Serving the Regiment

By Chas Weaver

Betrayed and ambushed, three-quarters of the patrol cut down, answers are needed, not just to why it went wrong but to identify those responsible and to pay them a visit – regiment style. From Rome to the UK, back to Italy, Sicily, and Rome once more, the quest was long and fraught, laced with problems to surmount, but we had that taste for revenge and nothing in this world would stop us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chas Weaver
• Release date: Jan 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311351715

Chas Weaver

Born in West London Chas weaver has served in the military, the London Fire Brigade and more. He has a wealth of experiences in life that his stories and books are based on.

Book preview

Serving the Regiment

By

Chas Weaver

© Copyright Chas Weaver

2014.

The right of Chas Weaver to be identified as the author of this book has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Copying of this manuscript, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the author or his publisher is strictly prohibited and would constitute a breach of copyright held.

All characters in this story are aged 18 years and over. All characters are completely fictitious and all are deemed to be consenting participants in all actions included in the story.

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Table of contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

No names are used in this story, each character being referred to only by their regiment nickname.

A personal note to those that knew me in my time in Torrox, Spain, in particular to the ex-naval Scotsman with the walking stick that I went to Casablanca with – It may not happen today, not perhaps tomorrow, next month or, next year even, but happen it will.

Chapter 1

He was so close I could almost smell him, the low bushes I was hidden down in offered some fair concealment but, if he moved any further to my left I would be compromised and the shit would hit the fan. I had to do it and do it now. My fighting knife was gripped in my right hand, I was sweating like a pig, and my heart was racing, pounding like a foundry hammer in my chest. I knew what to do; I had practised it many times in close combat training, but never before had I killed someone so close up and in hand-to-hand combat. To shoot someone from afar is one thing, to shoot them at close quarters when you can see their faces and mannerisms is another, both of those I had done and several times over, but kill with my hands - never had I and, as with all aspects of life, new experiences raise questions and doubts in one’s mind.

Apprehension rather than fear filled me, so much depended on not being discovered for at least another hour; after that the shit would hit the fan anyway and our mission would be completed by then, just this damned sentry changing his route from the norm was likely to queer it all. I was confident in my ability to carry out the attack and yet, I still feared failure and by any such failure, of blowing the whole mission. The others depended on me, the regiment depended on me at this time, I just had to get it right.

The night had been cold and the early morning just before sunrise seemed colder still. I had been in the hide for days and out of it some of the nights just passed, using the cover of darkness for (CTR) close target recognition, heavy dew coated the ground and foliage to add a chilling dampness to everything that touched or brushed against you. Hard routine was essential on such observation missions; biscuits, chocolate and cold water only, no fires, stoves or cooking that could give away your presence, just cold food, cold weather and strictly no smoking into the bargain. I was hungry, cold, tired, nervous and getting desperate to have the mission over with and to return to warm shelter and some hot food and drink and, a smoke that I was really gagging for. Those luxuries though were many hours away, for now total concentration on the job in hand was needed, more than that, it was essential.

I slowly rose from a squat to a crouch, ready to spring forth onto him. The sentry was bored, strolling and disinterested in his turn of duty, he was not due be relieved for another one and three-quarter hours, I had watched and logged the guard pattern over the four days I had spent in the OP hide. Would the fresh relief guard and the guard commander be early to relieve him, would they discover him and raise the alarm, sinking both me and the mission? Being taken prisoner on this operation wasn’t an option, it would mean the chop for sure and, perhaps a slow and lingering chop at that. It was to kill or be killed time and I narrowed my eyes as my body half-tensed in readiness. The guard turned his back to me for a few seconds and then strolled leisurely a pace to my left, his weapon was slung over his shoulder showing his lack of alertness but the muzzle sticking up above his right shoulder would prove an obstacle to overcome, a hindrance to the use of my knife arm when I grabbed him.

All was ready to go, to spring forward, wrap my left arm around his face and eyes as I yanked back his head, knee high up into his back for leverage and then to slice the blade across his protruding throat and Adam’s apple. My throat was dry, my heart pumping so loudly my ears pulsed; I took the strain on my rear foot and half-bent my leg to gain push-off and momentum to speed the attack. Then I suddenly halted, the guard let out a loud fart, the suddenness of it halting me instantly, my mind racing with momentary confusion. A second only to regain my thoughts and then I launched myself through the bushes and grabbed him.

I fucked it up big time in my haste, over compensating with my right arm to get around the rifle muzzle to his throat and the first thing I did was to slice into my own left arm. He went rigid as I held him and tried instinctively to pull forward against me but I kept his head far back, my knee in his back and then I sliced deep into his throat. I sliced and hacked like a trainee butcher, so much so that I almost decapitated him. Blood gushed and spurted, gurgles rattled from his open throat, his body went limp and then he was a dead weight against me. Panting like a racehorse I dragged him back into the bushes, back a bit further and then dropped him into the hide as some small concealment, although given the amount of blood splattered around on the foliage of the bushes and ground that would be sign enough to anyone that something was amiss.

My front was covered with blood, I felt like a butcher in a slaughter house, my DPM smock and trousers drenched with dark red and sticking to me like cling film. I stood panting and shaking, my entire body shuddering and reacting, my hands when I held them out were like jelly and my heart thumped fit to burst. But I had done it, my first close-up kill. Then I remembered my own arm wound.

I sliced away the sleeve of my smock to bare the arm, in the half-dark of near dawn I could see little except close up, there was a wide gash in the flesh just above the elbow, the cut was on the tender under-arm part, about 3 inches long and that was welling out copious quantities of blood. Fumbling in my belt kit I slapped a field dressing on it and in seconds it was soaked through, I applied a second one and bound the wound tightly, not much else I could do for the moment except try to staunch the bleeding, at least it had missed the main artery. The cut throbbed and burned like hell, it needed stitches but there was no chance of such surgery here, I would just have to bear the pain and hope the limb didn’t seize up and hamper the next part of the mission I was to carry out.

My heart raced still, I had done the necessary deed but still the operation had to be carried out and soon. I was dripping with his blood and mine and, with any movement I made it would be sure to leave a trail that would easily be seen, blowing the mission for all and worse still, putting the other members of the patrol in almost certain danger. The dead guard’s uniform was in a worse state than mine, it had more blood in it than in an abattoir, nothing else for it, I would have to strip and go at it naked.

The cam-cream in my belt kit barely covered my shoulders and upper arms; I had used the most of them over the last four days smearing brown and green camo-colouring on my face neck and hands, there wasn’t even a tenth of that would be needed to coat my entire body and the light brown field dressing stood out like a beacon in the darkness. Nothing else for it, I would have to use the dead guard’s blood mixed with mud, my pale skin would be near luminous otherwise and had to be toned down to match in with the foliage of the woodland I was in. For my back and shoulders I would have to lie on the ground after pressing my back on the still warm body of the guard and get enough blood on me for the soil and leaves to stick to me.

Our patrol call sign was Victor-one-three and I was designated number 4 in the team making my call sign Victor-1-3-4 but in comms traffic between our patrol members it was shortened to Victor and the team number. My throat comms set allowed all four of us in the patrol to contact each other but, silence was the rule, unless in an extreme emergency, it was the strict and necessary rule to observe, and I had done exactly that. There had been no traffic between any of us at all in the past four days and I just hoped to hell the others were in still position and all okay. I had no way of knowing and wasn’t about to try to contact any of them, we rely on each other to get the task done, each having his own tasks as part of the overall picture in the mission. We trusted each other completely whilst on missions, even if we sometimes disagreed back at camp once it was all over, no arguing on missions, what was ordered was carried out, the discussion over the rights and wrongs of it could wait until later.

Victor’s 1, 2 and 3 were positioned to the outer fringes of the huge and sprawling wooded estate, Victor 3 was working alone as I was, and the other two together ready to make the final hit on the target in the mansion. My brief was in three parts: observe the layout and to deal with the guard/s on the western side approach. Once the start time came I was to locate and destroy the underground fibre optic cables to kill all communications to and from the mansion and the guard room located at the Southern gates, then to be ready to give covering fire to Victors 1 and 2 when they exited the building. Victor 3 was to set up and instigate what we nicknamed the ‘Wet Blanket Set’, a piece of electronic equipment for blocking mobile phones or radio traffic in a given area and thereby preventing any communication from the mansion to the outside or within its boundaries. The problem with using this bit of kit though was that it also blocked out our throat comms signals, so Victor 3 had to get his timing right and, be ready to knock the set off if things went noisy, that way we could know what was happening to each other and to warn and to work together to exit the place. Timing on this mission was all important, for each of us, if anyone fucked up it would drop the others in the shit.

Once the mission was complete we were to split up and head to the rendezvous point, not directly but by circling and boxing, a full day had been allocated to avoidance of being tracked before heading to the RV and meeting up, there to arranging extraction – if all went well. A second ERV – Emergency Rendezvous point - had been designated if the first RV was compromised so, we had a back-up if needed. All had sounded good at the briefing but, in reality, things are bound to go differently and then it was a case of adapt to conditions and improvise, things the regiment are so good at.

I was now coated as much as I could be in a mix of blood, mud and leaves, my pale skin now toned down to a fair sort of camouflage colour. I had left my regulation green underpants on, ‘shreddies’ we call them due to the open weave of the material to allow air flow, and my boots were an essential in such terrain. My belt kit and pouches were camo colour anyway, DPM (disruptive pattern material) and my shotgun was wrapped in camo netting to help break up the shape of it, unnatural shapes in woodland stuck out like a sore thumb. My forage cap covered my blonde hair and apart from my eyes that I would keep half-closed to reduce eye-shine, I was now ready. The time had passed quickly, there was only another ten minutes until start-off, I squatted down in the bushes to wait, shivering with the penetrating chill on my naked body but I could do bugger all else but cope with it. I used that time to try to steady my heart rate and to mentally run through once more what I had to do and what possibly could lie ahead of me.

Chapter 2

At last kick-off time arrived, I double checked one of my pouches for the det cord, it was just a short length of muffled det, covered with a dense rubberised coating it would blow the optic fibres in a second and with little more than a dull thud, without it I would really be up against it, cutting through or breaking the cables wasn’t an option, nor was I equipped with anything but my knife to do it anyway, reassuringly it was there in the pouch, bulky but necessarily so. I had just four minutes to get to the inspection cover that I would access it by, I knew the route, had checked it over the last few nights on leaving the hide in darkness, careful to vary my route and not to leave signs that could betray my presence here. I moved at the crouch, low and cautiously but at a speed that would get me into position and allow me time to blow the fibre optic cables.

Dawn was just beginning to break, the odd glimpses of the far horizon I gained through breaks in the trees showed the sky beginning to lighten slightly. That helped with locating the cover and once there I went prone, on my stomach to keep low and lifted the small plastic hatch-cover with ease. Winding the det cord around and under the fibre cables was a piece of piss, as was attaching the detonator; I was well practised at that. I checked my watch, waited for the second hand to click onto the hour, pressed the plunger and shuffled back quickly, head down and still as the muffled bang went off and a small whiff of smoke rose from the small pit, quickly to disperse in the open air of the woodland. Moving forward again I checked the results, a good job, all of the cables had been severed and communications from the mansion to the guard house ended.

Locating my finger on the trigger of the pump-action shotgun and my other hand on the barrel grip, I adjusted the camo netting cover so as not to foul the action of the slide and rose up to a squat. I now had to move forward, close to the front of the mansion and cover the steps of the front door; I had about four hundred yards to travel to my cover position and whilst that was not a great distance it would take time, trip-wires usually protected vulnerable points such as the inspection cover I had just attacked and there could be no quick sprints, just careful progress but with the pressure of having to be in a covering position before Victors 1 and 2 made entry to the mansion. There had been one trip-wire on the approach to the inspection cover but I had dealt with that during the night and before tackling the guard but that didn’t mean there wasn’t more, caution was needed. The breaking daylight helped, with heavy overnight dew and mist wires tend to accumulate tiny droplets of moisture that then shimmer in the light, showing their presence and aiding avoidance of them. I found no more of them and was soon in position, squatted down in the cover of large Rhododendron bushes opposite the main entrance of the mansion.

Inside the building there was movement, stealthy movements, obviously Victors 1 and 2, shown up by the dim lights of the upper floor landings inside the mansion. I felt relief that the others of the patrol were okay and the mission going to time schedule. My thumb was on the safety catch of the shotgun and the butt in my shoulder at the ready, I had eight rounds in it, preloaded with medium shot but of a type that no normal gun cartridge maker could sell for general use. This gave good scatter and hit-chance along with acute pain and blinding flash that would allow me a second shot if needed at any target that might be silly enough to try to rush me. This stuff could drop a man at twenty yards and two others also if they were bunched close enough together, if they were spread out a bit all would get some of the good news and suffer acute pain in the process, giving me vital seconds to re-aim and to let them have a second lot of good news. My left pouch contained eight more cartridges and that was it, sixteen only and then I would be down to my fighting knife again, pistols as a back-up on this mission hadn’t been an option. This mission and the later evasion called for minimal kit for us to hump around and we had, as a group, decided who and what should be carried to try to cover all eventualities and pistols this time were deemed excess weight. On this point I had been out-voted, I liked a pistol with me, it was the standard back-up personal weapon and I wished now I had mine with me.

My heart thumped and the adrenalin was rushing, my arm hurt like hell, throbbing and burning but there was fuck all I could do about that right now, the weight of holding the gun barrel up didn’t help, that added to the aching pain throbbing in me but I couldn’t allow it to detract from my concentration. I waited and watched.

Six minutes Victors 1 and 2 had allowed to locate the target and to carry out the kill, then they would exit via the front door, I had to watch for the signal so as not to blow my mates to oblivion by mistake. Those six minutes seemed like six hours in the cold and damp bushes I was hidden in.

The target was an Italian, a low grade politician but also a wealthy banker and influential in the world of money if not so much in the government, he was probably a mobster too although nothing had been confirmed by intelligence on that score. Politically, whilst fairly low in the rankings, he and his party had been stirring the shit big time in his own country and by doing so blocking other EU countries votes on defence issues, something the various governments weren’t best pleased with, least of all his own. This man was not only a pain in the arse to everyone politically but more seriously he was a threat to security within the EU and in that, he had to go. As with all of our designated missions, it wasn’t us that decided who or what should be rubbed out, it was orders from our government and, agree with them or not as we might, we had to obey. The regiment was told to do it and the regiment did what it is best at, counter terrorism and countering threats to our country.

The double red blink of the tiny laser light showed in the left-hand window next to the front door, it was the first signal. I readied myself, calmed my breathing and aimed, a second and triple-blink from the doorway, little more than a pinprick but discernible to anyone not blinking, that was the second signal – all was well, all had gone well.

Victors 1 and 2 exited the mansion, moving cautiously out onto the steps and then split up, one to either side of the steps and close in to the wall for cover. They paused to give me the thumbs