‘Can you see him?’
‘Over there.’
‘Where?’
‘Ten metres in front of me.’
‘You need to get closer.’
‘Roger that.’
I’ve got the target in my sights. He has no idea I’m here. He’s alone. At least for now. I’ve no idea how long I’ve been following him. My hands and knees are black with dirt. I’m sweating.
I move forward, slowly, through the undergrowth. I’m nine metres away. Then eight. Seven. Six. I have to time this right. One false move and I’ll lose him.
The target’s in a heavily overgrown area. Tall trees all around. Cornered.
Four metres away. Close enough. Time to act. I’m out of ammunition. This is going to be bloody.
Go!
I spring from the bush. Sprint forward. My heart’s racing. I launch myself at the target and we both hit the ground.
A few seconds later I look up and see a friendly face. He’s more than friendly: he’s laughing. Laughing at me.
‘You made a right meal of that, Rob,’ he says. ‘It’s only a bloody pheasant.’
* * *
I was born in the Queen Mary Hospital, Roehampton, in south-west London, on 9 May 1976 to Clive and Tina Driscoll. According to Dad we came from a long line of Irish O’Driscolls, but the ‘O’ got lost on the trip over to England. Dad is as English as they come, a proper South London geezer if you hear him speak. Mum’s background is also Irish, particularly the Catholic part of it.
Home was a flat in Putney, for a while anyway. When I was two we moved out to Cheam in Surrey where I was joined by a sister, Bonita, and a brother, David. I don’t remember much about those early days except Dad not being around much. He was working on the ambulances when I was born, which meant he was out all sorts of hours. Then shortly after our move he signed up for a police training course. The college was only up in Hendon in north-west London, but it might have been on the other side of the world for the amount of time I saw him. He’d go up to Hendon on the Sunday night and not come back till the following Saturday. I remember watching him leave the house one day. I was holding his leg and crying, begging him not to go.
‘Come on,’ Mum said, ‘he’ll be back soon.’
And then one day she stopped saying it.
As a kid you never really know what’s going on in the adult world. What I can say is that when I was about eight my parents split up. Dad had passed his course and was a fully fledged bobby and somewhere along the line he and Mum had fallen out of love, I suppose. As was usual in those days, Dad moved out and we stayed with Mum. I missed him every day but kids are surprisingly adaptable. I saw him most weekends and never felt I was missing out. I loved hearing stories of him fighting crime and chasing criminals. Even when he admitted how scared he’d been policing the Brixton riots, I just wanted to hear more.
If Dad wasn’t around for the weekend I’d often spend time with my granddad, Alfred Jones. Granddad was Mum’s dad. He’d served in the Royal Navy and fought in the Second World War like his brothers, not all of whom had returned as physically unscarred as he did.
In Granddad’s stories the Navy always came top. Except when they ran up against one particular branch of the UK forces:
The Royal Marines.
‘Those damn Green Berets,’ he said, ‘they were just that bit better than us at everything. That little bit fitter, that little bit bigger, that little bit more prepared for everything. If we got a draw against them it felt like a win. Not that we ever admitted it.’
He didn’t need to. The facts spoke for themselves. The Marines, I quickly learned, beat the matelots, as they called the sailors, every single time. At everything. Football, rugby, drinking, chess. You name it. The Marines excelled.
But there was one opponent even the Marines couldn’t beat. Once in a blue moon Granddad would move on to an anecdote that would lead to a story that would end up with memories of the D-Day Landings. And that’s when he would shut down. Grandma or Mum would normally shepherd me away at that point. But often they wouldn’t be in earshot. That’s when I’d hear him talk about the fellas he knew who took part in D-Day, the Allied landings in Normandy in June 1944, who risked their own lives and – despite their superior training and their habit of winning every challenge they ever met – never came back.
Never. Came. Back.
It was usually at that point that Grandma came in with a tea for Granddad and a reason for me to head out to the garden to play with my brother and sister.
Then, I remember, when I was eleven, we were all together to watch the Remembrance Day parade on television, after which Granddad went out to meet some friends down the pub. When he came back for dinner there was the usual chat from me and my siblings while Grandma served the roast. But at some point, my granddad just started to cry. Boom, out of nowhere, the tears just started to roll. He didn’t get upset or angry with us but it was enough for my gran to usher us out of the room.
‘What’s wrong with Granddad?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Now why don’t you watch some television and I’ll bring you some ice cream?’
Years later she told me that offering dessert was easier than offering the truth: namely that Granddad had lost so many friends in the war, from the army, the air force, the navy and particularly from the Marines. Every 11 November was hard. Whichever Sunday that Remembrance Day fell on was even worse. For Granddad, when the whole nation stopped for two minutes it felt like a lifetime. He told me once, ‘It’s not that I don’t like the military, but I lost a lot of friends during the war. I’m not sure I would do it again.’
Granddad’s wasn’t the only military voice in the family. After the separation, Mum met a new fella, Harry. He was ex-army, and proud of it. He’d done National Service in the East Surrey Regiment and been deployed to Cyprus when all the trouble was happening over there. That was his war. Sometimes I got a glimpse of it. Harry was a big old unit and he’d boxed his way through his military service, winning regional championships even. He loved to tell me of this bout or that, the bruisers he put on the canvas and the odd time he was on the ropes. What with all the sport Granddad did and now Harry boxing every day, the military sounded a right laugh. I think that’s the side of things Harry in particular wanted to share. But every so often, like Granddad, he’d start a story and then go quiet and sombre, and close his eyes. You knew he was picturing the bloodshed he’d witnessed outside the ring, recalling the friends he’d lost to injury or worse.
‘War’s not a game,’ Granddad used to say. ‘It’s not like football or boxing. Sometimes everybody loses.’
* * *
From time to time Granddad would say he never wanted any of his grandchildren going into the forces. He especially wanted us to steer clear of those nutjobs the Marines. What he didn’t know is that my military training had already begun. But then, I didn’t know either.
Because of his army background Harry saw the value in routine and order. Especially where teenagers were concerned. Every day he would make us lay out our school uniforms, as well as keep our rooms spick and span, be punctual, things like that. If we did it well we’d get pocket money at the end of the week. That seemed a fair trade to me. The fact we were being groomed in the art of soldiery went straight over our heads.
There were a lot of things that passed us by. I don’t think Harry’s divorce from his earlier marriage had been pretty and I know Mum and Dad’s wasn’t, but somehow I only saw the positive side. Instead of two parents, I had four, once Dad had remarried to Anne. Did I wish I could have seen the old man a bit more often? Of course I did. But policing isn’t a nine-to-five job. You don’t rise up through the ranks to become Detective Chief Inspector, or bring the killers of Stephen Lawrence to justice, by watching the clock. Even when we were together, I remember watching Dad a couple of times and you could see he wasn’t there. He always had a problem at the back of his mind he was trying to work out.
In any case, there weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I wanted to do. For much of my childhood I lived in Westcott, a small town near Dorking in Surrey to which we moved when I was eight. It’s a pretty small place, home to barely 2,000 people, and it’s green and it’s safe. I would finish school and go out and come back five hours later covered in mud and nettle stings. I would love my own children to have that. At weekends I’d only be home for meals, that’s if we weren’t camping and terrorising the local pheasant population.
I would think, This is heaven. I never want to leave.
But then I turned fifteen.
Everything that I loved about Westcott as a young kid I absolutely loathed as a young adult. The countryside, the open spaces, the woods, the freedom – it was all just so dull. There wasn’t a day that went by without my wishing we’d never moved from Putney. I didn’t remember it at all. I just knew it was in London and that’s where the action was. London was where it was at.
I didn’t just wake up one day and think that playing Robin Hood in the forest wasn’t for me any more. It came on slowly. I began to mix with other people and those people had interests a bit different from hunting and shooting. It was nothing hardcore, just marijuana and mushrooms, but any of these substances can make you do crazy things. One day we tried to steal my mum’s car to try to get into town. Typical potheads. We were barely two hundred metres down the road when we realised none of us could drive. Somehow we got it back to the house but I don’t think it had ever been parked so badly.
Sadly, the car wasn’t the only thing I stole from Mum. All drugs, however soft, cost money and I didn’t have any. Mum never said a word so I thought I’d got away with it – and, of course, I decided to do it again. This time I wasn’t so lucky.
‘I knew it was you.’
Harry. Standing in the doorway. Where the hell had he come from?
‘What are you talking about?’ I said, despite still holding the purse.
‘Your mum told me she’d lost the money. That was the only explanation, she said. But that woman never loses anything. How do you think she’s going to feel when I tell her we’ve got a tealeaf on our hands?’
I could picture Mum’s disappointed face.
‘Please don’t tell her,’ I begged. ‘Please.’
Harry left the door and walked right over to me. He was huge. He towered above me. He was that close I could see the spittle fly from his mouth when he spoke.
‘The thing is, Rob, I’m not going to tell her because it would break her heart. But what I will do is make you this promise: if you ever, ever do this again I will knock you out.’
I knew there and then that he wasn’t joking. Trust me, being punched by an army boxing champion was not something I wanted to experience.
What Harry didn’t know was why I needed the money. Or so I thought. Parents always understand more than you think, as I was to find out before too long. Anyway, he was more of an influence on me than I realised at the time. Aged sixteen, with my GCSEs on the horizon, I suddenly announced to Mum, ‘There’s no point in me doing these – I want to join the army.’
I don’t know where that came from. I think I just wanted to get out of studying. And obviously Harry had always painted it up like a laugh-a-minute. Perfect for a pothead like me. To her credit, Mum took me at face value. But it was a very short conversation.
‘You can do what you like at eighteen. But until then you’ll be getting an education and qualifications.’
And that was that.
I passed my exams, then enrolled on an aeronautical engineering course at East Surrey College in Redhill. That surprised me as well, but obviously it was Mum’s idea. Not one of her better ones, as it turned out. I thought I was pretty good at maths but this was hardcore so I very quickly made the decision to get out.
‘Okay, you can do mechanical engineering instead,’ Mum said.
‘But I’ve got no interest in cars. What do I want to do that for?’
‘It’ll be useful.’
The truth is, I had little interest in much at all outside of scoring my next bag of weed. Luckily for me, college only improved that side of things. Shortly after I started my HNC (Higher National Certificate) a young lad, a dealer I suppose you’d have to call him, persuaded me to ferry batches of grass from the college over to Dorking. It wasn’t far and the amounts were minimal but at the end of the day I was still no more than a common drugs mule. And why not? I’d pick up here, then go there; it was easy money. And obviously I gave my earnings all straight back to the dealer, so we were both happy.
I really thought I was the bee’s knees but the Napoleon of crime I was not. One day Mum said she was going to run me down to the shops to buy some new trainers.
‘Great,’ I said. I didn’t have any money to buy them.
We drove through town and I was my usual teenage self, probably staring out the window, taking nothing in. We pulled up outside this red-brick building on Reigate Road and we got out. I was in my own little world. I don’t think it even registered that there were places nearer the shops where we could have parked.
But, then, Mum wasn’t going to the shops. She walked round the car and held open the door of the building. That’s when I noticed the sign: ‘Dorking Police Station’.
‘Mum? What’s going on?’
‘Get in here. Now.’
As soon as I was through the door Mum went up to the counter and said, ‘I want to report my son for selling drugs.’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought my heart was going to stop. My own mum was grassing me up.
I wanted a hole in the ground to open up and swallow me. What I got instead was a chair in an empty office in the station. A sergeant came in – a big, burly fella who made Harry look tiny – and he read me the riot act. He told me what he did to drug dealers, he told me how long they spent in prison and he told me how not all of them made it out again with all their bits and bobs intact. I was terrified. Literally quaking in my seat. I honestly thought this was it for me.
Then the copper asked if I thought I deserved a second chance.
I managed to stammer out, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘All right. But if you make me regret it, young man, I will lock you up and throw away the key.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’
So that was that. He led my quivering wreck of a body back out to where Mum was waiting and said, ‘I think he’s learned his lesson.’
And do you know what? I really had. I ended with the drugs and I got as far away from the people using them as I could. I’d still see them around town, of course, but I stopped socialising with them. The alternative was just too frightening.
It was years and years later when the truth came out. Because marijuana leaves an odour on you, Mum and Harry had put two and two together and come up with an answer they didn’t like. They’d discussed it with Dad and between them hatched this plan where they’d ‘shop’ me to the Old Bill. Of course, there’d been a phone call to the sergeant in advance. The whole thing had been a set-up from start to finish designed to shake some sense into me. I hate to think what they’d have done if it hadn’t worked.
* * *
There were repercussions, obviously. For what felt like a year but was probably only a month or two, I was not allowed to do anything on my own. Mum and Harry and Dad told me exactly what I was doing, when I was doing it and where. They’d drive me places just to ensure I got there, they brought all their network of friends up to speed and everywhere I went it was like a dozen eyes were following me. Worst of all, they got me a job washing dishes in a Harvester restaurant. That was not the life I had mapped out for myself.
But things were all right, if I’m honest, and I sort of bobbed from one opportunity to another. Through my course I was offered a day-release apprenticeship as a mechanic with the William Jacks Group over in Dorking. They were basically a local franchise of the Rover car company and were after some young blood to help them keep up with the modern move towards computer diagnostics and software. This was 1994, it was all quite new at the time. I still had no great love for cars – in fact I cycled the five miles from Westcott there and back every day – but when William Jacks offered me a full-time job after I qualified, I snatched their arm off. Just because I wasn’t interested in the product didn’t mean I didn’t like the money. And girls like cars, right?
For a while there it felt like I had my future mapped out. Actually, deep down, I knew that I was only working in engineering as a stop-gap. I’d been told to learn a trade and I’d done that. Now, aged eighteen, nineteen, I knew it was time to start following my own dream. And I knew exactly what that was.
I was going to join the military.
* * *
The decision had nothing to do with Harry or my Granddad. It began with my mate Darren. We’d done our apprenticeships at William Jacks together but instead of working full time he wanted to join the Fire Brigade. He was starting to work on his physique so he suggested I try. I had actually begun to really relish the cycle rides to work so adding a few weights into my day was a natural progression. To make sure we did it right we started looking up fitness programmes in the local library – this was pre-Google, don’t forget – and before you knew it we’d started looking into other things. While Darren read up everything he could find on the Fire Brigade I found myself asking the librarian where to find books on military history. I had never marked myself down as a natural student but I loved it. There were plenty of books written by men long dead but there were others that revealed what had gone on around the world more recently. I was hooked. I discovered I had a voracious appetite for learning when I really wanted to.
I also discovered what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
‘Darren,’ I said, ‘I’ve got it. I know what I want to be.’
‘Well?’
‘I’m going to join the air force.’
* * *
Darren took it better than Mum. She just laughed. ‘What do you know about planes?’ she said. ‘You dropped out of aeronautics.’
‘I can learn,’ I said. ‘You watch.’
There was a careers fair around the corner where all branches from the Ministry of Defence and the emergency services would be represented, so Darren and I made up our minds to go along. I think Mum was pleased but she couldn’t help reminding me of our conversation from a couple of years earlier.
‘What are you joining today?’ she laughed. ‘Is it still the RAF or are you going back to the army? Your granddad swears by the navy.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s the RAF. I’m going to join the air force and that’s that.’
And I meant it.
We got to the fair and Darren went straight off to find the Fire Brigade stand. I wandered around until I came across the people from the RAF. They had amazing posters of planes, and pictures of the blue sky and loads and loads of glossy literature covered in photos of young men and women having the time of their lives in planes. I knew right there, right then, that I was going to be signing up for a life of luxury and excitement.
There must have been two dozen young lads and lasses crowded around the advisers’ desks. Clearly I wasn’t the only one sold on the idea of signing up.
Still, I thought, I’m in no rush. I can wait. What’s a few minutes in a queue compared to a lifetime of thrills?
Five minutes went by and the line didn’t budge. Another minute and finally someone left the queue and we shuffled up a bit. Ten minutes in, I’d memorised every detail on those posters.
That’s when I heard a voice behind me.
‘While you’re waiting, why don’t you have a look over here?’
I turned round and recognised the speaker as wearing the uniform of a Royal Marine. He was only a young lad, a year or two my senior, if that, but he looked dead smart and he was really friendly.
‘You look like you’re a fit lad,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should try out for us.’
I looked over at his stand. The Marines’ promotional material was not as big on selling the dream as the RAF’s – there were no images of laughing pilots and clear skies. What they did have, though, were these very bold messages in large letters: ‘Are you good enough to join?’ ‘Do you think you’ve got what it takes to join the one per cent?’
I took one look and knew I was in the right queue, thank you very much.
‘I’m all right,’ I said. ‘I’m waiting for the RAF guy.’
‘Fair enough,’ the marine said. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
He began to walk away.
‘Unless you fancy doing a few pull-ups while you wait?’
At the back of his stand there was a metal contraption where a lad bigger than I was struggling to lift his own weight for the second time. I’d done my share of press-ups with Darren but that wasn’t my strength. I had lung power to burst but I wasn’t exactly Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even so, I knew I could beat two.
‘Go on, then. I’ll have a go.’
And that’s the moment I turned my back on the RAF. All thanks to that salesman in a uniform.
We got over to the apparatus and once the previous occupant had crawled away I jumped up. I knocked two off instantly, then three, four, five. All the while the marine is cheering me along like my biggest fan. I was going to stop at six but just his enthusiasm drove me on to seven. Then I dropped down, arms shaking.
‘That was awesome,’ he said, beaming. ‘You should definitely consider signing up with us. You have the potential, no shadow of a doubt.’
‘You really think so?’
‘No question.’
‘Okay, where do I sign?’
When I got home and told them, Mum couldn’t stop laughing: she’d predicted I wouldn’t join the RAF or the army … Harry was mystified. ‘Are you sure you were on the right stand?’
* * *
The Marines love their hurdles. You do this, then you do this, then you do this. After signing my life away I got an invitation to go to a test at Guildford. I did my research as best I could and when I turned up wasn’t surprised to be given tests in maths, English, a bit of mechanical reasoning – which obviously was a doddle. Then there was an interview and at the end of that I was told it was worth my taking the medical exam at my local GPs. When that was over I got another letter giving me ten weeks to get myself shipshape for the next phase.
The only thing the Marines love more than hurdles are initials. I was told to attend my four-day PRC (potential recruit course) at the CTC (Commando Training Centre) in Lympstone, Devon. Once I worked out what it meant I started training in earnest, reading every book I could find on the Royal Marines and asking anyone for tips. It was actually my dad who came through. A couple of fellas on the Met had done the commando training, and they said, ‘Run, run and run some more. Then do it again with heavy boots and a load of weights attached.’
When PRC day came, I polished my boots, put on my suit, packed my case and left the house for the station.
‘I’ll see you in four days.’
‘Nah, you’ll be back tomorrow,’ Harry said.
God, I wanted desperately to prove him wrong. And I did. But not how I wanted. Harry said I’d be back the next day. In fact, I didn’t last that long. When I next walked into the house it was the very same day.