First Man In

by Ant Middleton

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, were you an Engineer?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, glancing at my tattoo with fake surprise, as if I’d completely forgotten it was there. ‘Oh yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘But you’re wearing a Royal Marine beret?’

  ‘Yes, mate,’ I said. ‘I used to be in 9 Parachute Squadron.’

  ‘Well, holy shit, lad,’ he said, his face breaking out into an astonished grin.

  And that was it. Before long, Darren and I were inseparable. We’d sit together, eat together, do everything we could together. I hadn’t wanted to find a best mate, in this place, but now somehow here he was. And why not? I could sense that the comradeship I’d draw from him could be the source of a lot of strength, and I hoped I could help him in return.

  One morning, just before 7 o’clock, our four-tonner pulled up, its engine died and I slid out from under the bench, rolled up my sleeping bag and jumped out into the cold. The DS’s instructions were as brief as they were unpleasant: ‘Right, get round fucking Dicky Bow Wood.’

  Dicky Bow Wood. I’d heard about this place. It was named for its figure-of-eight bow-tie shape and lies in the basin of a valley. And it was tough. We’d pulled up less than a mile away from it and I could see it down there – dark and wet and foreboding. I took off, at first towards the front of the group, but I quickly found myself falling back, and this time it wasn’t tactical. The day had hardly begun, and I was already aching and tired. It was Afghanistan. I was suffering for it. Whereas all the other guys had been looking after themselves and getting in the practice, on the run-up to Selection I’d been living in the desert, eating basic rations and doing fourteen-hour patrols under stressful conditions. I’d got into the habit of necking protein shakes, which were helping a bit, but my body was beginning to feel distinctly ragged. This wasn’t an encouraging sign, on the second week of a six-month programme that’s designed to get more brutal with every day that passes.

  I finished that first go around Dicky Bow Wood panting, damp and anxious. We’d all found the DS waiting for us at the foot of a scree-covered hill that rose steeply over one hundred metres. Without letting us catch our breath he issued the next instruction: ‘Grab whoever’s closest to you and fireman’s carry them up to the top.’ Before I had the chance to see who was beside me, I felt a pair of cold hands grip the backs of my thighs and I was in the air, then over some shoulders. It was a lunk-headed giant from Redcar everyone knew as Crash. I knew why he’d chosen me: I was the shortest.

  But I wasn’t exactly light. Within minutes he was panting like an asthmatic hooker, dropping me into the muddy gravel every few metres before bundling me back up over his butcher’s shoulders for another go. By the time we reached the top I was bruised and pissed off. For all the size of him, he had no stamina.

  ‘Right!’ shouted the DS. ‘Get back down the fucking hill, then swap over.’

  I looked at Crash in disbelief. Shit. I didn’t even come up to his chin. How the fuck was I …?

  We reached the base of the hill. I bent down, threw my arms around the back of his legs and, with all the strength I could muster, hauled him on top of me. I felt like a blue whale had landed on my head. There was immediate and intense pressure on my knees, ankles and lower back. Now I had to get this sack of brawn up the hundred-metre hill. I pushed one leg out and then the next, with each step the weight shifting, bringing pain to a different part of my body. He was so huge, and the ascent so steep, that his head and legs kept banging along the ground.

  And it wasn’t only once. The DS ordered us up and down, up and down. By the fourth climb I felt like my eyes were going to pop. The only energy I had left was my anger. I stewed murderously, thinking, ‘Fucking hell, you fat cunt. Why did you fucking choose me?’ Halfway up the hill I was getting to the point where I didn’t care whether I failed or not. I pushed on, my consciousness narrowing so that all there was left was the pain and what I could see directly in front of me – the mud, the scree and the toes of my boot. ‘As long as you put one foot in front of the other, you’ll get there,’ I thought. On my fifth ascent I saw the man next to me give up, dropping his human load in a heap in the cold, chewed-up mud.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I shouted over to him.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

  ‘Where are you going? Just fucking walk up the hill.’

  ‘I’m gone,’ he said. ‘I’m VW’ing.’

  And from the misery of that man’s defeat I squeezed just enough motivation to get me through.

  Week Two. Friday. The Fan Dance. This is a test famous among the armed forces worldwide for its toughness – a timed march up Pen y Fan, the highest peak in southern Britain. Pen y Fan looks like a gigantic bat wing made of rock that rises nearly three thousand feet out of the earth. The route begins at the tip of one wing, and we’d have to tab over both shoulders and the head, then down the other side and back again, covering fifteen miles in three hours forty minutes.

  The Selection nerds had been talking about the Fan Dance since they got here. They were convinced they knew the best strategy. I’d heard them every day telling each other, ‘Just keep up with the DS and you’ll pass. That’s the secret. Just keep pace with them.’ That, I’d decided, was a bad idea. As I paced briskly up the stony path with my fifty-five-pound bergen on my back and my weapon in my hands, I let one nerd after another overtake me, acknowledging each one’s smug satisfaction. Fine. Go on, do it. Burn yourself out and I’ll draw power from your flames.

  And the truth was I needed all the power I could get. By the time I reached the centre of the ridge, the discomfort was rippling through every cell, as if my body was not made of flesh and blood anymore, but pain. I forced myself through the checkpoint and from then on it was downhill all the way. This was what they called Jacob’s Ladder. It was by no means easier than going up. The ladder was almost vertical and strewn with rubble. One turn of the ankle and you’d be finished.

  As I launched myself down the ladder I realised that, for once, my height was proving an advantage. I opened up my legs and let the heavy weight of my bergen take me, almost like controlled falling, keeping my knees bent so they wouldn’t be punished too badly. I went like a firework, ticking off each one of the smug nerds as I rocketed down.

  Finally, I was at the bottom. The Fan Dance had proved even more brutal than I’d feared. But here I was. I jogged, breathless and sodden in rain and sweat, down to the end of a cobbled track called the Roman Road, the vast black shadow of Pen y Fan looming over my shoulders. In the car park at the end there were eight or nine lads who’d arrived before me. One of the DS nodded me in.

  ‘Right, take your bergen off, get a snack down you, drink some water.’

  He handed me a packet of ‘Biscuit Browns’ – rock-hard squares made of wheat that are notorious for giving you constipation and have since been removed from army ration packs.

  ‘Thanks, sir,’ I said. I ripped open the gold foil packet.

  ‘OK, lads,’ the DS shouted. ‘You’ve got five minutes. Then you’re doing it again.’

  How was this even possible? I sat down on the edge of a rock and chewed my dry mouthful in a daze. Around me I could see some of the other guys were having a serious mental battle with themselves. Their eyes were just detached from reality, as if their spirit had been sucked out of their bodies and was looking down on them from high above. The idea of doing it again, when they’d used their last whisper of strength to even get here, seemed like nothing more than a joke. They could barely walk another step, let alone dance the fan. They just sat there in silence, feeling the rain on their cheeks, trying not to think at all.

  Just then, the DS emerged from where he’d disappeared around the back of a wagon. In one hand, he was holding a steaming mug of tea. In the other, a large plate piled high with Fondant Fancies and Cherry Bakewells. He stood in the middle of us, slurped his tea loudly and, with an exaggerated flourish, took a huge bite out of a bright pink Fancy.

  ‘H
mm, that’s bloody good,’ he said, letting us all have a good look at the airy blonde sponge and the sweet, creamy filling.

  It filled my vision, like it was a delicious swimming pool I was about to dive into.

  ‘There’s plenty more cake and tea round the back of the wagon, lads,’ said the DS.

  He shoved the rest of it into his mouth and swallowed theatrically. ‘Why are you doing this to yourselves? Come on. You can end this misery now with a click of your fingers. Just stand up and come for some tea and cake. Simple as.’

  I looked at my boots, the dark wet mud and the green shreds of vegetation clinging to the leather. I balled my fist, feeling my fingertips push into my palms, feeling the strange machinery of tendons and gristle beneath them. Somewhere above me a crow took off from the branch of a tree. To my left I heard a rustle, followed by a deep sigh. Someone was standing up. We all watched him walk to the back of the van to have his chinwag with Mr Kipling. Then someone else stood up. Then someone else. It was a domino effect. I couldn’t believe it.

  But I welcomed it. I pushed myself to my feet and I was gone.

  By the last week of the Hills, we’d lost more than half the course, and there wasn’t a man remaining that didn’t feel ragged. Each one of us now had five hundred arduous miles in our legs and, not having had the benefit of a proper preparation, I was really feeling it. As we bounced along the dirt track towards the start of the next challenge I knew the disadvantage I was carrying from Sangin was going to show itself at some point. What I didn’t know was when or how.

  Today was yet another weighted march, this one with fifty-five pounds plus food, water and weapon for fifteen miles along the Elan Valley in the Brecon Beacons. The trouble finally arrived after I’d hit my first checkpoint, in the form of an unusually dense fog. Within seconds I could see almost nothing at all. It was completely disorientating, like running through milk. I felt the panic rise from my stomach and expand into my whole body. In my exhausted state I didn’t have the mental energy to fight it.

  ‘Just keep going on your compass bearing,’ I told myself out loud. ‘Just keep going.’ But the deeper I vanished into the fog, the more I began to doubt myself. Was I going in the right direction? Was I sure? I stopped, utterly alone inside a silent world of cloud, and tried to think. ‘Be on the safe side,’ I said. ‘Go back to where you were before the clag came in.’ I turned around and began retracing my steps. After about two hundred metres I realised I didn’t recognise the terrain at all. I looked at my map. Where was I? Where was I? I had no idea. Which meant I was going to miss the next checkpoint. Which meant I was going to fail Selection.

  As the reality dawned, my heartbeat surged and my breath began pumping in shallow bellows. ‘I’m fucked,’ I thought. ‘I’m going to have to call the fucking RAF in to come and get me. I’m going to have to call in Search and Rescue. What’s Emilie going to say? What’s Darren going to think? I’ve failed. This is it. It’s over. I’m done.’

  In that instant my entire sense of who I was just fell away. I’d made a mistake, and that mistake became who I was in my entirety. It defined me. It was me. I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be on Selection at all. My mind was telling me, ‘I’m not what I think I am. I’m not what I believed I could be. I’ve bitten off far more than I can chew. I should just be in a unit as a gunner.’ If there had been a button to press where I could fail myself, I would have pressed it.

  This is something I’ve witnessed happening time and again, not only on Selection, not only in the military, but in every environment I’ve ever operated in. It’s not the mistake that makes people fail, it’s the psychological effects of having made that mistake in the first place. We all like to think of ourselves as immune from making errors. But if we’re too much in denial of the fact that they’re inevitable, when the truth hits we’re panicked into believing all the worst things about ourselves. It’s as if the mistake has remoulded us into the person everyone who ever dismissed or derided us thought we were. It triggers a cascade effect that makes us panic, then despair and then, finally, give up. When that cascade happens, we’ve allowed the mistake to possess us. We’ve allowed it to win.

  There was a classic example of exactly this process on Series 3 of SAS: Who Dares Wins. Contestant number six had stood out from the very beginning of filming, and mostly in good ways. He was a gym-fit lad with a positive mindset who’d come from a really rough background in Middlesbrough. He had the right attitude to succeed. He was taking it seriously, but not so seriously that he couldn’t have a laugh at himself – and that’s crucial. When you’re in the shit you’ve got to be able to stand outside yourself and have a chuckle at your situation, otherwise it’ll all get on top of you. He was at the top of the intake, the man most likely to win.

  We soon learned that he’d experienced some pretty tricky situations in his life. At some point he’d got into serious debt with drug dealers and had to turn to his parents to bail him out, which they could ill afford to do. It was when he was talking about all this that I got my first niggle about him. He’d really dragged his family through the shit and didn’t seem that bothered by it.

  ‘So you’re not worried that you put your mum and dad through all this stress?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s been a struggle, but I’m in a good place now,’ he said, smiling, bringing the discussion straight back to himself.

  There was no emotion there. He seemed unfazed about what he’d done to his family. Almost selfish. He was still living with his mum and dad, and was acting as if that was the way things should be – that their entire purpose in life was to look after him.

  That evening, while the contestants were all at dinner, we started digging into his personal life. All the contestants put on a façade when they come on the show. In order to get at them psychologically, it’s essential that we get a sense of the real person. For that, social media is a goldmine. You can more or less grab a complete picture of someone’s social and family life from just pictures and words. We checked out his Instagram, his Facebook, his Twitter. And then, on LinkedIn, we struck gold.

  Later on, just as everyone was relaxing, I sent the order for him to be delivered to the Mirror Room. He was called for, hooded and walked through the usual disorientation drills, after which he found himself sitting opposite me and Billy. When his hood came off, he was his usual chirpy self.

  ‘You all right?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah!’ I said, beaming back at him, as if we were old friends. ‘Mate, you never fucking told us you were one of the boys.’

  He looked confused.

  ‘Talk to me about the Parachute Regiment,’ I said, turning the laptop towards him. ‘Obviously a big part of your life. Your CV’s quite impressive. I like that.’

  As soon as he saw what was on the screen, he mentally left the room. His mind went somewhere else. In front of me and Billy was just a pale shell, staring.

  ‘Welcome to the brotherhood!’ said Billy. ‘We’re brothers. You know that, don’t you? What battalion were you in?’

  ‘If I’m honest, Staff,’ he said, ‘it’s a lie, Staff.’

  I slammed the table with my fist and got straight to my feet, my chair crashing back behind me.

  ‘You fucking lying little cunt,’ I said, inches from his face.

  He tried to speak.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ I shouted.

  ‘Have you heard of stolen valour?’ said Billy. ‘Friends of mine have fucking died to be called a paratrooper. Gave their fucking blood.’

  When his bollocking was finally over, we shouted for the guard and let him stew for the night.

  First thing in the morning, we lined up the contestants and began a mile-long run down to where the first task was taking place.

  ‘After today, we move on to the next stage of the course,’ I told them as we ran. ‘And believe you me, I’m not taking half of you. Fifty per cent are getting culled, tonight, because you haven’t made the grade. You could save yourselves a lot
of pain and leave right now if you want. Just think about that, because when we get to where we’re going, you’re going to be in a whole world of pain, for a couple of hours at least.’

  This little speech was mostly for the benefit of number six. The truth was, we had no intention of culling him. Everyone makes mistakes, and his hadn’t even been made on the course. This was a test. I wanted to see if he was going to allow his mistake to eat him alive.

  We soon arrived at the flood plain of a river, now a field of thick mud on which we’d marked out a murder ball pitch with a large tyre in the middle. Number six didn’t even say anything. He came straight up to me and took his armband off.

  ‘What you giving me that for?’ I asked him. ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Are you sure you want to give me that?’

  He handed it to me.

  ‘Are you sure you want to give me that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  And off he went.

  He hadn’t even tried to fight his way through that mistake. Instead, he’d been through the classic cascade: panic, despair, surrender. In a way I could sympathise. I’d been only too lucky that giving up simply wasn’t an option in the Elan Valley. Instead, I had to force myself back under control. ‘Calm yourself down, Ant,’ I’d said, speaking aloud. ‘You know you’re a good soldier. You know you’re good at map reading. You’ve just made a mistake. Yes, you could fail the course. But you need to get yourself out of this.’

  I reckoned that I’d probably gone off track for about a mile. I walked back down the hill, trying to orientate myself. I didn’t recognise anything. Now the fog had lifted a little, I could see only endless grass and mud and scree, the tufts of thick grass they call babies heads, the bogs filled with freezing brown water. I realised, now, why everyone calls this place ‘the green desert’.