itself into a dismissive grimace. ‘You got to hand it to the UN, it sure knows how to cart bottled drinks around the globe. I wonder what the carbon footprint of this one is.’
His words didn’t quite cohere in her mind. She drank it in one go, its sickly lime slipping down her throat. ‘I’m out of practice,’ she said. ‘The heat,’ she added, for measure.
‘I heard you were in Helmand. Weren’t you in Iraq too?’
‘News travels fast.’ Andy , that was his name. It came to her. They had been introduced briefly that morning. ‘How did you know?’
‘Don’t worry about it, it’s probably hotter here.’
‘I’ve been in England too long.’
‘I know, I try to spend six months in the place, max. Long enough to file a tax return, short enough not to be corrupted by money and house prices.’
She had to smile. There were always characters like this, everywhere she worked – thin, ironic men who survived on a diet of sardonic quips and servitude.
The field hospitals were always the same, too, remote colonies, advance parties sent to the moon. A generator, a water filtration unit, a backup generator. Transparent plastic boxes full of documents stacked high and forming a maze in the logistics tent like an art installation in the turbine hall of the Tate Modern. These were full of procurement orders, Hilux truck manuals, health and safety procedures.
Andy disappeared. The sun was levering towards the earth, just beyond the accommodation tents. She took an inventory of this new home. All present and correct: generator, back-up generator; refrigerated Portakabin where freezers for the blood and plasma stock were kept; a much smaller rectangle where the food freezers hummed. The triage tent, ICU, recovery bay, processing tent, staff compound. It was a functional version of the travelling circuses that used to cluster in the summer near their house just off Clapham Common. Here, the circus animals were Giacometti copies of their tiger and elephant cousins: scrawny goats which tottered around the tents and the donkeys, and the camels floating regally on the outskirts of camp like a bored imperial guard.
She had arrived at Gariseb in early February, just after the hottest time of year had passed. With summer – December and January – came the Jilal , the season of no rain. The heat became more intense with each day until it could not be withstood. She shied away from the sun, fleeing to the scrawny shade offered by the three haggard acacias. The spindled trees, the dull ochre hills and their copper ridges cooked in convection waves. She hadn’t thought such heat possible, apart from furnaces, or the epicentre of a solar flare.
The high plain on which Gariseb sat was surrounded by green knuckle-shaped mountains and stately equatorial skies. The camp straddled a border in the desert, a straight line as arbitrary as any drawn by an imperium. Across these invisible boundaries famished people materialised daily. They appeared first as dark question marks flanked by goats and pitted camels, or alone, burdened only by the hump of what they could carry on their backs.
The wounded were transmitted to the hospital in pickups. The camp had a trio of dingy tents, shaky prefab lozenges that housed the camp office, the satellite phone, the one and only computer. There was no mobile signal, not even a local radio station. No news reached them or would, she knew, other than the BBC World Service, which they could listen to on the satellite Internet connection, and occasional telephone calls to the capital city. Emails came once a day in a consolidated block via satellite phone.
For the first two weeks at Gariseb she dreamt of helicopters; the angry angel of the American Black Hawks or the ashen UN beasts of burden, plucking out the souls who made the mistake of staying too late. She couldn’t bear to fly in helicopters. It was the way they came down. She’d seen it, more than once. They dropped from the sky like
His words didn’t quite cohere in her mind. She drank it in one go, its sickly lime slipping down her throat. ‘I’m out of practice,’ she said. ‘The heat,’ she added, for measure.
‘I heard you were in Helmand. Weren’t you in Iraq too?’
‘News travels fast.’ Andy , that was his name. It came to her. They had been introduced briefly that morning. ‘How did you know?’
‘Don’t worry about it, it’s probably hotter here.’
‘I’ve been in England too long.’
‘I know, I try to spend six months in the place, max. Long enough to file a tax return, short enough not to be corrupted by money and house prices.’
She had to smile. There were always characters like this, everywhere she worked – thin, ironic men who survived on a diet of sardonic quips and servitude.
The field hospitals were always the same, too, remote colonies, advance parties sent to the moon. A generator, a water filtration unit, a backup generator. Transparent plastic boxes full of documents stacked high and forming a maze in the logistics tent like an art installation in the turbine hall of the Tate Modern. These were full of procurement orders, Hilux truck manuals, health and safety procedures.
Andy disappeared. The sun was levering towards the earth, just beyond the accommodation tents. She took an inventory of this new home. All present and correct: generator, back-up generator; refrigerated Portakabin where freezers for the blood and plasma stock were kept; a much smaller rectangle where the food freezers hummed. The triage tent, ICU, recovery bay, processing tent, staff compound. It was a functional version of the travelling circuses that used to cluster in the summer near their house just off Clapham Common. Here, the circus animals were Giacometti copies of their tiger and elephant cousins: scrawny goats which tottered around the tents and the donkeys, and the camels floating regally on the outskirts of camp like a bored imperial guard.
She had arrived at Gariseb in early February, just after the hottest time of year had passed. With summer – December and January – came the Jilal , the season of no rain. The heat became more intense with each day until it could not be withstood. She shied away from the sun, fleeing to the scrawny shade offered by the three haggard acacias. The spindled trees, the dull ochre hills and their copper ridges cooked in convection waves. She hadn’t thought such heat possible, apart from furnaces, or the epicentre of a solar flare.
The high plain on which Gariseb sat was surrounded by green knuckle-shaped mountains and stately equatorial skies. The camp straddled a border in the desert, a straight line as arbitrary as any drawn by an imperium. Across these invisible boundaries famished people materialised daily. They appeared first as dark question marks flanked by goats and pitted camels, or alone, burdened only by the hump of what they could carry on their backs.
The wounded were transmitted to the hospital in pickups. The camp had a trio of dingy tents, shaky prefab lozenges that housed the camp office, the satellite phone, the one and only computer. There was no mobile signal, not even a local radio station. No news reached them or would, she knew, other than the BBC World Service, which they could listen to on the satellite Internet connection, and occasional telephone calls to the capital city. Emails came once a day in a consolidated block via satellite phone.
For the first two weeks at Gariseb she dreamt of helicopters; the angry angel of the American Black Hawks or the ashen UN beasts of burden, plucking out the souls who made the mistake of staying too late. She couldn’t bear to fly in helicopters. It was the way they came down. She’d seen it, more than once. They dropped from the sky like
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