An Cosantóir

14 | Birthdays and Halloween Lebanon: A Short Story By Armn Michael J. Whelan (Curator, Air Corps Museum and Heritage Project) Main photo Cp Column Lawlor, all other images author's collection I t was the early hours of November 1st, it always was. He could still hear fireworks in the distance as he tried to sleep, but the vibrations crept up, they always did. He drifted, he was there again. Sean lay in his room; face down on the bed under a mozzy net, his hand reaching towards a cup of water he had strategically placed on the floor earlier. Lamplight shone in over the high T-walls through a scabby net curtain on the window and rested on the ancient lino. He had only been there an hour but it felt much longer. The vibrations felt closer, louder, the hair on his back was awake now, water rings expanded to the edge of the cup. His mouth was dry and he could hear the buzzing of the mosquito fall silent, it was feeding but Sean's head hurt too much to care. The grey colour of the room changed and looking up to the light he could see the glaring reflection of two red flares on the glass, travelling between the gap at the top of the concrete T-wall and the window frame. He remembered that the room had been a replacement section to the prefab accommodation billet that his platoon called home. It had been hit by an Israeli tank-round some years before and the guy inside was injured, hence the T-walls. His room was always a little more modern in that respect, but he was always aware of the shrapnel damage around the edges. He dragged himself off the bed and put on his boots, helmet and flack-jacket, slung the rifle over his shoulder and rolled his uniform and ammunition pooches under his arm and grabbed a last gulp of water. Outside it was dark and cold as he stood at the bunker with some of the others lads from his platoon. Gerry stood on the sandbags like a white powdered statue in the night, naked except for a towel he held behind himself, opened out by both arms. His body was silhouetted by a series An Cosantóir June 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie Bunker South Lebanon, 1994. of bright flashes and streaming lights in the distance. You didn't need much imagination to see he had been drinking. Gerry and Sean had been on a run to the battalion rubbish dump a week before and hadn't seen each other since. They had both been a little upset that day at the sight of children living off the dump and rushing for the slops and trash they had just discarded. A filthy looking old lady with about three teeth in her head sat eating a rotten potato; like it was an apple and a young pretty girl looking after smaller ones sucked cream from the grease proof paper that had once wrapped the remains of the birthday cake the lads had made for Sean, two days before. Then, on the way back, the dump truck they were travelling in lost its brakes and almost drove over the side of a cliff. Gerry hadn't eaten or come out of his room for a week after that and Sean hadn't stopped eating and getting drunk at any opportunity when off duty. Crazy the way you react to things. But then lots of crazy things happen on these missions. The vibrations were stronger now and the stillness of the night was being torn by a thunderous noise from across the wadiis. Silhouetted by the transparent towel covering Gerry's legs they could see red and green flares popping into the sky from all over the place and orange tracer zipping back and forwards with a constant bup, bup, bup, bup. Sean still hadn't got his head together when a giant explosion of thousands of multicoloured sparkles burst out of the distant wadii and great phosphorous lights illuminated the horizon, followed seconds later by a tremendous bang that almost knocked him to the ground. The vibration waved up the hill and rushed over them. 'What's happening lads,' Sean asked in a wimpish voice.

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