Wasner turned to a file cabinet behind his desk and pulled out a topographic map of Eielson Air Force Base. He spread it out on the flat surface of the desk. He and Marcus worked out the details of where they were going.
Chapter 11
Flashback
Wednesday, May 13th, 1998
Stonehouse Barracks
43 Commando
Her Majesty’s Royal Marine Corps
Plymouth Naval Base, England
Marcus’s first PT session with the men of 43 Commando was brutal. The pain wasn’t due to the headache and tiredness from the previous night’s drinking—the British Royal Marine officers seemed to want to show up the American. After a brief introduction to the captain and the three lieutenants of Mike Company, there was a flurry of end-to-end exercises that quickly had the whole unit sweating.
The session started off with pyramid push-ups—press-ups, in British terminology—which involved varying distances between the hands and alternately increasing numbers of repetitions until they finally ended after a total of two hundred and fifty presses. Then came a cluster of abdominal exercises, including a hundred each of crunches, flutter kicks, leg lifts, and the infamous “Hello Dolly” exercise that requires the exerciser to hold their feet six inches off the ground while he opens and closes the legs for the prescribed number of reps.
After completing the gut-wrenchingly painful repetitions, the instructor, an athletic-looking sergeant in his mid-twenties, subjected the troop to a series of mountain climbers and squat thrusts, followed by a ten-minute high-step in-place run.
This had all only been a warm up. Following everything they had already done, the captain sent the men back to the barracks to change into their marching kit. They came out fifteen minutes later with full battle uniform, thirty-two pound rucksack, web gear, and rifle. As soon as they assembled, they were led in formation out of the PT field and onto a dirt road where they enjoyed a leisurely twelve-mile forced march. The pace never got below 4.5 miles per hour, but never increased enough to break into a jog.
Barclay told Marcus the officers tried to push the men as far as they could before a weekend off in an effort to keep their frivolity to a minimum. It seldom worked, although judging by the looks on the faces of these men, this Friday session was more than they had been accustomed to. By the time they reached home again, every one of them was utterly exhausted.
It was just before 10:00 when they were released and told to go enjoy a delicious breakfast. There was more than a hint of cruelty in such a dismissal. The mess facility had closed at 09:00 and wouldn’t open again until 11:30.
After lunch, Marcus was formally introduced to the officers of the company. Colonel Sean Farris, commanding officer of 43 Commando, welcomed him and mentioned with some degree of respect that Marcus’s reputation in Special Operations had preceded his arrival at the base. The commander assured Marcus that he would fit in quite nicely and that they were looking forward to his instruction in sniping and small team deep reconnaissance as the year went on. Colonel Farris then turned Johnson over to Regimental Sergeant Major Charles Smythe, a short, thick man whose five-foot six-inch height accentuated the dimensions of his chest, arms, and neck. The man looked as though he were crafted from the stump of giant oak tree.
RSM Smythe took Marcus on a tour of the base, introducing him to the other Royal Marines and Naval units stationed there before dropping him off back at the barracks. The weekend was relatively uneventful. Marcus spent most of it taking in the local color of Plymouth with Barclay and Smoot.
The following Monday brought with it a real schedule. It was the beginning of a new training cycle. The men of 43 Commando spent all of Monday and Tuesday and most of Wednesday encamped on a stretch of soggy coastal marsh across the water from Plymouth, dubbed “The Sound”. They endlessly practiced tracking and stalking skills at all hours of the day and night.
On Wednesday evening, they returned to the base, cold, wet and tired. The troop was given orders to clean up and get ready for another five-day exercise scheduled to be held farther south beginning Thursday. They were to work on swift watercraft insertions and cold-water swim insertions. While it was an exhausting schedule, the training had been excellent so far. Marcus was looking forward to the sea work.
Just after supper that evening in the NCOs’ mess, one of the sergeants from Kilo Company, a man called Pops because of his prematurely gray sideburns, approached the table at which Marcus was dining with Barclay and a corporal named White.
“Hey, Gunny Johnson!” Pops called out. He smiled in greeting at the other two. “We got a strange bit of mail and it took a while to find the intended recipient, but …” he reached out and extended an airmail envelope toward Marcus. “…here you go. Between your postal and ours, they marked the envelope up so badly that the name and most of the original address got all smudged up. The return address has been totally obliterated. But we could just make out that it was intended for someone at Camp Pendleton in the first case, so we figured it must be you, being that you’re the only Yank with us at the moment.”
“Thanks, Pops.” Marcus gratefully received the envelope from the other man.
“No problem.” He stood above Marcus for a moment, as if he had more to say.
Marcus looked back up, implying permission to speak, and Pops went on. “Hey, Gunny? I hear you’re from Alaska originally. Is that true?”
“Yes, it is. From a little town called Salt Jacket up in the interior.”
“Oy! That is grand, simply grand. I’ve always wanted to go to Alaska. It’s like my dream place, you know. I’ve done Norway several times, but I hear that
