Skirmish

It took place in a wood in the heart of Surrey.  Although it was early summer, we were heavily togged up; a combat jacket, over-trousers, a woollen balaclava and goggles.  Moving, you broke into a sweat, but your mind was soon taken off such things.

The gun was surprisingly heavy.  The ritualistic idealisation of violent killing in films and television has meant that this purveyor of death has always seemed the easiest thing in the world to carry.  But it was large and cumbersome - and frighteningly difficult to fire properly.

In some respects, of course, it was not realistic.  The gun was fired by pulling back a spring-loaded pin to build up air pressure behind a pellet filled with orange dye.  Trying to pull back the pin and fire quickly proved impossible; you had to keep the gun loaded which meant accidents.  Moreover, the pellets would slowly cake the inside of the barrel, necessitating the periodic firing of paper wads to clear it.  Otherwise it failed to shoot properly - just when you most needed it.

In other ways, it all seemed far too realistic.  Once the two teams had been chosen and sent off in different directions, the battle began.  The rules were simple: kill or be killed.  Running through the wood you felt a huge rush of adrenaline, of raw panic: you seemed horribly vulnerable, your poor soft body exposed to a hundred potential raking lines of fire.  This was something the films never conveyed, the sheer physicality of fear.

This fear became a constant background noise in your soul.  It could not be turned off: you either fed off it, using it to sharpen every reaction, or else it paralysed you.  It was extraordinary: you knew this was only a game, that you were not going to die, to be wounded horribly; and yet your body was wiser than your mind.  Your bowels felt watery, your limbs shivered periodically, your heartbeat leapt at the slightest noise or movement.  Millions of years of preservatory evolution came roaring out of the darkness, and your shallow civilised consciousness could only stand by and watch.

Something else all the films and books in the world never conveyed was the shock of being hit.  Although soft and filled with only liquid, the pellets were painful when they hit; at the very least they left big round bruises the next day, and worse injuries had been known.  But it was the suddenness that surprised.  You were moving along, and a distant crack would turn into an intense, localised pain: you were hit.  Once you had experienced even this trivial hurt, you did not want to be caught again.

As the game continued, you became more adept, you ran more, you survived.  It was as if your entire metabolism adapted to its new environment: you were simply a machine bent on survival.  But while the mechanics of living were taken care of, you were aware of something happening elsewhere.  As you succeeded in shooting without being shot, you realised there was something else in the pit of your stomach, something worse than fear: excitement as you pulled the trigger; satisfaction as your victim was hit.

(13.12.89)

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