2

THEY’D BEEN IN different squadrons, but I’d known Mong and BB since Regiment days. Now the three of us were out, and making a few bob on the circuit whenever and wherever we could.

‘BB’ was short for ‘Body Beautiful, Mind Full of Shit’. He hadn’t come into the Regiment the normal way, from one of the three services or the Oz or Kiwi military. He’d joined the TA off the street after watching too much SAS shit on telly. The problem was, he didn’t get the culture. He didn’t even speak squaddie. He was a mobile-phone salesman who played soldiers every other weekend about fifteen miles from where he lived. He was living the dream a bit too much instead of getting on with the job. He hadn’t realized you had to serve your apprenticeship before going into the trade.

BB hated his nickname. He wanted all his mates to call him Justin. The trouble was he didn’t have any mates.

He was OK, I supposed, and a pretty good operator. He just didn’t get it, whatever ‘it’ was. He was a smooth-talking Geordie fucker who fancied himself. He did all the weight training, took all the supplements. His T-shirts were two sizes too small. He plastered his face with moisturizer, and spent every spare minute building a tan for when he was back in the UK, cruising round town in his red Mazda 5.

Worst of all, he fancied Mong’s wife, and didn’t mind letting him know. BB had few scruples when it came to horizontal tabbing. He was plenty stupid enough to try it on with her. He’d tried it in the past, before Mong was on the scene, but Tracy soon cottoned on that he wouldn’t be giving her what she needed.

Of course, BB wasn’t the only one who fancied her. We all did. She was a good-looking girl. She had the kind of smile that belonged on an infant-school teacher. Everything about her was close to perfect – the way her dark hair brushed her shoulders, the way she dressed. We called her Racy Tracy, but it wasn’t really true.

For everyone apart from BB she was off-limits. She was somebody else’s wife. And that somebody was a mate.

This new fight had been brewing since the moment we’d met up a week ago in the UK. BB hadn’t seen Mong for a couple of years, but got stuck straight in with the same old banter: ‘Any time she needs a real man, just give her my number.’ And he hadn’t stopped there.

I gave Mong a prod. ‘You all right, mate?’

‘Yeah.’ He lifted his head, held a finger to each nostril and blew out a stream of sand and snot. He nodded at the waves pounding in ten metres away. ‘I suppose I’d better get cleaned up.’

His accent was West Country, borderline pointy-head. It didn’t fit with how he looked. Mong was a big unit; he could have been a poster boy for the World Wrestling Federation. He was tall and thickset, with crinkly dark blond hair. He never went to the gym or lifted weights, but still shat muscle. It was how he was made.

He really did have a huge arse. Each cheek was plenty big enough for those hands. From behind, with his kit off, he looked like a crime scene. After a few beers at a party, he’d drop his trousers and work his muscles so it looked like they were shuffling cards. His biggest pick-up line was ‘Stick or twist?’ There was still a bit of the Royal Marine in him, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Any excuse, any piss-up, those lads couldn’t wait to get their kit off.

With BB it was a totally different story. To keep his bulk he had to hit the weights non-stop and take supplements by the fistful. His day sack was filled with protein powder.