the fax. Sometimes the bickering criticism amused him. That evening, Henry Cartel- found it distinctly annoying, and a hindrance to his concentration. TO: Carter, Library, Vauxhall Cross. FROM: Ministry of Defence (Personnel).
SUBJECT: HAMILTON, SIDNEY ERNEST. TX: 17.21, 14.3.95.
STATUS: Biography/ Assessment Classified. BORN: Hackney, east London, 12/8/1962. MOTHER: Harriet Maude Hamilton. Father: No name listed. EDUCATION: William Wilberforce Junior, Hackney Comprehensive no qualifications claimed. MARITAL Married Karen (nee Wilkins), from STATUS: Guildford, Surrey, in July 1985. 1 daughter, Dawn Elizabeth, born in January 1987. Separated December 1989. Initial allegation of Battery brought by Karen Hamilton against husband, but withdrawn. EMPLOYMENT: (Prior to military enlistment) Van driving general delivery work.
MILITARY SERVICE:
EMPLOYMENT:
CURRENT:
ASSESSMENT:
Joined Parachute Regiment, March 1982.
Served with 3rd Bn. Northern Ireland tours: 1983, 1986, 1989.
Marksman/ First Class. Promoted Lance Corporal 1985, demoted 1986. Dismissed
8 April 1990.
(Disciplinary problems led to demotion, wrecking of bar in Cullyhanna, South
Armagh, followed by verbal abuse of a commissioned officer. Dismissed from
Regiment after the beating of an Irish sales representative in Aldershot.)
(Post military dismissal) 4 months with
Personal Security Ltd (Bodyguards),
Hornchurch, Essex, in close protection.
Dismissed.
Self-enlisted with HVO (Republic of Croatia
Defence Force). Originally with
'International Brigade'. (NB: Following death of HOWARD, BRIAN JAMES, fellow mercenary, shot dead at OSIJEK, Republic of Croatia, in March 1992, he is wanted for questioning by Strathclyde
Police. Local inquest recorded Open
Verdict.)
Unstable, unreliable. Fortunate to have served so long with Parachute Regiment.
Yes, he was right, usually was, the fear of failure drove those young men across those hideous front lines. He knew, because he had stood on the safe side and waited for them to come back. So, it was the map that mattered, the map supplied by this 'unstable, unreliable' creature…
He breathed hard.
'Don't fuck about on me, squire,' Ham whispered. 'Get on with it.'
He steadied himself, eased his weight forward on the side of the inflatable. The noise of the great Kupa river was an engine idling. Far away, to his right, down river, a single small light shone. The deep, dark water of the river was behind him, but close was the fast sluicing sound as the current broke around the paddle manoeuvred by Ham to hold the craft steady. Penn reached back. His fingers felt down Ham's arm to his hand. The palm of his hand wrapped over Ham's fingers on the paddle. 'And when I'm back, then I'll go find them, find them and tell them that you love them.' 'Just come back with your balls still under your belly.' 'The bloody map, Ham, it's a good map?' 'The only bloody map you'll ever get. On your way, squire.' His boots were hung by the laces round his neck, his socks were knotted at his throat. He hesitated. If the map was no good… If the bastard had drawn the map wrong… If he could not follow the map… If the map
… The fist caught him on the shoulder. The fist pushed him off the side of the inflatable. He splashed in the water. His bared toes sunk in the slime mud and the fallen weed. Panic time. He reached back for the side of the inflatable to steady himself, but the paddle was into his ribs. The drive of the paddle propelled Penn towards the bank that was the dark mass ahead of him. The backpack caught his head and landed on the bank above him. He struggled forward, stumbling through the mud. He groped for the bank, and the tree branches were in his face, and he grasped at them and they broke, and then he had a better hold. He dragged himself through the reeds and up the bank. His hands caught at the shoulder straps of the backpack. He sagged. He could see the inflatable moving out towards the main flow of the river, a shadow shape and the quick flash of the paddles breaking water. He watched the inflatable all the time that he could see it, and when he could no longer see it, he searched for it. Penn wiped his feet with the sleeve of the tunic. He drew on the thick wool socks. He laced the boots. He threaded his arms through the straps of the backpack. He was in Dorrie's place. The silence and the black darkness were ahead of him. The silence was good. He was at ease in silence. He could be silent with himself, and Jane would have thought him sulking, had been able to absorb silence from the childhood days when his mother had taken him to the church in the village where she worked the swab cloth on the flagstones and tidied after the ladies had taken down the flower arrangements. Silence was safety and it nestled around him. He had come to Dome's war.
Penn pushed himself up, started forward.
Ten.
It was as Ham had told him… Penn had moved on his stomach up from the river bank, trying to insert himself between the reeds where they were most thick. To spread his weight, was what Ham had told him, and not to walk where it was easiest, where boot marks could be most clearly seen. He had moved up the bank and there had been the open space that he assumed was a path, and he had rolled across the space, which was difficult with the backpack, and the pistol on his waist had bruised into his stomach. Past the open space, the path, he had found, as Ham had told him he would, a single low strand of barbed wire. He had found it because the barbs on the wire had suddenly trapped him, become embedded in the material of his camouflage tunic. Ham had told him that he should not shake the wire because it would carry empty tin cans, and he should not go beyond the wire because it marked the perimeter of an area where mines were buried. He had a sort of reassurance when the barbs of the wire caught at him, proof that Ham knew. He had picked the barbs off with small and careful movements, then crawled in the darkness along the length of the wire, threading the wire through the circle he had made with his thumb and forefinger until his hand was a mess of blood from the barbs. He led himself, on his stomach, along the length of wire until his hand felt the post and then the twine binding the wire to the post. From the post the wire twisted in direction and headed back and away from the river behind him. It was as Ham had told him… another path, going away from the river, and he had searched for a small stick, as he had been told to do, and he had held the stick loose in front of him as he had walked at the side of the path. Ham had said that he should be at the side of the path because the mud that would betray his boot weight would be in the centre of the path. He had held the stick loose in front of his knees because Ham had said, but didn't know, that there might be a tripwire slung across the path, at knee height, and a tripwire might rattle empty cans, or it might detonate a grenade. It was as Ham had told him… Penn stopped when he reckoned he had gone a full hundred yards from the river bank. When he had stopped, he groped with his fingers and found the barbed wire that ran two strides from the path, and he followed the barbed wire deep into the birch wood. He had sat down on the old leaf mould, and waited. They were desperate hours to wait, especially when the rain had started. The rain dripped from his head to his chest and his shoulders. He tried to ration how often he looked down at the luminous hands of his watch. Should have rested, should have catnapped, as Ham had told him, but he could not have slept and could not have dozed. He reckoned he heard each dribble and splatter of the rain coming down from the tall birches, and each minuscule shifting of his weight where he sat seemed a confined explosion of sound. He waited for the dawn. The dawn was late because of the low cloud. The dawn coming late meant that he would have to push faster when he moved off. When he could see where the weight of his boots would fall, then it was the time for him to move forward. There was no going back. There was no inflatable waiting at his bank of the Kupa river. There was no alternative to moving forward. There was nothing in his mind of sentimental crap, staying alive was going forward. As Ham had told him… the most dangerous part of the journey for him was the first five miles, and the worst of the most dangerous ground was what he would cover in the first mile. He tried to razor his concentration. The first mile was where the minefields were most closely
