It was like being on the rifle range. Targets to your front. In your own time. Carry on. By now a handful of them had crossed the A303 and had realized that they had made a big mistake. It was a steepish climb up to the stones and we held the high ground. We had the tactical advantage, and they were going to have to fight uphill. We were now getting our first good look at the opposition. These were no longhaired hippies. Short hair, military-style jackets and Doc Marten boots, these were the hardliners, real Combat 18 thugs. They’d come here for a fight, not to hug the stones. But they’d made the most basic error in the book. Coming uphill, they were at a disadvantage. They couldn’t get organized. They had no formation and began picking their way uphill in dribs and drabs.
The first of the opposition was now halfway up the hill. They were lead by a tall, well-built bruiser. ‘See that fucker,’ shouted Big Fred. ‘I want him taken out.’ JB, hard, fast and aggressive, moved forward. By the time Big Bruiser realized the danger it was too late. He tried hitting out, flailing his fists, but JB from his elevated position towered over the guy. One well-executed karate kick sent Big Bruiser staggering and reeling backwards. The thug lost his footing, hit the deck and rolled down the slope of the hill. A collective cheer went up from the lads.
At the sight of their leader being humiliated, the rest of the opposition began edging towards us aggressively. Their blood was up. They came straight for us, screaming obscenities, about a dozen of them charging en masse. As they closed in, you could see the hate in their eyes and hear the rasping of their breath as they laboured upwards. They didn’t stand a chance. There was a flurry of tattooed fists flailing and Doc Martens swinging, but to no avail. They were literally fighting an uphill battle. They soon found themselves on their arses, rolling down the hill towards the A303. Things now became fragmented into individual punch-ups. A lot of the opposition had fallen back and only a few hardcore thugs were left. I swung at one shaven head and noticed a swastika tattooed behind his left ear. As he went flying, I thought ‘David Stirling would be proud of me. The SAS still battling the scourge of the swastika!’
Out of nowhere, Big Bruiser had regrouped and was back, clambering up the hill. He was playing the big hero. He must have thought he would make one last stand to impress his mates. JB let out a roar and charged down the hill towards him. Big Bruiser took one look at the Terminator, turned on his arse and fled.
That was it. Job done. The last of the opposition could be seen fleeing up the hill on the opposite side of the A303. Time for a postcombat brew. We reorganized on the edge of the stone circle. We were just checking that none of our radios had been lost during the brawl when the hippies from the bus arrived. A rag-tag bunch of druids, beadshakers and pendulum-swingers, it was like the fatigue party coming to clean up after the battle. ‘Ah-ha, the Stonedhenge Brigade,’ I thought. Big Fred decided to use diplomacy. ‘Who’s your leader?’ he asked, without a hint of aggression in his voice. A small, effeminate-looking guy wearing an Afghan jacket and beads stepped forward. ‘What do you want?’ said Big Fred quietly.
‘Look man,’ said the hippie. ‘We don’t want any trouble from you guys. All we want to do is touch the stones. This is the most magical place on the planet. When you touch the stones, you feel a vibration, just like hugging a tree, man. The warmth and energy goes right up your body. This is a temple. We just want to touch the stones, man.’
No problem. We organized them into a queue, took down part of the barrier, and one by one we allowed each hippie in to kiss and hug his favourite stone. Everyone was happy, and we saw in the solstice peacefully. Fuck soldiering, maybe I should have been in the Diplomatic Corps!
28
The Bodyguard
‘If you’re going to guard a body, it might as well be a beautiful one!’ Pete Scholey was forever winding me up about my lack of good fortune work-wise compared to him. While I’d been scratching around guarding animals he’d been bodyguard to Miss World for six years. How lucky can you get? ‘Tough job, but someone’s got to do it,’ he was always saying. Then he would add with a broad grin, ‘Of course, I only do it to keep in touch with my feminine side.’ If only! I was dreaming of doing some decent bodyguarding work. Then out of the blue my luck changed.
Over many years the SAS had developed special expertise in covert bodyguarding techniques – or close protection as we call it. Our reputation came before us, and we trained with the great and the good, politicians and royalty.
I was once Prince Charles’ driver for a day of anti-ambush car drills. He swept in driving his vintage Aston Martin, which added a bit of James Bond glamour to the utilitarian training ground. Charles strode purposefully onto the driving range, fully kitted out for a mobile assault, and sat next to me in a car loaded to the gunwales with stun grenades, MP5s and reserve ammunition. I gave him a briefing, then we were off. I roared off at speed towards various pop-up targets on the range. As I executed a handbrake turn, our future king, window down, blasted away with the MP5 for all he was worth. He was really up for it, really getting into it. He was an excellent shot, and dropped all the targets. He’d grown up with guns and was as good a shot with an MP5 as he is with a Purdey, but he took even more delight in the flash-bangs – hurling them to cover our escape.
The Regiment was to be honoured by another visit from Prince Charles, this time accompanied by his wife, Princess Diana. We put on a fast roping demonstration for the royal couple, involving a helicopter hovering a hundred feet above a two-storey building with a flat roof. A thick hemp rope attached to the helicopter was then thrown out and left to dangle onto the roof. One by one, the members of the team grabbed the rope and abseiled a hundred feet down onto the flat roof, like sliding down a fireman’s pole.
The demonstration went like clockwork, until the last assault trooper exited the chopper. He seemed to falter, lost his grip, and fell a hundred feet straight down onto the flat roof. As he hit the deck at a rate of knots, Prince Charles remained fairly cool, but Princess Di visibly stiffened. A shocked look came over her face and she turned white. Just before she looked about to pass out, her pale expression turned to disbelief as the fallen assaulter suddenly jumped up, dusted himself down and gave her a cheery wave.
It was a right royal stitch-up. The last abseiler to leave the helicopter had been a very realistic dummy, thrown out of the helicopter by one of the crew. The assaulter who came back from the dead had been lying flat on the roof from the start, lying concealed behind a three-foot-high wall that ran around the edge of the roof. There was relief all round and huge laughter from the Prince of Wales. Princess Di, however, still looked queasy. She really was in bits.
All this experience was to stand me in good stead. My next job came from one of the small, anonymous security firms on the circuit, the type of firm only ex-SAS would know about. The guy on the end of the line was Harry. He was the operational manager, and more importantly he was ex-B Squadron. I had worked with him on surveillance operations in Northern Ireland.
He started his pitch. ‘I need a bodyguard. This one’s high-risk, Pete. Nobody wants to touch it with a bargepole unless they go in mobhanded and that’s not the client’s style. You know the rule of thumb when dealing with a psychopath: it’s three against one, three of the good guys against the headcase.’
I was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. I took a deep breath and said, ‘I’m listening.’