LITMIR.BIZ

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His eyes strayed briefly to Piggy’s mutilated body in the wheelchair, and he drew uncomfortable comparisons. With a conscious effort, he pushed away his thoughts and tried to concentrate on the job in hand.

      Cyclops was bemoaning to Andrew Winston the fact that he had been recalled from leave.

      ‘The trouble with this bloody job is that you never know where you are,’ he complained bitterly. ‘One minute I’m romping around in a king-sized waterbed with a pair of nympho sisters and the next I’m kipping down in the spider with a bunch of smelly bastards with tattooed arses.’

      Andrew’s black face broke open into a dismissive grin, revealing a double keyboard of gleaming white teeth. ‘You’d never manage to fuck two sisters, you lying bastard,’ he teased. ‘Everyone in the Regiment knows you’ve got a prick like a rifle. Too long, too thin, and only one shot up the spout before you have to reload.’

      Cyclops was not going to be put down so easily. ‘Try a Franchi SPAS pump shotgun and you’re a bit nearer the mark,’ he countered. ‘Fat, fast and ferocious, and enough charge to spray an entire room with one shot.’

      ‘Dream on, man,’ Andrew said, laughing. He turned away, moving across the room to talk to Troopers McVitie and Naughton, both only twenty-one but chosen by Major Hailsham on Andrew’s personal recommendation. Neither seemed particularly grateful for this singular honour.

      ‘Well, what have you got us into this time, you black bastard?’ Jimmy McVitie demanded in his gruff Glasgow accent.

      ‘Whatever it is, I hope we can knock it out in a couple of days,’ Barry Naughton added optimistically. ‘I’m due for leave in just over a week’s time.’

      Andrew grinned benignly. ‘In answer to your two kind enquiries, A, we’re going on a nice little trip to China, and B, you could both have grey hairs on your goolies before we get home again.’

      Barry chose to see the bright side. His eyes flashed with eager anticipation.

      ‘Great, I’ve always wanted to screw a Chinese bird,’ he said, enthusiastically.

      Jimmy regarded him with a serious expression on his face. ‘Ye ken a Chinese woman’s cunt runs the other way, do ye not?’ he said. ‘Straight across, like a little yellow letterbox.’

      His companion’s face creased into a sceptical smile. ‘That’s bullshit,’ he muttered, but there was just the faintest suggestion of doubt in his voice. He looked up at Andrew, seeking a second opinion. ‘It’s not true, is it, boss?’

      The sergeant’s face was grave. ‘Oh, it’s true enough,’ he confirmed. ‘That’s why you never see Chinese women sliding down banisters.’

      Barry looked at them both blankly, now totally confused. As if at some secret signal, Andrew and Jimmy both raised their forefingers to their mouths at the same time, rubbing them rapidly up and down over their lips. Blubba-dubba-dubba-dubba-dubba-dubba.

      They both collapsed into silent laughter as Barry’s face told them that he had been well and truly suckered. The young trooper glared at them both without malice. ‘You pair of prats,’ he spluttered, then fell silent as a faint flush of embarrassment began to spread over his face. He slunk away, looking for someone to take his revenge on.

      Finding himself heading in the general direction of Corporal Max Epps, Barry paused for a moment. The tall, burly Mancunian was not known for his sense of humour, nor for his ability to engage in witty repartee. The man was essentially a loner – a trait which had given birth to his nickname, ‘the Thinker’. Under normal circumstances, he was quite happy with his own company, and those who knew him respected that as they respected the man himself. What counted was his contribution to the team when circumstances were not normal. For under fire, or when the going got tough, Epps’s character was a mirror-image of his physical presence. Sturdy, dependable, rock-solid. With twenty-six years of intensive soldiering under his belt, he was a comforting man to have around.

      But he was definitely not a man to wind up, Barry decided. He veered away across the briefing room, homing in on Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who were, as ever, looking like a pair of Siamese twins who had been separated against their will.

      Terry Marks and Tony Tofield had got used to the smutty, but basically good-natured jokes about the closeness of their friendship. Both young, both Londoners and both only recently badged, they accepted the ribaldry of their fellow SAS men because they knew that no one seriously thought that there was anything unnatural about their liking for each other’s company, or had any doubts about their sexual orientation. So Terry and Tony had become a natural pair, soon shortened to ‘T One’ and ‘T Two’ because it rolled off the tongue better, and finally Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

      The pair exchanged a knowing glance as Barry sauntered towards them. Even to a couple of comparative newcomers, the young trooper’s gullibility was well known. Baiting him was already a regimental sport.

      Innocent as ever, Barry walked right into the trap. ‘Hey, you guys. Have you heard? We’re going to China,’ he announced briskly. ‘I suppose you’ve heard the story about Chinese women’s fannies?’ He paused expectantly, waiting for a feed-in line. None came. Instead, Tweedledee just nodded knowingly. ‘What, about them being so small?’ he asked.

      Barry was thrown. ‘How do you mean?’ he asked uncertainly.

      Tweedledee held his thumb and forefinger an inch or so apart. ‘They’re only about this big – about an inch long,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way.

      He was not going to get caught again, Barry decided. But it was already too late. The trap had been sprung.

      ‘In fact, they’re hardly what you’d call a crack at all,’ Tweedledee continued, then glanced aside at his companion with a big grin on his face.

      ‘No, more of a little chink, really,’ Tweedledum finished for him. It was a pretty pathetic joke, but they both laughed uproariously.

      ‘Bastards!’ Barry exploded. More irritable than ever, he turned away and went to sulk in a corner.

      It was time to cut the bullshit and get down to business, Davies decided. Picking up a wall pointer, he rapped it a couple of times on the table. ‘Gentlemen, can I have your attention,’ he demanded loudly.

      All at once the buzz of conversation ceased and smiles faded from faces. The atmosphere of casual conviviality in the room was instantly replaced by an air of earnest anticipation.

      ‘Thank you,’ Davies said. He gestured over to Piggy, who had taken up position under the wall display and large-scale maps of the Kazakhstan region. ‘For those of you who don’t know, this is Captain Baker, ex-SAS and ex-OPI. He will give you an initial briefing on our theatre of operations and a rough idea of what you can expect. Afterwards, I shall hand over to Major Hailsham and we’ll be holding a Chinese parliament, so you can all have your say.’

      The ‘Chinese parliament’ represented the essence of SAS philosophy, in minimizing the importance of mere rank in favour of military experience. It was an informal discussion held by the CO of an operation at which each man, regardless of rank, was free to offer advice and criticism and suggest his own alternatives. Valuable in its own right, the system also reinforced the Regiment’s classless and truly democratic outlook and the belief that every man had his own valued and important contribution to make.

      There was a long silence after Piggy finished his briefing on the geography and climatic conditions of the target area. News that they might also be facing a threat from unknown chemical or bacteriological agents merely extended it.

      It was inevitable that the silence would be broken with a joke. Both Davies and Major Hailsham had been fully expecting the typical response of men facing up to a life or death challenge. It was a mantra against the terrors of the unknown.

      Surprisingly, it came from a totally unexpected source.

      ‘Well, I’ll be all right,’ the Thinker intoned in a rich, deep baritone. ‘My old dad kept his Mickey Mouse gas mask

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