I had no post-operational tour leave. I remember being at Chilwell Barracks after the tour ended. We were reunited with the rest of the squadron. Demobilization, or demob for short, was basically just the reverse of when we started out. Going around the different departments again: medical, stores, administration and so forth. It was easy and stress-free, apart from the hearing test. My ears were still ringing. They are to this day from gunfire and explosions. I will have constant white noise drumming away because of the hectic battles and lifestyle of the last fifteen years or so. I was in the hearing booth, which is like a phone booth with a seat. It’s sound-insulated and you wear a pair of headphones. Different variations of noise – very low at the start and then a little higher – are used to measure your hearing range. I couldn’t hear half of it. You have a handle in your hand with a button at the top to press every time you hear the noise. It varies from left to right ear. I just kept pressing the button regardless. The young reservist came in and said that it was coming up on the test what I was doing. I said, ‘I can’t hear you. Shout louder.’ We laughed and then I told him, make me pass the test. I did with flying colours. While I was in the administration department I learned that my post-operational tour leave would be cut short because I was going on 22 selection. I told them that test week started in early February, though I didn’t inform them that the build-up phase of the course actually started in early January. So, while the vast majority of troops returning home from Afghanistan were spending time with family, friends and the barstool, I would be doing Special Forces selection all over again, with no break from Afghanistan and straight out of operations. So, into the Brecon Beacons and I loved it, to be home again in those mountains. It was the best place in the world after a tour de force like I had just done. Lush green Welsh wet mountains. Heaven in South Wales, who would have thought, eh? Most of the recruits would have spent at least the last three months, many even way longer, preparing for the hills. My preparation was done in battle and in my mind. That’s where you win or lose. Everything starts and finishes in the mind.
I spent Christmastime in Herefordshire and Yorkshire with my fiancée’s family. I was eating like a horse just to fatten up. I did a few runs and some light marches, nothing really. Just resting and eating and enjoying peacetime. I knew how it would go anyway. It’s just a condensed version of the prolonged 21 SAS selection. Although the two selection courses are very different beasts in some ways, they both test your physical and mental strength and beyond. All I can say is if you’re going into it with apprehension or fear, you need to change your mindset: break it down into bite-sized chunks and picture in your mind that you’re completing a stage, a mini-goal. Bit by bit it’s done. Sounds just dandy on paper but it will make you a man. I drove to Sennybridge Camp. The motor was full of kit for the hills phase: extra food, kettle, home comforts like pillow, blankets and had a sheet of plyboard to go under the mattress. The bunks at that camp are like hammocks; when you lie down on them you’re bent like a banana. Not good for your back or recuperation after marching all day. Any soldier can rough it; a good one makes himself comfortable.
Once I had signed in, done all the paperwork and been allocated a bed space in the dorms, I unpacked and stored my valuables in a locked container; it might be Special Forces selection but there are a few undesirables walking about. We got our briefings and found out which directing staff would be taking us on the guided marches for the first week or so when they assess your map-reading ability. I have no idea how many recruits there are to start with; around the 250 mark I suspect, judging by the queue in the cookhouse. It doesn’t take too long for the number to start depreciating. The winter months of January-February 2009 were some of the worst in decades. The first week went fine. All the keen-as-mustard would-bes were all hot on the heels of the directing staff. I stayed just off the front pack, not really bothered about the ass-licking. The directing staff can see right through it. More importantly I’m not that kind of bloke. What you see is what you get.
The day started about 4.00 am. It was cold, dark and raining. Well, it’s Wales and it was mid-winter. We were waiting in the parade square, sitting on our Bergens, waiting for the 4-tonner, the old Bedford trucks with wooden seats. Special Forces selection gets dispensation from health and safety. These are relics from the 1970s and the conditions were part of the psychological aspect of selection: bone-shaking, wind-strapped and wet. Many a man was broken by these before they’d even reached the start point of the march. Trick was to get on, get warm and get a flask of tea and some food into you. Although you had a big fry-up breakfast, the cookhouse is all you can eat; by the time you have spent an hour to an hour and a half on the 4-tonner, all that food had been burned up just keeping us warm and keeping the mind active and positive. I always got extras in the cookhouse with a flask of tea. I needed it. I was still on Afghan climate control. An Irishman with a tan in Wales looks odd.
We had weekends off which was great. The second week varied between forced marches and physical training, that is, beasting sessions. Beastings is the endearing term for gruelling and punishing physical training, runs up and down hills, push-ups, fireman-carries, stretcher races and so on. Anything to push you to your limit and beyond, physically and mentally. The number of blokes that would instantaneously pick up injuries was a feat to behold. Sometimes you’d wonder whether they actually knew what they’d signed up for. By this stage a few of the directing staff were aware of my presence. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. Firstly, I was 21 and secondly, I was Irish. I tried to keep a low profile and for anyone who has ever met me it’s difficult to put those two together with me. There wasn’t much I could do about it. I just kept going. It was hard going but I knew I would make it. I felt strong. The weather was deteriorating steadily. I don’t know how much food I was eating but I just couldn’t get enough into me.
Time was flying by. I had done all this with 21 before. I knew the ground, the routes, the best goat paths to take for speed. I had spent the past couple of months in Afghanistan; I knew nothing could put fear into me.
Week three: one more week and then it would be test week. The intensity of the marches was rising. Recruits were dropping like flies. The queue for the cookhouse was now tolerable. I had made the acquaintance of lots of lads by now, either in the 4-tonner or waiting in the queue. There were a handful of Irish lads, a few Scottish, even fewer Welsh and the rest English, some Aussies, New Zealanders, a few Fijians thrown in for good luck and Gurkhas, the little crazy bastards. The weather was horrendous up in the mountains. Cloud, wind and rain. Visibility was crap. You just had to keep moving or hypothermia would quickly set in. The 4-tonners parked at certain road checkpoints were filling slowly and steadily with volunteers. It’s called the Jack Wagon. Poor lost souls, that’s what they looked like peering out through their sleeping bags and hooded jackets. Boys trying to be men.
Now the cold snap was starting and the damp was drying up. We were coming to the end of week three. The weather now was serious. It was white-out every morning and no sign of stopping. Some of the marches now were just complete and pass. We hadn’t even got to test week. The vehicles the directing staff was using, including the 4-tonners, were getting stuck in the snow. It was bitterly cold. When you’re carrying 50lb of weight for several hours up and down mountains at best speed you get a sweat on. The worst time was at a checkpoint, especially if there were two or three waiting to give the details to the directing staff. Chill would set in and will would set out. I didn’t fuck about. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. I was well-known by the directing staff now and usually had to come up with a joke at the tent because they were bored and needed some entertainment, while you’re standing outside in anything up to 3ft of snow with half a house on your back at the top of a mountain trying to be a comedian. Thankfully it came naturally to me; they would burst out laughing and then tell me to piss off, I was behind time. Thanks, I thought. I didn’t leave camp for the last weekend before test week. The roads were treacherous and I wouldn’t risk not making it back or getting stuck on a motorway when the time could be better spent walking around in circles in Wales. Well, my mother always said I would go far.
The Sennybridge camp has poor living accommodation: it’s a throwback to the 1980s, with wooden chalets with bed spaces for up to twenty men plus their kit. Toilets, showers and so on are in separate blocks. No real heating system and all wooden doors and windows. Cold and damp. Every day we were trying to wash and dry muddied and soaked uniforms and dry out boots for the following morning. This part of the administration, after and before the marches, is hugely important as your body needs maximum sleep to regenerate and heal. Being quick and diligent at this paid huge dividends as the weeks went by, especially starting and during test week. Sleep was broken at best with so many people in these chalets getting up going to the toilet, snoring and the like. Always get a bed space as far from the door and one of the ends near the wall so nobody is passing you during the night, with the door constantly opening and shutting near you. Keeping your life quietly refined to a decent routine so you have your focus on the next march was of the utmost importance. If you don’t do it in the barracks, you won’t do it in the field or on operations.
Sunday evening: we were all summoned for the test-week briefing. Wow, the numbers had dwindled substantially. Everybody got a seat, including the mice. I’m listening and taking notes, wrapped up like a boiler in the heating press, big puffer jacket, the best socks in the world. Thick socks or, as I say, tick tocks. Bridgedale mountain socks. Oh, they were just morale for your feet. After you’ve being marching all day when you get to the finish line you could be sitting in the back of the 4-tonner for up to an hour waiting for others to finish and finish up and then the driving time could take an hour to an hour and a half. That’s too long in wet boots or kit when you need to be recuperating for tomorrow’s tougher, harder march. Every march, straight away, boots off and foot powder in a big resealable bag that I could just slip my feet into. Shake the bag and the powder covered one foot. Dry pair of tick tocks. Oh, it was like giving your battered and bruised feet a big hug in a sock. Gore-Tex over this so you could put the wet boots on or if you had old trainers in your Bergen put them on, which was probably better because the mountain boots are more than twice their weight when they’re basically mobile swimming pools. The instant relief from sorting yourself out in the back of the wagon. Next get a gas stove going, a boil-in-the-bag ration and make a flask of tea. You were on the way to tomorrow’s march already feeling better for it. Blokes would just get in, sit there, put some warm kit on or get a sleeping bag out; didn’t go the extra bit or change boots or clothing. They never make it. As I said before, when the cold sets in the will sets out.
We were to be marching in Brecon again. The emphasis was on safety. It was total white-out in the mountains. All the goat paths were hidden under 5ft of snow. I was the first to set off from Brecon Reservoir going to the top of Pen y Fan. Jesus, going first was brutal. I was the pathfinder or trailblazer. Thankfully I knew the area well but I couldn’t find any paths for love nor money under the white wonderland. Looked romantic all right but try bloody marching with 50lb not including rifle or food or water in that weight. It was a huge extra strain. I had to lift my thigh until it was 90 degrees and kick the bottom half of my leg over the snow. Then down again until terra firma. Then the same with the other leg. As more men marched through it would make a more acceptable compact patch but for the one leading out front, it was surreal the effort you had to put in to get from one checkpoint to another due to the weather conditions. Timings went out the window. We weren’t informed about this, just best effort, but we knew our timings were way over the limit. You couldn’t accurately gauge at what speed you were traversing the mountains compared to normal conditions. Finish and you made it to the next march. That was epic in itself. Vehicles, men and machines were breaking down in the arctic conditions. I’d never seen it like this before or after.
I reached the top of the Fan. Two lonesome directing staff were inside a tent that was rippling with the wind; it was zipped up to the max to keep the weather out. I gave a shout. They hastily opened the zip. When they heard my voice, or rather accent, ah, they thought, time for some morale; they did look bored. They asked if I was happy. I was covered in snow head to toe. My face had snow frozen to it. I looked like Santa in army fatigues sporting an Irish accent. I replied, ‘Fucking delirious, staff.’ Just one of those moments that is surreal but funny. I headed on my way. I was going down the other side of the Fan. It’s all rock and one slip and you’re going to have a rapid descent with an even more rapid full stop. If I slipped I was dead. I looked about, rooting for something to use as a sledge to slide down and save time and energy. I contemplated taking my Bergen off, lying on it and sliding down but it just wasn’t aerodynamic enough to use. Pity, because if it had been it was coming straight off my pain-decimated back within milliseconds and the thought of the Bergen carrying me instead, even for a couple of hundred metres down the mountain, was nearly giving me a hard-on. It was just too cold for Twinky Winky to come out and play too.
It was to be a slow trudge through the snowstorm and snowdrifts. I never saw a sinner on those first four marches. The visibility was about 50 metres. Thank God I know the place like the back of my hand, just getting the bearing off the map for the general direction. The weight increased all week. Then it was the last march before the infamous Long Drag or Endurance as others call it. Same march, same effort. We’d run two hours over the cut-off time for finishing. By the time we got back and sorted food, kit and rations for the final endurance march, and with a briefing and the cookhouse as well, we were looking at one hour’s sleep if we were lucky. We weren’t. Blokes were messing with kit, lads making noise, bodies battered, feet hanging over the beds looking like they belonged to ogres, not fit young men. I was screwed even before I started the march. My back and arms were swelling up. I remember laughing in the cookhouse with some mates about it. It wasn’t going to stop me. I ate like a horse. The Bergen weighed in at 69lb not including food, water and rifle (which brought it in at over 80lb). It was snowing, a dark and cold night to be just sitting around on our Bergens at 10.30 pm in the parade square. There was an eerie silence. The only way you knew anyone was there was by the condensation and steam of blokes’ breath, billowing out like silent trumpets. For many the 4-tonner seemed to be even more miserable tonight. I tucked into the flask. We were briefed that the waiting time between recruits setting off was cut from five-minute intervals to every two minutes. Didn’t want blokes going down with hypothermia before they set off. A few had made the Jack Wagon at the start even before kick-off. They knew what lay in front so to lay behind was the easier option to them. I never judge. To put yourself in the ring to make it that far under those conditions in January/February 2009 was a Herculean feat in itself.
I went forward with the half a house on my back, gave my details and, as before, put one foot in front of the other. The climb was horrendous. Blokes were slipping and going over with nearly half their body weight strapped to their shoulders in a snowstorm. Some never got up, just lay there. Then, when there was a break, they’d pick themselves up and go downhill into history. We all had head torches on. We weren’t bothered about the directing staff. Breaking your legs or back was a clear and present danger. The only problem was they highlighted the white bleakness and hardship. As we kept climbing I was surprised by how many were stopping and starting. This was going to be the toughest endurance march in years. It was slow and unrelenting. You would pass two or three blokes grouped together, sitting down, getting their breath back. There wasn’t a volunteer who wasn’t exhausted by now. Talybont to the Storey Arms. Up and over the Fan. A winter night during a UK-wide big freeze. My back was bent right forward. I couldn’t feel from my armpits down to my fingers. I had gloves on but the circulation was buggered. I couldn’t eat now. One minute I was sweating, the next shivering. I kept going. Then I vomited. I was in rag order. Another vomiting session. Got some water down me. Kept going. It was killing me to march but I couldn’t stop. It was slow but it was moving. I saw some take out their sleeping bags and waterproof liner for the sleeping bag and just get in. I knew it was serious what was going on.
After about five hours’ marching I was only making it towards the Fan. I wasn’t in front but I wasn’t behind either. It took every ounce of strength that was left in me to climb up Jacob’s Ladder on the way up to Pen y Fan. Just get it done. You didn’t have to summit as there was no checkpoint at the top but the path that’s just below was obviously gone in a snow maze. It was hard going circumnavigating the mountain. I was now on the downward slope. Still about 3km to the checkpoint. Still dark, still snowing and still a white-out. Jesus, I was in bad shape but I knew get past Storey Arms and then daylight would soon be arriving. I fell, stumbled and picked myself back up enough times to make a drunk feel sober.
By the time I arrived at the first checkpoint there were at least ten lads wrapped up in sleeping bags. I got to the checkpoint; it was the HQ vehicle. A big van with radios and desks and so forth: mobile command unit. I gave my name etc., where I was on the map and then they gave me the new grid location. I knew where it was; I’d done this march before. They asked for a bearing which is the direction of travel you take with a compass and the map: align the map to the ground around you and take that bearing on the compass. I couldn’t move the dial on the compass. My arms and hands had swollen to nearly twice their normal size. They were cold, not yet frostbite but it was coming soon. I was ordered to go to the medic. I protested, saying I was fine and I knew the terrain and route but I was put in the ambulance and checked over. The medic wouldn’t let me continue. He and the officer commanding the hills phase said I was in no shape to continue. It was too many checkpoints up in the mountains again before the next road checkpoint and they said my circulation was gone. I begged and begged the officer commanding; I knew he would understand. There were tears running down my face. I said I would be okay. Daylight would be here. He said the weather and snow was the worst it had been for years and it was going to be in for the next few days. He gave me a hug. It was a really decent thing to do. I was screwed; I knew I was screwed but I couldn’t quit. I wanted to march or die. The legionnaire spirit was alive and well in Wales. They put me in the ambulance to get the circulation going and warmed up. Then it was back to camp. I was in a state of shock. I had been medically withdrawn.
When I got back to the accommodation there were a few lads laid up in beds. That night had taken a lot of scalps. I packed my kit. I changed into a dry tracksuit. Didn’t eat or shower. Fitted the motor up and got in it to go to Hertfordshire. No sleep. I’d just come down off a mountain after four weeks of the hardest physical testing of your limits. I couldn’t stay. I should have been out there in the hell of winter, not here in no man’s land. I drove out. I went about 20 miles and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I pulled in, left the engine running for heat and passed out at the steering wheel. Dehydrated, back and arms buggered. Thankfully it was an automatic car. I was running on despair alone. I woke a few hours later and continued the drive. By this time, 21, my unit, had heard what had happened. I got a phone call: go straight to Chilwell in the morning. I did. Got home, unpacked and then drove up to Nottingham; Chilwell’s not far from the town centre. I went to the administration department. They’d been expecting me. Now I’d thawed out I was in agony. The stinging heat pain in my feet, arms and hands was unbearable, coupled with an injured back. I hadn’t taken any painkillers since vomiting on Pen y Fan and boy did I know it. Got my papers and saw the doctor. I was told I needed a few weeks’ rehabilitation. I spent the next two months with needles in my back and working on getting my arms and hands back to normal. God, was it demoralizing. I was super fit but the body was screwed from abuse. Jesus, there was still life in it yet though. Once I got signed off to go home after rehab, the first thing I did was return to my barracks in London and put my name down for the summer selection. Damn right, I might have been knocked down but I wasn’t knocked out.
I had healed well. I was back into training at my squadron in 21 SAS while training in the mountains on my own time again. I was happy with the progress. Summer selection began in earnest in July. The three-week beast up to test week had changed somewhat, with some of the more infamous beasting days altered. It was just as intense but I did fine. I was known by some of the directing staff; that just goes with the territory. Test week came. Did all my marches including endurance. To pass the Storey Arms at good speed on endurance was tearful. It put an old ghost to bed. I went round the 64km march at a steady pace, no injuries and strong. I even ran over the hot-coal section and tarmac lanes for the last 8 miles like a man possessed, again passing pain-ridden recruits who were crying for relief or hoping that they could levitate, anything not to have to feel the boot hit the ground and the satanic pleasure received to those poor soles of their feet. Oh, this is the only marching season I like. I went across the finish line like a bloody train. Into the back of the 4-tonner; it was like a home away from home. I had been in one consistently since 2006. This was 2009. That included 21 and 22 selection and pre-deployment training. I had a cut-up piece of sleeping mat one-foot square for the wooden bench. That was all the home comfort I needed in the 4-tonner.
We arrived back at Sennybridge Camp elated. It was a cool summer’s day, around late afternoon. I sorted my kit and packed some of it into the car. We had a feast fit for a king in the cookhouse after another four weeks of intense mental and physical exhaustion, but I felt strong and delighted. We were confined to barracks as foot and mouth had been prevalent in some areas of the country. We learned there was no weekend leave. Lots of blokes were getting their heads down to sleep. I, on the other hand, decided that after an eighteen-hour march and a full week of test marches a good session of Guinness was in order. Well, it does give you strength, as they say. I went into the NAAFI, the on-camp bar. There were plenty of the directing staff having beers at their own tables. Out of the recruits that had decided to go to the NAAFI, a few had a pint; the vast majority didn’t. I walked straight up to the bar, jumped the queue and all. Well I wasn’t going in a line behind blokes ordering fizzy drinks and bags of crisps; 2 pints of Guinness please. The first one didn’t touch the sides. Remember, I hadn’t slept either. Non-stop marching all the way to the bar. That’s what got me through the last few miles like a lunatic. I’m going on the piss now. I had the endurance march beaten in my mind. Oh, the NAAFI was what drove me over the line. Jesus, about 12 pints later at closing time even the directing staff had retired; I was in full swing. By the time I got back to the block, lights were out. I had a carry-out of cans; oh, I had no intention of stopping just yet. I had earned it. Put on some good old Irish session music on my headphones in the accommodation and was dancing and drinking while everyone was sleeping. I eventually passed out, exhausted but not thirsty. No hangover the next day. The other blokes said I was hard-core. I replied, ‘Why not?’ It was nice having down time. I just sorted out my administration and kit ready for the next stay: pre-jungle training near Hereford.
There was no leave or any time off due to the foot-and-mouth crisis. We all drove in convoy to a training facility in Herefordshire. We were billeted in a shed basically. All hands on deck to first clean it out and then set up the folding cot bed for your sleeping arrangements. We all made ourselves as cosy as possible; this was home for the next month. It was basic but compared to what was coming, it was the Hilton. I needed fattening up for the jungle and I didn’t hesitate on that. As this training facility was put together as a fast ball due to travel restrictions, it was a tented mess hall and cookhouse. Just like the green army big field exercises. The cooks didn’t disappoint again. All you could eat; no rationing here. Fill your boots. Any more for any more?
I was doing light physical training for the first two weeks just to get back into shape and not overdo it. Feet and most other body parts needed regenerating after the Brecon mountains. The days were taken up with briefings and lectures on standard operation procedures, patrolling and all aspects of soldiering. It was a different kind of intense, as you were writing and constantly taking notes to be studied and written up again in a good copy, not the speed-writing of class. Then, during one briefing, we were all handed a questionnaire to fill out. I didn’t take much notice. It was a generic one, the type that most recruits fill out in any organization. First few questions were about your name, date of birth, military courses and operations you had been on. Then they got a little more personal. You could see lads taking out their quills and giving Shakespeare a run for his money, writing down what they thought would get them further. The next question was why are you joining the SAS? Most blokes gave a heartfelt bullshit story. I just wrote ‘For the craic.’ Oh, it gets better. Another few questions, then ‘What are your strengths?’ I put down, ‘Team player, do anything to get it done, selfless, driven, resilient.’ The next question: ‘What are your weaknesses?’ I put down ‘jam doughnuts’. Jesus, I didn’t foresee what happened next. I handed in the questionnaire. About lunchtime when we all had eaten and were chilling, I heard the roar of my surname. Oh no, I thought, this reminds me of every other time I got up to mischief and the subsequent consequences. One of the directing staff was holding a jam doughnut. ‘Since you like these so much, keep it in your top left pocket and have it ready for inspection on a moment’s notice. In the exact condition it was handed to you.’
Within a few days we would be flying to Brunei, the other side of the world, to do jungle training. The toughest part of Special Forces training. I got a soapbox and some small resealable bags. All this to place the doughnut in as protection while in the tropical humid heat of the jungle. I made sure it was secured, fastened and airtight. I knew that I, like everyone else in the selection process, was going to go through hell with the physical and mental torture of weeks in the jungle. I would be completely screwed but my jam doughnut was going to be perfect.
Due to foot and mouth, we were all driven to a private part of Heathrow away from the public. They hired a passenger plane to take sixty recruits and directing staff and admin staff. The trolley-dollies, including the gay ones, thought they had died and gone to heaven. A plane full of super-fit Special Forces soldiers. All the directing staff were in first class. Obviously we were in the rear with the gear. No booze either. Bastards. Landed in Brunei. The humidity was heavy. I was sweating within ten minutes of landing. It’s an Islamic country and conservative. The Sultan of Brunei has good relations with the UK, with a garrison of Gurkhas also stationed there.
We were coached to our camp. Bed spaces and mosquitoes were waiting for us. This was going to be ruthless. We hadn’t even begun to unpack our kit when the roar came be on the parade square wearing your physical training kit in five minutes. We were being treated to daily beasting sessions on the beach to help hasten acclimatization; more like to hasten the weak to fail. I can’t describe how draining it was in the humidity and heat. Blokes were dropping like flies. One lad had to be taken straight off the beach when he collapsed with a heat injury; the medics confirmed his body temperature had hit 42 degrees Celsius. He was medevacked back to the UK subsequently and discharged from the army. There were others, but I was too busy making sure I wasn’t one of them. These were called beach runs, funnily enough. There was a package of range work and so on before being helicoptered into the jungle to start the long exercise. You had to have your administration so precise. The jungle is a beautiful, enchanting forest but it’s survival of the fittest in there; it’s claustrophobic, hot, humid, energy-sapping. Constant noise night and day from whatever is out there, and there were some out-of-this-world noises when it got dark and when I say it got dark, you couldn’t see anything under the canopy. You couldn’t see the sky except for breaks in the treeline, which were rare. You were reduced to existing on the floor like every other floor-dwelling creature in there. Oh, you know the jungle is your master, my friend. This is proper survival soldiering. Stealth movement by day; laid up by night.
The harshness was unrelenting. One of the days is called immediate action day. This is where you’re in your patrol of four to six men, depending on how many recruits were left. You have your fighting kit on – that is, webbing with ammunition and grenades, water bottle and so on – and a daysack with either extra water rations or a radio or some other essential kit. All day you are being ambushed and taking casualties in mock scenarios. The heat was deadly. I think we lost nearly twenty blokes that day due to heat or injuries or voluntary withdrawal; that’s the three words the directing staff are trying to get you to say: ‘I voluntarily withdraw.’ They want to break you. I was shoulder-carrying a Gurkha officer. On this drill he was the injured one of our patrol; he was still in but was in bad shape and going downhill rapidly with heat injuries. So we were heaving all the kit in this quagmire as well as these steep ravines. Out of nowhere I heard an explosion. Not a particularly big one. Some directing staff were blowing up trees to make a clearing for the helicopter to come in and winch guys out. Here I am with a lad strung across my shoulders, two rifles and kit going up this near-vertical path up a ravine – known as the Eiger – with directing staff screaming at us and the helicopter 50ft to my left. The co-pilot’s eyeballs were popping out at the sight of this Special Forces selection course unfolding below him. Some recruits were lying on stretchers waiting to be hoisted up and being helped by other injured recruits waiting their turn. Some lunatic directing staff was blowing up trees with plastic explosives to clear an opening, all while whoever was still in the fight was putting one foot in front of the other. I have no idea how I got up there, but I bloody well did.
By the time we reached the safe point of the exercise, the officer who I had been carrying had gone down with heat injuries and he was on my goddam back. My five-man patrol was now reduced to two men: me and an Aussie lad. He was on the deck talking like he was from another planet. Some of the directing staff were nervous about the extent of casualties being taken. No matter what, it’s the military and shit goes downhill. My directing staff asked if I was okay. The medics were going over the officer. He was unconscious now. I said I was seeing stars but would it be okay to have a quick ciggie during the break? They were astonished I was still standing and let me have one fag in peace. Jesus, I was holding on by a prayer but I held on. That’s all you ever need, just faith in yourself to make it. It didn’t quell. It got harder and harder as the days passed. Weight loss, fatigue, all the great ingredients to test the mind, body and soul of a man.
By the time we got to the final exercise, we had to break up our bivouac camps and bring the lot to a central position. This was a seven-day exercise of patrolling with all our Bergens and a kit of nearly 100lb a man. It was goddam suicidal lifting. You had to roll into your Bergen, you were that exhausted. We got helicoptered to another area of the jungle to do the exercise. As soon as we’d set off two directing staff told me I wouldn’t get to the end of the exercise which ended at the highest point in that part of the jungle. I knew I was buggered but I just kept going. It had to be a 50 or 60km trek through dense jungle up and down – and of course since we’re talking SAS here, up to the highest point – all the time patrolling and doing all our SOPs, or standard operating procedures, to the highest standard for jungle warfare. How I made it to the top is beyond me. Others didn’t, but I did. I went down with heat exhaustion. My patrol got water into me and I managed to stay conscious. By the time the exercise finished, all to a man collapsed on the deck. Oh, to be at the finish line. Every man had earned his place. Some lads hugged. A directing staff came over and asked about my jam doughnut. It was in mint condition. He gave me a fag to smoke while we waited for the helicopter to arrive. Once on board this small heavy helicopter, with just enough space for men and kit, we were handed the cold tins of beer which the RAF squadron based in Brunei, and that assist in the jungle training, always donated. I was strapped into my seat, doors wide open, gazing down at the jungle canopy that looked like a sea of broccoli, drinking a can of Foster’s lager.
Back to the barracks. It took three showers to even look half clean. Oh, food flowed through us like soup owing to the change from rations to normal food. Every man was red with mosquito bite rashes. Trench foot, you name it, we had it. The foot-and-mouth crisis was over and we got a Royal Brunei flight home, too exhausted to flirt with the hostesses. Back in Hereford for debriefing and so forth. Then home. I was delighted to get back home; a big hug from my fiancée helped. Rest and recuperation. Within a few days I got a phone call from a major at 21 SAS asking if I wanted to deploy to Afghanistan in a few weeks. I was out of the jungle and now I was heading back to Afghanistan, getting ready to deploy to Helmand and I couldn’t wait to go fighting again, although I took the phone call in the pub. Well, I did go on the piss for a few days after the jungle. Now my mind was on the Stan and explaining to the Mrs that I was going away again. That’s life.