Frederick Forsyth - The Afghan

The following week, the coroner issued a certificate of death to an academic from the School of Oriental and African Studies, a Dr. Terry Martin, in respect of his late brother, Colonel Mike Martin of the Parachute Regiment, who had vanished without trace eighteen months earlier. On the grounds of the headquarters of the SAS Regiment outside the town of Hereford stands a rather odd-looking structure known simply as the Clock Tower. The tower was dismantled piece by piece when the regiment moved several years ago from its old base to the newer premises. Then it was reconstructed. Predictably, it has a clock at the top, but the points of interest are the four faces of the tower on which are inscribed the names of all SAS men killed in combat.

Shortly after the issuance of the death certificate, a memorial service was held at the foot of the Clock Tower. There were a dozen men in uniform, and ten in civilian clothes, and two women. One of these was the director-general of MI5, the Security Service, and the other the dead man’s ex-wife. The missing-in-action status had needed a bit of persuasion, but the pressure came from very high indeed, and when apprised of all the known facts the director, Special Forces, and the commanding officer of the regiment had agreed that the status was justified. Colonel Mike Martin was certainly not the first, nor would he be the last, SAS man to be lost in a faraway place and never recovered.

Across the border to the west, the sun was dipping across the Black Mountains of Wales on a bleak February day when the brief ceremony was held. At the end, the chaplain spoke the habitual words from the Gospel according to John: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Only those grouped round the Clock Tower knew that Mike Martin, Parachute Regiment and SAS colonel, retired, had done this for four thousand complete strangers, none of whom ever knew he existed.