Rookies get flamer duty. That’s how it’s always been, down in the Picvic. The tank on your back is heavy, the straps dig into your shoulders, despite the padding, and the flames are so intense that the plastic of your macintosh crinkles and sticks to your skin. It’s sweaty, miserable work, and no one wants to do it. That, and most flamers end up immolating themselves. It’s why the rest of the squad stands so far back when the flamer is at work, so they don’t get the back blast of a strained tank exploding or the offshoots of an overworked, melted barrel. Graduates from flamer duty become regulars, which nudges your life expectancy in the canals up by a few months. But I’m not there yet.
I was lucky my first patrol was Chorlton Street to Tib, a heavily travelled route by other squaddies, because it accesses the east waterways, and is kept clear of heavy infestation. Still, you get a few stragglers. It’s where I saw my first tick. He crawled through a broken sewer grate, his left arm shredded away to a rotten stump, probably eaten by other ticks in the early stages of infection. He fell into the sludge at the bottom of the desiccated canal and struggled to find his feet, instead kicking out with flailing legs to push himself through the sludge towards us. Slow, pathetic, and desperate. But hungry, always hungry.
The others were chuckling. The squad leader waited expectantly. A single, injured one like that would be more efficient just to lance, but I think they wanted to see if I could do it. I knew how to operate the flamer, I’d done the threadbare training that showed you how to spark the pilot light, how to open the valve, aim the nozzle, and squeeze the trigger. I knew to brace for the recoil of the liquid flooding the tube and squeezing through the choke. I knew to squint before the pressurised liquid flame came squirting out the other end. But it’s different when you’re not immolating a reusable gel dummy, but a person. Or they were a person, not sure what they are now.
Just a quick burst was all it took. I heard with my own ears the infamous pop and squeal of the tick exploding under the intense heat. The host’s body still mostly resembled a man and all of those parts of the tick could be destroyed and the tick itself would still live. The severed head of a man can still bite if the tick is left alive. The flamer takes care of the tick and the infected tissues, which is why all squads have at least one. The bulbous, translucent sacs that covered the man’s face and torso all exploded in a series of pops, and then the fattest sac of all, fused to the man’s brain, went up with a squeal.
No one clapped me on the back, or said “well done,” or even nodded in small approval. They just moved on while I stood there looking at the smouldering corpse, feeling empty. The first scorched tick of many. If only I knew then just how many there would be.
Paddy Dobson
28th February 2023