Back in Cuamba, the tea convoys were now ordered to run about once every two weeks. During this period another selection course into the Special Forces would start. Half the instructors were soldiers we had selected as good men during the course. These would then form the backbone of the training wing, the idea being that within a year the entire unit would be self-sufficient.
I like to think that Renamo had had its arse kicked on our first contact and that the training we had given the Special Forces had not been in vain. If they'd learnt only one tactic from us, it was this: against an enemy such as Renamo, he who puts down a massive amount of firepower in the enemy's general direction will undoubtedly be the victor.
I was now nearing the end of my three-month tour and thinking about what going home would mean. Although I liked the people of Mozambique, and I had made a lot of friends there, I was keen to get back and sort the rest of my life out. Having spent so long dealing with other people's problems, it was time I paid attention to my own. I realised I hadn't thought of Lynn or even my daughter, Emma, all that much, and it scared me to think of what lay in store back in UK. In some bizarre way I had felt secure in this insecure African country; there were no problems here of mortgages, telephone bills or keeping up with the Joneses. No Sunday trips to the local trading estate to buy that prepacked wardrobe you dreaded putting up, just to appease your better half, or shopping at the superstore wondering if four loaves of bread were enough for the weekend. These are the only types of problem most of us face in the West. How mundane and how boringly conditioned some people are, I thought. I don't want that just now. In truth, I didn't really want to return home just yet! If it hadn't been for Emma, I probably would've gone walkabout around Africa.
Later, as the Dornier took off, I looked down at the town of Cuamba and all its people with some sadness. Having given serious thought to returning home, I was now happy to be leaving. My time here had been an experience of how the other half really live. I considered myself lucky having a British passport, which allowed me so much freedom. The people below were doomed to a life of poverty, famine and war, unless their government got a grip of the situation.
People can slag the UK off as much as they like, but one has to see and experience first-hand total poverty in a country such as Mozambique to get the other side of the picture. Mozambique was definitely an eye opener for me. Not even whilst I was serving in the Regiment all over the world had I come across such inhumanity.
I sat back on the inevitable sacks of cashew nuts with a headful of theme tunes. The heat inside the aircraft was not as bad as it had seemed when I had flown in, since I was now very much acclimatised. That didn't stop me sweating, however.
I started to nod off into one of those uncomfortable, half-awake-half-asleep naps. It was a mixture of a release of nervous tension, knowing that I was leaving a war zone (a feeling I used to experience when choppered back to Hereford after an operation overseas), and just plain tiredness.
Suddenly I woke and sat up sharply. My body was tense and ready but my brain was still in sleep mode. I thought a burst of 7.62 had ripped into the aircraft's fuselage and thudded into the sacks I was sitting on, I turned to look up front. My face must have been a picture when I eyeballed Henry's. I realised a split second later what he had done — he'd thrown a handful of the nuts at me, catching me smack on my face either to wake me up or just to needle me. Now he turned away and put his machine into ballistic mode for some unknown reason, climbing to about 10,000 feet. Then, looking back at me with a friendly grin, he said, 'Sorry about that, Mr Steve! I hope you still have your balls to do some fucky fucky with your wife when you get back to England.'
It never ceased to amaze me how little these people valued life, or how blasé they were about living or dying, even when they were as well-off as Henry. He knew all too well that the SOPs for taking off at Cuamba was to get as much height between us and the ground as the physical capabilities of the aircraft would allow, to avoid being a target for the roaming bands of Renamo, but once settled on his flight-path he would descend to an untactical height. Why? I can't think of any other reason than just pure boredom.
My imagined close brush with death and the image of a crash landing and the possibilities of an E and E in the wilderness below, sharply reminded me of the short letter I had received from Lynn telling me that she had moved out of my house and had gone to live with her new boyfriend, and how the situation I was in had tied my hands, halting reaction to this news. It was totally frustrating.
My mind was doing flick-flacks back and forth from inside the aircraft to my home-life predicament, wondering whether she had ripped me off for all my worldly possessions. Had she car-booted or smashed up all of my record collection in a fit of pique? I'd have to get a good lawyer if either proved the case.
I moved up behind Henry, pushed his headset to one side and said, 'Henry, just fly the plane, OK, and let me worry about my sex life!'
Some months later when I was back in the UK, a friend phoned to tell me that a documentary about Mozambique was due to be shown later that evening. To my amusement it was the one made by the film crew who'd visited us. They'd actually made a very good documentary. It seemed very strange reliving those hectic moments at a remove, sitting in an old armchair with a mug of tea!
PART TWO
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lord Acton, 1834-1902
7
THE LONDON SCENE
I n civvy street, no matter how many bags of war stories you have, how many life-threatening situations you have found yourself in over the years, or how physically tough you think you are, one thing is certain — you don't get any brownie points for walking around town with your ugly head on. By that, I mean that no ex-service personnel should think that this country owes them a living just because he or she has fought for Queen and Country. There are a lot of hidden agendas outside the Services, and you have to adapt pretty fast if you want to survive. I've come to think that it's a lot to do with who you know rather than what you know. This is especially the case in one aspect of the Security Industry, the field of bodyguarding, or 'BG' as it's known.
There are a few powerful people around running BG contracts who haven't got a clue about the basic principles of their own personal security, let alone the knowledge to run a full BG team — and good luck to them, that's life. I'm talking, of course, from past experience and to those people who have yet to tread the streets of the BG world. My advice to ex-service personnel, and to guys from a similar background to mine, is to play down your experiences during a job interview and simply to look and listen, if and when you're lucky enough to get contracted onto a BG team. That means be on your guard for a full backstabbing session, and if you start to voice critical opinions about basic tactical procedures which aren't being adhered to, or about the everyday running of the job, be prepared to get kicked off the job.
In fact, in the case of the latter I'm not talking from personal experience, just relating what I have seen happen to many good guys who, unfortunately, have opened their big fat gobs and said what they genuinely thought of a particular tactic used, or suggested a better way some task should be carried out. It all boils down to a game of bluff, keeping quiet and juggling with people's personalities. It's not something that's taught on a live-firing exercise in the Brecon Beacons, that's for sure! To be frank, my modus operandi is never to educate anyone; if they say they can do the job well, I just wait and see, and don't even comment if they can't. I leave that up to someone else, or until they are seen to fuck themselves up.
I'm sure that not every ex-member of the Armed Forces would agree with me, but this was certainly the case as far as I was concerned. Unfortunately, it took a couple of years to get my brain around all this jockeying-for-position stuff, but I was lucky that I had a mate who had been around the BG circuit for many years, who pointed out the pitfalls of such work if I voiced my opinion.
Naturally I kept my
self to myself a lot of the time. Anyone who has served in the Armed Forces will be aware of the 'Buddy Buddy' system, where you always look out for your mates because their lives and yours generally depend on watching out for each other. But for some reason, with a lot of service personnel, this approach seems to get handed back when they leave, along with their rifle and uniform.
Those of us who get out of the Armed Services to do something different with our lives have to learn to adopt a less brash attitude in order to achieve our aims. Some do, but a lot don't. Those who don't end up in large organisations which are very like that they have just left, where decision-making is in the hands of their superiors. That works well for some, but for me that was not a challenge, it was the easy way out.
Of course, this attitude was easy for me to take. I had no one to support, apart from Emma. (I don't say that in a nonchalant manner. Emma was living with her mother and was being brought up in a very stable home.) Yes, I had the everyday bills to pay like the rest, but after everything had been taken into account, I still had a pocketful of beer tokens. This gave me the freedom to explore other avenues and a breathing space to allow me to select the right profession. So that's what I decided to do once the Mozambique contract was over.
Select the right profession! This was wishful thinking — all I'd ever known was soldiering and security. When I really stopped to think about it, there was nothing else I was good at, or even had the inclination to do. It seemed I was doomed to be in the security industry, one way or another, for the rest of my life. If this was to be the case, then I was determined to learn all I could about it: from working in the field (which was all I had ever done to date) to learning about the managerial and accounting skills needed to bring in contracts and run a successful business. This was the challenge I set myself.
Twenty-two, South Audley Street, Mayfair, London — aptly abbreviated to 22 SAS (not all that covert an address, I had to admit) — was where I started, the offices of the (now late) Sir David Stirling, founder of the SAS. I had met Sir David on many occasions, whilst working for his small but select company then called KAS, which stood for KA Stirling, so named, I believe, after Sir David's brother. Sir David (DS was how we referred to him) was truly a great man, and for me to give this accolade to an officer meant that I really thought he was the exception to the rule. My first-ever encounter with this living legend was when I was summoned to his Chelsea apartment to be formally introduced. Summoned was probably too strong a word — it was Dai, his aide-de-camp, who said I best visit him.
'He always likes to meet new members of the team, especially if they are ex-SAS,' Dai had said to me over the phone. 'No great dramas. Just come suited and booted. About midday should be fine, the old man will be up then.'
I had known Dai back in the Regiment. He had been attached to Regimental HQ as a clerk. A real nice guy, softly spoken and pleasant with it. I could see how he was the right man to be an aide to someone like DS.
I arrived at noon on the dot. Dai was there to usher me into the lounge where DS was sitting. All I could see was the back of a man's head sticking up from behind a high-backed armchair. I was nervous, but also felt honoured to meet this man. The room seemed fairly small and everywhere, scattered on small side-tables and the floor, were files and sheets of A4 paper. There were a few prints on the walls, but nothing to suggest that the occupant was from a military background.
'Excuse me, sir, Mr Devereux is here to see you,' Dai said in a loud but gentle tone.
A gruff, assertive voice answered from behind the armchair. 'Good, good, now leave us to it, Dai, there's a good chap. Oh! Dai, bring our guest some wine; white.'
During my time I have met many an officer and, in general, they seem always to bluff their way through life, whether in or out of the services. Many a time I have been to Remembrance Day and other military parades where I have seen high-ranking officers with a chestful of medals leading the parade and have wondered, How many members of the public actually know about medals? If they see a chestful of medals on an officer, they probably think, 'What a brave bastard,' without realising that most medals are awarded for service in a non-operational environment. Because that's how it is. The majority of medals are awarded for a job well done, not for acts of bravery. Sure, some are awarded for heroic deeds, but most aren't. For example, if you were a butcher attached to the Guards you might be awarded a MID for doing a good job. Contrary to what many civilians might think, an MID is not necessarily an award for storming a gun position against all odds, though, of course, it could be.
However, once in a while, it seems to me, a good Rupert comes along whose chestful of medals is a more accurate reflection of his valour. The military history books are full of DS's stubborn actions and unconventional methods — unconventional as far as the Army was concerned. His forcefulness paid off when he persuaded his superiors during the early days of World War II to go against the grain and got the go-ahead to form a new army unit, the SAS, which he used to full effect in daring, successful raids against Rommel deep in the North African desert. The SAS's history during the desert campaign inspired many of us when we found ourselves pitched up against the likes of Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. The hit-and-run tactics we used were not dissimilar to those DS had used 50-odd years earlier.
DS had had his fair share of confinement, too. His stay at, and eventual escape from, the notorious German prison camp Colditz is well documented. It was a great shame that the powers that be in this country only decided to acknowledge this great man's many achievements by awarding him a knighthood a mere six months before his death in 1990. I thought that was an absolute disgrace on the part of past British Governments.
Why he wasn't knighted sooner was something I couldn't initially understand, but I was told — and this was the consensus among people I met who had known him for many years — that shortly after World War II he had told a few home truths to people in power, pissing them off. This voicing of opinion carried through subsequent governments. On top of that, there were rumours that he was secretly involved with the tragic Desert One operation of 1979, when the US mounted an operation to go into Iran to take back their hostages, but compromised themselves in Iran by crashing a C130 into one of their own helicopters. I guess that didn't help DS's case either. One thing I did know was that he didn't like to be addressed as Sir David, as a result of the knighthood. That was the kind of man he was. Nonetheless, I and the rest of the guys always addressed him as Sir, simply out of great respect.
On several of my visits to him he would be holding court with many a famous person. He would always introduce me and bring me into the conversation, as he would do with any member of his regiment, ex or serving. I met John Paul Getty during one of my visits, and when I had to drop some papers around to DS late one night I bumped into Sandy Gall, the famous newsreader and war correspondent. Another time, I was sharing a late-morning glass of wine with DS (which he forced me to accept, I have never been one for drinking during the working day, and certainly not before midday if I can help it) when the then Director of Special Forces popped around for a chat. Those of us lucky enough to meet DS were left in no doubt that he was definitely a 'soldier's soldier'.
KAS employed ex-SAS and Special Forces men on what seemed, on the surface, to be all sorts of exciting and dangerous missions. However, when I was asked to join, the company seemed to be in a state of confusion. Many of the dozen or so employees were cutting their own deals for contracts which were still being serviced by the Company. I had the feeling that I had joined a sinking ship. Did DS know what was actually happening to his company? I didn't know, and as the new boy, I opted just to look and listen.
The core of the KAS's business was anti-poaching work on the salmon rivers of Scotland. Other jobs were small and short-term. For example, it had a contract to supply a Swiss jewellery firm with bodyguards to protect their wares when its staff came to show them at one of the big London hotels, such as Claridges, or to individual clients s
uch as the Sultan of Brunei in his penthouse suite in Park Lane.
There were many of these types of contracts, but they only came in twice or maybe three times a year, and then only during the summer months. The anti-poaching contract was not a great payer, not big enough even to pay the rent on our Mayfair offices, let alone the guys, and not one person was dedicatedly out there chasing new business. Anyway, aside from the anti-poaching contract (which kept four of the guys away from the office for a couple of months at a time, unaware of the internal political struggle the rest of us were going through) there was only one other large ongoing job. This was to do with a London nightclub, Pinks. The job was new to the company, a bit like myself, and I found myself in the middle of it all. Acting as Operations Manager for KAS, I was thrown very much in at the deep end.
I have never really been one for rank or titles, I take people as I find them, but I did understand the need for the client (or potential client) to have a point of contact within the company whose services he or she was paying for. However, for a lot of the guys in the office on a daily basis, this didn't seem a particular concern. Anyone would pick up the phone and take a call. This would cause two things: one, the message would frequently not reach the person for whom it was meant; and two, the actual or prospective client would be very bemused as to how the company conducted its business. I know we missed out on a hell of a lot of contracts because of this basic lack of office procedure.
I sometimes wondered how the client perceived all this. Did he think, because he was dealing with a company run by ex-SAS men, that such an unconventional way of carrying on was a 'front' and that we knew exactly what we were doing? I suspect the answer was Yes, since a lot of the time this approach actually worked, but when it didn't , it was normally me who had to smooth things over with the clients, sorting out whatever cock-ups had occurred in the office. During this time I regularly felt that the only reason I had been put in as Ops Manager was to be a whipping boy, rather than as a guy who could and would do the job, whilst everyone else was cutting their own deal.
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