Flabby said his goodbyes and jumped into his Fiat Seicento. He jumped back out and returned the hamster to its cage. He jumped back into the car again and roared off into the night. The security state at Sterling Lines could not have been higher and he tooted his horn trying to wake Joe the security guard so he could get into camp. The Lines was a hive of activity as fellow SAS troopers finished off chapters of their latest books or played around with screenplays. He parked the Fiat in the space marked ‘Whisky Charlie One”. They had been allowed to choose their own call signs and Flabby had chosen that as it had been his mum’s initials and he only had the one mum.
Flabby was 35 now, a tall, slightly overweight figure of a man or two men as the others joked. He had joined the SAS from an infantry regiment where he had distinguished himself and had slowly risen through the ranks but then the Royal Norfolk Mountaineers was a small regiment, a proud one but a small one and even after seeing active service in various theatres, Flabby had known there had to be bigger and better things. The Royal Norfolk Mountaineers had been amalgamated into the Yorks and Lancs (Bolton ) Wanderers and again into the Home Counties (Very Northern) Division and all their illustrious history had been swallowed up into a huge cooperative of a regiment. The regimental silver that dated back to the Napoleonic Wars now sat in huge vault and was only brought out on every second Saturday of the month except for public holidays and Tuesdays. The regiment was gone but Flabby had other fish to fry.
Flabby finished off his fish, he loved plaice and the compo tartare sauce was to die for. He sat in the cookhouse, downed an active sport Lucozade, and playfully threw the empty bottle at Ryan Christopher who would be joining him in Iranistan. Ryan wiped the blood from his head where the glass bottle had hit him. It had been a NAAFI own brand active sports Lucozade bottle that he had thrown and the blood poured from a nasty gash. Flabby pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to Ryan who dabbed at his head with the McAndrew family hamster, which had been inside the handkerchief. Flabby took the now very bloody hamster down to Joe the security guard and asked him to return it to the family home. Joe acknowledged and went back to sleep.
Back in the cookhouse, Ryan and flabby talked about the current ‘job’, the political situation, the price of fish, the benefits of the sweeper system and other topics of the day. Ryan was his number two and an experienced trooper. He had several books under his belt already, they were not any good but he had sold a few and he was also a fine soldier. Ryan had joined the Army to be a pilot, it was a simple mistake to make and the RAF office had only been next door. He had ended up in the Catering Corps and was world famous in Catterick for his Eggs Benedict. He had tried to keep his fitness levels high despite tasting five thousand calories worth of food a day and poisoning himself on numerous occasions. He had gone through the selection process for the SAS, knocked up an excellent Tartlet of Soft-boiled Quails Egg & Parmesan Shavings followed by some Gravadlax with Chilli Crème Fraîche Blini and he was in.
Flabby knew it was close to the time of the briefing as the little hand on his military watch was close to the eight. The large hand had fallen off on day two when the multi timer mode had gone haywire. He had timed a lovemaking session with his wife and had broken their record by eighty-three days. “Bloody military watch” grunted Flabby noticing that it was now ninety degrees celsius and he was at a depth of ten fathoms. “Bloody military” joked Ryan showing off his Snoopy watch. “Time for the briefing” said Ryan and they left for the briefing room.
The briefing room was packed. Those who hadn’t booked, stood at the side and all chattered nervously, you could cut the tension with a knife. The Boss was on the stage with some suits as they were called. Probably MI5 or MI6 or both as MI5 had green ties with red stripes and MI6 had red ties with green stripes. None of the suits wore ties so this was something big and very special and very confusing. The Boss called for silence. You could hear a pin drop. “Shite!” Flabby’s watch pin dropped on the floor and everybody looked his way. He smiled and showed all his watch and a mass murmuring of “Bloody military watches” broke the silence. “See me afterwards McAndrew” said the Boss and started the briefing.
The briefing went on for at least an hour. All details were covered, point of entry, point of exit, the weather, the nearest MacDonald’s, what to take, what not to take, what to see when you were there, local tourist hotspots, it was all highly technical and highly detailed and far too technical and detailed for a non military type like me to comprehend. Ryan and Flabby knew the score.
More to follow.
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