The last thing we did before kick-off was swap out all our conventional ammunition for speciality rounds with – and I wish I was joking here – the sharp end filled with holy water. Everything with a point or an edge was – again, not joking – blessed by the spiritual representatives of three major and several minor religions. Our explosives were a custom-created compound that included salt, garlic, white phosphorus and lashings more of the stuff you’d usually sprinkle on little Baby Tarquin. To be honest, at this point, I’d not have been at all surprised to be told Mr Tea was gonna be making our brew exclusively with the church’s own vintage. 

Along with our custom-selected weapons and souped-up munitions, we were also issued with brand new body armour and kit, all with various holy symbols, prayers and honest to [insert the deity of your choice here] incantations stitched into the fabric. No one could say for certain any of this would stop a horned monster if they got the horn with us, or if we could even hope to put them down before they could return the compliment. But everyone agreed, it wouldn’t be for wont of trying. 

Apparently, the myths-and-legends sections of those very extensive libraries were absolutely full of stories about holy warriors putting the hurt on hellspawn and, with the various estates of hell suddenly turning up real, those stories were currently being reconsidered for the history section. These stories also, not gonna bullshit you here, gave us some small degree of hope we might actually get back topside to studiously never talk to the press. Still, the problem with this whole mission remained that we wouldn’t be playing with any kind of home-field advantage, and it really wasn’t clear exactly what we’d find once we got downstairs and started getting physical with infernal physics. The general consensus was: get in quiet, get out fast and only do the live-fire research if there really was no other choice. Oh, but if you do end up shooting and stabbing and making the general mayhem for which the Regiment was created, we want the after-action review in triplicate. Please and thank you.

We had our tasking, we had our tech, we had the official blessing of the chain of command and the actual blessings of a whole regiment of religious representatives. As much as we could, we even had a plan, if you could call it that. Mostly we had the inbuilt institutional confidence of an outfit that was born behind enemy lines in North Africa and has lived with that same sense of shabby surety ever since. I’ll admit, part of me wanted to argue for a frontal assault in a WW2-era jeep with twin Vickers machine guns blazing. But the realistic way to get this job done was sneak, snatch and run. With any luck, we’d be in and out before Hell’s unholy legions scrambled, and home in time for tea and crumpets. Tally-ho!