A short from my Bio The Hard Way

Taken From;

THE HARD WAY.

THREE EPISODES TELLING THE STORY OF THE ENLISTMENT & SERVICE OF GUY BURRELL R.O.A.C

Set in typical British Army HQ office.

Painted brick wall B/G sparse decoration/furniture.

Burrell sits in front of desk, coffee and ashtray with smoking cigarette.

..during an interview with Army Psychologist Karen Murphy RAMC

Burrell shifted in his seat, placed his elbows on the desk so as to look Murphy straight in the eye, she met his gaze and for a moment in uncomfortable silence they mentally toyed with the chess pieces of confrontational conversation, both trying to gain advantage. Burrell broke first.

“What the fuck do you want me to say then? I’ve told you about my mate Coulson getting fucking blown to bollox… shit happens and always will.”

He lifted from his elbows and half standing drew closer, she was momentarily taken aback by his aggression.

“I have other stories for sure… have I told you about Corporal John Anderson getting his shoulder blown apart by a sniper near Alma Street off the Falls road? He was the section joker Anderson, and was watching my back as I disarmed a PIRA career stopper in a bin by a bus stop. His job was to take a bullet for me and that’s exactly what he fucking did… Yes Ma’am, I was bent double and it was raining as usual, the light was bad and my visor kept misting up which annoyed the fuck out of me. I was telling Anderson to get out of my light when suddenly he span round with this real strange look on his face… I told him ‘stop fucking about’ because I didn’t realise he’d been tagged having not heard the report from the sniper’s weapon. He just dropped to his knees shaking his head and then I saw the pool of blood forming at his feet. You’re a Doctor Ma’am; but do you know what a 7.62 round traveling at 2,000 feet per second carrying 1,900 pounds of kinetic energy does to a shoulder?”

Murphy knew full well but shook her head, Burrell was on a role and this could be productive.

“Well I’ll tell you because I fucking know this shit inside out… the round misbehaves, tumbles and can have an unpredictable exit trajectory. In Anderson’s case it entered in the crease of his armpit and upper chest, cut clean through the pectoral muscle and smashed into his Humerus. That would have been bad enough but the bastard vectored down along the inside of the bone and exited at his elbow which promptly disintegrated. No wonder the bloke had a strange expression.”

Burrell’s face was as stone, inches from hers. He took a breath, cocked his head to one side and mimicking the voice of Sean Connery, continued.

“Ander-shun… I’m afraid you’ll never play the violin… again!”

Burrell sat back down and resumed his elbow on table position; Murphy had momentarily got in, the bitch… he had to seize back the initiative.

“Yes Guy, I have that incident noted in your file, you carried him, still under heavy sniper fire over two hundred yards to cover, somehow stopped the bleeding and probably saved his life. Why did you refuse to acknowledge your ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ award? That really didn’t go down too well did it?”

“I didn’t acknowledge it because it wasn’t a big deal Ma’am, not really!”

“Seems like a pretty big deal to me SGT”

Burrell pretended to covertly look over his shoulder as if checking that somebody would overhear.

“No it wasn’t because….” He lowered his voice and smiled.

“He actually couldn’t play the violin before he was shot.”