The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan Read Free Book Online Page B

about Scullion and the regiment. ‘And this major’s a total fucking mentalist,’ he said.
‘What’s mental about him?’ asked the lance corporal beside him.
‘Brutal cunt, Mark. He’s about forty-eight. He fought in every fucking battle you can think of since the Falklands. Bosnia, the lot. I’m talking about Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone.’
People change, thought Luke. The world changes. Maybe he’s just not the person he was any more. Maybe he’s sick. He thought carefully as he listened to the Scottish men. Just as likely it’s me that’s sick. It’s me that can’t stand the pace. The major is probably as committed as he ever was and it’s me that’s changed my mind. Every soldier has his ups and downs, don’t they? Every soldier. Maybe Scullion’s just going through a badpatch in his personal life, like he said, and it’s nothing more, except in your own head, Luke.
‘Iraq? He fought in Iraq?’ asked Mark.
‘Obviously. He was a big man in Basra. Is that when you joined up?’
‘Aye. In 2003.’
‘Right. Well: Scullion. Jesus fuck. He would lift a bazooka to swat a fly.’
‘Cool,’ Mark said. ‘You’ve got to have your team.’ Luke thought there was something familiar about the young lance corporal, but he didn’t say anything and just listened.
‘Aye, well. Scullion certainly knows his team. And he gave the IRA a right shoeing as well. A brutal cunt is what they say. Republicans, Republican Guard: he wiped half of them before they could even get their sandshoes on. Did the whole thing on expensive whisky and a raging fucken hard-on for modern warfare. Knows everything. Goes into battle with a book in his hand. A brainbox. Like Tim Collins, man. I’m talking supersoldier and I’m not kidding on. Goes hard. Could melt a platoon without trying. Half of the pikeys in here would surrender to his fucken verbals alone.’
‘Easy, boys,’ Luke said from behind.
‘What the fuck …’
‘Shut yer cake-hole. Captain Campbell here. Yer in mixed company, boys.’ The lance corporal turned when he heard the Scottish accent, but then he put his eyes front.
‘You tell them, sir,’ said Private Lennox, squeezing into the back row and stealing the captain’s roll-up from behind his ear. ‘Fucken Aquafresh sitting there. A tube wi’ three stripes.’ Dooley said it loud enough for the staff sergeant to hear.
‘That’s enough,’ Luke said. They all enjoyed a bit ofinter-regimental strife, but he wanted to get back in focus.
There was a lot of noise in the hall and every soldier was hungry to get past the mountains and do some damage. Dooley, Flannigan and Lennox kept close to the captain, but he wasn’t paying much attention to them. He was busy waiting for Scullion to come through the door, looking for signs that the major was under control.
When Scullion came in Luke saw Rashid behind him. Jamal Rashid was a good soldier in the Afghan army, a captain in fact, and he had emerged during training at Camp Bastion as a future military leader and an effective speaker of English. He had an eyepatch and it made him seem very distinguished to Scullion. The Afghan captain was a one-man justification for the surge: ‘Look,’ they said, ‘look at him; in ten years’ time the country will be filled with Rashids.’
He was always with Scullion that summer and it sometimes appeared that Scullion’s last great push was to show Rashid the old arts. Only Luke knew how tough that must have been. Scullion had scars in places nobody would ever see and he wasn’t sleeping. He was falling apart. Looking from the back row, the captain remembered a night two years before, a night he spent with the major and a bottle of Bushmills. Scullion had spoken of a terrible thing that had happened in Bosnia. A squaddie had his face torn off by a sniper in Vitez in 1993, right next to the major, who had been friends with the young man. But all that stuff had taken its toll. Luke remembered how the major loved the old