Lewis didn’t understand some of the words the major was using, but most Poms, he concluded, were like that — all sounded like they’d swallowed a bloody dictionary. Anyway, Lewis got the general drift.
“One of the things we’ll be looking for in the first week,” continued Major Rye, “is what we call ‘crossover ability,’ Our basic unit is a four-man one in which each man is a generalist but also a specialist in a particular field so that should you be on a sticky ‘op,’ you will have the ability to step into one another’s shoes as it were. And quickly. First week, however, will be devoted to weeding out those of you who are not up to it. You will discover this yourselves. I want it clearly understood that there is absolutely no stigma for failing SAS’s first phase. You’ve been chosen because you’re the best in your own regiments, but we do aspire to the
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.
“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
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
