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Friday 5 October 2012

New writing

This is from the new book, 'cos I find I'm interested in it.... Good sign?

The tram stopped at the next station and two skinheads got on at the further end of their carriage. Ferguson still leant against the pole, balanced and relaxed, but his eyes tracked them aboard, monitoring the potential of the threat.
The two were barely through the door when they started insulting and intimidating those around. One skinny guy reading a book had it snapped out of his hands. The mini-skirted girl, standing in the aisle, clutching the strap, had her butt slapped, the teenaged boy standing next to her was dared to do anything about it. Adam thought he'd have to step in and do something to these two, but it was Ferguson who made eye contact first.
"Aye, and what's it to you then, eh? What to do somethin', eh? Think yer hard, do ye?"
The skin was some five metres away and barking, an 'aimed and fired' feel to his movement down the carriage.. An old lady close by shook at every shouted question.
"As it happens, yes, I am." Ferguson sounded almost bored.  Stating a fact, thought Adam, not making a boast. Too big a dog to be threatened by these puppies. Something about that registered with the skins and they slowed, out of range.
 "But you're missing the point. I don't need to be. You see, you've just made about twenty people decide they really don't like you. And ten of them are behind you. Do you get that? That's ten people who only have to kick you in the back of the knee to take you down to the ground. In fact, they only have to drop a bag behind you to let me push you into and you'll trip over. Do you know what it's like to be on the ground when a lot of people decide you really deserve a good kicking?"
The skins had stopped moving along the carriage while he spoke, some instinct measuring the distance they'd walked and the bodies they'd passed. The furthest back looked behind him, snarling at a couple of smirking faces.
"You've just offended someone wearing high heels. Do you know what happens when someone wearing high heels stamps on your chest? They're not called stilettos for nothing you know, those heels. Punch a hole between your ribs and carry in whatever she walked in last, those. Dirt, chewing gum, dog shit, all of the above. Not good for the health at all."
The voice, thought Adam, was wholly devoid of threat. It viewed the scenario of a man having his chest punctured with a stiletto heel as being one of mild interest, but no concern. You had to think it through to get the menace. The two skins were thinking; fast. Nearly as fast as the other passengers, who were starting to enjoy the images now playing in their heads.
The mini-skirted girl looked as though she relished the idea of stamping on someone, and the skin who'd slapped her arse was feeling painfully aware that it was probably him.
"Doesn't need much y'see lads? Someone swinging a handbag at your head can keep you busy while someone else kicks your crotch."
The old lady with the handbag felt its weight and the truth of the statement simultaneously, whilst the teenage boy who'd been cowed thought about the pure pleasure he'd get from kicking the balls of the guy who'd done it to him. The people of the carriage hadn't liked the picture of themselves revealed by the thugs' intrusion and welcomed the chance to rewrite the story.
"Numbers, isn't it, eh? When it's two against one, the odds are good for you. But when it's twenty against two, you're fucked and no mistake. And it's twenty against two now, isn't it boys?"
The two were now back to back and looking at a carriage full of people who just needed a nudge to set them off. The air of menace was something you could feel against your skin. It licked the carriage and savoured the salt. There was a tang of blood heated and a promise of blood to be spilt.
"Get your backs to the doors, boys. You're getting off at the next station now, aren't you? And you don't want anyone behind you, do you?'
The skins shuffled, eyes darting here and back, and wedged themselves against the doors. Every eye in the carriage was on them, waiting, Adam felt, only for Ferguson, the undisputed master of the situation, to give the word and a massacre to start.
"Oh, by the way. If anyone has a camera phone, it would be a nice idea to get a picture of these young lads before they get off. Just in case they were thinking of doing something thoughtless when they're on the platform and we can't reach them."
Half the carriage reached into bags and pockets and pulled out phones. Would that have been right for 2007, wondered Adam, while the skins covered up like celebrities caught by paps. Did they have cameras on phones then? He couldn't remember. Didn't they have CCTV on trams in those days?
The Metro train pulled into the station; the doors opened and spilled two scowling thugs to the platform where they were soundly abused till the doors closed again and the tram pulled away.
It didn't matter, thought Adam. I've either seen or been shown how this man got to be the general of the good guys. Around him the passengers were sharing the laugh of the little drama they'd just been part of. One station and Ferguson had inspired them, united them, and without doing more than speak, shown them their power. They'd loved it and would remember how he'd done it.
Adam could see thoughts written clearly across faces. The teenage boy and the mini-skirted girl were laughing together; something the boy wouldn't have believed a possibility when he'd first seen her. He might have a phone number before he got off. He, they'd, long for an excuse to play out the same scene again, themselves as bigger heroes the next time.
Adam felt Ferguson's eyes on him.
"Shock and awe. Do it well enough and you don't need to fight. Have bad luck and you still get kicked in the cobblers. Worse if you're the general. Someone here could have gone off half-cocked and those two would have pasted them against the wall. They weren't just pretending to be hard. Then either we'd have had a blood-bath when the others turned against them, or I'd have had to try to batter the pair of them. And still feel responsible for the one who got clouted."
"Yeah, but you could, couldn't you?"
"Probably. I have memories and a skill-set for this. I can be a pure predator. Quite implacable, cold-blooded, calculating and utterly controlled. I know I can reduce a person to a target, an enemy, something that is not human, that is just a threat to be removed. And by removed, I do mean killed." He nodded to himself. "As a skill, that one is quite inhumane and probably quite inhuman."
He looked at Adam, wondering if this was anything more than words to the younger man. The lad was good at his martial art, admitted, but Ferguson had experience of martial artists redefining violence as what they had answers to. They were rarely the same as the kill-or-be-killed situations he'd such vivid memories of being in.
"I also know that the best of fighters can go down to a lucky punch. And that's more than two reasons why I don't want to have to push it to the wire. Better to talk it down."
"Yeah, but with your level of skill you can surely control the situations.."
"Yes, I'm a lot more competent now, but a lot less confident that I can predict how things will go. Look, I once saw a guy get stabbed in the upper arm during a fight. Reason says he shouldn't have been able to use that arm for anything. Maybe he should have fallen to the floor in pain and died when the other guy stabbed him again or just kicked him to death.
In reality he was high on adrenaline and picked up the guy who'd stabbed him and broke his spine for him. Tell me that I could deal with him by applying a wrist lock. I've heard of a soldier who once took thirty bullets and still loaded two other guys onto a helicopter. Tell me you could apply a technique as painful as thirty rifle bullets. Either of those two would go straight through whatever you were doing and kill you while you were thinking about what to do next.
Those are stories I can tell you. There are others that don't have as clear a beginning, middle and end, but they all add up to what it says in the Bible. The race does not always go to the swift, nor battle to the strong. If you want to win, you throw away your ideas of being fair.
The ending I got there was the one I hoped for. But if it didn't go that way, I wanted someone kicking them from behind and others kicking them when they were down. I was never aiming to be the Hollywood hero who takes them out on his own.
When I was in the regiment, I didn't just want people who would fight another day on my side. I really wanted people who would be ready and able to kill another day. That's a very different thing. If you were on my side and you knew you had a boxing match on Tuesday, I really wanted you to shoot your opponent on the Monday before, in the back, somewhere there were no witnesses. That's not a joke. Otherwise when the really serious shit went down you might be laid up, or just slowed down and that could mean I got killed." He looked hard at Adam. "Now are you starting to get an idea about why I got out?"
"But that's not how you've been fighting your war."
"No, but it's not because I'm being nice. The kids I've got probably couldn't kill if I'd told them to. I've used the tools I've had to achieve the ends I could. In many ways I was lucky not to have the bombs Maldon used on us early on. I might not have been able to win an argument with myself about using them, or not, on his side. There's a thing Theodore Roosevelt once said, 'The unforgivable thing is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly'. Can't fault him on that. Anyway, we're here."

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