‘And there they were. Bold as fucking brass. Five of them, all armed. Coming out of the trees, down a hunter’s path. All of them with weapons slung. AKs mostly. But one of them had this great big rifle barrel sticking up over his head. Thick as your wrist, over a metre long. And I knew straight away it was him. The sniper. The stupid bastards were so deep in discussion they hadn’t even seen the Warriors. Must have been a right shock when I racked the cocking handle of the Gimpy.’

‘Gimpy?’ Den, increasingly confused.

‘GPMG. General Purpose Machine Gun. A nasty big bastard that was just like a bar of nutty.’

‘Nutty?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Den, chocolate with nuts in it. Even I know that much.’ Deano thinking for a moment. ‘But why was it like a bar of—’

‘Because when you pulled the trigger you didn’t get a nice straight stream of bullets. Not like this little honey.’ Steve patting the Bren gun’s butt affectionately. ‘The Gimpy was an area weapon. Designed to generate a spray of rounds. And produce a beaten zone. It was a brave bloke who’d run at a Gimpy, because there was no way to dodge. Whichever way you went was going to get a healthy dose of 7.62mm, sooner or later. If they’d put their hands up they might have lived. Although matey with the big gun would have had a warm old time of it. But they didn’t. They started unslinging their rifles and generally making it clear they were hostile. So I did them.’

‘You machine gunned them?’

‘Yes, Den mate. I gave them a full two-hundred-round belt of ammo. Once I popped, I couldn’t stop. Seemed to go on forever, although they were all dead inside the first two seconds. Smashed into offal. The lads came charging back, all ready to go to war, but they were well too late.’

‘Bloody hell, Steve!’ Deano nodding newfound respect. ‘You must have got a medal for that!’

‘No.’ Steve with a knowing expression. ‘I got a big pat on the back. Fast-tracked to lance corporal. And mentioned in classified dispatches. But as far as the world was concerned, nothing happened. We buried the bodies five miles away, in the middle of nowhere. And as far as I know they were never found. Got me a lot of respect, at the time. Gave me a few nightmares, later on. Nothing compared to what we saw the next year though. When the shit properly hit the fan.’

He took a deep breath.

‘And that, boys, is why we’re doing this. Because that bastard Castagna has all the same evil in him they did. And if Mickey’s mad enough to go and clean house on him, I’m up for it.’ He looked at his watch.