Macker (part 2)

I’m the only one in uniform and I stand out looking like a spare, feeling nervous, apprehensive and excited in my new soldier’s role, when this ‘warrior’ comes over to me and introduces himself.
“How yeh? I’m Macker and I’m with the Second Battalion”
“Do you want a smoke?”
“Yeh. O.K. Thanks.”
He puts the cigarette in his mouth and draws on it for almost five seconds, holding the smoke in, and then expelling it slowly in controlled puffs.
Jesus, I’m impressed. He looks like a man who was born with a cigarette in his mouth and certainly knows his business.
Macker:
“Where are you headin’?”
“I’m going to Kilkenny Barracks on a two-week camp”
“I’ve never been there. I’m from Ballyfermot”
At this time Ballyfermot , known as Ballyer, was the Gaza strip of Dublin – they don’t send police cars in, they send in the tanks.
Macker was in his twenties, 5’9’’ in height, stocky as in built like a brick, and bullet proof. His uniform was different to mine. He wore a peaked cap and a thick ox blood leather belt with a brass buckle, and matching boots, and had a yellow and red ‘Eastern Command’ flash on his left shoulder, which was similar to mine, as I was in the same Command.
Macker said:
“I’ve just came back from the Belgian Congo” – in his deep rough gravely voice, taking an even deeper puff on his cigarette. I’m thinking if he takes another puff like that the cigarette will disappear, and there’ll be nothing left. I’m overawed; this is a huge honour to be in the company of a real regular soldier, just back from action in Africa. He’s a rough tough diamond, and I can’t understand why he’s bothering to talk with me.
Macker takes a final puff from the almost non-existent cigarette, and I can see this is a practiced art, and he then slowly expels the smoke again:
“I was with the 33rd Battalion and nine of me mates were killed by the fucking Balubas”
His uniform fits him like a glove, and his brass buttons glisten in the light coming through the windows of the station.
Macker was starting to warm to the subject:
“They chopped them up with machetes. I’m fucking serious. It was no joke”
Macker was no diplomat, niceties were not his trademarks. He came from a family of 12 children of which 8 survived. He was the cream of the crop, and came from one of the toughest areas in Dublin, where the law of the jungle prevails. Macker was born fighting.
“Then the fucking bastards ate them, I’m serious”
Macker was probably in uniform, because he would be entitled to free public transport. He withdrew his own cigarettes from his packet:
“Here, have a smoke”
“Thanks”
I took the cigarette and he gave me a light
“Thanks”
“They put them in pots and ate them. The coffins that were sent home were fucking empty. There was nothing left of them except bones”
At this moment Macker was my hero. He came from Ballyer and had made something of himself. He was a fully trained soldier with a chance of promotion to corporal and possibly to sergeant. He had been in a part of the world that most people only dream about. His life was real; he had fought Baluba tribesmen in the bush. The name of the game was respect, and in any language he was a hero. He had experienced the climate, the smell, the feeling of a different planet, a different theatre, wearing at that time a heavy bulls wool uniform in the tropics. He was a roughie – a toughie – a braveheart.
Macker takes another draw on the cigarette and said:
“We went out looking for them. We searched the fucking jungle and we found the Balubas.”
He exuded an aura of strength, of both mental and physical endurance. He was a professional fighter and was proud of what he was. Macker had street cred; he had respect, and was probably the only one on his street who had travelled outside of Dublin. His grandfather had been a ‘Dublin Fusilier’. Macker was master of his trade; his business was getting the job done.
Macker said:
“We got some of the bastards and we finished them off with fucking bayonets.” - as he stamped on his cigarette butt.
“We had to even the score” – and with that he took some photos from his pocket, photos of bodies, lying in different positions in the jungle of Africa.
.The departure of the Kilkenny train was announced, and I collected my baggage and prepared to leave, and Macker said
“Enjoy your camp. I might see you in Dublin sometime”.
“Good-bye Macker. I hope everything works out and I hope to see you again. All the best”.