At about 1900 one evening, I and another team commander, Vince, were called over to the squadron OC’s table. He was having a brew with the squadron sergeant major.
“We’ve got a task for you,” he said, handing us a mug each of tea.
“You’ll be working together. Andy will command. Vince will be 2 i/c. The briefing will be tomorrow morning at 0800-meet me here. Make sure your people are informed. There will be no move before two days.”
My lot were rather pleased at the news. Quite, apart from anything else, it meant an end to the hassle of having to queue for the only two available sinks and bogs. In the field, the smell of clean clothes or bodies can disturb the wildlife and in turn compromise your position, so for the last few days before you go you stop washing and make sure all your clothing is used.
The blokes dispersed, and I went to watch the latest news on CNN. Scud missiles had fallen on Tel Aviv, injuring at least twenty-four civilians. Residential areas had taken direct hits, and as I looked at the footage of tower blocks and children in their pajamas, I was suddenly reminded of Peckham and my own childhood. That night, as I tried to get my head down, I found myself remembering all my old haunts and thinking about my parents and a whole lot of other things that I hadn’t thought about in a long while.
2
I had never known my real mother, though I always imagined that whoever she was she must have wanted the best for me: the carrier bag I was found in when she left me on the steps of Guy’s Hospital came from Harrods.
I was fostered until I was 2 by a South London couple who in time applied to become my adoptive parents. As they watched me grow up, they probably wished they hadn’t bothered. I binned school when I was 15-and-a-half to go and work for a haulage company in Brixton. I’d already been bunking off two or three days a week for the last year or so. Instead of studying for CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) I delivered coal in the winter and drink mixes to off-licenses in the summer. By going full-time I pulled in 8 a day, which in 1975 was serious money. With forty quid on the hip of a Friday night you were one of the lads.
My father had done his National Service in the Catering Corps and was now a minicab driver. My older brother had joined the Royal Fusiliers when I was a toddler and had served for about five years until he got married. I had exciting memories of him coming home from faraway places with his holdall full of presents. My own early life, however, was nothing remarkable. There wasn’t anything I was particularly good at, and I certainly wasn’t interested in a career in the army. My biggest ambition was to get a flat with my mates and be able to do whatever I wanted.
I spent my early teens running away from home. Sometimes I’d go with a friend to France for the weekend, expeditions that were financed by him doing over his aunty’s gas meter. I was soon getting into trouble with the police myself, mainly for vandalism to trains and vending machines. There were juvenile court cases and fines that caused my poor parents a lot of grief.
I changed jobs when I was 16, going behind the counter at McDonald’s in Catford. Everything went well until round about Christmas time, when I was arrested with two other blokes coming out of a flat that didn’t belong to us in Dulwich village. I got put into a remand hostel for three days while I waited to go in front of the magistrates. I hated being locked up and swore that if I got away with it I’d never let it happen again. I knew deep down that I’d have to do something pretty decisive or I’d end up spending my entire life in Peckham, fucking about and getting fucked up. The army seemed a good way out. My brother had enjoyed it, so why not me?
When the case came up the other two got sent to Borstal. I was let off with a caution, and the following day I took myself down to the army recruiting office. They gave me a simple academic test, which I failed. They told me to come back a calendar month later, and this time, because it was exactly the same test, I managed to scrape through by two points.
I said I wanted to be a helicopter pilot, as you do when you have no qualifications and not a clue what being one involves.
“There’s no way you are going to become a helicopter pilot,” the recruiting sergeant told me. “However, you can join the Army Air Corps if you want. They might teach you to be a helicopter refueler.”
“Great,” I said, “that’s me.”
You are sent away for three days to a selection center where you take more tests, do a bit of running, and go through medicals. If you pass, and they’ve got a vacancy, they’ll let you join the regiment or trade of your choice.
I went for my final interview, and the officer said, “McNab, you stand more chance of being struck by lightning than you do of becoming a junior leader in the Army Air Corps. I think you’d be best suited to the infantry. I’ll put you down for the Royal Green Jackets. That’s my regiment.”
I didn’t have a clue about who or what the Royal Green Jackets were or did. They could have been an American football team for all I knew.
If I’d waited three months until I was 17, I could have joined the Green Jackets as an adult recruit, but like an idiot I wanted to get stuck straight in. I arrived at the Infantry Junior Leaders battalion in Shorncliffe, Kent, in September 1976 and hated it. The place was run by Guardsmen, and the course was nothing but bullshit and regimentation. You couldn’t wear jeans, and had to go around with a bonehead haircut. You weren’t even allowed the whole weekend off, which made visiting my old Peckham haunts a real pain in the arse. I landed in trouble once just for missing the bus in Folkestone and being ten minutes late reporting back. Shorncliffe was a nightmare, but I learned to play the game. I had to-there was nothing else for me. The passing-out parade was in May. I had detested every single minute of my time there but had learned to use the system and for some reason had been promoted to junior sergeant and won the Light Division sword for most promising soldier.
I now had a period at the Rifle Depot in Winchester, where us junior soldiers joined the last six weeks of a training platoon, learning Light Division drill. This was much more grown-up and relaxed, compared with Shorncliffe.
In July 1977 I was posted to 2nd Battalion, Royal Green Jackets, based for the time being in Gibraltar. To me, this was what the army was all about-warm climates, good mates, exotic women, and even more exotic VD. Sadly, the battalion returned to the UK just four months later.
In December 1977 I did my first tour in Northern Ireland. So many young soldiers had been killed in the early years of the Ulster emergency that you had to be 18 before you could serve there. So although the battalion left on December 6, I couldn’t join them until my birthday at the end of the month.
There must have been something about the IRA and young squad dies because I was soon in my first contact. A Saracen armored car had got bogged down in the curls (countryside) near Crossmaglen, and my mate and I were put on stag (sentry duty) to guard it. In the early hours of the morning, as I scanned the countryside through the night sight on my rifle, I saw two characters coming towards us, hugging the hedgerow. They got closer and I could clearly see that one of them was carrying a rifle. We didn’t have a radio so I couldn’t call for assistance. There wasn’t much I could do except issue a challenge. The characters ran for it, and we fired off half a dozen rounds. Unfortunately, there was a shortage of night sights at the time so the same weapon used to get handed on at the end of each stag. The night sight on the rifle I was using was zeroed in for somebody else’s eye, and only one of my rounds found its target. There was a follow-up with dogs, but nothing was found. Two days later, however, a well-known player (member of the Provisional IRA) turned up at a hospital just over the border with a 7.62 round in his leg. It had been the first contact for our company, and everybody was sparked up. My mate and I felt right little heroes, and both of us claimed the hit.