Marcus was always amazed at the fantasy perception most people held onto regarding life in Alaska. He was endlessly getting asked what it was like. Did he live in an igloo? Did he have a dog sled? Did he herd reindeer? Was there really gold just lying on the ground?
The truth, of course, was much different than almost everyone’s imagination conjured up. That was why the population of the largest state in the U.S. stayed so small.
The closest Marcus had ever come to an igloo in Alaska was the snow fort he built as a child to play snowball wars with his best friend, Linus. His neighbors had driven dog sleds, but he wanted nothing to do with them, as it was a filthy life of daily cleaning dog poop in a yellow pee-stained patch of snow for a front yard. He had hunted and eaten caribou, but never herded the domestic reindeer, and didn’t know anyone who did.
And as much as he would have liked it, there was no gold that he ever saw lying around on the ground. The only prospectors Marcus had known as a youth were always dirt-poor and barely eking an existence out of the ground where they endlessly dug.
Life in an arctic wilderness was, at best, harsh. Marcus grew up on a homestead that had been carved out of the wilderness by his grandfather’s hands at a time when there were only a hundred people in an area the size of the whole of Devon County in which the city of Plymouth sat, population one million.
Homestead life, also known as bush life, in Alaska was particularly harsh. Summers were spent growing what crops the ground could yield, which was usually massive amounts of extraordinarily large potatoes, beets, and carrots, and sometimes good seasons of broccoli and cabbage. Barley and oats were the only grains that really grew well. With the exception of several varieties of small, tart berries, there is almost no fruit to be had in the whole state.
In addition to self-sufficient farming, life off the grid was filled with firewood cutting (nearly twenty cords of it every summer), roads and trails to be mended, milk goats to be tended, and all the construction a homestead may need. The fair weather construction-working window in the interior of Alaska is only about five months, from late April to late September. The rest of the year, October to the beginning of April, the whole region is blanketed in a deep covering of powdery snow and locked in by temperatures as cold as negative seventy degrees Fahrenheit.
Most newcomers to the interior of Alaska usually end up retreating to the relatively warmer climate of the southern city of Anchorage within a year or two or, as often as not, leaving the state altogether to return to a place with four seasons and long hot summers. For this reason, in the one hundred plus years of western civilization in the area around the major interior city of Fairbanks, the population had never passed a maximum of one hundred thousand people. That population was spread over an area the size of nearly the whole of England, Scotland, and Wales combined.
Marcus wondered to himself how long Pops, raised in London’s infamous East End, would really choose to stay in such a place.
As he returned to his meal of roast pork and mashed potatoes, Marcus glanced at the envelope Pops had handed him.
“So what you got there?” White asked. “A letter from your mum?”
“A love letter from some broken-hearted wench he left in California, no doubt,” Barclay put in slyly. “Check it for perfume, mate. If there’s pictures, you’d better share.”
Marcus laughed at his comment. “Man, there’s no woman in California for me. More than likely, it’s my mum or dad. They’re the only ones who write via post anymore. Everyone else does e-mail, although admittedly I only check in a couple times a month.”
“Well, we’ll let you keep the letter from your folks to yourself then. But if there’s any hot ladies in there, and you don’t tell us…” Barclay wagged his finger toward Marcus.
Marcus stuffed the letter into the pocket of his trousers and finished his meal. Just as the last bite was entering his mouth, Colours Sergeant Smoot entered and strode over to the table, a serious look on his face.
“What’s up, Colours?” White asked. “You look like you just ate a rotten egg.”
Colours Sergeant Smoot looked the three men over quickly, then said in a low voice, “We’ve been called out. Just Mike Company, 2nd Troop. Finish your last bit of chow and head to the briefing room right away. Be there with the men in fifteen minutes — the colonel is on the way there now to give us the word.” He turned and walked back out.
All three of them went silent. Barclay quickly gulped down the last bit of his milk as he rose from the table. Johnson and White followed, carrying their trays to the small window that lead to the galley. Twenty-three year old Corporal White stuffed a remaining handful of fried potato wedges into his mouth as he walked.
Twelve minutes later, they were assembled in the company briefing room with the thirty-two men, including Lieutenant Childers of 2nd Troop, Mike Company, 43 Commando.
“Attention on deck!”
The brisk shout was followed by a sharp rustle and scrape of boots and chair legs as the men leapt to the ramrod straight position of attention. Colonel Farris strode briskly to the room and made his way directly up the aisle to the front. He turned behind a small podium and set down a small binder, which he opened, then spoke. “As you were, men,” He said in low, serious voice.
The men sat back down in the metal folding chairs and stared up at their leader. The colonel spoke in a straightforward tone of command.
“As of this moment and until further notice, your passes and liberties for this evening are cancelled. An order has come down directly from Number 10 Downing. It is labeled urgent. As all of you know, Sierra Leone, a former British Protectorate, has been in the midst of a civil war for several years now. We have stayed out of it, with the exception of a handful of military advisors, primarily SAS, who work directly with the recognized government.”
He paused as an IT specialist finished setting up a laptop and projector, from which an image gradually glowed onto the wall behind Colonel Farris.
“In recent weeks, the anarchist Revolutionary United Front has received a mass of weapons and cash, believed to be coming from several anti-west governments in Africa. Since receiving this fresh supply, their activity has exploded, particularly in the eastern regions. This is where you come in. Up until now, the RUF has left most outsiders, non-Africans, alone, or at most, ordered them leave the country. Last week, this changed. A Nigerian peacekeeping force came across the burned and mutilated bodies of half a dozen nuns from a medical clinic in a remote village in the northeastern jungle. They were all British subjects. The following day, an orphanage in a neighboring village, housing some two hundred children and staffed by an Irish Catholic priest and twelve nuns of both Anglo and African ethnicity, was put to the torch. All of the staff and most of the children were locked inside and burned to death. The boys of fighting age, which, down there, is only about ten years old, were taken by force to serve the rebels.”
He clicked the mouse on the laptop and the image on the projector changed to a picture of several men and women.
“These pictures are of several UK nationals, two priests, a dozen or so nuns, and several NGO workers who are in the area. We have been tasked to get in there as fast as possible, retrieve them, and get them to safety. I will be briefing the troop lieutenant and squad sergeants with the precise details and they will pass it down to the rest of you. In the meantime, you have about four hours to gather your gear, kiss your families goodbye, and meet on the airfield in full kit. Go with God, Marines.”
At this, the junior enlisted men rose and left quickly. The married men went to kiss their wives and children, and the singles returned to the barracks and wrote quick letters to their parents. With goodbyes said, every one of them checked and packed their gear.