Uncle Paul´s Cain 13 Page

By Paul Cummings

Rodney Alert 01/08/01

Curtis Hudson got into Sterling Lines early on Monday. He still remembered what Mick Hill, the regimental sergeant major had told him at his party on Saturday. He, Staff Sergeant Steve Johnson, known universally as Slack for his relaxed attitude, and one other were asked to present themselves to the CO first thing. He still wasn’t sure that he hadn’t got himself and his troop sergeant into trouble, and he sure wasn’t going to add to it by being late.

The bright red Toyota Celica, Dire Straits blearing from the six speaker system that its owner had put in, reversed into a parking space. Its owner, a tall but slim man got out. He was in his early thirties and dark haired, although that was partly due to the dye he used. He locked the car and set the alarm, for all the good it would do here. If anyone was going to steal his car here then the alarm would be easy for them to overcome as it was parked within Sterling Line, headquarters to the 22^nd Special Air Service Regiment, possibly the most famous regiment in the world. Where most of the men wore tee-shirts and jogging pants on the base, Johnson wore expensive designer clothes of the type normally worn by the rich and famous to drive down to the gym in their Mercedes. He wandered into A Squadron’s Interest Room with his mug of coffee, where Hudson found him.

"Er," there was no easy way for Hudson to say it, "we’ve got to go see the Boss." Johnson calmly took a long swig of coffee. He wasn’t normally sent to see the CO this early in the week.

"I think you’d better give me some details, Curtis."

"Well, it happened at Mick’s party on Saturday. I was talking to him and suddenly he asked for me, you and one other person to present themselves to the Boss first thing."

"Did he specify the third person?" asked Johnson, also desperate to find if it was a punishment detail or some sort of job.

"No."

"At least we’re not in the shit. At the moment. Mick wouldn’t have sent us with an unnamed person to get a bollocking from the CO. Actually, he wouldn’t have sent us at all; he would happily have done the necessary stomping with his fucking great size fourteens. Oh shit. We’re in the crapper. If the Boss is going to brief us, that can only mean he’s coming too. I wonder if I can get the SSM to come along?" Johnson had remembered that when Cain went out on what was a training job, he often liked to sit back and let someone else take the lead. One of the guys from B Squadron, who was very seriously into Jap Slapping, as the Regiment referred to martial arts in general, had said that this was a Japanese thing and the real boss is often not presented as the boss, but sits back in the pack watching. Johnson thought that it was just because Cain was testing his men.

In the end, Johnson grabbed the first member of his troop he found, one Paddy O’Brien, and they went over to the RHQ. Here they found Mick Hill, who passed them straight to Mary Jarrett to be shown in to see Cain.

Cain was sitting behind his desk as Jarrett showed them in. He gestured to the men to take a seat.

"Good morning Gentlemen, thank you for volunteering." Cain barely paused before continuing. "Our job will be to …" Cain continued to brief the men for another ten minutes. Finally, Cain informed Johnson that he would be leading the party. Cain was, as Johnson expected, coming along for the ride, on what was a basic umpiring job for a military exercise. They would also provide anti-terrorist cover for the duration, with the participants using blanks only to avoid any risk of casualties. The exercise was due to start at 06:00 the following morning, so Johnson suggested they go down that evening to settle in and ‘see the lie of the land’, which loosely translated meant get a few beers in.

For the rest of the day, Johnson, with his two helpers, gathered together the kit they would need. Being a green army exercise, they would also wear DPMs. They would take their sand-coloured berets in case they wanted to identify themselves. Surprising how much space they got in army messes for example when wearing those berets with their winged dagger badges. Johnson requisitioned one of the command Range Rovers. They were umpiring, so there was no need for them to rough it in a Land Rover. Plus, which is what convinced Jim Macdonald to give him the rangie, the CO needed to be in constant contact with RHQ in case there were any situations that developed which might require SAS intervention.

The final job before they left was to all troop down to the armoury to get issued with rifles. Because they were going to be operating from the rangie and on foot, Johnson got them all Steyr AUGs. The AUG was a bull pup design rifle, meaning its magazine was loaded behind the trigger area in the stock, where the bolt and firing pin also lived. This meant that for a given length of barrel, the weapon was much shorter and for a given length of weapon, the barrel was much longer giving greater accuracy. Each man also signed out one hundred and twenty rounds of 5.56mm ammunition and the four magazines needed to hold them.

They were put up at a REME barracks near to the exercise site. Being part of the umpiring team, there was no need for them to be outside in the field where the units taking part in the exercise were based. The base commander, a young major, was not happy to have the SAS men based in his barracks. He did not like the SAS, but he made sure that he kept that feeling to himself when he discovered that Lieutenant Colonel Cain was with them. Having the SAS commander at his base was something to be proud of. His assistant’s only problem was where to house them. Captain Walker had prepared a four bed room, but you could not expect a senior officer, or any officer for that matter, to share a room with the ranks.

"Captain, please do not worry. I would prefer to bunk with my chaps as I am not here as a colonel, but here solely to assist in the exercise," said Cain to the Captain when he explained his problem. Walker was not happy about this. He was not happy that Cain was not behaving like a senior officer. He was worried about the effect this would have on discipline within his domain, something that the major had been concerned about too. Walker’s plan had been to palm the SAS thugs off onto one of his admin assistants, obviously he couldn’t do that with a colonel in their midst. Instead, he personally escorted them to their room and attempted to engage Cain in conversation. Cain was the model of politeness in their small talk, but once in their room, he quickly dismissed the captain. Once he had gone, Johnson gave a status update briefing.

"Right, obviously we have a right Rodney here. There’s been the usual notice of us." The Regiment rarely arrived at a base without the jungle drums announcing them to the base, especially as they had been quite open in arriving. "If you don’t mind, sir, I would like to get up his nose a little by wearing berets." Cain nodded his agreement. It is not something he would have done, but he also wasn’t the one being treated poorly. Hudson was delighted by this news. He was still new to the Regiment, so the chance to wear his beret and have others know him for what he was appealed. "Now, lets go and get some scoff before we take a little reconnaissance mission out later." He smiled, knowing that the others were quite aware of what he meant by that. Having the boss there too would be an advantage. Given that he didn’t drink much, he would be the obvious one to drive them back.

They caused quite a stir in the mess. The Regiment did not wear their badges openly very often, but they were well known. One young tom even went as far as to suggest that they go to the head of the mess queue to get their food. Johnson politely declined. It looked as if it was just getting busy in the mess. In the short time they queued, the queue had grown quite a bit.

They sat down with their food on a long empty table. Nobody joined their table, even when the mess became full. Hudson looked around, hardly believing what he was seeing. Just a few months ago he would have been staying away with the others, in awe of the men from the SAS. Now, he had joined them and realised that they were just ordinary men the same as he was. They may be fitter, faster, more aggressive and better soldiers, but they were just men. He realised also that they would prefer not to be so well known.

Later that evening, Johnson led them out on a ‘reconnaissance’ mission, which involved them visiting a pub. They went in civvies, but must have still been obvious soldiers to anyone they met. Cain discretely sipped his mineral water whilst the others had beer, although after a couple of beers, Hudson swapped to orange juice and lemonade.

Next morning, after Johnson had smoked several cigarettes, they drove out of the base and off onto the Plain. After receiving their briefing, they drove over to the area they were to patrol and parked up. They shouldered their bergens, took up their AUGs and moved off over the country. O’Brien set a fast pace. He knew Cain would be able to keep up and didn’t worry about anyone else. The day was hot and humid, so Johnson had their roving patrol regularly stop for water breaks.

From a hill, they looked down and saw a pair of Land Rovers parked up. One of them had the bonnet up. The men from them were sitting around smoking and soaking up the sun, obviously not planning on moving quickly. Johnson took them down to investigate what was going on.

Whether the soldiers they approached saw the red markings signalling exercise umpires was not certain, but they made no move to defend their position.

"What the fuck do you lot think you’re doing?" demanded Johnson angrily. Although nicknamed Slack for his relaxed attitude, he was a very professional soldier and this sloppiness offended him. A tall, young lieutenant approached Johnson, who repeated the question to the officer.

"Sergeant," replied the officer loftily, "when you address an officer, you salute first and address him with respect."

"Fuck off. We don’t salute." The officer blinked, but gave no other show that he understood that Johnson had basically announced that he was Special Forces and probably SAS. The officer reached inside his smock and pulled out a pad. Whilst he demanded Johnson’s name, Cain nodded to Hudson and they went to look at the broken Land Rover. A corporal from the stranded men came up and poked his head under the bonnet as well.

"You’d better warn your sergeant that SAS or not, the lieutenant will make a fuss over this. He likes proper discipline." Cain instantly liked the corporal. Very quickly the three of them identified a bent steering rod as the problem. They removed it and Hudson then bent it basically straight before they reinstalled it. The whole process took them only five minutes and the lieutenant was still haranguing Johnson when they had finished. Johnson was now ignoring the lieutenant and had lit up a cigarette.

"This is getting ridiculous," said Cain to Hudson as they slipped their light jackets back on. Cain put his beret on and adjusted it before he calmly unbuttoned the flap at the front of his jacket that hid his rank badge. The corporal and several of the other men looked and pointed when they saw the crown and pip denoting a lieutenant colonel. "Lieutenant, can I have a word please." The lieutenant spun around, in the middle of his threats of court martial to Johnson and looked at Cain. In an instant, he took in the beret and then rank insignia.

The two officers walked away and spoke quietly out of earshot. Cain did most of the talking, but he never raised his voice.

"Fucking hell," said Johnson, watching the two officers. "He’s giving that Rodney a fearsome bollocking."

"How do you know that?" asked the corporal, equally focused on the officers. "Your colonel’s not even raising his voice."

"He never does," replied Johnson with a shudder at the memory. "The only way you can tell from here is that he is doing most of the talking. The boss must be awfully pissed off." Johnson was getting slightly worried now. He knew that some of the flack was going to come his way for the casual way he had ignored the boorish officer. "I don’t suppose your Rodney is going to be stupid enough to throw a punch at Cain?"

"Lieutenant Lewis is a stickler for the proper way to do things. I think it unlikely." Johnson liked the short, but powerfully built corporal. He offered him a cigarette.

"Pity."

"Why? Tough is he, your Rupert?"

"Tough? That’s Ben Cain!" Hudson replied. There were a few muttered comments from the soldiers, who were now all on their feet fascinated by the discussions. Some of them had heard of Cain, some hadn’t.

"I thought Ben Cain was supposed to be ten feet tall?" said the corporal with a smile. Johnson burst out laughing.

When Cain and the lieutenant returned, nothing was said to the others in explanation, but the lieutenant was suddenly very keen to get their little convoy back in the exercise.

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