We were waiting for one particular RV (rendezvous) when the two on stag fell asleep. In swooped a helicopter full of Guardsmen, and we were bumped. After a brief chase we were captured and taken to a holding area.
Some hours later, as I was down on my knees, my blindfold was removed and I found myself looking up at the training sergeant major.
“Am I binned?” I said pitifully.
“No, you nugget. Get back on the helicopter and don’t fuck up.”
I’d caught him in a good mood. An ex-Household Division man himself, he was delighted to see his old lot doing so well.
For the next phase I was on my own, which suited me fine. Our movement between RVs was arranged in such a way that everybody was captured at the end of the E amp;E (escape and evasion) phase and subjected to tactical questioning. You are taught to be-and you always try to be-the gray man. The last thing you want is to be singled out as worthy of further questioning. I didn’t find this stage particularly hard because despite the verbal threats nobody was actually filling you in, and you knew that nobody was going to. You’re cold and wet and hungry, uncomfortable as hell, but it’s just a matter of holding on, physically rather than mentally. I couldn’t believe that some people threw in their hand during these last few hours.
In the end a bloke came in during one of the interrogations, gave me a cup of soup, and announced that it was over. There was a1 thorough debriefing, because the interrogators can learn from you as well as you from them. The mind does get affected; I was surprised to find that I was six hours out in my estimation of the time.
Next came two weeks of weapon training at Hereford. The instructors looked at who you were, and they expected from you accordingly. If you were fresh from the Catering Corps they’d patiently start from scratch; if you were an infantry sergeant they’d demand excellence. Parachute training at Brize Norton was next, and after the rigors of Selection it was more like a month at Butlins.
Back at Hereford after six long, grueling months, we were taken into the CO’s office one by one. As I was handed the famous sand-colored beret with its winged dagger, he said: “Just remember: it’s harder to keep than to get.”
I didn’t really take it in. I was too busy trying not to dance a jig.
The main bulk of the new intake, as usual, was made up of people from the infantry, plus a couple of engineers and signalers. Out of 160 candidates who had started, only eight passed-one officer and seven men. Officers only serve for a three-year term in the SAS, though they may come back for a second tour. As an other rank, I had the full duration of my 22-year army contract to run-in theory, another fifteen years.
We went to join our squadrons. You can say whether you’d like to be in Mountain, Mobility, Boat, or Air Troop, and they’ll accommodate you if they can. Otherwise it all depends on manpower shortages and your existing skills. I went to Air.
The four squadrons have very different characters. It was once said that if you went to a nightclub, A Squadron would be the ones along the wall at the back, not saying a word, even to each other, just giving everybody the evil eye. G Squadron would be talking, but only to each other. D Squadron would be on the edge of the dance floor, looking at the women. And B Squadron-my squadron-would be the ones out there on the floor, giving it their all-and making total dickheads of themselves.
Debby came back from Germany to join me in Hereford. She had not seen much of me since I started Selection way back in January, and she wasn’t too impressed that the day after she arrived I was sent back to the jungle for two months of follow-up training. When I returned it was to an empty house. She had packed her bags and gone home to Liverpool.
In December the following year I started going out with Fiona, my next-door neighbor. Our daughter Kate was born in 1987, and in October that year we got married. My wedding present from the Regiment was a two-year job overseas. I came back from that trip in 1990, but in August, just a couple of months after my return, the marriage was dissolved. In October 1990 I met Jilly. It was love at first sight-or so she told me.
3
We assembled at 0750 at the OC’s table and headed off together for the briefing area. Everybody was in a jovial mood. We had a stainless steel flask each and the world’s supply of chocolate. It was going to be a long day, and saving time on refreshment breaks would allow us to get on with more important matters.
I was still feeling chuffed to have been made patrol commander and to be working with Vince. Approaching his last two years of service with the Regiment, Vince was 37 and a big old boy, immensely strong. He was an expert mountaineer, diver, and skier, and he walked everywhere-even up hills-as if he had a barrel of beer under each arm. To Vince, everything was “fucking shit,” and he’d say it in the strongest of Swindon accents, but he loved the Regiment and would defend it even when another squadron member was having a gripe. The only complaint in his life was that he was approaching the end of his 22 years’ engagement. He had come from the Ordnance Corps and looked rough in a way that most army people would expect a member of the Regiment to look rough, with coarse, curly hair and sideboards and a big mustache. Because he’d been in the Regiment a bit longer than I had, he was going to be a very useful man to have around when it came to planning.
The briefing area, we discovered, was in another hangar. We were escorted through a door marked NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. As a regiment we were in isolation, but the briefing area was isolation within isolation. OP SEC (operational security) is crucial. Nobody in the Regiment would ever ask anybody else what he was doing. As unwritten rules go, that one is in red ink, capital letters, and underlined. Doors either side of us were labeled AIR PLANNING, D SQUADRON, INT CORPS, MAP STORE. There was nothing fancy about the signs; they were A4 sheets of paper pinned to the door.
The atmosphere in this building was markedly different. It was clinical and efficient, with the ambient hiss and mush of radio transmissions in the background. Intelligence Corps personnel, known to us as “spooks” or “green slime,” moved from room to room with bundles of maps in their arms, being meticulous about closing doors behind them. Everybody spoke in low voices. It was an impressive hive of professional activity.
We knew many of the spooks by name, having worked with them in the UK.
“Morning, slime,” I called out to a familiar face. “How’s it going?”
I got a mouthed word and a jerk of the wrist in return.
The place had no windows and felt as though it had been derelict for a long time. There was an underlying smell of mustiness and decay. On top of that were the sort of ordinary office smells you’d get anywhere-paper, coffee, cigarettes. But this being what we called a remf (rear echelon motherfucker) establishment and early in the morning, there was also a strong smell of soap, shaving foam, toothpaste, and aftershave.
“Morning, remfs!” Vince greeted them with his
Swindon accent and a broad grin. “You’re fucking shit, you are.”
“Fucking shit yourself,” a spook replied. “Could you do our job?”
“Not really,” Vince said. “But you’re still a remf.”
The B Squadron room was about 15 feet square. The ceiling was very high, with a slit device at the top that gave the only ventilation. Four tables had been put together in the center. Silk escape maps and compasses were laid out on top.
“Freebies, let’s have them,” Dinger said.
“Never mind the quality, feel the width,” said Bob, one of Vince’s gang.