Soon they were ready and the team had set out from Ādaži in civilian vehicles, alone or in pairs to avoid attracting undue attention. Not long after, they had turned off the main road at Sigulda, with its attractive, white clapboard, wooden church and houses. Here they headed on forest tracks to Ligatne, site of a former Soviet command bunker built deep in the forest, where they hid their vehicles so they were impossible to see from the air and difficult to see from the ground, unless, that is, you as good as walked into one. Thereafter, it was bergens on, and into the trees. Led by a Special Tasks Unit soldier who knew the forest intimately, they had finally, after several grueling hours, stopped in a clearing deep in the thickest part of the forest, close to the Gauja river. Ahead of them was a well-camouflaged entrance.

“Welcome to your new home, Tom,” said Krastiņš cheerfully. “This is one of the Forest Brothers’ lairs. The Russians never found it and not even the locals know about it.”

Morland lowered his bergen and took a swig from his water bottle. “How’re you doing, Marina? Feet alright?”

Krauja looked at him. “I’m fine Tom, thanks. I’ll walk you off your feet before this is over.”

Krastiņš overheard the exchange and laughed. “She will, you know. As will the rest of my team. I told them to go easy with you during training . . .”

Morland looked round. All the Latvians were smiling.

He grinned back. It was a good start. The Latvians were joshing with them, which meant they were willing to accept them as part of their team.

The next couple of days passed quickly. A routine was established in the well-stocked bunker. To avoid giving away their position, radio transmissions were limited to prearranged data-burst skeds only, conducted some distance away and never from the same spot; otherwise the Russians would locate them in no time. They listened in to Latvian State Radio, LVRTC, from which they were able to build up a picture of the Russian occupation. Standing patrols of a couple of soldiers were established around the bunker as close protection and regular foot patrols went further out every day to check for any sign of Russian activity. At night, sentries were posted covering potential approaches to the bunker and patrols brought in. They all took their turn on stag.

Morland, lying in his shell scrape, looked at his watch. Dawn “stand to” had just finished and the day routine was about to begin. He crawled from under his poncho with the GPMG and returned to the bunker.