Great, thought Matt. That's just what we need. Some animal from Shaky Boat roughing us up.
'Bulmer doesn't know what the mission is, and he isn't meant to know,' continued Pinky. 'He doesn't know who you are either, so don't start shooting your mouths off. He's been told you have to hit a boat, and that's it.'
Just then Buhner walked smartly into the room, looking more like someone who had stepped out of a student union bar than a parade ground. Matt paused. The man was nothing close to what he had expected. He must have been in his late twenties, and was dressed in baggy blue trousers and a bright-red T-shirt. His hair had a green streak in it, and was spiked up with gel. He looked more like a sales assistant at a surfing shop than a soldier.
He looked down at the five men sitting in front of him, his face immobile. 'You lot look like you could use some licking into shape,' he said.
'Piss off,' said Reid.
'Let the man do his job,' Ivan said warily. 'We all need training if we're to stay alive.'
'Hey, who asked you, bogtrotter?' said Cooksley.
'Good to see we're all getting along so well,' said Buhner. 'Perhaps we'll start with some team-building exercises.'
Matt could feel the water biting into his naked skin. It was as if blocks of ice were being dropped on to his body, freezing up his nerve endings and chilling the blood so it could hardly flow through his veins.
A wave rolled over the top of him, pushing him below the surface of the sea, filling his mouth with salty water. He struggled to open his eyes, kicking his legs to push himself back to the surface. His head broke above the waves, and he rolled into a crawl to drag himself forward. To the next bay, he reckoned, it was about a mile, past some evil rocks jutting away from the beach. If he swam hard, he should be there in half an hour.
A few yards ahead he could see Cooksley and Reid: Cooksley he knew was a strong swimmer, Reid less so. Ivan was some way ahead of them, Damien a few yards behind. Ten minutes earlier Buhner had marched them down to the beach, told them all to strip off and start swimming. 'See you at the next bay,' he'd shouted. 'If the fish don't get you.'
Matt could feel another wave crashing over his head, and a gust of cold wind whipping around his ears. 'You OK?' he shouted across to Damien.
'Apart from the hypothermia.'
By the time Matt pulled himself on to the beach he reckoned he'd swallowed at least two pints. He swam every day in Marbella, but there it was warmer, gentler water, and he only went out when the sun was shining. It wasn't Bideford in March, with the temperature close to zero. He grabbed a towel from the pile Pinky and Perky had left on the beach, and started drying himself off, unfreezing his limbs. Ivan, Cooksley and Reid were already ashore, Damien was just swimming up to the beach.
'Fancy a dip?' said Matt, looking directly at Pinky.
Pinky shook his head.
'It might do you some good,' Matt continued, shaking his head so that the man got sprayed with droplets of sea water. 'You look a bit flabby to me.'
Perky stepped forwards. 'Don't get lippy, sonny,' he said. 'I can break you any time I want to.'
From behind, Matt could see Bulmer striding across the beach. 'OK, you lot,' he shouted. 'That was just a warm-up, get your blood flowing a bit. Next time, we'll do it at night.'
Matt wiped the sweat from his face. The run had taken them five miles across country, over the rugged hills that led away from Bideford. It was open countryside, but vicious winds gusted in from the sea and it had started to rain, a torrential downpour that soaked right through his track suit. Matt struggled to control his breathing. He was a better runner than he was a swimmer, but the pace was punishing, pushing him to limits of endurance he hadn't tested since he had left the Regiment.
I thought I'd put all that behind me.
'OK,' shouted Bulmer as they jogged their way back into the base. 'Fifty press-ups.'
He paced up and down as the five men fell to the ground, pushing their bodies up and down. 'There are squid down on the beach stronger than you layabouts,' he shouted. 'Get inside and we'll see if your minds are in better shape than your bodies.'
A ripple of pain ran through Matt's shoulder as he used his forearms to heave himself up and down. He'd lost shape, he reflected, since he had left the Regiment. He was a fit man, but not yet back to his peak. Looking around at the others, he could see Reid struggling to keep up. Damien was fine on the press-ups because he worked out in the gym every day and sailed at the weekends, but he was struggling with the running. Ivan, for an ex-Provo safecracker, was perhaps the fittest of them. Odd, thought Matt. Nothing with that man was quite how he'd expected it.
'You want to cut down on those fags, mate,' said Bulmer, shouting in Reid's ear.
Lucky this job is just a few days. I'm not sure we'd last a whole campaign.
The coals from the brazier emitted a soft glow, spreading its heat throughout the shack. Matt sat close to the fire, soaking up the warmth. His skin was slowly starting to defrost, his blood to unthaw. 'Christ,' he said, looking towards Reid. 'I haven't been that cold since I spent a couple of months on training on the northern flank in Norway.'
Reid nodded. 'Say what you like about the Regiment. At least they never chucked you in the water. Not on purpose anyway.'
Bulmer tapped a metal cane against the desk at the front of the room. 'Listen up,' he said sternly. 'Tonight I'll run through the basic principles of a seaborne assault. Tomorrow night, we try the real thing. We'll keep trying until we get it right.' He smiled. 'Given the state of you, we'll probably be spending Christmas together.'
He pointed towards a picture on the laptop. 'I've been told you'll be hitting a standard, small cargo ship much like this one,' he said. 'You see these all over the Med. This one is a hundred and five feet long, with a beam of thirty feet, and a draught of thirteen feet. It's got two engines on it, with a combined power of six thousand brake horsepower. That's enough to do about fourteen knots at full tilt.'
Bulmer walked round to the front of the desk. The light from the ceiling glinted off the gold stud pinned into his ear. For an assault, you use the wake,' he said. 'It's going to be dark, you'll be blacked out and using night-vision goggles, so they aren't going to be able to see you. The problem is they might hear you coming. Then you transfer to a light, plastic dinghy. Their engines will be churning up the water, creating plenty of noise. You steer your dinghy directly into their wake. That way they shouldn't hear you.' He held up a fifteen-foot aluminium pole with a hook on its end. 'Then you use a grappling hook like this. Cast it to the stern, and pull your dinghy right up into the boat. You'll have a few seconds to jump on board. Then you move swiftly through the vessel, killing everyone on board.' He stopped, sitting back down on the edge of the desk. 'Any questions?'
'There might be a lookout,' said Reid.
'You'll have to shoot them,' said Buhner. 'It's going to be rocky on the dinghy, because the water will be all churned up. We'll practise shooting on a dinghy that's bobbing around like a yo-yo, so you'll have a chance to get used to it.'
'What happens if we go in the water?' said Damien.
'Then you're fish food, that's what,' answered Buhner. 'That's why we're going to keep practising boarding the enemy craft until we get it right. Fall into the drink and the engines will slice you like a turnip in a blender. A quick if messy death. And at least you'll be buried at sea like proper sailors.'