by Gil Hogg
I was posted to Afghanistan with the 102nd Regiment, SAS, and remained firmly glued to a desk. I had taken the trouble to research the tribal system of the country, and beside the almost total ignorance of my fellow intelligence officers, could present myself credibly as an expert. The work was interesting, the mess life convivial, but alarming horror stories of experiences in the field seeped in. The sight of body bags and soldiers wrapped in blood-stained bandages was sickening. My appetite for the far frontiers of empire was now satisfied by looking over the wall of the barracks, and seeing the dust swirling down the road toward the low line of golden mountains.
After a year in Kabul, I was shocked to be told by the CO of the regiment that my very industry and excellence as a desk-bound analyst had qualified me for a place leading a team behind enemy lines. My particular understanding of the chaotic tribalism of the Afghans, trivial to a scholar, but impressive at briefings in Kabul, had earned me this assignment. Of course there was no logic in the assignment, but my limited experience had shown me that logic and common sense were not necessary attributes of military decisions.
“Sir,” I protested quietly, “there are a number of field officers much more able than me.”
“You’re too modest, Roger.”
“I’m just a computer geek.”
“It’s precisely your knowledge we need in the mountains, and you’re as fit as any officer in the 102nd.”
In the mountains. The words were heart-stopping. “But, sir…”
“Everything you say confirms the correctness of my choice,” the CO said, putting his arm around my shoulder in a fatherly way.
The mission, codenamed Moonlight, was a joint product of US and British intelligence; armchair thinking, credible at face value, but (to me) impracticable in the bitter mountains. The team would gather intelligence in no-man’s land, transmitting the deployments of the enemy to base. I was said to be essential because it was believed that I could identify, in the turmoil, who were enemies and who might be or become, allies. Personally, I doubted that on the stony, snow-flecked slopes, I would be able to tell one bunch of tribesmen from another.
It had not been difficult to make the confused and ever-changing pattern of loyalties of the warlords into a coherent design across a table at headquarters, but on a snow-blocked mountain pass, under enemy fire? I was reluctant to prick the bubble of my reputation, but I went a long way toward it in presenting my reservations. I approached my CO again.
“I must say that I have my doubts whether I can really add any value to the operation, sir. Identification of tribes and warlords’ militias on the ground, by sight alone, in difficult weather, is going to be almost impossible.”
“Good, Roger, good,” the CO said. “I appreciate your caution. Very necessary. You are our best man here. If anybody can pull this off, you can.”
My superiors had ordained that Moonlight would shine, and so be it.
I had kept myself physically fit, and looked the part of a field officer. I lectured my small squad of six with a confidence I did not feel. I lectured them until the scepticism that had at first filmed their eyes was dissolved into shining enthusiasm. The men were not fools, but they could not have realised that they were in the hands of a novice – indeed, a terrified novice. After a week, the team was as ready as it could be, packed inside the noisy fuselage of a Westland helicopter.
Disaster beset the mission from the outset. The chopper was to set us down at dusk, high in the northern mountains. The pilots could not find the drop zone. The blades of the chopper touched a cliff wall in a sudden gust of wind, and the machine crashed from low altitude. We all survived the fall and were more or less conscious, but stunned.
As I gathered my wits and struggled out of the burning hull, enemy firing began. Our noisy approach had given Taliban riflemen time to embed themselves behind the rocks which were scattered over the moraine of the valley floor. Suddenly, we were in a maelstrom of confusion, each one of the squad struggling to escape the fire and avoid bullets. The flames illuminated us like targets in a shooting gallery, while our attackers were invisibly tucked behind boulders.
I wormed my way out through the smoke and rubble, and hid in a pile of rocks nearby, unharmed. We couldn’t have struck back. And I heard nothing from my team. I waited for dawn alone.
All I could see in the morning light was the burned-out shell of the Westland and scattered bodies. When I was satisfied that the area was clear, I crawled over and found two of my men and the two pilots dead, their bodies ignominiously stripped of equipment and useful clothes. I concluded the others had died too, in their hiding places, or perhaps been taken prisoner.
I retired to a cave. I had a small survival pack and a satellite transmitter. I reported the disaster, but leavened it with information on enemy deployments, identifying tribes, numbers and directions of movement; these were largely imaginary. It made the deaths seem less pointless and I hoped it made me sound valuable and worth saving.
I had a GPS device including a map. I started for the nearest place of safety, the US lines, probably a hundred miles away by the time I had found a way across the trackless mountains. Moonlight was over as far as I was concerned, and I judged that it was too risky to dally to find the pick-up zone, and then hide out until help came in four days’ time.
I moved mostly at dusk or in the moonlight, and in the early morning, nearly starving after a week, and fed occasionally by friendly herdsmen. I saw no friend or enemy, herdsmen apart, but my satellite transmitter worked for that week, and I sent more imaginative bulletins. I hoped that I would attract enough interest in the enemy deployments to warrant an aerial surveillance in the vicinity and perhaps lead to my rescue as part of the exercise. My ploy failed. Although daring deeds in rescuing comrades are written about, I knew the unwritten rule was that the British and US forces wouldn’t risk a chopper and pilots for me alone.
It took another six days to reach the US lines, by which time I could scarcely crawl. I was feverish and my guts had contracted into an agonising knot. I was scrubbed clean and put in a field hospital. Oh, the feeling of those clean sheets and the taste of sweet food!
Operation Moonlight would have been overtaken in a barrage of new missions and forgotten, but I allowed the US intelligence officers to debrief me. After all, they were entitled to know the story of this frozen, dust-covered, starving wraith who had crawled into their lines.
I had nothing much to say at first. There really was nothing to say other than the fact that I had been clawing my way across the mountains for nearly two weeks. But when it became apparent that the officers who gathered at my bedside with their tape recorders and notebooks were hungry to hear something, anything, I (myself an IO) understood their plight and obliged. They were bored with the routine of the base. I therefore told a story of the heroism of my men, fighting to the death, completely outnumbered, instead of the truth that they were shot like dogs in the dark. In contrast to my lonely and miserable starvation scramble across rivers and mountain passes, I spoke of watching enemy deployments during the day, and moving to new observation posts at night. I filled the US intelligence officers’ notepads and tapes with a whole demography of war in the mountains. And I spoke to US war correspondents.
Operation Moonlight was exhumed from the grave. In the media game of point-scoring against terrorists, it was a success. The British and US commanders of the exercise basked in brief news media limelight, and I was an anonymous hero.
When I was released from hospital and delivered to the 102nd at Kabul, I expected a hero’s welcome. I imagined the whole of the officers’ mess gathering round me, rapt at my story. I found however that I was not popular. It was unforgivable that I had allowed myself to be debriefed by the US forces without calling in the British IOs, and I had breached the Official Secrets Act in speaking to US war correspondents.
“You’ve broken every rule in the book, Conway,” ( I was Roger no more) “including coming back from the dead,” my CO said grimly. “You c
ould be court-martialled for blabbing to the US press. But we’re not going to do anything with you.”
“I’m sorry you feel like that, sir. After all, you’ve had a very successful mission.”
The CO glared at me balefully, knowing what a pointless shambles Moonlight really was, despite the favourable propaganda. And knowing, too, how impossible it was to make anything sensible out of the mass of intelligence on the movements and loyalties of the warlords, and their tribes, which my trek had spawned.
Shortly after this I was flown back to Britain and given a desk job while my commission expired. It was a happy goodbye on both sides when I got into a taxi outside the main gate at Aldershot Barracks. I had a record carrying an official commendation for leadership, bravery and endurance on active service. I also received what amounted to an apology from the Colonel of the Regiment, who always liked me and disagreed with my CO, saying that if there had been a witness to my account I would have been decorated.
Captain Roger Elliston Conway, ex-SAS, aged twenty-five, was back in the job market.
3
I had no thought of joining the intelligence services at this time. I returned to Oxford thinking that I might seek work in the City of London with an investment bank, but I wanted to take time to consider. To occupy myself I began to deal in second-hand cars again. The kind of person who buys a low-mileage Porsche or Aston Martin is one who likes a badge of style, even if he can’t quite afford it. One of my customers (I called them clients) had collected another badge of a certain kind of provincial style: membership of the Leander, a pretentious but shabby club in Oxford. He suggested I join. I did and I was readily accepted.
The Leander was frequented by local businessmen, solicitors, and the odd don. It was a place for drinking rather than tasting, for eating rather than dining, for gambling and for pornographic videos, described as films, shown in the library. The food, the cod and chips apart, was unattractive, but the club could be a useful place for me.
I found that my clients were impressed by the confident ambience of the Leander, the marble veneer columns, the blotchy gilt mirrors, and the five-foot high oil portraits of petty merchants of yesteryear; they were apparently not deterred by the condescending and sometimes rude waiters, the stained carpets, the scratched silver plate, or the pervasive stale smell of past roast joints.
I studied the membership list soon after joining and set out to cultivate any members who might be of use to me. One such was Marius Jacobs, a dissipated English literature don from University College. Marius was a curious mix. We met late one night in the upstairs bar, a grotty little cave where the rank smell of old beef could penetrate as light never did. We were both a little drunk. There was some good-hearted confusion over our drinks orders, and we introduced ourselves and began to talk.
“Oh, yes, Roger Elliston Conway,” Marius said. “I remember seeing your name posted on the membership application list.”
Marius, I was to find, had a precise memory for facts like that. It was enough. My name spoke for me. I think that after our meeting, Marius, who was ugly, liked being seen with me. I wear expensive and quietly stylish clothes, and I look noticeable in them. I suppose I could have been a model, if I had been interested.
In subsequent days we drank together on occasions, and I asked Marius about life at the college. I was genuinely interested. I had the slight ulterior motive that knowledge of a scene which I would never know personally might be of use to me. My regret at having missed an experience which might plausibly have been mine was faint. As I’ve said, I accept the way the cards fall although I play hard to get them to fall my way. Marius of course believed he was chatting with a graduate of Oriel. I have no respect for the truth (except in this memoir).
One day we were in the bar and Marius was disdainfully reviewing the prospects of his students. He said that some fools amongst them might even find their way into the secret services. Then he cocked his long head, looking out of the corners of his glistening eyes at me, and said in a jocular way, “You wouldn’t be interested in joining, would you, Roger?”
My response was as flippant as the question, and we passed on to other subjects.
I was however taken by Marius’s suggestion, whether it was serious or not. Selling second-hand cars was profitable, and becoming something in the City, which I had promised myself for the future, would be even more profitable, but nothing could detract from the glamour of a James Bondish career as a spy, and an operative against evil forces. Yes, there would be risks, but it was, I imagined, like fighting for one’s country in a Savile Row suit.
A week later I was in the bar of the club with Marius, and when were on the second double-brandy, I reminded him of his earlier remark and said I wouldn’t mind being considered for MI6. “Are you the recruiting sergeant, Marius?”
I put it very lightly. I couldn’t be absolutely serious; he would think something was wrong.
He was very vain. He puffed up. “Well, I’ve shepherded a number of promising fellows through the portals. Poor devils.”
“Perhaps I’m a promising fellow.”
Marius looked at me in a knowing way, as though I had failed to resist an indecent suggestion. He made a palaver of writing particulars on a damp paper napkin. “Of course I remember all these things about you. Let me see. Roger Something-or-other Elliston Conway. Oriel. PPE. Upper second. Right? Rugby, I think. Oh, yes, the Conway family. They’ll like you. They like dynasties. And the army. Captain, SAS. My dear chap, you’re perfect!”
Two weeks elapsed, and Marius caught my elbow in the reading room in a friendly way, waggled his eyebrows and said I would soon hear something.
A week later I was returning to the apartment in Cherwell Drive. I came up the road fast in a Mercedes 300SL convertible, a slinky silver job, refurbished after a smash. The drive lined, with old plane trees which the developer had been required to spare, was usually bare of people, but I noticed a man in tweeds moving around uncertainly on the side opposite the apartment block and looking up at it. He didn’t look like a burglar on reconnaissance; more like an inspector of some kind. Perhaps a bailiff. I had an uneasy start, combing through a list of people in my mind who might be chasing me. I pulled into the carport and cut the engine. Without apparently noticing the snooper, I locked the car and went upstairs.
I had several people pursuing me for sums of money which I disputed, but decided I was feeling unnecessarily guilty, and after letting myself into the apartment, went boldly to the front window and looked down. The man had gone.
I forgot about the incident until I went downstairs in the morning at eight, and found the man in tweeds was there, a few yards from the car. His clothes were crumpled and his complexion purplish. He looked testy. I felt a stab of unreasoning apprehension.
“Captain Conway?” The voice was thick and commanding.
“Who are you?” I asked, putting on an easy smile. “I think I saw you loitering around here last night.”
The man was mean and unsmiling. “We need to talk somewhere.” He moved his jaw upward to indicate the apartment, his tone more an order than a request.
“No we don’t,” I said gently. I looked at my watch, sprang the locks on the car and opened the door. I had a drive of fifty miles before me and an appointment with a prospective buyer.
The man stepped close to me, smelling of detergent soap and tobacco. “You’ve expressed interest in joining friends of mine in London,” he said in a low voice.
Now, to my relief, I understood. I frowned, although I felt like smiling. “Have I? You seem to know a lot about my affairs.”
“We sometimes look over prospects in advance, Captain Conway.”
So this was MI6 in action. I had a sudden mental picture of myself in fifteen years’ time – this man was over forty – checking on potential recruits in cold suburban streets at breakfast-time. I put my leg inside the door of the car. “Look, I have a business meeting.”
“What exactly do you do, Captain Con
way?” the man asked, his small eyes flicking over the lines of the Mercedes and my suit, a tailored gray woollen worsted, which unlike his own, draped without a crease.
“I don’t discuss my business with somebody whose name I don’t even know.”
“Smith, I should have mentioned,” he said tersely.
I bridled, unseen, at his arrogance, and for a moment didn’t care if I scuppered the MI6 opportunity. “Sorry, Mr Smith, but you’ll have to identify yourself a lot more fully before we can talk privately.” I slid behind the wheel and fired the engine.
Smith moved close, blocking my attempt to close the door. “All right Captain Conway, no more messing around.” He pulled a plastic card from the fob pocket of his waistcoat showing his photograph, and stating that he was a special adviser to the Home Office Department of Security. The name on the card was Edward Norrington.
I took my time with the card and returned it with a scowl. “It’s Norrington now, is it? You know, Mr Norrington, I can get a card like that made up in about an hour.”
I pushed him out of the way gently, closed the door of the car and drove off, glimpsing his indignant expression in the rearview mirror. I asked myself whether MI6 was testing my common sense, and then banished the idea of joining them.
Two days later I received a vague and brief note from Norrington’s department making no reference to Marius Jacob, or the fatuous approach of Norrington; they simply asked me to call their number for an interview appointment. And so in this odd manner, my career in secret intelligence began.
Over a period of more than six months I was tested and seen by a variety of leisurely and enigmatic people – sometimes there were two or three of them, men and women, ex-soldiers or soldiers in plain clothes and as many civilians. The tests and meetings took place at offices in Whitehall and Victoria. Some of their questions were half-serious and many quite oblique. When I asked about their positions, they were uncommunicative. Efforts on my part to pin down what I would be required to do as an intelligence officer, apart from taking numerous courses on everything from Urdu to cryptography, were received blankly. It was my first practical experience of the barrier of inequality of information, which is a fact of everyday life in intelligence work. I was only entitled to know if I needed to know, and a mere would-be recruit was seen as having few needs.
