As I strode confidently through the gate of the RE depot, a regimental police corporal bawled, ‘Hey, you! Come here!’
I thought, he can’t be shouting at me. I haven’t been shouted at for ten years! I looked behind me. I couldn’t see anyone else.
‘Yes, you! Come here!’
I looked behind me again. Still no one there. ‘Right, you bastard,’ I thought, as I walked up to him. He was in his little sentry box, behind his little pigeonhole. He opened the window, about to say something more, but before he could utter another word I grabbed him by the throat, looked him straight in the eye and snapped, ‘You! I’m a sergeant from the SAS. Where’s the RSM’s office?’
He suddenly turned pale. ‘Sorry, Sarge. I thought you were one of the new recruits,’ he mumbled apologetically as he furiously dusted himself down.
I strode into the RSM’s office and announced boldly, ‘I’m posted in from the SAS.’
The RSM looked up slowly from the carefully printed duty roster he was studying. ‘You mean you’re here on a course, are you?’
‘No. I’m posted in.’
‘You mean you’re on a course.’
‘No. I’m posted in.’ I was determined to give them a hard time.
‘Where are your documents?’
‘Have they not sent them yet?’
‘No. We haven’t got any documents. Wait here.’
He went off to check with the Colonel.
‘Right. Come in and see the Colonel.’
I strode into the Colonel’s office, and it started all over again.
‘Are you here on a course?’
‘No. I’m posted in.’
‘Where are your documents?’
‘I haven’t got any documents.’
‘Where are you from?’
‘I’m posted in from the SAS.’
‘Are you on a course?’
‘No, I’m posted in!’ I must have seemed like a PoW giving only name, rank and number.
‘Oh, well, what rank are you?’ The Colonel was struggling to inject some logic into my presence.
‘I’m a sergeant in the SAS.’
‘No, in the RE.’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t been in the RE for ten years.’
‘Right. We’d better find out what your rank was in the RE.’ He rang up RE records at Brighton, put the phone down and said, ‘Well, Sergeant. I’ve got some bad news for you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You’re now a lance-corporal in the RE.’
‘I can’t be a lance-corporal at my age. I’m thirty-three! I’m a substantive sergeant in the SAS. You can stuff that idea for a start!’
I argued all the pros and cons for the next fifteen minutes, emphasizing my point of view by banging on the table at regular intervals. In the end, the Colonel couldn’t hack it any more. He called out, ‘Captain Edwards. Come in here. Send this man on three weeks’ leave while we sort out his case.’
They would no doubt soon find my precious documents. Without documents the British Army would grind to a standstill. From when you join the Army to when you leave, or die in between, every single second of your life is documented. Every precise detail is recorded. More effort goes into keeping accurate files than went into winning the Second World War.
The irony is that no matter how thorough the paperwork, like everything else it is subject to human error. While I was away on leave, word obviously got around the RE depot about the new upstart recently arrived from the SAS, and the spineless wonders in the sergeants’ mess evidently decided to try and teach the new boy a lesson. They tried to recall me from leave and put me on guard duty on Christmas Day 1977. There’s no way I’m going to work Christmas, I thought. There’s no way they’re going to rip me off. I’ll beat them at their own game.
I ignored the phone calls and stayed at home. Conveniently catching flu, I made damn sure I got my insurance. They’d obviously decided to put the recall in writing so that it could be entered in my documents for a potential future disciplinary hearing. An OHMS telegram duly went out on the morning of 24 December saying, ‘Report back to Southwood Camp for duty by 0830 hours 25th, repeat 25th, December 1977.’
The trouble was they addressed the telegram not to me but to my sixty-six-year-old father, a Dunkirk veteran. He’d been on the Reserve for ten years after the war, but he certainly wasn’t expecting anything like this at his stage in life. He took the telegram to the local police station and asked them to sort it out. The military wires started buzzing, and an hour later he received a message from the embarrassed authorities to say that he wasn’t needed after all and that the telegram was really meant for his son. They’d tried to knock my morale and it hadn’t worked. They’d ended up looking complete fools.
I returned to Southwood three weeks after Christmas and once again stood in front of the Colonel.
‘We have now got the blueprint of your career.’ His voice sounded enthusiastic, as if he’d been primed by a higher authority. ‘I have looked in your documents and I have found that you have done an HGV 2 driving course. Do you realize that with that HGV licence, if you do a month’s theory study on MT regulations and pass the Driver REB1 course, you’ll be qualified up to Regimental Sergeant Major in the RE?’
‘That’s all very well, but what’s my rank right now?’
‘Well, for the duration of the course, we’ll make you up to Local Sergeant.’
‘Thank you very much.’ Local Sergeant unpaid and unwanted, I thought as I quietly closed the Colonel’s door behind me.
I passed the course with ease. I was then called back in to see the Colonel.
‘We’ve got a little job for you. We’ve had an officer cry off from running a recruit troop. Would you like to become an acting troop officer to run the troop?’
I quite fancied the idea of playing God. It meant that I had beaten the career boys back in Hereford to a commission. Visions of going down to the station with a four-tonner to pick up a batch of Sid Vicious lookalikes with purple socks, leather jackets and razor blades and safety pins through their ears, and then beasting them into shape, were rather appealing. I said, ‘I’ll run a mini-selection. Their feet won’t touch the ground.’
‘Carry on, Sergeant.’
I must have achieved some kind of record. I went from sergeant in the SAS down to lance-corporal Royal Engineers up to acting troop officer. All within two months!
After eight months as acting troop officer with a sergeant, a corporal and three lance-corporals pandering to my every whim, I was told an officer was moving in to take over my role and I would then be secondin-command. The character turned up: warrant officer second class. He wasn’t a bad bloke really, but I resented his authority. I decided to shortcircuit the developing personality clash; I took him to one side and said, ‘I can’t hack this. I’ve been running this troop very well without you for eight months. I’m off.’ I went to the nearest telephone, rang up the second-in-command of the SAS and said, ‘You’ve got to get me out of here or else I’ll throw another wobbler. See what you can do.’
He contacted Group HQ. A meeting was arranged. I discussed it with the Colonel, who said, ‘Right. We’ll get you on next selection in January 1979.’
I was pitched straight into test week. I was given the option of missing out the endurance march if I got A grades in each of the first two marches. It was a great incentive. I didn’t stop running for two days, and duly got the grades. I was back in the Regiment, back in business! There was just one catch. Having left the SAS as a sergeant, here I was at the age of thirty-four rejoining as a trooper.