OK, so here's the plan. Tomorrow I will meet the new recruits as they arrive at the commando camp for the first time. Around fifty young men are expected and they will comprise what will be called 924 Troop. I will be with them for what I have now convinced myself will be eight months of unmitigated hell – the longest and most gruelling basic military training that it is possible to attempt on Planet Earth. But that will just be the start of it. By no means all the recruits will stay the course – it is too exacting and there is always 'wastage'. The ones that do survive and who pass out as Royal Marines Commandos after thirty-two unforgiving weeks will be deployed immediately to Afghanistan to help in NATO's fight against an increasingly resurgent Taliban. Again, I will go with them. We will be going to war.
That is what will make this project unique because, if all goes according to plan, I am going to witness an astonishing transition: fresh-faced young recruits not only being transformed into some of the toughest and best-trained infantry soldiers in the world but also being sent directly into active service. It will be a rite of passage so extreme that at the moment I simply cannot imagine it – and in a way it is something I do not even want to imagine. It will be highly challenging, hugely exciting, no doubt boundlessly rewarding, but it is also very likely to be completely terrifying. Training is one thing – war is something entirely different.
In order to witness the ultimate acid test of the Royal Marines' claim to be the best it will require all of us to make that quantum leap from the training ground to the battle ground and all the terrible dangers of front-line action. For me, that turning off the M4 to the M5, which Myrtle insisted we take, was essentially just the first step of a long and arduous journey that would lead eventually, beyond the commando tests, to the killing fields of Afghanistan . . .
I have been psyching myself up for this journey for weeks and it is really only in the last few days, and today in particular, that I have suffered any serious reticence about the challenge ahead. Don't get me wrong – I'm excited as well. Very excited. It's a strange mixture of feelings and emotions – some pushing me on, some pulling me back. Actually, it's almost like a déjà vu thing and one that I can actually pin down. Deep inside I feel exactly like I did some forty-one years ago on my first day at Brighton College as a gangling thirteen-year-old entering a wondrous but intimidating new world. And here I am – about to be a new boy again. Well, a pretty old new boy of course. By the end of training I will be fifty-five while most of the recruits will still be in their teens or early twenties. A few of my friends think that what I am doing is great. Some assume it is all part of some desperate midlife crisis, and others conclude that, as I should have had all my midlife crises years ago, this must be a form of madness driven by early senility. But what do I think? Well, I know this will be one of the biggest challenges of my life, hence the nerves, but I also know I am doing it for a reason and one that I have given a lot of consideration. It is not a stunt, you see. It is the best way I can think of that will allow me to penetrate the hidden world of the Royal Marines Commandos. I want to see this world up close and personal. I want to see it as nobody ever has before and to do that I need to gain a unique perspective – deep from within.
As an anthropologist turned film-maker my method can be broadly described as that of a 'participant observer'. Which just means I like to get stuck in. Get involved. Be part of the action. I observe – but not from the outside. I like to see what it all looks like and feels like from the inside. It also means that my method of observation is far from objective. It is highly subjective and that's the way I like it. I have always done things this way. Back in the mid-seventies I lived with the Acholi tribe of southern Sudan for a year, and that meant learning to do things their way – hunting, farming, dancing, drinking, singing. You name it I tried it. Frankly, I could not hunt that well, track animals, or throw their long and extremely awkward elephant spears very accurately, but I gave it a good crack. I amused the Acholi but confused them as well. They had no idea how to categorise me socially. I was not a warrior, I was not an elder, I was clearly not a woman. So where was I to sit in the highly prescribed seating arrangements at a ritual meal following a buffalo or antelope kill? The answer, eventually, was simple. They decided I should be a child – an honorary child – so I sat with the kids. At the end of my year in Sudan I had earned my spurs, so to speak, and they promoted me to 'warrior' and presented me with my very own bull spear. Mind you, that was the night before I left so they knew I wasn't going to do too much damage with the poison-tipped weapon – at least not in Acholiland. It is hanging safely from my kitchen ceiling now.
Then there was the time I made a series for the BBC inside a prison. I literally went to prison. I lived there and got to know the inmates as well as the prison officers from the inside. Same again when I made a series about a Royal Navy warship during the Yugoslavian war. I became part of the ship's company on the frigate HMS Brilliant – a sailor in all but name. Obviously, in all these cases everyone knew who I really was and what I was doing. After all, I had a camera on my shoulder – a bit of a giveaway. Sometimes, however, I have had to go into other people's worlds undercover. Once I made a film about orang-utan smugglers in Indonesia, so I became an animal trader in order to infiltrate the gangs. I did the same when I made a film about international prostitution and the trade in women from developing countries – I became a woman trader. This was partly of course to help expose the real traders, but also to help me understand the mindsets of the people involved in that hideous trade.
So, really, as a film-making anthropologist I have had to become a professional chameleon. I change the colour of my skin to fit in with my surroundings. And now I am about to do the same in order to get close to the elite Royal Marines Commandos – the 'Bootnecks'. Obviously, this is not to be undercover. The marines are fully signed up to it and, indeed, are giving me unprecedented access and opportunity. Access has not been easy, mind you. It has taken a year to negotiate but now it has been green-lighted from the very top – the Ministry of Defence, no less. I am being allowed into a world few civilians ever see, let alone experience at first hand.
I am going to be in uniform, I am going to train with the recruits and I am going to go to war with them. The only difference is they will be shooting with SA80 assault rifles and I will be shooting with a camera. It is without doubt going to be physically painful and mentally exhausting. I know I will be taken to the limit of my endurance. I know I will have to get very fit and in all probability suffer various injuries along the way – possibly serious ones. I know too that I will have to earn the respect of those around me. As a 'civvy' intruder I will have to go that extra mile to prove myself– especially given that I have more than a few years on these guys. They will not be making allowances for me. That is the deal. The marines are giving me the opportunity of jumping in at the deep end of their commando training in order that I get as close as possible to the recruits and their experience, but whether I sink or swim is entirely up to me. I have been warned that once proper commando training starts my body will be screaming for mercy. Battle fitness is a very different proposition to general fitness. And who knows if I'll make it to the end of training? That is the big risk. Somehow, African tribes, category-A prisons, Royal Navy warships, international primate smugglers and women-trading gangsters all seem like a bit of a breeze compared to 'becoming' a front-line Royal Marines Commando.
'In one hundred yards turn left,' says Myrtle. I do so, coming off the M5 at exit 30. Minutes later, as we approach a roundabout, Myrtle says, 'Take the third exit.' I duly turn into the A375 towards Exmouth and head south. Four miles later Myrtle informs me with an air of modest pride: 'In one hundred yards you will have reached your destination.'
At first glance Lympstone itself is just another typical English village complete with its complement of twee cottages, a couple of sleepy country pubs and an Early English Gothic church – but there on its outskirts is the commando camp, slightly set ba
ck from the road and surrounded by barbed-wire fences and armed guards. Grey and austere, it is a shock at first to see it in this otherwise classic rural setting. Outside the main gate is a large notice saying 'Commando Training Centre'. On the left gate pillar is a large picture of a commando dagger and on the right pillar are the words 'Royal Navy' – reminding everyone that the Royal Marines are part of the Senior Service, not the British Army. For exactly that reason too, a fluttering white ensign flies high above the entrance gate. The other thing that immediately catches my eye is an electric sign with illuminated red neon letters: 'Security Response Level, Heightened' – indubitably a sign of our troubled times.
I look at the place in awe – a world within a world and for me home for the foreseeable future. But not just yet. It is a beautiful summer's evening, the new recruits do not arrive until tomorrow, and as I do not have to report myself until later tonight I decide to put off the inevitable and go to one of the local pubs where I can savour my last few hours of freedom and gather my thoughts. I choose the George and Dragon about a mile north of the commando camp (the first dragon I have found and it is a benign one!). The pub is suitably traditional complete with wooden beams and an inglenook that serves Sunday roasts. I duly order roast beef and all the trimmings and a pint of the local brew. I reach for a wad of Sunday papers and start to leaf through them.
The headlines are all fairly mundane and parochial. I read an article suggesting that Sven should drop Beckham in the forthcoming World Cup. Then another about Paul McCartney's escalating war with estranged wife Heather Mills that is of more interest to me than most as I was once engaged to her myself. 'My God,' I think to myself, 'that was a world and a life ago.' Then, in the Sunday Times, I turn to a full-page article by one of my favourite journalists and writers – Christina Lamb. It is entitled 'Taking the Fight to the Taliban' and describes how British troops in Afghanistan are coming under fierce attack from the Taliban. She also points out that the first death of a British soldier in the war-torn Helmand Province just last week is now focusing attention on what exactly our troops are doing in the country. 'Has Whitehall, which talked of peacekeeping, made a terrible misjudgement?' she asks. In the same paper Simon Jenkins also writes of Afghanistan. 'Under the Afghan sun, a dark new reality is taking shape,' he says, questioning the ability of foreign troops to quell the Taliban. He is critical of the NATO initiative and what he describes as 'the West's last attempt at constructive engagement in the region'. He does not accept the political argument that Afghanistan needs to be defused of its potential to fund and promote global terrorism. He argues instead that any military involvement in the country will alienate the ordinary people who will gravitate towards the hard-line Taliban forces. He is concerned that the whole thing could escalate and lead to many more deaths of British soldiers.
It all makes for chilling reading, and I am suddenly struck by my setting – where it is I am sitting as I read these articles about a country some three and a half thousand miles away. I could not be in a more British place – a pub called the George and Dragon in rural Devon. I could not be doing a more British thing – eating roast beef and drinking beer on a sunny summer evening. And I could not be in a more peaceful place or feel safer. Yet I am just one short mile from the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre that tomorrow will start preparing recruits and me for action in the very place I am reading about in the Sunday papers: Afghanistan – a far-flung piece of ex-empire that has been splattered red with the blood of British soldiers since the mid-nineteenth century and looks like being so again, this time with the blood of people I may well know. Perhaps even people I will be meeting for the first time tomorrow.
I put the papers back on the rack, drain my pint glass and pay the bill. I leave the George and Dragon and head for the commando base where I duly report. I am expected of course and sent straight to the pass office where I pick up my identification papers and parking permit. I am then directed to my quarters – a small bare room in an accommodation block – and told that I will be met the following morning by the officer who will be in charge of 924 troop – a Lieutenant Orlando Rogers.
So, I have arrived. Tonight will be the first of over two hundred nights I will spend here if everything goes to plan. As I He down on the narrow single bed and pull the sheet and scratchy navy blankets up to my neck I ask myself the very same question that I asked this morning when I was on the road:
'What the hell am I letting myself in for?'
1
The Shock of Capture
19 June
I wake at six. No choice.
In the immediate vicinity outside my room doors are slamming, people are shouting, laughing, belching, guffawing and making a cacophony of quintessentially male, early-morning noises. In the middle distance I can hear a military band, marching troops and the insistent orders of a powerfully lunged sergeant major. And at a further distance there is the dull thud of what I assume to be mortar fire and the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns. I lie there for a moment, looking up at the ceiling and taking in this utterly surreal and somewhat disconcerting dawn chorus. If there was a moment, on emerging from a fitful sleep, of wondering where the hell I was, I am now in no doubt at all that I am precisely where I am meant to be. This is no dream. I really am at the commando training centre and I remind myself yet again that I am here for the long haul. As I wrench myself from my bed I wonder how long it will take for all these strange and striking sounds, currently impinging so loudly on my consciousness, to be muted by familiarity.
I shower and don the uniform that had been left in my room in a gigantic rucksack. I am to dress exactly like everyone else, in camouflaged fatigues and military boots – the only difference being that, as a civilian, I will not be wearing headgear. Everyone else will be wearing a beret: Royal Marines, of course, wear green berets; recruits wear blue berets.
Somewhat nervously I venture down to the dining room to grab some breakfast. This is the officers' mess so it is pretty plush, with battle flags festooned on the walls, gleaming silverware in cabinets and long, highly polished oak tables. At the tables are some staff officers but mostly YOs – young officers – who are going through their fifteen months of basic training. The general recruits who I will be joining later today will be billeted in separate accommodation elsewhere on the base.
I help myself to Weetabix, take a seat at one of the oak tables and order bacon, eggs and tomatoes from one of the hovering waitresses. Moments later I am greeted by a Royal Marines officer who bounds up to my table much in the manner of Tigger on one of his bouncier days. 'Chris?' he enquires with a smile and an outreached hand. 'Er, yes. That's me,' I reply, shaking one of the largest hands I have ever seen in my life. 'Pleased to meet you, Chris. I'm Orlando – commander of 924 Troop.'
I am looking at a man-mountain. Young – probably in his early twenties – but built pretty much on the same lines as a Challenger tank.
'Glad to have you on board, Chris,' he says. 'You'll have to get used to an all-male community here, I'm afraid. Wall-to-wall blokes and it'll have you gagging for wenches in no time! But we'll take you out and show you all the best trapping [marine-speak for chatting up girls] places in Exmouth and Exeter – so don't worry about that.'
'Thanks,' I laugh. 'I'm very encouraged!'
'Anyway,' Orlando continues, 'the recruits will start to arrive around midday so after breakfast I'll introduce you to the training team and then you can crack on with your filming. Happy with that?'
'Great,' I say. 'I look forward to meeting everyone.'
'Splendid! Right, I'll have a bit of scran with you, I think.' He hails a waitress. 'I'll have a fatboy [a full English] but with two extra eggs and double up on the bacon and fried bread. Treble round of toast and a pint of orange juice please.'
'So, Orlando,' I say, 'are you up for this filming then? Are you happy to be on camera?'
'Oh yes! I jumped at the chance when I heard what you are doing.'
'Keen to get the story
of the Royal Marines over, eh?'
'No, not exactly. I just thought that if I get my angelic face and very fine body on the box it's going to considerably boost my bagging-off chances!'
'Ah, I see. Well, I can't make any promises in that direction but you never know your luck.'
'I don't need luck, mate – just the opportunity!'
Orlando, it turns out, is twenty-one years old and passed out as a Royal Marines officer three years ago. There is a disarming frankness and honesty about his manner and I take an immediate liking to him. He is confident, cheerful, friendly and, something tells me, very mischievous and possibly dangerous!
Commando Page 2
