Marty paused to look at him. ‘Part of it is up to you. If they think you’re a dud they’ll leave you on the sidelines.’
Hank flashed him a look. ‘Why would they think I was a dud?’
‘All I’m saying is, don’t push anything on to these guys. Let the marriage happen at its own pace. Okay? For sure you’ll spend the first year in a training team taking selection courses, laying on demos, giving lectures, stuff like that. Then maybe after that they’ll put you in one of the squadrons for some cross training.’
‘Why would they stick me in a training team for a year?’ Hank asked, not overjoyed at the prospect.
‘It’s what everyone does. I did a year before I joined M squadron. Training team is the best place to learn how they operate in general. It’s cool. You’ll enjoy it.’
Hank shrugged, trying to adopt a philosophical attitude.
‘Trust me. It’s a lotta fun,’ Marty added, then offering him further consolation, ‘Sometimes training team is the only team around and if an op comes along they can find themselves suitin’ up.’
Hank nodded, looking a little more pleased about that. ‘What are the negative things?’ he asked.
‘There’s always negative things,’ Marty said. ‘They don’t have the same cash flow we do.They’re kinda poor compared to us.You lose a piece of kit for instance and you’re paying for it if you don’t have a good story. Can’t just walk into the store like back home and say give me another.’
Hank shrugged. He could live with that.
‘Come on,’ Marty said, opening the door. ‘It’s a good time to take a look around. A lot of the guys are away.’
As they headed across the camp Marty pointed out various buildings: the gymnasium, swimming pool, officers’ and seniors’ messes, the climbing towers and headquarters complex.
‘You enjoyed your time here?’ Hank asked.
‘Yeah, pretty much. I’m lookin’ forward to getting home though. I think Kate’s gonna miss it more than me. She was hardly in Virginia a few months before we came here so she never made a lotta friends. After two years she’s made a bunch of friends here.’
Marty glanced at Hank, something on his mind. ‘Everything okay between you and Kathryn?’
Hank shrugged. ‘Yeah,’ he said.
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ Marty said.‘Moving countries, especially with kids, can be tense.’
Hank glanced at him, wondering if he should give Marty an explanation for the day before.‘She’ll settle in. She doesn’t like being away from home.’
‘I only asked because it’s kinda important you don’t have any problems on the home front. I mean, she’s as much a part of the team as you are in a way. They hold the wives in pretty tight here. They’re encouraged to support each other, especially when the guys are away. If a big op goes down they haul them all into the camp and brief them as much as they can. The guys can sometimes be away for months without being able to call home and what with the job being on the dodgy side . . .’
‘Dodgy?’ Hank asked.
‘Dangerous. You’ll pick up a lotta new lingo here too. We may speak the same language but I gotta tell ya, when I first got here I didn’t understand half the goddamned things some of the guys said.They’ve got Scottish guys, northerners, cockneys. And they’ve all got their own slang. For instance, if you hear someone call out “septic”, that means you.’
‘Septic?’
‘Septic tank - Yank. Cockney rhyming slang. They like to take the piss.’
‘Piss?’
‘Yank your chain. It’s the way they are. At first I thought they didn’t like me.Then I noticed they did it to each other just as much.’
Marty led Hank through a square that separated the accommodation buildings from the main galley complex. ‘What I was saying about Kathryn though,’ he went on, ‘she’s gotta be able to stand on her own feet. If you go away for a couple months it ain’t gonna be cool if she’s bangin’ on the RSM’s door asking where you are or wanting to go home ’cos she’s unhappy.’
‘She’ll be fine. We’ve talked about it and she knows why we’re here. She was just tired. I’m pretty sure the tough part’s over with - that was getting her here.’
‘Hey, Marty,’ a man called out from across the square and made his way towards the two men.
‘What’s hap’nin’, Dolesy?’ Marty called back, then quietly aside to Hank, ‘This guy’s head of land ops training. A good guy. He may be your first boss.’
Doles arrived and shook Marty’s hand.‘When’s your leaving run?’ he said in a light Scottish accent.
‘Friday. You here for it?’
‘Free beer, you kidding? I’ll be there, pal,’ he said with a grin. Doles was squat and strong with tough, chiselled features.
‘This is Chief Munro. He’s takin’ over from me. Colour Sergeant Doles.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Doles said, offering his hand.
‘Hank,’ Hank said, shaking his hand firmly.
‘Gotta run. Catch you later, Marty. Good to meet you, Hank. No doubt I’ll be seeing you around,’ he said as he headed away with a wave.
‘Friendly guy,’ Hank said.
‘Yeah. Most of the guys are. I’ve gotten to know a lot of ’em pretty well. We do the barbeque thing quite a bit, stuff like that. Their kids play with ours - you know. Just like back home. And going away can be pretty fun too. These guys like their beer . . . From what I hear about you, you should get on like a house on fire. They can party when they want to.’
‘That’s not quite so true these days,’ Hank said, playing it down. Marty didn’t comment further.
They arrived at a large hangar at the top of the camp. ‘This is C squadron hangar,’ Marty said. ‘They’re away at the moment.’
He pushed open the heavy sliding door and went inside. The cavernous space was divided into several areas. Dozens of individual equipment storage cages lined one wall, racks of diving suits, underwater breathing apparatus, gas bottles and high-pressure pumps lined another. Several nine-cell parachutes hung from the ceiling and half-a- dozen snowmobiles were parked in a corner beside various boxes of arctic equipment, tents and camouflage nets. Another area was home to a variety of specialised climbing equipment: harnesses, helmets, folding ladders and ropes, all neatly organised. Another stack of shelves contained communication and sundry electronics devices. A flight of stairs led up to several offices on a platform, which ran along one side of the hangar like train carriages.
‘Upstairs are the boss and sergeant major’s office, briefing room and ops room.’
‘You worked here?’
‘The last six months.’
‘How many of these hangars do they have?’ Hank asked.
‘A few, all around the country.’
The main door opened. They turned to see a man walk in carrying a heavy backpack over one shoulder and a holdall in his other hand. It was Stratton. He ignored them as he walked to a cage, opened it, threw his gear inside, slammed the door shut, and headed back the way he had come.
‘Who was that?’ Hank asked.
‘He arrived a couple days ago. I don’t know him.’
‘Man looked a little pissed.’
‘I overheard some of the guys talkin’. He just got back from Northern Ireland. Something went wrong on an op and he was the fall guy, something like that. It was one of those conversations you overhear and don’t ask about.’
Hank nodded and looked around the hangar. ‘Like ours but smaller,’ Hank said.
Marty checked his watch. ‘You like tea?’ Marty asked. ‘Hot tea with milk and sugar?’
‘Can’t say I’ve ever tried it that way,’ Hank said.
‘Get used to it,’ Marty said as he headed back to the main door. ‘It’s mandatory around here. You have to drink a cup every morning after your workout and it’s the only drink you’ll get when you’re on the job.’ Marty led Hank outside, closed the door, and walked across a small square towards a set of squat buildings. ‘Nine a.m. is
