The Forgotten Land

The Forgotten Land Read Free

Book: The Forgotten Land Read Free
Author: Keith McArdle
Tags: Fiction, Men's Adventure
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hugged her. “Don’t cry, Mum, please don’t cry.”
    Brent
stood in the doorway, a sandwich clutched in one hand and honey dripping onto
the floor. He looked on with confusion. The world in which he lived was tearing
itself apart and he was thankfully still too young to realise it. Judy clutched
onto Kathy and rocked back and forth. She wiped her tear-stained cheeks. Would
he come home this time?
    Judy
closed her eyes and tried not to think about it.
    *
* * * *
    Steve
sped down the outside lane of the highway towards the centre of Perth. He
didn’t know what the mission was about, but from the sound of the phone call it
sounded like he might have another war time deployment. It was every trooper’s
dream to go on at least one war deployment, but more than one was better than
excellent.
    He
guessed it had something to do with Iraq. The Kurds had become a force to be
reckoned with apparently, killing all Iraqis in their sights. It had been
splashed all over the news for the last fortnight.
    He
had enjoyed his time with his family, he always did. But Steve was one of the
uncommon men who found themselves in the ranks of the Australian Special Air
Service Regiment, the elite soldiers of the Australian Defence Force. The SASR
was one of the most elite units of any force in the world. America had some
excellent elite outfits, but they were on equal ground with the SASR.
    Steve
had been in the SASR for almost fourteen years now and was one of the more
experienced men in the regiment. At thirty seven, he could still cover fifteen
kilometres on foot in under forty minutes. He pulled into the barracks and
drove towards the guard at the gate. He pulled out his identification, wound
down his window and stopped next to the “slot machine” as some called it. He
slipped the plastic card into the machine and slid it downwards. The machine
would read the barcode on his ID and check its authenticity. This all took the
space of less than a second. The barrier came up.
    Once
he had parked outside the operations room, Steve walked up the small flight of
stairs and made his way to the briefing room door. He could hear muffled voices
inside. Sweeping his eyes across the room, Steve smiled. They were all old
faces.
    He
had worked with these men on many occasions. So much so that many soldiers in
their squadron dubbed the small group “The Usual Suspects”.
    Dave
Hill had a face like it had been chiselled from a rock face, the telling sign
that he was a desert specialist. In fact he had spent most of his SASR career
on courses in the various deserts around the world. He could have passed for an
Arab with his darkly tanned skin and black hair. At thirty one, with eight
years in the SASR under his belt as well as six years in three RAR (Royal
Australian Regiment) the Australian paratrooper regiment. Dave Hill was an
experienced, tough and disciplined soldier. Not a man for small talk, he only
ever spoke when there was something to say.
    Will
McDonald was a well-built man of twenty five, and easily the youngest on the
patrol. He had brown eyes, a pleasant smile and a polite manner. Quite the
opposite of what most people thought constituted a soldier in the Special Air
Service Regiment. Before joining the SASR Will had spent five years prior as an
Assault Pioneer; demolitions were his specialty. When something had to be blown
up, his eyes would light up like a child’s. Consequently he could set up some
fairly deadly booby traps for the enemy to stumble upon. Most of the troopers
who came into contact with him when he first joined the ranks gave him a hard
time because of his mild manner.
    What
they didn’t know was that he was a fearsome fighter with a short temper and
could become very aggressive, very quickly. One unfortunate soldier found this
out the hard way and spent the best part of a week in hospital as a result.
Will McDonald loved deception, particularly when it came to fighting and was a
fan of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He had

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