFTER BEFORE
 The sound of wind on a high hill
Three boys went to Catterick.

It was January,
the Severn,
snow pitchen on
turning the brown mud white,
fishermen blowing on their fingerless gloves,
the current pulling their fishing lines tight.
That's how it was the morning when
the three of us did what boys always have
And left our homes for war.

Cos that's what we did, for sure,

make no mistake.
Not going someplace but leaving somewhere.
Getting out, moving on, away from here.
The three of us Hads, Taff and me,
—

boarding the train that day,

a suitcase each and a couple of cans,

nervous drags when we changed at Darlington,

those fags going down
quicker than a cider in summer.

Three boys, going to Catterick for basic.

New recruits, crows they called us,
the beastings and learnings and drills all ahead of us.
But already there.
Three boys. Yeah, we might have thought ourselves men,
but we weren't, not yet, not then.

Just three friends who'd once linked arms at school

3
when I was nine, Hads was seven and Taff just eight. dropping their lights like lumies,
Touring the yard, a chain of three, chanting like fools, then soft popping ones, rising then falling
Who wants to play war? down in the city on George the Fifth Fields.
Who wants to play war? A crowd of orange faces round the fire and the guy,
burning.
Jump cut to ten years later and the answer was us, Burning.
we did.
The game became our way you see —
Can't go there. Or there. So better stay here.
out, on, off. So yeah, we did. Up on Dundry Hill, under the transmitter.
Three boys, like I said, not men, leaving for Catterick. Under the clear night sky,
Friend us on Facebook and you'll soon see the last of the planes coming in to land.
how quick our profile shots scroll back Stars coming out. House windows turning on.
from battledress to uniform, Street lights.
from webbing to sports bag, Always a light in the dark.
from ration pack to lunch box, Even for Hads down there in the Shire,
from out there to back here. sitting on his mum's sofa, trousers rolled, curtains drawn,
cast in the aquarium light of the screen
But we'renot scrolling back, not yet anyway. as he plays Operation Afghan
So three boys then, waiting for the bus at Darlington.
to drown out the sound
Smoke and winter breaths in the air, of the kids on the street mucking around
eyeing the other lads, as pale and edgy as us. with bangers and whistles, or anything else
None of them looked up to much, but then neither did we. that might make him jump, start or shit hisself.
None of us looked like squaddies or riflemen.
But it was all there, inside us, waiting to happen. Look him, scoring the points, dropping them down,
at
We didn't know it but we were already history. reloading his mag.
And history's what we've become. Taking the role, tonight, of a Navy SEAL,
Not the kind that's recorded or sung, perhaps, doing on that sofa what we all did, once, for real.
but history still. Our own, histories of one.
Where's Taff?
And look how far we've come. Full circle. Not in the West, that's for sure.
Back where we left from Bristol.
Not in the Shire or out Severn Beach where I used to live.
—

Bonfire night, and all of us hiding like dogs

Not with Lisa either, or with Tom his five-year-old kid.
from the whizz-bangs, the bright and sparkly fun.
No, they'll be out Clevedon, or down on the fields,
taking part in the family fun.
From up here I can see it all.
But not Taff.
The rockets going up from Clevedon,

4 5
He's deep in the centre, taking cover, and I'd been thinking about it for a while.
mashing hisself on dubstep in the Tunnels, Every time I came down Colston Avenue
dancing alone in the crowd, I'd stop at the Army Information Centre,
feeling the bass vibrate in his ribs, pause at its window, read
the ads,
dropping down pills to mix with his meds. the jobs, what they said
you could do —

JTAC, Infantry, Driver,

He's painen, can tell.
I Cook, Intelligence, Engineer.
But there's no way he'll surface tonight. Raise your sights the brochure said.
Not with those rockets and fireworks And one night, I did.
and all them kids oohing and ahhing,
and him, wanting to duck at
every one, We'd been out on the piss and were going for a kebab
go firm, get on the buckle. when some scutler of Hads' stopped in her tracks,
No, Taff'll see the night through down there bent double and flashing her tramp-stamp,
deep in the Tunnels, filling his ears chucked up her guts.
with Forsaken, Headhunter and Pinch. While we waited for her and her mates,
He knows he can't risk them, the rockets or the drink. I read that line again
That if he lets 'em, they'll both take a mile off him, Raise your sights.
never an inch. When I did, I saw my own face,
the picture of a soldier's was,
my ghosted head, right where
So how'd we get here then? so now his beret, his uniform, his whole rig was on me,
How'd we close this circle so fast? and I was him.
If you'll listen I'll tell
you.
Cos it was me what got us boarding that train, There were other ghosts too, reflected in that glass,
what got us leaving not going. but they were from my present, not my future or my past.
Yeah, it was me who said three boys should go to Catterick, A Friday-night crowd mashed on cider and pills,
with snow pitchen on the Severn, blowing their packets on a night of forgetting,
fishermen blowing on their gloves. of pulling and shots.
My idea, my plan, to link our arms again, An ambulance, paramedics.
to go on a tour. A drifting litter of boxes and cans,
To answer the chant of
our school days with us, girls more flesh than dress.
us, we want to play war. And I didn't want any of it.
The same big night in the same small town,
So let's talk about before, the Friday carrot at the end of the stick.
about why I chose the rank and file. Iwanted something else him.—

It was January, like I said, 2008, The man looking back at me,

6 7
the one with the uniform, the gun. ARTHUR
The one going somewhere, getting something done. — had you. And Mum.
No! I
I going the other way. I was looking for a life,
was
The next day I walked. not to take one.
I
was shacked up with Gwen Paul's back then
in St And anyway, I'd never do it there.
so I told her I'd be back for lunch, then left,
early morning. GWEN
Why? Too common for you?
GWEN
But you didn't come back did you? ARTHUR

That was the day I lost you. I see that now. No. Just ...

I should have held on to you, I saw a

man once, who
—

pulled
you back into bed.
GWEN
If only I could've seen inside your head.
—
You never told me.

ARTHUR
ARTHUR
But you can't, can you, babe? That's a private place,
I never told no one. Not even Mum.
and right then, I didn't need you, I needed space.
But I did come back. I did.
I
was only twelve, thirteen.
It were early on, mist in the gorge.
I was cycling over to Ashton, the golf course,
GWEN
to look for lost balls in the rough, when
—

No you didn't. Not Arthur anyhow.

Some other bloke, perhaps. But not my man. a fag,
He was standing at the edge, smoking
You was always leaving, always, just past the Samaritans sign.
from that day on. he was, at the dawn,
Looking straight out
but I reckon he heard me,
Where did you go anyway? cos he turned then, see. Turned and looked right at me.

ARTHUR GWEN
Out to the bridge, at first. How old was he?

GWEN ARTHUR
I
What, to —
?
Older, to me I
mean. But young now guess.
Our age about. Twenty-two, twenty-three.

8 9
He was calm. ARTHUR
Just looked at me, took one long drag, No, that was later, up at the church.
stubbed it out, then the call.
But it wasn't me who made
—

It the water,
was
GWEN I let the water tell me what to do.
He jumped?
GWEN
ARTHUR Water? What you talking about, Arthur?
No. All I know is when you came back,
Well, yeah, he did. But more like flew. your mind was
set.
Rifles,
Ran a few steps then launched hisself over. You were joining The —

Chest out, arms wide. you told me straight out.

A perfect ten-out-of-ten high-board dive.
ARTHUR
Ididn't stop. Didn't want to see. The water in the pendulum.
But when I got the other side well, I cried.
—
You've seen it. You went there with Lisa and Tom.
Taff told me. She wrote him a bluey about
His eyes. They stayed with me for years. it.

GWEN GWEN
Why you tellin' me this now, Arthur? That thing in St Mary's? On the wall?
Why only now?
ARTHUR
the call.
ARTHUR Yeah3 that's the one. It, not me, made
Cos I thought of him again that day, Still don't know how I found myself there, but I did.
when I walked on to the bridge. Staring at it, the church empty.
of a cross
How he'd flown like that. A long hollow pipe across the beam
I didn't want to follow him, with water pumped in to make it swing left or right
but I did want something in his dive. depending on which way the water is lost.
As good a way as any, that's what thought.
In how he'd done it. I

That's all I can say. So I waited till it then came back into line,
swung,
then said to myself 'Left's the army, to the right's not.'
GWEN
And that's when you made took longer that time.
up your mind? I swear, the water
Because of some bloody jumper? I watched the tips of the steel beam waver,
dip, lift, like it was taking a breath,

10 11
before the water filled to a tipping point, Nowhere.
and the pendulum fell. Never stopped moving from clock on to clock off,
To the left. but stayed still all that time, stuck in dry dock.
That's no future, Gwen, and not much of a present either.
And that was it. Didn't wait. And we wanted more, didn't we? Kids, a house, the rest.
Just walked straight back out. The Rifles offered us that.
You know the rest.
GWEN
GWEN Yeah, heard it all before, Arthur,
Yeah, I do. 'Be the Best.'
But I still don't know why, just the what.
ARTHUR
ARTHUR And we were. You never saw us, we were. The company,
Think of where we were, Gwen. What we'd got. the Batt—

GWEN GWEN
Each other! —
Enough! I don't want to hear no more.

ARTHUR ARTHUR
Yeah. But that gave me more reason, didn't it? It felt different, walking out that door.
Don't you see? I felt different.
I did it for us, not for Like I'd taken that dive.
me.
You know the first thing I saw?
Think about it, Gwen. That rusted piece of tramline, stuck in the grass.
I'd been working down Portbury docks for, what? The one that was blown there in the Second World War,
Over a year by then? I went up and touched it.
Driving those Mazdas off the container ships, I don't know what for, but I did.
parking them in perfect lines, like headstones in a cemetery. And felt connected,
I

Slotting each one, then back for the next. like I

was part of something already.
Every day. Every week. Every month.
One of the largest car parks in Europe, As I walked back to Gwen's,
and just me and two brothers everything had changed in the city.
filling it at one end as it emptied at the other. I'd done nothing, but everything.
I've workedit out, Gwen how far I drove.
—
It's funny like that, isn't it?
Thousands of miles. But where did I go? How the only thing that changes is your mind,

12 13
 but then everything else follows.
TAFF
How all of it was set in that church. Good for you, but.
Not justfor me, but for Taff and Hads too. Yeah, I can see that, makes sense. It
does.
And for Lisa, and Gwen, and Tom and
my mum. So when leave?
One choice. you

Hard to believe it can do so much.

ARTHUR
But it can.
A fortnight. Up to Catterick for basic.

I told the lads down the Thekla,

next night.
I'd already done it, joined up that afternoon. TAFF
Taken the oath, signed the line. For how long?
on
And felt good too.
it
The recruiter, he'd treated
me like a man. ARTHUR
Like what could be, not what I am.
I Six weeks.
So yeah, I wanted them Hads, Taff to feel like
—

that too.
--

TAFF
The Thekla was packed. A retro night of old And then?
Bristol tunes,
the kinda stuff would play
my mum —

Tricky, Portishead, Massive. ARTHUR

An old showboat, moored up in the Mud Dock, Could be anything. Don't know where, or when.
dark waters lapping at its hull, last winter. Or exercise in the Rockies.
They went skiing
smells of a ferry and
a bar all in one.
A floating steel club, ringing that night
TAFF
with trip-hop, not dub.
And Gwen. She alright with this then?
We was on our fourth or fifth cider when I told them,
shouting over the chatter and bass. ARTHUR
Yeah, she is. It's good money innit? And gets better too.
They leant in, close to my face.

'I joined up,' I said. 'Today. ISt Battalion, The Rifles.' TAFF
Yeah?
Taff gotit straight off,
nodding, serious over his pint. ARTHUR
He put his hand on the back of You know, promotion. Or if you go away.
my neck.

14 15
 HADS who got at him all day.
Away? Then back to his high-rise with Lisa and Tom.
He loved them, don't get me wrong.
ARTHUR But it was hard on him too.
'Yeah', I said, turning to Hads. 'Iraq. Afghanistan.
Man of the house at just eighteen,
but not earning enough to clear the debt,
HADS
get them out of the rough.
To war you mean?
Taff was hungry for a change, I could taste it off him.
ARTHUR He wanted more,
Yeah. They've already been. and now I'd put it in front of him,
But that's why now's so good? that meant The Rifles, war.
It's like
my recruiter said today,
it'll be a chance to do the job But Hads, well, he was younger than us,
they train you for. only seventeen back then,
Otherwise it's like going to the fair, still lived at home with his mum and old man.
but staying off the rides. Taff took a swig on his cider, looked hard at him.
So yeah, I want to
go to war.
TAFF
HADS Waddya reckon?
You're nuts,
man. You serious about this?
ARTHUR
ARTHUR
Hads looked back, bit his lip,
just
Course I am. Like I said, it's done. I joined today.
like he couldn't believe this could happen.

TAFF Then he turned away,

Two weeks you say? Before you go? stared over the heads of the drinkers and dancers.
He was the youngest, but also the tallest.
ARTHUR
Good-looking lad. Somali cheekbones from his dad,
Yeah. If you joined up
now, you could too. Green eyes from his mum. A one-of-a-kind kinda kid,
which is how we were mates.
I'd seen him defend hisself since he was six,
The sound of wind on a high hill
firing-up much older boys.
the fight,
ARTHUR You had to give it to him, good with his fists, up for
Icould tell Taff was in, he wouldn't say even then.
no.
He'd been having a shit time for the last few months. But now he shook his head, still looking away,
—

An apprentice on crap pay to a St Paul's plumber before turning back to say —

16 17
 HADS Taff had already done the same.
Nah, can't do it, sonner. Not for So when we left that day,
me.
Just started up at Next innit? with snow pitchen on the Severn,
Up Cribbs Mall.
at and fishermen blowing on their gloves,
It's
a good job. I ain't catching the train from out by my mum's,
gonna throw it away.
I good luck,
mean, mate, really, all three of us were on our way
But nah. Me mum would kill to become riflemen.
me.
And my old man. Sharpe's regiment. Attached, back then,
Count me out of this one, to 30 Commando.
you boys is
on your own. Three boys off to Catterick.
A suitcase each, a couple of cans.
ARTHUR Off to war, like boys always have.
But the seed was Boarding a train, leaving home,
sown.
There in the Thekla's hull, with the cider
inside us, off to Catterick, to reap what I'd sown.
and Massive on the system.
Ididn't say nothing to Hads right then,
but I knew, I did.
He would come too.
Cos I mean, what's next after Next?
Hauling his arse up to Cribbs day.
every
For what? A couple of years on the floor,
then, if he's lucky,
assistant manager, maybe,
after time served, more —

a nicer suit, some girl off the perfume store.

Nah. Hads was made for bigger things. He
wouldn't settle.
So when the army set up a stand next week,
right there in the
Mall
between the doughnuts and the
Disney shop,
Hads kept eyeing it, couldn't stop, catching it
every time
the sliding doors opened and shut.
He picked up a brochure on his break.
Read it at home in his bed.
Went back the next day and signed.
Twenty-two years, life on the line.

18
19
2 HADS' STORY
 The sound of boots on the ground, walking slowly

HADS
We called it Afghan roulette.
Every day, more or less.
Going out on the ground
to take our chances
with what was under it.

Low metal switches. Trip wires.

content. Infra-red
Filled with nails, ball-bearings, human shit.
Or old Russian stuff. Anti-tank, pressure-plates.
Or just some bloke on a phone pressing 'dial'.
Any of it enough
to turn you or your mates
into dust.

It was me who was meant to stop all that.

Up front, slow-sweeping my Vallon left and right.
Listening for the tone
that would
stop me in my tracks,
send up my hand to freeze the patrol at my back.

After Catterick I wanted to be a medic.

And after we deployed too,
I kept applying for the course.
But they reckoned I was good at this stuff,
so they kept me at it.
Eighteen, and the lives of the patrol depending on
me.
I had dreams.

Missing a massive IED, turning round too late

23
 to see them eaten up by the earth —
Arthur, Taff, Would his empty sockets, his hands on the oars
the whole section,
my mates. have made us more wise?
Gone in the blink of a boom,
Would we have known the only coins we'd be taking
cloud of
a
grey ash. were
the ones on our tongues, the ones on our eyes?

ARTHUR
HADS
But you didn't, did
you, Hads? No.
Never missed a thing. At least, not
till ... You're talking bollocks, Arthur. Again.
They were right. You
were good. Had some kind of
sense. We wouldn't have done nothing different
You could smell when something was
up. and you know it.
When the atmospherics changed
Even if we went back,
—

locals leaving, birds flying from tree.

a we'd still play it the same.
I don't know how you did it, but believe rne, Cos it ain't all bad, is it?
an ant could have farted
I'll never forget the times we had.
and I
swear you'd have caught it. before.
I know myself
now. I didn't
You were right, I had to get out.
Only wish I'd been as sharp
And I always would have,
that night in the Thekla, back at the start
happened it was you
just
when I asked you and Taff if
you wanted to join me, who showed me the door.
when I planted the seed of that thought in
your mind. No more.
Remember where we were?Down in the hull,
on the port side of the boat?
ARTHUR
Just inches from that Banksy, sprayed the other side.
Remember when we first got there?
The plane pitching in steep.
I
saw it back on R and R. I thought Taff was going to shit hisself.
You know the one. The skeleton
rower, Even you was pale.
a death's head with a hood,
the
prow of his canoe breaking the Plimsoll line. HADS
That's what was on the other side of
us Yeah, right.
when I told you I'd joined. Right there in the
docks
where the press-ganged blokes
ARTHUR
had once downed their drinks
only to find the king You was. No shame in saying it now.
or queen's coin. I was too. We'd all had OPTAG, but we knew
If we'd remembered
that rower, would we have sensed it? that was just a sniff of what in for.
we were
How our journey was cursed?
And then, when we came down that ramp
—

24 25
 HADS
ARTHUR
Wham. That heat.
The kids.

ARTHUR
Like an opened HADS
oven door. It's the size of Reading you know? Bastion.

HADS
ARTHUR
Yank voices.
Yeah, and about as shit too.

ARTHUR
Dust on your lips. The landing strip, HADS
moonlit. A smell of —
Nah. Bastion's got flushing loos.

HADS
ARTHUR
Afghan. That Afghan smell.
Like And a Pizza Hut, that bar, 'Heroes',
showing the games. Air-con gyms.
ARTHUR
Shit. And burning. Burning shit.
HADS
More ISO containers than down the dock.
HADS
The looks on the lads going home,
ARTHUR
the pats of their hands
on our backs, Bottling plant, vehicle pits.
Their FOB-thinned faces.
HADS
ARTHUR
The beards, the moustaches. Mocked-up Afghan village.

ARTHUR
HADS
Rose Cottage.
Yeah, well ally, all of them.
Heading for their two days in Cyprus.
HADS
Yeah. Rose Cottage.
ARTHUR
To get pissed, naked, into fights.
ARTHUR
And bloody hot. Half the boys lobster
HADS
by the end of that week.
Out of the system before they meet the wife.

26
27
 HADS I only see it after it all,
now,
Remember switching Kev's lotion for oil? but Hads was shaped by war.
mean even before cornered him and Taff.
I I
ARTHUR His old man for a start,
Poor sod, couldn't
work out why he was Somalia,
came here from the trouble
in
grilling like that.
shot, there the spot, so wanted out.
saw his own father on
HADS Settled in Bristol, met Hads' mum,
Lost his hands, didn't he? got hitched, moved into a house in Shirehampton,
On patrol from Jackson. one of those built after World War Two,
only meant to last a few years, but still there, standing.
ARTHUR So yeah, the Blitz made Hads' home, and his home made him.
Yeah. Both off at the wrist.
Cos if you're a kid from the Shire
Now you see them, now you don't. the place
you got roads all over
—

What kind of fucking joke is that? Outside your door, through your garden,
a motorway over your roof. But the ones in front of you?
HADS They're narrow and few.
One I'm still telling, mate.
And now look at him, wheeling back from the lav —

ARTHUR what war started with his granddad

Shit,
sorry, Hads. it's carried on with Hads,
cutting him down from six foot two to four foot three.
Rifleman Hayden Gullet, twenty-one, double amputee.
OPERATION AFGHAN
Man down! Man down! HADS
ARTHUR I still feel them sometimes.
Hads presses pause
on the game, I'll wake and my ankle'll be itching,
pulls his chair closer to the sofa need to scrunch frustrating,
Or I'll my toes. It's
and, in
one smooth move I'll never get used do nothing can Just got to griz it out.
I?
to, cos I can't
swings himself up and into the seat, still thinks they're there.
But yeah, my brain
flicks the brake
and wheels to the bathroom.
ARTHUR
I was there when it happened.
Let's give the man some dignity, Routine patrol, showing the locals and Terry Taliban
no need to follow him there.
He does it on his
own now, but it's still far from pretty. we could still own
the ground, take control.
Twenty-one, and emptying a bag like he's
ninety. Hads was up front, like he always was,

28
sweeping his Vallon like a metronome,
ARTHUR
low and slow, reading the
unseen earth. The tree line opened up.
And all of us behind him, trying to follow his route, Muzzle flashes in the bushes,
off the path, across a field. the whine and whizz of Afghan wasps
Two kids just metres gathering buckles,
away, crops, as the rounds came in and our boys hit their
and us in full kit; ospreys, packs, helmet and
gats, flat to the ground, faces in the dirt,
going firm at the slightest of sounds. It
was hot, tense. doing what they could so'snot to get hurt.
Just three hours from the gate,
and I'd already drained
my CamelBak. HADS
I knew we had to get out, find cover.
The ICOM chatter was high, so I'd seen an irrigation ditch, fifty metres ahead,
we were taking it steady.
Hads wasn't happy, so he changed the route again. if I could find a safe route over —

The Corp didn't question him, he knew he'd saved us before. The boss ordered suppressing fire,
For three months now he'd always brought us home. and as the boys laid down a volley of
lead
But we were jumpy. The Sarge told him to hurry. I took a step back.
The whole patrol was out in the
open, in the kill zone.
ARTHUR
I saw it go up.
HADS
could feel it there, somewhere. Close.
I A sudden tree of earth and smoke,
There was a bridge up ahead. the ground dropping and rising,
I'd already seen two locals like heartbeat under the soil.
a
take the long way to reach it, It threw Hads twenty metres at least.
avoid the patch we I can still see him now, as clear as then.
were in.
I
was looking for a sign Arching in the air, his arms flung wide,
as if he was back at school
again,
some crossed sticks, a pile of stones.
That would be there too, somewhere. high-jumping for top spot a record-beating Fosbury flop
I that left his legs behind.
swung the Vallon again.
Left, right. Left, right.
The sounds ofa hospital
But nothing, just the midday
sun
burning HADS' MOTHER
my neck, the boys going firm,
dotting the field, At first, when they pulled back the curtain
the terp in the FOB, relaying the I felt relief.
comm.
Then -- A wave of warm joy.
There'd been a mistake, a crossing of wires.
This wasn't my boy.

30 31
 How could it be? There'd been What have they done to him? That was all I could think.
wrong call.
—
a
Whoever he was, he didn't look like Hayden at all. What have they done to my lad, my
boy,
my Hads?
Poor sod didn't have his face.
And yes, I did think of his mother too, HADS
the woman who'd have to take my place. Just this high ringing.
But when I told them, the nurse asked me Like something left on too long.
to look at his shoulder. That was all I could hear.
'Is this,' she said, 'Hayden's tattoo?' I remember the sky too.
My stomach dropped. I wanted to be sick. Blue, clear.
I traced it with
my fingertip But that was all.
then looked up at his face again.
It was swollen, bruised about the eyes, They brought me round in Bastion,
four days' growth, singed dark along his chin. then put me under, more or less, for a month.
'Yes,' I said. 'It's him.' Induced coma.
Four weeks of living dreams,
I
gave him hell when he came back with that new tat. of contacts, torture, the lot.
He was just sixteen but adamant. A coiling dragon, Back home in a flash, but not.
its tail wrapped about his
arm.
It was up to him, he said, When I finally came to
now he's a man.
I grounded him for a week, but of I thought I was still dreaming.
course he got out.
again, and maybe again,
He was that kind of kid. Still is. Of course
I was. I'd
soon wake
School couldn't hold him, until, one day, I'd be back in my life,
more energy than his brother and sister together. the one I knew.
the day that dawned,
Which is why I was so pleased when he got that job at Next. But I was already there, and
At last, I thought, he'd quieten down, earn some cash, it did so in a second.
It was something in the look of
find a girl, maybe, the nurse,
up at the Mall.
Stop hanging out with those older lads. she said it.
in the
way that

think,
Some hope in that. That wasn't Hads. This is you now, Hayden, but
But then, nor was this. A living lie — it could have been so much worse.
This boy in the hospital bed, You have to try to count the blessing, not the curse.
dried blood below his ear,
the sheet going flat I cried.
a couple of feet too For two days solid. Didn't eat, didn't sleep.
soon,
just nothing after his thighs. I'd got no fucking legs.

32 33
 That was it. One step back and Terry had got me. the other shit they'd done.
for you and all
Nothing where my legs had been brains, their lungs.
About stopping their hearts, their
or in my future either.
It was over, at just eighteen. HADS' MOTHER
of course.
At least I knew. I wish it hadn't happened,
And then it wasn't. I still don't
know why .And he'd promised, just the one tour,
but on the third day I stopped. there.
so yes, he was halfway
My eyes were raw and my ribs were sore, But the waiting had been almost as bad.
but my mind was clear. minutes on the phone.
The not-hearing for weeks then just
I was only eighteen but I the
was alive. I'd turn up the volume when news was on,
I was going to live for loads
more years dig my nails into my skin,
thinking, 'Thank God it's not him.'
without legs than I ever had done with.
And then it was.
done.
I'd survived, and if I was going to
carry on But yeah, now it had happened, what's done was
else could we do?
I'd better make the living I'd got left worthwhile. So we had to look forward, didn't we?What
chair,
That's what I told myself anyway. As soon as they'd let us we got him
into a
As soon as Idid, my worrying switched. took him off the ward and out,
Had the others been hit? for a fag and fresh air.
If
they had I'd never forgive —

HADS
ARTHUR It had rained the night before.
against the window.
—
No. We were good, and it wasn't your fault. I'd heard it from my bed
We all got back that day. JTAC called an Apache in, So when we came out those doors,
backwards of course,
emptied its load on that tree line, blew it away. that was the first thing to hit me.
Back in the FOB though, everything changed. That rain-on-tarmac smell.
You were the
first, you know? Summers down the Shire as a kid,
going out to play after a downpour June.
We'd been lucky. It had been getting hot, but in
till then .

the grass,
Then Mum swung me round and saw
I

For the of the tour all I wanted the two car parks
rest a strip of it between
—

could be.
was to see them drop. greener than thought any grass
I
blade,
The other lads too. We wanted revenge. For over four months hadn't seen a
I
The older blokes tried to talk us down, not like this.
they'd been here before, In Afghan there were crops, reeds,
there.
but we hadn't. but everything was yellow or brown when we were
It wasn't just doing a job The ground outside the FOB just dust, bare.
any more.
It was about killing them,

34 35
 so yeah, he
told them to go enjoy
on to it, and
I asked her to push me she did,
the bonfire, the burning guy,
tipping me back to lift the wheels off the kerb, sailing high.
the autumn air, the rockets
till I felt the change, the softness of the turf. display anyway,
As she looked in her handbag to find us a lighter Back here, he's got his own
is coming as he swings into bed.
Iforgot for a second why we were there. one he knows his head
it, knowing as soon as
So I reached for it, leant forward from my chair, Look at him, tensing for
his eyes
hits the pillow and he shuts
—

but as the blades brushed my fingers,

something was wrong. I kept going, An IED explosion
nothing to stop me. Every time.
I hit the ground with
my stumps, end on.
recovering in its wake,
He lies there a moment,
to his side
his heart slowing, before rolling on
ARTHUR kind of rest.
to try and get some
the sheets,
By the time that happened to Hads, he curls up under
Let's leave him now, as
we'd already lost two more lads. IEDs both. he can.
or does what
tall man trying to sleep,
It was Sangin's bumper crop that year, Hads Gullet, twenty-one, half a
and it was us who were harvesting them, his legs to his chest,
holding what's left of
from tree lines and ditches, fields and walls. as he tells himself,
his family come through
the door,
Terry himself was becoming a ghost, hardly seen, on hearing
but still always there, inside our heads. and the half of him left,
that of the half of him gone blessed.
He wanted dead and the feeling was mutual. he should count, but the
us it isn't the cursed
Cos yeah, we dropped them in numbers,
but the anger, it only got hotter, deeper,
a hunger we'd never satisfy,
like
however many we shot,
however many we saw die.

Time to go.
Hads is swinging from the sofa
into his chair again,
and wheeling himself to the ground-floor room
his parents converted for him.
They'll be back soon, along with his brother and sister,
from the firework display on George the Fifth Fields.
Hads asked them to go there without him.
Nothing worse than being the burden,

36
TAFF'S STORY
 Dubstep, loud, then fainter.
Rising footsteps, a door opening, then closing

ARTHUR
Here's Taff,
emerging from the Tunnels back into the light,
rising from his barrow
like a walk-of-shame lover.
A long night of taking cover
from the fireworks and the bottle,
of losing himself in the electro-beat,
of dancing, full-throttle,
of drowning for hours in Bristol dubstep.

Of moving not thinking,

for fear in stopping
he'll remember and weep.

Let's follow him now, as he walks up the street,

past the Empire Museum,
his breath like smoke in the November air,
last night's litter blowing round his feet,
his dancing sweat still drying in his hair.

Wouldn't think him a soldier, would you?

But he was. One of the best, right from the off.
Taff loved basic, he did. He
was ripe for it.
That night in the Thekla,
he'd agreed before he'd finished his pint.
Like he'd said, it made sense.
Time for us to get out of here.

41
Ancl we clicl. ARTHUR
But then we came back, Five!
bringing 'there' with us he when we left? One? Two?
—
How old was
the anger, the dreams, the dead.
TAFF
Look, Arthur, I gotta go.
TAFF
Aw, shut it, Arthur! Gotta get my head down.
yeah,
It's first thing in the morning, I'm in the project at ten, so
Icould do without you inside later is it?
my head. see you
Can't you leave me alone, just for a bit?
Always bloody talking. Give it a rest. ARTHUR
And when did you get so wise anyway? Yeah, alright. See you then.

You was so thick at school

you couldn't pass a urine test. No, you wouldn't think Taff a soldier.
fat after a bit.
Not now. The muscle turns to
add to that.
ARTHUR And then the meds, they soon
Just saying, that's all. You were good, the best, And the drink.
since got he back,
and you know it. He must have put on two, three stone
but even so, it wasn't his body what got to Taff.
TAFF
Were. You said it. In the past innit? History. Take this street walking down now,
he's
deserted, empty, Sunday-morning dead.
ARTHUR Harmless.
Yeah? Looks like it too. If that's the case But all Taff's feeling the threat.
is
this back there,
why you been hiding down there all night? The echo of when a village went like
melted
when the women and kids away.
at bay,
TAFF That's what he's trying to keep
I wasn't bloody hiding, right? plugging in his headphones,
Just ...
you know how it is. turning the volume right up.
Stalling for time till later in the day
ARTHUR into harbour again.
when the project will bring him
Yeah. I do. How's Lisa, the kid? alone, and half of him's on tour,
But right now he's
remembering with a memory that's now
TAFF four
the fear, the tension, and of course the
Fine. I'll be seeing him this week.
who didn't make it back with him —

He's five now y'know?

Big Ash, Stevo, Lee and Tim.
43
42
 TAFF not much, I guess,
Arthur's right, I did love basic. for handing them your body
Everything we and giving what's left of your mind away.
were meant to hate the P T,
—

drill sergeant shouting in So yeah, they fattened us up

your face,
being woken at three to good and proper,
go on guard,
the route march, the beastings I fattened us up for
— loved it, I did. —s

It was what I'd been waiting for.

It made me, all of it.
TAFF
—
Don't say it, Arthur. Don't.
I remember, when we were just over halfway through, Cos it ain't right. They made us fit.
going into town with That's what they did.
Arthur and Hads,
stopping by a butcher's Fit in, and fit for fighting.
while we waited for
some of the other lads. Fighting fit.
Our first time off base since we'd stepped off that bus, Anyway, easy for you to say. You didn't have a kid.
three boys leaving home for Catterick, I did. So that packet of pay?
I looked in at the nervous, young.
meats what the butcher had hung, Yeah, that made me too,
Chickens to the left, beef to the right. the kit.
even more than the training, the uniform,
I tapped the glass
and pointed to some chicken legs. Lisa had Tom when we were sixteen.
'See that,' I said to Hads. I was a father before I was grown.
'That was us four weeks ago. Scrawny little fuckers.' So when we came home
Then I
tapped the window above the shoulders it was that pay what made me stand tall.
of beef,
heavy with meat, packed around the bone.
Not just the rest of it. I was earning, providing,
'And that,' I said, 'is what doing what I can.
we'vebecome. Strong.
He nodded, cos it was true. We could I was only eighteen, but those six weeks basic,
see ourselves reflected,
the three of us in line, bigger at
the shoulder and the chest, they were like years for me.
thicker in the neck,
an ache in our arms and our thighs. They made me a man.
Just over a month since we'd left, and we'd
changed.
LISA
ARTHUR They did. When I saw him again
Yeah, they built us
up alright. it wasn't just his body what had changed,
Built up the muscle, layer by layer, it was Geraint — all of him.
just asthey took us away, layer by layer. Like something up there had made him whole.
Fair exchange perhaps — So yeah, the army made him.
three hots and a cot and a packet of But then they broke him too, didn't they?
pay,
the promise of duty and seeing And who had to pick up the pieces then?
the world,

44
Not all the king's horses I can tell you,
TAFF
or all the king's men. They used to call it 'friendly fire',
but not any more.
It was like suddenly I had two kids, not one.
Too close to the bone.
Geraint, as well as Tom.
Falling asleep
So no, it's 'blue on blue' now.
on his meds, middle of
the day.
That's the words they use,
Not talking, then next minute having it all to say. night.
to describe what happened that
Howling, crying, throwing tantrums.
Blue on blue.
Waking in the middle of the night, Blue on blue.
the bed. They both did that.
pissing
Blue on blue.
Only Tom never hit me when I tried to hold him, though,
I 'lowever much I say them
like Geraint did.
stared into
they don't.
Or my eyes, soaked with sweat,
looking at something countries away. LISA
Tom didn't have the last year of his life 'Friendly fire'.
That's the one still makes more sense
flashing like a trailer across his mind all day, to me.
side,
or a habit of letting fags burn to his knuckle, Being hurt by those on your
then blister his skin. by those meant to protect you,
He didn't have this look that said 'I'll never let you in'. those meant to love you.
And he didn't have a father either, or at least Yeah, that I recognise.
lies.
not the one who went away. The drink, the shouting, the
The hand on my throat while slept,
I
He had Geraint instead,
the bedside light.
drinking, popping pills, his face tense with pain. the reaching in panic for
A man who used to be his dad, but now just there, The boy you married
else
broken by war into a boy again. lying by your side but somewhere
—

shrinking, out of sight.

I swear, if I could meet that pilot now,
what I'd do to him —

TAFF
A bit of his own bloody medicine. Itwas night.
And I'd have the right, too, I reckon. night.
I
mean Afghan street lights.
Cos that night he didn't just take the lives
No lit windows. No cars. No
of Big Ash, Stevo, Lee and Tim. the clouds and nothing else.
Just a few stars between
No, he took Geraint's too. And mine. And Tom's. could
We put up lumis as often as we
—

And that's why I'd do it, bright

slow-falling mortars burning
—

not for my sake or for Geraint's, but when each one came down
again
but for my son's. the night.
so did the darkness, and with it

46 47
 I
was on sangar duty. Half an hour left, She had burns too, all up her sides.
my eyes heavy with sleep. "l"he medic did what he could, which wasn't enough.
It had been a bad week. She died.
Hads had caught it just a few days before,
then my We'd killed their cow too and smashed up their home,
company were moved to a checkpoint
a mile from the FOB. So the liaison officer filled out the forms, paid out the bills,
Right from the off, things had been hot. and then they left.
We were there to stir things up, draw them out, face, even now.
I can still see his
and it didn't take long pot shots, shoot and scoot,
—
An outdoor man, skin leathered by the sun.
RPGs finding their range. The way he unwrapped the end of his turban
Most days there was some kind of contact. to wipe at his eyes, raw with what we'd done.
I won't lie, I loved it again.
I've wondered since if what happened next
Like Arthur had said in the Thekla that night, punishment.
was some kind of
it was doing our job. What they'd trained that isn't how it works.
us for. But know
I
And a chance to pay them back, That there is no one watching,
for Hads and what they'd done to him. that the good lads will die, lose their limbs
while the nasty bastards go home whole.
A few days before it happened
But after I'd seen what I saw, after that,
a patrol came under fire. well, you want to put some order on it all,
RPGs from a compound,
find a pattern, a god,
hitting nearer and nearer, too close to the wire.
some kind of
law.
I was spotter for the
mortars, so we went to work.
I sent them in
on some smoke I'd seen, ARTHUR
between two trees, over a wall:
But you can't, can you, Taff?
One fell short.
Reports do that. History books do that.
—

Two went wide.

But you and me, we know,
—

Three direct hit.

it's another word for chaos, war.
—

Four to make sure.

they teach
—

It's like us:

But I was wrong. Cos Terry wasn't in there at all. no plan survives a contact.

Just a farmer, his wife and their granddaughter.

Two years old, same age as Tom. TAFF
Gone. Anyway, like I said, I was on the sanger, keeping watch,
of one of those lumi drops,
eyes heavy, when at the end
They brought her in with shrapnel to her stomach, they attacked. Full contact, on three sides.
a shark-fin of metal sticking out her navel. Small arms, RPGs, a .50 cal.

48 49
 Accurate too, biting at
my sandbags, was a pair of plastic chairs up against a tree,
kicking up dirt from the wall. lit up by the fires, the burning tents, the flares.
Quick as we could we set up a defensive shoot —
Like the ones we got in the garden they were,
flares, rockets, tracer fire.
one blue, one green.

There's a smell to battle. You learn it.

Justthe night before, Stevo and Lee had sat in them
playing their guitars, all night long.
The certain tang of
an RPG. Ibut all I could hear, lying there, wasn't them,
The dust and grit of
an IED. it was a dubstep song
--

The bitter scent of

your own hot gat. 'Get Up' by Pinch, loud in
The oily hint of a machine-gun belt. my ears,
like I had my headphones on.
But that night, suddenly,
Banging away as that chopper smashed up our
there was something else. camp.
I stared at those two empty chairs, and as I did
the blue one started turning purple, and the green one brown.
LISA They went hazy too, like they were going out of focus.
'Let them have it.' It was all still going down that Apache firing off all he'd
—
got,
That's what the Apache pilot said. but all I could hear was Pinch in my head,
American, called in for support. and all I could watch was those two plastic chairs,
Thought he'd found a nest of
Taliban. empty, lit up by the fires,
And he almost did, turning reddish brown and purple red.
if he hadn't been off course.
He had authorisation. I didn'tknow it at the time, but it was pink mist doing it.
Yeah, the inquiry told
us that too. Drifting across from where the first Hellfire hit.
And once he did, he opened
up. Blue on blue. Pink mist. Clouding my view.
Chain-gun, four Hellfires and That's the
two Hydrapods. last I remember from that blue on blue.
Turning his dark screen white Those two garden chairs, turning, then nothing.
as hisnose-mounted sensor Just a tightening of light and a heaviness of air.
traced the bodies running into the night.
Big Ash, Stevo, Lee, Tim.
LISA
And you, my love. And you. Pink mist. That's what they call it.
Friendly, friendly fire. When one of hasn't just bought it,
your mates
Blue on blue.
but goes flash, from being there to not.
in a

A direct hit. An IED. An RPG stuck in the gut.

TAFF
I However it happens you open your eyes
was blown off the wall. Broke
my back in the fall. and that's all they are.
When I came round the first thing I
saw A fine spray of pink, a delicate mist

50 51
as if some genie has granted a wish.
There, and then not. 4 ARTHUR'S STORY
A dirty trick you pray isn't true.
White heat. Code red. Pink mist.
Blue on blue on blue.

52
 ARTHUR
They called me King.
Arthur. Get it? Everyone gets a nickname.
And that was mine. King.
Rifleman Arthur Brown 256543.
But to the lads in the battalion, always King or Kingy.

New name for a new family. That's how it works,

and at first, don't get me wrong, that's what I loved.
A tightening down of the pride and the bond.
It starts with your regiment their history, their badge.
—

Then as you go on, it's a deepening

of where you belong.
Your battalion, your company, your platoon, your section,
all the way down to your four-man fire team.
Until that's what you're fighting for.
The man on your left and the man on your right.
Forget queen or country, the mission or belief.
It's
more about keeping your mates alive.
Or avenging the ones who've already died.
Cos that's what fuels war, though no one will say it.
Love, and grief, its rougher underside.

It'sironic really. The whole thing was my plan,

for us to link our arms again, join up together.
And at first it worked for Hads and Taff.
I
mean, Hads found his skill as a Vallon man,
and a pride in each patrol that he brought home.
the off,
And Taff — he
was just up for the fight from
and he was good at it too,

55
even better after what happened to Hads. Where is the pain? Dard cheri day?
But me? Yeah I enjoyed it, no denying that. Blood —
Khoon
The contacts a buzz
were safety locks,
the real thing, no —

Dead —
Maray
and sure beat parking Mazdas down Portbury Docks.
Go home Khaana burayn
But fighting's ninety per cent waiting,
—

and when you've got that much time, you think. Shot —
Wishtalay
And that's when the trouble starts. Go home Korta dzai
Cos we're privates, aren't we? One at a time — Pa waar
yao
And that's not our job.
One at a time.

There's this language card we got, before we deployed.

Five months into
Part of the Aide Memoire for Herrick nine. our six-month tour
and I was on my own.
Mine's in a box now, up at my mum's,
Hads and Taff, both gone. Medivaced to Bastion,
but if she ever dug it out she'd see
then, in a
how those pages of Pashtun and Dari, matter of hours, home.

illustrated with pictures,

I I
tell the story of our time out there, was sure was next, but was wrong. I

Somehow my 'if' never became 'when'.

like a kid's cartoon book of modern warfare.
At least, not then. We lost others.
A sniper's bullet, a roadside bomb.
Hello —
Salaam
Our tour was becoming the worst so far.
How are you? — Chetoor astayn
And then I left it, just like that,

two weeks, R and R.

You Shumaa
—

They Oonaa —
We landed through cloud into Brize,
Afghan dust on our boots, our packs.
Do you need help? —
Koumak kaar daarayn? Iflew in with a bunch of marines, back for good,
Stop or I'll shoot Drezh yaa za daz kawam
or until they scratched that combat itch
—

Do you need water? Ao kaar daarayn? and volunteered again, like

many would.
—

You are under arrest —

Bandeet maykonum They were quiet, tanned by the Afghan sun.
Saray
A cautious look in their eyes as we waited
Man --

with our trolleys around the baggage belt.

Woman —
Zan
Just like a regular airport, until
Child you see the sign —

— Halak 'Weapon Collection Point',

Human bomb —
Insaani bam and then, in customs, a couple of wounded
guys
here to meet their mates, dressed in civvies,

56
handing out plastic beakers of port, GWEN

one prosthetic leg each

And me? Hadn't heard from you for weeks.
showing from under their football shorts. And after seeing Hads with no legs
and then the mess they made of Taff.

And then through the arrival doors — Arthur, I'd been worried sick for months.
girls in high heels and dresses,
made-up for a Friday night ARTHUR
Iknow, babe, I know.
waiting red-eyed in the morning grey
to see and hold their man again. And I'm sorry.
Babies who'd never smelt their dad. But what's done —

Kids, holding painted sheets or flags.

Parents biting their nails, waiting, waiting, GWEN
Is done. Yeah. I know.
for those doors to slide open,
—

and for the next to be him, And now you're gone.

their lad, safe at last, and back.
ARTHUR
I hope they were, but I know I wasn't. No. Don't say that, Gwen.
I'm here, ain't I? Talking to you?
was still there,
I I
course was.
Worrying about the boys,
seeing all sorts of shit when I closed my eyes. GWEN
That's why Gwen didn't come. It's not the same, Arthur.
I hear
I told her, I needed time. you, it's true.
I don'tknow ... You were gone
And shouldered my kit, walked past the
as I
Spar,

with its 'Real Deal' signs and two-for-ones, from the day you joined.
I mean, remember what that like?
I knew I was right. was
You, coming back on R and R?
Time to drag myself from there to here,
to come home proper from the war.
ARTHUR

GWEN Yeah. 1 do.

You didn't even come to mine,

when you got into town. I checked into a hotel outside Brize,
lay on the bed till dawn, scared to close my eyes.
Then got the bus to Severn Beach, first thing.
ARTHUR
Itold you. I had to see Mum. When I got there the place was empty, nothing.
She was in a bad way. Severn Beach. End of the line, literally.

58 59
 then tight as they shouted my name,
sitting
Just bridge disappearing towards Wales,
the
under it. shitting themselves I'd dropped and they'd never see me again.
and the river, wide as a sea, sluggish
bait, Stupid, really. Still don't know why, but I'm glad I did.
yet, hooking their
Not even the fishermen
safe and sealed. Cos it was only then that I noticed the bird.
casting their lines. Just the houses, all
the age of one. A peregrine. Circling above me in the
Severn Beach it's where I'm from, since
—
gorge,
been back in the field, screeching repeating cry.
a
But .
I
may as well have I looked to my right, and I saw why.
in some village in Afghan.
on patrol, or
Her nest, scraped out of soil on the ledge.
It all looked so strange, unreal.
And inside, right in the middle,
two perfect brown, speckled eggs.
I let dropped my kit to the floor,
myself in,
wake Mum.
then climbed the stairs, quiet, so'snot to
were still shouting for me
Hads and Taff
I opened the door to my bedroom.
but I couldn't hear them no more.
checked duvet.
Footie posters on the wall. The same I edged along closer and, again I don't know why,
A kid's a flashback to before this began.
room, reached out and took one, still warm.
knees,
Then, before I know it I'm on my And now, three years later, here it was again,
in the chest,
opening the bottom drawer
my T-shirt drawer.
in
pulling out old T-shirts and vests The first of twelve eggs I collected that spring.
of eggs,
to uncover, under them, a row Heron, jackdaw, crow, lapwing.
blown and bedded in their cotton-wool
nests.
But the best was always hers, that peregrine's.
I knew it was then,
wrong, even
and Hads.
We had this thing, me, Taff but I was sixteen and wanted something just mine,
By the bridge in Clifton, a secret I shared with no one.
the one where I'd seen that bloke take flight. And maybe that's why on that R and R
We'd dare each other to touch bits of rock, I went straight back to them,

pushing each other further and further cos each one, though empty, was full
out on to the open limestone cliffs. with the feel of the day when I found it.
'That bit there, with
the
moss.' The touch of the wind, the taste of the rain.
white patch, the outcrop.' That kinda thing. Each was a moment alone, again.
'That
A stealing of an egg, and more.
give them a scare,
One day I thought I'd
past the dare. Iput my hand into the drawer.
so I climbed further out,
Went right out of sight, Picked up the heron's, a pale sky blue.
slipping in under an overhang, Barely there on my palm, smooth and cool.

60 61
Iclosed my eyes and tried to see that day again. GWEN
March, I was bunking off from school. That night, when you finally came home,
A breeze in the reeds, the water over my boots —
I felt like that
egg
in
your palm,
crushed to the bone.
A stupid thing to do.
To think I could get away so easily. We'd waited so long.
No chance. As soon as my eyes were shut, We'd joked about it,
Yanks,
I
saw them instead. Those two I'd even sent you porn,
the ones who said they'd take our place,
who drove on ahead to the front of the convoy, but we both knew
then round a corner where ...
'i this could be us at our best.
By the time we got there Together, tender, close.
their Humvee was a ball of flame
burning in the middle of the street. My hands on your back,
fire.
I
saw them climb out. Both on my breaths on your chest.
They ran, who knows why, but they did. I used to feel blessed

Two burning puppets of flame.

guys,
The first, blinded, ran into a wall, when we did it.
tried to stub himself out, then fell. And know you did
I too.
The other carried on down the street, Stunned by how easily
knees.
ten, twenty feet, before dropping to his
He held his arms out for a moment, we made one out of two.
a flaming cross,
then tipped forward, on to his face, But not any more.
and died. Afterwards, I wanted to weep.
But I didn't want to show you that.
I opened my eyes.
Sweat on my wrists. I'd expected lust, yes.

was back my childhood room,

I in But it wasn't. It was anger,
footie posters on the wall, and not spent either,
into a fist.
my opened palm closed
The pale blue shards of the heron's egg but still there, as
you pulled out of me
scattered insidethedrawer, and sat on the edge of the bed,
like a broken promise. getting dressed.

62 63
 'We going out?' like I was alone, in
my own weather,
That's all you said. not whateverthe others were in.
Like nothing had happened. I downed my pint, looked
over the scene,

'Yeah,' I replied. but instead of

groups of lads down there
Trying to understand I platoons,
saw sections, fire teams.
what it was that had died.
Young bodies waiting to be taken apart.

Looking back though, I turned to the bar. Started reading the drinks,
perhaps you were right.
the menus, learning them by heart,
Cos nothing is what it was. which was working till I got to the Jäger Bomb list.
Nothing —

Skittle bomb
that's what you filled me with
that night.
Glitter bomb
Berry bomb
Cherry bomb
ARTHUR
Fireball.
We went out. Gwen had set it all up.
The V-Shed down in the harbour,
And that was all it took
a Saturday night.
to see them again,

It was the
those two Yanks, burning in the street.
last thing I wanted,
but I wanted her too. I did,
I
along with what she said. ran straight to the gents,
so I went
stuck my head in the bowl
and chucked up
It was all the old crew, my guts.
different haircuts and clothes, that's all.
Drinking, dancing, and who can blame them? And that's when I knew.
I had to sort this, and
soon.
They weren't doing anything wrong, And the
very next morning, I did.
just singing along to Saturday's song,
drinking to forget, drinking to belong. GWEN
He went to the woods.
Downstairs was rammed, so we went up instead. Took his kit, a sheet of tarpaulin,
Itried my best to hold it together, and left, early.
but it was like I wasn't there, I don't even think he slept in the bed.

64
65
 ARTHUR
ARTHUR
You knew that? And you were right to, Gwen,
You were.
GWEN
Yeah, of course. GWEN
But it was only R and R, wasn't it?
ARTHUR You weren't back yet, not for good.
You never said So it
was just a taste. You in my bed,
then in the woods, then
gone. Again.
—

GWEN
Well, I The engine ofa bus, starting
was starting to get it.
I knew I couldn't keep ... The way
GWEN
you spoke
that night, your sleep.
in
I didn't know you could be so healthy
and still feel such pain.
ARTHUR
I did?
He was just beginning to be himself,
and now he was off.

GWEN
ARTHUR
Yeah, stuff about crosses and Humvees.
Just one month more.
And Hads. You called for him twice.
So yeah, I think I understood,
GWEN
why you had to go and sleep in the woods. That's what he said,
I just hoped it would work,
whispered into
my ear
so when you came back
as I hugged him goodbye.
—

ARTHUR ARTHUR
I
was better, wasn't I? Four weeks. Then it's done.
Than before?

GWEN
GWEN I held on
to him, nodded into his chest,
Yeah. You
were. afraid of what I'd do if I tried to speak.
I
saw a glimpse of you again They held all I hoped for, those four weeks.
and, well, I had hope, Arthur. Then. Arthur back, and then the rest of our lives.
I'd ask him to leave The Rifles early,

66
67
 get out, so we could get on.
And I think he would have too. 5 HOME TO ROOST
We'd get married, have children.
There was just that month to get through.
Then, then I'd make him promise.
Never again. Never again.

ARTHUR
It wouldn't have taken much.
I'd seen and done enough.
I'd answered our childhood call,
the one Hads, Taff and me
used to shout out in school.
Who wants to play war?
Who wants to play war?
We'd said 'us',
I'd made sure of that.
And now wehad.
But this saying goodbye to Gwen, again.
This wasn't in the brochure.
Or the worry on the face of my mum,
my chest
of tears in
or the thickening
as I looked out the window
and saw them both waving,
and Gwen still crying,
as if that, a disappearing bus,
was the last they'd ever see of me.

Which it was.

68
 Military vehicles rolling out ofa compound.
Radio chatter. The howling of dogs

ARTHUR
Sometimes at night, around Sangin, Kajaki,
they'd howl like dogs. To communicate.
We had our radios, our channels.
They had the calls of animals,
the darkness, a terrain they knew,
black and green through our NV Gs,
like the world had turned computer screen.

I'd been back a week, so had just three to go

when one night we were sent on an op,
supporting J Company, 30 Commando.
I knew this
one was going to be hot.
Those bootnecks, they tend to be at the front of stuff.
A strange lot, mind, the Corps —

a dress and a thong in every kitbag,

think nothing of wandering round
camp
dressed like a trannie crossed with a whore.
All of them, thick with face furniture.
But fight, you wouldn't want anyone else.
in a

The Yanks are brave enough, sure,

and they have the firepower.
But the length of their tours?
A year, no R and R?
They get spun out, get themselves shot.
But this one, with the marines,
yeah, I wanted that.

71
Ivolunteered for top cover, what you first wear
manning the WIMIK's 50 cal. when learning how to walk again.
If it all kicked off, I wanted to be the one His back and head
were drenched with sweat
who'd give Terry hell. as he shifted his weight on to one,
then the other,
GWEN moving each time just an inch or two.
You had three weeks left. I could tellhe'd been a big fella,
Why? Why would you do that? Six-three, six-four?
Now, only as high as my belt, no more.
ARTHUR There's a signature to every war,
Before I went back, I went to see Taff and Hads. and this, I guess, is
ours
—

They were both doing rehab in Headley Court. a bloke with no legs, wincing in pain
I had to see them. I
mean, how they were as he shifts himself forward,
—

It was my f.ault. inch by inch,

again and again and again.
TAFF
No it wasn't, Arthur. HADS
Still got yours then?
HADS
You know that isn't true. ARTHUR
I turned and
saw Hads,
ARTHUR wheeling towards me in his chair,
It was, End of. the wounds
on his arms still healing
It was me who put it in front of and his board shorts rolled,
you.
to show where his legs weren't there.
When I gotdown there Hads was in physio 'Hads! You bastard!' I said to him.
having massage on his scars, 'Christ, you gave us a scare.'
so I went to the the gym, to wait for him. Then I knelt and held him,
Apart from one bloke, it was empty, didn't want to let go.
He was trying to walk between two parallel bars —
'You seen Taff yet?' he said
regimental T-shirt, shorts, his amputated thighs speaking into my shoulder.
in two plastic sockets, I pulled
away 'No.'
--

then an inch of steel on a rubber Hads shook his head. 'You should,'
square.
That's all. he said. 'Before
you go.'
'Stumpies' they call them,

72 73
 LISA as if a wire had been disconnected.
The first time saw him wanted to be sick.
I I That was what got me the most.
Covered in tubes, his arms all burnt,
his stomach cross-hatch of scars and stitches.
a
that's why, Gwen. That's why top cover,
So

He was in a coma. He'd woken once, attacked his nurse, cos that's what I took back to Afghan.
screaming he'd been captured. Hads with no legs, putting a brave face on,
She told and Taff, screwed over by a blue on blue.
me he wasn't the first.
I wanted to hurt someone,
'I'm Pakistani,' she said. 'Last thing they know,
they're in the field, so ...
to satisfy that hunger
before I missed my chance,
But all that, The wounds where he'd been shot. and came back home to you.
The burns, the hallucinations, even his back.
All that healed, in the end. GWEN
I
But something else had been hurt, swear woke just seconds before,
I

something the
surgeons
couldn't reach. as if I'd been waiting.
His mind, his soul, My eyes snapped open,
callit what you will, looked at the clock. Four a.m., then —

but that bit of Geraint had gone.

A doorbell
It's been the hardest thing. And I knew. I knew.
I
mean, you see him now, walking down the street,
and you'd think him fine. ARTHUR
You can't see the raised pink scars, I don't remember any of what happened.
the twenty-three ops, Just those howls, like dogs, as we drove out.
the X-rays more metal than bone. The fields and trees all black and green.
Perhaps some of the
You'd think he's 0K, he's home. very first rounds.
But he's note but nothing else.
At least, not yet.
I had to pick it up all second hand,

ARTHUR as my hearing came back in the chopper,

and then again in Bastion.
I
saw straight away what Hads had meant.
It wasn't the cages round Taff's legs, his back, How when my driver had reversed
the burn he'd hit roadside IED.
on his face, infected — a
How the explosion hit a fuel tank,
none of that. or ammo box
It was the look in his eye, right under me.

74 75
Shot me out, like a jack in the box, 'You'll be back in
no time.'
Sixty feet. And then how it all kicked off. Gently, they lowered the lid,
Rockets, grenades. The lot. then, like
two maids making a bed,
they unfolded, smoothed and checked for snags,
They took me straight to Rose Cottage. before draping
me in the colours of the flag.
A special room in the medical centre
among the tents and containers of
deep Bastion. LISA
It was hearing about Arthur
A room for the lads or lasses who'd taken a hit
which even the couldn't fix. that did it for Geraint,
surgeons on camp
it was that what tipped him over the edge.
It was manned, back then, by two blokes, He'd been hitting the bottle, upping his meds.
Staff Sergeants Andy and Tom. Sometimes the pain was so bad
It was them who took me in, off the ambulance, he didn't sleep for a week.

and into their room. Then, when he did,

Itsmelt of sweet tea. he'd scream out in bed, shouting for Stevo and Lee,
'That scent,' Andy said to me. 'It's the eau de toilette. Rose. crying into his hands about fires and pink mist.
The Afghans insist we spray it on their guys.' He put on weight the meds again
— —

'Don't worry though, Arthur,' Tom added on my other side. which put more strain on his spine.
So what happened that night, in the pub,
'You'll soon get used to it. We did.'
it was only a matter of time.
And then they laughed. Not for themselves,
but for me, I could tell. And they carried on talking too, Like ever since he'd got home
chatting me through all they'd do, there'd been a mine planted in him,
and that
asthey put what they'd found of me on to a shelf, poor bloke who'd spilt his pint,
without knowing it, he stepped
saying 'Sorry it's so cold, Arthur,' on it that night.
which it was, like a fridge.
TAFF
Then they said 'Sleep well' and slid it shut.
I got a year. The judge said I
was lucky,
My first night of three in Rose Cottage.
took my service into account. GBH.
Eighteen stitches to his head.
saw them again just
I before I left.
It was the night I'd heard about Arthur.
When they slid me out into the light,
I just saw red.
still passing the time of day
as they placed me in the coffin The worst thing?
that would
carry me home. I missed his funeral, and then his memorial too.
Always calling me by name. Inside on remand, bail.
no
'Not long now, Arthur.' I'd failed, on every front. Out there,
76 77
back home, and now saying goodbye to Arthur. I'd still be there too, if it wasn't for Ken.
I've
never felt so alone. Ex-marine, touring the pavements and alleys at night,
And Lisa and Tom, what's so screwed up looking for people like us.
is that all along, through all those months on tour, Soldiers who'd fallen, not in the field, but out of sight.
First time he spoke to
then laid up in a hospital bed, me, thought it was bollocks.
I

through the dreams and the pain, Who the hell was this? Broken nose, calling me mate.
it was them who'd kept me going, Said he wanted to help me, get me up on my feet.
the thought of seeing them again. I told him to stick it. I'd heard it before.

Tom, almost three, talking now, walking, Just pulled

the bag over
my head
he hardly recognised me. and went back to sleep
on the concrete floor.
And Lisa well, she's still serving her tour.
—

Been on it for years now, with no R and R, But he didn't give up.
ever since I joined and walked out the
door. Next time was a hostel. Terrible place.
I thought the noise would kill me before anything else.
So I can't blame her really, Ken found me again, sat on the edge of bed,
my
for not letting me walk back through it again. and said as such.
She wanted proof I'd changed and,
'Mate, you stay here, on the streets, you'll die.
the truth is, I hadn't. I've seen it happen. It's no way to go. Not for a soldier,
Prison's not the place for change. or for any man. Come on, pack your bags.
It's for getting through, surviving. I've van outside.
got a Let's go.'
A thickening of the skin.
When I was released, God knows, she tried, So I did. He fixed me up with somewhere better,
but I wouldn't let her in. then showed me his project down in Bedminster.
Twelve vets, building a home,
I
was on the streets for six months. Homeless. from foundation to roof.
Fitting, in a way. I mean, I hadn't come home,
He took me to the foreman's office,
not in my head,
gave me a tea, asked if I wanted in.
so why should anyone give me a bed? I felt something give, a thinning of that thickened skin.
And I wasn't alone. I said I did.
There's a spread of regiments under those blankets --

He nodded, shook my hand. 'Good,' he said.

Horse Guards, Paras, Royal Engineers.
'Let's build somewhere to live.'
And a spread of wars too —

Falklands, Gulf, Northern Ireland, Iraq.

HADS' MOTHER
Yeah, you walk this country's streets
It was different for Hads.
and there's our history, under your feet.
mean, I know what happened to Taff,
I

78 79
but when we heard about Arthur, Hads went the other way. as his coffin was lowered and they played last post.
He'd only been home for a couple of weeks. I stood, to
say goodbye to my friend.
We was all getting used to the change the chair,
—

me helping him in
the lav, like when he was small. In a
way he'd saved me again,
He was quiet, and didn't go nowhere. just like when we'd first met. When I
was six —

Just sat at the window, watching, a bunch of older lads calling me nigger, firing me up.

as if he was scared of what he'd find out there. I

was holding my own, but then Arthur stepped in,
Me and his dad didn't know what to do. took me home.
We didn't want to push him out too soon, but And now he'd got me home again.
Then the news about Arthur came. Cos after that day, I got my shit together.
Hads' first thoughts were for Gwen and his mum. I still don't walk, not yet, but I will.

He called them both, right off, then, And in my chair, you should see me now —

when he he'd finished on the phone, broke down. My high-jump days were done, so I went for basketball.
The next day, though, he'd changed. It used to be a joke, in Headley Court,
'I want to go out, Mum,' he said. 'Get a suit an' tie, how the MoD was good for wheelchair sport.
for Arthur's coming home.' Well, now I've made that joke true.
come
And that's when I knew he'd be 0K. For me, my mum, old
man. And for you, Arthur.
It became like a goal. For you.
Gwen, see, she'd asked him to be at the funeral.
But just being there, that wasn't enough for Hads. GWEN
It's been over two years.
People say I should
HADS move on. But how can I?
I wanted to stand. Beside his grave. I still hear him, so for
me he isn't gone.
I might have lost both legs, He's here, in head, memories
my my
and the doctors said it was still far too soon, and, just about, in the smell on the clothes
but I didn't care. Just for a couple of seconds, he left on the chair.
I wanted to be there, full height, for him, for Gwen. In videos on
my phone,
in the
And I did. messages I still can't delete.
They said my spine wouldn't take it, So no, not gone.

my wounds weren't healed.

And they weren't. TAFF
I bled into the sockets of those two prosthetics. For it's like
me we'reback on the cliffs
But I stood,with crutches, beside Gwen and Arthur's mum. and we've dared him to touch
When the flag was folded and handed to them, some rock far out.

80 81
 HADS that would be enough.
But he's gone that bit further again, How the loss becomes the reason,
dropped out of sight, so we can't see him. and how the reason'san abuse of love.
How here and there each wounding,
TAFF
each death, resonates,
But we know he's still there, on the cliff, until millions are touched.
holding on. So that's all I hope for.
When the debate's being had,
the
HADS reasons given,
Out of sight, but there. Not gone. that people will remember
what those three letters
mean,
ARTHUR before starting the chant
once more —

I watch over them, talk to them. Who wants to play war?

They hear me, and sometimes talk back too.
Who wants to play
war?
Gwen whispers into her pillow.
Taff shows me his lad, little Tom, The sound of wind on a high hill, fading
and Hads, when he can't sleep
he tells me stuff.
How he worries he'll never get a girl.
Cos that blast, it took more than just his legs.
But he's good, he's soldiering on,
partly for him, but
more for his mum.
And Lisa's talking to Taff again,
I
saw them laugh the other day,
so who knows, once he's built his home,
perhaps he'll have another place to stay.

And me? Well at least I'm home, sort of,

through them.
Am I angry? Yeah, course I am.
It was my life, and
now it's gone. Pink mist.
I don't know —
up here on Dundry Hill
things
seem more clear,
and well, I guess I hope it'll change, somehow.
Till then, if people knew what it is,

82
Glossary

Ally Irregular kit

Bluey Military airmail letter
Bootneck Military slang for the Royal Marines, possibly
derived from the eighteenth-century practice of Marines
cutting a strip of leather from their boots to
wear around
their necks to prevent sailors cutting their throats while
guarding officers on board British sailing ships
Brize Royal Air Force Station Brize Norton, Oxfordshire,
England
CamelBak Personal hydration system
Corp Corporal
Face furniture Facial hair
FOB Forward Operating Base
Griz To work through pain
Headley Court Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre in
Surrey, England
Hellfire An air-to-surface missile developed primarily for
anti-armour use
Herrick Codename for all British operations in Afghanistan
since 2002
Hydrapods Apache helicopter delivery system for Hydra
rockets
ICOM Integrated communications or unsecured walkie-
talkie transmissions
IED Improvised Explosive Device
ISO container Intermodal or freight container
Jäger Bomb a bomb shot drink originally mixed by
dropping a shot of Jägermeister into a glass of beer, but in
recent years often more popular with a Red Bull or other
energy drink

85
J TAC Joint Terminal Attack Controller
Lumi Illumination mortar Acknowledgements
Medivac Medical evacuation
NVGs Night-vision goggles
OPTAG Operational Training and Advisory Group
Painen Bristol colloquialism, to be in pain I
am indebted to the many service personnel and their
Pitchen Bristol slang for settling snow families whose stories have infortnccl this work, especially
Sangar A semi-permanent fortified position or watchtower,
Lyndon Chatting-Walters and Daniel Shaw, whose own
possibly derived from the Persian slang for 'stone'
experiences are, at times, closely echoed in these pages.
Terry British army slang for the Taliban I would also like to thank the Royal British Legion and
The Thekla An ex-cargo ship, now used as a nightclub, Alice Driver of Masterclass "l'heatre for making these
moored in the Mud Dock area of Bristol's Floating
interviews possible as part of noy research for The Two
Harbour Worlds of Charlie F.
The Tunnels Underground music venue Bristol
in
Pink Mist would not exist had it not been for the vision and
WIMIK Weapons Mount Installation Kit, a stripped-down
'Wolf' Land Rover fitted with support of Tim Dee of BBC Bristol, who first commissioned
weapons and used as and guided the work towards broadcast. I am also grateful
reconnaissance and close-fire support vehicles
to Jon Nicholls for his sound design and to all the cast and

crew for bringing my words to life so quickly and effectively.

Lastly, I would like to thank Lee Brackstone and Becky
Fincham of Faber, my agent Waldie, Clare Pollard,
Chris Terrill, Ken Hames and, as ever, Katherine Eluned for
her listening, advice and belief.

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