by Andy McNab
'How's it going on the jobs?'
He gave a wry smile. 'Just done one in South Armagh – there's a little tension in the air.'
'How's that?'
'You'll find out.'
We drove along narrow lanes. Eight-foot-high hedgerows hemmed us in on each side. I decided Al wasn't Mr Grumpy at all. He just found it hard to talk to people and seemed quite happy with his own thoughts.
I wasn't. It felt strange just sitting there, saying nothing. 'How's the new house? Frank's wife finished decorating?'
I reckoned it wasn't as big as the house by the sea he'd grown up in. He'd spent his childhood fishing and crabbing, having adventures in rock pools. Now he'd progressed to freefall, diving and driving about with a 9mm under his thigh.
'Looks good. She organized the paint, carpets, you know the sort of thing. I think she and Frank want me to babysit the kids as payment.' He smiled. 'I don't mind.'
'What'll she do when she finds you a wife? Build a nursery?'
The smile turned into a surprising, open-hearted laugh.
'Maybe when I get back. Maybe . . . I'd like to, but, well, you know . . .'
Al was a soldier. He didn't do emotions much, except to his family. But I knew what he was trying to say: when the time was right, he'd commit himself to someone outside the Regiment. But not just yet.
We drove into the confines of a well-protected army camp, then into a camp within a camp.
'Welcome to our world.'
30
The Regiment stockade was like a big, windowless B&Q warehouse, with doors big enough to drive trucks through and high enough to house a six-storey building. Floodlights bathed the whole interior, which was filled with blue or white Portakabins, some low level, some stacked up three or four high, like on a construction site. There were areas for vehicle maintenance, stores and equipment.
Al pointed through the windscreen. 'The armoury. Sauna. That's the gym. And those are the squash courts. They're for fights. If you want one, just get in there, get on with it, and tell no one.'
'Ken not approve?'
Al shook his head. 'He always wants to join in.'
Frank wasn't the only one in the Regiment famous for his religious beliefs. Ken believed in reincarnation: he'd been here once before as a Viking marauder and, like any self-respecting Norseman, he loved to fight. It had even got him temporarily chucked out of the Regiment.
Ken would invite guys to play squash, then say, 'Let's do some sparring.' That always got out of control, of course, so no one in the troop was that keen to take up the invitation. The only person who regularly obliged was one of the cooks. He wasn't going to be pushed about by anyone and they were cage fighting at least once a week. It had to be stopped. A bruised face was too easy to pick out in a crowd, and the cook couldn't focus properly to fry the eggs. He'd crack them open but miss the pan.
Al pointed out the cookhouse and the ops room, all the bits and pieces I'd need to know immediately. 'You'll work it all out. You're here long enough.'
A pack of six or seven supersize dogs mooched around.
'Who do they belong to?'
'Not sure.'
'Who feeds them?'
'They just get fed . . . lots.'
With a squeal of tyres, Al parked beside a one-storey breezeblock building. I followed him into a dark central corridor. The faded white-brick walls were bare and peeling. There were doors off to left and right, maybe six sets. Game-show-type TV voices jangled behind a couple of them.
We stopped by the second on the left. 'That's it. See you later.'
I entered a room fit for a Spartan. There were two heavy old metal beds, the sort that were being phased out of the army. They had been designed to be used for a thousand years, but had one fatal flaw. The bed ends slipped very easily into the metal tubes that formed the legs – and came out just as fast. And five inches of solid steel tubing with a wider bit at the end made the perfect weapon. The army was still trying to erase the phrase 'So I had to bed-end him' from its vocabulary.
A TV sat at the foot of the two beds. Two lockers, belt kit, a Bergen and all kinds of other gear had been shoved in one of the corners.
Paul was stretched out on a Desperate Dan duvet. 'All roight, boy?'
He had kept himself to himself in the jungle. The thing I remembered most about him was when we reached the road-head and were waiting for transport. He'd looked up when he heard a plane going over and said, 'You know what? The distance we've walked today, someone up there just travelled with one sip of his gin and tonic.'
Paul was shorter than me, but much stockier. He'd played rugby for the army and had a mouthful of false teeth to show for it. There were a lot of false teeth running round in this squadron. He'd been on the embassy job and in the Falklands. He'd also been on some team job in South East Asia just before Malaysia, and another in Sudan. Originally he'd been in the Ordnance Corps, from what was called Heavy Drop, the airborne contingent, based in Aldershot. He was married and had a couple of kids, and must have been born and raised near Hereford, going by the accent. I liked him a lot.
I dropped my bag. 'Where do you get a brew, mate?' I was gagging for one after the shit airline coffee.
He pointed down the corridor. 'Can't miss it – the Burco.'
'You want one?'
He eyed me with something approaching disgust. 'No! I got Channel 4 – Countdown's coming up, then it's soup time. I don't want no tea, boy.'
I wandered back into the corridor. The first room on the right was now open. I poked my head round it to see Tiny crashed out on one of the beds. His hair was longer, exaggerating the bald patch and making him look even more like a mad monk.
A guitar nestled among a pile of magazines and old newspapers strewn across the other bed. The floor was littered with plates encrusted with dried Marmite and dog ends. Something was blaring from the TV but I couldn't tell what it was – the screen seemed to have been liberally coated with bogeys.
'All right, Crap Hat – nice of you to drop in. Freefall OK?'
I guessed this was Tiny's way of being nice, approachable, even. I told him the SBS and 2 Rep story and he nearly fell off his bed. 'Yeah, but that's not all. He told me what happened when he tried to sign on.'
The SBS boy had made it all the way down to the Marseille recruiting office, but it was so late in the day the place was shut. The bloke was penniless, and he had fuck-all kit, so he went to the park over the road and hid in the bushes, just zipped up his jacket and tried to stay warm. Then it started pouring with rain. He was drenched for about three hours and spent the rest of the night shivering big-time.
'At first light he came out of the bushes to get himself sorted for when the office opened, and noticed that the only wet area in the entire park was the patch of shrubbery where he'd been hiding. That was when he realized he'd been curled up right next to the sprinklers . . .'
A voice boomed behind me. 'You're here, then, are you?' There was a series of trumpet-like farts. 'They said some wanker from the Green Jackets was on his way. About fucking time.'
31
I turned. 'All right, Nish, how's it going?'
He was wearing a pair of jeans, flip-flops and an old T-shirt that matched the plates. His hair stuck up on end and a cigarette was wedged in the corner of his mouth. 'Want a brew?'
'Just where I was going.'
He poked his head in through the door. 'Tiny?'
'No! Countdown! But you can bring one.'
Nish turned for the corridor.
'And take some of these fucking plates back!'
There was a war going on in that room. But who would be the first to surrender? The more Tiny complained, the more Nish enjoyed it. I bet the bogeys didn't belong to Tiny.
Nish chuckled to himself as we headed for the other end of the corridor, turned left, and came out by the toilet block, yet another Portakabin.
We got to the brew area. A Burco boiler that looked like it was kept going twenty-four hours a day took p
ride of place. Next to it was a big box of Naafi biscuits, jars of coffee and sugar and mountains of teabags and white paper cups. Nish carried his own blue and white striped pint mug.
'You any good at conundrums?'
'What?'
'Countdown. Don't tell me you don't like Countdown . . .'
'OK, I suppose . . .'
'It's prayers at half six every night, scoff'll be on before that, about half five. Ken and the lads are on a job, but he'll sort you out later tonight.'
I could hear the chimes for Countdown. Nish rushed off with his mug and a paper cup. 'Duty calls. See you later, mate.'
I made myself a brew and wandered back to my room. I didn't unpack, just lay on the mattress getting the swing of things with Paul. We watched Carol Vorderman add a consonant here and there.
When we got to the maths question, Nish had obviously got it right. Aloud yee-ha echoed down the corridor before he gave Tiny a hard time for being so thick. Carol and the crew finished and waved goodbye to the troop.
Paul jumped up and rubbed his hands together. 'Soup time, boy – you coming?'
It was only four thirty. Nish had said scoff was at five thirty, but I followed him anyway to the cookhouse, another onestorey brick building, just the other side of the washrooms. The two lads behind the stainless-steel counter could have been manning any canteen in the world. A large steel vat of something steaming stood in front of them, and stacks of white bowls. We helped ourselves to minestrone lumps. Tiny grabbed half a loaf of bread. 'It's healthy, soaks up the juice.'
Four or five cars pulled into the warehouse, normal saloons like the one Al had picked me up in. Each was two up in the front.
The troop got out, in jeans, trainers and bomber or leather jackets. A couple of guys still had beards. They looked like factory workers at the end of a shift, until they started to unload their G3s, the 7.62mm German Heckler & Koch assault rifle, and MP5s. The staccato rattle of working parts being pushed backwards and forwards echoed off the Portakabins.
Nish glanced out of the window. Al came in and slapped him on the arm. He seemed even paler than he had at the airport. 'Looks like those two haven't made up yet, eh?'
I didn't know what he was talking about.
'Frank and Ken.'
I followed Nish's gaze. It was true: they weren't exactly heading for a group hug as they climbed out of their separate cars. Ken went over to Frank. Frank gazed up at him, not flinching or backing away. It looked like he was being invited for a game of squash.
Tiny was obviously thinking more or less the same. 'Why don't they just sort this shit out?'
I didn't say anything. Whatever they were on about, it wasn't any of my business. Maybe it was some God-squad stuff – Frank not wanting to shoot people on Sundays or something. What did I know? All of a sudden I didn't feel as much a part of the troop as I had when I was admiring Gloria's hairdo.
32
The soup was over and the rest of the team had dispersed. There were lots of others running around too. Seven Troop was small, so lads from other troops were making up the numbers. On my way back to my room I passed Saddlebags taking his pancake holster off his belt.
I gave him a nod.
'How's it going?'
I got one back, but he didn't hang around to answer. He disappeared into the room he must have shared with Al. There was a Mr Grumpy sticker on the door.
I tipped out my bag and made up my bed. I found a well-worn blue duvet cover that must have been left by somebody years before and passed down the line. It was only a little bit musty. I was stuffing the duvet into it when Frank appeared. 'Hiya. I'm next door, opposite Nish and Tiny.'
'You been out long?'
'Nah, just been playing around. Nothing much at all. Had soup yet?'
'Yeah. And Countdown.'
'You know about prayers at half six?'
'Yeah.'
As I carried on with the bedding, Ken came down the corridor. He gave me a wave.
'Andy. All right, mate?'
'Ken.'
'I'll see you after prayers, and get you rigged out with all the party gear.'
He carried on walking. At least he was smiling, which was more than Frank was.
'You heard about what happened?'
I shook my head. 'Just there was a bit of drama.' Of course I wanted to know, but I wasn't going to ask.
He didn't let me down.
'Two of us dropped Ken and a couple of the guys off from a van to do a job on the border. We didn't even know what the target was. All we knew was the drop-off point, the pick-up and the emergency RV.
'We drove out of the area and parked, waiting for the call to pick them up. It was up a little track, set back from the road. I'd got the Thermos open when a car crept along the road, on sidelights. It stopped further up and came back, all very slow. It was two up.
'They came to a complete stop near our track, looked up, and then drove on again. They must have seen us.
'We got on the net, reported a possible compromise, and moved out. As soon as we were back on the road we spotted it again. It started to follow us.
'We were right on the border. The car stayed with us and was joined by another, both on sidelights. I got on the net again, expecting to take rounds any second.
'The road got wider, and the lead car suddenly accelerated to come alongside. As I got my safety off, this old Ford came alongside, two up. Both wearing masks. If I'd seen a weapon, I was going to open up. But nothing.
'We were coming up to another junction, and just as we got there, a third car joined in.
'I got on the net, giving a running commentary. It carried on like that for ten minutes. More cars joined in. It was madness – soon there were six of them. That was at least twelve players, probably more.
'We still had to stay on the target area to pick the patrol up but there was no word yet from them – and, of course, there wouldn't be until the job was finished. We were driving round in big circles and they'd even barricaded a road with rubble.
'The patrol called in ready. I told them the situation and said we'd try to lose the cars behind, but no guarantees. They'd have to be on their toes.
'Then I suddenly realized something. "There'll be five of us at the pick-up. Five against twelve – let's go for it."
'I had my G3 in my lap, and I was operating the radio with one hand and reading the map with a torch in the other. It was like navigating for a rally driver, only with six cars in pursuit and I had to be ready to draw down on them.
'We screamed to a halt at the pick-up point, and the guys jumped in the back. I radioed the pick-up was complete. But Ken cut me off.'
Frank was very bitter.
'"I'm in charge," he said, "and I'm saying we get straight out of the area."
'I said, "But we've been chased for half an hour! We've got a chance here to take out multiple players!" He said to do as he ordered. What could I do?
'The six cars chased us until we were well clear of the area. I couldn't believe it. I saved it till we got back here, then laid into him.
