Immediate Action Page 16

  I had a shower and headed for the cookhouse and a great big plate of steak and chips. A couple of blokes were already back, and the others trickled in over the next twenty-four hours. All the stories were coming out, including one or two with unhappy endings. One bloke had been in a stress position when he felt his blindfold slipping down.

  He knew that he stood a chance of getting fucked off, purely because they would think he was actively pulling the blindfold down himself, so he ut his p hand up. Nothing happened. He stood up and sort of semitumed, and by now the mask was down. They binned him on the spot.

  The argument was that he'd pulled his mask and broken the rules.

  They fucked up, and it was unfair. But then, no one said it would be easy.

  In the pub the following night the Selection blokes compared notes.

  Everybody had been of the same opinion about the others in their team and had wanted to spread out and get away.

  Dave, one of the paras, said, "I got to a farmhouse, put an OP

  [observation post] on it, had a look around.

  Everything seemed okay, so I went up under the window and I thought I'd just listen. The tv was on, and it sounded all rather nice; then I could hear loads of people talking. I got up and had a look through the curtains and it was the whole training team sitting there. I said to myself, 'I think we'll give this one a miss."' There was a long weekend off; on Monday morning we would carry on with our continuation training.

  By now the training team had more or less got what they needed. We were starting to get a relationship, we were starting to talk about squadrons and things in general.

  They opened up a bit more, but we still had to call everybody Staff apart from the squadron sergeant major, whom we called Sir. We weren't in yet.

  There was a pub that used to put trays of sausages and French bread out on the bar on Sundays, so George and I went and had a few pints of Guinness and filled our faces out. We were walking down the road afterward, bored out of our heads, and decided to go around to see an ex-Green jacket who was in D Squadron. His wife used to work for Bulmer's, distributors of Red Stripe lager, and the four of us sat there all afternoon, chatting away, slowly getting pissed.

  After a few hours I announced that I was going to the toilet. I got to the top of the stairs and felt an ominous urge in the pit of my stomach.

  I ran into the toilet, and projectile vomited all over the floor and walls.

  Panic. I cleaned up as best I could, then fell down the stairs and into the front room.

  "Well"-I beamed-"must be going."

  In the morning I was in shit state. I went around to D Squadron lines to see what had happened.

  "Bloody hell!" he said. "She's gone ballistic!"

  I thought I was severely in the shit. I ran off and bought her a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates. I went around to the house, hoping against hope that she wouldn't be in. I knocked on the door.

  There was nobody at home.

  I propped the gifts on the doorstep and pulled out a card from my pocket.

  "So sorry about my terrible behaviour and all the ' inconvenience I must have caused you," I wrote. "I hope that one day you will forgive me and certainly promise that it will never happen again." Then I signed it,

  "OWmi'tsh all best wishes, George."

  I telephoned Debbie and said, "I'm in! I reckon I've passed!"

  She was really pleased. I was really pleased. But the sad thing was that I was so engrossed in what I'd been doing that I didn't stop to think about what she'd been going through. She'd been stuck in Germany, unsure of whether I was going to pass or what the future might hold; she hadn't seen me for months, and all I'm doing is phoning her up and telling her how great I am. I was so selfish; she was getting two letters a month from me and maybe a phone call a week, and it was never to say, "How are you?" Maybe I didn't ask because I didn't want to hear the answer.

  The idea of continuation training was to give us an introduction to the skills that would be needed once we got into our squadrons.

  Our first introduction was to be to the CT (counterterrorist) team. We sat in the classroom on the first day dressed in civvies. It was the first time I'd ever done a soldier's work in civilian clothes, and it felt a bit strange. The training team weren't going to be teaching us for this phase, we'd been told; it would be members of CRW, the counterrevolutionary warfare wing.

  In came a bloke called Ted I knew from the Green Jackets. We'd always known him as Ted Belly because of the losing battle he fought in the inch war; now he was on the CRW. Ted was a tall, approachable cockney with hair like straw. No matter what he did with it, his head looked like a bird's nest in a gale.

  "Today we're going to learn all about the nine millimeter," he said.

  "Anything you don't know, just ask and Uncle Ted'il tell you.

  We'll have a day down here, and the rest of the week we'll be on the ranges. Maybe we'll have a few wagers-all right?"

  The 9MM Browning pistol was extremely to the Regiment and underestimated by many outside, Ted said. It was an extremely effective and powerful weapon, easy to conceal, yet hitting at a surprisingly long range. The Regiment used it for VIP protection, counterterrorist and covert operations. On the counterterrorist team, everybody's secondary weapon was the pistol.

  We had to learn every bit of theory there was to know about the Browning, as well as the stripping and assembling, all the technical details on what happened if a pin was filed this way, what happened if the trigger mechanism was slightly adjusted.

  We learned how to hold the weapon correctly and how to stand correctly.

  The method the Regiment used was totally different from the army's. It was based on combat experience, which the army hadn't got much of with pistols (I had fired one twice in my career). Ted taught us how to draw the pistol from various types of holster, how to draw it covertly when we had our jackets on, and even what sort of jacket to wear and how to wear it.

  From different firing positions, we practiced until we could hit the target with both eyes open from thirty-five meters, then fifty meters, while pushing people out of the way in a crowd. We practiced from seven-thirty each morning until dark o'clock. We'd get a tea urn in the morning, pick up loads of scoff, and scream down to the range, eight of us having a really good time with the pistol.

  I thought that as a sergeant in the infantry I'd know lots but found it was a vastly different world here. I guessed I was near the bottom of what would turn out to be a very steep learning curve.

  "When you get back to the block," the instructor said, "practice your drawings in front of the mirror.

  Don't worry, nobody will laugh. We all do it."

  We were there for an hour after dinner, practicing in front of the mirrors in the toilets. Finally Ted came by with loads of boys and said, "What the hell are you doing, you dickheads?"

  We looked sheepishly at the imaginary pistols in our hands while they took the piss mercilessly.

  On the final day Ted said, "Right, let's have a bit of fun then."

  He got all the targets in and marked one of them with a circle the size of a tenpence, another with one the size of a Coke can, then a larger one still. We had to fire at different timings: firing three rounds into the tenpence piece in five seconds at five meters, then back to ten meters, going back and back. We all put a fiver in at a time, and the winner took all.

  Next we did some demolitions training with basic charges, saw some more of the squadron kit, and did a bit of signals work with the squadron radios.

  "Wherever you are operating in the world, you will send directly back to Hereford," the instructor said.

  "You'll have to learn a lot of antenna theory; it's not like in the films where they've got a radio the size of a cigarette pack with a little antenna and they start sending signals off to Katmandu. It doesn't work like that at all.

  Depending on the frequencies and the time of day, you'll have to calculate the size of the antenna."

&
nbsp; We had introductions to all the different departments, from the education center to the Regimental Association; the only ones we didn't see were the "gray" ones tucked away that we were told we would only find out about later.

  After three weeks it was time to go to Brize Norton to be para-trained.

  It was one of those things that had to be done but that I couldn't really be arsed about; I was itching to go straight to the squadron. The one consolation was the thought that the only way I was not going to get in now was if I broke my neck-or blotted my copybook.

  I found out what squadron I was going to go to. If I'd wanted a particular squadron, and there'd been a reason, maybe I'd have got in.

  If you wanted G Squadron and you were a guardsman, for example, you would definitely get it. Otherwise it all depended on the manpower requirements. I wanted to go to D Squadron because Jeff was in it and they were the current counterterrorist team, based in Hereford. Things with Debbie were not exactly brilliant. I was paying a bit more attention now to what she said in her letters from Germany, so I knew she was severely pissed off. In reply I kept telling her that as soon as I'd passed I would organize a quarter. However, D Squadron wasn't to be; four of us were off to B Squadron, though we wouldn't be allowed anywhere near them yet.

  Blokes who were already para-trained were badged now and went to their squadrons. The rest of us went to Brize Norton, into the R.A.F's hands and out of the Regiment's system. It was like a holiday-' but one of those holidays that went on too long.

  For a month we were taught a lot of drills that we later found out were crap, but they had to teach hundreds of people a year, so everybody was pushed in together and around went the handle. Brize Norton was a sausage factory.

  The upside was that the R.A.F always tended to have superior recreational facilities. Here the N disco was called the Starlight Club. Every night the baby paras on our course turned up, all crew cuts and Brutus jeans, desert boots and maroon sweatshirts, as hard as nails.

  Two of them were pissed and dancing together one night. The next morning they were all out on parade, helmets on and ready to go. Their corporals came out and said, "Oi, Smith and Brown, come here. Smith, were you dancing last night?"

  "Yes, Corporal."

  "Who with?"

  "Him, Corporal."

  "And Brown, you was dancing last night. Who with?"

  "Him, Corporal."

  The full screw went inside and came back out with an ironing board under his arm. With the two baby paras standing at attention, he banged them rhythmically on the head: "We . don't dance..

  . together in the . airborne."

  "Yes, Corporal."

  And off they went. All the other recruits were rolling up. It was a fun thing; they obviously had the same relationship with their recruits as my team had had at Winchester.

  We got our parachute wings and went back to Hereford to be badged.

  We turned up with our normal regimental kit on and hung around in the "Kremlin" (head shed building). I had a fantastic feeling of achievement. Everybody seemed pleased for us; probably there wasn't a single person in the Regiment who couldn't remember how he felt when he got badged.

  The RSM came out, shook our hands, and said, "Well done, congratulations. What you're going to do in a minute is go in and see the colonel. He's going to badge you, and then you start moving off to your squadrons.

  I'll give you one piece of advice. When you get to your squadron, look at somebody you think is 'the' regimental soldier, and copy him.

  Take example from him, learn from him. Don't start going off thinking that you rule the world because you don't. Just keep your gab shut, look and listen."

  The CO had a pile of sand-colored berets on the table in front of him and flipped one at each of us. No formalities, no handshakes.

  Then he said, "Just remember, it's harder to keep than it was to get.

  Right, good luck to you."

  The army doled out a horrible beret called a Kangoule. Within the army there was a definite fashion about such things; you could always tell a person by his headgear. We'd all sent away for the much smarter Victor beret.

  And that was it. George and I trooped off to B Squadron office, almost six months to the day since we'd done the Fan Dance. The first fellow we met was Danny, the clerk-skinny, no face hair, and looking sixteen.

  He was in fact in his early twenties and was, we were told, the person who really knew what was going on. The squadrons were all over the place, doing ten things at once, little gangs here, little gangs there, and the only one who had any continuity was the clerk, always there with the HQ element of the squadron. If we needed anything or wanted to know-what was going on, Danny, the clerk, was the man.

  "Nice to meet you," he said. "Everybody's away at the moment, but there's one or two people b mining around. just go and sit in the interest room anud we'll sort you all out."

  George and I spent a lot of time that day just hanging around. We couldn't contribute anything, the whole squadron was away, and everybody was busy. We were feeling rather helpless, sticking out like sore thumbs in our uniforms. The few blokes who were around were in tracksuits or jeans.

  The walls of the interest room were covered with plaques, photographs, AK47s from Borneo days to the present-all sorts of bits and pieces that people had brought back from all over the world. It was a history of the squadron written in bric-a-brac.

  Blokes came in and said, "You just joined the squadron? My name's Chas.

  Nice to see you. You coming on the trip?"

  They seemed genuinely pleased for us that we'd passed. There was no feeling of us being the rugs, as we would have got in the battalions.

  They knew what we'd done to get this far.

  "I don't know," I said. "Are we going on a trip?"

  Danny said he didn't have a clue yet. I was hoping in a way that we weren't. I'd now got everything I'd wanted, but I'very much needed to get things sorted out with Debbie. Our conversations on the telephone were still a little strained. The relationship seemed fine on the surface, but underneath I wasn't sure what her feelings were.

  She seemed to understand how important it had been to me to get into the Regiment, but I knew she was fed up with taking second place; when she arrived from Germany, I wanted the quarter to be ready. In the meantime I didn't know how she'd take the news that I was going away with my squadron for a couple of months.

  We hummed around to the stores, handed in all the equipment from training wing, and drew out our squadron equipment. Unfortunately everything we drew out was brand-new. We looked as if we'd just stepped out of a catalog"Turn up tomorrow," Danny said, "and we'll see what's going on."

  This was at ten o'clock in the morning.

  "What do we do in the meantime?" I asked.

  "Nothing. Go downtown if you like."

  This was so different from the battalion, where we'd have had to stay, even if there was nothing to do.

  When we did go back the next morning, we were told: "Malaya, Thursday. 5 We packed all the brand-new kit and drew out shiny new jungle boots.

  There wouldn't be time to break them in. On Thursday we boarded the aircraft. I still hadn't organized the quarter for Debbie; I only hoped that things would be sorted while I was away.

  Some of the blokes had already been in the jungle for quite a while by the time we turned up at the base camp, two hours' drive from Kuala Lumpur. We drew some more kit, and the next morning we were choppered in to join them: four new blokes, every bit of kit shiny and squeaking.

  I felt like a nun in a whorehouse, knowing none of the jargon and none of the people using it. Nobody wore rank, everybody was on first-name terms; it was impossible to make out who was who.

  Best, I reckoned, to follow the RSM's advice. I shut up and listened.

  The squadron setup in the jungle was very much as it had been on Selection. There was the squadron HQ element, then the troops positioned satelliting it. People had set up home in the admin areas;


  A-frames were dotted around, many of them sprouting extensions. Figure "targets had been made into sit-up angle boards as a makeshift gym.

  Tables and chairs had been made out of crates. Here and there two or three ponchos had gone up to join A-frames and make what looked like minicommunes.

  Everybody in sight had a beard and long, greasy hair.

  Some blokes were lying in their A-frames reading books; others were bumming around in shorts or squatting over hexy burners, brewing up. But whatever he was doing, every bloke had his belt kit on, as well as his golack and weapon.

  The medic came up to us and said, "Most people are out at the moment.

  When they come back, everything will be sorted. Do you want a brew?"

  While we were drinking tea, the squadron O.C came over with all his entourage.

  "Good to see you! Right, we need a bloke for each troop." He looked at each of us in turn, then said, " You look like a diver George was a mountain climber, so he said, "I'd like Mountain Troop."

  "Okay, you can go to Mountain Troop. You, go to Mobility, and you look like a free faller."

  The last bloke he was pointing at was me, and that was me in Air Troop.

  "Wait here," he added, "and somebody will be along to pick you up."

  Blokes from different troops came down to pick up their new boys.

  The O.C and his party disappeared. I was sitting there on my own, taking in a bit of the setup, watching the signalers and medics at work at makeshift tables under ponchos. People were coming up and saying,

  "All right? How you going? What troop you going to?"

  "Air Troop."

  "Bloody hell, you'll have fun-the fucking ice-cream boys! Got your sunglasses with you, I hope?"

  I didn't have time to ask what they meant. A fellow who was six feet his and four feet wide appeared, p walking on the balls of his feet. His hands were so big his M16 looked like a toy.

  "Your name Andy? I'm Tiny, Seven Troop. We'll sort out some bits and pieces, and then we'll go back up to the troop area."

  I was smelling all nice, got my new boots on, and feeling like it was my first day at big school. Off we went, my eyes scanning the ground for a patch of mud to dunk my boots in.