Street Soldier (7 page)

‘No. Fucking. Way. You’re joking.’

Sean was sitting with Copper over dinner and the conversation wasn’t going well.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m proper serious.’

Copper stopped eating, chucked his cutlery down on his tray. The knife landed in a puddle of congealing gravy. He didn’t seem to care. ‘You can’t be,’ he said. ‘You hear me?’

‘Well, I am,’ Sean replied.

Copper shook his head, pointed a thick finger at him. ‘Nah, you’re not listening to me, Seany. You can’t be
serious. It’s a statement, right? It’s me telling you. So you’d better listen.’

Sean stopped eating, eased himself back on his seat, just far enough to be out of Copper’s range. He didn’t like the dark look in those eyes. ‘It’s got nothing to do with you,’ he said. ‘It’s my life and my decision.’

Copper lowered his pointing finger, but not his stare. ‘So you want to join the army.’

‘Didn’t say I wanted to. Just said I was thinking of it.’

It had just been there, in his head, when he woke up. He had opened his eyes and looked at the grey wall of the cell, and then there was an explosion in his brain.

It doesn’t have to be like this.

He had a way out, if he wanted to take it. It was like all the physical punishment in the gym had torn something open inside him. He was thinking thoughts he would never have dared think before.

‘Because what? You think that’ll solve all your problems? Is that it?’

‘It’d beat ending up back in here,’ Sean said. ‘And if I go back to what we both know, then that’s what’d happen. I could do it. I could do it easy. I’ve got my community service after this. I can do my entrance tests while I’m doing that, then go in as soon as all this shit is over. It’s a no-brainer.’

Copper laughed. It was not a sound Sean enjoyed. It had teeth and claws.

‘The only no-brainer here is you, you pussy. Where’s your loyalty? What about everyone else? Your friends? Think this is what Gaz would want?’

Bringing Gaz into it made Sean want to plant one right in the middle of Copper’s large, angry face.

Gaz wanted to be dead. That’s what Gaz wanted.

‘And what about Matt? Look. Three weeks’ time, I’m out of this place. You want me to go back to Matt and tell him
this
? You’ll break that guy’s heart, all he’s done for you!’

‘Didn’t say I was going to,’ Sean repeated, forcing himself to be calm. ‘Just said I was thinking of it. Can’t a guy think? And anyway, my friends is my friends, always will be. It’s not like I’d turn snitch or anything like that. Give me some credit, bro.’ He pulled his sleeve up to show his Guyz tattoo. Just like Adams had shown him his. ‘I’ve got this and always will have.’

‘Seany,’ said Copper. ‘Mate. Dude.’ He took a breath. ‘Bro. You join up, you’re out – you know that, right?’

Sean stared. ‘Why?’

Copper leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. ‘You only get one family in life and it’s the one you’re born with. Us. Me. Matt. Against the foreigners.’

Sean looked blankly at him. ‘What foreigners?’

‘Oh, fer Chrissake. Haven’t you noticed? There’s foreigners moving in, Seany! Used to be you could walk one end of Littern Mills to the other and only see familiar faces. Now you can’t step outside your flat. New people, taking over. Like that lot.’

He nodded over at the crowd of East Europeans who hung together in one corner of the canteen. Sean hadn’t mixed much with them, but he respected them. They showed up at every class that Burnleigh offered and would be leaving here considerably better educated than him.

Sean shrugged. ‘Everyone’s new somewhere, once. Shit, my mum works in Lakhani’s shop. He came here when he was a kid but he’s lived here all his life. So, you calling him a foreigner?’

‘Missing the point, Seany. Missing the point.’ Copper gave a big theatrical sigh and a shake of the head. ‘And speaking of your mum, what about her, then?’

Sean’s eyes narrowed. ‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’

‘If you’re out, who will look out for her?’

‘I will, you bastard. Me. Her son.’

Copper shook his head. ‘I’m just telling you how it is, Seany. If you’re not around, if you’re not in with the rest of us – she’ll be on her own, right?’

Sean gripped the table to stop himself jumping across
it. ‘I’ll keep her right,’ he said. ‘And if anyone lays a hand on her . . .’

Copper stood up. ‘You won’t be able to stop them, will you, Seany, if you’re off playing soldiers? And if you’re not rolling with us . . . I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop them either.’

‘Right!’ Sergeant Adams’s voice echoed in the gym. He thumped one fist into the other. ‘This is a controlled aggression exercise.’

The lads were sitting on benches set in a square the size of a boxing ring. Sean was standing in one corner, his gut twisting itself into knots, focusing on not being sick. In the opposite corner stood Copper.

It had been two weeks, and Sean didn’t know if he was more surprised that he was still in the cadets, or that he was still alive. The fitness training was brutal, with the sergeant and the two corporals pushing him and the others beyond what any of them thought possible. Word was spreading. A few other lads had accepted Adams’s invitation to join in – and Copper was one of them.

‘The fuck?’ That had been Sean’s involuntary reaction when he saw Copper’s bulk straining against his gym kit, standing in line with the rest of them. He had mostly succeeded in avoiding Copper since their argument in
the canteen, and with only a week to go before Copper’s sentence was up, Sean had been hoping he could make it all the way through without any more encounters.

Copper had winked. ‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on you, Seany.’

Now Copper was smiling. It didn’t make Sean feel any better about what was about to go down. They were both wearing boxing gloves. Sean was surprised by just how heavy they were. They seemed to drag his hands towards the ground.

Adams continued to brief them.

‘As soldiers, you need to be able to manage your ability to draw on something that most people cannot comprehend – to switch from calm to mental in a beat.’

Sean noticed Copper’s grin get even wider.
Fuck
, he thought,
the big bastard is going to kill me . . .

‘You have a minute in the ring with your opponent. It is not a question of winning or losing. Instead, this is about not quitting. You get knocked down, you get back up and pile in. You get smashed on the nose, you retaliate, harder. Best defence is attack. You will be nervous. You will get hurt. But it’s just sixty seconds. Get in there and fight. That’s all there is to it.’

Sean took a slow, deep breath. The sergeant’s pep talk had done nothing to make him feel any better.

‘Ready?’ Adams asked.

Sean nodded. Copper nodded. Of the two of them, only Copper was smiling. The sergeant bumped his fists gently together as a sign. Sean held out his gloves; Copper knocked his own gloves against them. Technically it was the same as shaking hands, but the gleam in Copper’s eye was still there.

‘When I give the word, you fight,’ said Adams. ‘Fists only. No biting, kicking, head-butting; if your man goes down, you let him get up again. Keep it clean, above the belt. And just keep going.’

He stepped back. ‘
Fight!
’

Copper was into him like a freight train, and Sean was barely able to get his hands up in time to block the attack. He fell back, dodging as best he could, arms in front of his face for protection. Copper was relentless. Sean knew the rest of the lads were cheering them both on, but he couldn’t hear them. The only sound he was aware of was
thud-thud-thud
, Copper’s fists pummelling into his arms. He had to do something, but what? He’d been in fights, but most times it was little more than a quick exchange of blows, then a lot of running away. Here, there was no escape.

Copper kept going, his fists arcing in left and right, left and right, always aiming for the face, giving Sean no opportunity to drop his guard. And that was how Sean saw his chance. There was no variety to Copper’s attack.
It was just all in, no change of target or punch. No jabs, no crosses, just
bang-bang-bang
.

Sean ducked his head, and Copper’s swing from the left went wide, exposing his side. It wasn’t much, but it was enough, and Sean was in. He drove his right fist hard into Copper’s ribs. Copper gasped and the steady rain of blows faltered. For the first time he moved his arms to protect himself, instead of just attacking, but he had worn himself out and he was slow. All Sean had done so far was protect his skull, and he was still fresh. So he pressed home with his attack, hammering in with another heavy crunch to the ribs. Copper woke up just enough to change what he was doing, but his shot went wide again, a right jab that just scraped Sean’s forehead. Sean stepped in, thumped a hammer blow to Copper’s stomach, then another. He kept himself coiled up, then launched an uppercut to Copper’s jaw. It connected. Copper went down hard.

The sergeant blew his whistle and Sean heard something he had never expected to hear. Lads around him actually applauding and cheering his name.

‘
Hark-er!
Hark-er!
’

The corporals were attending to Copper, who was struggling to sit up.

Adams took hold of Sean’s wrist and held it out to Copper. ‘Shake, Mulroy.’

Copper looked up, dazed. The sergeant shrugged, and picked up one of his gloved hands. He bumped it against Sean’s. ‘There. No hard feelings.’

Yeah, like fuck
, Sean thought as Adams led him over to his corner.

‘Thought he was going to kill you,’ the sergeant said, removing Sean’s first glove. ‘But when you finally switched on to what was happening, you did seriously well.’

‘I was just trying to stay alive.’

‘Of course.’ He began to unlace Sean’s other glove. ‘But whether you realize it or not, you read the situation and you only attacked when you saw an opportunity. You took the fight back to your attacker, and you turned what he was doing against him.’

Sean said nothing.

‘God help me, I see a soldier in you,’ said the sergeant. He rapped Sean gently on the forehead with his knuckles. ‘Potential for one, anyway.’

The second glove was off. All Sean wanted to do was sit and ignore just how sore everything felt.

He looked over at Copper, who was finally sitting up, bruised face bowed, resting his arms on his knees. ‘OK to talk to him?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’

The corporals had got Copper’s gloves off and had
moved on to the next pair scheduled to fight. Sean went over and crouched down in front of his opponent.

Copper looked at him with dazed, puzzled eyes. ‘Fuck me, Seany.’ His face was serious. ‘Where did that come from? I figured smashing you up would be easy.’

‘I’m joining up.’ Sean looked him straight in the eye as he spoke. ‘And you can tell the Guyz that if anyone,
anyone
, even
thinks
of laying a finger on my mum – I’ll do to them what I just did to you.’ He tapped Copper gently on the head, the way Adams had done to him, and grinned. ‘Bro.’

Chapter 7

The Warrior roared and shook as it thrust its way over rutted heathland. Sweat trickled down Sean’s face beneath his helmet, and the webbing of his battle kit cut into his body with every lurch. The only consolation was that the seven other soldiers he was crammed in with, all fully kitted up in light greens and browns – the multi-terrain pattern of No. 8 Temperate Combat Dress – would be feeling the same.

The Warrior wasn’t built for finesse. It looked like a small tank, hurtling forward on its tracks at speeds that stopped just short of shaking its human cargo to bits. The driver, Tommy Penfold, seemed convinced that he was the very image of an action hero and was obviously doing his best to find every pothole and rut in their way.

Sean loved the machine. It looked angry from every angle. Its heavy armour was surrounded on all sides by protective grilles, like an animal carrying its own
cage – one that was going to break out at any moment to chew you up into small, gristly pieces. It had the fire-power to do it too, and that didn’t just include the heavily armed and seriously well-trained bastards inside. On the outside, it was armed with a 30mm autocannon, a 7.62mm chain gun, and anti-tank rockets.

But it was hot inside and it wasn’t padded. The sweat mingled with the camo paint that clogged up Sean’s skin. He felt like a chicken roasting in an atmosphere of engine fumes, dust and sweat, and his bones rattled with every bump and dip of the vehicle. He was only carrying battle kit, enough to get him through twenty-four hours of fighting, rather than a full Bergen, which would keep him going for about three days, but it wasn’t designed for sitting down in. No position seemed comfortable.

And Sean had never been happier.

It was a muggy August day outside – almost a year since he had finished the community part of his sentence. He had been allowed to work for some basic qualifications while that was going on. He had bagged a first-aid certificate, and a few others on field craft and drill, and he had nailed the army’s fitness requirements. He could never have imagined that Gaz’s death, which had driven him into the gym that day, would change the course of his life so totally. Hard work had got him a life, pay, mates. For the first time ever he had plans that extended
beyond the next time he could get a car, get wasted, get laid – ideally all on the same evening.

After his parole Sean had done his six-month Combat Infantryman’s Course at Catterick, in Yorkshire, his first time beyond the M25. Then he had been posted with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, part of the 1st Armoured Infantry Brigade, based in Tidworth, on Salisbury Plain. The Fusiliers used the Warriors, and that was what had sold the regiment to him.

The time he had spent inside felt like years ago – a different life led by a different person.

He looked across at the soldier opposite him. Toni Clark. She winked at him from beneath the rim of her helmet and he smiled back. Like him, she had the tactical recognition flash of the Fusiliers on her sleeves: a square divided into two triangles, blood red on top and mustard yellow underneath.