Going Commando

by Mark Time

  I didn’t dare ask him what the tray of small yellow cube things were.

  We spent the evening trying on ill-fitting combat gear for the following day’s outdoor activities, and then squeezed into an overly-warm room where we were shown countless videos about the Royal Marines. I’d read in one of my newly-acquired books that this technique was used by the SAS to encourage unsuitable people to fall asleep; so to coin an old Yorkshire phrase, there was no way I was going to let a ferret piss in my lug. Some amateurs did submit to the warmth, and were summarily brought out of their slumber by the sharp-eyed corporal. The eye-testing evening continued as he lectured us on such things as the Royal Marines’ Victoria Cross winners and the qualities of a commando.

  ‘There are four qualities that distinguish a commando. Does anyone know what they are?’

  A silence followed. I pondered the question. From what I had seen you certainly needed to be up for a laugh, but I didn’t have the confidence to say so.

  ‘Quality Street?’ said some smart Alec to a paucity of chuckles.

  The corporal didn’t really see the funny side of it either. Even if the joke was shit, I wondered whether I should cross a sense of humour off my mental list.

  ‘Courage,’ said the corporal, thus commencing a discussion on what constituted courage – not in the way Plato’s Socrates might have but in the manner of a Royal Marines corporal.

  ‘Determination’ was number two. The corporal cheerfully insisted a number of us would lack the determination even to get through the next day, though he admitted he’d be happy to be proved wrong.

  Surely a sense of humour would be number three?

  No. Number three was ‘Unselfishness’. This was something I’d never even considered, but then I was an only child. Yet, as the corporal talked, it was clear to see why it was vitally important within a military environment.

  After he finished he looked around for anyone who could name the last quality. During the long pause that ensued, I wanted to put my hand up and blurt out ‘a sense of humour’, but I didn’t want to seem an idiot and found no voice.

  ‘No?’ said the corporal, eventually. ‘Cheerfulness in the face of adversity. Having a sense of humour!’ he said, adding a slightly sinister smile for effect.

  Bollocks! I could have said that. I should have said that. I kicked myself for being too scared to speak up. Obviously, courage was one quality I had yet to acquire.

  ‘Okay lads,’ he said, by way of wrapping things up. ‘You’ve all done well to get this far. But on average only one in every sixteen candidates who commence the PRC actually becomes a Royal Marines Commando. The rest can’t hack it, usually because they lack one or all of the commando qualities.’

  For the next two days these qualities would be tested. We would be put through mental and theoretical tests that I found exceedingly easy, and physical tests that were on the opposite end of the spectrum.

  The Physical Training Instructors (PTIs) all seemed to have deep voices when they spoke, and yet they shouted in a distinctly nasal, high-pitched falsetto; while they showed little threatening behaviour, I felt terrified in their presence. The corporal from the previous evening was correct though; around six or seven guys dropped out after the first morning’s epic gym session.

  The bottom field is visible to anyone who passes by CTC, so I hoped the afternoon session there wouldn’t spring any surprises. How wrong could I be? Even the warm-up was as energy sapping as anything I’d yet experienced.

  Despite it being near-freezing, the PTI wore only a snow-white vest on his top half. ‘Keep moving, fellas,’ he yelled, before barking out instructions at high speed. ‘No one stands still on the bottom field! Five-second sprint GO! Ten press-ups, ten sit-ups, ten star-jumps, GO! Roll over, roll over, roll over, ten sit-ups, GO! Roll over, roll over, roll over that wall, GO! Back again, not quick enough! Front support position place! That’s press-ups to you, fellas. Arms bend and stretch arms, bend and stretch. Ten star-jumps, GO! Hurry up! Not quick enough, that wall, GO!’

  And so it continued, a white noise of incomprehensible, ungrammatical shouting that confused us to the point of doing everything wrong. Some of us were doing press-ups while others were rolling into those who were still doing sit-ups, or tripping up people who were sprinting like headless chickens in no discernible direction.

  Knackered by the warm-up, we moved on to the height confidence test. Before us stood a large steel structure with thin wooden planks spanning its length. Not ever having been higher than the climbing frame at primary school, I really didn’t know how I’d cope at 7m up. As I stood at the bottom of the ladder ready to climb, I hoped my legs didn’t turn to jelly like the lad in front of me.

  ‘Come on you, don’t take all day,’ shouted the PTI – I hoped at someone else.

  ‘I can’t do it, Corporal,’ the guy above me shouted. It was the lad who, when not scared shitless halfway up a ladder, wore the earring.

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’ the PTI shouted back.

  I don’t think he was in a position to respond to such a rhetorical question. He just stood transfixed on the ladder, his knuckles white from his vice-like grip.

  ‘Right, get down. Hurry up!’

  The lad slowly made his way down the ladder. With me below him, I hoped he hadn’t shit his pants. He was sent over to the PRC corporal and sat down. I doubted he would become a Royal Marine – or a window cleaner, for that matter.

  It did nothing for my own confidence, but once I was up there I felt okay, despite having only a narrow plank of bendy wood between me and quadriplegia.

  Although I’d thought myself pretty fit – playing sport almost continuously and being able to outrun the police – I’d never felt the pain of cramp. Running up the hill towards the metal gate on the assault course, I felt it for the first time. Initially, I didn’t know what it was. I hoped it wasn’t some kind of leg AIDS, but I knew it was frigging painful. I managed to finish, wincing with pain, and veered towards a PTI who laughingly pulled me to the floor. He stretched my calves to ease the pain and sent me on my way to warm down. I thought I’d blown my chance. Needing immediate attention after completing the assault course surely meant I wasn’t fit enough to pass?

  We finished the day’s physical exercise by conducting a 200m fireman’s carry in less than 90 seconds. Already blasted from the previous exertions, I found it immensely tough going. My overworked thighs screamed, my overexerted lungs screamed and the overexcited PTIs screamed.

  Passing the finish line, I fell to the ground totally exhausted. I had never experienced anything so strenuous in all my days. Dragged to my feet, I drew in as much air as my distressed lungs could handle and comforted myself that I’d finished. I couldn’t believe it. We set off again to run. Thankfully, my leaden legs only were required to reach the warm-down circle. As I staggered forwards, I glanced around and felt slightly better. Everyone else looked like I felt.

  That night, the mood was a little more sombre. Whether people didn’t possess the energy to smile or perhaps realised their initial confidence had been misplaced I don’t know, but I actually felt good; so good, in fact, that I struck up a conversation with a Northern Irish lad about military affairs.

  The following day was more of the same, just in dirtier clothes. We had received no instruction to clean our kit, but ignorance held no sway with the corporal who labelled us a bunch of ‘dirty scrotes’. This was a word I’d never heard before, but I immediately took ownership of it. It summed me up perfectly. With his bollocking came another reality check, and the demons of uncertainty came back. All I could do was give my all and hope that it was good enough.

  The final morning was spent back down on the bottom field. This time, the assault course was tackled as a group with a large telegraph pole to test teamwork and identify natural leaders in the group. Knowing that unselfishness was one of the Corps qualities, I tried to hold the pole for as long as I could – which turned out to be about five metres before we had to work
out how to get it across the first obstacle. My leadership abilities were, up until now, confined to a football field of fellow sixteen-year-olds, so my squeaky voice was hardly going to be taken seriously by guys with facial hair. Encouragement and the odd pathetic attempt at suggestion was all I could muster as we clambered unceremoniously over, under and around the obstacles. I was hoarse upon finishing, so I knew I’d gobbed off sufficiently.

  By now, the original thirty-five had been whittled down to twenty-five, the others having gone home after deciding a life in the Royal Marines wasn’t for them – or having had that decision made for them. Those of us remaining were hauled into a room for our final results. Our names were called and we were split into two groups. I looked around my group and counted thirteen of us. The army cadet sergeant wasn’t present. I feared the worst. My dream of being a Royal Marines Commando was dashed before it had begun. I was already mentally preparing for failure.

  A warrant officer, recognised from standing silently on the sidelines throughout the PRC, entered the room.

  ‘Right then, men, do you all want to know how you got on?’ He looked at my bunch, and beamed broadly as he spoke. I could see that he had a sense of humour, alright – a fucking cruel one. ‘Well, congratulations. You lot have all passed.’

  Surely I had misheard? The collective sigh and the odd yelp of delight indicated I hadn’t. My first thoughts were of the army cadet sergeant. How had he not passed? He had webbing, for fuck’s sake!

  ‘You have all shown the qualities we were looking for,’ continued the warrant officer. ‘While some of you may not have been the fittest, you have shown that you have the fortitude to push on when the going gets tough.’

  Despite my size and the fact that I didn’t understand the word ‘fortitude’, my energy and commitment had been noted. After eulogising over us a little more, he brought us all back to reality.

  ‘These last couple of days, fellas, will be the easiest days you spend at CTC. When you return, be prepared for eight months of hard, hard graft.’

  These words of caution wouldn’t even begin to describe what lay in wait. But for now, I hardly heard them. I was in!

  I travelled home on the train, floating about three inches above the dirty blue nylon British Rail seats.

  From then on, my obsession ramped up a gear: from slightly weird to completely insane. On the flip side, now that I was assured employment, my schoolwork went downhill. I started playing truant, preferring to go out with my mate who had bought a .22 air rifle. We would walk for miles over the nearby fields, taking pot shots at rabbits and missing. I hoped those pesky Soviets were easier to kill.

  I fell from A-grade star to D-grade squib all in the space of a few months, much to the protracted dismay of Mr Steele – a former paratrooper and now my careers teacher, who categorically stated I wouldn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of becoming a marine as I didn’t have the ability to ‘shut up’, ‘pay attention’ or ‘listen’. I cared not a jot. He could shove academia up his well-oiled derriere. I didn’t need ‘O’ levels to become a commando.

  I ditched my girlfriend with the consoling words, ‘I haven’t got time for you and the Marines.’ Taking the recently released Rocky IV as inspiration, I zoned myself into a Zen-like infatuation with anything even remotely related to the green beret. As a potential Royal Marines Commando, I knew I could easily punch Ivan Drago’s square head in.

  Unfortunately, only a couple of my closest mates were even remotely interested in my career choice. A few saw the military as just another of Thatcher’s tools of oppression, and claimed that soldiers wearing police uniforms had beaten up local striking miners. I doubted this, but hoped that if I was wrong they’d punched the fuck out of my stepdad.

  In those days, Noel Edmonds’ Late Late Breakfast Show was screened on a Saturday evening, sandwiched between Grandstand and alcohol consumption. Amongst the many features was a section called ‘Give It A Whirl’, where a whirly wheel labelled with various stunts would be spun and a member of the public volunteered to take part in whichever was selected. One of the stunts was called ‘Per Mare Per Terram’ which, as I was now smugly aware, was the Corps’ motto ‘By Sea, By Land’ (and not ‘By Horse, By Tram’, as the corporal on my PRC had warned). One week, the whirly wheel landed on these legendary words and I grabbed anyone who’d listen to ensure they watched the programme the following Saturday.

  Trying to get any self-respecting sixteen-year-old to watch Noel Edmonds was as difficult as a commando test in itself, but on the Monday following the show a few of the lads were awestruck by what they had witnessed. The TV volunteer had gone to CTC for a good gym thrashing (by civilian standards) at the hands of the biggest PTI in the Corps, before being sent off around the route of the endurance course, one of the commando tests. The pain of the volunteer and the muscles of the PTI were enough to impress my mates, who now suddenly took an interest in the world I was going into.

  Not wanting to disappoint my new fans, I was happy to regale them with tales of PRC, military discipline and activities such as swearing, shouting and painting stones white (‘character building’, according to a 1950s comedy film about National Service I’d seen somewhere). Going for even more popularity, I lied that nearly all the Royal Marines I’d seen on my PRC were covered in tattoos, which proved their toughness – this was the 1980s, after all, a time when tattoos were usually worn only by military men, miners and prostitutes.

  In my area, local teenagers were obsessed with decorating their arms with as much ink as possible to further their own reputations. Those with working parents had it done professionally. I once watched a mate of mine attending a tattooist in Leeds who would ink anyone who could walk upright; I swear to God the lad who left the chair before him, with a Leeds United badge around his stick-thin shoulder, was twelve. Lads with less disposable income settled either for a pot of Indian ink, needles and a mirror, or went to see a bloke in Ferrybridge who dreamt of one day becoming a tattooist. His artwork, to be fair, wasn’t too bad, but his spelling was the sticking point. One lad I played football with had ‘bansley FC’ on his arm.

  I had no tattoos, so those people who’d seen the programme and shown any interest – and who had seen my running improve as dramatically as my swearing and shouting – remained doubtful as to whether I could pass training, due to my virginal skin.

  The Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando had just been released, along with Stan Ridgway’s song ‘Camouflage’, in which he sang about a ‘big marine’; clearly, if I were to convince the dubious I also needed to put on a bit more bulk. The mirror in my bedroom didn’t lie.

  Instead of spending what money I had on designer casuals (size XS) for Leeds matches, I bought a 50kg weight set and created a makeshift gymnasium amidst the coal dust of our cellar, and there I spent most of my after-school hours. Given the incessant clunking and banging that emanated from the bowels of the house, accompanied by a range of anguished screams, grunts, and groans, I imagine it was like living with Fred West. I used U2 albums as my workout music; the irony of training for the British military by squatting to ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ was totally lost on me; I’d run on the spot in our pile of coal to simulate running on a beach, just in case we had to storm Normandy again.

  Toughness of mind, and of spirit, was as important as toughness of body. I’d lately watched a BBC documentary series called Behind the Lines about Royal Marines mountain leader training, and decided to recreate the cold and misery I’d seen on the show by sleeping in my mate’s shed wrapped in plastic bags. I also asked him to hit me with a cricket bat while trapped in a sleeping bag to prove to myself I could endure pain. I even starved myself for two days in a stupid urban survival exercise, turning down the offer of my favourite Findus crispy pancakes from my confused mother.

  I knew about cold, I knew about pain and I could resist crispy pancakes.

  I was ready.

  Some might say for the nuthouse.

  TWO

  ‘Br
itain… Thatcher’s bloody Britain!’

  RICK, THE YOUNG ONES

  THE MILITARY WAS never my first choice of career. I had originally wanted to become a geologist.

  But the last three years had been difficult, living with my mum and stepdad; my already weak relationship with him became ever more so when I exerted my independence as a sixteen-year-old. The only thing I really wanted to do was see the back of him and, to an extent, my apathetic mother.

  Prior to that, my grandparents raised me. The first memory I can picture, through the blur of tears and the feeling of snot running into my crying mouth, is my grandad. In his hand he is holding a clump of hair attached to the scalp of a strange woman who screams as he bashes her head repeatedly against the lime-green dining-room wall, punctuating the thuds by yelling into her face that she is not fit to be a mother.

  Maybe she isn’t. My gran said she drank too much and was, in her words, a ‘racy lady’.

  Grandad’s enraged attack ends in him dragging the racy lady by her hair to the door and throwing her outside. Inside, the house is silent. Outside, from the side yard, all I can hear is the dreadful sobbing of this strange woman crippled by anguish. I cannot remember how long it was until I saw her again. Her name was June. It took a long time for me to call her ‘Mam’.

  My grandparents were typical Yorkshire folk – hard, weathered, and they didn’t suffer fools gladly. My grandad had never missed a day’s work down the pit in his life, other than when he was on strike. But smiling, it seemed, was a luxury he could ill-afford. His life revolved around the colliery and the Labour Club, and his Sunday afternoons were always spent in bed sleeping off his lunchtime booze-up. My gran was even tougher. In her youth she would walk to the pit, eight miles there and eight miles back, to deliver my grandad’s ‘snap’ if he forgot it. She’d get back just in time to start tea for him returning from his twelve-hour shift.