Immediate Action

by Andy McNab

  The best aid foreign nations could have been giving them was education, to show them how to be productive themselves. Instead all we did was give them six hundred tons of wheat to salve our consciences. But in doing so, we created a nation of takers, who were not contributing to their own country, their own economy.

  We decided one day that we'd all had enough of being hassled and told,

  "Give me, give me, give me." Out came the hexy blocks, which we cut into little cubes.

  These were then smeared with jam and arranged on plates. Then, every time we were crowded, we fucked them off with our confections.

  They grabbed the stuff greedily and threw it down their necks.

  After about three crunches the taste of the hexy got to them and they spit it out with much gagging and choking. Nobody came back for seconds.

  Being free fall troop and waiting to get into our stage of the game and try to defeat all these radars, we were very much left to our own devices. We spent our days doing our own weapon training and just generally mincing around. When a squadron went away like this, weights turned up, punch bags started hanging from trees. People would do a run around the compound and then a routine with the apparatus; a circuit might be two minutes on the bag, two minutes' skipping, two minutes' rest, then two minutes on the weights, two minutes' skipping, two minutes' rest. You'd do maybe ten circuits and then warm down with another run.

  The other troops started to disappear off to do their tasks, and then it was decided that we should go with 9 Troop, who were up in a hill range called the Tsodilo hills. We set off in vehicles for the two- or three-day mooch across the Kalahari desert.

  Tracks ran across vast, empty, flat plains of scrub and dust.

  On the second day we came to a crossroads of tracks in the middle of thousands of acres of sandy scrubland.

  A little mud hut had a sign up saying it was,a cafe. The proprietor, an old fellow in his eighties, was mincing around on a hammock. We went in, but there were no tables or chairs, or, come to that, electricity. just a few bottles of Fanta on a shelf and a sign that must have been at least twenty years old, advertising Bulmer's cider from Hereford. Once we'd felt the temperature of the Fanta bottles we left them where they were but negotiated with the old boy for the sale of the sign, which we mounted on the dashboard of the 110.

  We got to 9 Troop's position on the afternoon of the third day.

  It was weird terrain, totally flat and then these mountains that rose abruptly out of the ground. I wasn't the only one to notice that they had an eerie air about them.

  "I did this area for geography A level," Tiny said.

  "There are thousands of rock paintings in and around the hills, scenes of eland and giraffes painted by desertdwelling Bushmen hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago.

  When, we arrived,.most of the troop were out on the mountain.

  There was a bit of a flap on as someone had injured his back and was being carried down to the camp. It was Toby. Slaphead was a veteran of the Falklands, Northern Ireland, and countless fights up north as a policeman, all without injury; now he had jumped eighteen 'riches off a rock and damaged his back so badly he 'was on a stretcher.

  He was in fearsome pain and had to have more morphine.

  Tiny yelled, "Not yet, wait!" to the medic and went running to his bergen. He came back with a camera and said, "Okay, you can do it now."

  Slaphead's face was screwed up in pain as he got the good news.

  The picture would go into B Squadron's interest room as soon as we got back.

  Eno by now was on the radio sending the Morse message that we needed a helicopter. As usual, he was Mr. Casual about the whole affair. He had been told one day by the police that his sister had been murdered; he just said, "I think I'd better go to London then." It wasn't that he didn't care; he just didn't get excited about anything.

  The weather started to change. The sky was thickening with dark clouds, and the wind was getting up; there was a smell of rain-wet earth. A storm was coming; this was worrying as it could affect a heli's chances of getting in. Slaphead had been stabilized, but he needed to be taken to a good hospital.

  His new KSBs (boots) had been taken off and were by the side of the stretcher. I knew he took the same boot size as I did, so I went up and said, "You won't be needing these anymore on this trip, will you?"

  Slaphead told me where to put the boots, and it wasn't on my feet.

  Things started to settle down; a heli was being arranged, and Eno was still on the radio standing by. Then another drama started.

  It was about two hours before last light, and there was no sign of Joe Ferragher and Alan, the new troop officer. The troop were just starting to mutter dark thoughts about the incompetence of new ruperts when somebody spotted a flashing light on the mountain. We got our binos out and could just see somebody on a ledge. No one knew for sure what it was, but everybody knew something was wrong.

  Eno was back on the radio again, leaning back on a canvas chair, cigarette in one hand, Morse key in the other. Three or four of Mountain Troop got radios and their kit and drove over to the mountain.

  As all this was happening, the heli turned up. He couldn't do anything about the blokes on the mountain; he couldn't get that far in.

  The weather was still threatening to give us a storm, and the sides of the tents were blowing out. Most of 7 Troop felt quite helpless as we didn't have the skill to climb; we just waited to see if any more help was needed.

  "Might as well have a brew and sort our kit out," was Charlie's answer to the problem. We had been there for about three hours by now and hadn't even got our kit off the wagons because of all the excitement.

  We could hear on the radio that Ivor was now with them on the mountain and needed everyone's help.

  About five feet seven inches and wiry, Ivor was a mountain goat from somewhere up north. He came from an armored regiment and had been at the embassy ana the Falklands. He wasn't one to mince his words on the net.

  "Joe is dead," he said. "The Boss is going to be taken down by Harry and George. This is what I want to happen. ', He wanted everyone to get as far up the mountain as possible and meet him coming down. How he was going to do it we had no idea, but we started up toward him.

  The storm now looked as if it was just teasing us.

  There was a little rain but nothing to worry about, apart from time. The heli didn't want to leave at night; we had to get a move on or it would leave without Joe, Slaphead being the main priority now.

  It was about two hours before Ivor got to us. He was in shit state; he was sweating heavily and covered in grime, he had cuts on his elbows and knees, and his face and arms were bruised from the effort of moving a very heavy Joe off the mountain. He had put Joe into a mountain stretcher and then started to absell down. It was a major feat of strength to kick himself and Joe over the overhangs. He should have got a medal that day. We took the body the rest of the way down. The heli then had two bodies on board instead of the one they had expected.

  We learned that a device used to attach a person to the rock face had given way, and Joe had gone bouncing down the hill until he got stopped by his next "safety."

  The Ross had climbed down to Joe and tried to save him, but it was too late. However, a casualty is not dead until he is confirmed dead, so he tried anyway.

  Charlie had got hold of the troop's rum that Joe was in charge of and said, "He isn't going to need this now.

  Let's have a drink on the old fucker."

  So we had a drink on him and hoped that the rupert was okay. He was quite shaken up. It is not the best of introductions to have your troop senior die on you and then maybe think that everyone blames you-which they didn't. It seemed that life on a mountain didn't suit him; about three months later he moved to our troop.

  Maybe it was the thought of all that ice cream.

  We were sitting under a baobab tree, a weird, muscled sculpture with branches like roots sprouting white, starlike flowers, drinki
ng the rum and talking about the locals. "The Bushmen have great respect for the baobab," Tiny said. "Pick its flower, they say, and a lion will eat you. These hills are sacred to them, too. It's taboo to kill an animal that lives here."

  One of 9 Troop said, "Joe was out in a one-ten yesterday and'shot an antelope for us to eat. Apparently his death came as no surprise to the locals."

  As I lay in my biwi bag that night, looking past a bright moon to a gleaming Milky Way, I was a believer.

  I had never been particularly worried about dying. We all had to die at some stage; I just wanted it to be nice and quick; I didn't want it to be painful. I didn't have any big religious notions about death.

  I liked to think there was something after it, a place or dimension where I'd find all the information I'd ever wanted to know, such as what a Love Heart tasted like and all the other great secrets of life.

  That was the only advantage that I could see.

  I'd always been sure that I was going to die early in life anyway.

  I'd always had that feeling, ever since I was a kid. I'd always thought, I'm going to live till I'm about fifty-five, and that will be it. Didn't stop me being a sucker when the pension salesman came around, though.

  When mates died, I was upset initially, but after that it was okay. It was more upsetting if they died in a drastIC way, but the fact that they were dead, there were no problems with that. What was horrible and a real pisser was if people died or got severely injured and impaired for the rest of their lives for no reason. It was always unfortunate when people died during training. We'd lost quite a lot of people through drowning in the jungle; river crossings were the number one killer in the Regiment. Sometimes I thought, Hell, we're practicing things that are going to be dangerous enough on the day, so why tempt Providence?

  But if that attitude was allowed to prevail, we would lose all the advantages of realistic training.

  Joe had to be taken into South Africa to get a British Airways flight out, and this would unfortunately entail a delay. Barry, the storeman at Squadron HQ, hosed down one of the six-foot tables, sorted Joe out on it and cleaned him up, then got all the meat out of the freezer and stored him inside it instead; he then organized a huge feast to eat all the meat before it spoiled. When all the arrangements had been made, they got Joe in a motor and drove him into South Africa.

  From there he was put in a coffin and flown home.

  Meanwhile we had work to do. We were flown in a I up to the shuttle service of little Islander aircraft h Okavango, a vast expanse of lakes and river systems that borders on the Caprivi strip, the area of drama with South African forces. The plan was for us to join forces with 6 Troop, who'd been up there for weeks.

  The average contact in that sort of bush, even though it looked pretty sparse, was about five meters. Everybody was carrying his personal choice of weapon that he considered would be good at such close ranges-SLR, 203 and M16, and shotgun. Mine was a 203.

  The BDF were armed with the Galil, Israel's answer to the AK47.

  It was a very good weapon, simple to use and to clean, and with a simple and reliable action. People could learn it quickly, but its one drawback was its weight; it was a bit heavy for the troops of many of the countries that used it.

  The other equipment that we'd taken with us was minimal-as ever, only as much as we could get into a bergen. As in the jungle, we'd need just two sets of clothes-a dry set and a wet set. As well as that I took a poncho, in my case an Australian shelter sheet that crumpled up really small, a hammock, and an American poncho liner, an excellent bit of kit similar to a very thin nylon duvet. The rest was food, water, bullets, ahd a bit of first-aid kit.

  We were there to practice a two-troop camp attack in the swamps.

  The camp we were training on was an alligator farm i'n the middle of nowhere.

  Members of 6 Troop went out and did the recces, spent a couple of days putting OPs on it, and got all the information back.

  We were living on a little spit of land within the swamps, among beds of fast-growing papyrus. Over the years, as the hippos had come up onto these little islands, they had obligingly created perfect landing slips for our Geminis. We could drag the inflatables onto the spit and conceal ourselves and our equipment in the reeds and operate from there.

  There was no way anyone would find us.

  Everybody was cammed up and carrying belt kit and weapons as we climbed into the boats and set off into the darkness. One boat was up ahead as lead scout.

  Aboard were two people-one driving, one navigating.

  The cox was Solid Shot. As a member of Boat Troop he knew what he was doing. He would just let the motor run on its own revs and guide it through the reeds and obstructions. It was amazing how little noise was made by the motors.

  The other member was the Boat Troop Boss, the rupert who passed in my Selection. He was from some armored recce unit and was quite funny and likable. He would be checking with Solid Shot on navigation.

  Solid Shot was soon to be a fellow officer. When we got back from this trip, he was going to be commissioned as Captain Solid Shot, so he wasn't so thick after all. We were all very happy for him.

  We were moving along at little more than tick-over pace; the Yamaha is remarkably quiet if you're just trogging along without revving it up. As we got closer to the target, the engines were cut off, and we started paddling.

  Sandy and I were up at the front of the second boat.

  With his, blond Brillo pad hair under a very large bush hat he looked like one of the Flowerpot Men. Our job was to cover the first boat, which we could just about see up ahead in the darkness. We wanted lots of distance between boats in case of a contact, but at the same time we had to keep in visual touch. If we started losing contact, it would all go to a gang fuck.

  We were mooching along, no sound except for the occasional slurp of a paddle in the water, when suddenly, from near the lead boat, we heard what sounded like an explosion. It was followed by another, and another, and then we could see the foaming white of violently disturbed water.

  The lead Gemini stopped, and so did we. The whole two troops were now just floating in the water and being taken slowly downstream. We then heard what sounded like the roar of a steam engine.

  We heard the sound again, and this time it was getting closer, a deep, outraged bellow that told us we were about to be thrown out of the party.

  Next thing we heard was "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" from the lead boat as a massive head and shoulders reared out of the water and took a bite into the rubber. Luckily the inflatables were constructed in sections, so that if one did get a puncture, it was only that section that went down.

  There,was an ominous sound'of rushing water, and my eyes strained in the darkness to see the threat. An ugly head arrowed toward us, erupting into an explosion of foam and jaws the size of a Mini.

  Sandy said, "Fucking hell!" and everybody in the boat paddled so fast a man could have water-skied behind us.

  As the deep, honking voices receded behind us, I realized I was drenched-whether from swamp water, exertion, or sheer terror I didn't know.

  The snorting and thrashing of the hippos would have compromised us, so we had no alternative but to turn back and try to find another route in.

  Our time on the target would be severely cut as a result, because we had to be in and away again before first light, needing darkness to get back to our hide position, the troop L.U.P.

  We eventually got to the area of the attack. The blokes from the lead boat jumped on others, and we dragged the bitten vessel along behind. It was the first time I'd been in an attack where people couldn't stop laughing. It had been a ridiculous scenario: two troops of the world's finest, screaming along the Okavango waterways armed to the teeth, going in to do an aggressive act, stopped in their tracks by a hippo that had the hump.

  We had a very interesting few more weeks in Botswana, during which I learned the Afrikaans for "Let's get the hell out of here!" and the Botswanan for "L
ook at that springbok run."

  At the end we had a big barbecue back at the squadron RP. It was as much a drink for Joe as anything else, and during the course of the night things were getting out of hand. A thunderflash (training grenade) came over the roof, then another. The locals were still shitting themselves about S.A.D.F incursions, and the explosions did not go down well.

  The SSM shouted, "That's enough. The next one who throws one gets R.T.U'D [returned to unit]."

  Two minutes later, BANG!

  The SSM went running around the area looking for the flash banger, but no one could be found. A few of us saw who he was but said nothing.

  The following morning the squadron O.C got everyone together. "You have until midday to come forward," he said. "If not, there will be no R and R, and from now on you will provide security with the Botswanans."

  We all knew who it was, but no one said a word.

  The O.C finished with the words "He has to make up his mind if he is a man or a mouse."

  The Botswanan Mouse was born. We got pissed off with the restrictions that were imposed on us as a result of this blokes irresponsible behavior and even more pissed off with him. He deserved to be R.T.U'D, but everyone had a strange and probably mistaken sense of loyalty. He was flapping good style, however, and quite rightly so.

  No one ever exposed the identity of the mouse. Every group of people has someone they don't like or want to work with. When we returned to Hereford, as well as Slaphead's pictures in the interest room, there were several cartoons of the mouse, and he continued to reap what he had sown.

  M n entire squadron of the Special Air Service was 14 on the team" in the UK for six to nine months, on permanent standby. After a buildup of four to six weeks, which included training with the squadron still on, the commitment was handed over; it might have been only eighteen months since the blokes were last on the tearr, but there was always something new to learn.

  The team consisted of two subteams, Red and Blue, each with an assault group and sniper group. Having two teams meant that two incidents could be covered at once; there were also contingency plans for other squadrons to produce teams if there were more than two incidents that had to be covered.