Read by Sean Patterson
It’s hot. My arms are hot, my legs are hot, my chest is hot. But my head. My head is so hot. It’s going to fucking explode. The sweat. The sweat pours out my helmet. Can’t take it off. Orders. IED’s.
The radio is in the helmet. The headset is underneath the helmet. Twice as hot. For fucksake.
“Hello India ten. This is Zero.”
“Hello Zero India Ten A. Over.”
“Scorpion Over.”
“Roger Zero India Ten Out.”
And Scorpion is just a shack. It’s just a fucking shack. So we have to hang around this fucking shack and they’re staring at us, could be fucking anyone, and there’s no shade and they’re looking at us sideways and so I turn off the catch and it carries on, us looking at them and them looking at us, until some sergeant turns up in a Bedford and says there’s DBs behind the shack and we’re to fill up the Bedford with DBs and take them back to HQ. And we have to do it in full CBA.
Why can't we use our own DBs?
But the sergeant says there’s a back up at the ports. There’s always there a back up at the ports for fucksake. I must have a fucking waterfall coming out my head now.
Crack.
Down flat. Spin round SA. Jack radios. Nothing doing. Nothing doing at all. Loose fire. Probably just a kid fucking around. Tells us to carry on. Then he smokes a fag. Like he’s really watching our fucking arses.
Finally all the DBs are on the Bedford and the sergeant drives it off with a Warrior escort. The DBs get a Warrior. All we get is a Landy, an armoured fucking Landy. And then we get back and I take my helmet off and its full of piss sweat like a washbasin at the fucking local.
**
Two nights later a couple of mortars fly over the perimeter and cos there’s not enough DBs to fill up all the windows one of the squaddies gets shrapnel when he’s lying on his bunk. The Warrior is soon out of the front gate and sticks a couple of HE into the sand bar and it just gets flattened and that’s the end of the mortars but because of the squaddie the CO says we need more DBs. More fucking DBs.
Of course we ain’t got any more DBs cos we nicked all the local ones in fucking town so two days later these Chinooks appear and they end up chucking them out the back with chutes on.
So we’re all staring through the sun at these DBs floating high above our heads but they don’t land where they’re meant to and they get carried into the no mans land outside the perimeter. Right on the fucking driveway. And our section gets tasked to fucking get them.
So it’s zero five hundred zulu and it’s fucking hot like a fucking fried egg but we’ve got CBA and helmets and the Jack says he's giving me the radio. Which he knows is against fucking regs but he just tosses me the passes from O group. Makes out it’s cos he suffers from heat and can’t cope with it. Yeh like I’m a snowman I say as I strap the thing on under the helmet.
And then a four tonner rolls up with a Warrior escort and we climb in the back and before you know it we’re out through the gates and in frigging nowhere. You think they could have found a fucking digger but no it’s me and the rest of the boys fucking around in no mans land in full CBA tossing DBs onto the back of the four tonner. And of course there’s fucking hundreds of fucking DBs. Most are still wrapped up in their webbing but the rest have spilt out and scattered all over the fucking place.
This radio is hot. My head is so fucking hot.
You can tell these DBs are from back home. They’re small but puffier. More fat. And they’ve got all the pieces together. I can just about carry three in my arms and the sweat splashes off their bellies.
While I stagger under the weight some prick is playing music on the radio.
“Hush little baby don’t you cry, every little things going to be alright.”
I look around but everyone else is just scattering for the DBs and want to get the fuck out of there before some rag starts picking them off.
“Hush little baby don’t say a word. Mamas going to buy you a mockingbird.” I drop the DB’s and they make a cracking sound.
“India to zero,”
“Zero receiving over”.
I press the headpiece to my ear and sweat trickles down my cheek.
“Zero Can you get that…”
I stop myself.
“… music off the network. It’s interfering with reception. Over.”
“What music over?”
What fucking game are they playing? I don’t bother to fucking sign off and pick up the DBs and the crack and whizz of small arms goes past my head. Down flat. Crawl behind the nearest pile of DBs and use it as cover. I hear the lid of the Warrior slam shut and the turret make a whirring sound as it spins round.
“Zero to India. Status.”
“India. Small arms fire one o clock. Apartment block. Two floor.” And at the same time I’m fumbling for the SA and sweats dripping down my fingers slipping round the safety and I balance it over a net of DBs and fire it blindly.
“And if that Mockingbird don’t sing papas going to buy you a diamond ring.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“India say again over.”
The bullets are whipping all over us and some are ramming into the DBs and make a wet thump and a squelch and bits of their skulls and bellies are being blown and I have to wipe the scum from my face so I can sight.
“And if that diamond ring turns brass. Mamas going to buy you a looking glass.”
“India say again over.”
For fucksake. I duck down behind the DBs, knock off my helmet and throw away the radio. Then I stick the helmet back on and try to take aim where everyone is shooting and the Warrior is giving it some on the second floor.
“And if that looking glass gets broke Mamas going to buy you a Billy Goat”
One of the DBs in front of me has opened its eyes and is moving its mouth, even though it’s piled under three or four DBs, one on top of the other.
I turn round to see if anyone else has seen this shit but everybody else is emptying their magazines into the one o clock.
“You ignorant Grunt. Who the fuck do you think you are?” says the DB.
And then there's this other voice, like a woman’s voice. “And if that Billy Goat don’t pull, Mamas going to buy you a horse and mule.”
I look behind me and another Warrior is screaming in from the compound.
“Yeah you fuck face. I’m talking to you.”
I turn back and wipe blood and sweat from my cheek.
“Aren’t you meant to be fucking dead?” I say, “You’re a fucking DB after all.”
“You never heard of the afterlife?”
“I don’t believe in fucking god.”
“The word is still in the fucking dictionary.”
“What are you saying?”
“Existence, fuckface, precedes essence.”
“What are you? Some kind of fucking talking ponce?”
“I’m a fucking DB and a fucking talking DB at that so I’m entitled to hold a fucking opinion. Fuckface.”
“I’m in the middle of a fucking firefight,” I say, “So shut the fuck up.”
Bullets kick blood from the top row of DBs. Goes right in my eye and I swipe it out with the heel of my hand and grab another magazine.
“Let’s for one moment assume fucking existence precedes fucking essence,” says the DB.
“I don’t give a shit what you think. Shut the fuck up.”
“We fucking exist and then we develop a fucking self. So, yeah fuckface, there is no fucking god.”
I let off a few rounds where I think everyone else is firing. All can I see is the shadows in the broken windows.
“For christsake, will you shut the fuck up.”
“But that's just fucking shit I reckon because we don’t really fucking understand what’s going on. Faith is frigging doubt. Cos no fucker can prove god does or doesn’t exist. That’s Kierkegaard see. He’s fucking alright he is.”
“Yeh Kierkegaard fucking rocks.”
That’s another fucking DB. One fucking DB is talking to the other fucking DB like its Aristotle’s fucking dinner party.
“And if that billy goat don’t pull, mamas going to buy a you a cart and bull.”
There’s a duststorm from the firefight like the ground is fucking spitting.
“And if essence left fucking existence at the point of death, if it can fucking leave then why can’t it fucking come back, sucked in for one last fucking hallelujah like the suction in a broken fucking lightbulb. So what’s your perspective? You fucking grunt. You fucking squaddie. It’s your fucking opinion and you are fucking free to make it.”
“Yeh tell it like it fucking is.” Says the other DB, its face squashed down by the other DBs so it has to speak out the side of its mouth.
I wipe away the blood below my eyes and then I fit my bayonet. “I’m just trying,” I say, “to do a fucking job. And do you know how fucking hard that is? Have you got any fucking idea?”
“You haven’t answered the fucking question.”
“Like the boy says, you haven’t answered the fucking question, “ says the other one. “You’ve just given us another fucking question. What are you some kind of fucking dialectic?”
So I get to my feet and I ram my bayonet into the belly of the DB and twist it.
“That’s not a fucking dialectic either,” it says and I twist and fling it over the stacks of DBs and into the line of fire.
“You still haven’t answered my fucking question?” Says the first DB. “Do you feel we have a noble fucking purpose beyond this noble fucking world or are we all just fucking inanimate beings on some kind of conveyor into a hole in the fucking ground.” I lunge into that one too and sling it over the top.
"And if that Cart and Horse falls down, you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.”
And then the Warrior lets fly with an HE and it whacks straight into the apartment block and there’s an explosion that makes my ears pop and half the fucking house falls down and I think its all fucking over. But the rest of the section are telling me to get the fuck down and the Jack is pointing at a sandbeam one click north. There’s a mortar pointing over the top and I can see the smoke as it fires and I know its fucking coming my way and I don’t think about the future cos there is none and I don’t think about the past cos its gone and all I have left is this moment right fucking now and it’s not enough.
---
Hot by Jet McDonald was read by Sean Patterson at the Liars' League Might & Right event on Tuesday November 2011 at the Phoenix, Cavendish Square, London.
Jet McDonald's debut novel Automatic Safe Dog, about furniture made out of living dogs, is published by Eibonvale Press. His writing has been published in The Idler and he is a regular columnist for Boneshaker magazine. He has told his tales all over the country in clubs, pubs, boats and lighthouses. He runs "Folk Tales" a much loved storytelling and music night in Bristol and writes songs and perfoms in the "clattery folk pop" band The Woodlice. www.jetmcdonald.com
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