Free The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan Page B

just watched them. Scullion was right. Younger soldiers often thought they knew the battleground; they saw graphics, screens, solid cover and fuck-off guns you could swap. It wasn’t all they saw but it was part of their understanding. They saw cheats and levels, badass motherfuckers, kill death ratios, and the kinds of marksman who jump up after they’re dead. Luke knew they all struggled, from time to time, to find the British army as interesting as its international gaming equivalent. They had run importantmissions with their best mate from school and called in air support, over their headsets, from some kid in Pasadena they’d never met, some kid like them in a box-room. They’d beaten the Russian mafia with the help of club-kids from Reykjavik and bodyboarders from Magnetic Island. They’d obliterated the A-rabs . They’d topped the board. They’d stayed up all night smoking weed and drinking huge bottles of Coke and ordering pizza before they cleared the civilian areas. The boys wanted action. They wanted something real that would become the highest level, the one they couldn’t reach on their consoles back home.
‘If they’re gonna hit us, I wish they’d just hit us,’ Lennox said.
‘Maybe it saves lives,’ Scullion said. ‘The war in Ireland might have ended sooner if those wee Provo kids could’ve blown up chip shops on screen.’
‘No, sir,’ Flannigan said. ‘It’s recruitment. I’m telling you. That’s the big new thing about it. Gamers are ripe. They’re fucken jumping to get out and stretch their legs. Every guy in this regiment has served time on Call of Duty . Every one. Am I right?’
‘Even the educated ones?’
Luke smiled. ‘We started it,’ he said. He took the joint off Lennox and walked up to the wall. A smell of rose petals was coming from the field on the other side. He could make out the furrows and a yellow hosepipe. ‘The MOD has a game now called Start Thinking, Soldier .’
‘Yep. That’s right. That’s recruitment,’ Flannigan said. ‘Grab the little fuckers by the thumbs.’
‘There’s always been that sort of thing,’ Scullion said. ‘I loved Top Gun . I loved fucken Full Metal Jacket . John Wayne before that. Little boys with their eyes wide, wanting a gun. It’s all recruitment.’
‘It’s different,’ Flannigan said. ‘If you’ve got PlayStation then you actually know how to drive a tank. Jesus. I’m not kidding. The manufacturers have changed the controls on the new Challenger to be more like a video console. It’s exactly the same.’
‘Fuck off!’ Dooley said.
‘Look inside one. It’s a fact. Walk up the line now and look inside one, Doosh. I’m telling you.’
‘It’s true,’ Scullion said, taking the joint. ‘The CIA are putting in money nowadays to start up gaming companies.’
‘They used to put it into brainy magazines,’ Luke said. The major looked up and his smile was nostalgic.
‘ Encounter ,’ he said.
Sergeant Docherty had taken off his boots while staring at the hexi-telly. ‘Your hoofs are fucken rank, buddy,’ Lennox said. ‘Jesus, Leper.’
Docherty ignored him. He was never going to endanger his peace of mind with too much talk, yet he caught the officers’ attention after he calmly put down his boot and spat into the fire. ‘You’re talking about simulators,’ he said. ‘I think it’s ironic that the people who flew those planes on 9/11 taught themselves on flight simulators in Florida.’
‘Ooh. Ironic ,’ Lennox said.
Scullion nipped the end of his tongue with two fingers and offered a bleary laugh in the Leper’s direction. ‘Everything now is pre-experienced,’ he said. The men weren’t listening. Another burst of machine-gun fire went off in the valley and Docherty stood up holding one boot. Scullion then went off at him and nobody could work out why. ‘I can’t stand the way you fucken stink,’ he said. ‘The smell of you … it’s unbearable.’
‘What?’ Docherty said.
‘You, personally