The Weight Upstairs

Cafe latte.


You need to remember that.


Do you know how difficult it is to watch daytime tv? I really hadn't realised how mind numbingly awful it is. Mind numbing, which should be good for me of course but the drugs I'm on handle that quite well. Diagnosis: Boredom. Boredom, She Wrote. Boredom In The Attic. Even Monty, my cat, was bored. And it takes a lot to bore him. Although, having said that, he did perk up at Jeremy Kyle. I think he sensed food or cat litter. Possibly both.


So where did we get up to, children? Oh yes. Capn Harry had done a very bad thing to a man in a newsagents and a small cadre of police officers (sorry guys if you're reading...incidentally you really need to work on your martial skills if you don't mind me saying so) and had met a very strange (he won't mind me calling him that - in fact he'll take it as a compliment) Lieutenant General Bray. Connor Bray for you MOD types currently following (bless your hearts). And the nice Bray runs a very special place or says he does at least. The jury's still out on that one but he has invited me to stay at this special place for a bit until I get my head sorted.


Initially I didn't trust him. Would you? A man you've never met before gives hits you up with a bunch of custom made military strength drugs (I don't care what you think, they were AWESOME!) while you're strapped to a trolley in the local nick listening to a drunk next door howl at the moon and the police and society and is too stupid to realise its being lonely that is killing him. But I digress. you just wouldn't trust a man like that but I did. I don't remember much after that. Its all foggy anyway. I remember the drunk and Bray coming into the cell and getting really pissed off with someone. I don't remember getting there. But I do remember waking up in bed with Bray passed out next to me.


We had a chat. Basically, he's a doctor or something medical or has some medical training but I think, more importantly, he has the weight upstairs. He's got someones ear. He's got something over somebody. He - has - a - secret! I think, anyway.


So I was effectively placed under house arrest. Not to leave the house for three days and three nights. In return, no charges, no drama. Which more importantly means no Monkey's and therefore no Glasshouse. I wonder, though, whether Bray will hold this over me. One thing I've learned in the forces, its all about the favours. Well, let's forget about that for now. Back to me sitting in front of the TV for three damn days.


I worked out. It was good to do some work. When I moved off base, I converted my spare bedroom into a training room. Punch bag, chin up bar, weights, bench - its not exactly Lloyds but its better than nothing. So I stuck The Prodigy on my headphones and started getting back into some kind of shape.


It's weird. I feel so much better having started hitting the exercises, giving myself some goals, getting back to me. I feel bad about what happened in the newsagent and with the cops. But I'm not going to lie to you. It felt really good to be kicking out. I guess it gave me a release. All the confusion and frustration of the last couple of months and I unloaded all over the local constabulary. I'm really sorry guys! But hey, if six of you can't take down a wee little girl like me then you're slipping. Oh, and whichever one of you it was that tasered me that first time - I will be coming to find you and give you a little lesson in military close combat discipline. Having said that, it was wrong of me to take it out on you. I don't even remember it and noooo I wasn't drunk. I wish I had been. Clearly my mental issues are still somewhat of a problem but getting physical helps so I was going through some reps and getting some running done on the treadmill. It felt good again.


I always was your stereotypical tomboy. I was always fighting with boys twice my size (and kicking their sorry asses!) I was always running. Always moving. Too much energy. That's not the only reason I joined the Army. It certainly helped my mother's sanity but the real reason was.....na'ah. Maybe later.


And the cat is getting more bored except for wanting to use Jeremy Kyle as a litter tray which quite frankly I think most sane people do. He is after all a living piece of human excrement. And I fought for him. Actually put mine and my units lives on the line so that he could spout that shit and his guests could fail to realise its being poor that's killing them.

I wouldn't survive if I was ever held captive. Three days inside, the cat was ready to kill me and I could barely keep my head together. That was in my own home. I went to the front door six or seven times, terrified to open it, expecting to see the outline shape of a copper or a Monkey walking up the path. That sinking stomach that pulls all the way up to your throat. Then the knock. Boom! Boom! Boom!

Screw it. I opened the door and the cold air on my body felt so good. A touch of breeze. Everything quiet in the street. Low static of traffic in the distance and a blackbird singing to break up the night. I stepped barefoot on to the path and tip toed towards the gate. Then it started to rain and just to feel some honest to goodness British rain on my skin, well I did the only thing I could do. I had a bit of a dance.

Only I didn't see Lieutenant General Connor Bray standing there watching me, unsmiling.

So we went for a drink. Well, what I mean to say is he took me for a drink although I've never been for a drink that felt so much like a job interview. It's all very strange. One minute he's scaring the crap out of me going full military discipline and the next we're chatting over a drink and he could be any bloke down your local pub. It un-nerves me. I prefer to know where I stand. The Army gave me orders. You can't get any more un-equivocal than that. Its pragmatic and un-arguable. As an officer you're still under orders. So when a guy who could practically crush my career (what career now) with his eyelids is telling me about his 'facility' and I'm looking at him and thinking how he to all intents and purposes saved my physical and mental well being (don't know what drugs they were but - damn!) and he's being very serious about it, well I take him seriously.

He invited me to have a jolly round his 'hospital'. Some MOD run hospice or something for PTSD no- chancers, like me. You see the Army, bless it, doesn't look after its vets according to the papers and politicians looking for a quick electoral gain. Well, I'm here to tell you, yes it does! It's just its crap at it. I am a professional soldier and like all such grunts I don't blame the Army for any consequence of combat. We learn about it in training. We know the symptoms, the prognoses, the treatments. You become hardened to it. The Army sends you to fight, you fight, you come back, you heal, the Army sends you to fight and on and on and on. Now when you become irrevocably broken then, well, you can't be sent to fight again, can you? When armies still squared up to each other with swords and shields and it was skill at arms rather than who's got the best long range missiles, if you became a screwed up bag of quivering PTSD, it was considered a badge of honour. It meant you'd seen combat and your skills and prowess as a warrior had enabled you to survive. You were, officially, hard! Now, its an illness, a terrible curse. An infringement of your human rights. Well, that's what wars are. Its one state infringing the human rights of another state. And the Army, my Army, me, that's what we do. We impose our will over the will of others who would harm us.

At least, that's what the politicians will tell you.

Me, I follow orders. I've said that before. Not in a Nuremberg way. But my superior officer says go fuck up those Taliban weirdos (and they are true weirdos) then I go fuck up those Taliban weirdos. Those are my orders. I carry them out. So if anyone has a problem with Afghanistan or Iraq then please, go find the Ministers who issued the orders. You take it out on the Grunts at your peril.

Lieutenant General Bray runs a 'hospital' called 'Bethlem'. As in Bethlehem. Its located out in the countryside but unless you actually know where it is, you'd never find it. Hidden in plain sight and its quite lovely. Beautiful architecture from a range of periods if you're into that stuff. Clearly a big house that's been added to through time. Of course the 21st Century addition of 10 metre high electric fencing, razor wire and gun emplacements as well as a damn great reinforced gate that sinks into the ground like something from 'Thunderbirds' and several Jerry rigged prefabs stuck on the side of it I don't think will make the critics of the future look favourably on us.

It wasn't as much an order to go there but Bray was certainly persuasive. He mentioned The Cave. I think that's what swayed me. No-one since I came back had mentioned it despite the mission being on official record. He'd obviously read my report, used it to crow bar me in. Not that I needed much persuasion. After all, what else am I going to do. The regular Army won't have me back until my head is straight and even if I did go back, they'd always sideline me as a potential risk to operational success.

Bethlem is a clearly hush-hush. There was about, I don't know, 30 staff that I saw and 60, maybe 70 'patients'. I use the term but only in so far as they were staying at the 'hospital'. I saw only a handful of patients with outwardly visible physical wounds and they appeared to be quite minor. A missing hand. A missing leg. An eye gone. But the wounded were all chipper. But then you would be. The facility is superb. State of the art gym and physio. Swimming pool, sauna, steam room, massage. Library, dojo, Tech suite, private rooms en suite, sweet! MOD can't afford that either financially or politically. The patients were chipper and open, even with a woman outsider (so double outsider for some of them). They talked differently from most soldiers and there wasn't the usual inherent sexism. All different ranks too but no rank abuse. Something's up. Something wasn't right about it. It's all too good.

They let me join in a 'group' therapy session. Basically, a group of 12 talking about their experiences. Basic stuff. They were so open though. Amazing. I fought hard to keep control. I just wanted to scream and cry. I could feel it boiling up inside me and these sweet lads were just talking about soldiering. No bullshit. No heroes. Just talking. I've never experienced that before. The 'session instigator' was caught out. This lad started talking about combat stress but somehow started got around to talking about his impending marriage to 'Cathy' only to find her then calling it all off due to the name change.

His surname is Lattay.

I'm staying here. I'm not convinced what this place is but just to be back with some good honest moaning mithering whingeing no good squaddies is good. I have my own room and I'm apparently free to wander about, leave at any time, no restrictions, no papers, no orders. I get a timetable in a few days but right now I'm just going through a 're-adjustment' period. Settling in.

For the first time, in a long time, I honestly feel like I'm on the road to recovery. I actually feel human again.

Civvy Street Civility

Been a while.

I've had some issues to deal with. But you knew that from the first post. (It just occurred to me that the 'last post' could be something very different on the web). As you can see I'm getting used to this technology. Technology previously was GPS and a brush to keep sand out of your rifle. That and your Bergen. The Bergen which you both hate and love depending on how far you've yomped with it on your back, bending you double, and how quickly you can sort your billy and get some scran and then crash for a few. So computers are little beyond me. Well, not beyond but certainly only at full stretch finger tip reach. But look, I've put links and you tube and a poll. So far there are only four of you reading. That's fine. It'll be our little club, right boys? Or girls? Or whatever you are?

So I was arrested last week.

You look surprised.

I don't remember much. I've been sorting the flat, trying to get that cold musty smell of nothing in particular that descends on rooms not lived in long. Spraying rooms randomly with deodorant. Sticking the heating on full and hoovering. Mum has helped. She stocked the fridge to bursting with all my favourite stuff. Veggies, eggs, chops, milk, cheese, ready meals, cranberry juice (I became addicted after a severe case of cystitis when I was thirteen) I love my mum. I was dreading going to the shops. Not really knowing what to get, filling the basket with crap I wasn't going to eat or worse still, filling it with army provisions. Tin of corned beef; tin of spam; powdered egg; creamer; mixed fruit with custard; chicken, vegetables and rice. Individual coffee. Individual tea. Individual chocolate. Individual sugar. Individual. Single. Alone. But mum, she rammed the fridge so full I may have to invest in a new fridge. A bigger one. I checked out those Smeg fridges. They make me smile. I find myself hankering after a halterneck dress like an upturned daffodil, with polka dots. Then I remember the thrill of pumping round after round into a target. Then firing again and getting a better score. Improving. Or taking down a guy who's twice your size, twice your strength and half your Intel. No improvement. Just fun. But I'm getting off the point.

So my fridge is full. I guess mum thought that I might need some time at home and I did, do, but I also wanted the opportunity to leave, the excuse, I mean. There was even beer in the fridge.

In Hindsight it was a mistake to take an objectiveless walk around town.

The place is how I remember it. It hadn't changed. A new shopping mall maybe but the geography was the same. The same piss stinking arcades. The same 'yoofs' trying to look hard and cool and sexy all at the same time and not really sure how it all fits together. Maybe that's where fashion comes from. My head was hurting from lack of stimulation so I thought I'd buy a paper or a magazine or something and perhaps score some ibuprofen for the bruises which started acting up again the previous night. Where better to procure such items than the newsagent.

It was your bog standard corner shop affair. Too much stock crammed into someones front room on some hastily assembled points of sale, you get the idea. And the porn. Why is it that corner shops have entire walls covered in top shelf porn? Having said that all the boys in my unit had the printed stuff. I once challenged one of my boys when I noticed him ripping pages from a mag to polish his gat (and you have to understand that Afghanistan is somewhat dry in terms of pornography. Internet is off limits to grunts). He said, " Like you, it ain't pretty but it does the job, ma'am."

I quite liked that but beasted him anyway for not saying I was pretty.

He's dead now.

And the papers seemed to have the same stories as they did eighteen months ago. Everything changes but everything stays the same. I think that's a song. Then the 'yoofs' turned up.

Ill mannered. All strutting like cartoons, thrusting their genitals out, look at my big one. I'm 'ard. Yeah, sure you are. Now, run home before mummy gets worried. Noisy, rude and harmless mostly. They gave the newsagent a hard time, a few insults, bought some chocolates and eyed the cigarettes behind the shop keep and left. I think they ran out of courage when the keep didn't look like he'd sell them any. I assume they'd try somewhere else.

Well, I couldn't find what I wanted. Nothing interested me. It's all so bland. Featureless. Like the War. So I left and that's when I remembered the guy perusing the porn mags in there with me.

Big lad. Smelled vaguely of urine. Fingers blackened and not just with nicotine stains. And he was trying very, very hard not to be noticed. Which worked for the most part until I got outside. So I went back in. I know I shouldn't have. I know I should have left it, just walked away. Someone else's problem, right? Call the police and leave the keep to his fate. After all, he might sue me. Or he might sue someone. Anyway, there'd be a claim because someone is to blame. Such a great law. Designed by lawyers for lawyers. And no-one dare challenge it because they'd be sued. Genius. I would love, just love to take a 'personal injury specialist' to Afghanistan. Give them a few days and see if their attitude towards blame and injury changes. That's if they survived. Give them to the Taliban for some 'Shariah re-education'.

And he's got the shop keep by the throat and pulling half over his counter and he's got a lead pipe or steel bar or something and he's thumping this man with it and screaming obscenities and "Open it! Open it!".

And that's all I remember.

I'm walking quickly away from the Newsagents and I'm hearing sirens and I'm keeping my head down, eyes to the pavement, doing what the guy in the newsagent was doing, "Ignore me, I'm irrelevant". The civilian way. Then there's a police car going blues and two's past me and I know they're going to the Newsagent. He must have had a panic button. I just know it. It's like a bubble of vacuum has appeared in my stomach and is sucking all the adrenaline from my glands to that spot, just below my ribs. I figure they must be in the shop by now and they always travel in two's. Here it comes. Remember, disappear, blend, shrink.

"Excuse me! Oi! I said, excuse me!"

From far behind. I've got a good fifty yard head start at least. Don't look round. Don't acknowledge. Just don't run, resist the urge to run. God, I want to run!

"You! Stop right now!C'mon sweetheart!"

It's the "sweetheart" that makes me run. There was a chance, albeit small, that he wasn't shouting at me. That he'd been given a dodgy description or didn't believe a woman capable of such things? But the "sweetheart" seals it. I bolt.

I'd forgotten how good it is to run. Just open the pituitary floodgates and let the adrenaline flow and let the legs just go. I remember my training. Sergeant Major Jarvis. Just about as unpleasant a Razz Man you couldn't wish for. A genius though. Soldier to his very soul. Had an aura of utter menace and total confidence at the same time. Nothing, but nothing, would ever harm him. He reminded me of Superman. Bullets bouncing off his barrel chest. And he was kind. He had an innate kindness to him. He gave a damn about his charges and not just in the Regimental way that Sergeants have to because its their arse on the line if the Crow's don't measure up. He took the time to get to know you. Ripping into you without mercy. In a good way. Then building walls around the damage, rebuilding, plastering the cracks, reinforcing the foundations then nailing you back together, sticking a L85A1 in your arms and screaming at "Run! Run like I'm running behind you and God help your miserable arse if I catch you!"

So you ran. You ran and you wished it was the Devil himself and not Sergeant Jarvis "...spelt b.a.s.t.a.r.d...." coming up behind you. " Chest out, shoulders back and relaxed. Let your arms swing naturally. Let yourself breathe. Don't force your breathing. Head up, eyes focus ten metres ahead, lift your knees...." and on and on. That man taught us how to walk again. From scratch. How to walk properly. Walk like a soldier. Walk like there really is nothing the world can do to you that you cannot handle. That calm, understated, energy efficient walk that only the most dangerous people can do. Them and Sergeant Jarvis.

It felt so good to let go. My heart is thumping but I'm calm, the training is back and my body remembers what to do so all I have to do is point it where I want it to go and worry about strategy. The streets aren't crowded but there's been rain and the pavement is slippy. So watch your footing, grip the inside of your shoes with your toes. This wouldn't be a problem in my Desert Boots. But I'm in trainers. And least they're light. But the lack of people is the problem. That and the lack of turn offs. So I can't disappear into the crowd and I can't try and lose the copper in a side street or alley. The street turns sharp left up ahead then there's a grocer's and some fashion shop or something. My head trying to remember the topography...anything to give me an advantage.

But this cop is quick. He's young, fresh out of Hendon and he's hungry for a bit of excitement. He's at my shoulder so I relax and let the Aikido take over. He's in sync with me which helps so I reach back and take his wrist and lead him to the right enough to be off balance. He goes down heavily and at speed into the grocers shop and I half look back to make sure he's down and see vegetation in the air and a coppers black uniform disappearing amongst it.

Schoolgirl error. Hubris. Idiot. Only examine targets once the firefight is over.

I go straight into the hoodies from the Newsagents and I flip and land badly, winded from the impact, left arm under me. I think I feel a snap but my legs keep running, even though I'm sprawled on the pavement with the hoodies swearing and scattered all over in various heaps and the few shoppers staring. So I scramble and slide up and keep running. Yes, definitely a snap and the pain spreads hot and angry up to my shoulder, through my chest into my back, down to my stomach.

Schoolgirl error number two.

Instead of analysing the pain I should be concentrating on the running. So i don't see the police officer right in front of me, who truncheons me at the collar bone. I'm upended and on my back which I'm pretty sure snaps something else. At which point I got so angry. I was just so, so angry with everything and all of them. I think I may have let some Afghanistan induced feelings out of Cap'n Harry's Big Bag of Subconscious Issues.

It took five of them to get me in the van. Five big lads with arm locks, handcuffs, batons and pepper spray. They tasered me twice. (Let me tell you, it hurts. It really, really hurts) Amazing stuff, adrenaline. According the arrest report, there was a broken nose, a compound fractured ulna, three concussions requiring later hospitalisation, lacerations to an ear and cheek, multiple bruising and once ruptured appendix though of course that was most likely not my fault and perhaps a blessing in disguise for the guy really. I also managed to make a mess of their van. Somehow I managed to get the inner cage damaged enough for me to start trashing it. They called ahead to have an armed unit on stand-by. That's when they tasered me for the second time I think. Yes, it must have been because I can't remember arriving at the police station.

So I'm not entirely surprised when I wake up at home in a freshly made bed, sore to buggery but patched up and with some impressive stitches and dressings with Colonel Bray sitting next to me, spark out in the chair, snoring.

So that's why I've added the poll to the left of this blog. Please feel free to vote, my followers.

I have to go now but I'll post whats happened next soon. All part of the healing process. But I am getting into this now. Anyway, for those concerned, I am okay. So no get well cards please. I hate that stuff. Unless you're a follower , mum, in which case I sort of order you to send me a card.

Oh and thanks for the food. The pills I'm on make me hungry as a horse!

Home again, Home again, Jiggedy Jig!

So...

...its five hours since I wrote the 'so'. I'm actually writing about the writing as opposed to writing 'from within' as I've been ordered to. No. Order is too strong. Requested? Well, put it this way, if I don't get my head straight then I can't get back to my unit and if that happens...

I don't want to think about that.

No. I'm not going to think about that.

SO I'm going to consider their request an 'order' because I respond better to orders. You know where you are with an order. Its solid. Stable. Unequivocal. What are you gonna do? Its an order. You follow it. Regardless of what it is. It takes off any sense of load that you have. With an order, you're free. The Nazi's, for example, were 'only following orders'. That's right. Because they had orders they could murder and slaughter to their little hearts content knowing that their 'orders' negated their responsibility to those whom they slaughtered and murdered. I bet that made them feel better. Don't worry, mate. I know you're only doing your job. POW!

Ooh now there's a word. We don't use it much in the The Forces. Responsibility. Enough to make us Grunts tremble in our size twelves. We substitute it with 'Duty'. Not 'Responsibility'. We have a 'Duty' to carry out our 'orders'.

And because I was 'Duty' bound to carry out my 'Orders' I'm now back in Blighty, looking like a damn mummy with bandages and splints and stitches.

And up to three weeks ago, I have zero rememberance of how I got here.

I remember a truck and the moon and then a warm duvet.

The duvet!

So warm and comfortable it damn near made me cry. And a bed, it was. I remember stretching and the duvet was cool but I could feel it warming up as I stretched and the bed was crisp and cold and white and new and I remember thinking that I'd never lain on anything so comfortable as this bed (except maybe Tommy Harris) and never had anything so warming on top of me than this heavy duvet (except Raoul Bartock).

And I knew I was injured but also that these things were being seen to. They hurt, but not screaming pain. Not that screaming pain like earlier. This was an achey lets-stretch-and-see kind of a pain. Ouch - ouch - aaah. A pain that was subsiding. A healing pain.

Then I'm awake in the Med Centre and a nurse is asking if I take sugar and hands me a tea which I drink.

I drink coffee. Black, no sugar. I hate tea.

Three weeks later and I'm home. Well, off Base at least and on Civvy street for the foreseeable future.

Bollocks is it! I'm off down the gym and getting my head straight. I'm nursing my injuries both physical and mental and I'll be using this blog to do that. Understand that this is only a means to an end. I'm only doing this because I need to get back to my boys in the Unit.

My name is Harriet Bandura, Captain, 1st Battalion, The Rifles, serial number 12121974.

I'm following my orders.