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!