Bravo two zero Read Online Free PDF Page A

dissolved. In October 1990 I met Jilly. It was love at first sight-or so she told me.
        

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        We assembled at 0750 at the OC's table and headed off together for the briefing area. Everybody was in a jovial mood. We had a stainless steel flask each and the world's supply of chocolate. It was going to be a long day, and saving time on refreshment breaks would allow us to get on with more important matters.
        I was still feeling chuffed to have been made patrol commander and to be working with Vince. Approaching his last two years of service with the Regiment, Vince was 37 and a big old boy, immensely strong. He was an expert mountaineer, diver, and skier, and he walked everywhere-even up hills-as if he had a barrel of beer under each arm. To Vince, everything was "fucking shit," and he'd say it in the strongest of Swindon accents, but he loved the Regiment and would defend it even when another squadron member was having a gripe. The only complaint in his life was that he was approaching the end of his 22 years' engagement. He had come from the Ordnance Corps and looked rough in a way that most army people would expect a member of the Regiment to look rough, with coarse, curly hair and sideboards and a big mustache. Because he'd been in the Regiment a bit longer than I had, he was going to be a very useful man to have around when it came to planning.
        The briefing area, we discovered, was in another hangar. We were escorted through a door marked NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. As a regiment we were in isolation, but the briefing area was isolation within isolation. OP SEC (operational security) is crucial. Nobody in the Regiment would ever ask anybody else what he was doing. As unwritten rules go, that one is in red ink, capital letters, and underlined. Doors either side of us were labeled AIR PLANNING, D SQUADRON, INT CORPS, MAP STORE. There was nothing fancy about the signs; they were A4 sheets of paper pinned to the door.
        The atmosphere in this building was markedly different. It was clinical and efficient, with the ambient hiss and mush of radio transmissions in the background. Intelligence Corps personnel, known to us as "spooks" or "green slime," moved from room to room with bundles of maps in their arms, being meticulous about closing doors behind them. Everybody spoke in low voices. It was an impressive hive of professional activity.
        We knew many of the spooks by name, having worked with them in the UK.
        "Morning, slime," I called out to a familiar face. "How's it going?"
        I got a mouthed word and a jerk of the wrist in return.
        The place had no windows and felt as though it had been derelict for a long time. There was an underlying smell of mustiness and decay. On top of that were the sort of ordinary office smells you'd get anywhere-paper, coffee, cigarettes. But this being what we called a remf (rear echelon motherfucker) establishment and early in the morning, there was also a strong smell of soap, shaving foam, toothpaste, and aftershave.
        "Morning, remfs!" Vince greeted them with his Swindon accent and a broad grin. "You're fucking shit, you are."
        "Fucking shit yourself," a spook replied. "Could you do our job?"
        "Not really," Vince said. "But you're still a remf."
        The B Squadron room was about 15 feet square. The ceiling was very high, with a slit device at the top that gave the only ventilation. Four tables had been put together in the center. Silk escape maps and compasses were laid out on top.
        "Freebies, let's have them," Dinger said.
        "Never mind the quality, feel the width," said Bob, one of Vince's gang.
        Bob, all 5'2" of him, was of Swiss-Italian extraction and known as the Mumbling Midget. He'd been in the Royal Marines but wanted to better himself, and had quit and taken a gamble on passing Selection. Despite his size he was immensely strong, both physically and in