Free (2005) Rat Run by Gerald Seymour

business.'
    'Not my business except when I can see I'm pouring salt on to a raw wound. Trekking on, you're then posted to Rome to be on the military attache's staff.
    That must have been nice, bit of a doddle, I'd have thought. Cocktail parties, NATO exercises and updating the Italian army. Heavy stuff.'
    'I did what was asked of me.'
    'Back to Chicksands. Working to Major Brian
    Arnold. Rarefied long-range guessing on the agenda.

    What do we know about the Iraqi order of battle?
    How mobile is a Republican Guard armoured
    division? Who are the personalities in command of Iraqi units? Where have they been trained? What is the quality of Iraqi logistics and support arms? War is getting closer, work hours longer - earlier away from the little woman and later back. Immersed in work, head never above the parapet... Am I getting it right?'
    'If you want to believe it, you can believe it.'
    'Don't get shirty with me, Malachy. I'm the one with a home and family to go back to. You've neither. The war starts. All those clever papers you've written, they're all proven crap. The Yanks slice through the defences, which was not in your predictions. No, you hadn't got that right. Hardly time to blink and the fighting war's over, and it's peace. You are one of many, suddenly sitting on your hands and looking at the sun shining down on Chicksands. Your trouble, though - and it's the same trouble for all the work-obsessed geeks - is that you don't do hobbies.
    Nothing to fill your days, and nights. Not going well with the lovely Roz, eh? Then Major Arnold drops his bombshell. You're off to Iraq.'
    He understood. It was as if a rope had tightened round his throat. He said hoarsely, 'There was work, worthwhile work, to be done there.'
    'That's better. Now we're singing from the same hymn sheet - excellent. And the excreta's in the fan.
    Supposed to be mission accomplished, but it's not.
    The time for rose petals chucked under the tracks of tanks is a memory. It's about terrorism and about improvised explosive devices and law-and-order breakdown and the assassination of collaborators, and a dream that's as sour as old milk. First you get to Brigade in Basra. I expect they get the message -
    another junkie from Intelligence, boasting brain power over brawn and telling the brigadier where he's doing it wrong - short-cut to getting popular, eh?'
    'I was coming with a different viewpoint.'
    'Soon as they could get rid of you, Brigade did the business and packed you off to a battalion of Jocks, somewhere out in the sand. That must have been a thrill. They're real soldiers, getting their arses shot at, and now on their territory is a guy from outside their ranks. I expect you didn't hesitate - with the full weight of your Intelligence Corps expertise - to point out to the commanding officer where they were going wrong. I read a little note from someone at the HQ: a gathering in the officers' mess and everyone's yapping about what should be done, but the I Corps officer reckons they're talking shit and can't keep his mouth shut, says, "My opinion, anyone who thinks he knows the short-fix answer to southern Iraq's problems is ill informed." I'll bet that went down as well as if you'd pulled the pin and dropped a hand grenade. So, they sent you—'
    'All I did was tell them what I thought.'
    'Back to the old self-opinionated stubbornness -
    couldn't let it go then and can't now. They sent you up to a company base, codename Bravo. I'd hazard that there were a fair few at Brigade, Battalion and Company who'd have raised a cheer if they'd known you were going to fall on your face. You went out on patrol—'
    'That's enough.'
    'Not good listening, eh? Getting sensitive, is it?'
    'It wasn't like anyone said.'

    'What did they call you, Malachy, after the patrol?'
    'I don't have to listen.' He was shouting.
    'What was their description of you, Malachy?'
    'Go fuck yourself.'
    'A bit of spirit, Malachy - that's what I want to hear.
    I think we're progressing.