Disclaimer: See Chapter I
Also, I'd like to thank those of you who have taken some time to read and review my work (you know who you are). Your kind words have been felt and hope the wait hasn't been too long for this next installment as I'm trying to update my work every three chapters. One final bit of thanks to the Harry Potter Lexicon that is quite the resource for anything Harry Potter related.
Chapter V: A Soldier's TaleAlex took a drag and began.
"Well, after I left the wizard world for reasons you don't need to know of right now, and turned in my wand and told that bastard Fudge I'd keep my knowledge of the wizard world a secret, I joined the Army. Went through my initial training at the School of Infantry, and got posted to the Parachute Regiment at Aldershot, and got to learn how to jump out of perfectly good airplanes. Couple months later, I found myself carrying a bergen weighing around a billion odd kilos and shivering and carrying an L1A1 rifle on somewhat godforsaken island in the South Atlantic called East Falkland."
Alex paused taking a deep drag and flick some ash into the car's ashtray.
"Then came Goose Green. I remember that battle all right. We were cold, out-numbered two to one when we should have outnumbered them three to one as the book said we should have fore we even thought of attacking them, artillery wasn't worth a fuck, the bastards were dug in, and had air support. The gutless bastards should have filleted us, but we instead we had a rough bit in which Lt. Col. Jones bought it. Me, all I remember was after we ditched our bergens it was like training at the Salisbury Plain. Take cover, provide cover fire, throw smoke, rush and open fire again, and then wait until someone with a Carl Gustav blasted a bunker so we could move forward a bit more. The difference being, of course, that those were real bullets flying through the air and real people, mates of mine, getting hit and killed."
"Was that how you got hit in the knees? Storming a trench." That was Dudley, who was listening with rapt attention along with Harry.
"That was the first time I got hit and it was really a scratch. We had just cleared out this one trench and were bringing in Colonel Jones' body when this one Argentine machine gunner that we thought was dead came back alive. I was tired and had sat down parallel to the gunner to have a smoke when I saw him move. As I got up, thinking he was surrendering he fired a two rounds before the gun jammed, and both of them just went through my legs, just scratching them really. Funny thing was, after I got them dressed at the aid station, they sent a message home saying I'd been hurt when all I had was a scratch, then the next time I got hit, and was really hurting they didn't send a damn thing home."
Alex took another drag, this time releasing the smoke after a few minutes. Flicking ash into the tray, he continued.
"Next time I got hit was at a place called Wireless Ridge, one of the last battles before the war ended. Now, I don't really remember much of that battle except that it was rather like Goose Green, only we were fighting up hill instead of over open ground. Now, my wounding was strange for me and my mates Dick Longbottom, Nicky Totensham, and Tommy Cooper were going back for ammo when I noticed this one machine gun pit we overran earlier and the damn gun started tracking us. Since, I was farthest ahead and the closet to it, I turned and yelled 'GUN!' or some such shit. I don't remember much afterwards for something knocked me to my face and the next thing I see is Nicky telling me 'fucking hang in there mate, hang in there'. Turns out Dick, who had been tail end Charlie of our little group had seen the burst and ran behind the position and cracked the fucker's head in with the butt of his rifle. Me, turns out the bastard had fired low enough that it smashed my left knee to pieces while my right was shot off and hanging on by a chunk of ligament. Nicky and Tommy put field dressings on my legs, stuck in a catheter and started me on a bag of Ringer's solution Tommy had in this medic's bag he had stolen. They then carried me the three klicks back to the Aid Station, where the bonesaws managed to patch me up and in four months I was as good as new."
He grinned crookedly, "Well, as good as you can get with one kneecap made of stainless steel and six pins in the other."
"As for my eye," he continued, "I lost that a couple of months after the Inniskilling bombing. I had gone to visit Nicky and Tommy and some other mates of mine from 2nd Para who were manning this checkpoint near Crossmaglen, in southern Armagh. We'd been chatting with Nicky calling me a Jack Pudding and having a good time with this case of Fosters I had stolen from the Officer's Mess at Bessbrook when their section was called over by this Royal Ulster Constabulary cop who had just drawn his Browning on this young pimply kid in a black Volvo. He was yelling at him to get the fuck out of the car, and Nicky and Tommy and Drew Costello and Tim Burke all went running to surround it. Me, I had run over to my Land Rover to call in the situation and it looked all right at first. The kid it seemed had a gun in a shoulder rig but had given up once the copper shoved a Browning in his face."
Another drag, another flicker of ash.
"Anyhow, it looked all right at first as the lads had the drop on him. Then Nicky opened the trunk. For you see lads, the car was rigged and not even that kid knew about it. Turns out later the Provo bastards were trying to have a follow-up after that bit in Inniskilling. By detonating at our little outpost, we may have saved some lives. Small help though when the Volvo went up, taking the whole damn section with my friends, the cop and the terrorist in this bastard of an explosion. Plus my eye, but that wasn't much of a loss."
Alex's eyes by now had a distant vacant look, as though he were searching through the vast filing cabinets that made up the memory of a person; the cabinets through which he searching being the ones in which one rarely if ever opens.
"When I sleep, I still see that machine gun firing, only this time the rounds hit elsewhere and I die. I still see the machine gun cutting me in half like a log. I still see," his voiced became hard-edged, "one of my best friends opening the trunk of a black Volvo and then just vanishing. All they found of him afterwards being part of his torso with his identity discs on it."
By now, his cigar had almost reached his fingertips. Taking a last drag, he stamped it out on to the ashtray. He looked at Harry.
"For the years since it happened, I've had to deal with the dreams, as well as the guilt of that incident, and others where I made it back, while my mates, people whom I'd drunk a beer or two with were six feet under dirt."