'Think about it. We rely on people like you to pedal the justice system forward, but don't expect thanks for your efforts.'
'But you — you as well, Mr Banks — you're a man of substance.'
'Am I? Haven't heard anybody say so.'
'Stands to reason, you have to be.'
'I doubt it.'
'Wrong…Wrong because of what's on your belt. Wrong because of that oil smear on your shirt. That's trust, isn't it? Is it loaded?'
Banks hesitated. He sensed they were off territory. The way he sat, the tip of the holster dug into the flesh of his upper thigh. He saw mischief dance in the eyes in front of him. Could have retreated, should have backed off…He shrugged. 'Not much point in having the thing if it goes to Condition Black, but you have to hold up your hand. "Can we please have a break while I go to the car and load up?" It's loaded, and I carry replacement magazines. Each morning, though, I clear the bullets out and reload them. If you don't, if you leave them there for a few days, a week, you can get a jam. Condition Black is an imminent and real threat, and I just have to flick the safety. That's all.'
'When would you do it — shoot?' More of the mischief, more of the sparkle, and Wright had pushed away his plate and was hunched forward, as if the talk was their conspiracy and not to be shared.
'If my life was in danger.'
'That's good — your life. Brilliant, I'm so reassured.'
Banks said, 'I don't remember if I said it to you — if I didn't I should have. We aren't bullet-catchers. We don't stand in front of Principals and make heroic sacrifices and end up a bloody paraplegic with a thirty-eight-calibre slug lodged in the spine. We do realistic assessments of threat and we evaluate our resources, and we have as our Bible the theory that the bad guy cannot get close enough. It's about as far as it goes.'
Maybe he was mocked. 'You're telling me that it's not John Wayne, life ebbing, in the dirt of Dodge City, the lady's arms cushioning his head, violins going on full scrape, and the smallholders saved from the wicked rancher — not that?'
He grimaced. They were areas he had never discussed before with a Principal. Should have closed his mouth, should have stood up and walked away.
'I've never fired for real. No one I've worked with has ever fired for real. You have a microsecond to decide what to do, that's the training…but it's only training. If you shoot, your life will be destroyed, and I don't mean if you've taken the wrong option. I met an officer on an exercise, and he'd done it, had fired and slotted a gangster, and that gangster had a firearm in his hand and had already used it. Double tap and the gangster's down, dead, but it took two years for the process of investigation formally to clear the officer so he could go armed again. Two bloody years of his life and he was entirely justified in what he'd done. And if he hadn't been justified he would have faced a charge of murder. There's a post-shooting incident procedure, the inquest into what's happened, and the officer will get no sympathy, no support, from his seniors, and every moment of the confrontation leading up to the weapon discharge will be picked over, vultures at carrion, by Complaints and Discipline. Does that answer you?'
'Tells me what to expect.' Wright chuckled. 'Tells me to stay in bed tomorrow morning.'
'You'll be all right.' He pulled the wry look. 'It never happens. We pretend it's going to, and simulate it, but it doesn't.'
'Could you? It's not to disable, is it, it's to kill? Mr Banks, could you shoot?'
'When it happens I'll answer you — hasn't this gone far enough?'
'Am I keeping you? Come on. It can't just be training, it has to be in the mind. Wouldn't be in mine. Look into a man's face, over the sights, might be a pleasant face, or a scared face, even if he's a threat, then do judge and executioner. Not me. Don't have the certainty or the guts.'
'You're being trumpeted as the hero, Mr Wright.'
'Probably you didn't do Shakespeare's Othello at school. A very bizarre line, "I am not what I am," whatever it means. My question was, could you earn your corn, could you shoot to kill?'
'I don't know.'
'That's not a very good answer.'
'Try this one. There are some who say I couldn't,' Banks blurted. 'It's what was said. A team said it.'
No more mischief, and the sparkle was gone. A frown cut Wright's forehead. 'Is that the truth? Your own people said it? Said you couldn't shoot to kill? But that's your bloody job…means they think you're useless.'
'Why I'm here, why I drew this fucking straw, the short one.'
He stood up. Should have done so a quarter-hour before, and could have.
Banks said, 'My apologies if I've destroyed your confidence in me, Mr Wright. It's about someone I never met, never knew…about somewhere I've never been…It is why lam categorized as useless, and about why I could be spared from a state of alert in London — reckoned not able to do it — and be here with you. Goodnight.'
The notebook flapped in his pocket. He walked briskly — having made an idiot of epic proportions of himself — across the room. He passed a rubbish bin as he threw open the door. Should have, could have, dumped the notebook.
12 November 1937
We are in the second line, not the forward line. A blizzard is blowing again, again. The 'bunker' lam in, dear Enid, is an old shell-hole over which there are two wood doors that we liberated from a farmhouse. It was a big decision, last week, whether we could spare the two doors and use them as roofing, or whether we should burn them. Anything we can burn, other than the two doors, has now been used for warmth. The cold is awful. A local man told us two days ago that this was the worst winter in his memory, and he was an old man. The snow is thick over the forward line and our line, and we have not been brought food from the rear today or yesterday. The cold is so bitter and there is no more wood to heat us…In this cold we cannot fight — nor can the enemy. Their artillery guns are quiet and their aircraft cannot fly. The new enemy is the cold, the snow and the ice.
It is not only nature that is cold, but also God's heart.
Ten days ago my friend, my best friend, Ralph, was taken out of the line on a litter: dire sickness had weakened him. He could not stand. Even the commissar accepted he was no longer fit enough to stand sentry.
Today I heard from a medical orderly that Ralph had died.
It was told me so casually. Ralph had died in afield hospital. The cause of death was pleurisy. By now he will have been buried, but the orderly did not know where and could not tell me what service, if any, was held at his grave. I feel an emptiness. Ralph has abandoned me, God has deserted me.
I do not believe I will ever have another friend.
I am alone. It is not possible to leave. If I could I would. All our papers are taken from us, and without documentation, a man, a foreign volunteer, cannot pass through the checkpoints of the SIM — that is, dear Enid, the Servicio de Investigacion Militar — because I would be arrested and shot: I will die here properly, with any dignity I can find, not as a trussed chicken at a post and blindfolded…and I cannot leave, with the fight not done, my friends behind in unmarked graves. I stay close to Daniel and Ralph.
The candle I write by is near finished.
I have only the darkness, the cold and the despair.
All that is left me is my pride — and the memory of my folly. But I cling to that pride because nothing else is left for me but the Psalm's words:
By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept When we remembered Zion…
How can we sing the songs of the Lord
While in a foreign land?
Goodnight, dear Enid.
'Of course, it's different when you're operating abroad, far away, on foreign territory. No Queensberry rules there. No monitors watching over you, and no human-rights pinkos. You do your job…You go in after your target, fair means or foul, and all that matters is that the target is captured and handed over, or it's his hand or head that gets brought back…Has to be something, or you won't get the bounty payment. Did I ever tell you what the rates were for bounty on a Taliban guy in Ghazni Province?'