Zero Six Bravo by Damien Lewis Read Free Book Online

half-American accent.
    “So how d’you reckon the Squadron’s done?” Scruff ventured.
    “Six weeks’ beat-up training,” Grey panted. “Could’ve done with six months.”
    “You’ve been taught by the best,” Jim remarked with a wide smile. Then more seriously: “We couldn’t have done more in the time available. It’s been relentless, for you and for us.”
    “Yeah, but we could have done with more time,” Grey repeated. “For a lot of the blokes this is all the mobility work they’ve ever done. And a lot of us were exhausted—utterly finished—and that was before Kenya. We’d gone from the MV Nisha to months of Afghan ops, now Kenya and soon Iraq. It’s been nonstop.”
    Delta Jim eyed Grey for a long second. “So you’d rather not be going to Iraq?”
    Grey held his look. “There’s not a bloke isn’t dying to get deployed, and that includes the new lads. It’s just that the Squadron’s washed-up. Who wouldn’t be, after six months in the Afghan mountains surviving on British Army rations, plus hot air and bullshit?”
    Jim laughed. “All routes to war right now lead to Iraq. It’s the only place to be.”
    “It’s route, not rowt ,” Grey needled him. “Ever heard yourself? A Liverpool boy with a Texas accent. Dunno how your gorgeous young American wife puts up with it.”
    “In our outfit, we even get the Padre to bless our weapons,” Jim retorted, “and my wife sure is blessed to be married to a regular Mr. Nice Guy like me.”
    This was partly true. Jim’s unit did get their main weapon—invariably the superlative Colt 7.62mm assault rifle—blessed by their priest, before going into battle.
    “Mate, you’ve been watching us over the weeks,” Scruff remarked to Delta Jim. “How d’you reckon the Squadron’s shaping up for Iraq?”
    “Way I see it, you’re like one big soccer team,” Jim replied. “There are a lot of characters, a lot of star strikers, who don’t always rub along that well together. But come Iraq you’re gonna have to knit together as one team at war. Those strikers are gonna have to learn to put rivalries aside and pass the ball so as to score. That’s the only way you’ll ever get through whatever’s coming.”
    “Thanks,” Grey grunted. “That sounds like an easy way of telling us bugger all.”
    “You’re only as good as your weakest link, obviously,” Jim continued. “And like any dogs of war you’re gonna need to pull those new guys through. But if you want my opinion, yeah, I figure the Squadron’ll do fine out there.”
    For a moment Grey pondered who his weakest links were; most likely Moth and the Dude. He ran them through the on-the-run test. It was one that he often used to gauge the measure of a man. If they got badly whacked in Iraq and were forced to go on the run, who would he choose to be with, Moth or Dude? He figured it had to be the Dude. At least with him you’d have a laugh as the enemy hunted you down. He was sharp as a pin and you could bounce ideas off him. There was no way to read Moth, and after a few days alone together Grey figured he’d want to murder the young operator, even if the Iraqis failed to nail him.
    But in truth there were no limp-wristed belly dancers among any of his men. The last few weeks of training had revealed a real mental toughness, and when push came to shove it was that that mattered most. Psychological strength had got them through SBS selection, which was designed to make even the most physically fit and hardened crack. It was when the mind told a soldier that he couldn’t go on that most failed selection, not when the body broke.
    As they continued down the mountain, Grey threw Delta Jim a shrewd, appraising look. He figured Jim had ended up in U.S. Special Forces—as opposed to the SBS or SAS—by a simple twist offate: his marriage to an American. But he clearly missed the camaraderie and easy piss-taking of a predominantly British unit. During the coming Iraq conflict there was