by Ian Slater
Rye paused, his gaze casual yet at the same time searching. “One more thing, chaps. If and when you return to your units — after this week or later after you’ve served with us and can no longer ‘cut the mustard,’ as our American cousins would say — we do expect absolute secrecy about SAS methods and organization. If you do not keep it to yourself, we will kill you. Sar’Major?”
“Sir!” responded the RSM, saluting briskly and turning the platoon. “Platoon — dismissed!”
* * *
“Charming!” said Lewis, while making up his bunk, David Brentwood and Thelman taking the second and third tier respectively. “Bloody charming. Well, I’ll give the old bastard one thing — he gives it to you straight.” The Aussie drew over the blue military blanket, tucking it tightly beneath the mattress. “Still, can’t be too bad. I’ve done Canungra.”
“What’s that?” asked Thelman, folding his kit bag. “Aussie dope?”
“Oh, spare me,” said Lewis, pulling out his khaki T-shirt and socks from the chocolate-colored bag. “Canungra. In Aussie. Jungle warfare school. Don’t you blokes know anything? It’s a real bastard there, I’m tellin’ ya.” Lewis dropped his blanket. “Snakes this fuckin’ long and this small. One bite and you’re a goner—’less you got the old razor and Condies crystals into the wound.”
“Don’t see any snakes around here,” said David.
“Eh, don’t come the raw prawn with me, mate. You know what I mean. These bloody hills are nothin’ compared to jungle. Got nothin’ but a few bloody sheep on ‘em. Could run over ‘em.”
Which is precisely what Lewis and the other ninety-seven volunteers did the next morning — without breakfast. At 5:00 a.m. Loaded up in the freezing darkness aboard the three-ton lorries, the trucks dropping them off at quarter-mile intervals between Senny Bridge and Brecon on a twelve-mile front, each man having been issued a waterproof storm suit, regulation SAS Bergen rucksack loaded with twenty-five pounds of bricks, a ten-pound rifle, a map of Brecon Beacons national park, compass, and, yelled out to him by the RSM, a six-digit number for the latitude and longitude. Instructions: to reach an abandoned chapel at Merthyr Tydfil — fifteen miles from the Beacons as the crow flew but much longer up the Beacons’ north face and down the southern side. The only other order given them before they left was not to make notations anywhere on the map — an enemy could use the pencil marks to back-plot. They were to reach Merthyr Tydfil by 1400 hours. Any later and they were out.
In the pitch blackness of that morning, it was minus five degrees when each of the ninety-eight men began his private trial, heading across rain-swollen creeks and sodden, slippery slopes up toward the Beacons. For the first two hours, many of the men made good time, but by 0900 hours, the crest of the Beacons buffeted by sixty-kilometer-per-hour winds and aswirl in a snowstorm, several men were wandering blind. By noon only seventeen had made it to Merthyr Tydfil: most of these, troopers from the Coldstream Guards regiment. Twenty-odd more, a number of them close to hypothermia despite the storm units, straggled in around 1300 hours, all totally exhausted and near frozen because they had not packed the storm suit properly in the rucksack, preventing zippers from being fully closed, allowing the rucksacks to become sodden, the damp transmitted to the storm suits.
Small details, but SAS Captain Cheek-Dawson knew they could be deadly mistakes on an “op,” and none of them escaped Cheek-Dawson’s eye or that of the RSM.
David Brentwood staggered in at 1340, only twenty minutes to spare. Lewis fifteen minutes behind him, and Thelman barely making it, falling against the chapel door, followed in by an angry flurry of snow. Cheek-Dawson was looking disgustingly dapper in full battle dress, patiently waiting. As Lewis flopped to the floor, it was several minutes before he could speak. He nudged David. “When did Lord Cheek get here?”
“Ten forty-five,” said one of the engineers. “He and one of the Scots Guards.”
“Bullshit!” said Lewis. “Must have got a ride.”
The engineer shook his head. “No, he was dropped off from the truck just before me. Bugger kept me going — yelling at me, ‘Come on, Swain. Put your back into it — come on, Swain. No loafing,’ Real pain in the bum, I can tell you.”
“That your name?” asked Lewis, barely able to prop himself up on his elbows. “Swain?”
“Yeah, mate. Why?”
“How the hell can they remember all our names?”
“ ‘Cause they bloody like us,” said Swain.
“They do their homework,” said another man. eyes shut, stretched out on the cold, dusty floor of the long-disused chapel. “Know us all better’n our muvvers, they do.”
“I’m starving,” said Lewis. “Opened me bloody pack and you know what I found?”
“Bricks!” said Brentwood.
“Yeah,” said Lewis. “Fuckin’ bricks — and they number the bastards.”
“That’s—” Thelman began, but had to stop for lack of wind. He looked close to total collapse, his bloodshot eyes in stark contrast to his black skin. He accepted the water bottle offered him by the RSM and continued his explanation. “They number the bricks, a guy told me, ‘cause they have to account for them.”
“That’s right,” said a cockney accent, the man wearing a Coldstream Guards patch, which surprised Thelman. He’d always thought, from their pictures, that the tall, bearskin-hatted Guardsmen would speak in an upper-class accent. “See,” continued the Guardsman, “Ministry of Supply’s very touchy about losing bricks.”
There was a ripple of tired laughter.
“Sar’Major?” asked Cheek-Dawson, hands akimbo on his battle dress smock. “How many still out?”
“Six, sir.”
“Very good. Call the Back Markers on the blower and let them go in and round them up. They don’t find them by fifteen hundred hours, better call Brecon police station, army, and air force mountain rescue.”
“Yes, sir.”
Professional pride counseled against calling in army or RAF mountain search to help the Back Markers, but Cheek-Dawson was obliged to do so, two men having died from exposure several months before.
The six men who were still out, it was understood by all, would be returning to their regiments, as would anyone else who wandered into the disused chapel after 1400 hours.
When the final tally was in, forty-three out of the ninety-eight volunteers had already failed phase one and would be returning to their units.
“Not bad, Sar’Major,” said Cheek-Dawson cheerily, his bonhomie somehow making the musty-smelling chapel even more depressing and cold.
“Just over half made it,” said the sar’major.
“Quite.”
“Jesus!” Lewis told Thelman, who had made the silly mistake of taking his boots off. “At this rate we’ll all be dead by sunset.”
David agreed. He was astonished — that was the only word for it — at the sudden change of weather and drop in temperature on the Brecon Beacons and at the equally sudden hatred he now held for any lyrical notion he’d had about Wales. Wales was where you died, and you’d volunteered for it. Everyone, he noticed, was complaining bitterly of hunger.
“Righto, chaps,” said Cheek-Dawson. “You’ve not done too badly, given the rapid change in weather conditions. Now, all hand in your maps and then we’ll have a spot of lunch.”
“That’s bloody more like it,” said Lewis. “I’m for that.”
“Good man, Lewis. We like initiative. First in line then. Map?”
Lewis unzipped the chest pocket that served as an extra thermal layer, extracted the folded map, and handed it to Cheek-Dawson. The RSM had poured two cups of steaming hot coffee.
“Oh dear—” said Cheek-Dawson. “Oh dear.”
“What?” said Lewis, alarmed, turning back from watching the coffee, face tight with hunger and fatigue.
“No lolly for you, old chap!” He meant no candy — no prize.
“What you bloody mean?”
“Look!”
Lewis di
d look, at the map, now unfolded and spread out on the table. Suddenly he remembered the warning about not marking it up with starting coordinates, et cetera, lest the enemy, as Cheek-Dawson had cautioned, could backtrack on it. He peered closely at the map. “Hang on. Here — let me have a gander.” With this, Lewis bend down, looking closer at the map. At that moment another man, one of the missing, collapsed in the doorway. Two men lumbered to their feet, went over, and dragged him in.
Lewis was still staring at the map. “There’s no bloody writing on it. Look, not even a pencil impression.” He held the map up like holding a sheet to dry. “ ‘Ave a look.”
Cheek-Dawson turned him about to face the class, prostrate before him. “Anyone see it?”
Everybody gazed up at the map, some of them looking like stunned cows, still not recovered. There was no writing on it, just as Lewis had said.
David Brentwood reluctantly put up his hand. Poor old Lewis looked as if he’d collapse if they didn’t give him something to eat soon. “Folds,” said David. “You can see the square where the map’s been folded and pressed down.”
“Top of the class, Brentwood. Folded square!” said Cheek-Dawson, taking the map from an incredulous Lewis. “Enemy interrogator sees that he’d know precisely the grid you started from. Reduce his search pattern by a factor of ten at least. And you and your group would’ve had it.”
Brentwood pulled out his map. “I did the same thing,” he said, looking up at Cheek-Dawson.
The officer smiled. “So did I — first time out. Don’t do it again. Keep folding it different ways — confuses the dickens out of them—if you’re caught!”
“Can we eat now?” said Lewis unrepentantly.
“Of course,” said Cheek-Dawson. “Then after lunch you lot take a stroll down to Avergavenny. We’ll pick you up there with the lorries and take you back to Senny Bridge. Everyone clear on that?”
“Why can’t we go back now?” asked a Coldstream Guard.
“Yeah,” added Lewis.
“Lorries are tied up, I’m afraid,” answered Cheek-Dawson. Besides, a stroll after lunch’ll do you good. Otherwise you’ll get sleepy.”
“Where is this Aber—”
“Avergavenny,” said Cheek-Dawson, noting the Coldstream Guard’s name. Anyone who couldn’t get a verbal instruction right the first time could put a troop, or an entire SAS squadron of seventy-two men, at risk. Foreign-sounding names were no excuse. Scotland and Wales were full of them.
“It’s just east of us,” continued Cheek-Dawson. “Follow the road. It’s clearly marked.”
“How far, sir?”
“Oh, what is it, Sar’Major — twenty-three, twenty-five miles?”
“ ‘Round that, sir.”
There was a surly silence in the cold chapel.
“Right you are,” said Cheek-Dawson. “I’ll not hold you up any longer. You can have lunch. Pipes are frozen — no joy with the taps, I’m afraid, so you’ll have to do the best you can on that score.” He handed the map back amicably to Lewis and headed for the door with the RSM toward their Land Rover outside.
“Where’s bloody lunch?” asked Lewis, joined by a discordant chorus.
“In the bag,” said the RSM, pointing to a kit on the only table in the hall. “Where’d you think?” With that, he and Cheek-Dawson left.
Lewis opened the kit bag and staggered back. It had been tied tightly so that only now could they smell it. It was full of dead rats — and a note: “You must learn to live off the land, but we’ll give you a head start this time. From now on you’ll have to fend for yourself.”
One man began throwing up. Thelman said he felt sick. So did David. One of the Brits, a sapper, rose and kicked the table leg. “Fuck this for a lark! I quit!”
David rose slowly from the floor, every muscle and tendon in his body throbbing with pain, made worse now because of the cold, the temperature in the disused chapel only a degree or so above the minus five centigrade outside. He was looking back at the last man who had come in — someone said the man was so cold he was turning blue — and all David could see was the blinding snow of Stadthagen, the dogs chasing him, the guards screaming, and the cold, so cold it was unimaginable. “All right,” he called out to several of the troopers at the back of the chapel. “Take turns cuddling up to him. Thaw him out or we’ll lose him.”
“That Cheek-Dawson,” said Lewis. “He’s a fucking sadist.” David knew it was just as tough in the U.S. Special Forces — no doubt to separate the men from the boys when everyone was exhausted, cold, morale at rock bottom. Yet for David, this was worse than anything he’d seen in Special Forces. Intellectually he understood, but emotionally he was furious. But “fury just fucks your mind,” a black instructor had wisely told him at Camp Lejeune. “Fury gets you nowhere, man, clouds your judgment,” when judgment was already clouded because of the cold, hunger, and resentment. David walked over to the table and called out, “Anyone got a knife?”
Several hands went up.
“Lighter — matches?” he asked next.
“Yeah. I got one.”
“All right. Let’s get the fire going.”
“Where? There’s no grate, no stove.”
“Tear apart the altar rails,” David said, pointing to the front of the chapel. Stick by stick.”
“Christ, there’ll be trouble for that,” said someone.
“You want your meat raw?” David asked. There was a loud crack — a plank coming away.
“All right,” said David, turning to the two men with the knives. “Start skinning.” One man came forward, the other not moving, shaking his head, his mouth twisted in a mask of repulsion. “I–I can’t.”
Brentwood walked over to him. “Listen, chief — you want to eat or not?”
The man shook his head.
“Then you’ll starve. Give me the knife.” He turned to Lewis. “Aussie, take this guy and a few others outside, tear off the guttering. Water’ll be frozen in that. We can melt it over the fire.”
“Okay, Davey boy,” said Lewis. You’re the boss. Come on, fellas — get the lead out.”
* * *
“Who’s that?” asked Cheek-Dawson, now sitting in the Land Rover parked a quarter mile down the road out of sight, listening to the parabolic mike feed on the Land Rover’s radio. “That the American chap — Brentwood?”
“Yes, sir. Didn’t say much before. You think he’s a goer?”
“The point is, Sar’Major, can he hack phases two to six? This is kindergarten.”
“True enough, sir.”
“Well then — shall we join them?”
“Very good, sir.”
* * *
When Cheek-Dawson reappeared with the RSM, everybody stopped what he was doing.
“Enough for two more?” asked Cheek-Dawson.
“No problem,” said Lewis. “You can start if you like, Captain.”
Cheek-Dawson didn’t hesitate. Pulling his SAS dagger from its scabbard, he pulled the rat from its spit, sliced a piece off, and, using the dagger as a fork, raised it to his mouth, blew on it to cool it, then began to eat.
“True what they say. Captain?” said Lewis with relish. “Taste like chicken?”
“Taste like rat, Aussie,” said Cheek-Dawson. He turned to Brentwood. “Course, you made a bad mistake with the fire, old boy.”
“Oh?” retorted Brentwood. “You couldn’t see it, could you? We jerry-rigged a canopy, blackened out the windows. You couldn’t have seen it. Besides, it’s snowing. So what’s the beef?”
“The rat’s the beef,” said someone. Brentwood ignored it, waiting for Cheek-Dawson’s response. He had him cold. Didn’t he?
Cheek-Dawson took another slice and began to chew it, pulling a long, stringy piece from his teeth, balling it up and popping it back into his mouth. “Smell, old boy,” he said, looking straight at Brentwood while still chewing. “Smell it for bloody miles.”
“So what would you have done?” asked Brentwood, bristling at
the criticism.
“Cold, old boy. Can’t go pratting around with ruddy great fires, can you? Might as well send up a ruddy great flare — tell ‘em where you are.”
“You wouldn’t eat it bloody cold,” said Lewis. “Pull the other one.”
Cheek-Dawson walked over to the bag, pulled out a rat, threw it on the table, beheaded it with his dagger, and bisected the rest, pushing one half forward, silently cutting up the remaining half.
“Jesus!” someone said. Cheek-Dawson kept chewing, wiping the blood from his lips. He waited.
“Can I borrow your knife?” It was Brentwood, looking straight at the Englishman.
“By all means, old chap,” said Cheek-Dawson, handing him the SAS dagger.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Heading out from the Murmansk sub pens on Kola Peninsula, an Alfa 4, the fastest nuclear-powered attack sub in the world, passed beneath the Stednaja Nuclear and Conventional Weapons Arsenal. The Alfa 4 was one of the zolotaya ryba, or “golden fish,” so-called because it was the most expensive sub ever made in the Soviet Union.
Diving as soon as she could, she set her course along the relatively shallow seven-hundred-foot dip in Scandinavia’s continental shelf. No longer patrolled by NATO AWACs since the Russians had overwhelmed the Norwegians, the shallow exit was as safe as the Alfa could hope for before reaching the deeper waters that lay off the continental slope west of the North Cape. Once it had reached a point four hundred miles south, the Alfa, under the command of Nikita Yanov, would be in the six-thousand-foot-deep Norwegian Sea and then, turning to the southwest, would head for the sector of the Spitsbergen fracture zone, toward the Pole, searching for American Sea Wolfs, the 360-foot-long U.S. nuclear attack and ballistic missile subs that moved from station to station within easy striking distance of the Soviet Union.
