Battle Sight Zero Read online

  It was one of Andy’s qualities that he could compartmentalise what was important in his life. The girl had had a moment, and the man on the yard gate, and the team who had driven the fork-lifts and loaded his flatbed, and so would the men and women on the site out towards Milnrow who were building three-bedroom and two-bedroom houses, and one-bedroom maisonettes. There were one or two individuals who had an understanding of who he was, but more people were awarded the box in which they could sit, stand or stare, and as long as folks were happy to stay inside their compartments, then all was well: which was what Andy attempted to achieve.

  School kids were streaming across roads and waving down buses, and a crowd of mostly women was spilling in front of him to get into a bread-making factory before their shifts started and, farther back, the works that made privacy blinds was sucking in its employees, and farther along there would be delays in front of the place that turned out garden furniture. He was Andy Knight. He had been Andy Knight last week, last month and most of last year. It was the name he was currently locked into. He was Andy Knight to his landlord and to the management at the depot, and he was Andy Knight to the girl he’d be meeting at the finish of the working day: later than expected. That had been the text message: Hi A, looking forward to tonite, but am delayed, Make it 9 at the Hall, Zed xx. He’d be there. A name was always a problem, the present one and the past one and the one before that. Each name had a history that had to be kept behind a necessary firewall. With anyone he met, he took as much care, exercised the same concentration, as when he was propelling the lorry down the road towards the site.

  She was a pleasant girl, and almost pretty. She did not hold his hand when they walked together, but she’d tuck her wrist in his elbow, rather formal, and walked well, with a natural swing. But too often, she wore a frown on her forehead, just below where her hair was dragged back over her scalp. He had known her for three months. She was young and seemed immature, innocent and intelligent, and he was – so the ticked boxes said – older than her, and drove a lorry for a living and wafted building supplies round the city. Chalk and cheese, he thought he might have been the first boyfriend she’d had – if that’s what he was, her boyfriend.

  He flashed his headlights. A couple of guys in high visibility vests, and with plastic helmets askew on their skulls, were manhandling a makeshift gate aside and then waving him in. A big building site was taking shape in a sea of mud. This was Andy’s first load of the day, and there would be three more before he ran short of hours.

  ‘Hi, Andy, how you doing?’

  ‘Doing fine, doing good.’

  ‘Hold-ups getting over here?’

  ‘Piece of cake – thanks, guys.’

  It was what people wanted, a bit of cheerfulness; that way he was noticed but quickly forgotten, and the compartments stayed in place and he could remember more easily who he was. And in the evening he would be with the girl. A pretty normal sort of day was ahead, as normal as any.

  Most of the night they had taken it in turns to yell at him.

  Sometimes they’d started up the chain-saw and revved the engine and brought it close to his face so that he would have seen the power of the racing chain and smelled the stale two-stroke going through its engine – and they’d yelled some more.

  The boy on the chair would have seen all the kit they had collected for the session, anything that might be of use in interrogation. Apart from the chain-saw there were pliers with which his nails could have been extracted, a Stanley knife that was not there to slice linoleum, and lengths of wire with clips on them that would have been marketed to jump-start power into any flat battery, and there was a baseball bat. They would have imagined that the boy, faced with such an array of weapons, would have quickly given every indication he wished to speak, tell what truths he knew. The boy was attached with masking tape to a heavy wooden chair. More tape was wound tightly across his mouth, and he was nominally blindfolded but the material had slipped enough for him to see the implements they had. The place where they held the boy was carefully erected. He was inside a tent of transparent heavy-duty plastic which also covered the flooring. He could not speak so could not have answered any of the yelled questions but he had been told at the start of the questioning that all he had to do was nod, and then the tape covering his lips would have been torn clear.

  They had yelled at him, they had started up the chain-saw, had thrust the plug of the cables into a socket, and had smacked the baseball bat into the flooring, but the boy’s head had stayed obstinately down, his chin on his chest.

  Now, the three of them were uncertain how to go forward. It was past dawn. The traffic beyond the old warehouse was heavy. Rain dripped through a long broken skylight . . . One of them frequently checked his watch as if the passing of time were a lame enough excuse for the failure of his night’s work . . . They were certain of his guilt but did not know what target he was launched against nor to whom he reported. The boy was an informer, sent to infiltrate them. They should have handed him over to older men, who’d have claimed greater practical experience, then stood aside and seen their fledgling independence snatched. The boy stank because his bowels had burst and dark stains marked his groin, and earlier in the night steam had risen from his trousers, and they had thought that amusing. But now day had arrived and they were unsure what to do . . . They had a microphone ready, plugged into a tape recorder, and if there was a full confession then the salient parts would be held.

  What did he know?

  The three stood away from the wall of plastic sheeting and tried rationally to go back over the brief history of the boy as they knew it: where he had come from in Savile Town, who he would have known at school at the big mosque, who his parents would have been friendly with or related to. Since he had pushed himself close to them, where had he been and what opportunity to overhear a call, and who he might have noticed them with, and what did he know of the girl? They argued, were confused, tired enough for logic to fail them, and increasingly frustrated that the boy had failed to submit to the questions.

  Perhaps, all three concluded, they had shown too great a degree of squeamishness. Should have taken off limbs with the chain-saw, sliced off fingers with the Stanley knife, and made the clips live on the charger. Of course, once they had what they wished for – the boy’s confession – they would kill him. Not a point of debate. Maybe hang him, maybe drown him.

  All three were hungry, and all three wanted coffee, and all three knew they needed to sanitise the interrogation area. Too much time already wasted.

  One had the knife and another had the pliers and a third dragged at the firing cord on the chain-saw . . . He probably did not know the name of the girl, nor her use, probably did know their names and the broad-brush strokes of the conspiracy, probably did know that each of them faced – on the informer’s word – a minimum sentence of twenty years.

  All three were advancing on the plastic sheeting, and all were yelling their questions and the chain-saw’s engine rumbled to life, coughed, then ran smooth. They expected to see him flinch, as he had done previously, and try to flail with his legs and to writhe in the chair, but he did not. His face had achieved the quality of an old candle, without lustre, and the eyes above the drooping blindfold were wide but did not blink, and the head lolled unmoving on the chest where no breath stirred.

  One of them called out, ‘Fuck . . . fuck, he’s dead.’

  August 1956

  The closed fist of the sergeant’s hand, from a short swing, belted the conscript’s ear.

  It was not a slap, but it was intended to create fear, and humiliation, and pain.

  The senior non-commissioned officers of that unit of mechanised infantry rarely failed in their prioritised aims. They needed, constantly, to dominate the youths who were shipped into the ranks – no understanding of discipline – if they were to build companies and battalions and brigades capable of advancing in support of the tanks and through a chaos of smoke and explosions, and the screams
of the wounded, and incoming fire. This particular sergeant who had been at the Leningrad battle and also on the final push down the length of the Unter den Linden and the approach to the Reichstag in Berlin, was regarded as a martinet for inflicting hurt.

  The conscript crumpled.

  They were on a parade ground at a barracks on the outskirts of a town almost at a direct central point in Ukrainian territory. The conscript had never heard of Pervomaisk astride the Pivdennyi Buh river before the train had brought him here from the east, crushed in a stifling cattle-truck, and had dumped him along with hundreds of other teenage soldiers. From the rough concrete of the parade area they would go on to a flat expanse of open field where crops were growing, and there they would simulate warfare, and they were supposed to use live ammunition. In the distance, in front of them, were plumes of smoke from the tanks as their engines started up and belched out fumes. Although the conscript reeled from the ferocity of the blow, he clung to his rifle. They had been taught from the first day of arriving at the barracks and being issued with a personal weapon that they must guard it with their lives, that it was a betrayal of the Motherland to lose it, treason to throw it away in combat, that it must be cherished and safeguarded. Amongst a welter of force-fed information, was the importance of remembering the serial number stamped on to the pressed steel body of the weapon. They could ignore the first three digits but had to recall the next three, 260, and then shout out the final five, 16751. Each was different, but the conscript knew his, what was personal to him. In a sprawled hand, barely legible, he had written his name, as best as he was able, next to that number, had taken the rifle. They had been taught to clean them, to strip and then reassemble them, to load a magazine, fast, into the slot underneath. He had been surprised at how quickly he had mastered these basic skills, and the use of the fore-sight and rear-sight and the elevation that was set for them at a minimum range: what the instructor called Battle Sight Zero. Along with the other youths, the conscript had worked hard on his rifle, had felt a sense of pride that such a piece of complex machinery had been issued to him. They had slapped and stamped through formal drill, and the sergeant had yelled at them. The conscript was in the front rank. With some confidence, as the drill required, he had slapped the rifle’s wooden stock with his right hand and done it so that the sound echoed away into the air, had done it smartly, as had scores of others. The sergeant had approached him, then had hit him.

  The sliver of wood lay in front of him. He bent towards it, the rifle supporting him so that he did not have to kneel. Had he done so he knew it was likely that he’d have been kicked in the stomach or the chest or the head, by the sergeant’s polished boots. He pushed himself upright, then tried to straighten his back. He was accused of an act of vandalism, something that was on the ‘fucking edge’ of sabotage. He had damaged the rifle given him by the state. It was there to see . . . the piece of wood was five or six centimetres long and there was a raw mark on the stock where it had been. He tried to recall each moment that the rifle had been in his possession since being allocated it in the armoury. He could not remember any moment when he had dropped it, banged it, collided with anything while holding it. Probably it was because the blood had spurted in his face – from embarrassment, from shame, from the blows inflicted on him – that, giving it no thought, the conscript attempted to mitigate his guilt. It was a stammered denial of any guilt.

  The sunlight caught the wood on the dull concrete, highlighting the groove from which it had fallen. He heard a tittering around him, alongside and behind. He had done nothing to break the stock of the weapon. The conscript was not yet old enough, experienced in the ways of the army systems, to appreciate that avoiding blame would seldom be successful, but he tried. He had done nothing. His voice was shrill. None of the teenagers who shared the barracks hut with him were prepared to pipe up, in a barely broken voice, that they were ‘pretty certain, almost sure’ that he had not done the damage, and that the fault must have been in the consignment. Nobody supported him, but he said it: not his fault, but somebody else’s.

  He was hit again, and harder. He went down. Was hit again, but had time to squirm away as the sergeant’s boot was drawn back – and there was an officer’s voice in the distance. They were called to attention. He stood, brushed the dirt off the front of his uniform and from his knees. The sergeant strode briskly towards the officer, and the conscript was forgotten. He reached out with his own boot and slashed a kick at the splinter from the stock, and caught it hard enough to break it, then stamped on the two pieces. He spat into the cavity, wiped his tunic sleeve across the wet, and was satisfied that the mark was less obvious. He hated the rifle, designated AK-47, Avtomat Kalashnikova, its last five digits of the serial 16751, with the magazine attached to its slot and filled with 7.62 x 39 grain ammunition. Hated it.

  They marched off the parade area and into the maize fields and were told to run, and jogged in new attack formations through the sun-blessed crops, and the tanks ahead were beginning to roll forward and there was smoke, and flares arced in the sky, and quite soon the crackle of gunfire surrounded the conscript. He hated his rifle for the beating he had taken from the sergeant, but felt the power of the beast when it thudded against his shoulder, the scar on the stock against his cheek, pricking the skin and making his face bleed.

  He charged, as they all did, and felt now that he was indestructible because of the weapon in his fist, hated it, but realised its power, and ran and felt no exhaustion and chased after the tanks. But hated it because of what had been done to him – and had never before felt hatred so strong.

  The girl was the last off the train.

  She looked around her, scanning for faces that she might recognise, or those of anyone who might indicate they knew her. It was dusk and the rain spat and none of the other passengers getting off at the small station of Dewsbury hung around. The line was the main link between what politicians, local and far away in London, liked to call the ‘twin powerhouses of the north’ Manchester and Leeds. This halt was east of the Pennine spine of hills and wilderness. Its industries had curled over and died, and anyone anxious for work and a distant promise of prosperity took the train out each morning and came back each evening. The girl was a student, second year Social Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University. She allowed the platform to clear, the passengers either using the exit on that side of the twin tracks or taking the lift up to the bridge that crossed over to the main part of the station, where she was heading and where there were female toilets. This was her home town; she had come for a fleeting visit to her parents. She had been careful on the train, had seen nobody familiar, was satisfied that she was not recognised on the platform. The train had left, the platform was empty, and the lift returned for her alone. She wore jeans with regulation frayed tears at the knees and with the colour washed out of the thighs, and lightweight trainers, and a sweater hanging loose over a T-shirt and an anorak that enveloped her, and her hair straggled out from under a toggle hat. Slung on one shoulder was a rucksack. In the privacy of the lift, she ran her tongue hard over her lips, worked it hard enough to remove most of the thin trace of lipstick. She was ‘Zed’ to her boyfriend, Zeinab to her tutors and to her parents, and was in her 23rd year. There was a sort of deal: she came home regularly and, in return, her mother and father, her uncles and aunts and her cousins, did not come over the moorland to Manchester to visit her. They did not and would not know of the new life enveloping her when she was away from the rigid, devout, disciplined life in the quarter of Dewsbury where she had been reared. She went into the toilet, took a cubicle, locked herself inside.

  Her jeans and trainers and sweater and T-shirt came off, and she barely took the time to feel the cold: one stifled shiver only. She opened the rucksack, and took out a black jilbab, heaved it up over her head, wriggled her arms into it, and felt it slide down over her skin, and the cold seemed to snatch her again. All that she had discarded was screwed up and stuffed into the bottom of the r
ucksack. The outer door opened. A woman coughed, announcing her arrival. Next on was the niqab. She flushed the toilet and checked the floor, hoisted the rucksack, and unlocked the door. A white-skinned woman with bottle-blonde hair and a rolling stomach and tight multi-coloured trousers gave her a look of withering contempt, and the mutual contempt she felt for this sad creature was hidden because only her eyes could be seen through the niqab’s eye slit. Even if provoked, the girl would not have risen to a challenge. It had been drilled into her by those who now shaped her life that she should not indulge the temptation to retaliate. She ducked her head, a servile gesture, and left the toilet, walked across the platform, gave her ticket to the machine, and went out into the dark.

  She was from the Savile Town district, lived in the shadow of the Merkazi mosque, was a former pupil of the Madni Muslim High School for Girls on Scarborough Street, and her father made a minimal living doing car repairs – increasingly hard with the new electronic functions – and her mother stayed at home and had few relations and fewer friends. Zeinab was their only child, had been pushed by her teachers as a possible university entrant (the school benefited from such an accolade) and others, also, had urged that route on her. She went down the hill into the town and past the Poundland Store and the businesses offering Big Discounts, and the lights blazed to welcome late shoppers.