Chapter 26: No Larger Than a Man's Fist

January 17th, 2009. Catterick Camp, Yorkshire

Professor Justin Dalton was a whiz at electronics, but could bore for England with his monotone delivery when talking.

The Prof was the Senior Scientific Officer at MilSys, and he, Dougie Green and I, with a brace of boffins from MilSys, were attending a meeting at Catterick Camp prior to observing the trials of a vehicle mounted IED detector.

Dalton was droning on to an audience made up of the Camp Commandant, officers from the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers (REME), members of the Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) assessment team from the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), and the team from MilSys.

In Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, IEDs, improvised explosive devices, had caused too many casualties to be ignored.

Foot patrols could only move with confidence after men had swept the way forward using mine detectors, the technology of which went back to WW2. However it was the mines and IEDs planted beneath roads and tracks that were having a greater impact, as Warriors, and other AFV's, which were thought to be immune to serious damage, were being destroyed. Heavier armoured vehicles were being developed for the army, but the Taliban would merely build larger, more efficient IEDs — they had plenty of experience in constructing all manner of explosive devices, stretching back to the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, and had plenty of willing assistance from co-religionists throughout the Middle East, and beyond, to call on.

But help was at hand, as the electronic boffins at MilSys, headed by Justin Dalton, had come up with an idea for detecting and destroying IEDs. I won't bore you with the science, as Professor Dalton bored us, but basically the plan was to modify the ground penetrating radar equipment, as used by archaeologists, when conducting geophysical surveys to discover 'magnetic anomalies' in areas suspected of having ancient buildings, or the foundations of ancient buildings, buried beneath the soil. Ground penetrating radar can detect underground structures, and disturbed subsoil, by monitoring the local variations in the earth's magnetic field.

Our boffins had proposed using proton precession magnetometers (PPMs), coupled with a narrow beam, high energy, laser, mounted on a Landrover.

With modifications carried out to the PPMs it was confidently expected buried IEDs would be detected, and then neutralised, either by destroying them in situ, using the laser to stimulate the detonator to explode, or having bomb disposal units making the device safe before removal.

There are limitations as to how far in front of a vehicle IEDs can be detected; the field trial we were attending was designed to find the optimum distance when using Landrovers and standard PPM's. Even when mobile IED detectors came into service, foot patrols would still need to sweep their route; nor would the proposed IED detectors stop suicide bombers, or car bombs, being used to kill and maim both the 'foreign invader' and the unfortunate Afghans caught in the blast, but at least they would go some way in countering the morale lowering IED attacks.

There was a general sigh of relief as the Prof eventually finished boring for England and stepped down from the rostrum.

The Camp Commandant, a red faced, red tabbed, full Colonel, took his place.

"Thank you, Professor Dalton for that most illuminating lecture. The trials of the IED detector vehicle will commence on Gandale training area at oh eight hundred tomorrow. This evening you are all guests of the Garrison Officers Mess ... and the bar is now open."

There was a concerted movement towards the exit.

"Mister Desmond." The red tabbed Colonel appeared at my shoulder and held out his hand. "I'm Tom Ribble, known as Barney, formerly with the Light Infantry."

I shook his hand warmly. 'Barney' Ribble was something of a legend in the army. He had come up through the ranks, having been commissioned from a sergeant, and was probably the only full Colonel in the army who had attended a state Comprehensive school rather than a Public school. It was thought he could become the only Brigadier in the army to be educated at a state school. The army is one of the last bastions of the Class System, especially in the more senior ranks. Harry Ledbetter was also in the running for promotion to Brigadier, and would have been odds on favourite to clinch the position had I not thrown a few fucks into him with my divorce petition naming him as co-respondent, and I was glad to put a spoke in his career wheel.

"You have been invited to The Rifles Sergeants' Mess this evening," Barney said, "Given the choice I would much prefer to be joining you rather than having to show my face in the Officers Mess."

In February 2007 The Royal Green Jacket Regiment ceased to exist. It was amalgamated with The Light Infantry Regiment, and several 'heavy' infantry regiments, to form The Rifles. Renamed, rebranded, and rebadged.

By then I had resigned from the TA, and the upheaval which occurred in the regiments concerned had little or no impact on me now I was a civilian, other than that my 'family' had been given a change of name. But for serving members of the units it came as a huge emotional shock. From the first day of his enlistment a new recruit is taught, some would say brain washed, to regard the regiment he joins as the best in the army, and his family. As I had left my 'family' in 2002, I could view the merging of the regiments with a more dispassionate eye. In fact the amalgamation of the RGJ and the Light Infantry was probably in the minds of the bean counters and politicians at MoD in April 1993, when the Experimental Rifle Battalion was raised. I recall being told when the unit was formed, from odds and sods of the Greenjackets and the Light Infantry, the composite unit could be regarded as a marriage; names had changed but it was still your family.

My former battalion of the Greenjackets, 2 RGJ, had become the 4th Rifles in the reorganisation, and by happenchance 4th Rifles were currently detached to Catterick from Paderborn for three weeks of training, prior to being deployed to Afghanistan – Helmand province to be precise.

The first person to greet me as I walked into the Sergeants Mess was Gino Frascetti. He hugged me so tightly he damn near broke a rib, and I was scared shitless he was going to kiss me, but fortunately the man-hug was the extent of his emotional greeting. Other faces I half remembered clustered around me slapping me on the back; names flitted through my head, but only a few I could put to a face. It had been seven years since I was detached to Afghanistan, and many friends had retired or been killed, or had been transferred to other battalions of the Rifles, which was a 'big' Regiment with five regular and two reserve battalions.

The greeters and back slappers drifted back to the bar, and Gino and I sat at an alcove table. He was wearing the crown and three chevrons of a Staff Sergeant, and in fact was the Company Quartermaster Sergeant of Bravo Company.

He gazed at me intently, and I could see tears in his eyes. He was English, but third generation Italian, so I allowed him the emotion.

"Dewey mate, you don't know how pleased I am to see you." He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. "It just hasn't been the same since you left the regiment, and now we 've been bundled up in this frigging new mob I've had a guts full of the fucking army, and I'm going to put my papers in when we get back from Afghanistan."

"Well, you've got enough service in for a bloody good pension." I took a swill of my pint. "What will you do in Civvy Street?"

"Bugger all, except shag my wife more often than I've been doing for the past five years." He enumerated on his fingers. "We went into Iraq in March two thousand and three, but had been stuck in Kuwait for three months before that. Came back home in May, then a year later we're there again on a three month deployment. Sent to that kharzy of a place again in November two thousand and six, with another Christmas away from the family. Then bugger me, six months after coming home we get deployed to that shithole of a place Afghanistan. Fucking Helmand! As if we hadn't had enough of being shot at and mortared and car bombed in fucking Basra."

He drank from his pint, the anger plain to see on his face. "Now here we are again, getting ready for another session of being Aunt sodding Sally for the fucking Taliban. I would have put in my papers had I known we were slated for another tour out there. Can't do it now as it would look if I was shit scared of going back –which I am." He gazed at me earnestly. "Straight up, Dewey, I've had enough of being a fucking target, but wearing these..." he tapped his chevrons," ... I 've got to act like Captain frigging Fearless." He sighed. "If you hadn't got shafted, and remained in the battalion, you would have been made CQMS by now, probably even Company Sergeant Major. I've got promotion because better men than me have either retired or been discharged, or got killed or wounded."

I'd never seen Gino so down. He usually took life as it came, and as long as he had a willing female to stick his dick into close at hand he was as happy as Larry.

"Bollocks! You got the promotion coz you're the best man for the job, Gino. You were a bloody good corporal, and a bloody good sergeant, and I know you are a bloody good Colour Sergeant. Now drink up, and tell me the news from home."

He brightened up, and started talking about Gina and his kids, Claudia and Roberto. He pulled a few pictures of his son and daughter from his wallet, and I made the expected comments, praising their looks and their brains – they were both at Uni – and by the time the bar closed he was more like his old self.

I had purposefully kept him talking about himself and his family as I didn't want him asking too many questions about my home life. Miriam's adultery, and what I did to Hodge, was known throughout the regiment, but hopefully my latest marital problems were not yet in the public domain, though it wouldn't be too long before the army grapevine disseminated the information, especially if Harry Ledbetter's promotion was affected.

Gino finished his pint and glanced at his watch. "I've got a date with a hot Naafi bird tonight. I could give her a bell, and get her to bring a mate along for you. It would be like the time in Belfast, with them two randy cousins we shagged in a foursome." He grinned lewdly. "That was a fucking night and a half wasn't it?"

"That was nearly twenty years ago, Gino. Not even you could still perform like we did in those days."

He laughed. "Janis, the Naafi girl I'll be fucking later tonight, is about seventeen years old and fucks like a rattlesnake. She can't get enough of my cock; she's always gagging for it. We spend all night fucking, and I still have a stiff enough prick for her to gobble on in the morning. Ever ready, that's me, Dewey, as you well remember."

"So you are still shagging every obtainable female in the vicinity, then?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Fucking Aye; what's a man for but to fuck?"

"What about Gina?"

"What about her?" Gino gazed at me in surprise. "When I'm home I fuck her, and when I'm away I fuck whatever is available." He pulled out his comb and flicked back his hair. I noticed a few grey hairs amongst the glossy black.

"What does Gina do when you're away?"

He spun around and stared at me. "She looks after the house and the kids of course, and helps my parents in the restaurant. Why do you ask?"

"Well, if you play away maybe she does the same when the cat's away."

His face was a picture. Amazed, angry, but mostly stupefaction. "Gina wouldn't do such a thing. She's addicted to my cock. She's never had any other coz I had her from new." He paused "But if I did find she'd been fucking someone else I would kill her ... and the bloke." He saw the look on my face. "Not that I'm saying you should have killed Miriam; and you certainly fixed the bloke for life. Nice one, Dewey."

He got from his chair and shook my hand. "Well I'm off to give Janis a good seeing to. Will you still be here tomorrow night?"

"We are supposed to be here for two days."

"Good, then I'll see you before you leave. I'll be wangling a trip back off the training area tomorrow evening. Janis need a good hard stuffing every night else she gets broody. I'll see you in here before I go and slip her a length. About eighteen hundred hours, OK?."

I nodded, and he hurried away to shag a girl younger than his daughter.

The field trial of the vehicle mounted IED detector was something like the curate's egg — it was good in parts.

The ground penetrating radar scanner, mounted six feet above the cab of a Landrover, and angled forward at an angle of 30° to the perpendicular, identified areas where the subsoil had been disturbed. Unfortunately, only three of the five planted devices were detected, probably because some were buried deeper than others. The laser exploder device worked well. The detonators of the IEDs were exploded from a range of thirty feet, the distance from the vehicle when the IED was first detected.

"The Taliban are using Semtex, and up to 25 kilos of the stuff." Barney Ribble said. "We will need to detect the devices, and explode them, at far greater distance when in a combat situation."

The boffins all nodded, and explained that the purpose of the trial was to demonstrate the feasibility of ground penetrating radar, in conjunction with narrow beam lasers in destroying IEDs. Larger, more powerful PPMs, mounted on heavier armoured vehicles, would replace the Landrover and standard ground penetrating radar equipment.

"And when will these goodies be in the field?" Colonel Ribble's question was one the boffins couldn't answer.

Barney shrugged. "Well, I'll make it my business to light fires under the backsides of those people in MoD who make the decisions."

As we drove back to Catterick Camp something was tugging at my mind.

A vague memory of the previous night niggled at my brain —it was something important, and was about— what? Something as elusive as a half forgotten dream, which is what it must have been.

After a decent meal in the sergeants' mess, I met Gino in the bar. He seemed in a better frame of mind than yesterday, possibly because of his night of unrationed passion with Janis.

Gino had never been reticent about his conquests, and I got a blow by blow — take that as a pun if you wish — of what appeared to be a non-stop night of orgiastic depravity. If only half of what Gino told me was true he was certainly living up to his nickname of the Italian Stallion. He finished his bawdy tale, and emptied his pint in three gigantic swallows.

"Janis is on duty until the NAAFI Club shuts at twenty two hundred hours. I'll then sneak into her quarters, and with a bit of luck she will have persuaded her supervisor to join us. She's a tasty thirty-something, who should be OK for you. A young, and mega randy, piece of cunt like Janis would be too much for you to handle."

I shook my head. "Thanks for the invite Gino, but I've a write up on the vehicle trial to complete tonight."

"That has always been the difference between us, Dewey. You would pass up the offer of a fuck to do your duty, while I never refuse a piece of hairy pie." He paused momentarily in thought. "Use it or lose it, Dewey. I suppose it's because I'm always using it I can satisfy any female, no matter how young or energetic. Constant practise makes perfect. You should hear the din Janis makes when she comes. I know some blokes my age who can only get it up once a month, if that. If ever that happened to me I'd top meself. A man who can't fuck is a waste of space, and is using up valuable resources while marking time until he pops his clogs."

It was a theory I had heard Gino propound many times before, suggesting any man who couldn't do the business was no longer a man, and should do the decent thing and shuffle off this mortal coil by his own hand.

"What would happen if you become impotent, Gino? Would you really top yourself?"

He spluttered a mouthful of beer. "For fuck sake, Dewey, don't use that horrible word in front of me. It sends shivers down my spine." He ordered a whisky to counter the shock to his system, and swallowed the shot in one gulp.

"If's every man's worst nightmare: a wet, willing, woman waiting with legs wide apart, and he has a dick as limp as Larry Grayson's wrist." He shuddered as if a goose had walked over his grave.