by Andy McNab
He was held in a cell, but at least he was fed. He went through the mental problems of being incarcerated but survived and came back to his family, going straight back into the air force. The biggest problem he'd had, he said, was guilt. "I walked around with my head down for a long time," he said. "I couldn't handle being treated so well when so many others had suffered."
The next speaker, a British infantry corporal in his late fifties, jumped to his feet. "There's no way you should feel guilty," he said.
"I positively wish I'd been in your camp!" A soldier in the Glorious Glosters, he had been through a fearsome amount of indoctrination, on starvation rations. He caught dysentery and had to bung himself up with charcoal from the fire. Eventually he had been force-marched across North Korea in winter, without shoes. He saw many of his friends die on the march. He came home in shit state, having been beaten continually and lost all his teeth. He was so psychologically damaged by it all that he alienated himself from his family and ended up alone. "I've got over it all now," he said, "but I still don't buy anything Korean."
That struck a chord with me; my dad's brother had been killed by the Japanese in a prisoner of war camp, and even forty years later Dad wouldn't buy anything made in japan.
"How did you cope?" somebody asked.
"I don't know. All I knew was that I didn't want to die."
"Would you have signed all the confessions and so on if they'd asked you?"
"Bloody right I would have. If it had meant getting food or getting shoes, I'd have confessed to being jack the Ripper. We sat there getting indoctrinated, and we nodded and agreed. Of course we did; it meant we got food."
One speaker told us what a large part religion now played in his life, having found God during his time of capture. Another fellow had been a risoner of the Vietp cong for four years; when we asked him, "Did God play a part in your life?" he replied, "Yeah, it played a big part.
Because when we had dysentery and I was shitting myself, the Bible was something that I could clean my arse with."
We started going out on trips and visits. We went to see an old woman near Ross-on-Wye, a country person all her life, who knew every plant in creation. She had a beautiful garden and had tables covered with trays and trays of different flora. It was a funny scene, this frail old lady running around the fields and forests with a bunch of big boys towering over her and hanging on her every word.
We were sent out on two- or three-day exercises to make our shelters, light a fire, forage about, put a few snares out. The non-Regiment characters were well into it; for some of them it was the biggest course they'd ever be on. Once they had passed they'd be qualified as combat survival instructors and could go back to their own units and train people in the techniques. All I wanted to do was get through it.
One of the instructors, a massive old country boy with big red cheeks and hands the size of shovels, had been on the training team for years.
He did the firefighting demonstrations and got to the one where he was rubbing two bits of wood together to start the fire. It was,quite a big thing for him; he obviously prided himself on his skill. So he's there and he's rubbing away, and nothing is happening.
"Any minute now, lads, just you wait."
Nothing.
"Right, we'll give it another five minutes."
He rubbed furiously, but still he couldn't do it. We had to move off to the next lecture, but about ten minutes into it he came running down the field, shouting, "It's started! Come and see!" We all had to troop back up the hill to save his pride.
During these periods when we'd be going out and building shelters and living in them for two or three days at a time, we started roducing the stuff that we were p going to use on the last week of combat survival.
They'd taught us how to make clothes out of animal skins, and weapons out of sticks and stones. People were spending hours making jackets out of bin liners and rabbit fur hats that would have passed muster at Ascot. I did the minimum I thought I needed to pass.
On one of the exercises a large crate turned up.
"Right lads," the sergeant major said. "Chicken time.
The only problem is, there's only one chicken between every six of you.
If you don't get one, you'll have to go to somebody who has one and hope he'll share it."
We were sent to the bottom of the hill, the chickens were released, and on the command it was every man for himself. The Worzel Gummidge convention raced up the hill; I pulled off my combat jacket as I ran and threw it over the first hen within range. That night it was cooked in the fire and shared with three others.
The old poachers came in and gabbed off about how to catch a salmon. We had one weird lecturer who worked for the Water Board, in charge of all the lakes.
He was a real Herefordshire boy with a craggy old face and greasy blue nylon parka and a checked cap that was probably older than he was.
He was in a world of his own as he passed on his expertise.
"When you put your net out here, don't 'ee worry about that," he'd say mystifyingly, chuckling to himself on the riverbank as he seemed to remember old stories that he then didn't share with us. Then suddenly he was telling us, 'When you go into a pub, lads, make sure you've got your back to the wall." We were rolling up.
The DS said to us afterward, "We let him get on with it because we don't want to upset him. He's, so good at what he does."
After the first two weeks we'd had all the theory, we'd had all the practice, it was time to go and do it for real.
We were put into groups of four. The scheme was that we were going to navigate for seven days from point to point as if we were on a "rat run," the system of passing escaped POWs from agent to agent in an occupied or enemy country. It was down to us to move from RP to RP; the only navigation kit we were allowed was the button compass we'd have around our necks and the escape map that we'd made ourselves-the whole of Wales on a piece of parachute silk the size of a handkerchief.
We were told that sometimes on operations we'd be given a ready-printed one, but more often we would make our own.
We were told that in the areas where we'd be operating, the Regiment invited in all the farmers and householders for a big barbecue. They were told that combat survival was on again, that it would be very much appreciated if their land could be used, and that if they were approached by any people wearing bin liners and rabbit fur hats, they were to Turn them away and report it. It was emphasized that they had to be cruel to be kind; feeding us wouldn't help us because we wouldn't be learning.
A Guards rifle company would be the hunter force out to capture us. They would be in vehicle and helicopters and would be using dogs.
As a performance incentive, each soldier was told that if he made a capture, he would be given two weeks' leave and money.
We turned up in the training wing with all our survival equipment, including a small tobacco tin of bits and pieces that would be all we could take apart from what we had made. The contents included a razor blade, a spare compass, water sterilizing tablets, matches and bits of magnesium block to start fires with, a magnifying glass, a heliograph, and a condom. This last piece of kit wasn't in case we got lucky on the top of the Black Mountains; a condom can be used to make a catapult, collect water in, or even as an emergency flotation device.
All our kit was searched and checked and put into the toilets that were going to be the changing room.
Each of us in turn was sent in to see the doctor.
"Strip off your tracksuit and put it in that bin liner," he said.
"Then sign this."
Bollock naked, I signed a bit of paper to say that I didn't mind being internally checked. As I signed, I could hear the rubber gloves going on.
Then it was a quick squirt of KY jelly and, "Right, touch your toes."
With a swift, practiced movement the doctor plunged his finger up my arse as far as it would go, presumably to check that I hadn't cached a box of Milk Tray.
&nb
sp; The MoD police were mooching around outside with their dogs, making sure no one was going to try to do a runner and sniffing for hidden food. I had it all squared away; I'd known that the toilets would be used as changing rooms and had wrapped chocolate, peanuts, and raisins in polythene bags and hidden them in all the cisterns. When I went back to the toilet block to change, I said to one of the police, "Just going to have a quick dump."
I went into the toilet, smiling all over my face, and lifted up the cistern.
Empty.
A week before that George and I had also had put out caches of food all around South Wales. We had no idea of exactly where we would be going to go but made an educated guess. For most of a weekend we were running around buying c;ins of tuna and hiding them at prominent points. Tesco's made a fortune out of us.
We were issued with a set of battle dress from the Second World War, a pair of boots, and a greatcoat, and that was it. Onto a vehicle and off we went. We were driven at night to a dropoff point, and from there we were told where our next RP was going to be the following'night. The idea was to move during the night, as tactically as we could in groups of four.
My group included a fellow from the PT corps and two navy aircrew, one of whom had terrible flatulence.
All the Selection people had been split up. I took one look at my teammates and decided to detach myself from them at the earliest opportunity; nothing personal, but I didn't want to get caught, and I thought I'd be better off on my own. The first time we got bumped by the Guards I would do a runner.
We moved tactically at night, and in the daytime it was just a matter of finding the world's biggest, prickliest, most antisocial bush, getting right in the middle of it, and hiding. At last light we would start moving again into the area of the RP, to meet up with the agent who was going to put us further onto this rat run. In real life the agents would want as little to do with us as possible because they wouldn't want to compromise themselves; to add realism, therefore, the DS, who were the agents, were being hunted by the A.R.F (airborne reaction force) as well.
At the RP one of us would go forward and make contact, while the other three stood back; I always held back and made sure somebody else went forward, because he had a better chance of being caught. The bloke who had gone forward would get the information, come back and brief us, and off we'd trog.
We had our little tins and were supposed to be trying to catch rabbits, but we had too much distance to cover for any of that nonsense. For security, we were never going to put a fire on, we were never going to have flame. We went hungry, apart from at one checkpoint where the PT instructor came back with a dark plastic carrier bag with a knot at the top.
"They gave me some scoff!" He beamed. He undid the knot and looked inside. His face fell. "What the fuck's this?"
I looked. "Tripe," I said. "My granddad used to live on the stuff.
It's heaving."
We ate it raw, and within an hour the navy character was piping us aboard.
I had a premonition that things were going to go wrong. The P.T.I fellow was jumping clumsily over fences, which would then twang for about another fifty meters down the line. He was going at obstacles like a bull in a china shop; he'd obviously never been taught that you take your time, take it nice and gently. Every time I heard a twang I was flapping; I had it in my mind that to be captured was to be binned.
The two navy guys had no sort of tactical sense whatsoever. They weren't to blame; it wasn't their job, and passing the course didn't matter for them; it was just a three-week embuggerance before they went back to the wardroom for a few pink gins. So they were wanging over fences as well, and all of them, even the PT instructor, were knackered.
"Don't forget," I said, "the drill is that as soon as we get bumped, we split up to make it harder for all of us to get captured.
Then we regroup at the last emergency RP."
We were waiting at one particular RP, which was a rise of ground overlooking a small road bridge over a river in the middle of nowhere.
It was cold just sitting still in the shadows. We were sitting within a meter of one another in cover in a dip and had agreed that two of us would stay awake and the other two would get some sleep. It was just a matter of getting the collar up and retreating inside the greatcoat and dozing off.
I heard helicopters running around, but that was no problem as long as we stayed still.
I was in a semidaze when I heard a voice bark, "Stand still!
Don't move!"
The two on stag had fallen asleep.
As I looked up, I saw a semicircle of guardsmen closing in on us with pick handles. I thought, Fuck! I was really annoyed. I put my hands in the air, yawned with exhaustion, got slowly to my feet, and bolted.
I ran and ran, but only as far as the cutoffs they'd put in. I was brought to the ground by a rugby tackle and four of them piled on top. I struggled, but one of them rammed a pick handle down on my neck and shouted, "Stay still! Stay still!" That was me caught. They turned me over and kept their feet on my neck while they tied me up with plasticuffs. They prodded me and said, "what's your name? What's your name?"
I gave my name and number.
"What rank are you?"
I told them and gave my date of birth for gooa measure.
They dragged me away to their helicopter.
"Fucking good news!" one of them shouted. "We've got one of the fuckers. We've got our leave!"
No sooner had the Puma taken off than it seemed to be landing again, in what I took to be their holding area.
They stripped me of my clothing, so I was there in just my skiddies, and put on blindfolds. I was made to stand a pace or two from a wall, then lean forward so my hands touched the bricks and I was standing at forty-five degrees. It wasn't too difficult, but my shoulders ached badly.
Then I had to kneel down on the ground, keeping my back straight and my hands on my head. That was a bit worse. The one I liked least was sitting on my arse, cross-legged, with my back straight and my hands behind my neck.
At some stage, when I was back on my knees, my blindfold was removed, and I found myself looking up at the training sergeant major.
"Am I binned?" I said pitifully, remembering how I'd cocked up in the jungle with him.
"No, you nugget. Get back on the helicopter and don't fuck up."
I'd caught him in a good mood. An ex-Household Division man himself, he was delighted to see the Guards doing so well.
I was put back out in another group, consisting of three navy aircrew.
Again, not one iota of tactical awareness. I was desperate.
I couldn't afford to get caught again.
We were going along the side of a forestry block one night when we heard shouting just forward and left of us. We bomb-burst away from the area; in theory we should have made our separate ways back to an E.R.V (emergency rendezvous) but I thought, Sod that, and cracked on alone.
During the daytime it was quite good. I was hiding up, and sometimes I could hear the A.R.F. in their helicopters. Sometimes I'd hear dogs; it was quite exciting stuff.
These boys were really close, but I was getting away with it. I now knew that if they caught me, they weren't going to muck about because they didn't know my reactions. They would hit me hard, tie me up, and take me in.
I saw the sun occasionally, but most of the time I was freezing.
No matter how well insulated I was, after days and days in the field my body was cold and damp.
I tried to sleep, but it was scattered sleep. I might doze for twenty minutes, wake up, nod off for another ten minutes, acutely aware of any noises.
It came to the last scheduled night of the exercise, and I knew that at some point very soon one of the DS would compromise me so that I was captured and put through the interrogation phase. I knew it would be quite a lengthy time, no scoff, and it would be a pain in the arse specially if I was going in hungry. I decided to do something about that.
I did a recce on a fa
rmhouse, which seemed to be occupied by an old couple and a daughter in her early twenties. Seemed all right. I banged on the door.
"Hello, you haven't got any bread, have you?"
They knew at once who I was.
"You want something to eat? Come in."
Decision. Do I go in? Are they going to get on the phone?
I went in. It was a beautiful old place, oak beams and a log fire, and a wonderful smell of something or other bubbling away on the Aga. I sat down and the woman brought me a saucepan of mincemeat stew.
As she sat there smiling, I helped myself to three or four bowlfuls, washed down with gallons of hot, sweet tea. For pudding, I was presented with a plate of Christmas cake with inch-thick marzipan.
I ate my fill, and stuffed a couple of extra doorsteps in my pocket.
I'd have given anything for a few minutes by the log fire and maybe a hot bath, but it was time to go. I'd pushed my luck far enough as it was.
I thanked my hosts profusely, offering to do the same for them one day if I could, and was off.
Later that night, approaching a checkpoint, I was still full. I tried to eat more of the cake but felt sick. Very reluctantly I had to throw it all away in case I was caught.
I met up with the DS, who said, "Wait over there.
We've got a cattle truck that's going to pick you up and take you to the next RP."
Oh, yes, I thought, and I suppose Hereford will win the next FA Cup.
Knowing what was coming, I climbed into the cattle truck and joined the others who had got their heads down on the straw. Nobody spoke; we knew what was going on. I knew where I was going, and there was nothing I could do about it. As far as I was concerned, that was the first phase of the test over with; let's now get on with the second.
A couple of hours later we landed up in Hereford, in a part of the camp that I hadn't seen before.
As soon as we arrived, they banged into us. The tailgate came down and they shouted really aggressively, "Everybody now, Turn round, lie down, put your hands on your heads!"
