Seven Troop

by Andy McNab

  Of course, the same didn't apply to senior officers writing about Special Forces activity. Those were 'memoirs', not revelations.

  Snapper didn't care either way. He was out on the Circuit with his 'I'm totally sane' chit in his pocket, oblivious to the lot of it. For some of us, however, the sudden shift in attitude in high places was going to have far-reaching consequences.

  There was a message from Andrew on my answer-phone when I got back. 'Give me a call. There's still a job for you if you want it.'

  I went to a meeting at his new set-up. It wasn't the plushest I'd seen, but practical and fit for purpose. I soon discovered, over a brew in a chipped mug, that the offer wasn't for a specific job: he was asking if I wanted to be part of the company. He knew I was on the Wing, and he knew I was conscious. All the lads working for him had the same CV. Andrew had a new business model in mind: everybody working for the company would have a stake. I got out a calculator and did the maths.

  There was no getting away from the fact that I could only stay in the Regiment until I was forty, whether I liked it or not. Seven years to go at a push, and that would be the end of my service. I was a senior sergeant, looking to becoming a staff-sergeant after I finished the Wing. I would probably leave as a warrant officer, but then what?

  'Get out and be a part of something,' Andrew urged, from beneath his sandy moustache. 'Be a part of something you can help control.'

  It wouldn't take me long to decide. I just wanted to run the idea past someone to make sure I was doing the right thing.

  Next time I met Frank, I shoved a brown-paper bag across the table. 'Here, change that fucking thing, will you?'

  Frank's orange woolly tie had to go. The replacement was from what the market stallholder called his autumn collection. It wasn't exactly designer gear, but the red polyester almost matched his Gore-Tex jacket. He told me that a few of the guys had approached him now he was all frocked up and they could tell him their problems in confidence. 'Same still goes for you, Andy. And if you don't want to talk to me, I know a secret place in Wales where you can go and get help if you need it.'

  This was over a burger at what had become our regular meeting place, the Micky Ds behind St Peter's. We called these lunches our McSummits – with fries.

  He'd just bought a bag of coat hooks. The morning prayer meetings were popular.

  'You get nightmares?'

  'Yeah! I see you coming at me with a great big Bible, and I wake up screaming! Listen, I know about the place. Eat your chips and keep the sauce off that smart new tie.'

  He hadn't been listening. 'Seriously, Andy.' It wasn't just his accent that was different, these days: the tone had become very clear, precise and measured. 'If you want, I can introduce you. It's OK, you don't have to be embarrassed about it.'

  I stabbed my last chip into his tub of ketchup. 'Not for me, mate. I'm probably just too thick to realize I've got a problem. Tell you what, if you really want to help, why don't you pay for the burgers?'

  That shut him up. But only for a moment.

  'I'm thinking of being a stab. Joining them as a padre.'

  We always gave the TA a hard time – Stinking Territorial Army Bastards. I didn't know why, because they were good lads. Frank said he'd been approached to be the chaplain of 23 SAS, one of the two territorial units up north.

  'The money will come in handy. Plus I get to do some soldiering and I can be a padre.'

  'Bollocks – you want back in. That's what it's all about. You want to play soldiers again.'

  He shook his head. 'It might look that way, but I've just been over with Delta. They asked me to go back and conduct their annual prayer breakfast. I've got to tell you, Andy, it was a good experience. Every man attended. They wanted to be there – it wasn't a Scale A parade. I want to do more of it.'

  I wasn't surprised. That kind of thing was standard operating procedure within the US Army. Religion was still an acceptable part of military life.

  'Nice try. You're talking bollocks.'

  He wouldn't have it. 'No, I just want to help the lads, that's all. Just as well I didn't give you my stable belt, eh?'

  'If you can't find it, you can have mine.'

  He did a double-take. 'You PVRing? It's a big step – and a horrible feeling walking out of that gate. You sure you won't regret it?'

  'What? Like you?'

  'Maybe. You going on the Circuit? Don't jump at the first job. Think hard, because once you're out, that's it, the end.'

  'That's why I'm using you as a sounding board.'

  I told him about Andrew's job offer. I was thinking of getting out after Christmas. The job didn't start until July, so I was just going to bum about until then. I'd never dossed. Joining up at the age of sixteen meant I'd never done anything but soldier, and now it seemed like time to move on. 'Why not, eh? Ponytail, shorts and flip-flops, working on a beach somewhere.'

  He slipped his hand into his Gore-Tex jacket and produced his wallet. I sat back, enjoying the moment.

  'Here.' He ripped the Velcro open and handed me a folded sheet of paper. 'I got this from Delta, and I thought of Nish. You have it, I'll get another.'

  I shoved it in my pocket. No way was I going to open it in front of him. It might have been a song. Frank might have wanted to start hallelujahing round the Ronald McDonald statue with me in tow.

  'You seen him lately?' he asked.

  'I've been away. He's still doing this skydiving from space thing, isn't he? Still in Russia?'

  'Back soon.' He nodded thoughtfully. 'Listen, I'm worried. He's not looking good again.'

  He picked up his coat hooks and what was left of my fries in their little greaseproof-paper bag, and we headed for the door. He smiled as he opened it and let me through with a flourish. 'Remember, Andy, it's always open. I know I can't talk you out of PVRing. I know you just wanted me to validate it. Just remember, it's possible that you want to avoid what you feel, escape from something you can't quite explain.'

  That was experience talking.

  We went our separate ways. When I got back to my car I unfolded the bit of paper. It was a poem about soldiers and God.

  Psalm 35

  A Prayer for Rescue from Enemies

  1 Oppose, LORD, those who oppose me; war upon those who make war upon me.

  2 Take up the shield and buckler; rise up in my defence.

  3 Brandish lance and battleaxe against my pursuers. Say to my heart, 'I am your salvation.'

  4 Let those who seek my life be put to shame and disgrace. Let those who plot evil against me be turned back and confounded.

  5 Make them like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the LORD driving them on.

  6 Make their way slippery and dark, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them.

  7 Without cause they set their snare for me; without cause they dug a pit for me.

  8 Let ruin overtake them unawares; let the snare they have set catch them; let them fall into the pit they have dug.

  9 Then I will rejoice in the LORD, exult in God's salvation.

  10 My very bones shall say, 'O LORD, who is like you, who rescues the afflicted from the powerful, the afflicted and needy from the despoiler?'

  11 Malicious witnesses come forward, accuse me of things I do not know.

  12 They repay me evil for good and I am all alone.

  13 Yet I, when they were ill, put on sackcloth, afflicted myself with fasting, sobbed my prayers upon my bosom.

  14 I went about in grief as for my brother, bent in mourning as for my mother.

  15 Yet when I stumbled they gathered with glee, gathered against me like strangers. They slandered me without ceasing;

  16 Without respect they mocked me, gnashed their teeth against me.

  17 Lord, how long will you look on? Save me from roaring beasts, my precious life from lions!

  18 Then I will thank you in the great assembly; I will praise you before the mighty throng.

  19 Do not let lying foes smirk at me, my undeserved
enemies wink knowingly.

  20 They speak no words of peace, but against the quiet in the land they fashion deceitful speech.

  21 They open wide their mouths against me. They say, 'Aha! Good! Our eyes relish the sight!'

  22 You see this, LORD; do not be silent; Lord, do not withdraw from me.

  23 Awake, be vigilant in my defence, in my cause, my God and my Lord.

  24 Defend me because you are just, LORD; my God, do not let them gloat over me.

  25 Do not let them say in their hearts, 'Aha! Just what we wanted!' Do not let them say, 'We have devoured that one!'

  26 Put to shame and confound all who relish my misfortune. Clothe with shame and disgrace those who lord it over me.

  27 But let those who favour my just cause shout for joy and be glad. May they ever say, 'Exalted be the LORD who delights in the peace of his loyal servant.'

  28 Then my tongue shall recount your justice, declare your praise, all the day long.

  I screwed it up and chucked it in a bin. That boy never gave up.

  92

  February 1993

  The Robocops manning the main gate were MoD policemen, but they had enough weapons dangling off them to take on global crime. It was a really strange feeling driving past them out of the camp, seeing the Lines in the rear-view mirror for the final time.

  I was even sorry to say goodbye to the red-brick campus buildings, crumbling though they were due to crap repair work or ground subsidence, depending whose lawyer you were. It had been home for the last ten years. I forgave myself the little lump in my throat.

  The friends and relationships weren't going to disappear, but I was losing something that had been my life since I was sixteen. I knew now how Nish and Frank had felt. And, like them, all I really had to show for it was my stable belt and beret.

  I'd had to go round the different departments to get my discharge papers signed and sort out my pay and taxes, get bombarded by questions about where I was going, what security company I'd signed up for. I also experienced that short, sharp, aggressive severance from the system that everyone talked about.

  Being presented with my tankards was the final nail in my army coffin: one from B Squadron and one from the Wing, plus a statue of a military freefaller from Seven Troop; once you get that, there's no going back.

  That's it, you're out, have a nice life. I comforted myself with the thought that this day would have come eventually whether I liked it or not, so I might as well get on with it.

  Something that wasn't going to happen was my seven months of dossing around in pony-tail, shorts and flip-flops. Andrew needed me to start work for him straight away, and something else had come up.

  Just before Christmas, I'd been approached by an officer and asked about Bravo Two Zero. The reason certain people were interested in my thoughts, he said, was because there was so much conjecture about the patrol in the press. We'd been attributed with everything from blowing up a power station in Baghdad to attempting to assassinate Saddam. Even the main MoD building in Whitehall was buzzing with theories. It was starting to take on a life of its own.

  The suggestion was that, maybe, possibly, telling the true story would put an end to the rumours and get the whole thing over with. I wasn't averse to that, but then it was suggested that if I did agree to tell the story, maybe it could be part of a more wide-ranging Regimental history. I said I'd think about it. I did, and decided that if anyone was going to tell the story, I wanted it to be me.

  I'd got to know John Nichol and John Peters, the Tornado crew shot down over Iraq in 1991 and paraded, battered and bruised, on TV for all the world to see. In fact, Nichol and I had stood next to each other in the line of prisoners waiting to be released at Baghdad airport. When they got back, and while they were still serving RAF aircrew, they wrote a book about their experiences called Tornado Down. I phoned them up and got some advice.

  I decided to go for it. It wasn't going to be the cathartic experience that Frank thought I needed but it would be a nice memento, and the few grand I hoped I might be paid would come in handy.

  A few months later, the manuscript went to the MoD. They wanted a number of changes, which was fine by me. The fibreoptic cable had to be called a landline, for example, and they suggested different locations for the patrol's area of operations, and asked me not to talk about certain bits of kit that were still tactically sensitive. That was also fine by me. I wanted to tell the BTZ story, not compromise equipment and future operations.

  The vetting process was deeply civilized, and I had a number of requests from the MoD for signed copies when the book was finally published.

  While this was going on I continued to work for Andrew. I wasn't about to bin the day job.

  93

  Nish had finally bought himself a Cessna and flown it back to the UK. In typical Nish fashion, of course, he did it without any of the proper radios or safety kit the regulations said he required. Anything he did take was second-hand and stuck together with gaffer tape.

  He'd nicknamed the four-seater Zephyr. Aircraft are much cheaper in the States, so his plan was to sell it once he got back and make some money to put towards the big skydive. By the time he landed, there wasn't much aircraft left to sell. He'd ripped out the two back seats to take an extra fuel tank. Then, because it only had one engine, which had already failed a couple of times during test flights, he removed most of the bolts from the door and decked himself out in an immersion suit. If he'd had to ditch, he planned to kick the door out and jump into his life-raft, a blow-up dinghy he'd bought at Toys Us. 'I might end up beating my dad's record,' he told me over the phone. 'He paddled for seventeen hours after parking his Spitfire in the Med. How long do you reckon it would take me from Newfoundland to Iceland?'

  Nish didn't have the right radio or antenna, but he'd taken care of that. He tied one end of a roll of wire to a brick, which he dangled under the aircraft. To communicate with the various air-traffic controllers and jets zooming above him on the North Atlantic routes, he wound out or wound in a few more metres, depending on the prevailing frequencies. 'I knew all that antenna theory would come in useful in the end . . .'

  Hare-brained as it was, he made it. He flew up into Canada, then across the Atlantic to Iceland, and eventually made it to Scotland, as you do. By the time he arrived, he'd changed his mind about selling. He'd got too attached to the single-engined heap of shit, I supposed.

  As soon as he was back, the skydive from space took over his life. His house was turned into offices, and most of his time went into pestering the Russians for some of their Soyuz life-support suits. The Americans wouldn't cooperate in any shape or form. Maybe they were protecting Joe Kittinger's record.

  There was something else on the bubble. Nish had a girl-friend – sort of. I'd never met her. I didn't even know if she was in the UK. They'd got together in DC, after I'd left. Her name was Anna, and depending on which week I spoke to him, she was either Russian or Russian/Filipina. One minute she played classical music, the next she was training to be a doctor. As long as she made Nish happy. If she was here, I wondered what she made of his company car: a battered old Ford Sierra with more rust than paint.

  Frank always worried about everybody, all the time. Part of his job description, I supposed. All the same, I did call Nish to check up on him, but the phone kept ringing. The answer-machine was off, and that meant he was away – freefalling, or maybe flying Zephyr to Moscow. The boy had always been here, there and everywhere, and always at 100 m.p.h.