Break Point

by Matthew Ollerton

  My snooze was broken by a loud banging on the door. I thought it had to be one of her friends, but when she came back she told me it was my soldier mates. I was lying there thinking, ‘How the fuck do they know I’m in this girl’s apartment?’ Because I’d gone missing, my bosses had contacted the police, who had visited the club owner. He’d gone through the CCTV and seen which girl I’d left with, so knew exactly where to find me. When I got back to base, I got the mother of all bollockings. But I was always doing shit like that. It was almost like I was trying to get thrown out, but it didn’t work. They said they weren’t going to tell HQ, and I was allowed to carry on with the dive package.

  After three days’ diving, we returned to HQ. We were having dinner, with the hierarchy sat at the top table, all chatting away, when the local liaison officer walked in with a newspaper under his arm. He made a beeline for the top table and in a very loud voice said, ‘I see you have been in the newspaper again?’ The commanding officer replied, ‘Really? What for?’ The liaison officer opened the newspaper very theatrically and started reading, as loud as he could, ‘Last night, one of the British Special Forces Commandos went missing. Helicopters were scrambled but they failed to locate the whereabouts of him. They feared for his life and thought he may have been killed, however he was later found in bed with a local hairdresser…’

  My head fell on the table. All the talk about the story not getting back to HQ and it had made the bloody newspaper. Everyone was in hysterics, even the top brass saw the funny side.

  I did my job well, so managed to get away with things. But it’s fair to say that when I wasn’t doing my job, I was a loose cannon. I burnt the candle at both ends, it was all or nothing. My life was a big ball of mayhem, but for a while I thrived off it.

  My best mate at the time was a guy called Mick. Me and Mick loved the social aspect of the Special Forces, were thick as thieves and always getting into mischief. One night back in the jungle, I was sitting around with Mick in camp and I noticed that the bank notes had pictures of gold bullion and diamonds on them. Our minds started racing and we were soon discussing getting hold of some diamonds and working out how to get them home.

  On our last night, the British Embassy threw a party, as a thank-you for training the local forces. As luck would have it, we were introduced to a diamond dealer. We told him we wanted to come back and do a deal, after we’d completed Arctic warfare training. So when the three months of snow and ice were up, we returned to the UK, got a load of money together and flew back to the jungle.

  Not long after we arrived, we were walking down this mud road, surrounded by cattle, when we saw a Chinese guy being mugged and macheted. It was like one of those lawless towns you see in old Wild West films, except more dangerous. Undeterred, we met our contact and bought £20,000-worth of cut diamonds, before jumping straight on a flight to a neighbouring country.

  We were cock-a-hoop, sitting in our hotel room, surrounded by empty beers and telling each other, ‘We’re fucking diamond dealers! This is going to change our lives! I’m leaving the SBS as soon as we get home!’

  After a day on the piss, Mick said, ‘We need to mark this moment.’

  ‘Shall we get matching tattoos? Or bracelets?’

  ‘Fuck that. Let’s get gold teeth, like gangsters.’

  We ended up in the dentist, getting perfectly good teeth filed down. Someone was sent out with some money to buy the gold, the dentist melted it down into caps and popped them in our mouths. For the next few days, we were sat in the bar flashing these gold gnashers to everyone, chuffed as anything. Mine lasted for years and I’ve still got it in a box somewhere.

  On the day of the flight home, we split the bags of diamonds between us, stuffed them in condoms and swallowed them. But when we got to the airport, we looked up at the destinations board to see that our flight was delayed for 24 hours. So we had to go back to our rooms, shit them out, polish them off and go through the same process 24 hours later. When we finally arrived at Gatwick, we made it through customs and Mick went straight to the toilet and shit his diamonds out again. My dad had come to pick us up and when we got to his car he said, ‘I know you’ve been up to no good but I don’t want to know anything about it.’ Me and my dad weren’t close, but he still knew me too well.

  I went back to my dad’s place in Basingstoke and Mick went back up to Manchester. Then, for the next 24 hours, Mick was on the phone to me every minute, paranoid that I’d already shit my share of the diamonds out and hadn’t told him. And all the time, I was thinking, ‘Maybe they’ve disappeared somewhere inside my body? Maybe they’ll appear in my bloodstream? Or they’re stuck in my bladder and I’ll have to piss them out instead?’

  Finally, and to my enormous relief, I needed a shit. Having done the deed, I dropped to my knees over the toilet bowl and began sifting through my own excrement with my hands. But after a couple of minutes, I had to conclude that the diamonds weren’t in there. I collapsed on the toilet floor, my gold tooth throbbing and my hands covered in my own shit, and fell asleep thinking, ‘Oh, the glamour of being a diamond dealer…’

  Luckily, the next time I went to the toilet, the diamonds dropped out. Through an officer at the camp in Poole, we ended up taking them to Asprey, one of the most exclusive jewellers in London, to get them valued. They weren’t good enough for Asprey to use, but some of the things we saw in that place made the mind boggle. We were taken into a lift and led into this room that contained shopping bags full of bank notes and just about every item you could think of encrusted in diamonds. There were diamond-encrusted guns, diamond-encrusted bikes, there was even a diamond-encrusted dildo. At least that’s what I think it was.

  We ended up selling some of the diamonds to our mates for their girlfriends’ engagement rings. The wife of one of my best pals Tim was out for lunch with her girlfriends recently when the subject of engagement rings came up. They were going around the table, each giving the story behind their ring – ‘Mine’s from Tiffany’, ‘Mine’s from Harrods’, ‘Mine was handed down from Charlie’s grandma’ – until the conversation reached Sara. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the diamond on my engagement ring came out of Tim’s mate’s arse…’

  Eventually, I moved to a squadron that specialised in more conventional soldiering. Our primary commitment was as a mountain troop, specialising in mountain warfare. Our secondary role was as VIP security. One day, we were climbing in the South-West when the team commander’s pager went off. In no time at all, we were filling up the vehicles and heading back to Poole. In Poole, we loaded up our kit, got straight on the motorway and headed to the airport. When we got to the airport, we drove straight across the runway in these blacked-out wagons before loading our weapons onto this commercial British Airways plane. God knows what the air hostesses were thinking.

  The plane was bound for Asia, specifically a country that had descended into economic chaos and civil unrest. Our job was to secure and protect all British Embassy staff, make evacuation plans and await extraction, but before that there was a good time to be had. We were ushered into first class, then the air hostesses started popping champagne. That was one hell of a party. Once at our destination, we started working on the evacuation plans, but it never came to that, so we got stood down and sent back home. The anti-climaxes were piling up, and it was beginning to really grind me down.

  There is a lot of talk about post-traumatic stress disorder in relation to the military, and rightly so. But a lot of the stress in the Special Forces isn’t caused by traumatic events, it’s caused by the toing and froing of emotions. My emotions were all over the place, because we would go from sheer boredom to eye-popping excitement in the click of a finger. And on so many occasions, the adrenalin would froth and the blood boil to no end. No wonder I spent so much time in nightclubs: at least I knew I’d get a buzz in there.

  It was around this time, in 1998, that I decided I wanted to fulfil my childhood dream of learning to pilot a submersible insertion craft. So I applied t
o do a four-month course in America, working with the Navy SEALs. Shortly after arriving, I bleached my hair white and went and bought a surfboard. Suddenly, I wasn’t there to learn how to pilot a submarine, I was there to have a great time in the sun. Recently, a Navy SEAL mate sent me a picture of me on the beach. You never would have suspected I was Special Forces, I looked like a hippy or a beach bum. That was me saying, ‘I am my own man, you can’t tell me what to do, I’ll do what I want,’ which was the same as my departure from school.

  Looking back, I think I actually wanted to piss people off. It was about achieving little victories, getting little jabs in. What did it matter what my hair looked like? I could do the job well – shoot in a straight line and get to target – and that’s all I cared about. Fuck all the stupid rules.

  With the benefit of hindsight, this anger and frustration at being straitjacketed was further proof that I was in the wrong job. I wasn’t able to find any flow or purpose because I was living the life of a person I thought I was supposed to be. It’s why I was a good, effective soldier, but never a typical soldier. Or a contented one. My true self was inside somewhere, but I never discovered who that was until I left the military.

  I did do some work in America. Best of all, I got to prove that careers officer wrong by learning to pilot that submersible insertion craft, just as I told her I would do. But when I returned to the UK, it all went wrong again. I thought I was going to a squadron in which I would have utilised my new skills. But I didn’t get the placement. I couldn’t believe it. They’d spent all that money on me to train in the States and they were sending me back to my old squadron. So I thought, ‘Fuck this, I’m leaving.’ They couldn’t believe it either. But I’d made my mind up. What was the point in staying, if they weren’t going to allow me to use my skills?

  So, once again, I put my notice in. I’d done it several times before, but this time I meant it. I was comfortable in the military, but something was missing, and always had been. That time had finally come to veer off-road and take that more unfathomable but potentially more fulfilling route.

  I served my year’s notice and although I didn’t get any seniority, I was made a team leader, which was unheard of for someone on their way out. But I spent most of my time getting ready to go outside, and most of my last six months at home. Before I left, I had to go and see the commanding officer of the SBS. When I walked into his office, the CO was sat behind his desk and my sergeant major and troop officer were also there. The CO started reading out my testimonial and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was fucking amazing! All the way through my career, I’d been a pain in the arse on camp, and now I was being told what a wonderful soldier I’d been and all the great things I’d achieved. One part of me had always known I was a good soldier, but another part of me was convinced my superiors thought otherwise, because of my refusal to conform. I was looking at my sergeant major and troop officer and thinking, ‘Has he got the right bloke?’

  When the CO finished, he said, in his classic officer’s accent, ‘There seems to be some kind of error here that will need to be corrected.’

  And I replied, ‘What, my fucking name?’

  My sergeant major and troop officer erupted in laughter. My CO had no idea what they were laughing at. Like I say, not everybody got me in the SBS.

  12

  PEACE IN WAR

  That was that. I was ex-military. A former soldier. A civilian. But there were no regrets. I’d been gagging to get out. There was a big blank canvas out there that I needed to make my mark on. I just didn’t know what that mark was going to look like.

  I’d done no planning whatsoever. Soldiers leave the military with the attitude, ‘Yoo-hoo! It’s me! Come and get me!’ Meanwhile, people are thinking, ‘Who the fuck is this bloke?’ It’s not an uncommon phenomenon with any significant career change. But I think it’s particularly prevalent in the military. Before long, these soldiers can sink into a depression and start thinking, ‘What the hell have I done? Why does no one want me? Am I worthless? Am I good for nothing if I’m not a soldier?’

  I did know I wanted to carve a new path, be a salesman, learn negotiation and start my own business. I felt that the only way I’d be satisfied was if I was my own boss. But it didn’t work out like that. It’s common for soldiers to leave the Special Forces and go straight on ‘the circuit’, which mainly consists of surveillance work, security for companies operating in warzones, as well as for high-profile VIPs and showbiz people. And a lot of people left the Special Forces about the same time as I did, because they were frustrated at the lack of action. They didn’t want to be marking time, were afraid of a predictable future and wanted more out of life. There was more going on – and a lot more money to be made – outside of the military.

  I’d never planned to go on the circuit full-time, but the jobs paid incredibly well, and usually in cash. So I started doing bits and bobs to keep my head above water. I did some personal training, some security work in London, some work for HMRC. It was all word of mouth, not the kind of work you got offered at Job Club – ‘Mr Ollerton, we’ve got a job stacking shelves in Lidl or a job doing security for Madonna…’ And before I knew it, I couldn’t get off the circuit. I was on the list. I was a hamster in a wheel, conforming to type.

  Soon, my relationship with Helen started to deteriorate. The first thing she said to me when I walked through the door, having just returned from SBS camp, was: ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ That was like a red rag to a bull. I felt like turning around and walking straight out. I had thought that leaving the military would strengthen our bond, but it went the other way. I’d been with her since 1991 and this was nine years later. But during that time, I’d only seen her on weekends here and there. We’d never lived with each other consistently. Every time I came home on leave, we’d have some quality time together and we knew there would be an end to it. That kept the relationship fresh, and the first few years were great. But when that dynamic changed, things started spiralling out of control.

  My drinking got worse. Being a civilian allowed me more flexibility, and I spent a lot of my spare time on the booze. I was using it to drown out the monotonous white noise of everyday civilian life. The discipline and routine of the military had gone and there was no reason not to booze when the chance arose. And the chance arose a lot. Helen was drinking a lot, too, and the arguments became more regular and more vicious.

  Of course my time in the military was hazardous, but the Special Forces contained me, because it was a semi-controlled environment. As I’ve already outlined, I got into a fair few scrapes while I was serving. But before and after serving were chaotic times, which proves that the military doesn’t always manage to reform people. I had no focus or direction, didn’t know what I’d be doing from one week to the next. That put pressure on me and it put pressure on Helen. Some women crave the security of a partner with a solid nine-to-five job and a regular wage. I can understand that. But I was never going to be that man. In fact, I already knew that it was probably best that we shouldn’t be together at all.

  Luke was born in June 2001 and it was a blessing to have such a beautiful little boy. We’d decided not to find out the sex of the baby, so when he came out, I burst into tears. I had a little companion to do stuff with, whether it be yomping through the countryside or climbing up mountains. I thought I would bring him up to be a little version of me, although I’m not sure that would have been a good thing at the time.

  For a short while, being a dad was glorious. But it didn’t hide the marital problems. We were still arguing all the time, it’s just that now we were doing it in front of our baby. Luke was like a Band-Aid for our relationship, but kids should never be used in that way. Getting married and having a child didn’t bring us closer together, all it did was make it harder to escape from an obviously dysfunctional relationship. So many couples make the same mistake, thinking that bringing another human into this earth makes more sense than splitting up. The truth is
that some people are just not meant to be with each other.

  Five months after Luke was born, we got married, and the wedding provided plenty more clues that all was not right with the relationship. When I did my speech, I got to the end and realised I hadn’t even mentioned Helen. I spent most of the time trying to make my best man Tim laugh. She didn’t say anything, but she clearly wasn’t happy. Let’s just say it wasn’t your classic, harmonious wedding day. The honeymoon wasn’t a fairy tale either.

  Even before I married Helen, I felt that the only way I was going to get away from her was through a divorce. I felt I had to carry on down that road until I reached a dead end, and only then would I be able to resolve the situation. So many people end up trapped in similar situations until it reaches the stage when the hassle of staying in ceases to trump the hassle of getting out. We had a house together, our lives were intertwined on so many different levels, and I don’t think I could have coped with the confrontation and disruption. I had nowhere to go, no settled job. I couldn’t handle the thought of my life getting worse. I was existing in an uncomfortable comfort zone. Just as I’d intended to leave the military on several occasions, but was unable to because the world beyond it seemed so unknowable, I was unable to bite the bullet and leave Helen. Throughout that relationship, break points were coming and going without me even noticing them.

  I did manage to escape the circuit for a while. I had a friend called Karl who was one of those blokes who always had a nice suit and car and a big wad of cash in his hand. He had so much energy, was a great salesman and was who I wanted to be.

  One day, Karl got in touch and said in his deep, gravelly northern accent, ‘Matt, do you want a job?’