Spider Shepherd: SAS: #2 (7 page)

‘Never heard of him,’ said Shepherd.

‘He’s a living legend,’ said Jock. ‘He did a lot of operations when he was here and developed a great reputation. It was a shame he didn’t stay longer. And I tell you what, you’d much rather have him as an ally than an enemy, because he was a real warrior. When the Falklands war was on, Gul used to infiltrate the Argentinian lines during the night. He’d by-pass or kill their sentries, sneak into one of their eight-man tents and slit the throat of one of the sleeping soldiers. Then he’d gut him and spread his entrails all over the floor of the tent, and then exfiltrate back to his own lines. They say you could hear the screams when the Argentinians woke up in the morning from a mile away. Did wonders for their morale.’

‘I’m guessing the rest of them wouldn’t sleep too easily after that,’ Geordie said. ‘You wonder who’d greenlight something like that.’

‘I’m guessing he was using his initiative,’ said Jock. ‘Anyway, I said we’d see him for a few beers tonight. You can ask him yourself.’

‘After a build-up like that, I’m not sure how wise that would be,’ Shepherd said with a laugh.

‘No danger,’ Jock said. ‘The funny thing is, off-duty, you couldn’t meet a nicer, gentler guy.’

They met Gul in the Transit Mess that evening. He had the typical Gurkha build: short and wiry, with dark skin and jet black hair. He could have been anywhere between his early forties and his mid fifties and the only outward signs of his fearsome reputation as a warrior were his fierce, challenging stare and the proud way he carried himself. But he also had a ready smile and a dry sense of humour, and Shepherd warmed to him at once. The others drank beer as they chatted, but Gul stuck to the customary Gurkha drink of dark navy rum that he gulped rather than sipped.

‘I don’t know how you can drink that stuff,’ Shepherd said. ‘To me it looks, smells and tastes like engine oil.’

Gul shrugged. ‘All Gurkhas drink it; it’s even written into our terms of service that we’re entitled to a tot of rum a day. On dark nights it keeps out the cold and we also believe that it stops the mosquitos from biting us.’

‘You might be right about that,’ Shepherd said. ‘One whiff of that and I’d definitely be buzzing off somewhere else.’

‘So why are you heading for Nepal, Gul?’ Geordie said. ‘Bit of home leave?’

‘No, I’m on my way home for good. I’ve served my full twenty-two years now, but I’m still on the payroll for a few more weeks, helping out on the MoD’s annual Gurkha remittance and recruiting flight. We’re taking the pension payments out to the retired Gurkha soldiers in Nepal. It’s like Christmas, New Year’s Eve and the fourth of July rolled into one for Nepalis, because the Gurkha pension is often the only cash income for a man’s entire village. The army money is absolutely vital for the local economy.’

‘That’s pretty much how it goes in Hereford,’ said Shepherd. ‘A big chunk of the local economy depends on the Regiment.’

‘At the same time, the Army Gurkha Team is running the annual selection courses for potential recruits to the Brigade of Gurkhas,’ Gul continued. ‘As the Army has downsized, the competition for places in the recruitment process has got tougher and tougher, but to be a Gurkha soldier is still almost every young man’s ambition in Nepal.’ He smiled. ‘And of course we remain the world’s most ferocious fighters.’

‘Present company excepted,’ Jock said, grinning.

Gul’s smile widened. ‘Perhaps, although it would be an interesting contest. In the Anglo-Nepal war of 1814-16, Gurkhas so frightened the British soldiers that they decided to recruit us to fight alongside them, instead of against them, and we’ve been part of the British army ever since. We Gurkhas fear no one and our war cry remains the same: “Jaya Mahakali, Ayo Gorkhali” - Glory to Great Kali, Gurkhas approach.’

‘Who’s Kali?’ Geordie asked, pronouncing it to rhyme with “alley”.

‘A four-armed god, whose hands hold a trident, a sword, a severed head and a bowl for catching the blood from the head.’

‘A nice friendly god then,’ Jimbo said with a laugh. ‘My favourite sort.’

‘Are there no other jobs for Gurkha boys than soldiering?’ Shepherd asked.

Gul shrugged. ‘There are some in the commercial security sector but those are invariably reserved for ex-Gurkha soldiers. The only other source of cash income is in the tourist climbing industry but that’s a closed shop to anyone outside of the Sherpas. So the pressures on my country’s young men are already considerable and the political situation in Nepal is only making that worse. The Ruling Family is imploding, dogged by constant claims of corruption, and the main opposition is a Maoist Party with a violent revolutionary agenda. There have already been a number of bloody attacks on remote police stations and district headquarters, and the unrest has now spread to the capital, Kathmandu. In fact things are so desperate that I’ve even been approached to enter Nepalese politics myself.’

‘Why you, Gul?’ Geordie said. He paused for a moment and then hastily added ‘No disrespect intended but, well, you’re just a squaddie like us.’

‘Well, in other countries retired people watch football, but in Nepal we watch soldiering, and though I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, I am quite well known in my country.’

Jock interrupted him. ‘Quite well known? Do me a favour, you’re bloody famous and you know it: the first ever Special Forces Gurkha, with a string of citations and decorations for bravery. I don’t know how you’ll do in politics though. From what I know of you, you’re straight as a die and a man who tells it like it is - an honest man, in fact, and if Nepalese politics is anything like ours, that’s not exactly a qualification for the job.’

Gul smiled. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Anyway, I’ve not made up my mind yet. I’m going to travel round the country with the pension payment delivery and the Gurkha selection courses, sound people out in different parts of Nepal and try to get a feeling for whether they think that I should run for office or not. There will be some risk if I take that path, but if I can help to save my country from civil war, I have to do it. It’s my duty.’

Jock disappeared behind the bar and re-emerged with a bottle of whisky and what was left of the dark rum. ‘A toast then, to Nepal’s next Prime Minister,’ he said, filling their glasses to the brim.

A series of increasingly incoherent toasts followed: to Anglo-Nepali friendship, the Brigade of Gurkhas, the SAS and the “Toon Army” - the last a sop to Geordie who had just heard the previous day’s football results from England and was celebrating a derby win for Newcastle United.

It was well on the wrong side of midnight when they stumbled off to grab a few hours sleep and they took off aboard the Hercules the next morning with dry mouths and pounding heads. As usual Jock and Geordie spent much of the flight asleep. Both had the soldier’s knack of grabbing a few minutes shut-eye whenever the opportunity presented itself and on a long-range flight on a ponderous Hercules, those minutes would stretch into hours. They could drop off almost anywhere - even standing up, Jimbo used to joke - and could sleep through everything including the thunder of the Herc’s engines. Yet at a whisper or a touch on their shoulder, they would both be instantly awake and alert, reaching for their weapons even as their eyes were opening.

Jimbo was also dozing in his netting seat, his chin nodding onto his chest, but Shepherd was wide awake, staring unseeing at the Herc’s metal roof, his mind thousands of miles away, imagining Sue bathing their baby, feeding him and putting him to bed. The ache in his heart was almost unbearable and he had to force himself to think about something else.

After transiting Saudi Arabia, they overnighted in Dubai. There was no crew change-over - the same crew would stay with the aircraft for the duration of the trip. Before leaving Dubai, a number of ammunition boxes were loaded onto the Herc. ‘Why the ammo, Gul?’ Shepherd had asked. ‘Is there a war on?’

‘They’re old boxes, they’re full of cash now,’ said Gul. ‘It’s actually the cash for the Gurkha pensioners. They prefer US Dollars because they can get a better rate of exchange.’

After leaving Dubai and flying over part of northern India, the Hercules seemed to be climbing forever before reaching the height of Kathmandu. On the final part of the flight, they had tremendous views of the high Himalayan peaks, with the stunning panorama of Annapurna, K2, Everest and many other nameless snow-capped peaks laid out before them.

The flight was uneventful but the landing at Kathmandu was hairy to say the least. The city sat 1,600 metres above sea level in Nepal’s central valley, where the warm air rising from the plains met the sheer wall of the high Himalayas. The resulting turbulence threw the Hercules around like a rag doll in a hurricane as the pilot fought to land the giant aircraft and bring it to a halt before he ran out of runway. After landing and bypassing customs and immigration, courtesy of their Nepalese hosts, Shepherd looked around him with interest as they made the short drive into the centre of Kathmandu.

‘Welcome to my beautiful country,’ Gul said, beaming with pride. The patchwork of emerald green rice-paddies and vivid yellow-green millet fields on the valley floor alongside the fast-rushing river gave way to terraces of crops clinging to the precipitous hillsides. Above them rose an endless array of snow-capped peaks, filling the horizon from east to west. Shepherd could pick out the shark’s tooth outline of Kangchenjunga and the sloping summit plateau of Annapurna, but to his disappointment, the highest of all, Everest, was obscured by the whirling cloud of a snow storm engulfing the summit.

He switched his gaze back to the river flowing alongside the road. ‘What river’s that, Gul?’ he asked.

‘The Bagmati, it’s a holy river to Hindus and Buddhists alike. Its waters are believed to purify us and there are many temples alongside it. According to our traditions, the bodies of Hindu dead must first be dipped three times into the river before being cremated on its banks. The chief mourner, who lights the funeral pyre, must also bathe in the river after the cremation.’

‘I was just fancying a dip until you told us that,’ laughed Jock.

As they approached the city Shepherd could see the copper and gold pagoda roofs of the Hindu temples glinting in the sunlight. Kathmandu was much bigger than he had imagined, with a dense urban sprawl of four- and five-storey apartment blocks, many painted in vivid colours - lime green, lavender, orange - that dazzled the eye against the deep azure blue background of the sky. However at street-level the dust and traffic fumes created a brown haze as bad as any smog he’d ever seen.

After they had been dropped off in the city centre, they strolled around for a while, with Gul pointing out some of the sights. ‘Most of the tourists stay in the Thamel district where all the guest houses, restaurants, and shops are concentrated,’ he said.

‘Do we look like tourists?’ Jimbo said with feigned disgust. ‘We want to see the real Kathmandu.’

Gul grinned. ‘Maybe Jhochhen Tol would be more your style then; it used to be known as “Freak Street” in the days in the 1960s and 1970s when Kathmandu was on every hippy’s itinerary… But on second thoughts, maybe not, “Love and Peace” isn’t really SAS style is it? Nor Gurkha-style come to that.’

Shepherd and his mates parted company from Gul outside the British Embassy, but arranged to meet him that night for a meal. They found the Military Attaché, George Jenner, in his office at the Embassy. An urbane, Sandhurst-trained career officer, he greeted them with a broad smile. ‘Welcome to Nepal,’ he said. ‘Anything I can do to help you, just ask. You will need to keep in touch with us, of course, and if you’re going trekking up-country, you will find that comms are a bit of a problem - as you may have noticed, there are quite a few mountains around here and they do tend to interfere with communications. But you can reach this department at any time, day or night, from anywhere in Nepal by using the communications system in the Nepalese Police Posts; there’s one in every town and village. I’m afraid I won’t be available in person after today because I’m going trekking with the Gurkha recruitment team.’

‘Sounds like fun,’ said Shepherd.

Jenner grinned. ‘I’m an ex-Gurkha Officer myself, I simply wouldn’t miss it for the world. But my clerk will look after all your kit and will pass on any messages that come in from Hereford. So if you can make contact through one of the police posts on a daily basis, he’ll keep you updated. Now, anything else I can help you with?’

‘There might be,’ Shepherd said. ‘Do you happen to know a guy called Taff the Rope?’

‘Dai Evans? Yes, I know him. I think he is usually to be found at the Tilcho Hotel, a cheap hotel in Pokhara. It’s three or four hours drive west of here. He’s not a regular visitor to Kathmandu and certainly not to the Embassy; he seems to prefer Nepalese company to ours.’ He hesitated for a few moments, studying them over the rim of his china teacup before continuing. ‘Just one other thing before you go: I believe your old comrade, Gul, was on the same plane as you today.’

‘Not an old comrade of mine,’ Shepherd said, ‘but yes, he flew in with us.’

‘Just a word to the wise then,’ Jenner said. ‘By all means be friendly if you happen to bump into him again, but my advice would be not to get too close to him.’

‘Any particular reason why?’ Jock said, his Glaswegian growl as usual sounding like a declaration of war.

‘Just that I hear he may be harbouring political ambitions,’ Jenner said with a disarming smile, ‘and it wouldn’t do for us to be seen to be actively favouring a member of the opposition in what is quite a sensitive political situation.’