by Paul Bruce
We watched the gun battle continue as we tried, with loud hailers, to persuade them to stop firing. We needn’t have worried. There was not a cat in hell’s chance of them ever actually hitting one another. It was no wonder at that stage that no one seemed to receive any gunshot wounds because the combatants on both sides would simply hide on one side of a corner, poke the gun round it and fire into the unknown without any idea whatsoever of what the target was. Indeed, there were no targets. It seemed that the sound of the revolver going off gave them sufficient satisfaction. However, that would not last.
Towards the end of our four-month stint, at the end of June 1970, a major riot took place in Belfast, which went on for nearly three days. We were on duty for 36 hours without a break because army intelligence had heard that the Protestants were planning to burn the homes of Catholics in the Ardoyne area. Our task was to protect the district. At the end of that shift, we were shattered. Nonetheless, we were the lucky ones. We were on our way back to Tidworth and I was on my way back to Maria.
Six weeks after arriving back at Tidworth, I had just finished work on adjusting the front brakes of a ten-tonner when two Land Rovers came to a halt outside the workshop. I wandered out to have a fag and see what they wanted. Four soldiers clambered out of each Land Rover and came over to me. To my amazement they were all SAS. Throughout all the time I had been at Tidworth, I had never seen one SAS soldier, let alone eight of them altogether.
‘Is the ASM about?’
They were referring to the senior warrant officer in charge of the workshop. I nodded towards his office and two of them went to talk to him. The others stood around. One of them came over to me and asked, ‘Where do we find your commanding officer?’
I pointed out his office in the headquarters building and they walked away, leaving their Land Rovers parked outside the workshop.
Twenty minutes later, the CO’s clerk, a mate of mine, came running over to me and said, ‘Paul, the CO wants you.’
‘What the hell for?’ I asked, wondering what I had done wrong.
‘Don’t ask me. He just told me to come and get you.’
With some trepidation, I doubled over to the headquarters building, trying to clean my oily hands as I went. I was, of course, in my dirty workshop overalls, looking a right mess. I marched in, saluted and wondered why the hell he wanted me. Two of the SAS men were also in the room. My heart began to race. Perhaps, after all, they wanted me.
‘Bruce. It’s about that application you put in some months ago. Are you still interested in going on a selection course for the SAS?’
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, my heart thumping.
‘Right. Go and get yourself cleaned up; hand in your bedding and get packed. You’re off in twenty minutes.’
I saluted, turned and marched out. I could hardly believe what had happened. Here, suddenly, out of the blue, the ambition I had nursed for more than a year was about to come true. I was so elated I could hardly pack my gear.
I ran back to the Land Rovers where the SAS were waiting.
‘Get in,’ is all one said to me. I threw in my clobber and clambered inside. If I had known the adventures and experiences I would have to undergo during the next two years, I would never for one minute have considered getting in that vehicle.
As we sped in convoy towards Hereford, I suddenly remembered Maria. We had a date that night and not only had I forgotten to phone her but I hadn’t even given her a moment’s thought. I felt a pang of guilt but told myself that my life’s ambition of being given the opportunity of joining the SAS had so excited me that she would understand when I phoned and explained everything.
We drove in silence. Already it was very different. Whenever I went on a trip with REME mates, there was nonstop chattering during long road journeys. When we stopped for a bite to eat at a roadside cafe that afternoon, all of them took off their SAS berets and slipped them inside their jackets, walking in bare-headed. I gave one a sidelong glance. ‘It doesn’t pay to advertise,’ was the curt reply to my quizzical look.
As we sat down to eat, they introduced themselves. ‘We don’t talk too much to hopefuls because so many never make the grade. It’s silly to get too friendly too quickly. When you get badged – if you get badged – then we can be mates. All right?’
I nodded and carried on eating. I wondered how anyone could tell who was in command because they wore no insignia. For all I knew, they could all have been private soldiers, NCOs or commissioned officers. Only after some time with the SAS did one learn to understand and interpret the codes of behaviour which would indicate who was in command.
The SAS man in command that day was a five-foot-ten-inch-tall, wiry, even muscular, clean-shaven man with dirty-blond hair. I noticed that he seemed like a coiled spring, ready for instant action but prepared to take things quietly and calmly until action was required. They all seemed to exude an air of confidence. I felt safe in their midst, as though nothing could touch them.
Three hours later, we arrived at Hereford and I glanced at the large board outside the main gates – ‘Headquarters Regiment SAS’ – my pulse raced. As we drove slowly through the gates, the guard looked inside the Land Rover and nodded. The driver nodded back. No one said a word.
CHAPTER THREE
The atmosphere in the SAS barracks at Hereford was very different from anything I had experienced in the army, anywhere. I was told to drop my case and kitbag in a wooden hut, a billet in the Stirling Lines, named after the founder of the SAS. The hut, which housed just eight men, would be my home for the next twelve months.
On the surface, there appeared little difference from any other army barracks: an iron bedstead, a metal locker, a wooden bedside cabinet, a mat, a light over the bed, the floor highly polished, the room neat and tidy but not excessively so. I smiled. Well, I thought, despite everything one had heard, it seemed the SAS had no special privileges, no luxury, when it came to army life.
Five minutes later, I walked down to the cookhouse a hundred yards away. My new mentors were eating happily and they motioned to me to come and sit down with them after choosing my meal.
It was then that I noticed the difference. It all seemed remarkably quiet. There was none of the hubble that one always associates with army cookhouses when squaddies sit and eat, natter, argue and laugh loudly. Everyone appeared so calm, so disciplined. It was quite unlike normal army life. These troops knew they were privileged – the élite – that none of them had anything to prove to anyone else. They all showed respect to one another, exuding confidence and self-discipline.
There were perhaps twelve or fourteen other hopefuls who had arrived for the same selection course. In total there would have been about sixty potential SAS recruits, all at various stages of training. Within 48 hours, six of those who had arrived with me had left the camp, sent back to their units. Some had been declared unfit even to start the course. They were the ones who chatted too much, who swaggered too much, who were too extrovert in their behaviour, their walk, their talk. The SAS wanted quiet, serious, dedicated types. No wide boys, no show-offs.
No potential SAS soldier is ever told that he has failed the course. They are simply RTU’d (returned to unit). No one tells them the reason for their failure. They are simply called in to see an officer who informs them that they are being returned to unit. Many have no idea why they have failed. They are simply left to work that out for themselves.
The morning after their arrival, every new recruit reports to the commanding officer for an interview. He asks a few obvious questions. In my heart I hoped I would give the right answers.
‘Why do you want to join the SAS?’ he enquired gently.
I told him that my father had been in the Long Range Desert Group during the Second World War and he nodded. I added, ‘I believe I have what my father had. And I believe the SAS should be my career.’
‘Do you realise how hard the next few months will be?’
I told him about the provo sergeant, the forme
r SAS man who had related some of his experiences to me while I was serving in Germany. He nodded again. ‘So you haven’t come here in a blindfold. You have some idea of what this place is about.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘All right, thank you. You can go.’
The fact that I hadn’t been RTU’d meant that I had passed the interview. Now it was time for the hard part.
During the next few days, we would learn from the SAS instructors what to expect. We were lectured about the traditions of the SAS, its short history and about some of the gallant men who had served with the regiment. We were shown some old films of the sort of training and exercises we would be put through during the next two years.
Basic training in any regiment lasts a maximum of twelve weeks. I had done my basic training at the REME depot in Arborfield. I wondered how they could make our training last for two whole years. I would soon learn.
Throughout those first few weeks, we were left in no doubt that we could be RTU’d at any time for making mistakes which our instructors believed should not be made. For example, a unit of four men went out on exercise and, although equipped with maps and a compass, still managed to get lost. All four were immediately sent back to their units, not even permitted a second chance.
The first two weeks were a test to see whether we were fit enough to continue with the course that the instructors knew all too well would be excruciatingly rigorous. There were cross-country runs which began at six miles and, fourteen days later, were increased to twelve miles. No one wanted to be the last man home because we all feared that that might lead to failure. As a result, the runs were deadly serious affairs; no one talked, laughed or fooled about; everyone was determined to finish the run and to be one of the first home.
Because the SAS demands absolute fitness, all new recruits are given the option of returning to their units in order to get fit on the understanding that they will be permitted to return to Hereford when they feel capable of tackling the punishing regime. Some took that option but I carried on.
After a run in the morning, the afternoons would generally entail a route march, starting at ten miles and working up to twenty miles, all with a 40lb pack. Once again, this was not like any other army route march. The pace never relaxed and the sweat poured off us as we seemed to find every known hill around Hereford. Somehow, the marches appeared to be uphill all the way out and uphill all the way back again!
Circuit training added to the demands being made on our bodies. That, too, was tough: press-ups, sit-ups, bar work, sprints, bunny hops; every exercise intended to increase muscle and stamina.
Map reading would become the most serious and vital lesson during this early part of training. During briefings from SAS instructors, we had learned that we would be operating in units of four if we ever made the grade. Armed with a map and a compass, a unit could expect to be dropped in the middle of nowhere – a desert, a jungle, the icy wastes of Norway or the Brecon Beacons – and still find its way back to base. The greatest importance would be put on map reading throughout my entire time with the SAS, for they knew that to become lost in the type of operation we would be carrying out would probably end in death or, worse, capture.
Every day we looked forward longingly to a glorious hot shower at night and the bliss of our beds. Nonetheless, the harder the training, the better we felt and the more confident we became.
I managed to write only one letter to Maria, telling her what had happened, explaining my instant removal from Tidworth and hoping she would understand. I also told her that I missed her and would look forward to getting a weekend pass but that it would be three months away.
Unlike the army proper, no one in the SAS ever mentioned taking leave. Most regular soldiers complain like hell if they don’t have plenty of long weekend passes but the SAS men consider their life such a privilege that leave is considered unnecessary. Relationships and many, many marriages come to grief when a man joins the SAS.
Even during training we never knew when a weekend pass would be granted and no one wanted to ask. Total commitment to the regiment is considered far more important than commitment to a relationship. Everyone accepts that. If they don’t, they drop out and return to their units.
During the training programme, some men did fall by the wayside because of relationships back home. Letters would arrive from grieving girlfriends and lonely young wives, unhappy, upset and tearful that the man they loved had run off to join the SAS, leaving them alone and miserable. Understandably, some of the young wives, particularly those who were pregnant or had young babies, found life difficult. Some men did decide to return to their units rather than risk the breakdown of relationships or marriages. However, only a few took that way out. Most were determined to see the course through; to join the élite whom we all believed the SAS to be.
My confidence grew a little after those first two weeks of hellish training. Not only had I managed to survive, but I also felt incredibly fit, ready for the next stage.
One worry never left me during those weeks and that was the possibility of injury. A number of men did suffer injuries, usually ankle sprains or hairline fractures. Those men were permitted to return to their units until they had recovered and then rejoin the regiment. However, very few did return to the SAS, almost as though their injury had knocked the stuffing out of their desire to hack the hard SAS life.
Having knocked us into some sort of fitness, our instructors now felt we were ready for more rigorous endurance tests. The next phase would last three months. Three to four times a week we would be sent out to the Brecon Beacons, sometimes four or eight in a team and sometimes totally alone. Teams would be despatched every fifteen minutes or so to ensure that the pace would be kept up. If another team happened to catch up, it was greatly frowned upon. As a result, of course, we all marched like hell, never slacking, determined not to be overtaken.
Endurance marches would range from eighteen to thirty miles a time in full battle order, with a 40lb pack and a Belgian SLR (self-loading rifle). We would be given between six and ten map references – not easy ones, like a church or a building, but perhaps a rock or a couple of trees. We would either have to leave something at each one or collect what had been left by the instructors. At some map references the instructors would be waiting to greet us, not only to check on our progress but also to see if all of those taking part were in good physical shape.
The instructors would always appear when the weather was bitterly cold or wet to check whether we were coping with the conditions and not suffering the effects of exposure. Only the year before, two SAS hopefuls had died on the Beacons from exposure, having wandered off course in a severe snow storm. The SAS might be tough but they didn’t want people to die attempting to make the grade.
Back at Hereford, an SAS ‘Spearhead’ rescue squad, a helicopter team, were always on stand-by in case any soldier got into difficulties and had to be ‘cas-evaced’ to hospital. During those three winter months of 1970, the chopper was called out on a few occasions but fortunately not for me, nor for mates in my team.
Some instructors were not averse to turning the screw when we were at our most vulnerable. On occasions we would arrive at a map reference absolutely shattered, feeling the effects of exhaustion, hunger and cold. They would be sitting in a Land Rover with an urn of hot tea and sandwiches.
‘Fancy a nice cup of hot tea and a cheese roll?’ they would shout as we approached them.
Anyone who stopped and took their offering was allowed to complete that day’s endurance march but, on arrival back at Hereford, would be called before the chief instructor and told he had failed the course. The following day he would be on his way back to his unit.
There was, however, another reason why they made their offer. Some recruits genuinely did feel like jacking in the training and returning to their regiments and this provided a way out for them. It also provided the instructors with the proof they demanded from their recruits – proof of superhuman tena
city, aggression, self-denial and discipline.
Another dastardly trick, designed to weed out the faint-hearted, would come at the end of a gruelling endurance march. Shattered, hardly able to walk another step, we would arrive back at the billet ready for a hot shower, a meal and sleep. An instructor would appear at the door and pick out a couple of men, telling them to go and carry out some boring, totally unnecessary duty, like checking bulbs or the water levels in the twenty trucks we used.
It is difficult to imagine the reserves of mental strength needed in those circumstances, when the body is crying out for a hot shower, rest and food, to have to drag oneself out into the bitter cold to carry out an inessential task. Those who couldn’t hack it would be RTU’d the very next day.
On other occasions, exhausted and ready to drop, we would arrive at the final map reference where vehicles would be on hand to take us back to base. Sometimes, when we thought the march was at an end, we would be told that the trucks had rendezvoused at the wrong place and that we had another three miles to march. Summoning up enough strength in those conditions can be very hard but we had to do it.
On the marches, we were provided with hard-tack and a full water bottle. After we had done a few of these ‘hell runs’, however, we would learn a few tricks ourselves and would smuggle Mars Bars into our packs or fill the bottles with Ribena rather than plain water, all of which would give us more strength to endure the tests.
Sometimes we would be told in advance that, at certain map references, food and drink would be officially provided. When we arrived at the spot, the food and drink would be missing, although the instructors would be there in a Land Rover. ‘Sorry, lads,’ one of the instructors would say, ‘we were only winding you up. No food or tea during today’s march.’
