Stratton didn’t dwell on it, used to the negative attitude from some members of the military. He knew all about how being special forces polarised opinion. People either held you in extremely high regard – more than you generally deserved – or considered you overrated.
Howel led the way through an open steel door into a red-lit corridor and up a flight of steps. Winslow followed. At the top another secure door that required a code-entry to unlock. Jasper tapped in the pass code and led them into a dimly lit operations room filled with a variety of humming electronic communications and technological equipment operated by several sailors. None of them took much notice of Stratton save a glance as he walked through in his boiler suit and sandals.
Winslow went ahead and opened a door into a small, gloomy communications shack packed with equipment like a compressed sound studio. A Wren, wearing a pair of headphones, sat concentrating on a complex-looking switchboard. When she saw the officer and the dishevelled man in the boiler suit, she got to her feet like she had been expecting them. She smiled politely and handed Winslow her headset and left the room.
‘Your operations officer is on the other end of that,’ Winslow said.
Stratton put on the headset and adjusted the microphone in front of his lips. Winslow stood in the doorway and Stratton took the opportunity to return the man’s cold glare. ‘Close the door behind you,’ Stratton said, deliberately omitting the words ‘please’ and ‘sir’.
Winslow wasn’t used to any level of insubordination and had it been any other subordinate in Her Majesty’s armed forces he would have reminded them of their respective ranks. But at that particular moment he knew it was a conflict he would not win. He might have contempt for the man but the Royal Navy did not. He clenched his teeth and closed the door.
Stratton spent almost an hour inside the room talking to the SBS operations team in Poole over the secure communications system. He explained everything that had happened, in the finest of detail, leaving nothing out. As he had expected, they didn’t react to his description of Hopper’s death. He tried to be as clinical as possible, and if he had been describing someone else who had killed Hopper, he might have managed it. But the hints of his culpability and responsibility for what had happened seeped into the report. The ops team remained coldly automatic with their questions.
When Stratton finally put down his headset and opened the door into the operations room, the occupants spared him a glance or two, as though in his absence they had been told who he was. To him it looked like they had all heard his story, or, more to the point, his confession. That was impossible of course. No one on the planet but him and the ops team had been privy to that conversation. They were merely curious about the individual who had arrived on the boat from out of nowhere.
Stratton walked from the operations room back down the steps and outside for some fresh air. He’d forgotten how stale the ship’s filtered air could taste in confined places like the operations room with all its heated circuitry and sweaty personnel.
He walked to the rails to look at the ocean and clear his head.
A matelot stood nearby having a smoke. He ditched the cigarette over the side when he saw Stratton. ‘S’cuse me, sir,’ he said.
‘I’m not a sir,’ Stratton replied without looking at him.
‘Sorry. I’m s’posed to show you where to bunk.’
Stratton hoped they had given him a room to himself.
‘The old man wanted to have a word but they thought you might be knackered and want to get your ’ead down first.’
Stratton still felt tired despite the few hours’ sleep he had grabbed on the cargo ship. He expected it would take another day to recover fully.
‘I’m to ask you if you need the sickbay for anything.’
Stratton thought about having his bullet wounds looked at. But he hadn’t even thought about them since waking up on the Orion. The many hours he had spent in the sea should have cleaned them up but that didn’t necessarily mean they would not get infected. ‘I’m fine,’ he decided. He knew where the sick bay was and if they started to become painful again, he would pay the place a visit.
Stratton followed the young man through the ship, down a narrow set of stairs to a wider, well-lit corridor. Part of the way along it he saw a pair of swing doors. Stratton remembered it was the galley and pushed one of them open. The place had been crammed with more chairs and tables than it was designed for.
‘If you want a wet, you can ’elp yourself over there,’ the sailor said, pointing to a counter with an urn on it. ‘Your bunk room’s down the end of this corridor. Number fourteen. Last door on the left.’
‘Thanks,’ Stratton said, aware of the man’s eagerness to complete his duties.
‘OK. I’m off watch so I’m going to get my ’ead down.’
‘Have a good night,’ Stratton said with a smile. He walked over to the urn and made himself a cup of tea. He heard the sound of aluminium trays being stacked somewhere beyond. A cook walked out of the back and placed a tray of food in one of the slots behind the counter.
As he sipped his drink, the main door opened and Stratton turned around to see Winslow looking at him.
The officer walked over to the table. ‘Mind if I make a brew?’ he asked. His tone had changed to light and chatty.
‘Help yourself,’ Stratton said.
As he was about to walk away, Winslow said, ‘Do you live in Poole?’
Stratton didn’t particularly want to talk to the man about anything but saw no reason to be rude.
‘Just outside.’
‘I haven’t been there in several years,’ Winslow said. ‘I expect it’s changed quite a lot in that time. Quite a popular summer retreat for some.’
‘Most of the locals wish it wasn’t so popular,’ Stratton replied, waiting for an opportunity to end the little chat and leave.
‘Is there a Sergeant Downs still there?’ said Winslow.
‘Colour Sergeant Downs?’ said Stratton. ‘He might even be Warrant Officer by now. But I haven’t seen him in a while.’
‘He’s a right son of a bitch. I didn’t know him socially of course.’
Stratton wondered where the conversation was going with an introduction like that. ‘Downs is a good lad,’ he said. ‘I know him quite well.’ Stratton remained matter-of-fact. It didn’t offend him if someone didn’t like a friend of his.
‘You probably don’t know him the same way I do,’ said Winslow, giving Stratton a sideways look.
Stratton sipped his tea, barely interested in the man or his dislike of Downs. Winslow went on: ‘In fact he was a right bastard. He was in charge of the SBS phase of the selection.’
Stratton suddenly had a good idea where this was all going. It wasn’t the first time he’d been cornered by someone outside of the service who had failed the selection course and felt they needed to explain it to him.
‘He had it in for me from the start,’ Winslow said. ‘I think the moment he set eyes on me, he decided he was going to get me off the course. I’d done rather well during the combined SAS–SBS land phases. I’m a good map reader and was very fit. The map marches with the heavy packs were no problem for me. I passed all of that but when I got to Poole, Downs didn’t like me, that was for sure.’
‘He’s not that sort of bloke,’ Stratton said, not particularly wanting to get involved but deciding to stick up for his friend. He knew Downs to be not the kind to pick on someone for no reason.
‘As I said, you probably wouldn’t know him from my point of view. Let’s put it this way, if he had been running your selection and had taken a dislike to you, you wouldn’t have passed your course either.’
Stratton decided the officer was an arrogant prick. But Downs wouldn’t have taken him off the course for being that way either. It was typical of many who had failed special forces selection to blame it on something or someone and not themselves. There were many valid cases. Injury often put people out. But at the end of the day, if you failed, for whatever reason, deal with it. Stratton wanted to ask why he hadn’t gone back and done another course. Some members of the SBS and SAS had made more than one attempt before succeeding. But he wasn’t interested in the man or his issues enough to ask.