“Korea!” pronounced Lewis, upon looking down from the Hercules ramp at the moonlit snow blanketing the Scottish highlands that were flitting like white islands through churning cumulus over twenty-five thousand feet below. “I knew it. They’re sending us to bloody Korea.”
The red warning light came on and the SAS troopers stood up, lumbering slowly forward, weighed down by HALO packs, oxygen masks, infrared-goggled helmets, and the SAS weapon of choice — the U.S. Ingram MAC-11—Military Armament Corps — submachine gun, Lewis making it clear to anyone who could hear him above the Hercules’ sustained roar that he certainly hoped this would be the last “bloody night HALO” they’d have to practice.
“It is,” responded Cheek-Dawson, his face all but invisible in the green/black camouflage paste and helmet sprouting bracken as he checked that each man had spat in the infrared goggles to help prevent condensation and that they had all checked their wrist altimeters — in sync with that of the Hercules.
“Remember the drill,” the sar’major told them, his voice tinny through the hailer. “When you land, unhitch but never mind the chute. Won’t have time to drag in, fold, or bury it this time. You must expect patrols both inside and outside the drop zone.” Lowering the megaphone, the sergeant major looked about. “Aussie!”
“Sar’Major?”
“If a flare goes up?”
“Take off the IF glasses.”
“Correct. Now, we have fifteen minutes to take out a divisional HQ. Target, this man.” He took a blowup of an Asian-looking officer and held it high, with Cheek-Dawson shining his flashlight on it. “Brigadier general,” said Cheek-Dawson. “Insignia — epaulets and shoulder tabs, yes. But the face, gentlemen. Go for the face. Remember it.” He then passed it around.
“I dunno,” said Lewis. “They all look the same to me. What do you reckon, Fritz?”
The German looked at the photo.
“No, Aussie. I think the nose is very definite. You see — and the jaw is—”
“Stone the bloody crows, Fritz,” said Lewis, winking at Thelman and Brentwood. “Just a joke. Strike a light — you Krauts take everything so seriously?” Lewis turned his head to Cheek-Dawson. “What’s after this, sir?”
“Through the house once more for final selection to the squadron.” It wasn’t so much a house but a canvas mockup of an enemy’s divisional HQ near Hereford, complete with booby traps.
“Whole squadron going, sir?”
“Can tell you that much, yes. All eighty of us — providing we get asked. Apart from that, as you know, our job is to keep fit, on standby.”
“You have any ideas, sir?” pressed Lewis.
“Sorry, Lewis, I can’t be of any assistance to your book-making prognostications, but you know the drill. SAS security’s so tight — has to be — that we’d only be told forty-eight hours in advance in any case. That’s why we have you cover the field. You’re supposed to be ready for anything. Right, Sar’Major?”
“Right, sir.”
“You will lose a lot of money if it is Korea, eh, Aussie?” teased Schwarzenegger.
“Aw — shuddup, you Kraut!”
Four of the eighty men were killed during the jump, one in a tumble, one whose emergency chute failed, and two who overshot the zone, going down in one of the lochs, drowned before they could get out of the harness with the 110-pound battle packs weighing them down in the frigid water. Cheek-Dawson took it harder than anyone but was determined not to let it show. They had lost a dozen men in accidents, either going over the Brecons or on the Hereford forced marches and in the jumps. But it had to be done if you were to be the best. Nevertheless, he was growing as impatient as the rest of them for a mission, though here again, he couldn’t let on. And so it was with a sense of both exhilaration and measured apprehension that, upon returning to the base, he received the news from Major Rye that Operation Merlin was on.
“Run-through time?” asked Cheek-Dawson.
“Twenty hours,” said Rye. “Enough?”
“If we have all the maps, paraphernalia, et cetera,” said Cheek-Dawson.
“We do.”
“Good show. First briefing early morning?” asked Cheek-Dawson, though it was already near 10:00 p.m., well after lights-out.
“Yes,” said Rye.
“Very good, sir. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Rye, but first he would have to write letters immediately to the families of the four men who had died that night. Contrary to what was generally thought, Rye did not find the task particularly onerous. It was one of the few times when he could talk quite unsentimentally about brave men. Besides, because he was constrained by SAS security requirements, he could give no hint of where they had been or where they would have been going, and this allowed parents and loved ones to gain some solace by thinking the men had already partaken in a highly secret operation and had therefore been killed on “active service”—which was technically correct.