Seventy-two by James Lowther

On the last day of January.

Andy pulls the gun from under the blanket and tips cartridges into the pocket of his combat jacket. He pulls on his cap, sucks on a Number 6 then flicks his butt onto the snow.

Paul breaks the four-ten and drops a finger-thin cartridge into the chamber. This is big enough for him but he keeps glancing at his brother and the big side-by-side 12 bore over his shoulder. Paul thinks Andy must regard these sporting weapons as little more than toys these days but in a year or two he will use the 12 bore himself and after that he might be learning to use SLRs like Andy.

Through the gate and into the paddock, Andy points to the dene. The day is overcast and without the trees it would be hard to see where the sky stops and the land starts. Both are full of snow and both too cold to be wet. “Go down to the start of the trees,” says Andy. “I’ll come up the hedge and see what over you. What are you not to do?”

“Shoot in that direction,” Paul says, pointing.

“Why not?”

“Cause that’s where you are.”

“And?”

“Don’t take the safety catch off.”

“Until?”

“I know what I’m shooting at.”

Andy smiles and sets off. Paul trudges down the track where the tractor tyres have churned the ground and nearly twists an ankle on the frozen ridges. In a hundred yards he reaches the dene and finds a place under a beech tree. He sets the little shotgun against the ruins of a fence and fishes for his binoculars. There is nothing about except a platoon of crows cackling amongst the skeletal trees. The wood is dense and the snow between the tree trunks is thin but deep enough in places to show rabbit tracks. Paul can see also the line of prints left by the fox that hunted the bunnies last night. Paul thinks there are little stories written into the snow and imagines himself a tracker reading them.He wonders how much of this craft Andy has learned with the Fusiliers. Trained soldiers can tell the composition of enemy units just by footprints. Andy has finished training now and might soon be sent to Germany or he might have to go to Ireland to keep the peace. Paul watches the news and wonders how much peace there is left to be kept in Ireland. But Andy has said he would rather dodge petrol bombs in Derry than face off with half a million hairy-arsed Russians. Which seems logical.

From here, Paul can see over the grey and white fields to the pit-head with its great wheel grinding the cages up and down. It will not be long, he knows, until the wheel will pull him underground. He would like to travel to Cyprus or British Honduras and wear a beret with a red and white hackle like Andy. Andy has told him he would be better off working hard at school but that will get him nowhere. There is nowhere to go but the pit. Paul wants to be a soldier and keep the peace.

There is a clattering in the trees to his right. Paul grabs up the four-ten and puts his thumb over the safety catch. A fat cushet hurtles out of the copse but it is too far out for his under-powered weapon. Then there is another, closer in. Paul gets a bead on the second bird but it senses him and swings away in the direction from which Andy will approach. It is high enough for the shot to fly harmlessly overhead but Paul has been told not to fire in that direction and an order is an order. Andy has told him that a firearm has only one real purpose; it destroys living things and it should be used responsibly or not at all. Paul thinks he could use a 12 bore as responsibly as a four-ten. If he had a 12 bore he could have fired at the first bird.

But the pigeons are gone and Paul settles back against the fencepost where the hoar frost is forming even though it is nearly noon. The air seems to be thickening as the day goes on and the distant pit-head is fading. The hawthorns closer in are still dark but further out everything is melting into a watery grey. There is no sound except the squabbling of the crows. After another while, Paul pulls his gloves off to blow on his fingertips. His breath hangs for long seconds.

This thick air carries sound very well, Paul is sure he hears a branch crack in the wood and presumes this is Andy, making sounds to drive game towards him. And sure enough, a hare comes out of the trees only ten yards up the broken fence. Paul watches the creature for a moment. It has been alerted but not startled by the sounds in the wood and seems to be deciding whether to bolt. Paul almost has a bead on it before another snapping twig sends it hurtling off. The sound of the shot bounces off the trees and rolls over the field as if chasing the fleeing animal. Where it had paused, the ground is marked by a black triangle sprayed over the white ground. The hare is gone, leaving only a tiny clump of fur on the still air and the echo of a wasted shot rolling impotently around the hedgerows.

“Should have had him, our lad,” Andy says as he climbs over the fence.

“Need a bigger gun,” says Paul.

Andy is lighting a cigarette. “Mebbe,” he says.

“What calibre’s an SLR?” Paul asks.

Andy chews for a moment. “7.62,” he says. “Too big.”

“Too big?”

“Rip yer fucking leg off,” says Andy. “The yanks use little .556 things. You can carry more ammo.”

Paul thinks about this. “Is that what you’ll have in Ireland? SLR?”

“Yeah,” says Andy. “But there’s not much shooting there. Just riots.”

“People been killed though,” says Paul.

Andy shrugs. “It’ll fizzle out. Kids chucking nail bombs. Few daft old bastards taking pot shots. Won’t come to nowt.”

Paul thinks. With a bigger gun he would have had a pigeon and a hare.

In the afternoon they walk down to the end of the dene where there is the chance of a rabbit. But the weather has been cold and the bunnies are mostly staying underground. Andy lines up on a crow but doesn’t shoot. Out of boredom they set two old cans on a fencepost and blast them. Andy lets Paul have a go with the 12-bore and he feels the difference in the kick. The four-ten nudges his shoulder but the bigger weapon thumps into him with venom. Andy laughs as Paul rubs his cheek bone. “Try sustained fire with a Jimpy,” he says. “Black yer fucking eye.”

“Jimpy?” says Paul.

“General Purpose Machine Gun,” says Andy. Then Andy smiles at Paul’s quizzical expression. “GPMG; Jimpy.”

“Shouldn’t it be Gimpy,” says Paul and Andy makes an indulgent expression.

They can barely see the next hedgerow. There is not a breath of wind and the cold moisture seems sits in the air. But this mist conducts sound and Paul imagines that he can hear the tubs of the flight of iron tubs carrying their loads of slag down from the pit to the sea; clanking like a metronome. Perpetually dragging slag up from under the earth and dumping it in the sea; millions and millions of tons of slag. Paul wonders, if they keep on digging they might make a hole so big the sea will one day drain into it.

“One more drive,” says Andy.

Paul sets off back to the top of the dene. There is barely an hour of daylight left and they want to end near the car. By the time Andy has made his way through the trees it will be as good as night. Paul imagines himself within a bubble of weak light. Anything could be happening outside this small world, although he knows that when he emerges back into reality nothing will have changed. The streets of their village will be the same. The pit wheel will be spinning men up and down into the great hole and tomorrow he will go back to school to find that another week has begun that will be no different from the last. Again he envies his brother who has found a way out. When Andy’s leave ends he will return to his battalion and be told where they will go. It could be Kenya or Brunei. They might be sent to Germany and Andy will spend the next three years learning to ski and driving around in an Armoured Personnel Carrier. There will be fewer days like this. Andy might sell his shotguns because he will have no use for them. Andy will have no use for days like this.

Paul looks into the trees. There is only enough light to see a few yards and the black trunks seem to be bleeding darkness into the spaces between them. He guesses that Andy will stay close to the edge so that he might get a shot at anything bolting into the field and so positions himself close to where his brother will emerge. This will be their last chance. If nothing is flushed out this time they will go home empty handed. He looks at the little single shot four-ten again. It really is a pathetic weapon, he thinks. A child’s gun really; suited for rats and such. Andy has told him that the gun is big enough but he remembers the fast pigeons and the wary hare. He could have had either with a bigger gun.

It is the very end of the daylight. Through the mist Paul can see nothing but knows that beyond the fields, the streetlights are coming on. It is the end of another dull Sunday and people will be preparing for another dull week. This has been a precious day, a moment of difference. And it is almost over.

Then Paul hears the twigs snap and the scuffling of small feet in the understory of the wood. As if by instinct he has the butt of the gun to his shoulder as the rabbit breaks the copse and his thumb finds the safety catch. And then he sees Andy climbing the fence on the wrong side – directly beyond the panicked animal. Paul calculates the angle and the distance. The rabbit is ten yards away, his brother perhaps twenty. The angle means the shot will hit the ground well in front of Andy. It is wrong to shoot in the direction of a person but the angle makes it safe.

Then the rabbit changes direction and hurtles towards Andy, running up the fence and looking desperately for a way back into the wood. He can see the darting body. He sees the silhouette of his brother beyond it and he sees the muzzle flash and hears the twin reports.

Andy empties the gun and slides it under the blanket. Then he drops the rabbit into a carrier bag.

“Full marks for Camouflage and Concealment, lad,” says Andy. “But next time, stand where I can fucking see you.”

“I was hiding from the game,” says Paul.

“Very good,” says Andy starting the car. “But I’d rather shoot nowt than shoot me own brother.” Then he smiles. “No harm done.”

Andy eases the car through the lane while snowflakes dance in the headlights. He switches on the radio for the four o’clock news. There is trouble in Londonderry. A civil rights march has ended in shooting. The army has fired shots and at least one person is dead.

“Trouble in Ireland,” says Paul, glad to talk about something else. He wants to shift attention from the fact that he saw Andy before he fired. If Andy knew this he would be angry. The truth is, he had calculated the risk and fired anyway. They both hit the rabbit but Andy would be angry if he knew Paul had fired when he was in the line of sight. Andy, conversely, had fired when he couldn’t see Paul. Paul wonders, is it acceptable to fire at someone if you don’t know they are there? In Derry, the commander of the troops has insisted that his men fired only a few shots and they were fired on first.

“Something of nothing,” says Andy and accelerates towards the village. The streetlights form a rank on either side of the road. The presenter says there will be an update and initial reports may have… But Andy switches the radio off. “Bloody bollocks,” he sighs.

Under the streetlights, Paul has the feeling of being in a bubble. Tomorrow will be like every other Monday. Next week will be like last week. Nothing will change.

But somewhere far away something important has happened, though it was lost in the dying light. Somewhere far away, something has slipped.