Deathlist Read Free

He closed his eyes and repeated the motto that had been drummed into him during pre-Selection training in 2 Para.
    Push through the pain. Close your mind to it. Remember, pain is merely weakness leaving the body.
    That morning had started like any other for the hundred and fifty guys trying out for Selection. Kinsella and the others had woken up at first reveille at 0400 hours in their dilapidated barracks, the air thick with the stench of piss and sweat. After performing their morning ablutions the students had made their way over to the camp cookhouse to scoff down the vast portions of starch and grease served up by the slop jockeys. They’d returned to the billets to collect their Bergens, then headed over to the armoury to retrieve their dud SLRs using the weapon keys that had been issued to each student on arrival. Then they’d formed up into two separate groups of seventy-five men each for the morning roll call at 0600 hours.
    Kinsella had stood there in the icy darkness, listening to the chief instructor’s voice as he read out their names. The students all knew what was coming next. They’d been briefed on the day’s exercise the previous evening, and a list of names had been posted on the guard room wall so everyone knew which group they were in. After the roll call the students had clambered into the backs of the eight Bedford four-tonners waiting to ferry them down to the Brecons. Now Kinsella could feel his stomach muscles constricting with fear and self-doubt. The endless routine of early rises, hard runs and regular beastings were starting to take their toll on the young Para. He wondered if he really had what it takes to join the hallowed ranks of the SAS.
    This is it now. No going back.
    Do or fucking die.
    ‘Got a good one for you, mate.’
    Kinsella popped open his eyes and looked across at his friend. Lee ‘Weasel’ Stubbs was a short, squat guy with a heavily knitted brow and a nose with more breaks in it than the Guinness Book of Records . Stubbs had joined the Paras at the same time as Kinsella. They had spent the past few years living in each other’s pockets in Patrols Platoon, A Company, going out on the lash in Colchester and drinking the town dry. Stubbs was a total gun nut with a dirty sense of humour, and he was the closest thing Kinsella had to a brother. When Stubbs had announced that he planned to try out for Selection, Kinsella had decided to give it a go as well. Seeing a familiar face among the strangers helped ease the anxiety brewing in Kinsella’s guts. He smiled warmly at Stubbs.
    ‘All right, Weasel. Let’s hear it.’
    Stubbs rubbed his hands and grinned like a wanking Jap. The two of them had a tradition of telling each other jokes on the journey to the mountains each morning. It was something they’d started doing in 2 Para, and they found it helped take their minds off the pain they were about to suffer.
    ‘So there’s this doctor, right,’ Stubbs began, chewing on a mouthful of gum. He was never without a stick or two. ‘He’s been shagging one of his female patients, and after a while he starts to feel proper guilty about it. He’s tormented, right?’
    The four-tonner bounced over another pothole in the road, shaking the troops crammed into the back. Kinsella nodded. ‘Go on, mate.’
    ‘Now this doctor, he goes to one of his mates and tells him how he’s feeling. His mate looks him in the eye and says, “Don’t worry. You’re not the first medical practitioner to nail one of your patients and you won’t be the last. You’re not even married, for fuck’s sake.”’
    Stubbs paused. A smile trembled on his lips. Kinsella waited for the punchline.
    ‘Then the doctor speaks to the second friend. And this one tells him, “You might be a doctor, but you’re a veterinarian, you sick bastard.”’
    Stubbs leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, looking pleased with himself.
    ‘Well?’
    Terrible , thought Kinsella.
    ‘Terrific,’ he