‘There will be plenty of excitement and adventure, but you won’t be paraded as heroes for all to see. America suffered from fighting the Vietnam War in the full glare of the media. Public opinion handcuffed the generals to the rulebook. Here in the SAS we learn from other people’s mistakes. No publicity, no media. We move in silently, do our job, and melt away into the background. You won’t achieve fame and fortune with us. But what you will achieve is self-respect, deep selfrespect, and a unique identity as part of a group who have found that same self-respect. The few of you who succeed will not just be joining a regiment, you’ll be joining a family, a very exclusive family. If you have got the stamina, the willpower and the guts, we’ll welcome you with open arms and make you one of us. And if you haven’t, then it’s been very nice knowing you.’ The Colonel looked up and down the rows again with searching eyes, then swiftly walked off the stage.
A voice from the rear shouted, ‘Be at the Quartermaster’s stores in fifteen minutes!’
Outside, the sun was just clearing the top of the wooden plinth on which the four-sided clock was set. Around its base, gleaming in the sunshine, were three large bronze panels inscribed with the names of the soldiers who had died – the ones who, in Regimental parlance, had not beaten the clock. A smaller panel with a quotation worked on it was fixed to the front. I could just make out the words ‘barr’d with snow’ and ‘that glimmering sea’ on the plaque. As I looked up, a ragged crow flapped lazily along behind the clock and over the perimeter fence towards the neat rows of houses that formed the Redhill suburbs of Hereford. I thought of the people there who were going about their ordinary day-to-day routines, and then I thought of the drama in which 135 nervous recruits were about to play a leading role.
When I reached the stores, I was astonished at the sight that greeted me. It was like a Saturday-afternoon jumble sale at a church bazaar. I was amazed at the apparent disorder and lack of discipline. But the conversation was subdued. No one wanted to get earmarked as a possible troublemaker. I edged forward and found myself at the front of the queue. The corporal behind the counter glanced at me and then disappeared between long rows of large wooden pigeonholes. He reappeared with a bergen rucksack filled with all I would need for the selection phase. I took one look at the bergen and realized immediately that in bad weather the untreated canvas would just soak up rain like a sponge and get heavier and heavier. The metal fittings cracked on the counter-top as the corporal threw the bergen unceremoniously down. I checked the contents: sleeping bag, 57-pattern webbing belt, poncho for wet-weather protection, two 1½-pint water bottles with carriers, standard Army prismatic compass, heavy and cumbersome, Ordnance Survey maps of the Brecon Beacons and Elan Valley, brew kit and three twenty-four-hour ration-packs for the first major hurdle looming up: the three-day trial at the weekend, otherwise known as Sickener 1.
Then it was on to the armoury round the corner from the QM’s department. There we were given the old-fashioned Lee Enfield .303 rifles. The issuing officer explained that the modern weapons were kept strictly for operational duties, and added ominously, ‘They’ll be in real shit order, the Lee Enfields, with what they’ll have to go through in the next three weeks, no matter how much you strip and clean them.’
I made tracks from the armoury out into the sunshine again and, with a grumbling stomach, headed for the cookhouse. As I pushed through the grey swinging doors I was hit by a barrage of noise: crashing plates, hissing steam, clinking mugs, metal chair-legs rattling as they were scraped across the dull-red tiled floor, the steady roar of over 200 voices in animated conversation. The L-shaped room was filled with the warm, appetizing aroma of freshly cooked food. Through another door, in the far corner, a group of men I had not seen before were making an entrance, joking and laughing loudly. To judge from their air of confidence and deliberate step they were obviously Sabre Squadron. Two shining aluminium-and-glass serveries ran the length of each leg of the room. Behind them, men decked out in regulation kitchen whites were gliding swiftly backwards and forwards among the steaming vats and clanking ovens, going about their business in apparent chaos but no doubt following some well-rehearsed routine.
I got to the head of the queue and started to move along by the hotplate. I was in for a surprise. It looked like a tribal feast day in the jungle. There was food, mountains of food. I had never seen the likes of it in all my years of service in the Army. I picked up a tray with anticipation and pushed it along the front of the hotplate. Next to a tureen of steaming hot soup, a large wicker basket overflowed with chunks of bread. A mound of rich yellow butter, which looked as if it had been tipped straight out of the farmyard urn, had several knives carelessly protruding from it. In the middle section there was a choice: a help-yourself tray full of lamb chops, swimming in savoury juices, and a mammoth joint of beef impaled on a spiked turntable. A large cook was poised over the beef with a gleaming carving knife and a long, two-pronged fork. He looked as if he would be equally at ease wielding a machete in the jungle. I motioned towards the joint.
‘How many slices?’ the cook asked.
I couldn’t believe my ears. I’d been so used to the routine of the regular Army cookhouse. There, some jumped-up pimply-faced cook, with a deathly pallor from never seeing daylight, feeling cocky knowing he was out of reach behind the counter, would hit you with a ladle and squeak, ‘One egg, laddie,’ if you so much as looked at a second. ‘Two please, mate,’ I ventured, still not sure quite what was happening.
The cook stabbed the fork into the joint and deftly swung it round on the turntable to get the right angle for carving. The meat compressed as the gleaming knife bit into it, and rich juices oozed from the pink centre. ‘Crackling?’
‘Too true!’ And a huge chunk of ribbed crackling was deposited over the two thick slices of meat. I rearranged the dishes on my tray and just about found space for the sponge pudding with custard that rounded off the meal.
I looked up and spotted the other three members of the patrol I’d been assigned to, hunched over the end of a table. I crossed the room and sat down with them.
‘Jesus Christ, somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming.’
‘I’d heard a rumour that airborne forces get double meat rations, but this is ridiculous.’
‘There’s got to be a catch. It’ll be tea and wads the rest of the week.’
‘No, there’s no catch. Don’t get paranoid already. An old mate of mine gave me the whisper. It’s like this every day, plenty of protein to build up the stamina. You need it here.’
‘I hope you’re right. I’ve got to have my four square meals a day. I get dizzy if I miss breakfast. I don’t go for this mean and hungry look. I reckon you’ve got to have plenty of meat on you to stay healthy.’
There was a lull in the conversation as our attention was focused on the more serious business of eating. I looked around the other three members of my patrol. Jim, from the Black Watch, Royal Highland Regiment, and proud of it. Small, stocky with shining eyes set in a round, friendly face. Neatly parted short brown hair. A barrel-shaped body, obviously tough. Then Andy, the company joker, known to all as Geordie. He was in the Light Infantry, but whenever asked, would reply with a stiff salute, ‘Sixth Queen Elizabeth’s Own Gurkha Rifles!’ He had a tough bony head topped by already-thinning black hair. What he lacked in the way of hair on his scalp, however, he more than made up for with a hirsute growth on his thick dangling arms and prominent chest. His most noticeable feature was an over-large mouth. It was as big as the North-West Passage, and gaped obscenely whenever he spoke, revealing his teeth and gums so that he looked like an ape challenging an intruder.