by Simon Cursey
In other tests picture books were presented to me that contained strange shapes and shadowed objects. I had to tell them what I could see, a bit like the Rorschach test, while the interrogators flipped the pages over every couple of seconds: not so simple, when you are being pushed to answer as quickly as possible. I was also made to sit for extended periods on a one-legged stool with my feet together – a task that would have been much easier if I was allowed to plant them apart to maintain balance. Meanwhile my friends in the dark suits continually fired words at me, and I had to reply quickly with the first word association that came into my head. I was being constantly stressed both physically and mentally, which was of course the whole point. At other times, I was made to sit for what seemed like hours on that stool, bag on head and hands tied, alone in the room while the Int. guys went off to lunch. On other occasions I would also just have to sit still and quiet for sometimes a couple of hours, without moving, speaking or getting up. I was sure we were being watched so I sat there thinking, focusing on pleasant things like holidays I’d recently had or roast chicken meals with roast potatoes and veg, finishing off with a rum-and-raisin sponge pudding … wonderful! It made the time fly by.
Other methods used in the initial selection/training involved observation exercises, such as going into a windowless or blacked-out room for a few minutes and then afterwards having to write down as many items as I could remember seeing in there. After practicing this many times, I then had to do the same except in pitch darkness, feeling around on hands and knees for objects and later describing exactly what they were.
I was made to write down the descriptions of my fellow colleagues and friends, estimating their height, weight and ages. To pass I needed to be accurate to within two inches for height, five pounds for weight and five years for age. Age wasn’t really a problem in the beginning as we all knew how old most of our friends were. But later, I had to go through all this again, describing relative strangers wondering around our base camp. There are in fact some methods and tricks which can help, such as comparing someone’s height relative to the top of an average car, or comparing someone’s figure with a standard-sized doorway or window frame.
These kinds of test carried on for another two weeks, and for most days and a couple of nights a week, for eight to ten hours every day. At the end of each session, as we all finished for the day, we were reminded not to talk to anyone not involved.
We were all effectively in quarantine during this period and weren’t allowed out on the streets of Belfast in uniformed patrols. The Intelligence guys told us that we couldn’t even mix too much with our friends or make any reference to what was going on if we contacted our families back home. That didn’t bother me too much as I rarely called home anyway. We were told that we had to keep a low profile, keep in uniform, but generally stay out of sight for security reasons. Therefore we stuck together, watching TV or playing cards and generally keeping fit, for most of the little free time we had.
Physical fitness training wasn’t, or didn’t appear to be, much of a priority during this initial selection phase. We were anyway all extremely fit, with most of us having strong sporting backgrounds at regimental and Army level. However, we did have to spend many afternoon sessions training on the ‘confidence course’, building up our agility and strength, climbing around and swinging like monkeys on the elevated obstacle frames.
In later years, when the unit shook out a little, was more settled into its main roles and had departmentalised its responsibilities, the selection process was obviously modified, especially because it was recruiting from all arms of the British Armed Forces. But during this chaotic period in the early 1970s, when the British Government and the Army were under extreme stress in Ulster, and with anarchy and civil war threatening, we felt that our selection and training was being focused more on an individual’s determination and ability to keep going, to function and calmly work alone under pressure. The training was designed to enable us to operate in the kind of harsh deadly environment we would soon be experiencing, rather than spending valuable time building our fitness to the level of supermen. Most ‘contacts’ are over in less than a minute, so you don’t have to be a marathon runner; but you do have to master your adrenaline and shoot straight if you want to live.
So we were told that keeping our fitness levels up was our own affair. As it was, we spent most of our free time in the gym and took regular night-time runs for enjoyment. Later, of course, the penny dropped and we realised that leaving all this up to us was another test, to see whether we would swing the lead if given the chance. They wanted to observe us and discover if we had the motivation, determination and self-discipline to go out at night, in all weather conditions, and in our own free time.… In fact, we actually were being constantly observed, 24 hours a day, by someone or something.
Overall, it was a strange kind of selection process. In the past when I had been on training courses in the Army or in civilian life, the training staff would generally help and give encouragement. However, on this course-selection, as they called it, the staff never gave any encouragement or assistance whatsoever. They were always very quiet and withdrawn, only making whispered comments to each other. If we had the determination, focus and drive, we could complete the tasks to an acceptable standard; if not, we couldn’t and that was that. Sometimes the staff actually suggested to one or another of us that we should give up and pack it in, subtly encouraging us to fail. If we got fed up with it all, we could simply leave – and the staff trainers were happy to see that happen. No one got us out of bed in the morning and we never had a break till the end of the day’s training, except half an hour for a grabbed lunch.
We were simply told to be ready at a set time and if we were late, we were out; there were no other punishments as there would normally be in the Army. They were constantly trying to drive the emotionally weaker volunteers away and making no attempt to train or teach us anything. They just continued to test our drive, determination, maturity, stability and initiative. Either we had what it took, or we didn’t.
The only other process I am familiar with that adopts a similar approach is SAS selection. Perhaps that’s why they call it ‘selection’. On a course, you learn things but on selection, you should already know! And they select only the people they want, the people that make the grade.
It wasn’t until some weeks later, after these sessions had finished, that I learned about the type of work I could expect to be involved in.
Late one afternoon, after we had finished for the day and we were all watching the TV, our OC sent a message and called us in to see him – or rather, three of us. ‘Take a seat and sit down,’ he said as we entered, wondering if this was goodbye or congratulations.
But he confirmed that we had passed the initial selection process for the MRF and that we would be leaving to start full training within the next 48 hours. He actually seemed a little emotional and began telling us that he was very proud that three of his men out of a battalion of 1,000 had been chosen for Special Duties. He wished us all well and said for us to work hard and not to let the battalion down.
‘Thanks, we’ll do our best,’ we all said, almost in unison, and then as we were about to leave his office, the OC revealed something more to us.
‘By the way,’ he said. ‘Part of the testing you’ve been going through over the last few weeks was to see if any of you talked to your friends about what you have been doing.’ We glanced at each other: had anybody said anything? ‘Your Section Commanders had been briefed earlier, to find out as much as they could from you about the MRF and the tests you’ve been undergoing.’ Then with a smile he said, ‘Well done, you three kept your mouths shut.’
I remember thinking that it was a sneaky thing to do, getting our friends to spy on us and to try and get us to spill the beans for them. However, this appears to be standard procedure as you move forward into the world of espionage, sabotage and a little subversion thrown in for good measure.
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nbsp; On the way out of the office, the CSM grabbed us and growled, ‘Well done you lads, you made it and I know it wasn’t easy. Now pack all your uniforms and equipment, then bring them to the company stores in the morning for safe-keeping. You’ll not need any of it for a long while.’ Then he underlined the instruction: ‘Make sure it’s all your kit, even things like photographs which have anything military in them. And you want to take absolutely nothing military with you at all. That also includes your ID cards and dog tags. You three are finished with the military system, for a while anyway.’ He wished us lots of luck.
I thanked him and thought, as I walked back to my room, that I might need some of that luck in the near future. I was still a little unsure of what was going to happen over the next couple of days and didn’t fully understanding what I was getting into. But take nothing military? Not even any ID? My brother’s line about cannon fodder drifted through my mind again.
All we knew was what we’d been told up to then, which would easily fit on the back of a postage stamp, but I had a feeling we would know a lot more quite soon. We were assured by the OC that we could RTU (return to unit) at any time during the next few weeks, if we wished, after learning more of what the MRF was all about. If any of us were unhappy about it, we could jump off and come back to the battalion with no hard feelings on any side. If however, we decided to stay after initial training, we’d be there for up to three years, no arguments. After getting this far, I didn’t think for a moment that I’d pack it all in and I was looking forward to the training process we were about to embark on.
After a big sausage, eggs and bacon breakfast the following morning, we presented all our kit as instructed, and it was sorted and packed away in the company stores. Almost everything we possessed had to be given up; nothing was left out except our washing gear, civilian clothes and things like personal radios or hi-fis. At about 10:30 hrs, the CSM sent a message that we had to be outside his office and ready to leave at 15:00 hrs, and that a vehicle would be waiting to pick us up. We kept ourselves to ourselves during the intervening period, hanging around on our beds, listening to a friend’s John Denver LP and singing along to songs like ‘Take me Home - Country Roads’. It was an atmosphere of excitement and slight nervousness; the time went fast and yet dragged for us as we waited around for our transport. We went to the NAAFI at 11.00 hrs for a coffee and at 13.00 hrs we ate lunch. The rest of the company was away on some job that afternoon, leaving just the three of us and a few other guys from HQ hanging around the accommodation area.
We weren’t even allowed to tell anyone we were leaving or say good-by to our mates. Our departure was planned in such a way so it looked like we simply disappeared. It occurred to me that the company’s disappearance that day might also have been arranged.
At 15:00 hrs, outside the company office, the CSM strode up and asked us if we were sure we had everything packed away. Then a few moments later a dark-blue, civilian Hillman Hunter car pulled up with a lone driver. He stopped but made no move to get out. He didn’t even look at us but just stared ahead. I didn’t know what was happening – didn’t realise he was waiting for us until the CSM piped up.
‘There you are lads, there’s your transport.’ He smiled at us with what almost looked like real affection. ‘Take care of yourselves, then,’ he barked, ‘keep your wits about you and keep switched on at all times.’
I had never known him to be so friendly: he helped us load our bags in the boot and even shook our hands – the CSM! – as we climbed in with the driver.
The driver, dressed like a workman with a haircut far from military standard, was super-relaxed: ‘Hi, how are you all doing?’ he said casually in greeting. ‘Sit back and relax, it’s not far and you’ll be at your new home in no time.’
This unbuttoned manner seemed oddly out of place as the CSM waved us off, but just moments into the journey the driver pressed a button and said with crisp professionalism: ‘Hello Zero, this is Delta … I have my package and leaving now. Over.’ I couldn’t see a microphone and it probably looked as if he was simply talking to us. From the outside, it would look like he was perhaps just singing along to himself or chatting to us with him. Seconds later, though, we heard a different voice from some speakers: ‘Zero, OK, Out.’
Ben, who was in the front seat, turned to us in the back and simply said, ‘Nice.’ This was certainly interesting stuff.
After about 30 minutes of cruising along a motorway and dual carriageway we turned into a large Army camp. We neither stopped nor had an ID check, which struck me as very odd given the level of security in Ulster by this point. Further up the road we pulled left towards a strange-looking compound area and up to a wide gate which mysteriously opened as just we reached it. This was the MRF base location: an inner compound invisible from the outside and fenced around completely with very high, corrugated-metal panels and looked very much like a builder’s storage yard. We were greeted by a couple of characters resembling dock workers from Hull, really rough-looking with long hair and unshaven, who closed the gates behind us. They turned out to be very friendly and took us to a portacabin at the far end, down a pathway along both sides of which stood more green and corrugated metal portacabins, to show us where we would be living. Our cabin had two main rooms each containing three beds draped with blankets and sheets, together with some metal lockers which we could use. One side was clearly occupied by three other people but they weren’t there when we arrived, so we took the bunks on the vacant side and dumped our bags on the mattresses. The shower block and toilets were located in another cabin just along the path outside. We later found out that three other members of our future section were housed in another cabin across the path, sharing with another section in the unit.
Before they left us, the two guys told us we needed to be in the operations room for an introductory briefing with the OC in an hour. One pointed to another corrugated metal portacabin on the right, up the path. ‘You may as well make yourselves comfy and unpack your bags for now.’
We all agreed that it was a strange kind of place, very private and deliberately hidden by its twelve-foot tall metal perimeter and covered gate by the area where some cars were lined up, side-by-side in a row. It reminded me very much in some ways of a builder’s yard or the POW camp in The Great Escape, except that it was smaller and here the purpose was to keep people out rather than imprison them.
After a few minutes a chap popped his head around the door of our room. ‘Hi, I’m Mike, your section commander, 83 Section. What are your names?’
Dave and Ben introduced themselves and I said, ‘My name’s Simon but most people call me Sy.’
‘Just feel free to have a look around the place before the briefing later,’ said Mike. We followed him outside and he pointed to a few installations, such as the operations (ops) room and the stores, then he said, ‘I’ll see you all later tonight for a chat.’
The atmosphere seemed very relaxed and non-military in the compound area. Nobody was shouting orders at each other and people just seemed to be getting on with what they were doing. Some were cleaning weapons, some testing radios and others wandering in and out of the ops room, which housed a large radio console and map-covered walls of Belfast and the surrounding area, showing the usual segmented areas of the city.
Adjacent to the ops room, in the same cabin, was the briefing room. The walls in here were papered in little photos of nasty-looking people. Examining the rows of sullen faces, the only ones I recognised were those of ‘players’ like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuiness, Martin Meehan, ‘Darkie’ Brendan Hughes, the Price sisters and James Bryson, who were some of the most wanted people at that time. There were many, many others, literally a couple of hundred of them.
About 15 chairs in neat rows filled the central area of the room, with a table and blackboard at the front. Sandwiched between the ops room and briefing room was the OC’s office, just an anonymous plain door with no plaques or stencilling. Behind the ops room console and the radio opera
tor was the weapons armoury and ammunition store, shielded by heavily-bolted wooden doors.
It didn’t occur to me at the time, but in the world of military intelligence and security it was and still is a big no-no to have weapons and ammunition stored and locked in the same room. They should be stored not only in separate rooms but ideally in separate buildings. The same thing goes for transporting weapons and ammo: separate vehicles. Clearly the rules, for some reason, had been suspended here. But we were in Northern Ireland and I suppose it was probably the most secure place in our compound, especially when a duty radio operator sat there 24 hours a day with a loaded Browning 9mm pistol beside him on the desk.
While we were looking around, we saw nobody say much to anyone else except the odd ‘Hi’, and no-one said much to us either. One chap, though, was tinkering in some box and I asked him what he was doing.
‘I’m fitting an optical device,’ he replied enthusiastically. ‘It’s a good way of hanging around in the street, covertly observing.’
The people we saw seemed to accept us being there as if we already were part of their gang, as if they knew who we were and what we were doing. It all seemed a bit strange and alien to me but the guys who did speak to us appeared very friendly. I surveyed the compound again, now that it was becoming familiar to me. In total there were six portacabins, three on each side facing each other, with a long narrow flagstone pathway in the centre, leading to the tall, covered main gate. Half of the cabins were occupied with beds and of the others one was the ops/briefing room/OC’s office cabin, and two more were basically empty and looked like classrooms or training rooms. By the main gate the cars were parked up, but they didn’t look like anything special, just normal family saloons reversed in, obviously ready to move out fast at a moment’s notice.
On our way to the introduction briefing, we met the OC of the unit, who we learned later was an Army captain, walking down the path. He appeared tall, hard-bitten and tough: the classic dark and quiet type. As he turned to go into the cabin containing the ops room, he stopped and called us all together in his office. We entered and he explained that we should just call him Boss, not ‘Sir’ or ‘Captain’. ‘Boss’, of course, would sound non-military if overheard in the street, say. He asked us to take a seat while he shuffled through some papers and we made ourselves comfortable. My first impression of Tim, our internal name for the Boss, was that he was quite formal and that formality was his natural demeanour. But he surprised me when he very quickly began to relax, taking in the sight of our three fresh faces staring wide-eyed at him.
