like when he gets too much sunshine. His face turns purple and he can’t stand the bullshit.’
‘You’re all wasting time talking,’ Dead-eye pointed out with his usual grasp of the priorities. ‘If you keep talking you’ll waste more of your twenty minutes and won’t have time for breakfast. Let’s pick beds and unpack.’
The accommodation consisted of rectangular concrete bunkers surrounded by flat green fields, slightly shaded by papaya and palm trees. The buildings had wire-mesh and wooden shutters instead of glass windows. The shutters were only closed during tropical storms; the wire-mesh was there to keep out the many flying insects attracted by the electric lights in the evenings. Likewise, because of the heat, the wooden doors were only closed during storms.
From any window of the barracks the men could see the airstrip, with F-28 jets, Valetta, Beverley and Hercules C-130 transports, as well as Sikorski S-55 Whirlwind helicopters, taking off and landing near the immense, sun-scorched hangars. Beyond the airstrip was a long line of trees, marking the edge of the jungle.
After selecting their beds and transferring personal kit to the steel lockers beside each bed, the men hurriedly unwrapped their prepacked wads, or sandwiches, and had hot tea from vacuum flasks.
‘Christ, it’s hot,’ Pete Welsh said, not meaning the tea.
‘It’s hardly started,’ Alf Laughton told him. ‘Early hours yet. By noon you’ll be like a boiled lobster, no matter how you try to avoid the sun. Fucking scorching, this place is.’
‘I want to see Penang,’ Dennis the Menace said. ‘All those things you told us about it, Alf. All them Malay and Chinese birds in their cheongsams, slit up to the hip. George Town, here I come!’
‘When?’ Boney Maronie asked. ‘If we’re not even getting lunch on our first day here, what hope for George Town? We’re gonna be worked to death, mates.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Dead-eye said, stowing the last of his personal gear in his steel locker. ‘I came here to fight a war – not to get pissed and screw some whores. I want to see some action.’
Dennis the Menace grinned crookedly and placed his hand affectionately on Dead-eye’s head. ‘What a nice lad you are,’ he said, only mocking a little. ‘And what a good trooper! It’s good to see you’re so keen.’
‘You’d see action if you came with me to George Town,’ Boney Maronie informed him. ‘You’d see a battle or two, mate.’
‘Not the kind of battle Dead-eye wants to see,’ Dennis the Menace said. ‘This kid here has higher aims.’
‘That’s right,’ Dead-eye said.
Boney Maronie was rolling his eyes in mock disgust when the red-faced Sergeant Lorrimer returned, this time in an updated 4×4 Willys jeep that had armoured perspex screens and a Browning 0.5-inch heavy machine-gun mounted on the front. Hopping down, leaving the driver behind the steering wheel, Lorrimer bawled instructions for the men to assemble outside the barracks in order of height. When they had done so, he marched them across the broad green field bordered with papaya and palm trees to the quartermaster’s store, to be kitted out with everything they needed except weapons, which could only be signed for when specifically required.
The standard-issue clothing included jungle-green drill fatigues, a matching soft hat and canvas-and-rubber boots. The men were also supplied with special canvas bergens which looked small when rolled up, but enormous when filled. The contents of each individual bergen included a sleeping bag of hollow-fill, man-made fibre; a bivi-bag, or waterproof one-man sheet used as a temporary shelter; a portable hexamine stove and blocks of hexamine fuel; an aluminium mess tin, mug and utensils; a brew kit, including sachets of tea, powdered milk and sugar; matches in a waterproof container and flint for when the matches ran out; needles and thread; a fishing line and hooks; a pencil torch and batteries; a luminous button compass; signal flares; spare radio batteries; fluorescent marker panels for spotter planes in case of rescue; a magnifying glass to help find splinters and stings in the skin; and a medical kit containing sticking plasters, bandages, cotton wool, antiseptic, intestinal sedative, antibiotics, antihistamine, water-sterilizing tablets, anti-malaria tablets, potassium permanganate, analgesic, two surgical blades and butterfly sutures.
‘Just let me at you,’ Dennis the Menace said, waving one of his small surgical blades in front of Boney’s crutch. ‘The world’ll be a lot safer if you don’t have one, so let’s lop it off.’
‘Shit, Dennis!’ Boney yelled, jumping back and covering his manhood with his hands. ‘Don’t piss around like that!’
‘You think this is funny, Trooper?’ Sergeant Lorrimer said to Dennis the Menace. ‘You think we give you these items for your amusement, do you?’
‘Well, no, boss, I was just…’
‘Making a bloody fool of yourself, right?’ Lorrimer shoved his beetroot-red face almost nose to nose with the trooper. ‘Well, let me tell you, that where you’re going you might find a lot of these items useful – particularly when you have to slice a poisonous spike or insect out of your own skin, or maybe slash open a snake bite, then suck the wound dry and suture it yourself without anaesthetic. Will you be laughing then, Trooper?’
‘No, boss, I suppose not. I mean, I…’
‘Damn right, you won’t, Trooper. A joker like you – you’ll probably be pissing and shitting yourself, and crying for your mummy’s tit. So don’t laugh at this kit!’
‘Sorry, boss,’ Dennis the Menace said. ‘Hear you loud and clear, boss.’
‘At least I know you clean the wax from your ears,’ Lorrimer said, then bellowed: ‘Move it, you men!’
Once the squadron had been clothed and kitted out in order of size, they were marched back across the broad field, which, at the height of noon, had become a veritable furnace that burned their skin and made them pour sweat. To this irritation was added the midges and mosquitoes, the flies and flying beetles, none of which could be swotted away because every man, apart from being burdened with his heavy bergen, also had his hands engaged carrying even more equipment. When eventually they reached the barracks, their instinct was to throw the kit on the floor and collapse on their bashas. But this was not to be.
‘Right!’ Sergeant Lorrimer bawled. ‘Stash that kit, have a five-minute shower, put on your drill fatigues, and reassemble outside fifteen minutes from now. OK, you men, shake out!’
The latter command was SAS slang for ‘Prepare for combat’, but the men knew exactly what Lorrimer meant by using it now: they were going to get no rest. Realizing that this time they didn’t even have time to complain or bullshit, they fought each other for the few showers, hurriedly dressed, and in many cases were assembling outside without having dried themselves properly, their wet drill fatigues steaming dry in the burning heat. They were still steaming when Lorrimer returned in the jeep, but this time he waved the jeep away, then made the men line up in marching order.
‘Had your scran, did you?’ he asked when they were lined up in front of him.
‘Yes, boss!’ the men bawled in unison.
‘Good. ’Cause that’s all you’re going to get until this evening. You’re here to work – not wank or chase skirt – and any rest you thought you might be having, you’ve already had in that Hercules. OK, follow me.’
He
