The Nemesis File - The True Story of an SAS Execution Squad

by Paul Bruce

  Then the insults really began. They were fucking and blinding, calling me all the names under the sun, insulting my parents and all the time calling me a lying bastard. Then, suddenly, I heard a woman’s voice in the room. She was saying, ‘Who’s this old slag Maria from Tidworth?’

  ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ I lied. ‘I don’t know anybody called Maria.’

  The foul-mouthed bitch continued: ‘Don’t you fucking lie to me. Not only do you know this Maria but we know that while you have been here she has been fucking every Tom, Dick and Harry around Tidworth. She’s nothing but an old slag, nothing better than a fucking whore.’

  Like a bolt from the blue I understood. I knew Maria wasn’t like that. I knew this bitch was telling lies. The penny dropped; this was the feared interrogation training we had heard rumours about but never been told about officially. Our instructors had never mentioned interrogation training but we knew, from what we had heard, that one day we would be put through this training. I did not know what to expect but I convinced myself in that instant that this was it.

  They kept asking me questions. I would answer whatever came into my mind but I did not tell the truth. I found my mouth had become dry and was feeling terribly thirsty. I asked if I could have some water.

  ‘You’re getting fuck all, you lying shit, until you start telling us the truth,’ they replied.

  They continued asking questions, about the training, the SAS, my past, everything and anything. I started to get angry. Suddenly, I felt a shot of pain across my legs as though I had been struck with a cane. Then another swish and the cane hit my other leg. ‘What the fuck’s that for?’ I asked.

  ‘Every time you lie to us you’ll get another one. And they’ll get harder and harder until you tell us what we want to know.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything,’ I lied again.

  The cane swished again, cutting across my naked thigh.

  I had a sudden fear that they would hit my bollocks. I thought of crossing my legs to protect myself but realised that if I did they were certain to go for my balls and I knew that would really hurt.

  They began to slap me across the face whenever I answered them. It didn’t matter what I said but, every so often, with no warning, one of them would smack me across the face or use the cane on my legs. Neither was really painful but what shook me was the fact that there was no warning; every hit or slap came as a shock and that disoriented me.

  I don’t know how long the interrogation and physical abuse went on because, after an hour or so, I lost track of time. I judged it must have continued for about two more hours but I may have been wrong. It could have been longer. I began to lose touch with reality. I kept telling myself that this was only interrogation training, that it would soon be over, that they would take off the hood and tell me everything was fine and I could go back to my billet and get some sleep. And yet part of my brain began to doubt that because the blows and the questions were very real indeed.

  I wanted to go for a piss. Suddenly, all I could think about was wanting to go for a slash but I kept my mouth shut because I knew that they wouldn’t let me go; indeed, they would probably have loved to see me pissing in my pants while they laughed at me and took the mickey. I was determined not to give them that pleasure.

  It seemed odd because I was both desperately thirsty and desperate for a piss. I kept asking for a drink but they never once gave me even a sip of water.

  I began to have doubts about what was going on. I couldn’t believe that this was only training. I knew the SAS system was tough and the training rigorous but this seemed beyond credibility. But if it wasn’t training, what the hell were these people after; what did they want with me; why were they determined to slag off poor Maria and insult me and my parents.

  At times I became angry. I swore at them, told them I was telling the truth and told them, including the woman, that they were all a bunch of cunts. I told the bitch: ‘How dare you slag offMaria. You have no right to do that. You’re calling her names because you’re probably the biggest whore around Hereford.’

  For that I earned three hard swishes with the cane across my thighs. They hurt. Not once did they laugh; not once did they change their approach to me; not once did they give me an inkling that this was all a game and that it would soon be over. Occasionally, throughout the interrogation, I told myself that, once I was free, I would kick the shit out of these three bastards, particularly the bitch who had been slagging off Maria.

  Then one said casually, his voice filled with menace, ‘We’re going to leave you here to think about things. When we return we want you to tell us the truth, or else. Do you hear? We haven’t touched you yet. Tell us more lies and you’ll really pay for it. We’re fed up with all your fucking lies.’

  They must have been gone for the best part of an hour. During that time, I tried to rationalise what was happening. Deep down, I suspected that if they were determined to hurt me they would attack my bollocks. That worried me.

  They returned and immediately resumed the same relentless questions that they had asked a thousand times before. The blows came raining down on my face, and my legs and thighs were hit repeatedly with the cane. I came to fear the swish, knowing that a split second later I would feel the cane cutting across my legs and thighs. It was not knowing where or when I would be hit next that upset me, not the actual pain. I could take that. But I didn’t know whether I would be able to stand it when they began grabbing, kicking or hitting my balls; I just hoped to hell they would leave them alone.

  I lost track of time; I lost track of what to say to try to put an end to this bloody agony. I thought of telling them the truth; sometimes I was within an ace of jacking in the whole bloody interrogation and telling them truthfully the answers to all the questions they had asked about the SAS, the training, the parachuting, everything. And yet something made me keep up my tissue of lies. I kept thinking of the advice my SAS instructor had given me: ‘Tell them nothing.’ And it worked.

  Suddenly, I felt the hood being taken off my head and I blinked at the light. I looked around and saw the two men and the woman who had been tormenting me. I was trying to pull myself together, to gather my strength, when one of the men said, ‘It’s all over. You did well.’

  The sense of relief was unbelievable. All thoughts that I had nurtured of kicking the shit out of them vanished in a second. All I wanted to do was have a slash. I was near to bursting point. I also desperately needed a drink.

  One told me it was ten o’clock at night; that I had been under interrogation for twenty hours; that now I was free to go and do whatever I wanted, have a meal, have a drink, have a shower or just go to sleep. All I wanted was a slash, a shower and bed.

  As I drifted off to sleep, my thoughts returned to the interrogation. On the one hand, I was happy that I had survived without breaking down, but on the other I thought that, if ever I found myself in a situation where I needed to break someone to find out information, I wouldn’t be as gentle as my interrogators. I would go straight to the balls and inflict as much pain as possible as quickly as possible to get the result I needed. Then I fell asleep wondering what the hell I was doing in the fucking SAS.

  The next morning I discovered that three of my mates had been given the same treatment. We were all knackered.

  Later, we were debriefed by our instructors. They told us the reasons for giving us what they said was a little taste of the type of interrogation we could expect if we ever fell into enemy hands. They emphasised that they had only given us ‘a taste’ of the treatment we could expect. We all realised what they meant; that if anyone was trying to gain information from us in earnest, they would ignore all the niceties and brute force would be used from the very beginning. It didn’t warrant thinking about; what we had experienced was bad enough and we had been questioned and abused by our own instructors.

  They told us that everyone has a breaking point; that the bravest man in the world will always be broken a
t some point; that holding out if we ever found ourselves under interrogation was for two specific purposes – to give our SAS comrades time to escape or to give as much time as possible for any counter-attack to be launched which might result in our own release.

  Our instructors told us that the time had come for revision, coupled with two weeks of intense physical training, runs, route marches and gym work. We returned to basics:weapon training and map-reading and more firing of live rounds on the ranges, using SLRs, SMGs and the Browning pistol. They seemed to be preparing us for the real thing.

  Usually at this stage, most SAS recruits then enter another phase of training, a further three months of continuation training. This might entail intensive medical training, at the end of which an SAS recruit would be capable of treating broken bones, snake bites and other ailments and diagnosing various fevers, as well as tending to the wounded with some degree of professionalism. We missed out that three months of extra training but we didn’t guess why. Our SAS officers knew that where we were destined to operate there would be no need for medical training or desert survival techniques. However, we would need to be very experienced in all forms of weapons training.

  Throughout the summer months, Maria and I had drifted apart but the hell I had been through defending her during the interrogation nagged at me. I found it difficult to forget her; to forget how good our relationship had been. I kept thinking of her lovely face, her laughter and the great times we had had together. I wanted to rekindle what we had enjoyed before and I wrote from Hereford but she didn’t reply. I wondered if the bitch in interrogation had actually known about Maria, whether she had known that she really had been putting it about in Tidworth. Part of me wanted to know the truth; part of me didn’t.

  When I heard nothing, I knew I had to put Maria behind me, to forget her. Secretly I hoped we would meet again one day and who knows what might happen. Deep down, however, I was jealous, jealous of who she was seeing, who she was kissing, who she was fucking. I hated it.

  Hearing nothing from Maria, I spent my seven days’ leave at the end of August at home in London, enjoying home cooking, a few pints with the lads and the sheer bliss of not having to think for a second about the army, the SAS or bloody training. I met Betty, a good-looking, fair-haired, twenty-year-old florist who worked in Walthamstow. One of my younger brothers introduced us and we hit it off straight away.

  She knew I was in the army and that I had only seven days’ leave and realised that I wanted to have a damn good time and forget all about the army. She seemed only too happy to enjoy those days with me. I didn’t tell her that one of the reasons why I needed her company was to try to forget about my affair with Maria. We went out drinking and went around London together, to museums and art galleries, sightseeing like any tourists. She helped me to forget Maria and we would spend every night making love at her home till we fell asleep exhausted. It was exactly what I needed after nine months of hard bloody training.

  After a few days back at Hereford, getting fit with cross-country runs and circuit training, I would meet the three other men who would become closer than my brothers during the next twelve months.

  I was told to report to the company sergeant-major’s office in the headquarters squadron. A hard-nosed, suntanned, young SAS sergeant with collar-length dark hair and a Zapata-style moustache was sitting on the sergeant-major’s desk, smoking a cigarette and chatting away. He had long sideburns which came to below his ear lobes. He looked very fit, strong and healthy, about five foot nine inches tall, with an athletic, boxer’s physique. His suntan was deep and I realised he must recently have returned from some Middle East operation. Later, he would tell me of his experiences in Oman.

  ‘This is Don,’ said the CSM. ‘Don, this is Paul.’

  An Eastender, Don said casually, ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine,’ I replied.

  ‘Good,’ he said as he looked me up and down. He knew I was an Essex boy, although everyone else in the SAS took me to be a Londoner.

  The CSM said, ‘We’re just waiting for a couple of others. Take a seat, we’ll be with you in a minute.’

  I sat and waited for a few minutes, letting them chat together. They were talking about the CSM’s children who were in married quarters at Hereford. Then, into the office came the two men we had been waiting for. I was rather surprised because I knew them both. We had bumped into each other on occasions at the camp. They had not been part of my outfit but in another unit going through the same training regime at the same time.

  The first, Benny, was about five feet seven inches tall, with dark hair, a dark, swarthy complexion and a small, military-type moustache. He was in his early twenties, stockily built, strong and fit, and the one thing I immediately noticed about him was the size of his hands and feet. They were really big, out of all proportion to the rest of his body. Wherever we would go later, to pubs or clubs, the women would flock around him. They believed the old adage that you can tell the size of a man’s cock by looking at the size of his hands. In Benny’s case, it was all too true, for the size of his todger was remarkable. He loved the attention.

  With him was JR, another typical SAS type, about five feet eight inches tall, strong looking, athletic and light on his feet. He would bounce about rather than walk. Dark haired, with a fair complexion and grey-blue eyes, he would become the comedian of the group. In his early twenties like me and Benny, JR seemed to be bursting with energy, unable to keep still. His reactions were like greased lightning. We would always be telling JR to calm down, relax and take things easy but he couldn’t.

  We would say of JR that he was such a tight bastard that he would peel an orange in his trouser pocket and cut it up and eat it on the quiet so that none of us even realised he was doing it. A Northerner with a good sense of humour, he would be fun to have around. But he had a failing that we would discover later.

  The CSM introduced us and we all shook hands, nodding to each other but saying nothing. He told us, ‘You will soon be going to Ulster because there is a nice little job someone wants you to do out there.’

  Our faces dropped. We had all hoped to travel to the Middle East; we didn’t fancy Northern Ireland with its hard, cold weather. We had seen enough of the place on the television lately.

  Not waiting for any response from us, the CSM continued, ‘You will be going out on a week’s exercise in which you will have to take evasive action, keep a low profile and not be discovered. We will be sending out some men to search for you and capture you. You must all make bloody sure you are not captured because they will be told that if they do capture you they will be permitted to interrogate you a fucking sight harder than the other week. So make sure you don’t get caught.’

  He went on, ‘Don here will be in command. From now on, you will look on him not only as your commander but also as your mother. Do everything he tells you and learn as much as you can from him. He’s done it all and he knows how to operate. This is a chance for you three to learn what the SAS is all about. He knows the score.’

  The CSM continued, ‘From now on, you will have to get used to having live ammunition and your firearms with you at all times; not just during the day, but 24 hours round the clock. After leaving here, you will go to the armoury and take out an SMG each and two magazines of 9mm. You will have to sign for them and woe betide anyone if you lose as much as one round, let alone your weapon.’

  It was the usual old army bullshit but, somehow, coming from this CSM it sounded more intense, more urgent. This would, after all, be the real thing.

  ‘After that, you will go to your billet and pack as though for an exercise. Pack as little as possible because for the next seven days you will be on the run, moving fast across country. You will not want to take the kitchen sink with you. In fact, the only thing of importance you will be taking with you is your weapon and ammunition; nothing else really matters except, of course, your compass.

  ‘This is a test. If you can get through this week on th
e run, you will be told to stay out for a further two weeks, living off the land. By the end of that time, you will have got to know each other well, better than your own brothers. Where you lot are going, you will need to read each other’s minds and know precisely how you are all going to respond under really stressful conditions. This is the best way of getting to learn about yourselves and each other.’

  He concluded, ‘That’s about it. I don’t want to see you for three weeks.’

  He did not say ‘good luck’. We had already learned that no member of the SAS ever uses the phrase ‘good luck’. The reason they don’t is because they never believe in luck; their training, professionalism, stamina and natural ability are considered far more important than any luck could ever be.

  We trooped out, a little bewildered by what had happened. None of us was a specialist, except Don, and we had thought that our training would last for at least another six months before we were sent on an operation. We could have understood it if we had been specialists in medical, signals, explosives or whatever, but we had no specialist training.

  Outside the CSM’s office, Don gave us a quick, short briefing, adding to the official one from the CSM: ‘Just take your sleeping bag, a ground sheet, a mess tin, irons, one set of spare clothing and a commando knife. One other thing, make sure you bring your Post Office savings book.’

  We looked at him bemused. With a grin, he added, ‘Don’t worry. Once we get through this first week, we are going to have the time of our lives.’

  That brought smiles to our faces even though we did not completely understand what he had in mind. It sounded good, however, and he was our new ‘guv’nor’. Anything he said would be all right by us.

  An hour later, we were walking out of the Hereford headquarters, heading west towards the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons beyond, with our weapons, ammunition and kit. We headed off along the main roads on to country lanes before heading out across open country.