At last — at the age of twenty-two, over six years since I had first started going to 23 TA — the time came for me to go down to Hereford and take the 22 selection course. This was spread over six months in total.
We began with four weeks on the hills, then two weeks’ tactics training, followed by five weeks in the jungle in Brunei, then combat survival followed by continuation training.
In the hills there were some days when I felt we were being crucified, but on the whole it wasn’t too bad.
In tactics training, I found I was confident with a weapon, but I was shocked by the state of some of the troops who came up: their weapon-handling drills were poor, to say the least.
In the jungle we were put into six-man patrols, and sent to live in a base camp from which we moved out every day to do range work, navigation or RV drills. I found it tough-going. Navigation posed no problem, and I discovered that I could mix with other guys easily enough. But I didn’t like the physical difficulties of living in the jungle, where you’re wet, filthy and stinking for weeks on end.
Back at Hereford, at the end of the course, we were all taken into the camp cinema. Nothing had been said about who had passed or failed. Then the sergeant major announced that he would read out a list of names. The people on it were to go back to the accommodation block, wait there, and return in fifteen minutes’ time. He read out twenty names, including mine. Had we passed or failed? Nobody knew. Returning to the cinema a quarter of an hour later, we found that the other half of the course had disappeared. We sat down again. The sergeant major stood up and said, ‘Right, you lot. You haven’t passed…’
There was an intake of breath. Everyone’s heart hit the floor.
‘…yet,’ he added.
Faces lit up. Everyone burst out laughing. There was more training to come — but so what?
We did combat survival — in which six more of the guys failed — and after that, build-up for Northern Ireland and the counter-terrorist team. Then, at last, the survivors passed, and we were given our berets. It was a tremendous thrill for me. After my years in the Territorials, I’d finally achieved my goal.
Now, at the age of twenty-three, I was a member of 22 SAS!
Each member of the SAS is also attached to a regular army unit, which is known as their ‘parent unit’. If Special Forces work doesn’t work out for any reason, the serving soldier can then be RTU’d — returned to unit — so they are no longer in the SAS, but are still in the British army. Most recruits come to selection from their units, but as I’d gone straight from the Territorials, I had to have a parent unit now I was in the Regiment. I chose the Parachute Regiment, and spent eight weeks with them before returning to Hereford.
As soon as I became a member of ‘B’ Squadron I did a couple of exercises with Government agents in the United Kingdom and Europe. In one, which was highly realistic, we flew into Jersey in the middle of the night, our helicopter landing in a public park, to kidnap a businessman who — according to the scenario — had been in touch with the Soviets and might defect. Wearing civilian clothes, we booked into hotels and made contact with agents who already had the target under surveillance. Then, having hired a van, we snatched him as he came out of a restaurant late at night. After a quick transfer to a car, we drove to a pick-up point on the coast and the helicopter, which had been cruising out of sight off-shore, slipped in at wave-top height to land on the beach and collect us.
That was the first time I’d been exposed to anything of the kind, and I thought, This is for me!
Next I went on to the SP (Special Projects) or anti-terrorist team, and found it really exciting. Part of the team was on stand-by the whole time, for immediate response to a threat like the hijacking of an aircraft. We all trained to a very high level, each guy putting down at least a thousand rounds a week.
I loved being in the SAS, and was fiercely loyal to it. But as I lay against the bank of the wadi, Hereford seemed a long way off. I knew I would have to rely on every second of my training if I was going to get out of the Iraqi desert alive…
CHAPTER 8
Down to One
We’d become so confused during the night that it took us some time to work out which day this was. We decided it was Saturday morning. Time passed slowly, but we weren’t too uncomfortable. The sun was reviving us, we were chatting in low voices, and we thought the River Euphrates was only just over the next hill to the north, which was cheering.
We said to ourselves, ‘We’ll hit the river, get some water, and walk out into Syria — no problem.’ We told ourselves we were safe for the time being, and that one more good night’s push would bring us to the Syrian border. We’d put so much ground between us and the scene of the contact that we didn’t think anyone would come looking for us.
Of course, we were wondering about Vince. I hoped against hope that, like us, he’d found a warmer place; but in my heart of hearts I felt that he was dead. I imagined him lying down in a hole among the snow, falling asleep, and drifting away, without any pain or knowledge of what was happening. At the back of my mind I also kept hoping that we would see the rest of the patrol appear — that we’d hear one of them say something and they’d pop up out of the ground.
I took off my boots — one at a time, in case we were surprised — to have a look at my feet. As I thought, they were badly blistered along the sides, especially round the ball, and on the heels. But I had nothing to treat them with, and could only put my boots back on again.
We spent an hour cleaning our weapons, which were covered in mud and grit, doing them one at a time in case we got bounced. In my right-hand pouch I had a small but well-stocked kit — pull-through, four-by-two-inch cleaning patches, oil, rag, and a tool like a pocket knife fitted with a screwdriver, scraper and gouge. With this I gave my 203 a thorough going-over. I pulled a piece of four-by-two through the barrel, cleaned and oiled the working parts, and checked the loaded magazines to make sure no grit had got in among the rounds. By working carefully, I stripped the weapon and reassembled it making hardly a sound. If you release the working parts of a 203 normally, they snap forward with a sharp crack, but if you handle them gently, you don’t need to make a sound.
Then, at about midday, we heard the noise we’d already learned to dread: the jingle of bells.
Goats! Again!
We went down flat with our weapons and looked along the little valley. There they were — a scatter of brown, black, grey and dirty white animals, coming slowly into the wadi from the north-east. Then their minder appeared and sat down on a rock in full view, only fifty metres away. He was a young man with thick, curly black hair and stubbled cheeks. There he sat, daydreaming, kicking his feet, chewing on stalks of dead grass.
The goats began feeding our way. Stan and I lay still with our 203s ready. ‘Right,’ I whispered. ‘If he comes up on us, we’re going to have to take him out.’
I didn’t want to kill a civilian. But I felt certain that if the man saw us, he’d go back to the nearest habitation and give us away. It flashed through my mind that we could tie him up. But if we did that, he might die of exposure. I thought, He’s either going to escape or die — so we might as well do him now.
The goats kept feeding and moving towards us. They reached our position. When they saw us, they jerked their heads up, but that was all — a jerk, and on they’d go. All this while the herder was sitting there, looking up at the sky now and then. Certainly he hadn’t locked on to anything.