Chapter 6

Jonty's crew were in a copse overlooking the road. They could use their night vision scope to check traffic on the road. Not that there was much of it. The target arrived about 21.30hrs in a Jaguar. Both teams were on a special radio frequency for this op, so when Jonty let the ops room know, we could hear the transmission. Derek was on the gun at the time and I was keeping our log so I dutifully recorded the event. Derek and I swapped tasks, (to keep ourselves alert and awake), so I was on the gun when Jonty called in my wife's car registration number.

Derek had been in the Royal Ulster Rifles at the Imjin. His battalion had been pushed forward to cover the withdrawal of a Belgian Bn who were out flanked when the Chinese over-ran the Glosters. He had also been in Borneo, Malaya, Aden, and Cyprus. "Just what do you think you are doing?" he murmured. He had noticed my hand reaching for the cocking handle. I put my hand back on the pistol grip, but continued to stare at the door. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

"I, er, I..."

"OK. Just breathe, quietly."

We continued to observe for some minutes. I refused to believe what I had just seen. There was no way that was Jean.

After a lifetime the Kid and Nobby relieved us. Derek and I moved back to the basha, to get our heads down. Derek spoke only when we got there, "Was that yer wife?" He spoke in a murmur. Whispering carried in the dark because of the high frequency 's' sounds. A murmur was deeper and since we were packed close in the basha we could speak low and it wouldn't carry all that far.

"How'd you know?"

"Tell me about it."

"The guy we're covering is the one she works for. That's her car, and I saw her open the door with a key."

"You sure it's her?"

"Who the fuck else could it be?"

"Anyone."

"D'ya think so?"

"Yeah. Listen. Do you think she'd do that to you?"

"No, I, eh, I don't think so."

"Look, Drew, I've seen a lot over the years. Jean never struck me as the sort of girl who'd screw around. In fact I'd put money on her."

"How much?"

"You don't mean that, son."

"I'm not so sure any more, Derek. She's been hard to live with the past lot of weeks. She comes home at odd hours, nothing's regular. She never wants to know me, and when I got the offer from the railways, she wasn't interested."

"What's she doing in work?"

"Dunno. We barely see each other to talk now."

"Look, Drew, you don't know anything for sure. You and her are great together. Don't, ferfucksake, go off at the half bent. Find out for sure, before you make a cunt of yerself. Get yer head down fer a couple of hours; we're back on watch soon. We'll talk in daylight. Cincinatti and Nobby have got dirty knees 'n'all. They'll tell you the score."

"Do they need to know?" I asked.

"D'ya think they don't already know something is wrong?"

Derek was right. We were a really tight team. We had to be. We could always tell each other's moods. The other three were all oul' hands. Jonty's team was the same. Ex soldiers who hadn't been given any skills when they came out of the army and had to work hard at whatever they could get. They joined the U.D.R., more for the comradeship that was missing from civvie life, than anything else. Between them they'd been through all the vicious little wars that went with the withdrawal from Empire. They'd all seen some real shit, and the stories in the Land Rover when we were on patrol really were unbelievable. The strange thing was, although they hadn't been in the same Regiments, they could confirm some of the stories, 'because their units were in the same area, or took over from each other, or whatever.

I really respected these old guys and they taught me an awful lot about life. Despite my relative youth I realised I was listening to living history. Damn few people were as privileged as me to have talked to men like them, and too few bothered to listen. They were men you could turn to for help, no matter what. I was really lucky to know them. Sadly, they've faded away now, but I'll never forget them, or how lucky I am to have met them.