“That’s a good question,” I reply. I smile, and I start to paint a picture. A picture of the experienced old hand, the unruffled professional.
“Someone once said a good artist paints what can’t be painted. Well, that’s what a war artist is supposed to do.”
“You paint what can’t be painted,” says the Sergeant. It’s to his credit he doesn’t make the obvious joke. For the moment he’s intrigued, and I take advantage of the fact.
“They said Breughel could paint the thunder,” I say. “You can paint lightning, sure, but can you make the viewer
I’ve composed my picture now, I surreptitiously snap it. That veneer of pride that overlays the hollow fear filling the flier as it travels through the skies.
The sergeant sneers, the mood evaporates.
“What do
I see the bitter smiles of the other soldiers. So I paint another picture. I lean forward and speak in a low voice.
“I’ve been doing this for six years. I was in Tangiers after the first Denial of Service attack. I was in Barcelona when the entire Spanish banking system was wiped out; I was in Geneva when the Swiss government network locked. I know what we’re flying into, I know what it’s like to visit a State targeted by hackers.”
There are some approving nods at this. Or is it just the swaying of the craft as we jump an air pocket? Either way, the sergeant isn’t going to be convinced.
“Maybe you’ve seen some action,” he concedes. “Maybe you’ve been shot at. That doesn’t make you one of us. You take off the fatigues and you’re just another civilian. You won’t get jostled in the street back home, or refused service in shops. You won’t have people calling you a butcher, when all you’ve tried to do is defend their country.”
This gets the troops right back on his side. I see the memory of the taunts and the insults written on their faces. Too many people were against us getting involved in the Eurasian war, numbers that have only grown since the fighting started. There’s a cold look in the troops’ eyes. But I can calm them, I know what to say.
“That’s why the government sent me here. A war artist communicates the emotions their patron chooses. That’s why war artists are nearly always to be found acting in an official capacity. I’m here to tell
That’s the truth, too. Well, almost the truth. It’s enough to calm them down. They’re on my side. Nearly all of them, anyway. The sergeant is still not convinced, but I don’t think he ever will be.
“I don’t like it,” he says. “You’ve said it yourself, what you’re painting isn’t real war …”
All that’s academic now as the warning lights start to flash: orange sheets of fire engulfing the flier’s interior. I photograph the scene, dark bodies lost in the background, faces like flame in the foreground, serious, stern, brave faces, awaiting the coming battle. That’s the image I will create, anyway.
“Get ready!” calls the sergeant.
There’s a sick feeling in my stomach as we drop towards the battle and I wonder, how can I show that?
A shriek of engines, a surge of deceleration and a jolt and we’re down and the rear ramp is falling …
We land in a city somewhere in southern Europe. Part of what used to be Italy, I guess. Red bricks, white plaster, green tiles. I hear gunfire, but it’s some distance away. I smell smoke, I hear the sound of feet on the metal ramp, the rising howl of the flier’s engines as it prepares to lift off again. I see buildings, a narrow road leading uphill to a blue sky and a yellow sun. I smell something amidst the smoke, something that seems incongruous in this battle scene. Something that reminds me of parties and dinners and dates with women. It takes me a moment in all the confusion of movement to realise what it is.
Red wine. It’s running down the street. Not a euphemism, there’s a lorry at the top of the hill, on its side, the front smashed where it’s run into a wall, the driver’s arm drooping from the open window, the silver clasp of his watch popped open so it hangs like a bracelet … Jewels of broken glass are scattered on the road, diamonds from the windshield, rubies from the truck’s lights and emeralds from the broken bottles that are spilling red blood down the street. It’s such a striking image that, instinctively, I begin snapping.
The soldiers are flattening themselves against the vine-clad walls that border the street, the chameleon material of their suits changing to dusty white, their guns humming as they autoscan the surrounding area. Their half-seen figures are edging their way up and down the hill, changing colour, becoming the red of doors and the dusty dark of windows. They’re sizing up the area, doing their job, just like me, cameras in my hand, in my helmet, at my belt. Sizing up the scene.
The peacefulness of the street is at odds with the tension we feel, and I need to capture that. The lazy smell of the midday heat mixed with wine. Lemons hanging waxy from the trees leaning over the white walls, paint peeling from window frames. A soldier pauses to touch the petals trailing from a hanging basket and I photograph that.
As if in response to my action, someone opens fire from up the street and there is a whipsnap of movement all around. The sergeant shouts something into a communicator, the flier whines into the air, guns rattling, I see thin wisps of cloud emerge from the doorway of a house up the hill. Someone fired upon us, and now the flier’s returned the compliment. Incendiaries, I guess, seeing the orange-white sheets that ripple and flicker up the plaster walls of the building.
I snap the picture, but it’s not what I’m after: it’s too insubstantial. If I were to paint this, the explosion would be much bigger and blooming and orange. It would burst upon the viewer: a heroic response to a cowardly attack.
Then I see the children, and the image I’m forming collapses. Children and women are tumbling from the house. The sound of the flier, the crackle of the flames, they paint a picture in my mind that doesn’t involve children. But the truth is unfolding. There were civilians in there! The camera captures their terrified, wide-eyed stares, but it can’t capture that weeping, keening noise they make. It can’t capture the lurching realisation that someone just made a huge mistake.
I see the look on the sergeant’s face, that sheer animal joy, and I turn the camera away. That’s not what I’m after, but my hand turns back of its own accord. If I had time, I’d try and sketch it right here and now. There is something about the feelings of the moment, getting them down in pencil.
The sergeant sees me looking at him, and he laughs. “So? Innocents get hurt. That’s what happens in war.”
I make to answer him, but he’s concentrating on his console. The green light of the computer screen illuminates his face.
“That’s St Mark’s church at the top of the hill,” he says. “There’s a square beyond it with a town hall facing it. We occupy those two buildings, we have the high ground.”
He runs his finger across the screen.
“Big rooms in there, wide corridors. A good place to make our base.”
A woman screams. She’s pleading for something. I see a child; I see a lot of blood. A medic is running up, and I photograph that. The gallant liberators, aiding the poor civilians. That’s the problem with a simple snap. Taken out of context, it can mean anything.
But that’s why I’m here. To choose the context.
We make it to the top of the hill without further incident. The cries of pain are receding from my ears and memory. I focus on the scene at hand.
A wide square, littered with the torn canvas and broken bodies of umbrellas that once shaded cafe patrons. Upturned tables and chairs. Panic spreads fast when people find their mobile phones and computers have stopped working. They’ve seen the news from other countries; they know that the rioting is not far behind. Across the square, a classic picture: the signs of money and authority, targeted by the mobs. Two banks, their plate glass fronts smashed open, their interiors peeled inside out in streamers of plastic and trampled circuitry.
The town hall is even worse. It looks like a hollow shell; the anger of the mob has torn the guts out of this place, eviscerated it.
This is what happens when a Denial of Service attack hits, wiping out every last byte of data attached to a
