Part 5. The guards had been on duty for 72 hours now, 2 on, 4 off. 3 days of just logging in keys, sweeping a floor, watching C.C.T.V. Maybe catching a little sleep or playing some Nintendo. Mainly getting ball ached to make one of the prisoners lives a bit easier for a friend, or friend of a friend if the price was right. Not so much a case of Money for nothing, more like money for boredom... Guard was not always a punishment or a chore, oh no... Guard duties could be nice little money spinners, an easy route to some quick cash. There was always someone trying to sell a guard duty, or looking to buy one for a quick cash injection to the beer token fund for a weekend near the end of the month when payday was tantalizingly close but the cash it brought was still elusively not in your account when you really wanted it. The 3 cars that were parked at the rear gate of this camp all knew just how bored those soldiers would be... It was a duty & chore they had suffered before... They knew the routine, hour by hour, who was coming in, who was going out, what to look for, and when you knew you could do fuck all for a few hours... There was always 'time out' if you knew how to work it. Made sure you got certain stags, or gate times, if you worked it right with the schedule you could get away with doing less time on the gate, but only if you got the timing right and wangled your way on to the right slots. Knowing the guard commander was always an advantage, that way you got all the cushy gate times, and got ball ached less with all the menial tasks that fell to the lot of the duty guard. Three days cooped up in a small building was little fun, nothing but T.V or a games console to entertain yourself with, the duties and tasks were very depressing, but it gave plenty of time to think. Thinking was what many soldiers were good at, they had the time on there hands, and often as not much else to do with the massive amounts of time, so they had to use it up somehow. Some just dreamed of what was going to happen this weekend, or other such party type plans, others spent the time working out how to get on the next course to that promotion they so badly needed. Some would more than likely spend that time dreaming of fucking the officers daughter who kept driving in and out of camp in that convertible with her mini skirt hitched up so high you could read her lips, and not the ones on her face either. The soldier on the gate at this moment in time was thinking about something quite different. He adjusted the rifle sling as it was digging into his neck and had been for the last hour and a half. He fucking hated gate duty, he hated standing on the front gate of camp like some kind of robot, all the other squaddies going home laughing and pointing, generally taking the piss, each time knowing that one day it would probably be them in the position on the gate, but not caring because at that moment in time it wasn't, and they could laugh all they wanted for when they were plastered in some club in 6 hours time, that guy would still be stood out in the dark, cold, wet maybe, thoroughly pissed off with looking down a dark street waiting for the approach of car lights which meant he had to switch his brain on and actually move from the warm spot it had taken 20 minutes to find. It was always the same, car pulls up, you know the face and name, but you still have to get them to show the I.D card, then give the signal to the commander who would then push the button to raise the barrier. Time after time again, these people coming and going while the guard just stood in the same place time and time again doing the same thing. So you had to find something to keep your mind entertained and occupied. This particular soldier had spent 8 years in his unit, he had spent 4 of those years being passed by, all his mates from training had joined the same unit, had all been put in the same platoon upon reaching the unit from training, then one by one all had been promoted, all had moved onwards and upwards. Not him, still the same rank as the day he hit his unit, and not much chance of getting one either. It wasn't because he did his job badly, in fact he did his job to the letter. It wasn't because he was a trouble maker or someone who got into trouble, the opposite was in fact true, in all his time within the army he had never once been charged or done anything to warrant anything more than a telling off, which in the forces was pretty damn rare. For some reason he was just one of those guys who was not destined to go through the ranks, for no other simple reason than his face did not fit. When a course or opportunity came up, it was never his name put forward or mentioned, nothing malicious or intended, just there always seemed to be someone in front of him, or more needy for the chance or promotion, the fact that most of these people now getting the promotions or courses to advance for promotion were in fact soldiers who had less time in the army than him, and even less time within the unit. It was hard to accept and when he brought it up with his commander, he had dismissed it as just one of those things. So his mind was on getting somewhere with his life, giving it a little push in the right direction, he was taking his platoon commanders advice a try, he was taking charge of his career, and to put it in his snotty, 22 year old university and Sandhurst graduate morons words "he was going to shine". Oh yes, he was going to shine alright, the kid officer who knew less than nothing about the job and all that went with it, turned up at the unit fresh from school. University and the officer training, Jesus half of them didn't even know how to shave for Christ's sake, what fucking use would these kids be if the shit hit the fan and they had to go to war? They would be crying in to their mobile phone to mummy within two seconds of the first round landing near them. The kid had told him... "Private, you seem to drift through this job and don't seem to put 100% in, you do enough to get the job done, yet not enough to actually shine, or make others notice you." How rich was that, he was a trained soldier in the infantry, his job was not to be noticed until his rifle went bang and some one dropped on the floor dead, what the hell did polishing some brass 'up and beyond a shine' have to do with the job he signed up for, to kill or be killed, to defend his nation and country, not get lectured down too by some spotty trainee officer who still jerked off to the Avon catalogues underwear section and had probably never had a fuck or a suck in his life. It didn't matter any more, he had spent a long time thinking about things, working stuff out and most of all, planning. Oh yes, lots and lots of planning, in fact he had worked out his own little military campaign, his own personal stratagem. He had spent the last Six months working out a scheme to make a very large change in his career, he was going to sort out all his problems in one easy go, but only easy because he had spent all those hours on the gate working it out in minute detail. All while getting paid too, so when those other soldiers drove by laughing and taking the piss, he just smiled inwardly. "Keep laughing you bastards!" he thought. "Soon enough, soon enough those grins will be on the other side of your face." The soldier was responsible for the camps security and the lives within the camp. He was the man responsible for certain vehicles being parked not too far away, and also the reasons why a few small convoys of other vehicles were making their way around various places in the country and for a multitude of reasons.... ganjataz.co.uk ~V.2™©® - Page created on 8th of February 2004 All:~ Images, Code, Design, Concept & Story are original works & sole intellectual property of G.T.W.4.U./ganjataz.co.uk© ® ™ I hold no responsibility for any content or views hosted on anyone else's website or server. Nor am I officially affiliated with them, what they do or what they say.