We do have to take it off though, one day. The stories of our injuries all began with an engagement of some kind. A contact. And they’re only going to be brought to an end with another kind of contact. Another kind of engagement –
He looks at the tattoo design.
– or re-engagement. But you can’t do that if you’re still wearing your uniform.
It’s OK though. Because it isn’t just about leaving, is it? It’s about joining too, right? I mean all of us here, yeah, we’re leaving the services, but we’re also joining the oldest regiment there is. The regiment of the wounded. It’s a regiment with an illustrious history that goes back to the earliest days of mankind. You might not be familiar with all of its victories, but believe me it has thousands to its name. Millions. And it’s winning them every day. In hospitals, on the streets, in bedrooms and living rooms.
He taps his head.
In here.
The rest of the cast enter from upstage and begin walking downstage to join Charlie.
The regimental rank and file are recruited from all over the world. Britain. America. Africa. Iraq. Afghanistan. Men. Women. Children. And it’s growing. Even now, as we speak, it’s growing. And until we stop fighting, it’s going to keep on growing. And it’s deploying too. Every day. Not to a battlefield, or to a base. But to you. To out there. We’ve all been training for that deployment. We’ve been getting ready, and now we are ready. So we hope you are too. Because we don’t live in two worlds, do we? We live in one.
Beat.
And don’t you ever forget it.
Fade to black.
In Hospital: Poona (1)
ALUN LEWIS
Last night I did not fight for sleep
But lay awake from midnight while the world
Turned its slow features to the moving deep
Of darkness, till I knew that you were furled,
Beloved, in the same dark watch as I.
And sixty degrees of longitude beside
Vanished as though a swan in ecstasy
Had spanned the distance from your sleeping side.
And like to swan or moon the whole of Wales
Glided within the parish of my care:
I saw the green tide leap on Cardigan,
Your red yacht riding like a legend there,
And the great mountains Dafydd and Llewelyn,
Plynlimmon, Cader Idris and Eryri
Threshing the darkness back from head and fin,
And also the small nameless mining valley
Whose slopes are scratched with streets and
sprawling graves
Dark in the lap of firwoods and great boulders
Where you lay waiting, listening to the waves
My hot hands touched your white despondent shoulders
– And then ten thousand miles of daylight grew
Between us, and I heard the wild daws crake
In India’s starving throat; whereat I knew
That Time upon the heart can break
But love survives the venom of the snake.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author and publisher from Alun Lewis, Collected Poems (Seren, 1994)
GLOSSARY
AGC Adjutant General’s Corps
ANA Afghan National Army
BLESMA British Limbless Ex Service Men’s Association
bluey airmail letter
CamelBak water-bottle
CPN Community Psychiatric Nurse
FOB Forward Operating Base
GPMG General Purpose Machine Gun
Hesco block fortification device
IED Improvised Explosive Device
matlow member of the Navy
medevac medical evacuation
MST Mission Specific Training
oppo best friend
OPTAG Operational Training and Advisory Group
Osprey body armour
PB Patrol Base
Pinzgauer all-terrain vehicle
PRR Personal Role Radio
PRU Personnel Recovery Unit
2PWRR Second Battalion, The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment
QE Nurses Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital Nurses
QRF Quick Reaction Force
RA Royal Artillery
RPG Rocket-Propelled Grenade
sangar duty guard duty (from a watch tower)
SFSG Special Forces Support Group
Snatch Protected Patrol Vehicle
terp interpreter
TLA Three-Letter Acronym
UGL Underslung Grenade Launcher
Wimik (WMIK) armoured military vehicle
About the Author
Owen Sheers is the author of two poetry collections, The Blue Book (shortlisted for the Welsh Book of the Year and the Forward Prize Best First Collection) and Skirrid Hill (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award). His debut prose work The Dust Diaries was short-listed for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and won the Welsh Book of the Year 2005. In 2004 he was Writer in Residence at The Wordsworth Trust and in 2007 Owen was a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. Owen’s first novel, Resistance won a 2008 Hospital Club Creative Award and was shortlisted for the Writers Guild Best Book Award. Resistance has been translated into ten languages and Owen co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation released in 2011. His oratorio with Rachel Portman, The Water Diviner’s Tale, was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms 2007. Owen recently wrote the script and novelisation (The Gospel of Us) of The Passion National Theatre of Wales’ 72 hour site specific production in Port Talbot starring and directed by Michael Sheen. Other theatrical work includes: the radio play If I Should Go Away, Unicorns, almost developed by the Old Vic, New Voices project and Pink Mist, a verse drama for BBC Radio 4. Owen is currently writer in residence for the Welsh Rugby Union.
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2012
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© Owen Sheers 2012
The right of Owen Sheers to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
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ISBN 978–0–571–29780–1 [epub edition]