ains that would stop a vehicle by blowing the tires out.
     Ken was on the net to Fraser: "Is there any area that I've left?"
     He obviously wanted  to know if there was any road or track between the
two cars that they hadn't seen.
     "No, that's okay, everything's covered."
     They stopped and  listened.  Sound travels much more  at night and even
further on cold ones.
     As we slithered along as fast as we could on  the ice, I pictured Eddie
listening in the fog as he tried to learn what was happening around the car.
He'd  be  opening his  jaw to take out any noises of swallowing that he made
with his mouth and leaning his ear to the area.
     Eddie could hear  something, but he needed it confirmed: "Clive, listen
to  this." He  came  to Eddie and turned  his radio off so that there was no
interference from his earpiece.
     Someone was walking down the road. In the freezing fog this was wrong.
     "Stand still,  and  put up your  hands where  I  can see  them!"  Eddie
shouted. "This is the security forces!"
     The walker was about  ten meters away  and Eddie  had decided that that
was close enough. He called out just  loud  enough for this  walker to hear,
not loud enough, he hoped, to alert anyone else further afield.
     "It's okay, it's  only me!" The boy sounded as if  he was flapping good
style; he  was hoping no doubt that his challengers were  just a  local army
patrol so he'd have time to think of something or get some backup.
     "Shut up, stand still or I will fire-do you understand?"
     By  now  Clive  had his HKS3 in  his shoulder and was starting to  move
forward.
     The boy ran.
     Al moved to the back of the car to get a Schermuly flare from the boot.
He fired it into the air, and night turned into foggy day.
     Clive and Eddie fired to the side of the boy as he ran over a ditch and
fence and  into a  field. Night viewing aids  were  of limited value in fog.
They were going to lose him; they had to do something.
     From Ken we heard: "Contact, contact, wait out."
     We started to get sparked up. The Boss said, "Fucking hell, it's on! We
need to get there as fast as we can."
     Frank said, "It's pointless rushing. We'll get there."
     I knew Frank was right, but I felt helpless in the backseat.
     Ken's  team  didn't know any  more than  we did; they  would  not  move
forward in case of a blue-on-blue (friendly fire). If Clive and Eddie needed
any help, they would call for it.
     All this time two other members of the PIRA  gang had been no more than
five meters away from Clive's team in the car. They must have heard it stop,
and remained hidden. As the Schermuly went up and Clive and Eddie started to
fire, so did they-at Al.
     Clive  and Eddie had  got the runner. He quite sensibly  stopped as the
Schermuly was doing its job and he knew that he was in the shit.
     "Bring your hands up and turn towards me. Now walk towards me."
     Clive was giving commands, but the boy wasn't listening. He got dragged
onto the road and put facedown.
     "I am going to search you," Clive said. "If you move, you will be shot,
do you understand?" Eddie shouted for Al to bring some  plasticuffs  so they
could immobilize him until the R.U.C arrived.
     ' We  were  nearly there  now  and  telling Ken  the  direction  of our
approach so he  could put us in where  he wanted.  The  area was in darkness
again.
     Al hadn't responded to their request, so both men dragged the  prisoner
to the car.
     Eddie said  to Clive:  "Take my  weapon. I'll get in the  back for  the
cuffs."
     He handed it over to Clive, who covered the boy on the ground.
     There  wasn't a sling on Eddie's weapon so Clive  was holding it in his
hand.
     Next person we  heard on the net was Eddie: "Hello, all  call signs, we
have a man down. It's Al-we need a heli. Get a helicopter in now!"
     Fraser came back: "Roger that, confirm it's Al. Confirm it's Al, over."
     He needed to make sure so that the blood type could be matched.
     Eddie came back: "Yep, it's Al. Get it in now! We need it in now!"
     We  heard  Ken say, "Get it in  now! Fuck the weather, I want a heli in
there now!"
     The scaleys were on other frequencies now, trying to get a heli up. But
there was no way a  helicopter could fly in freezing  fog. The boss  down at
TCG was trying to organize to get an ambulance in.
     Fraser came back to  Clive and Eddie a few minutes later. "We can't get
a heli in; the fog, s down too much.
     We're trying for an ambulance, we're going to get something in for you,
wait out, wait out."
     Al had taken rounds in the arm and chest. Eddie got the trauma pack out
of the boot to stop the bleeding and get some fluid into him.
     This wasn't looking good: As well  as Al's being down, there  were more
players around in the darkness.
     Ken's team were out in the fields following up, and by now so were we.
     The boy on the floor must have heard everything and considered  himself
deeply in the shit because he decided to go for it. He lunged at Clive in an
attempt to get past him;  Clive dropped Eddie's HK53 so he could use his arm
to drop him.
     He was too late. The boy was gone, and so was the weapon.
     "He's got a fifty-three!" Clive shouted. "He's got a fifty-three!"
     They went after him.
     Eddie had drawn his pistol; they both fired, and the boy dropped.
     They ran forward and checked his body, 230 but there was no pulse.
     They went back to Al, but it was too late. Al Slater was dead.
     Ken came over the net, "Contact, wait out."
     Frank  replied,  "We're  about  two minutes away. I'm stopping anything
moving out."
     We  stopped any vehicles we saw coming from that direction. I  was glad
we were in uniform; there was  a security  base nearby, and now the shit had
hit the fan I wouldn't have wanted to be in civvies.
     We saw lights coming along the road and put in an instant VCP.
     Frank went to  the car as any normal soldier would, so as to not arouse
any suspicion: "Hello, could I see your driving license please?
     Where are you going? Thank you, good night."
     What they didn't know was that I had an M16 pointing at the head of the
driver and Eno had an LMG ready to stop the car and its passengers  if there
was any threat to this local army VCP.
     We started to  follow up in  the area, but it was going to be more luck
than anything if we bumped into ihem.
     We had to cover as much ground as possible as quickly as possible.
     On the net we heard the local unit's QRF being called forward by Fraser
to  cordon off the  area,  hoping that the  players  from the bomb team were
still in the area feeling like trapped rabbits.
     We could tell by the radio traffic that there were far more chiefs than
Indians. Some of  their Land Rovers were in  ditches because of the ice. All
they knew was that . there were casualties and terrorists in the area. Every
time a tree moved it was reported. There was  a danger of  our being shot by
our own QRF.
     There  were short  bursts of gunfire in the distance. Every time we got
on  the net: "What is  it? What is it?" We wanted to react. Fraser came back
each time. "Stand down, stand down." It was the QRF, firing at shadows.
     There was a  good chance that  the boys could still be in the area, but
the  QRF were multiplying the  problems, and if any more time was wasted, we
might lose them.
     Ken was severely pissed off and got on  the net: "Get this to the  QRF:
We will contain this area.  They are to stay where they are. They are not to
fire at anything unless one of us tells them to or they are being fired at.
     No patrols, no movement; stay  in the vehicles. Tell  them not to react
to anything until they're told."
     We were well insulated, but  my feet 'and  hands were  stiff with cold.
Every few steps I was slipping on the ice.
     Fraser said, "The QRF have  reported movement in some hedgerows by  the
river. Are there any of our call signs down by the river, over?"
     Silence.
     Frank said: "Me and Andy will take that."
     "Roger that. Frank's going down to the river. Ken, acknowledge."
     "Ken, roger that."
     Frank said, "Andy, what I want you to do is just keep
     I moving forward and scanning the hedgerow with your night sight.
     I'll be behind you with mine, and we'll get these boys out."
     I switched my sight back on, took a deep breath, and started moving.
     It was eerily quiet. I could hear the ice cracking on the grass.
     I  was  in a  semicrouched  position,  safety  catch  off, butt  in the
shoulder,  picking my feet up really  high, trying not to  breathe too hard,
trying to  keep the noise down,  trying  to keep as small as possible. Frank
was about five to seven meters behind, aiming just to my right so  he  could
take  anybody on. Because  he  was detached, it would be easier  for  him to
react.
     I was  listening in on the radio,  making  sure I knew where  everybody
was.
     By now an ambulance had turned up, and it had its blue light  flashing.
It  was a  fair way away from  us,  but  as the  light  spun around, it  was
catching us like dancers in a disco strobe. I thought, Fucking hell, this is
a good day out this is.
     I took two or three steps, stopped, ran my night sight up and  down. We
moved on, stopped, moved  on. At any moment I was  expecting to hear a burst
of gunfire and to feel the rounds thud into my body.
     It wasn't a nice feeling at all.
     Big  drainage ditches ran alongside the hedgerows. It  was pitch-black;
visibility was  shit;  there was  lots  of commotion, lots of noise  in  the
distance. Running around in there somewhere were terrorists who'd just had a
contact. They would be flapping, they would want to get  out of it, and they
would be armed.
     It was only after about twenty minutes that I thought: Shit, I've drawn
the short straw here, haven't I? I'll take all the rounds and Frank lands up
shooting them.
     We found nothing.
     After a few days pieces of the puzzle started to come.
     together.
     Antoin  Mac  Giolla  Bride  was  an  ex-Southern  Irish  soldier and  a
well-known terrorist since he was first arrested with a rifle in 1979.
     His  A.S.U  (active service  unit) had  planned  to  lay  a  land mine,
consisting of beer kegs  crammed with low  explosive,  in  a culvert  at the
entrance to the hotel. By the time we got the call the bomb was in place.
     As Al's car drove past, they must have heard it and hidden.
     Unfortunately the car stopped  just  feet  from two  of the boys. As he
sent the Schermuly up, they must have seen his silhouette and opened up.
     Al took rounds but managed to turn and fire back.
     Then he fell.
     They moved off and got to  the banks of the  Bannagh River. One of them
jumped into the  water to cross to  the other side. The river was only about
twenty feet  wide, but it was in flood, and  there  were deep pools. When he
got over, he couldn't find his companion. He'd drowned further downstream.
     The troop was a close-knit group,  and Al Slater's death put all of  us
on a downer. It's never easy losing somebody you know, but there's not a lot
you can do about it, you've got to get on with it. Within about two days the
jokes were being cracked.
     We were going  to  have a Christmas piss-up. The troop invited all  the
different personalities from the  police force and  other organizations that
we had dealings with.
     One  of the policemen there, a fellow called Freddie, had lost his left
hand in an  accident and had a Gucci replacement strapped onto his stump. It
worked on electrodes,  and gave him the  capability  to  flex his fingers to
grasp things, but unfortunately the arm occasionally developed a mind of its
own. It  would be  all right when he put it on, but then all of a sudden the
electrodes would short-circuit and the fingers would be flexing all over the
place like  something  out of  an old B movie. We all used  to  think it was
great.
     We were thinking about  getting  him  a  present,  and there  was  much
humming and  hawing about  what it should be. The best we could come up with
was a  regimental plaque, but Ken said, "That's crap. Don't worry, I'll sort
it out."
     Freddie turned up at the do, and there must have been 150 or so  people
present.
     Ken got up with a small parcel in his hand,  wrapped in fancy paper and
ribbons.
     "Well, Fred," he said, "this  is just a little  something to say thanks
very  much  for all  the help and support this past year. We hope  this will
come in handy, and rather than give you something really  bone like a plaque
to hang on a wall, we thought we'd give you something much more practical."
     "Thanks  very  much,"  said Fred.  He  started to  undo the ribbons and
paper, which took him ages because Ken had used four layers of wrapping just
to fuck him up. At last, after Fred had got a decent sweat on wrestling with
ribbons  and sellotape, our gift was finally revealed in all its glory-a can
of WD40.
     Freddie took  it  really well, rolled  up his  sleeve, and had a little
squirt.
     I bought Al's Barbour jacket at the auction; it would have been cheaper
to have bought a brand-new one, but that's how it goes.
     Nobody was worse affected by Al's death than Frank Collins.
     "I've seen a lot  of mates die during my seven years in  the Regiment,"
he said, "but this has hit me the hardest."
     Maybe Al's death was the first big test of his Christian faith.
     Frank left  the Regiment soon afterward and decided to  train to be the
ayatollah. However, he wanted to pay off his mortgage before  he enrolled at
Bible college, and his first freelance job took him to Sri Lanka.
     Frank lasted two weeks. When I saw him much later in Hereford, he said,
"They  had no understanding of right  or wrong and thought nothing of wiping
out Tamils. Some  of the people we trained committed atrocities. It was well
paid, but I came straight home."
     He then got a BG (bodyguard)  job in Athens and worked for Burton chief
Sir  Ralph Halpern and  Harrods boss  Mohammed Al-Fayed. finally, when  he'd
saved up enough, he did the  church's version of Selection and passed. After
two  years  of  studying he was  badged  as a  fully-fledged  vicar,  and an
excellent one he was, too.
     Debbie had a job, and I assumed she was enjoying it. I didn't  know for
sure because I was never there.
     I phoned her  whenever I could, but every  time  I'd tell her how I was
and never  really  listened when  she  told  me  how she was. I still wasn't
getting my priorities right.
     Everything was the Regiment; I loved what I was doing.
     But I was being selfish; I was sacrificing the marriage, and  it was my
fault. If I came back for R&R, all I wanted to do was go downtown an see all
my mates again. Everything I did revolved around them; she was secondary. It
must have been outrageous for her.
     I was even stupid enough to start talking about kids when I wasn't even
responsible enough to look after my wife.
     But I  didn't realize, because I was a dickhead. I didn't know that the
marriage was going down; I  was  too busy wanting  to get the skills in, and
the big one I wanted was demolitions.
     One of  the  aims  of  this twelve-week course is  to  teach industrial
sabotage, strategic tasks, and  strikes on defined  targets," the instructor
said to  us. "A  typical Regiment  task  might  be  to  render  useless  the
industrial base of a nation we're  fighting against. Their army might  be at
the front line, but at the end of the day an  army's no good if it can't get
supplies.
     Attacks on the  industrial  base also  lower the  population's  morale,
which is all good for the general war effort."
     It was  gripping stuff, and I couldn't wait to get stuck in.  Even as a
kid  I'd  been fascinated  by  television  pictures of steeplejacks dropping
power  station  chimneys  I  and  tower  blocks collapsing within their  own
perimeter.
     I had a little basic knowledge from Selection, and I wanted more.
     Training  wing,  as well as  take Selection,  was also responsible  for
teaching demolitions  and all the patrol  skills. Joe,  the dems instructor,
was coming up to the end of his two years in the job, and he really knew his
stuff.  Demolitions  would also  be used  within other jobs,  he  said, as a
surgical strike: We might want to drop a bridge, railway line, hydroelectric
power  station  or  crude  oil  refinery;  or  render  docks  useless,  open
floodgates, destroy military or civilian aircraft.
     We learned how to disrupt microwave and  landline communications within
military and  civilian environments. "So much damage can be  done  with just
two pounds of P.E," Joe said. "Why send in  an  air  force to  destroy a big
industrial complex when the  same result could be achieved by taking out its
power source?"
     If  we were  going in covertly,  we had to  know and practice our trade
craft-including surveillance and antisurveillance.
     For the first  couple of weeks we learned parrot-fashion all the rules,
the  dos and  don'ts, and  all  the formulas. We weren't going  to  have our
little reference  books with us when  we were on ops. Joe banged  the  rules
into our heads from day one and tested us every day.
     Every spare moment we had was taken up with learning it  all  by heart;
to a scholar like me, it felt  like trying to pour ten pounds of shit into a
two-pound bag.
     We earned about all the explosives used by the British Army and others,
'what explosives were commercially available, and where and how we could get
our hands on them.
     Having obtained them, we had to know how to use the stuff.
     Industrial sabotage nearly always involves cutting steel.
     However, the explosions are  not Hollywood  classics:  A  big blast,  a
massive fireball, and  the bridge comes tumbling down.  The  hallmark  of  a
Regiment  strike  would be  the minimum  amount of explosives to  create the
maximum damage-unlike my effort with the buttress tree on  Selection-because
then there's less to carry or make and less to conceal.
     Depending on the  type of  bridge, the  aim was to do specific  cuts so
that the bridge would collapse under its own weight. To demolish a building,
all  you do  is  initiate the  momentum of  the  building  falling, and  the
building itself does the rest.
     We  learned how to blow up everything from telecommunications lines  to
power stations, trains to planes.
     Everything had to be destroyed in  such a  manner that it  couldn't  be
repaired or replaced-or if it could, then it must take the maximum amount of
time.
     Destroying something did not necessarily involve laking it off the face
of the earth. It might just mean making a small penetration of about half an
inch with explosives into a certain piece of machinery.
     That might  be all that's needed to disturb the momentum of the turning
parts inside. The machine  then destroys itself. The skill is in identifying
where the weak part is, getting in there to do it, and getting away again.
     A  lot  of motorways and  structures are  built with  concrete,  so  we
learned how to destroy it, and that did take a lot of explosives.
     Sometimes it wasn't enough just to take down the  spans of bridges; the
piers had to be cut as well to maximize the damage.  Gaps could be repaired;
whole elevated sections of motorway could be replaced in a fortnight, as the
Californians prove every time they have an earthquake.
     A  large factory or even small town can  be  immobilized just by taking
out   an  electricity  substation.  Obviously   there   are  all   sorts  of
countermeasures, and in times of conflict key points will be protected.
     Much  of  the time, however, the Regiment  would not be doing this in a
theater of  major conflict; we'd  be doing it in a small  guerrilla  war  or
revolutionary  scenario.  If the  target was protected, that  would  be just
another problem we'd have to get over. We  might be putting charges in to go
off  the following month. In theory a charge could be placed  to blow  up in
five years' time. There  are plenty of  ways  to initiate an explosion, from
anywhere in the world.
     We went down to one of the  local bridges around Hereford, and each did
a  recce  report in slow  time  (not covertly). We had  a good  look at  the
bridge, measured it out, and did whatever we needed to produce the mechanics
of a  recce report,  wandering around the  structure with tape measures  and
cameras as we worked out how to  destroy it.  While all the rest  of us were
doing this technical stuff, Bob,  one of the world's most confident men, the
sort who not  only knows where  he's  going but also how  he's  going to get
there and what  time  he's  going to arrive, was  doing pin steps along  the
footrail, whistling away as he counted them out.
     Bob  always spoke at Mach  2. "You don't need all this technical stuff,
all these  fucking tape measures," he scoffed.  "If  you were  doing it  for
real, you'd just be pacing it out. Twenty feet, twenty-one feet . . ."
     When he got  to the far end of the  bridge, he  sat down and did a film
director's square on it, took a couple of snapshots, and relaxed in the sun.
     The instructor came over and said, "You all sorted then, Bob?"
     "Yeah, no problems. I'm happier doing it this way."
     Bob sat there for  the rest of the afternoon, enjoying the sunshine and
having the occasional brew while everybody  else was running around like  an
idiot.  I was then up  until  two  o'clock in the morning  getting my  recce
report  just right, but not Bob. He  bounced into the classroom the next day
as fresh as a daisy and said, "Piece of piss."
     The  instructor assessed  our efforts and passed comments. Most reports
were competent, but Bob's, he announced, was outstanding.
     "Enjoy yourself yesterday, did you?" he asked Bob.
     "Lovely  sunny  day,  wasn't it? I'm surprised you didn't get sunburnt,
all the lying around you did."
     "Did my  report,  though, didn't I?" Bob smiled. "And you reckon it's a
blinder.) "In every respect," the instructor said, "except one."
     "What's that?"
     "All your photographs show a bridge in the pissing rain!"
     "That's extraordinary," Bob said. "Camera must be a bit damp."
     Bob  had  spent  the  whole of  the  previous  weekend  doing  all  the
photography and technical measurements on the bridge so  that  on the day he
could piss us off by appearing to do nothing. It would have gone down as one
of the great stitches if only he'd remembered  that  it had poured with rain
the whole weekend.
     The dems course taught us  how to use the equipment, but it also taught
us how to translate that information for other people to use.
     Part of that involved covert photography and infrared photography.
     We might be a businessman with a view from his hotel room or a hiker.
     The stills or video camera might be concealed about our person  or in a
bag, or we'd be  tucked  a couple  of kilometers back and using large mirror
lenses in a covert OP.
     As well as all the  technical bits and pieces for the demolitions, we'd
be looking at all the defenses. How many guards are at the gate?
     Do they look  alert? Are they  slouched  in a heap with fags  in  their
mouths? What is the best way in and the best way  out? We could be  planning
and preparing for another group, telling them what charges were required and
sorting out the RVs and exfil from the target. We might  be required to stay
in the area afterward to confirm damage and  reassess.  It was  all part  of
demolitions; there  was much more to it  than  Clint Eastwood on his  horse,
lighting a stick of gelignite and lobbing it over a wall.
     We  had  all  been trained in  trauma management,  dealing with gunshot
wounds and fractures,  stabilizing injuries, and intravenously administering
fluids; everybody had the skill to keep a person alive if he'd been hit by a
bomb blast or rounds. But the kind of work that the Regiment  is involved in
calls for somebody who has taken it a stage ' further; the patrol medic must
be  able  to  carry out  surgical procedures  in  the  field,  to  recognize
illnesses and prescribe and administer drugs.  The  result  then is a patrol
that can stay longer out in the field if it has a major problem; helicopters
don't have to  be  called  in  to  extract  a  casualty, with  the  risk  of
compromise.
     The Regiment operated a "hearts and  minds" policy  in the  Third World
countries where it  worked. In Oman in the seventies, for example, a lot  of
the  Regiment's  time was taken up  with  looking after the Baluch  and  the
Firqat, prescribing drugs and looking after their welfare.
     There  were  case notes  that covered everything  from assisting with a
birth to operating on a villager who'd had half his head blown off.
     Sometimes the  medic pack contained  more drugs and equipment than some
of  their  hospitals.  The problem was  that as  soon  as the medics started
administering  medical aid for  major injuries  and illnesses,  there'd be a
mile-long  queue  outside their  A-frame  of people with  warts  and ingrown
toenails.
     One of them told me: "We looked after a couple  of blokes in the jungle
who had problems with their feet.
     Suddenly every  man and his  dog is on the case, turning up with little
cuts and bruises on their tootsies. The next bloke that pestered us, we made
it look as if we were going to amputate his foot.
     We went through all the procedures of making sure the table was clear.
     We had the knives out and all sorts."
     Apparently they  explained to  the man  that the  only way to deal with
such  a troublesome foot was to take it  off altogether, so if he'd just lie
down on the table, they'd have it squared away in no time.
     The cut suddenly wasn't such  a problem, and the character ran away. He
spread the good news about, and not many others turned up with bad feet.
     Meeting up in Hereford with blokes who had been doing the medics course
while I was doing dems, I heard some wonderful stories.
     They had done  about  six weeks in  Hereford, starting from the basics,
learning  how  to  put in  Ivs (intravenous drips), administer drugs through
injection, prescribe and use drugs. All the drugs had to be learned by their
universal, Latin names, which 'Was enjoyed no end.
     They then had  to go away and do a couple of weeks at the London School
of  Tropical Medicine.  Because a lot  of the work was in tropical climates,
they had  to know about tropical diseases,  how to prevent them, and the way
of treating them when they did take hold.
     It  was then back to Hereford for a  bit more time in the lecture room,
and  eventually they got their hospital attachments, all around the country.
Most of their time was spent in casualty, getting hands-on experience;  they
could learn all the theory they liked, they were told, but there was nothing
like  a bit  of  hands-on  with a  road  traffic accident  casualty, or  the
Saturday night people getting filled in and cut.
     They   had   also  spent  a  lot  of  time  learning   how  to   become
hypochondriacs. A fellow called Rod, who spoke with a thick Yorkshire accent
and  lots of "thee"  and  "nowt," spent  the  first two weeks of his month's
hospital attachment working  in the casualty  ward. The next two weeks  were
taken  up purely  on  his own body MOT. He'd  be using all the machines that
went ping,  having his  heart looked  at,  convinced  that there  had to  be
something wrong.
     Charlie  was  another hypochondriac.  He'd  left  the  Regiment in  his
thirties,  gone to  work overseas,  and then come  back  and  done Selection
again. He  passed and was the world's oldest  corporal.  We  were doing some
troop training and were on the ranges one day, sharing mugs.
     Charlie hated us doing that.
     "You don't know what you could pick up," he said.
     "Too true,"  somebody  said. "I was  in  the  Far  East  and contracted
leptospirosis. I lost about two stone."
     "That was bad luck," Charlie said. "When did it happen?"
     "Last month."
     "you dirty fucking thing!"  Charlie screamed. We all started to  laugh,
because we  knew how much it  pissed  him  off.  He  honked  for  days about
drinking out of the same mug as someone who'd had leptospirosis. He made his
own tea after that.
     At  the  -end  of  the  week's  training  we  said, "You  ain't  caught
leptospirosis yet then, Charlie?"
     "No," he said,  "but I'm not too sure what  all you people are going to
catch."
     "Why's that then?"
     "Because I've been pissing in the tea urn every day."
     The placement system  worked really well, both for the Regiment and for
the hospitals. The  blokes  gained  experience, and  the  casualty ward  got
another pair of willing hands.
     A  fellow called Pat  had  been on  hospital  attachment at  Birmingham
General. All the drunks were  coming  in with bottles  sticking out of their
foreheads, and gangs of young lads  who had  been fighting and  thought they
were  as hard  as nails because they had cuts on their  faces. The staff did
their  best to help  them out, but the lads were drunk and  full of bravado,
getting aggressive  with the nurses, pushing them away. Nurses  got attacked
by these sorts of people all the time.
     They're  trying  to do  their job and look after them, and the boys are
getting gabby and trying to fill them in.
     Pat was on a refresher course after spending a couple of years away. It
used to piss him off severely to see the abuse these girls had to  take. The
trouble was,  there was  seldom much that the  blokes  could do because they
were supposed to be keeping a low profile.
     One night, however, one of the nurses came screaming  out of a cubicle.
Pat walked in to see what was happening.
     A character came up straightaway and started fingerpoking him.
     "Yeah, that's right," he gabbed, "fucking sort me out now!"
     Pat looked at him for a second and said, "Yes, okay, if that's what you
want."
     And he head-butted him and dropped him.
     The lad burst into tears and said, "What's going on?"
     if it was  all Pat's fault. He then started shouting for as the police.
Two officers  happened to be  on the ward  after  bringing  in a drunk; they
stuck  their  heads  around  the curtain,  sussed  out immediately  what had
happened, and said, "Sorry, sir, we didn't see anything."
     The bloke with the sore forehead had a  badly injured mate outside on a
trolley. Pat and a nurse were asked to  get him into  a lift and take him up
to have surgery.
     While  the boy was lying on  the  stretcher, he was giving  the nurse a
hard time, calling her a slag and yelling that everyone was a wanker.
     So Pat put the lift on hold and said, "Look, sunshine, let me read your
horoscope.
     You're dying. If we don't get  you up the  top there,  you'll check out
for sure. The lift's stopped. If you don't shut your gab, I'll just keep you
here. So can I take it that we have detente?"
     Members of the Regiment hold  life as dear as anybody else.  During one
operation  a team had  been  off somewhere  doing their stuff. They  stopped
after  a firefight and were clearing the area when they came across a  young
member of the opposition. He was shot in  the legs  and in a bad way. Rather
than bug out, they stopped,  used  their  own medical equipment,  which they
might be needing themselves the next day, to stabilize him, and got him onto
their  vehicle. Then they went  out  of the  area of the task to reach an LS
where a helicopter could come in and casevac him.
     A fellow called Billy  was watching Hereford play football one Saturday
when  one of the players swallowed his own tongue. Billy saw what was  going
on,  jumped  onto the  pitch and did  the  necessary  and saved the player's
life-and then  ran off  pretty  sharpish  to  avoid  attention. He  was very
annoyed afterward about missing the match.
     I found people were extremely careful to preserve life and limb perhaps
because they understood the dangers  more. It was a wonder to me the kids of
some Regiment blokes could go anywhere, their dads were so protective.
     But  then,  maybe  they understood  dangers  that other  people didn't,
because they'd seen the consequences.
     When a person is hit by a car at 30 mph, he gets thrown in the air, his
body gets shattered; chances were the dad had seen some of that, and it made
him more aware of everyday dangers, not just danger in the military context.
     it seemed  that as soon  as  I  got back from  somewhere, I was getting
ready to go away again. To all intents and purposes Debbie and I were living
separate existences.
     She  said to me, "What exactly are we  doing with our lives?  Even when
you come back, you disappear straight downtown."
     I said, "It'll be all right-it's just a busy time. Look, I'm going away
for another three months soon. When I get  back,  we'll sort ourselves out."
There was nothing those relate people could  have  taught me about running a
marriage.
     The three-month trip to Oman was  a whole  squadron  effort to practice
desert warfare.  I was really excited; there were strong Regiment links with
the area, and  because most of the  squadron had been  to  the  Middle  East
before,  I felt that at least  when this one was over,  we'd be speaking the
same language.
     The Regiment was founded  in the desert in the Second World War and had
operated in Oman for many years.
     The principles hadn't changed: moving with vehicles, navigating,  using
special tactics and  fieldcraft  for that type  of terrain. It was still all
about using the weapons we had to their maximum ability, operating at night,
it moving tactically during the day. The idea behind the squadron  trip  was
that  if there ever  was  a  conflict again  in that  theater, at least  new
members  like  me would have a foundation  and not  be stumbling into  a new
environment.
     Initially it  turned out to be a  major anticlimax. We were in a tented
camp in the middle  of the  desert,  protected by fences  and  all  kinds of
elaborate security devices. We weren't allowed out. For the first three days
the most interesting thing that happened was Tiny sitting up in his sleeping
bag every morning and shouting, "I'm bored!"
     We'd saunter over to the cook tent where some of the locals were making
pita bread and chapatis. Then we'd go around  nicking  chairs and putting up
washing lines made of paracord, until we got fed up. By day three hints were
being dropped to the hierarchy. A  few blokes put a sign up saying 8 TRoop's
ESCAPE -FUNNEL, with a pair of upside-down boots poking out of the top. Some
others put in a requisition chit for a gym  horse and specified that it must
be wooden and have room inside for at least three men. Mountain Troop put up
a  sign  on the  gate that  said STALAG 13  and spent hours standing looking
wistfully toward the west.
     It was warm,  but one fellow called Gibbo, who'd fought in the Oman war
and had spent so  much time in  the Middle East he might as well have had an
Arab  passport, would  be  walking  around with a  duvet  jacket  on in  the
morning, honking about the cold weather. We were on a beautiful desert plain
with sheer mountains in the distance. Sitting on the thunderbox one night, I
looked  up at  the stars.  There wasn't a  cloud  in the sky  and  the  inky
blackness was chock-full of twinkling lights.
     It was absolutely stunning.
     Eventually things livened up. John organized a Huey, and we spent three
or four  days doing free fall in perfect blue skies. It was the first time I
had  jumped out of a  helicopter;  instead of the  deafening, buffeting wind
rush of  a jump  from  an  aircraft,  there was  only  a  weird  feeling  of
acceleration and silence, apart from the whistle of the wind in my ears.
     We started roaring around in the new 110s (long wheel-base Land  Rover)
with  50 MM machine guns dangling  off the back that  were replacing the old
"pinkies."
     I was in a  mortar team. Nosh was  number one, who laid all the  aiming
devices, Steve was number  two, who put it down  the tube, and I was  number
threebasically the  boy who sorted out the ammunition and  stuck his fingers
in his ears. Colin was the MFC (mortar fire controller).
     We went to a training area a couple of kilometers away, armed with more
ammunition than a battalion got  through  in about  ten  years-hundreds  and
hundreds of rounds.
     My vision of  the Regiment and the squadron was still  nice and fluffy,
but  now  I started  to hear various  honkings. The  main one was  about the
squadron sergeant major and something to do with "cabbage."
     It took me  a little while to find out that this meant money,  and that
what they were moaning about was squadron funds.
     The SSM was awarding VCs (voluntary contributions.e fines) all over the
place to boost the fund. There was a . fridge full of soft drinks running on
a  generator; every time you took one you signed your NAAFI number and got a
bill at the  end of the week.  We found the SSM had loaded the prices by 200
percent.
     The four MFCs  came  down with  us in the wagons and  set themselves up
with  Martini  parasols,  iceboxes, and masses of food among the mortars and
the piles of ammunition. We  learned how to cover a whole area with pinpoint
accuracy, coordinating illuminating mortars with high explosive so  that  at
night the MFC could see what was going on.
     It took a lot of coordination; the fuses had to be set so that  as  one
was going out the other was blowing up. By the  end of two weeks we were the
Eric Bristows of the mortar world.
     John announced  a five-day squadron exercise with  the 110s and mortars
to practice live firing "advance to  contact."  Mobility Troop drove forward
with their 110s and motorbikes, moving tactically across the ground.
     The  procedure  was  basically the  same as rifle  company  firing  and
maneuvering,  but without the firing. A couple of vehicles moved up into the
high ground and got into a position from where they could use  their guns to
cover  the next lot moving on the  low ground. Everything was coordinated by
the squadron commander.
     We  came into an  area where we couldn't be seen and there was lots  of
dead  ground.  The squadron  waited and  sent out a couple  of motorbikes on
recces. They moved  around trying  to  find routes,  trying to find possible
attack points-and the enemy. Vehicles stopped and sent foot patrols into the
high ground. it was all about dominating the ground.
     Behind  the squadron  commander were the mortar  crews; while all  this
activity  was  going  on,  we were just  sitting in the  back  of the  wagon
drinking  tea  and  in  Nosh's  case  picking  his  nose.  The  mortar  fire
controllers were up front with the lead elements of the squadron; as soon as
any attack came, they could start calling down the mortar fire  and we would
swing into action. As they moved forward, they were doing their own tactical
appreciation and giving prominent areas identification marks.
     The forward elements were bang onto the enemy. I heard  firing, then on
the net came "Contact, contact.
     Wait out."
     As  soon as we heard it,  we jumped out of  our  vehicles  and  started
getting the mortars  rigged  up. We knew the direction of advance;  we  knew
where the troops were.
     We pointed  the mortars in that  general direction, waiting for precise
coordinates.
     Our  job was to get  the maximum amount of  fire  down on the enemy, to
suppress their fire, make sure they didn't go  anywhere, and kill as many as
possible. Then, when the rest fought through the position, there'd be hardly
anybody left to resist.
     The vehicles  were maneuvering, trying  to get their heavy machine guns
to bear on the enemy  position. Not everybody  was engaged in the firefight;
some  were  held back  in reserve in  case we  started losing people  at the
front.  The  squadron  commander was  giving  orders  on  the  net,  telling
different troops what he  wanted  them to do. The principles  hadn't changed
since the Charge of the Light Brigade.
     While the firefight was  going on, people were maneuvering, under cover
from our  fire and the physical terrain, into positions close  to the enemy.
Some movement was on  foot; some was a combination of  foot  and vehicle. It
all depended on the terrain. Whatever, we had to get that fire down.
     Mortars  work by  the  angle of  the  barrel and  the amount of  energy
supplied  by the explosive charge on the mortar round. There are seven bands
of propellant.
     If the mortar  fire controller says, "Charge Three," that means there's
three bags of propellant, which, with the angle of  the barrel, provides its
range. What it does at the other end depends on what fuse is 'Set: airburst,
delayed, instantaneous, or it might be smoke.
     The  MFC reported that the enemy were troops in buildings; that meant I
had to put a delay fuse on the rounds. They would go into the building, then
explode; the earth would be churned up and their defenses would collapse, we
hoped, taking them out in the process.
     As I  looked up to the high ground, I could see the  squadron commander
getting people into position, but it was no good their  attacking until  the
firefight  had  been won and all enemy fire was suppressed, as we were about
to do.
     The troops who were going to attack  got  into the F.A.P (final assault
position). The  suppressing fire  would be "switched,"  which meant that  it
still  went down but  was  moved along, so that as our blokes were advancing
toward the target, we weren't firing on them.
     All  this had to be  coordinated by  the  squadron commander, who could
either see things visually for himself or was getting the information on the
radio. We couldn't see jack shit; we would just fire on command.
     Nosh and  Steve  were  getting the  mortar  sorted out  and waiting for
direction  and elevation.  The MFC, working on  a  small hand-held computer,
shouted: "Immediate action! Direction one-six-four!"
     Nosh shouted: "Direction one-six-four!"
     From the number two came the confirmation: "Direction one-six-four!"
     The  MFC   called:  "Elevation   one-two-two-eight,"  Nosh:  "ElevAtion
one-two-two-eight!"
     Next mortar: "Elevation one-two-two-eight!"
     As soon as  all the  bearings  were  done on  the  sight, Nosh shouted,
"Number one ready!"
     Then we heard "Number two ready!"
     They were set commands and standard actions,  though slightly different
from the rest of the army's. I was listening for a command about charges.
     "Two rounds, charge three! Stand by!"
     I shouted, "Two rounds, charge three!"
     I prepared the ammunition, and Steve took it and waited for the command
to throw it down the tube.
     Everything  was going  incredibly smoothly  on  our  tube. We  had  the
elevation and the bearing; we had the lot. We were all ready.
     "Number one, fire!"
     We threw two rounds each down the tube to "bed in" the weapon.
     When a mortar goes off, it starts burying itself in the ground.
     We all stand on  the  plate at this stage to  help it  bed in.  If  the
baseplate isn't correctly set, the mortar bounces around  and the ammunition
goes  off target. The  next rounds,  once the baseplate was buried into  the
ground, would be on target.
     We got another fire order and complied.
     Then we saw the mortar fire controller running and shouting out.
     I said, "What the fuck's the matter with him?"
     Nosh said, "Who gives a fuck-let's just go with him."
     I didn't have  a clue,what was happening, but if he was running, I  was
running.  Then  I realized: He  must be running  away  from the  line of the
mortar. I  looked up and saw the mortar  round, going straight up in the air
and then  disappearing from  view,  so chances  were  it  was  going to come
straight down.
     Everybody's  feet sprouted wings. I could see the squadron head shed on
the high ground. They, too, started  to  leg it. The motorbikes roared away.
None of them knew what was happening, but they all knew there was a problem.
When there are problems with live ammunition, you get out of the way.
     We were still running when the mortars  landed about  a  hundred meters
behind us. They exploded, but nobody was hurt.
     The  mortar  fire controller had  a severe voluntary contribution-which
the SSM loved because it boosted up the cabbage-and an even more severe hard
time from us for the rest of the trip.
     We did some more jumping. By now I was really getting into the swing of
the ice-cream troop business, ripping off  my jumpsuit as soon as  I landed,
putting  on shorts and  walking around eating crisps,  waiting for  the next
jump.
     Then  we had to start the serious stuff. We were sitting  on the desert
airstrip one morning, waiting for the C130 to fly up from Muscat.
     The  terrain  was  totally  different  from the  original camp, gentle,
undulating dunes  that  were nice and  fluffy to land  on. Little forts  and
watchtowers sat  on  the hilltops; villages looked like something out of the
Crusades. History was all  around ite.  I thought, This is the life; this is
what I've been after all these years.
     John  said:  "We're going to  get  a  bundle ready. What we  want to do
tonight is a full troop night jump from twenty-five grand."
     We  were  sitting around the tailgate; it was six o'clock, and  the sun
was setting.
     "On the bundle I want Steve, Andy, and Mat."
     This  was  good.  It  was  the  first time that I'd ever  jumped with a
bundle; I'd followed them before, but I'd never jumped with one.
     There were three of us on the bundle, which was on  a  trolley. As soon
as the green light showed,  everybody  would pile out on top of  each other,
really close. The container would go just slightly before the team.
     We  sat facing the oxygen consoles,  in  full  kit, bergens between our
legs, ready to attach  behind our arse when we jumped. The aircraft took off
and circled the DZ, gaining height.
     I  checked the altimeter on my  arm.  Twenty thousand  feet. We got the
command to rig our kit up. I pushed  the bergen behind me and attached it by
hooks to my harness. Now we were waiting for the command to go up toward the
tailgate. When it was time to jump, we took  the oxygen off the main console
and put it onto our own bottle.
     All the  commands were  on  flash cards;  nobody could speak because we
were on oxygen. I watched the ramp start to come down.
     On the command  we moved to  the rear like  a  line of ducks, shuffling
from foot to foot, weighed down by the parachute, oxygen kit and bergen-well
in excess of 150 pounds. The GPMG I was carrying added another 24
     pounds. I was  on the left-hand  side  of the bundle. Steve was  on the
other side, and Mat was at the back. We  pushed it on its trolley toward the
tailgate; about six inches from the edge  of  the tailgate there were chocks
that stopped it  from falling  over the  edge. We stood there holding  it in
position. The rest of the troop moved right up onto the tailgate itself. The
front people  had their toes  on the edge; everybody was bunched up,  really
close to one another, because we  all had to get  out at the same time. With
us were three blokes from A Squadron who'd finished a team job in the Middle
East, heard we were getting in  some free fall, and gave up  their free time
to come and join in.
     Steve was bent over, ready to push out the container.
     We were waiting for the two-minute warning, which  would signal that we
were on the run-in.
     All of a sudden the loadmaster held up  two fingers, and everybody  was
banging the next man and  showing two fingers. I tapped Steve, and he nodded
his  head.  The loadie  was holding the paracord  that was retaining the two
chocks, ready to pull when it was time for the bundle  to go. Everybody  was
tensed up on the tailgate, looking at the red lights either side. As soon as
they went  green,  everybody would shout,  "Ready, set, go!" It had to be as
loud as you could yell to get above the noise of the aircraft, wind, and the
oxygen mask.
     The aircraft started  doing  corrections, jacking us around. We had  to
hold  on to  keep standing. The  loadie gave  the  cutthroat sign and  did a
circle in the air, which meant he'd got the wrong track, so we were going to
go around and try again.
     I tapped Steve again and gave him the cutthroat sign; he nodded.
     Then  he put his head back down, and I put my head back down.  We  were
bracing  ourselves; we knew the aircraft would have to do  some quite  steep
turns.
     The wind was rushing in,  and it  was  cold. I saw lights now and again
from distant towns.
     Steve was resting his helmet on the bundle; everybody was tired because
we had all our  kit  on and  it was  a pain in  the arse, holding on to each
other  for balance  as  the aircraft  moved  position. Then  the  two-minute
warning came again, and everybody sorted himself out, getting ready to go.
     I tapped  Steve  but  got  no reaction. I gave  him a shake and nothing
happened.  I  couldn't  figure it out. Then I thought: Shit! I lunged across
the  bundle,  grabbed hold of his oxygen  bottle, and  checked the reservoir
gauge. It was showing red.
     I  grabbed hold of the loadie,  shook him, and started  pointing at the
reservoir. gauge on my  bottle and pointing at Steve. He got on the net, and
straightaway the aircraft went into a steep nosedive.
     The tailgate was  coming up. The troop was  looking around,  and within
seconds everybody realized what was  going on. The oxygen NCO came screaming
up, dragging Steve back  to the main console.  Steve was lying on the floor,
on  just  about his  last  breath.  The  NCO  pulled the tube  from  Steve's
reservoir and put it into the main console. He was flapping good style,  his
eyes like goldfish bowls; the oxygen bottles were his responsibility.
     The aircraft came down below twelve thousand feet, and  we were out  of
the danger zone. The jump was aborted, but the aircraft couldn't land in the
dark at the airstrip we should have been  dropping onto, so we had to go and
stay in a smart hotel in Muscat, which w'as a blow.
     The hotel had a wonderful restaurant  with indoor palm trees, a pianist
tinkling away in the corner and nice crisp  tablecloths. All the diners were
dressed up in suits and ties and long evening dresses.
     Enter Air Troop  in  their  flying suits, hair sweaty  and sticking  up
after being under a helmet all night.
     We ate in  somber  mood, until  Mat said,  "Don't worry, it won't  have
affected Steve. He was brain-damaged anyway."
     It turned  out  Steve  had been issued  with  a  defective  bottle.  He
obviously got a slagging the next day and was branded a  big-time wanker for
it ' jump. Tying to get out of the I was fascinated by the local customs and
wondered if what I thought I  was seeing was necessarily what was happening.
They  might  be  drinking  Coca-Cola, chewing  Wrigley's  gum,  and  driving
air-conditioned  Land  Cruisers,  but their whole way of  thinking was  very
different.
     We sat down and drank tea with these people. The Regiment was the least
racist group of people in the British  Army I had ever met, no doubt because
they  came  from  so many  different backgrounds, religions,  classes  , and
nationalities. Nobody  was ever derogatory about indigenous populations. How
could  we be running around with local  guerrillas,  for example, if we were
thinking, What a bunch of dickhead hillbillies? Nine times out of ten, their
cultures are much more established than ours, and they're more true to their
origins.
     We're  just slags  compared  with a lot of the people  that  Westerners
considered backward,  Third  World,  and dirty. We're  putting our Pepsi and
Levi's culture in comparison with theirs, which might be older and wiser. At
least when  it comes to holding beliefs, they're not like us, as flexible as
Access cards.
     The Omanis  had feasts called  haflas where they'd  bring a goat in and
cook it in the fire. It was always a fantastic gathering.  They'd turn up in
their Land Cruisers in the middle of nowhere, put the carpets out, and start
a fire up. Sometimes they'd tow in a small water bowser as well. There was a
huge amount  of ritual involved; the animal was treated with immense respect
before it was killed, in accordance with Islam.
     I really used to enjoy sitting there and pigging out.
     Western protocol didn't exist; everybody sat down, ate, then just stood
up and walked away. Once you were finished, you were finished.
     We had a whip-round one day to buy some meat.
     Everybody chipped in three rials, and off the boys went to market.
     We were sitting on  the carpets  in the late afternoon, building up the
fire,  when  we heard a family  lar  chug and a Toyota pickup appeared  in a
cloud of dust. Roped down in the back was  our meal  for the  night, a young
and very pissed-off-looking camel.
     The rituals were observed, and the meat was chopped up. Some  was  hung
up  to dry in the sun to make camel jerky, and the rest was soon in the pot.
Within an hour, out came the  camel  and  rice. There were a hundred  of us,
sitting  under the stars on  ten carpets joined  together; each  of us had a
huge  plateful and just sat around and  spun the shit  for  the rest of  the
night.
     The Omanis,  like all  locals  everywhere,  wanted  to  show  us  their
culture; they wanted  ius to see that there was a bit  of finesse about what
they were doing. It might have looked basic, but it wasn't.
     There was an art in how to squeeze the rice, and how to choose the best
bits of meat. In some  of the old villages down in the south they had  their
own culinary delight, sausages made in goat's gut. The meat was  prepared in
a very interesting way. Basically the old girls took mouthfuls of  goat meat
and chewed it until it was soft  and  gooey, then spit it  into  the sausage
skins. They twisted them into  sections  just like British  bangers and then
cooked them. When I was offered one, I wished I hadn't seen the old girls in
action. But I had to take it; there was no way I could turn it down.
     By the end of the trip the SSM had made a fortune out of everybody, and
now it  was time to spend it. "We'll have  a  big barbecue down at the beach
club in Muscat," he announced.
     The local expats' rugby team was invited to have a game with us, and we
all moved down  to Muscat for the last few days. We won the match, and as it
came to last light, we  hit the beach club.  There were fridges full of beer
and five or six big barbecues burning away.
     Everybody  was  determined  to'spend  all  the  cabbage  that  had been
extorted from us.
     We heard a few local  stories. Down at Seeb there was a -military base,
with an old  Arab  storeman who'd lost an eye and a leg. He was retired from
the army but ran  the blanket  stores to keep his interest in life. The camp
was full of young recruits,  and what they tended to do at weekends was roll
up  their mattresses and  hitch a  lift back up into the  hills where they'd
come from, near Niswa.
     One day the storeman offered a  young lad a lift. The recruit staggered
back to the camp a few hours later and alleged that the old  boy  had  raped
him.
     A British company commander was taking orders that day. He  called  the
lad in and listened  to his story,  then  got  the old  storeman in for  his
version of events. Then he called both of them back in and passed sentence.
     The storeman was sent to.military prison for a long term.
     Then the officer  turned  to the young lad and said, "Look at the state
of the man who attacked you: He's old, he's  knackered, he's got one eye and
one leg,  and you're a young, strong man. Basically you didn't put up enough
of a struggle." And he sentenced him to six weeks in jail as well.
     Toward the end of the night the SM was running around again.
     "Slow down on the drink, we'll take some of this back to the UK!"
     He was told: "Fuck off! We're going to drink it."
     Things were starting to get out of control. The city rugby team started
a fight with our team, so there was fisticuffs all over the  beach. Then the
nurses arrived.  An invitation had gone out to  all  the European nurses who
worked in the city; as  they started coming down  the steps toward the beach
club, there were shouts of "Piss off!" They  walked off  in disgust,  as one
would.
     The SM  closed down  the barbecues and bars, and everybody got his head
down on the  beach. Tiny woke  up on the sand in the morning  and said, "I'm
bored."
     The squadron was assembled, and the SM  said, "That's the  last time we
have a squadron do when we leave anywhere. It got totally out of control."
     Some  of the  senior  blokes stood  up and said,  "What  do you fucking
expect? You tear  the arse out of the VCs, you tear the arse out of the cost
of the drinks, then we're told it's for a party, and when we have the party,
you're running around trying to stop us enjoying ourselves."
     We came back to the UK and were told we had the weekend off but were to
be in the squadron interest room for  eight o'clock  on  the Tuesday morning
because the CO  wanted to  talk to us. We thought he was going to say, "Well
done, lads, good trip."
     The colonel walked in, followed by the SM and squadron O.C. "I've got a
letter here that I want you to listen to," he said. He read it; it came from
Cabinet level, and it was complaining about noisy and unruly behavior at the
beach club  in Muscat. There must  have been some very well-connected ex ats
there that night.
     p When he had finished, the colonel turned  to the SM and said, "Right,
you've got the sack."
     He turned to the O.C and said, "The only reason you're  being left here
is because I've got nobody to replace you."
     Then  he  turned  to us  and said, "They're  looking  at  disbanding  B
Squadron.  If that  happens, you're  all in the  shit."  Then he walked off.
Fuck, I thought, I've only been in twelve months, and I'm out on my ear.
     went home and told Debbie all about it.  By  now  we had a quarter, and
she had settled in  well. She had a job in  Hereford and was enjoying  being
back  in the UK.  I,  however,  was  still busy messing up the  marriage.  I
couldn't see past the end of  my  own selfish nose;  my priority was finding
out  what time  the  singleys were going  down town  for a night out. I  had
everything  I could  have asked for-the  Regiment and a partner to share the
benefits of that with-and I was screwing it up.
     "It's outrageous," I said to her, describing the CO's threat. "It could
all be over."
     "Oh,  that  was interesting," she said, miles away.  "I'm  off to  work
now."
     As I watched her drive away, it  dawned on me that she had her own life
now. Maybe, by being back,  I was an  embuggerance to  her. But there was no
time to dwell on such thoughts or try to sort anything out; there were phone
calls to be made, a night on the town to be organized.
     We went  to  her sister's  flat  for the weekend, staying in  the spare
bedroom. The  flat was above her mums greengrocer's shop, and  to get  in or
out, we had to go through the  shop and up two flights  of stairs. At night,
the door was locked and her sister kept the keys. All day  Saturday I  had a
strong  sense of  unease, a feeling of something not being right. I couldn't
work it  out, but that night, as we were getting  ready for bed and I  heard
her sister locking up, I thought: It's  because I'm being locked in. I don't
want that door to be locked and somebody else  to have the key.  And then it
hit me: It wasn't the  door; it was me. I was in  a marriage that was  going
nowhere,  because  I  had  never  given  it a  chance-and I  didn't feel any
inclination to start now. But if I carried on, all I'd be doing was screwing
about with her life.  The instant I'd had the thought, I said, "Debbie, I've
got something to tell you. I don't really want to be here."
     She looked up from the dressing table and smiled.
     Okay, we'll  leave in the morning  then. We can't really leave tonight;
it's too late."
     "No,  no.  You  don't  understand.  I  want  to  go.  I want  to  leave
everything."
     "What?" The smile slipped from  her  face as she realized  what  I  was
saying. She started to  cry. It  made me feel  even  more  of  a shit, but I
thought, If it's  got  to  be done, let's get it done before we get into the
realms of children.
     I left there and  then, I threw a few things in a  bag, went downstairs
to the first-floor window, and jumped.
     I only 'ever saw her once again after that.
     I moved into the block and started to save money to  put a deposit on a
house. It was  hard going  as I was not yet getting Special Forces  pay. Not
many  people lived in;  most  who did were  like  me, or had their  families
elsewhere,  or were simply new members of the squadron looking for somewhere
to live. The room was small, and my kit was everywhere.
     A friend gave  me a kettle; with  a pack of tea bags and a pint of milk
on the  window ledge, that was me sorted. I was running a Renault  5, no MOT
and no dashboard. I'd had to take it off  to sort out the wiring one day and
had never really got around to putting it back on.
     In  late  1985 I heard  that  I was going  away.  In one  way this  was
helpful. It  meant  I'd be  away from  the situation,  and  therefore, to my
immature way  of  thinking, that meant the  situation  would go away. On the
other hand, I was severely pissed ' off about where I was going.
     From what I'd heard, it was the absolute pits.
     Belize, we  were  told at  the  briefing, was  formerly  the colony  of
British Honduras and lay on the Caribbean coast of Central America.
     About the size of Wales,  it  had a population of 170,000-mostly  black
English  speakers-but  there was  also a growing  number of  Spanishspeaking
refugees from El Salvador.
     In the eighteenth century  the  British in  Jamaica  had  begun logging
hardwood on the mainland. By 1840 the territory had become a colony.
     Guatemala claimed that it had inherited  the territory  from  Spain but
nevertheless signed  a  treaty  with  Britain in  1859,  recognizing British
sovereignty and agreeing on  the  border. However, a  clause  in  the treaty
stated that  the  parties  had  to  build a  road  through the  jungle  from
Guatemala to the Caribbean coast.  The road had never  happened, and on that
basis Guatemala claimed that the 1859 treaty was invalid.
     The  government  even  inserted  a  clause into the  1945  constitution
stating that British Honduras  was  in fact part  of Guatemala, much as  the
Argentinians had with the Falklands.
     In the 1960s,  as  other British colonies in the Caribbean moved toward
independence, Guatemala  turned up  the heat. In 1963 it massed troops along
the border, and Britain sent forces to repel any invasion.
     British troops had been there ever since.
     In 1972 Guatemala had again assembled troops along the border, and this
time Britain sent the Ark Royal and several thousand men. In 1975, after yet
another threat, we installed a squadron of R.A.F Harriers.
     Finally, in 1980, Guatemala agreed to recognize Belize, but only if the
famous road  was built. There were riots  in Belize; people were killed. The
treaty wasn't ratified, and Guatemala went back to refusing to recognize its
neighbor.  Britain  had kept a  small  garrison  in Belize ever  since  as a
permanent deterrent  against incursions,  and we were going there as part of
that force.
     The maps consisted of vast areas of closely packed contour lines, which
were hills, covered in green,  which was jungle. There were  no proper roads
and very few tracks. As I was to discover  for myself, there were still open
sewers in  the towns, and a lot of the locals were none too friendly. One of
the lads in the unit before us had got his arm chopped off in a mugging.
     The British presence amounted to  something like an  infantry battalion
plus all the support-Harrier jump jets, artillery, the lot.
     And part of that  was  an  outfit called F  Company, basically  a dozen
Regiment  and SBS blokes.  It  had  quickly  been renamed F  Troop after the
comedy series about a U.S cavalry unit in the Wild West, manned by a load of
bumbling old idiots.
     I turned up in July. There were people  there that I already knew, like
Solid Shot, jock, and  Johnny two Combs, though Two-Combs was  due to return
to the UK soon.
     "You'll hate this place," were his words of welcome.
     He  was right. To a man, we loathed the garrison  on  sight.  Our rooms
were in semicircular tin huts  with  no air-conditioning, a really good idea
in Central America.
     The first thing we did was go and buy fans that then  stayed on for the
whole tour. In the rooms there were two metal lockers and two beds, and that
was it. I shared a room with Solid Shot.  The first evening  there we lay on
our  beds putting the world  to  rights and  thinking  of ways  to make  our
fortunes. Outside we could hear Des Doom hammering the "face of  the day" on
the punch bag.  Des's arms  and chest were covered with tattoos. "When I was
single," he said, "My chat-up line  was: 'If you don't  find me interesting,
you can  always read me."' He was due to get out; he'd decided  he wanted to
pursue other things  after only four years in  the Regiment; this was deemed
to be disloyal, and  he'd  been sent to Belize for the  whole duration of  B
Squadron's tour. He was severely bitter  and twisted about it and forever on
the bag; he always had many faces to "talk to."
     There  was  a  swimming  pool, but that was put out  of  bounds because
someone  had shit in  it one night in protest about the timings that favored
the  "families of," not the rest of the  garrison. Apart from the punch bag,
the  only training facilities  consisted  of some catering-size  baked  bean
cans, filled with concrete with  an iron bar stuck into each of them to form
makeshift weights.
     F Troop was part of a garrison and all the bullshit that that entailed.
Our  hut was part  of the  sergeants' mess,  but unless we  were  a Regiment
corporal or above, we couldn't use it, even though we were still expected to
pay the monthly fee the mess claimed.
     The team was therefore split into two groups, those who could go in the
mess and those who  couldn't, and I hadn't joined the Regiment for that sort
of  bullshit.  Tiny  was with us for three  weeks, filling in space  between
changeovers.  Being  a regimental  corporal,  he  could  have  gone  in  the
sergeants' mess but chose to come down to the cookhouse with us lowlife, but
then that was stopped. In the end just four of us  lepers would walk down to
the cookhouse; in fact it  turned  out for the best as they used to put on a
great Gurkha curry.
     Part of F Troop's job was to  be first-response unit if a commercial or
military aircraft went down in the jungle.
     We  would be the ambulance  brigade, steaming in with all the emergency
equipment and medical  aid kit  in a Puma. Having stabilized any casualties,
we would  then establish a  base  and try to enable other helis to  get  in,
which might  entail anything from blowing  winch holes to creating full-size
landing sites.
     Our entry into the crash site would not necessarily be straightforward.
We would hope to get in where the aircraft  had  crashed as the ground might
now be flattened, but  what if it was  still a ball of flame or just a light
aircraft?  We  therefore had to  practice  abseiling into  I the jungle  and
getting in all the emergency equipment that would be needed.
     There  were four  of us  on  standby at  any given  time; the rest went
patrolling in the jungle for a week or two. I hated being in the camp almost
as much as  I loved being in the jungle. There was nothing to dc in the camp
apart from going for a run, then waiting for the most exciting event  of the
day, tea and toast at 11:00 A.M.
     I had a definite feeling  of: What have I done wrong to be here for the
next five months  . We  felt  like  social outcasts. I'd wondered why people
tried to  avoid being sent here at all costs; I  now knew the reason, One of
the small reliefs from the  boredom was practicing entry  into a crash site.
It required  enough kit to fill two  Land Rovers: five-gallon  jerry cans of
water, medical equipment, a generator, lights, food,  shelters-everything we
would need to get on site and start to  sort  these people out-plus our  own
bergens.
     On practice days we drove down and met the pilots by the Puma ' At this
time of the year the main topic of conversation was what crews were going to
be  on standby over  Christmas, as they wanted  to  book  a car and drive to
Cancun for the holiday.
     The pilot would say to me, the sucker with the kit, "Same place?"
     "Why not?" I'd reply. "We have to keep the troops entertained."
     They  would  stand  there  drinking Cokes  and watch  us  load  all the
equipment,  rig up the ropes,  put our harnesses on',  and sit in  the heli;
we'd then wait for the  rotors to wind up and cool us down. The weather only
ever  did one  of  two things:  It  was  either pissing  down with  rain  or
scorching hot. The Royal Engineers would be coming out  of their own  little
camp  they  had  made  for  themselves;  using all their  skills,  they  had
constructed a bar and  barbecue area with chairs and  benches, and without a
doubt it  was the most  organized area on the  camp. I wished at  times like
this that I'd stayed at school and got some 0 levels.
     Off we  went flying around Belize for  a while, doors open and enjoying
the view and the cool wind. The heli came to a  hover at  1SO feet'above the
football pitch, and the  engineers, dressed in shorts and flip-flops, and by
now on their second bottle of ice-cold Coke, had their scorecards ready.
     The first two at the door got ready, and I threw the jungle penetrators
out. One of the blokes was Terry,  an ex-Royal Marine now in  Mountain Troop
and known among other  things as Fat Boy. Not because he was, but he had the
largest chest I'd ever seen.  He  was about  five feet ten inches  and built
like a brick shithouse. One of the downsides of working with the SBS-come to
that,  all Royal  Marines-was  that  they  seemed  always  to  be  tall  and
good-looking.  This made  us come across like a bag of shit. We decided that
Fat  Boy had come to  the Regiment instead  of the SBS because he would have
failed the Good Looks Selection; his face looked as if life had been chewing
on it.
     The  other  man,  in  the  opposite door,  was the  troop  senior,  Joe
Ferragher.  Joe was a monster of a man, sixteen stone, and over six feet. He
was very quiet; it was like getting blood out of  a stone to get him to talk
sometimes, but when he did, there was no stopping him.
     He  was  the gentle  giant, except for one occasion when travelers took
over  his house while he was away. Joe went to visit them on his return, and
after  ten  minutes they  decided that  they  didn't  want to exercise their
squatters' rights after all. To show that there were no hard  feelings,  Joe
sent flowers to all of them in hospital.
     A  "jungle  penetrator" is  basically a  heavy sack containing  a  rope
inserted  in such  a way that it doesn't tangle. Because  it has  a weighted
bottom, it smashes into the  canopy and  allows  you to work your way to the
ground. Once the two-hundred-foot abseiling rope was on the ground, Joe  and
Fat Boy  would start to ease themselves out  of the  heli so that their feet
were on the deck and their bodies were at forty-five degrees to the ground.
     The abseller is attached to the rope by a figure of eight device.
     He remains locked in position until he pulls up some slack from beneath
him and  feeds it into the  figure  of  eight; the best position is one that
gives least resistance  to the  rope as  it  travels through, and that  is a
crucifix position with the  body  araliel to the ground  p and  arms running
along the rope, controlling it. If  there is a drama, the' man on the ground
pulls down on the rope, locking the figure of eight.
     The first  two down did not have that luxury. Out they went, the weight
of the rope making it extremely hard to pull up enough slack.
     The effect was the  same  as  if someone  was on the ground pulling the
rope, which was why Fat Boy and Joe went first; it took a lot of aggression.
Sometimes it all went to  ratshit and people landed up banging into the heli
and getting caught up. This was a quite funny sight, especially if they then
started to lose control of the rope and  got  to  the ground  with lumps all
over their heads and hands that looked as if they'd been in a toaster.
     The engineers were by now giving points for style.
     "Not  as good as the team last month, but  the  heli  has stayed in the
hover better," they were probably saying as they  went  for their third Coke
and changed position for a better tan.
     Once the boys were  down  they would man the ropes and control  the kit
that was to follow. We would rig it the same as if  it  was a  body and then
heave  it out one at a time after the  count of three.  We tried a different
method  every  time,  but it was just reinventing the wheel; we  decided the
best  way  was to grab it and just throw  it out. Once all that was  done we
followed; the heli'  would  then  leave and  get  back to  base  as soon  as
possible. Like us,  the pilots were hoping to get back for 4:00 P.m. tea and
toast, the second  most  exciting thing to  happen in camp.  The Land Rovers
would come and pick  us up; the Royal Engineers would drag their chairs back
to their lair.
     "Not as fast as D Squadron when they were here, but there you go.
     Shall we have another Coke?"
     The rest of the time we'd go out and patrol,  gathering information and
basically preparing  for if the  Guats invaded. We'd go as maybe  a four- or
six-man patrol, dropped in by  helicopter, and spend ten to fourteen days on
different tasks in and around the border. I loved it.
     The only local industries seemed to be grapefruit, 'juana, whoring, and
supplying and working for the marl British Army. I was told that  a third of
Belize's income came from cannabis. Apparently there used to be big frenzies
where the police  would go over and burn a couple of fields just so that the
government could say, "That's it, we're fighting  the drug problem." But for
every  field  it  burned,  there  were  another twenty  left. It  brought in
revenue, so there was no way they  were going to destroy it. We had  nothing
to do with  countering  the drugs problem in Central America; everybody just
accepted it as part of business that went on in that part of the world.
     About an hour away from our camp on a dirt road lived  Gilbert.  He was
an  Indian with a  smallholding that fed his large family. To  help him make
ends meet, he would come into the jungle with us and help build shelters and
tach helicopter crews and Harrier pilots jungle survival; if they were still
living once they'd creamed in, they could keep themselves ticking over until
we got there.  He would also come  with us when  we trained  NCOs of the new
battalion  manning  the garrison  in jungle tactics so that they could teach
their men. Belize was an operational posting, and the battalion had hard job
ahead  of  it. This was the good part  of the tour for us as at least we did
achieve something.
     Gilbert's  house  was built  from  breeze blocks, corrugated  iron, and
noise. Inside was just  one very big room, with  a curtain dividing off  his
bedroom from the two double beds that housed his eight children.
     The running water was  a  hose  pipe  connected to  a main; the outside
toilet was a  pit. He always  made us welcome with  coffee and some food; we
would take a bottle of Famous Grouse to return the hospitality. He had lived
in and around the  jungle all of his life, and there were always  new things
that he could show us. We drove up to see him about a course that  was going
to be happening and started talking about the amount of drugs that seemed to
leave Belize for the U.S.
     He said, "People do not see it as  a problem here. if  they want to use
it, fine; people here are more than happy to make money from it.
     If you go thirty minutes further along this road, it becomes very good,
no  potholes  and each side is cleared of trees and bush. This is  where the
drugs are picked  up. They  mark  the  road  with  cars, and  it's used as a
runway. At night you can hear the planes coming in to pick it up.
     Who cares? If America wants to use drugs, let them."
     It was a relief to get away from that sort of stuff. In the bergen we'd
carry just enough food for the duration of the patrol. We had  just one main
scoff a day, which  normally consisted of  rice or pasta, something that was
dehydrated that  we'd add water to; as in all jungles, there was  no problem
here with water.
     As my dry  clothing,  I took a  pair of trainers, a  pair of  socks,  a
camouflage  T-shirt, and  a  pair of  OG (olive green) shorts-fifties  khaki
National Service Far East shorts that look  like  something out of It  Ain't
Half Hot Mum. I  had a'space blanket  to wrap around me at night, a  poncho,
and a hammock, and that was it. The  less I had to carry, the less knackered
I would get.
     Belt kit  consisted  of spare  magazines,  a T.A.C.B.E (tactical beacon
radio) per man, water, first-aid kit, and emergency rations. On my belt  kit
I used to carry three water bottles-six pints of water-but would continually
fill them up anyway, always adding Steritabs for decontamination.  The water
tasted shit,  and  tea  made  with it tasted no  better.  Part  of the  SOPs
(standard operating procedures)  was  that every man carried a fifteen-meter
loopline (inch-thick nylon webbing strap) and carabiner.
     We had to cross a lot of rivers; the first man put the snap link around
him with the loopline and swam like a man possessed over to  the other side.
He rigged up the loopline and everybody else came over with his kit attached
to it. The rivers were incredibly swollen and screamed along.
     On my body all the time were my two Syrettes of morphine, my golack, my
watch, my Silva compass, and my  map. My  golack  hung on a bit  of paracord
around my waist, and was  now a Gurkha  kukri  rather than the British  Army
issue, known as a tree beater, which was no good to man or beast; all it did
was beat the tree up, it didn't really cut it.
     Indigenous people in the jungle use a golack where the top of the blade
is heavier, so that the momentum of the blade does the cutting.
     Most people tended to use the old Than  type of golack or,  like  me, a
kukri. It had a nice heavy bit at the top and could slice through trees like
a chain saw.
     Kit-for-task included the  patrol radio and medical  pack.  If we  were
doing anything around the borderputting an observation post  in, say-all the
materials for that would have to be taken in as well.
     High  humidity combined with sweltering heat meant that in theory there
was a definite  limit to how much kit a man  could carry; the maximum should
have been around fifteen kilograms, but it could be much more.
     Mess tins were thrown  away  because they  were  pretty  useless things
anyway. All that was needed was a metal mug and a small nonstick frying pan,
ideal for boiling rice.
     The most popular weapon to take into  the jungle was the M16 or 203. It
rarely needed cleaning, so we didn't have to waste time and energy trying to
keep our weapons in good condition.
     One bloke never used to touch his M16 at all, out of principle.
     He  said, "I  know that it's going  to work, I  know that the  weapon's
reliable,  so I don't need to clean it." And the fact is, if you squeeze the
trigger  and it goes bang  and a round comes out of the end, that's all  you
want.
     There were  some practices  in the  jungle that  newcomers perceived as
bone when in  fact  they weren't.  One  of  them concerned headbands; in the
normal army  such fashion accessories  were perceived as  la'ry-big-time and
Ramboish.  But moving through  the jungle meant losing a lot of body fluids.
Your face was covered with cam cream and mozzie rep, and if it ran into your
eyes, it stung fearsomely  and attacked your vision: not advisable if you're
out there as scout.
     Hence the headbands.
     Every time we walked into a  village  near the border the  locals would
scatter.  The Guats  used  to come over the river and steal  their  women at
gunpoint, and to the villagers one set of jungle camouflage looked very like
another because they couldn't see the pattern for mud and wet.
     The villages were little more than a collection of wooden huts.
     Pigs wallowed in  puddles of mud; chickens and children ran between the
huts or  on the small football pitch that every village had. The kids didn't
care if we were Guats or Brits; they always came up, hoping we were going to
give them something. I loved them; they didn't understand  us  and we didn't
understand them, but we had some good fun.
     Some vi lages were just starting t'o get electricity on a generator and
visits from  American Peace Corps  volunteers.  Like modemday  missionaries,
these fresh-faced twenty-year-olds  were bringing  in hygiene and preventive
medicine,  and the lot of the villagers was improving-or  so the  volunteers
said. The fact was, these people had lived like  this for hundreds of years.
They now  had  new illnesses, a new culture and religion. The soul  of these
villages  had  been dragged away to  the town. The kids  now wanted  to wear
Levi's and smoke American cigarettes. As soon as they were  old enough, they
left.
     First stop on our visit  was always the headman. we,d go  up, shake his
hand, and say, "Hello, mate, all right  then? How's it going? Any chance  of
using your  hut, or what?" He, too, would start gabbing off, probably taking
the piss. His  hut would  also be  the local town hall,  and we were usually
welcome  to  put  up  there  for the night-in  exchange  for  a  magazine or
something from the rations. Using that as a  base, we'd do our little hearts
and minds bit.  As  soon as the  villagers  realized  we  weren't Guats  but
friendly Brits with  a  party-size  medical pack, they'd be turning  up with
babies and young kids with coughs and runny noses and old men with sores and
cuts.  Although  we were carrying loads of medical equipment, we  had  to be
careful in what we dispensed.
     These people  were  not used  to  Western drugs yet; give  a bloke  two
aspirins  and he'd  be flat  on his  back. Half of  what  we gave  them  was
placebo, a spoonful of water that we pretended was a magic concoction.
     Throw it down the baby's neck and the mother was happy.
     The long wooden hut  with a grass roof would house a whole family, from
grandparents to  babies.  In  one corner there would  be a  mud cooker and a
sheet of metal that was used as the grill. This was where the tortillas were
cooked; the basic food was  corn  that they grew  by burning down the jungle
and spending weeks clearing.
     Coming in and out would be small pigs, chickens, and more kids.
     The hut would be thick with smoke, both wood and cigarette.
     The villagers lived an incredibly basic lifestyle, but I enjoyed  being
allowed to share a little of it. I got a buzz out of going back to a village
six weeks later and seeing that an injury I'd sutured up had  healed or that
a kid who had been on her back with croup was running around on the football
pitch again.
     We weren't there  entirely to patch up their injuries and illnesses, of
course. While I was treating them, I'd be asking about the Guats and whether
any of  them had been  over.  We slowly built up relationships, and over the
period of a tour we would come to recognize each other.
     Besides giving us  information, they'd give  us useful  tips  about the
jungle, such as where the fish were hiding and which were the best plants to
boil up and eat.
     We did a  lot of liaison work with the Harriers. Part of our job in the
event of hostilities would have been calling in air strikes on predesignated
targets on  the  other  side  of  the border,  such  as  power  stations and
desalination plants. We would go in, mark the targets, and talk the Harriers
in. We spent a lot of time practicing on the net with the pilots, because it
was  quite difficult to  bring  an  aircraft  in  over  the  canopy. We used
air-marker balloons, which penetrate  the canopy and leave an orange balloon
stuck up above the tree line as an identification marker and would then talk
them on from that.
     Being  an idle fucker, I liked jungle living.  There were only two bits
of kit  to look after-wet and dry.  Most  of the time we  were sitting down,
brewing  up and drinking  tea with the locals. But  best of  all, we weren't
spending  money. I still didn't have enough money  to  put a deposit  on the
house, so  I was using this trip  to save up every penny I could. To save on
stamps, I  wasn't writing home to anybody, and there were no letters  coming
back.
     Sandy had come into the Regiment a year after me.
     He was a public schoolboy who went wrong somewhere and joined  the army
as a torn.  I knew he was clever  because  he  used a  fountain pen to write
letters with. He was about my age and height  and was very into the weights.
He wasn't massive, but  he had  a male model's  physique,  which annoyed me.
Luckily he had  really horrible hair, like a mass of rusty wire wool. He was
having  deja  vu, having just spent six  months in Belize with his battalion
before going for Selection and was mightily pissed off.
     He  said it  was even more boring for  him  than  last time around.  at
isrize  I'd first met him when we were free-falling Norton.  He had a midair
collision with one,of the instructors; as they both fell to earth with their
canopies like a bag of washing, I  saw Sandy start kicking to get out of the
tangle. As he landed and sorted himself out he said, "Fair one," and left it
at that. He knew he couldn't put the blame on the  instructor as  they would
close ranks. He had only been two hundred feet from creaming in.
     Sandy and I came in off a two-week patrol around the border, and  after
sorting our weapons out, we headed straight for the shower rooms for the big
degunging process. You take everything in with you: all  your  clothes,  all
the  kit that you'd used, your  webbing, your belt kit, and you just dump it
in the shower and scrub it all clean.
     When that's done, you get yourself sorted out; the priority, as always,
is your weapon, your kit, yourself.
     There was Sandy  and me standing  under the cold shower,  fully  clothe
cleaning our frying pans and other bits and pieces.
     "Are we going to sort this wagon for Cancun at Christmas?" I said.
     '  ' 'We'll have to  get hold of Joe and find out who's  going to be on
standby. We can hire a Land Rover and ,get down there."
     After  the kit we showered  ourselves  with our uniform and  boots  on,
washing our clothes with soap as if we were washing our bodies. Then we took
it off, rinsed out our boots, and finally washed ourselves.
     Once  that was done the real  business started. In the jungle, you  get
infested with little ticks, and  you've got  big zits on  your back  and all
this sort of shit. Most of them are in places that you can't reach yourself,
so your mate has to oblige.
     Sandy came out of the shower and said, "I've got some ticks in my back.
Are you going to get them out for us?"
     He bent over the sink while I got up behind  him and busied myself with
grooming his back,  and that's how we were, both in the nude,  when an R.A.F
officer  came  in  to use  the  urinal. He sort  of  trumpeted like  a rogue
elephant,  did a smart about-turn, and marched off to report two homosexuals
in the shower block. It was quite funny after the fuss had died down and our
explanation had been accepted, and  whenever I saw the officer after that, I
always made a point of blowing him a kiss.
     There  was a delightful  place toward Belize  City called Raoul's  Rose
Garden. The first  time  I  was taken there  I  was  expecting some sort  of
elegant colonial tearoom with a pianist  and little cucumber sandwiches, but
it turned out to be a run-down breeze block building with rickety tables and
chairs and even more rickety whores.
     It  was a typically  stinking Central American setting. I got bitten by
more  mozzies inside than  outside,  and  the  band  played nonstop  Central
American classics. The one good thing about  the Rose Garden was that it was
out of bounds to all the squaddies. The young lads would always be trying to
get  in there  or  the  other  whorehouses and  coming back  with horrendous
syphilis.
     Sometimes I'd.  see  them coming back from the  town, arm in arm with a
whore they had fallen in  love with, girls who were basically after a  quick
marriage and a passport to the UK when the unit left.
     The  Royal  Marines  were  the  resident  battalion at  the time. Every
morning at  six-thirty their HQ and support companies would be lined  up and
doing  a  three-mile circuit of the camp. Wandering up the  road toward  the
guardroom  would be one of  the garrison  personnel, like  an Ordnance Corps
bloke  or  a Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers  fitter, hand in hand
with  some hooker, and  the two  hundred bootnecks would run  past  and give
their marks out of ten.
     One young  bloke from  the Catering  Corps  married  a Central American
Indian. She was five feet nothing and stunningly beautiful; in  her mind she
wasn't a whore, she was just earning money.  She  went  back  to the UK as a
wife,  spent a  year  in  Catterick,  and was  getting shagged fearsomely by
anyone in uniform. Every man and his  dog were  roaring up this blokes wife,
and she was  getting paid for  it  as well.  Obviously  the marriage went to
ratshit, and she  came  back, resuming  her  place  on the  career ladder at
Raoul's and passing around the  photographs: "That's me outside the NAAFI in
Catterick, and there's me on a day's shopping trip in York."
     Every  Friday night  the sergeants'  mess of the  garrison had a  do-an
open-invite  occasion,  basically trying to get all the local  women to come
into  the camp.  They came  in  their  droves, but  it wasn't  the music and
conversation that attracted them; it was the  offer of chicken  and chips at
ten o'clock. The  local girls dolled themselves up to the nines and tried to
look their best for the occasion.
     We were lying on our beds, watching the fan go around and around.
     One of the blokes had got a letter from his kids. They'd done a drawing
of them taking the dog for a walk, but it looked more like a man in a noose.
"I need  that picture,"  I said. "I  want  to  stick it on the wall, because
that's what I'm going to do  if I have  to  stay in Belize any  longer.  I'm
going to fucking hang myself."
     jock had got a  letter  from  his  future  wife, telling him that their
marriage had been placed on the back burner.
     He was severely down because  there  was nothing  he  could do about it
from that distance, so we decided to give him a night out. We  made a  punch
from a couple of bottles of rum and a tin of pineapple chunks and sat in his
room for  an hour or two, listening to the party that we were not allowed to
go to and putting the world to  rights. By about half past  eleven everybody
was  revved up and  I suddenly heard myself saying, "Right, we'll go down to
Raoul's."
     We  got  the admin corporal out  of bed and told him to organize a Land
Rover. By the time we got  there, some  people from  the sergeants' mess had
also turned up, senior ranks with their shirts and ties hanging off, chasing
the working girls around the tables.
     One of the senior ranks joined in with the band and tried to teach them
a   Mungo    Jerry   number.   Things   got    out    of   hand,   and   the
management-Raoul-phoned up the MPs.
     Two young lance corporals arrived and told us we all had to leave.
     We knew that recruits to  the  Military Police were immediately given a
rank to give them some authority, and we didn't take kindly to these lads of
nineteen or twenty saying, "Can you switch on? Get in the wagon, we'll drive
you back to camp." It was the sensible thing to do, but fuck them.
     They knew the sergeants would go, because  they  weren't  going to risk
being gabby to a lance jack who  was only doing his  job. However, there was
no way they were  going to take  us; we had nothing to do with the  garrison
people and were not causing any trouble. There was a little  bit of a to-do,
and after about half  an hour of listening to the MPs pleading, we relented.
They dropped us off outside  F  Troop lines;  the  officers'  and sergeants'
messes were  more  or  less -adjacent to each other,  and in  between was  F
Troop.
     It was  incredibly hot this particular night, and as soon as we got in,
we took our clothes off and hung around in  our skiddies and flip-flops.  My
head was  spinning. Everybody was sitting on the beds  honking about all and
sundry, and we finally decided to have a scoff.
     I got the hexy burner out on the step and fried up bits of Spam.
     There was stuff strewn all over the place because everybody was pissed,
and by now even the skiddies had come off.
     Unfortunately, just as our barbecue party was  in  full swing, all  the
officers and their wives started to come out of the mess. The ruperts had an
instant monk on because there were these  naked squaddies lying on the grass
in star  shapes, farting and shouting at  each other,  giggling, pissed, and
falling over. Spam  was  flying everywhere, and in  places the  grass was on
fire.
     One of the officers came over and said, "I think you ought to pack this
in now."
     Sandy replied, "I think you ought to fuck off."
     The  officer  went storming off, and even in  my state I  had  a  funny
feeling it wasn't the last we'd hear of this.
     I woke up in the morning, and the place was in shit state.
     Holding a wet  towel  around my head,  I  thought,  Right, we'd  better
police the joint. Everybody dragged himself outside with a bucket  and  mop,
and we transformed the area.  Then  we  had to go and see the bloke who  was
running F Troop at the  time, who  just happened to  be B Squadron's  SM, in
Belize for three weeks.
     "The shit's hit the fan about this,"  he shouted, "and  the  fan is not
amused."
     It was suggested  we make a voluntary  contribution  to squadron funds.
VCs could be  anything from a  fiver up to hundreds of  pounds, depending on
how  much shit had hit what particular fan. Three  of us were awarded ,f300;
two others,  f250. It was a severe blow,  considering that Sandy and I  were
saving so hard  that  we  were  even going  around collecting rejected  soap
fragments out of the washrooms and pressing them all together to make a bar,
using  other  people's  razor blades  despite the  risk  of  hepatitis,  and
salvaging  "sums"-empty   bottles  from  gassy   drinks  like  Coca-Cola  or
Cherryade-and taking them down to the choggy shop for a refund of two  cents
a bottle.
     I was  devastated at the loss of so much money, but as one door closed,
another door  opened.  Two weeks later a money-making opportunity  presented
itself.
     A scaley  attached to the  Regiment during the time it was operating in
the jungles of Borneo now  owned a  hotel on San Pedro, an island far out in
the keys. He had I kept  in  contact with F  Troop and telephoned one day to
say that although San Pedro was a very beautiful place, what was holding the
place  back  as  a tourist trap was the fact that  the water  was sulfurous'
However, it had  just been  discovered  that under the layer of lime was the
world's supply of freshwater.
     "I can't  afford  to get outside contractors to bore down to it because
of the expense of bringing all the machinery over," the ex-scaley said. "You
don't know anybody handy with explosives, do you?"
     Just possibly.
     Des, Solid  Shot,  and  I  went  down  to  the  stores and  found  some
old-fashioned engineer's  beehive  charges, used to make craters in runways.
They  were  rusting and flaking, but we hoped they  would  do  the business,
penetrate the  lime, expose  the  freshwater, and give us all  a payday. One
Friday night the  three of  us  boarded  a  Gemini inflatable with a  Yamaha
engine on the back, laden with explosives and fuel, a  floating bomb. We got
on the river by the airport camp and then navigated down to the coast.
     San Pedro was so far away it wasn't visible from the mainland.
     For  navigation we had just an ordinary 1 in  50,000 tourist map; there
was this little speck in the middle of the Caribbean that was San Pedro, and
we just took a bearing and off we went.
     After a few hours we passed a ship en route to Belize City. The captain
hailed  us and  asked if we  were  all right.  "No  problems." We  waved and
smiled, trying to cover the beehives  and firing cable. We must  have looked
like terrorists.
     "Where are you going?"
     "San Pedro."
     He threw his hands in the air and went back into the wheelhouse.
     The first place  we  were trying to find with our map and Silva compass
was called Hick's Island. From there we took another bearing, and four hours
later,  with  just  one  fuel bladder left,  we motored  into  San Pedro. We
spotted a body lying in a hammock and said we wanted to  find the main quay,
which was near the airstrip.
     "Well,  man," she  said, "it's like further  up  there. Nice to see you
guys, you  know,  like-wow." She  had a lovely tattoo of a  butterfly on her
ankle; pity she was in her late fifties and beaten half to death by the sun.
     It was  a beautiful  island;  most  of the  inhabitants  were Americans
seeking  an alternative lifestyle. The scaley  was a little lock with a  big
white bushy beard.  He looked  really  excited to see us-or maybe it was the
two bottles of Famous Grouse we handed over.
     We  started digging  the next day. We had to  go down  about  twelve to
fifteen feet to reach the lime layer, but raw materials were at a premium on
the  island. There weren't any boards or corrugated iron  sheets  to  put up
around the  sand,  and  every time we dug down,  it caved in. We finally got
down to about two foot above the lime, rigged up the beehive charge, and Des
initiated it.
     It was a big occasion. All the hippies had gathered around to watch the
clever Brits  reach down  to the  first  freshwater  they'd ever seen on the
island. That  only  made  it even  more embarrassing when the  charge didn't
penetrate. We tried again, and then we ran out of explosives.
     "I've  heard  sulfurous  water is  good  for  you."  I  beamed  at  the
ex-scaley. "Maybe you could market the place as a spa?"
     We had  three days  walking  around the hotel  making  excuses; then we
headed  back to the  mainland with  our tails between our legs. No water, no
money.
     In the jungle even a simple cut can become a serious problem.
     Fungi, parasites,  and exotic diseases battle to prevent your body from
healing. Fat Boy went out on a patrol and came back in shit state.
     He'd gone  down with bilharzia and a liver infection and looked like  a
ghost.
     He was in the military hospital for a long time.
     Soon after the San  Pedro trip I went  back  on the border  and got  an
injury on my  knee; within days  the joint  had swollen  up  like a football
covered in scabby zits.
     When I bent my knee, pus oozed out, and I could hear the joints creak.
     Before  long I had trouble moving at all, and had to be casevacked out.
It was nearly Christmas, and I  thought, This  is  all  rather nice, I'll be
home in time for the Morecambe and Wise show.
     Casualties had to  be escorted  back, and I  was told that  a nurse was
being sent over  from Woolwich hospital to come and get me. In my mind I had
a  vision of  a Bo Derek look-alike holding my hand and soothing my brow all
the way to Washington and then on to the UK. By the time we got to Woolwich,
I had us practically engaged.
     I packed my kit and was all ready to go on the Wednesday  night flight.
I was lying on  my bed when the  nurse arrived and was introduced to  me. Bo
had aged  a  lot-and lost  a lot of hair and grown  a  big mustache and beer
belly. There  wasn't much of  a sense of humor about Nigel either. I got the
feeling he belonged to one of those end-of-the-world-is-nigh sects and would
retire to San Pedro.
     I spent two or three days at Woolwich hospital but was back in Hereford
in time for turkey  and Christmas pud. Not long after that, I heard  that my
offer had been accepted on a house in Hereford; at last I was a fullyfledged
homeowning yuppie. All I needed now was ten thousand more empty Coke bottles
and I'd be able to buy something to sit on.
     it was a two-up, two-down thing, one of those new Westbury-type houses.
The asking price  was twenty-five grand, but  . I was  feeling  really  good
because, the big-time negotiator, I'd got it down to twenty-four and a half.
     The place was very  basic, and I didn't have  the  time or money  to do
anything about  it. To save on bills, I didn't have the gas reconnected, and
boiled  water for