There is nothing more threatening to the advancement of civilization than the man who thinks himself God. The Roman conqueror, riding victorious through a defeated city, would employ a jester to walk beside his horse and degrade the military glory through lampooning and buffoonery. With this historical perspective in mind, I walked up the gravel drive of one of Hereford’s best hotels to collect a top 1980s jester and TV star, Jim Davidson. Being a keen student of military history, Jim had secretly agreed to put in a mystery appearance at the celebration thrash marking the siege victory. A champagne party was to take place at a well-known Hereford watering hole, and my job was to infiltrate Jim covertly into the pub.
He arrived in reception wearing a grey double-breasted two-piece suit, looking, with his slim figure and slightly suntanned face, as though he’d just come off a team job abroad. I shook Jim’s hand and we made small-talk. I was impressed by his enthusiasm and I knew instinctively he was going to be the right man for the evening. We passed a few minutes in light conversation, then left the hotel and made for the car park. As I swung my legs into Jim’s Mercedes 220SE, he shot me a conspiratorial glance. ‘Have you got all the gear?’
‘Yes, it’s in the hotel room,’ I assured him.
‘What time do we start?’
‘We’ll kick off at 9.00pm prompt.’
Jim turned the ignition key and the engine purred into life. He put the Merc in gear and we glided out of the car park. I looked at my watch. It was just 8.00pm. That left plenty of time to organize the evening’s cabaret. Feeling quite pleased with phase one of the operation, I settled back in the luxurious comfort of the car’s passenger seat and proceeded to direct Jim to the location of the party.
By 8.15pm we were in downtown Hereford. We let ourselves into a hotel bedroom adjacent to the hall where the festivities were taking place. I could hear the clink of beer-mugs and the buzz of conversation from the early drinkers. The sound of Ricky Sickit and the Vomits on the downstairs jukebox was deafening. ‘Who the hell’s that?’ said Jim as he closed the bedroom door. ‘It sounds like the second coming of Sid Vicious!’
I glanced around the room. It looked like the duty NCO’s bunk in a seedy NAAFI. The mattress and sheets on the single bed were only slightly cleaner than the olive-green holdall resting on top of them. I went over to the holdall, unzipped the top and checked the contents. Everything was there.
Time to get ready. Jim stripped to his underwear and reached for the first article of assault kit. In a matter of seconds he climbed into the black flameproof overalls and fastened the zip. We both sneezed as the CS gas trapped in the creases of the material was released into the atmosphere. With tears in my eyes I handed him the Northern Ireland lightweight boots. He immediately recognized the para-cord bootlaces and told me a great joke about his charity parachuting days. Choking back the tears and the laughter, I helped him strap on the Len Dixon belt kit and checked that the 9-milly Browning was unloaded. He fastened his leg-strap like a seasoned gunfighter and holstered the shooter. He then threaded the abseil rope round his waist and secured it with a Karabiner. Finally, he lifted the respirator off the bed and, with a professional touch, checked the tightness of the canister and adjusted the mask’s securing straps. With a last impish grin and an enthusiastic thumbs-up, he pulled on the respirator, coiled the abseil rope over his forearm, opened the hotel door and stepped out into the darkened corridor.
With cat-like stealth, we moved down the corridor, opened a concealed door near the fire exit and began climbing a rickety staircase. ‘You go first, Jim, and I’ll cover you.’ Jim grunted through the rubber of the respirator and snaked his way tactically up the narrow stairs. I could have sworn he imagined he was on operations.
The staircase led to a minstrels’ gallery which overlooked the bar and cabaret lounge. The bar was now filled to capacity with team members and percentage players quaffing their thirst gratefully on case after case of champagne sent in by the public, including one from an old lady in Torquay, who’d been saving it for years ‘for a special occasion’. Earlier in the day, I had blocked off the safety-rail running across the gallery front with plywood sheeting. We were totally hidden from the crowd below. As we crawled into position across the wooden boards of the balcony, desperately trying not to make them creak, I looked at my watch. 8.55pm. Five minutes to go. I tapped Jim on the shoulder and showed him five fingers. He gave me the thumbs-up and handed me the wire that was connected to the small explosive charge I had put in position that afternoon. I took the two bare ends of the D10 wire and pushed them into the shrike exploder. I pressed the test button and got the green light. Good, complete circuit, we’re ready to go.
I took a look at my watch. Thirty seconds to go. I tapped Jim on the shoulder and pointed towards the safety-rail. As he moved into position, I pressed the priming button on the shrike. The red ‘fire’ light flashed in the gloom. At precisely 9.00pm I pressed the firing button. Bang! The small stage charge took the drinkers completely by surprise. Heads whipped round and the odd Walter Mitty gatecrasher reached for a non-existent shoulder holster.
Jim jumped to his feet and threw the abseil rope over the balcony. For a few tense moments he trod the gallery boards, shooting menacing glances at the crowd below. Then, in one quick, efficient movement, he removed his respirator and, to roars of applause, launched straight into his first joke.
‘A man dies and goes up to the Pearly Gates. He sees St Peter standing there with rows and rows of clocks behind him. When asked the purpose of the clocks, St Peter replies that every person on earth is given an allotted span of time and the clocks keep a record. Suddenly one of the clocks goes round a full hour in a couple of seconds. “That man has just slept with his neighbour’s wife,” explains St Peter with a frown. Then another clock jerks round a full two hours. “That man has just mugged an old lady in the street,” intones St Peter. At that moment, the newly arrived man sees a clock immediately behind St Peter frantically spinning round at high speed. “Ah, that clock,” says St Peter…,’ and here Jim paused a moment, looked me straight between the eyes, then continued, ‘“…that clock belongs to a certain member of B Squadron SAS. We use it as a fan to keep us cool in the hot weather.”’
Better to be tried by twelve than to be carried by six, I thought, as I waited in the corridor outside Westminster Coroner’s Court. The jokes and the back-slapping were over. Nine months on from the siege, now it was into the serious business of the inquest. I was more nervous at the prospect of doing battle in the legal cut and thrust with clued-up solicitors and highly paid barristers than I’d ever been before going in to tackle Oan and his band. I’d been away for nearly a year, travelled twice around the world on training missions, and here I was being called to account before the cold, impassive power of the law for actions whose precise sequences were already beginning to blur in my mind. Worst of all, I was to bare my soul and that of the Regiment in public. I was to give details of an SAS operation before the massed ranks of the media crammed into the public galleries, at least five dozen hardened journalists, pens poised in excitement, awaiting with schoolboy eagerness the unfolding of tomorrow’s guaranteed bestseller. I’d spent eleven years of total anonymity and secrecy with the SAS. But since the television exposure of the siege had blown our cover, the Head Shed felt compelled to go against all their normal instincts. We now had to be seen to be accountable. Democracy in action. It marked a new stage in the Regiment’s history, a new dimension in the psychological warfare against terrorists.