35 YEARS AGO
Two hours before dawn on a cool August morning, one hundred athletic men lined up at Dog Rock on the Middleton Beach Road, just outside Albany, Western Australia. Only thirty of this elite group would be selected for the next batch of recruits to join Australia’s Special Air Service Regiment commando force.
So far, these hardened specimens from all over the nation had been through an extraordinarily gruelling physical and mental examination. Over four weeks, they had been weeded out from the three hundred and eighty-three-strong starting squad, on the basis of their aptitudes for combat, swimming, running, shooting (rifle and small arms), and weaponry, which included machine guns, hand-held rocket launchers and detonation. They had all been grilled to assess their acuity in mathematics, English expression, map reading, tactical skills, general discipline and team work.
Leaders had emerged in the first week, with, in the Australian tradition, the best taking command almost by osmosis, no matter their backgrounds. Nine of the hundred had tertiary qualifications. One was a doctor; another, a civil engineer. Nine were professional fighters of cage and ring, from boxing, wrestling, and martial arts, including Muay Thai. There were four circus performers, and eight former professional footballers, most from Australian Rules, which, of all ball games, demands the greatest stamina. The remaining seventy had come from three hundred and nineteen members of the armed forces who had originally applied to join this most formidable of all combat forces.
The most outstanding individual, twenty-three year-old Victor Cavalier, had come from the air force, where he had trained as both a navigator and pilot. In this group of men, he was not exceptional in build, at one hundred and eighty-three centimetres and eighty kilograms. But he topped the squad in physical endurance, stamina, strength, IQ, and ‘personality and interpersonal skills’. According to Major Thomas Gregory, the designer of the overall test, Cavalier was measurably physically superior by ten percentage points above all others in every trial, and up to twenty per cent better in all intelligence measures. His IQ was one hundred and fifty-one, which put him in a class that could succeed at just about any profession or discipline. But it was his EQ, lateral-thinking capacity, lightning-quick decision-making and leadership skills combined that marked him as something ultra-special. Then, after fifteen days, Gregory asked each man to write down secretly the four in the squad he liked most and who he thought was best equipped to command the entire group. Cavalier was in everyone’s top four and ninety-one named him their chosen commander. In a decade of such trials, no one else had ever come close to being the most popular and also the almost universal choice to command.
The last, most important, challenge was along the remote, sometimes rugged and always picturesque Great Southern coastline, and would whittle down the number of new recruits to thirty. Each man would have to race a hundred kilometres—equivalent to two and a half marathons—with a fifty-kilogram pack on his back and carry a rifle. That was tough enough, but every ten kilometres they would have to swim four hundred metres, still with the pack and in water over their heads. Marshals along the route would enforce these rules, and anyone caught cheating would be disqualified from the race and lose any chance of joining the SAS. Anyone breaking down would suffer the same fate.
Just as lightning split the cool night air, the hundred took off at a steady pace. Cavalier was running eightieth as the group reached the lookout at Apex Drive on Middleton Beach, then cut down to the sand and swivelled along the water’s edge. At ten kilometres, the puffing participants plunged into the near-freezing water, known to be inhabited by whales, porpoises and less inviting sea creatures, such as great white sharks. By the end of the first swim, many competitors were struggling as they lumbered back to the sand, rifles strapped to their backpacks. Cavalier, a strong swimmer, had made up fifty places to be thirtieth and three hundred and fifty metres behind the lead pack. Above them, two helicopters and one noisy gunship swept the water, their light beams picking up the long spread of contestants in case anyone got into difficulties, especially in the sea.
After thirty kilometres of the run and three swims, dawn was breaking over the horizon. Very few of the men appreciated the spectacular start to the day, as lightning continued to sprinkle the view over King George Sound. Some were pacing themselves at the front, while others were now stumbling at the rear. Cavalier was pounding along in tenth place as they approached the end of the fourth ten-kilometre stretch, which meant they were nearing the end of the first marathon. He was fifty metres behind the lead pack when he entered the water and level with them when they emerged onto the sand. A marshal pointed the way and now encouraged each participant, like a football coach urging his players to lift their efforts. But they were not even halfway. It would take more than exhortation from army officials in tracksuits to keep them going. Eighteen men had dropped out, most of them lying slumped on the track. Several were in tears, their dreams of adventure in far-off lands shattered. Visions of returning to mundane jobs haunted them and the humiliation of failing even to reach fifty kilometres was overwhelming. All but two of the dropouts had to be treated by paramedics trundling in vehicles along the beach road, like jackals waiting for victims to fall.
In the fifth swim after fifty kilometres, Cavalier was a hundred metres ahead of the next man when he left the water, which had become choppy and even harder to negotiate. He looked back and saw the gunship hovering high above focusing a light beam on a struggling competitor. He tore off his pack and swam to the drowning man. Having managed to haul him to the shallows, he removed his pack, dragged him onto the sand and began to resuscitate him. The man had taken in a lot of water but within two minutes Cavalier had him breathing and conscious. Moments later, paramedics arrived and stretchered the man up a slope to an ambulance. To applause from some of the others, who had witnessed the rescue, Cavalier trotted back to his pack and then to a halfway station.
The group had the option to break for twenty minutes after four hours of non-stop endeavour, before turning around and repeating the runs and swims until they were back at the finish line at Dog Rock. Cavalier took a drink of water from his pack and stretched out his lower legs, then applied balm to his Achilles tendons and bandaged them before starting out again. Stopping to help a competitor had put him behind four others, who had taken only a few minutes at the halfway pit stop. But Cavalier had them covered before he entered the water for the sixth swim. He emerged ninety seconds ahead, and by the end of the seventh swim was a few kilometres clear of the next batch.
After the swim at eighty kilometres, Cavalier had a slight limp. His left Achilles tendon was hurting. He knew the stabbing pain well and how to stretch the tendon out. But the only real treatment was to stop running. He was five kilometres ahead of the second man, who was now down to a fast stride. Fifty-two of the hundred had dropped out, destroying their chances of being selected for the SAS. After the swim at the ninety-kilometre point, forty-four were still in the race, now only battling their own minds.
Bodies might keep moving, but delirium set in as dehydration took hold. Others might have clear minds but bodies that now would not respond to the everyday instruction of putting one foot after the other. Some just lay on the track, their lungs heaving, hoping to be able to lift themselves to their feet. Officials and paramedics were now closer, ready to stretcher the increasing number of fallen to waiting ambulances.
In the final ten-kilometre stanza, Cavalier, sweat pouring from him, swallowed a painkiller as he ran, now distinctly favouring his left leg. Normally he would have stopped, knowing he could rupture the Achilles tendon, but instead he used the searing pain to focus—each stab meant he was another metre closer to Dog Rock. He began to count in rhythm with his now ungainly jog. At ninety-nine kilometres, an open-topped army vehicle pulled up next to him. He gave the rugged driver, thirty-year-old Major Gregory, a sideways glance.
‘You’re eight ks ahead of the next bloke!’ Gregory called. ‘If your leg’s buggered, you could walk it in from here and you’d still win easily.’
‘If I . . . stop . . . it might not let me . . . finish . . .’ Cavalier replied with a grimace, squeezing out the words.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘Achilles.’
‘I told your mum not to dip you in the River Styx!’
‘Never listens!’
Gregory grinned and said, ‘You’re giving new meaning to our motto . . .’
‘Who Dares Wins?’
‘Yeah. With you, it’s “Who Drags Back-leg Wins”.’
Gregory waved and drove off. Cavalier limped on until he reached the big rock shaped like a dog’s head. He had won.
Three days later, Cavalier, on crutches, met Gregory in an office in the greystone Town Hall in Albany’s York Street. The major scrutinised a report and squinted as he looked up at Cavalier.
‘You lost four kilos?’ Gregory asked.
Cavalier nodded.
‘Hope I don’t find them again.’
‘How’s your Achilles?’
‘Near enough to ruptured,’ Cavalier said without emotion. ‘I’ll be on crutches for two or three weeks.’
‘Thank you for saving that guy at the halfway point.’
‘He’s okay?’
‘Yeah, he only had a night in hospital. More than anything else, he’s depressed about what happened, because he didn’t make the cut. Wants to thank you for saving his life.’
Cavalier nodded.
‘You know you won every single test . . .’ Gregory began.
‘I’m aware,’ Cavalier said, with a wave of his hand.
‘But we can’t take you in,’ the major said, his voice heavy with regret. ‘The rules are clear. If anyone breaks down during or after a trial, they might do so in the field. That would make them a liability in any SAS operation.’
Cavalier ran his hands through his long fair hair. Sadness swept his face for an instant.
‘I’ve been running this test for several years,’ Gregory said, ‘and never had a recruit in your class. But . . .’ He broke off, rubbed his forehead and asked, ‘What will you do career-wise now?’
‘I’ve applied for a job as a journalist in Melbourne. It was a fallback in case . . .’
‘Will you get it?’
‘I think so. I’ve been contributing cricket reporting to the paper for five years. It may help me get a full-time job. I’d like to be an investigative journalist.’
‘You could always try TV reporting.’
Cavalier smiled and shook his head.
‘My wife saw your picture in the line-up of recruits,’ Gregory said, ‘reckons you’d be a hit on 60 Minutes. Says your flat nose makes you look sexy: like a cross between a young Elvis and a young Brando.’
‘She needs to have her eyes tested,’ Cavalier said, ‘and, anyway, the nose structure has been helped along by a cricket ball. It’s called natural plastic surgery.’
Gregory laughed. ‘No TV then?’ he said.
‘Too superficial; too lightweight. What you blokes do is the real thing. That’s for me.’
Gregory scratched his outsized chin and ruminated for several seconds. ‘Would you be open to some “unofficial” assignments?’ he said. ‘There would be overseas travel. Your exceptional skills would be put to good use.’
‘Such as?’
‘Can’t tell you that. Look,’ Gregory continued, while standing, ‘I’ve spoken to senior commanders about you. They agree that we should do more than keep in touch.’
‘Then do that, by all means,’ Cavalier said.