Bravo two zero Read online

  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.

  The rest of our time in Ireland was less busy but more sad. The battalion took some injuries during a mortar attack on a position at Forkhill, and one of the members of my platoon was killed by a booby trap bomb in Crossmaglen. Later, our colonel was killed when the Gazelle helicopter he was traveling in was shot down. Then it was back to normal battalion shit at Tidworth, and the only event worth mentioning during the next year was that, aged all of 18, I got married.

  The following year we were back in South Armagh. I was now a lance corporal and in charge of a brick (four-man patrol). One Saturday night in July our company was patrolling in the border town of Keady. As usual
for a Saturday night the streets were packed with locals. They used to bus it to Castleblaney over the border for cabaret and bingo, then come back and boogy the night away. My brick was operating at the southern edge of the town near a housing estate. We had been moving over some wasteland and came into a patch of dead ground that hid us from view. As we reappeared over the brow, we saw twenty or so people milling around a cattle truck that was parked in the middle of the road. They didn't see us until we were almost on top of them.

  The crowd went ape shit shouting and running in all directions, pulling their kids out of the way. Six lads with Armalites had been about to climb onto the truck. We caught them posing in front of the crowd, masked up and ready to go, their rifles and gloved fists in the air. We later discovered they had driven up from the south; their plan was to drive past the patrol and give us a quick burst.

  Two were climbing over the tailgate as I issued my warning. Four were still in the road. A lad in the back of the truck brought his rifle up to the aim, and I dropped him with my first shot. The others returned our fire, and there was a severe contact. One of them took seven shots in his body and ended up in a wheelchair. One player who was wounded was in the early stages of an infamous career. His name was Dessie O'Hare.

  I was flavor of the month again, and not just with the British army. One of the shop owners had taken a couple of shots through his window during the firefight, and the windscreen of his car had been shattered. About a month later I went past on patrol and there he was, standing behind his new cash register in his refurbished shop, with a shiny new motor parked outside. He was beaming from ear to ear.

  By the time we returned to Tidworth in the summer of 1979 I was completely army barmy. It would have taken a pick and shovel to get me out. In September I was placed on an internal NCOs' cadre. I passed with an A grade and was promoted to corporal the same night. That made me the youngest infantry corporal in the army at the time, aged just 19.

  A section commanders' battle course followed in 1980. I passed that with a distinction, and my prize was a one-way ticket back to Tidworth.

  The Wiltshire garrison town was, and still is, a depressing place to live. It had eight infantry battalions, an armored regiment, a recce regiment, three pubs, a chip shop, and a launderette. No wonder it got on my young wife's nerves. It was a pain in the arse for the soldiers too. We were nothing more than glorified barrier technicians. I even got called in one Sunday to be in charge of the grouse beaters, who were also squad dies for a brigadier's shoot. The incentive was two cans of beer-and they wondered why there was such a turnover of young squad dies By September my wife had had enough. She issued me with an ultimatum: take her back to London or give her a divorce. I stayed, she went.

  In late 1980 I got posted back to the Rifle Depot for two years as a training corporal. It was a truly excellent time. I enjoyed teaching raw recruits, even though with many of them it meant going right back to basics, starting with elementary hygiene and the use of a toothbrush. It was also round about this time that I started to hear stories about the SAS.

  I met Debby, a former R.A.F. girl, and we got married in August 1982. I married her because we were getting posted back to the battalion, which was now based at Paderborn in Germany, and we didn't want to be parted.

  All my worst fears about life in Germany were confirmed. It was Tdworth without the chip shop. We spent more time looking after vehicles than using them, with men working their fingers to the bone for nothing. We took part in large exercises where no one really knew what was going on, and after a while no one even cared.

  I felt deprived that the Green Jackets had not been sent to the Falklands. Every time there was some action, it seemed to me, the SAS were involved. I wanted some of that-what was the point of being in the infantry if I didn't? Hereford sounded such a nice place to live as well, not being a garrison town. At that time, you were made to feel a second-class citizen if you lived in a place like Aldershot or Catterick; as an ordinary soldier you couldn't even buy a TV set on hire purchase unless an officer had signed the application form for you.

  Four of us from the Green Jackets put our names down for Selection in the summer of 1983, and all for the same reason-to get out of the battalion. A couple of our people had passed Selection in the previous couple of years. One of them was a captain, who wangled us onto a lot of exercises in Wales so we could travel back to the UK and train. He personally took us up to the Brecon Beacons and put us through a lot of hill work. More than that, he gave us advice and encouragement. I owe a lot to that man. We were lucky to know him: some regiments, especially the corps, aren't keen for their men to go because they have skills that are hard to replace. They won't give them time off, or they'll put the application in "File 13"-the wastepaper basket. Or they'll allow the man to go but make him work right up till the Friday before he goes.

  None of us passed. Just before the endurance phase, I failed the sketch-map march of 18 miles. I was pissed off with myself, but at least it was suggested to me that I try again.

  I went back to Germany and suffered all the slaggings about failing.

  These are normally dished out by the knobbers who wouldn't dare attempt it themselves. I didn't care. I was a young thruster, and the easy option would have been to stay in the battalion system and be the big fish in a small pond, but I'd lost all enthusiasm for it. I applied for the Winter 1984 Selection and trained in Wales all through Christmas.

  Debby didn't care too much for that.

  Winter Selection is fearsome. The majority of people drop out within the first week of the four-week endurance phase. These are the Walter Mitty types, or those who haven't trained enough or have picked up an injury. Some of the people who turn up are complete nuggets. They think that the SAS is all James Bond and storming embassies. They don't understand that you are still a soldier, and it comes as quite a shock to them to find out what Selection is all about.

  The one good thing about Winter Selection is the weather. The racing snakes who can move like men possessed across country in the summer are slowed by the snow and mist. It's a great leveler for every man to be up to his waist in snow.

  I passed.

  After this first phase you are put through a four month period of training which includes an arduous spell in the jungle in Asia. The last main test is the Combat Survival course. You are taught survival skills for two weeks, and then sent in to see the doctor. He puts a finger up your arse to check for Mars bars, and you're turned loose on the Black Mountains dressed in Second World War battle dress trousers and shirt, a greatcoat with no buttons, and boots with no laces. The hunter force was a company of Guardsmen in helicopters. Each man was given the incentive of two weeks' leave if he made a capture.

  I had been on the run for two days accompanied by three old grannies-two Navy pilots and an R.A.F, load master You had to stay together as a group, and I couldn't have been cursed with a worse trio of millstones. It didn't matter for them: the course was just a three-week embuggerance, and then they'd go home for tea and medals. But if SAS candidates didn't pass Combat Survival, they didn't get badged.

  We were waiting for one particular RV (rendezvous) when the two on stag fell asleep. In swooped a helicopter full of Guardsmen, and we were bumped. After a brief chase we were captured and taken to a holding area.

  Some hours later, as I was down on my knees, my blindfold was removed and I found myself looking up at the training sergeant major.

  "Am I binned?" I said pitifully.

  "No, you nugget. Get back on the helicopter and don't fuck up."

  I'd caught him in a good mood. An ex-Household Division man himself, he was delighted to see his old lot doing so well.

  For the next phase I was on my own, which suited me fine. Our movement between RVs was arranged in such a way that everybody was captured at the end of the E&E (escape and evasion) phase and subjected to tactical questioning. You are taught to be-and you always try to be-the gray man. The last thing you want is to be sin
gled out as worthy of further questioning. I didn't find this stage particularly hard because despite the verbal threats nobody was actually filling you in, and you knew that nobody was going to. You're cold and wet and hungry, uncomfortable as hell, but it's just a matter of holding on, physically rather than mentally. I couldn't believe that some people threw in their hand during these last few hours.

  In the end a bloke came in during one of the interrogations, gave me a cup of soup, and announced that it was over. There was a1 thorough debriefing, because the interrogators can learn from you as well as you from them. The mind does get affected; I was surprised to find that I was six hours out in my estimation of the time.

  Next came two weeks of weapon training at Hereford. The instructors looked at who you were, and they expected from you accordingly. If you were fresh from the Catering Corps they'd patiently start from scratch; if you were an infantry sergeant they'd demand excellence. Parachute training at Brize Norton was next, and after the rigors of Selection it was more like a month at Butlins.

  Back at Hereford after six long, grueling months, we were taken into the CO's office one by one. As I was handed the famous sand-colored beret with its winged dagger, he said: "Just remember: it's harder to keep than to get."

  I didn't really take it in. I was too busy trying not to dance a jig.

  The main bulk of the new intake, as usual, was made up of people from the infantry, plus a couple of engineers and signalers. Out of 160 candidates who had started, only eight passed-one officer and seven men. Officers only serve for a three-year term in the SAS, though they may come back for a second tour. As an other rank, I had the full duration of my 22-year army contract to run-in theory, another fifteen years.

  We went to join our squadrons. You can say whether you'd like to be in Mountain, Mobility, Boat, or Air Troop, and they'll accommodate you if they can. Otherwise it all depends on manpower shortages and your existing skills. I went to Air.