Immediate Action

by Andy McNab

  Every spare moment we had was taken up with learning it all by heart; to a scholar like me, it felt like trying to pour ten pounds of shit into a two-pound bag.

  We earned about all the explosives used by the British Army and others, 'what explosives were commercially available, and where and how we could get our hands on them.

  Having obtained them, we had to know how to use the stuff.

  Industrial sabotage nearly always involves cutting steel.

  However, the explosions are not Hollywood classics: A big blast, a massive fireball, and the bridge comes tumbling down. The hallmark of a Regiment strike would be the minimum amount of explosives to create the maximum damage-unlike my effort with the buttress tree on Selection-because then there's less to carry or make and less to conceal.

  Depending on the type of bridge, the aim was to do specific cuts so that the bridge would collapse under its own weight. To demolish a building, all you do is initiate the momentum of the building falling, and the building itself does the rest.

  We learned how to blow up everything from telecommunications lines to power stations, trains to planes.

  Everything had to be destroyed in such a manner that it couldn't be repaired or replaced-or if it could, then it must take the maximum amount of time.

  Destroying something did not necessarily involve laking it off the face of the earth. It might just mean making a small penetration of about half an inch with explosives into a certain piece of machinery.

  That might be all that's needed to disturb the momentum of the turning parts inside. The machine then destroys itself. The skill is in identifying where the weak part is, getting in there to do it, and getting away again.

  A lot of motorways and structures are built with concrete, so we learned how to destroy it, and that did take a lot of explosives.

  Sometimes it wasn't enough just to take down the spans of bridges; the piers had to be cut as well to maximize the damage. Gaps could be repaired; whole elevated sections of motorway could be replaced in a fortnight, as the Californians prove every time they have an earthquake.

  A large factory or even small town can be immobilized just by taking out an electricity substation. Obviously there are all sorts of countermeasures, and in times of conflict key points will be protected.

  Much of the time, however, the Regiment would not be doing this in a theater of major conflict; we'd be doing it in a small guerrilla war or revolutionary scenario. If the target was protected, that would be just another problem we'd have to get over. We might be putting charges in to go off the following month. In theory a charge could be placed to blow up in five years' time. There are plenty of ways to initiate an explosion, from anywhere in the world.

  We went down to one of the local bridges around Hereford, and each did a recce report in slow time (not covertly). We had a good look at the bridge, measured it out, and did whatever we needed to produce the mechanics of a recce report, wandering around the structure with tape measures and cameras as we worked out how to destroy it. While all the rest of us were doing this technical stuff, Bob, one of the world's most confident men, the sort who not only knows where he's going but also how he's going to get there and what time he's going to arrive, was doing pin steps along the footrail, whistling away as he counted them out.

  Bob always spoke at Mach 2. "You don't need all this technical stuff, all these fucking tape measures," he scoffed. "If you were doing it for real, you'd just be pacing it out. Twenty feet, twenty-one feet "

  When he got to the far end of the bridge, he sat down and did a film director's square on it, took a couple of snapshots, and relaxed in the sun.

  The instructor came over and said, "You all sorted then, Bob?"

  "Yeah, no problems. I'm happier doing it this way."

  Bob sat there for the rest of the afternoon, enjoying the sunshine and having the occasional brew while everybody else was running around like an idiot. I was then up until two o'clock in the morning getting my recce report just right, but not Bob. He bounced into the classroom the next day as fresh as a daisy and said, "Piece of piss."

  The instructor assessed our efforts and passed comments. Most reports were competent, but Bob's, he announced, was outstanding.

  "Enjoy yourself yesterday, did you?" he asked Bob.

  "Lovely sunny day, wasn't it? I'm surprised you didn't get sunburnt, all the lying around you did."

  "Did my report, though, didn't I?" Bob smiled. "And you reckon it's a blinder.) "In every respect," the instructor said, "except one."

  "What's that?"

  "All your photographs show a bridge in the pissing rain!"

  "That's extraordinary," Bob said. "Camera must be a bit damp."

  Bob had spent the whole of the previous weekend doing all the photography and technical measurements on the bridge so that on the day he could piss us off by appearing to do nothing. It would have gone down as one of the great stitches if only he'd remembered that it had poured with rain the whole weekend.

  The dems course taught us how to use the equipment, but it also taught us how to translate that information for other people to use.

  Part of that involved covert photography and infrared photography.

  We might be a businessman with a view from his hotel room or a hiker.

  The stills or video camera might be concealed about our person or in a bag, or we'd be tucked a couple of kilometers back and using large mirror lenses in a covert OP.

  As well as all the technical bits and pieces for the demolitions, we'd be looking at all the defenses. How many guards are at the gate?

  Do they look alert? Are they slouched in a heap with fags in their mouths? What is the best way in and the best way out? We could be planning and preparing for another group, telling them what charges were required and sorting out the RVs and exfil from the target. We might be required to stay in the area afterward to confirm damage and reassess.

  It was all part of demolitions; there was much more to it than Clint Eastwood on his horse, lighting a stick of gelignite and lobbing it over a wall.

  We had all been trained in trauma management, dealing with gunshot wounds and fractures, stabilizing injuries, and intravenously administering fluids; everybody had the skill to keep a person alive if he'd been hit by a bomb blast or rounds. But the kind of work that the Regiment is involved in calls for somebody who has taken it a stage ' further; the patrol medic must be able to carry out surgical procedures in the field, to recognize illnesses and prescribe and administer drugs.

  The result then is a patrol that can stay longer out in the field if it has a major problem; helicopters don't have to be called in to extract a casualty, with the risk of compromise.

  The Regiment operated a "hearts and minds" policy in the Third World countries where it worked. In Oman in the seventies, for example, a lot of the Regiment's time was taken up with looking after the Baluch and the Firqat, prescribing drugs and looking after their welfare.

  There were case notes that covered everything from assisting with a birth to operating on a villager who'd had half his head blown off.

  Sometimes the medic pack contained more drugs and equipment than some of their hospitals. The problem was that as soon as the medics started administering medical aid for major injuries and illnesses, there'd be a mile-long queue outside their A-frame of people with warts and ingrown toenails.

  One of them told me: "We looked after a couple of blokes in the jungle who had problems with their feet.

  Suddenly every man and his dog is on the case, turning up with little cuts and bruises on their tootsies. The next bloke that pestered us, we made it look as if we were going to amputate his foot.

  We went through all the procedures of making sure the table was clear.

  We had the knives out and all sorts."

  Apparently they explained to the man that the only way to deal with such a troublesome foot was to take it off altogether, so if he'd just lie down on the table, they'd have it squared away in
no time.

  The cut suddenly wasn't such a problem, and the character ran away. He spread the good news about, and not many others turned up with bad feet.

  Meeting up in Hereford with blokes who had been doing the medics course while I was doing dems, I heard some wonderful stories.

  They had done about six weeks in Hereford, starting from the basics, learning how to put in Ivs (intravenous drips), administer drugs through injection, prescribe and use drugs. All the drugs had to be learned by their universal, Latin names, which 'Was enjoyed no end.

  They then had to go away and do a couple of weeks at the London School of Tropical Medicine. Because a lot of the work was in tropical climates, they had to know about tropical diseases, how to prevent them, and the way of treating them when they did take hold.

  It was then back to Hereford for a bit more time in the lecture room, and eventually they got their hospital attachments, all around the country. Most of their time was spent in casualty, getting hands-on experience; they could learn all the theory they liked, they were told, but there was nothing like a bit of hands-on with a road traffic accident casualty, or the Saturday night people getting filled in and cut.

  They had also spent a lot of time learning how to become hypochondriacs.

  A fellow called Rod, who spoke with a thick Yorkshire accent and lots of "thee" and "nowt," spent the first two weeks of his month's hospital attachment working in the casualty ward. The next two weeks were taken up purely on his own body MOT. He'd be using all the machines that went ping, having his heart looked at, convinced that there had to be something wrong.

  Charlie was another hypochondriac. He'd left the Regiment in his thirties, gone to work overseas, and then come back and done Selection again. He passed and was the world's oldest corporal. We were doing some troop training and were on the ranges one day, sharing mugs.

  Charlie hated us doing that.

  "You don't know what you could pick up," he said.

  "Too true," somebody said. "I was in the Far East and contracted leptospirosis. I lost about two stone."

  "That was bad luck," Charlie said. "When did it happen?"

  "Last month."

  "you dirty fucking thing!" Charlie screamed. We all started to laugh, because we knew how much it pissed him off. He honked for days about drinking out of the same mug as someone who'd had leptospirosis. He made his own tea after that.

  At the -end of the week's training we said, "You ain't caught leptospirosis yet then, Charlie?"

  "No," he said, "but I'm not too sure what all you people are going to catch."

  "Why's that then?"

  "Because I've been pissing in the tea urn every day."

  The placement system worked really well, both for the Regiment and for the hospitals. The blokes gained experience, and the casualty ward got another pair of willing hands.

  A fellow called Pat had been on hospital attachment at Birmingham General. All the drunks were coming in with bottles sticking out of their foreheads, and gangs of young lads who had been fighting and thought they were as hard as nails because they had cuts on their faces.

  The staff did their best to help them out, but the lads were drunk and full of bravado, getting aggressive with the nurses, pushing them away.

  Nurses got attacked by these sorts of people all the time.

  They're trying to do their job and look after them, and the boys are getting gabby and trying to fill them in.

  Pat was on a refresher course after spending a couple of years away. It used to piss him off severely to see the abuse these girls had to take.

  The trouble was, there was seldom much that the blokes could do because they were supposed to be keeping a low profile.

  One night, however, one of the nurses came screaming out of a cubicle.

  Pat walked in to see what was happening.

  A character came up straightaway and started fingerpoking him.

  "Yeah, that's right," he gabbed, "fucking sort me out now!"

  Pat looked at him for a second and said, "Yes, okay, if that's what you want."

  And he head-butted him and dropped him.

  The lad burst into tears and said, "What's going on?" if it was all Pat's fault. He then started shouting for as the police.

  Two officers happened to be on the ward after bringing in a drunk; they stuck their heads around the curtain, sussed out immediately what had happened, and said, "Sorry, sir, we didn't see anything."

  The bloke with the sore forehead had a badly injured mate outside on a trolley. Pat and a nurse were asked to get him into a lift and take him up to have surgery.

  While the boy was lying on the stretcher, he was giving the nurse a hard time, calling her a slag and yelling that everyone was a wanker.

  So Pat put the lift on hold and said, "Look, sunshine, let me read your horoscope.

  You're dying. If we don't get you up the top there, you'll check out for sure. The lift's stopped. If you don't shut your gab, I'll just keep you here. So can I take it that we have detente?"

  Members of the Regiment hold life as dear as anybody else. During one operation a team had been off somewhere doing their stuff. They stopped after a firefight and were clearing the area when they came across a young member of the opposition. He was shot in the legs and in a bad way. Rather than bug out, they stopped, used their own medical equipment, which they might be needing themselves the next day, to stabilize him, and got him onto their vehicle. Then they went out of the area of the task to reach an LS where a helicopter could come in and casevac him.

  A fellow called Billy was watching Hereford play football one Saturday when one of the players swallowed his own tongue. Billy saw what was going on, jumped onto the pitch and did the necessary and saved the player's life-and then ran off pretty sharpish to avoid attention. He was very annoyed afterward about missing the match.

  I found people were extremely careful to preserve life and limb perhaps because they understood the dangers more. It was a wonder to me the kids of some Regiment blokes could go anywhere, their dads were so protective.

  But then, maybe they understood dangers that other people didn't, because they'd seen the consequences.

  When a person is hit by a car at 30 mph, he gets thrown in the air, his body gets shattered; chances were the dad had seen some of that, and it made him more aware of everyday dangers, not just danger in the military context. it seemed that as soon as I got back from somewhere, I was getting ready to go away again. To all intents and purposes Debbie and I were living separate existences.

  She said to me, "What exactly are we doing with our lives? Even when you come back, you disappear straight downtown."

  I said, "It'll be all right-it's just a busy time. Look, I'm going away for another three months soon. When I get back, we'll sort ourselves out." There was nothing those relate people could have taught me about running a marriage.

  The three-month trip to Oman was a whole squadron effort to practice desert warfare. I was really excited; there were strong Regiment links with the area, and because most of the squadron had been to the Middle East before, I felt that at least when this one was over, we'd be speaking the same language.

  The Regiment was founded in the desert in the Second World War and had operated in Oman for many years.

  The principles hadn't changed: moving with vehicles, navigating, using special tactics and fieldcraft for that type of terrain. It was still all about using the weapons we had to their maximum ability, operating at night, it moving tactically during the day. The idea behind the squadron trip was that if there ever was a conflict again in that theater, at least new members like me would have a foundation and not be stumbling into a new environment.

  Initially it turned out to be a major anticlimax. We were in a tented camp in the middle of the desert, protected by fences and all kinds of elaborate security devices. We weren't allowed out. For the first three days the most interesting thing that happened was Tiny sitting up in his sleeping bag every mornin
g and shouting, "I'm bored!"

  We'd saunter over to the cook tent where some of the locals were making pita bread and chapatis. Then we'd go around nicking chairs and putting up washing lines made of paracord, until we got fed up. By day three hints were being dropped to the hierarchy. A few blokes put a sign up saying 8 TRoop's ESCAPE -FUNNEL, with a pair of upside-down boots poking out of the top. Some others put in a requisition chit for a gym horse and specified that it must be wooden and have room inside for at least three men. Mountain Troop put up a sign on the gate that said STALAG 13 and spent hours standing looking wistfully toward the west.

  It was warm, but one fellow called Gibbo, who'd fought in the Oman war and had spent so much time in the Middle East he might as well have had an Arab passport, would be walking around with a duvet jacket on in the morning, honking about the cold weather. We were on a beautiful desert plain with sheer mountains in the distance. Sitting on the thunderbox one night, I looked up at the stars. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and the inky blackness was chock-full of twinkling lights.

  It was absolutely stunning.

  Eventually things livened up. John organized a Huey, and we spent three or four days doing free fall in perfect blue skies. It was the first time I had jumped out of a helicopter; instead of the deafening, buffeting wind rush of a jump from an aircraft, there was only a weird feeling of acceleration and silence, apart from the whistle of the wind in my ears.

  We started roaring around in the new 110s (long wheel-base Land Rover) with 50 MM machine guns dangling off the back that were replacing the old "pinkies."

  I was in a mortar team. Nosh was number one, who laid all the aiming devices, Steve was number two, who put it down the tube, and I was number threebasically the boy who sorted out the ammunition and stuck his fingers in his ears. Colin was the MFC (mortar fire controller).

  We went to a training area a couple of kilometers away, armed with more ammunition than a battalion got through in about ten years-hundreds and hundreds of rounds.

  My vision of the Regiment and the squadron was still nice and fluffy, but now I started to hear various honkings. The main one was about the squadron sergeant major and something to do with "cabbage."