First Into Action (41 page)

They called in a chopper to meet them a few clicks away, packed up their gear and pulled out. As they climbed a hill behind the OP they saw the cow come to and stagger off.

In the SBS it was impressed upon us to retain personal discipline at all times. A serious incident, getting in trouble with the law or civilians, could result in expulsion from the unit if it was our fault. This restricted our playfulness at times. This was not the case with the regular Marines. Much of the mischief they got up to was just for the crack. On one occasion, while in Norway with 42, I joined half-a-dozen members for dinner in Narvik.

We found an unusual restaurant, a thin, three-storey building with a dining-room on each floor. The waiter took us to the third floor, where we were shown a table by the window. After many hours of much food, wine and merriment we were given the bill. One of the lads, a Scot, was sitting at the end of the table with his back to the window. He was pretty drunk, more so than the rest of us, and joked that we should do a runner without paying. To enforce his suggestion, he leaned back and opened the window indicating it to be his proposed exit. A stiff, icy breeze blew in.

We all thought he was joking, and I believe he was, too. But when he dropped out of the window head first, his feet being the last part of him we saw disappear into the night, it was obvious he was the only one of us who had forgotten we were three floors up. We ran to the window and saw him lying on a hard-packed pile of snow that had been pushed up against the building to clear the pavement. We charged down the flights of stairs and out of the restaurant, thinking he must be dead. On the bank of hard snow his body had bent over in such a way that if he opened his eyes he could almost see the back of his heels in front of him. Amazingly, he had no broken bones, but he was in an awful mess, his face swelling up as if he’d had fifteen rounds in the ring with his back and hands tied to a post in the centre. One of the lads quickly ran back into the restaurant to ask the management to call an ambulance.

Meanwhile, on the middle floor, there was a flap on as a huge, fat, Norwegian lady was seemingly choking to death. She had suddenly broken out in convulsions during her meal, which had taken all the attention away from our friend lying in the street. I suppose as far as the restaurant was concerned, the Scot’s problem was self-inflicted, whereas the choking fat lady was their direct responsibility. The truth of it was that the fat lady, surrounded by her family, had apparently been the only one facing the window at the time. She had just filled her face when she saw the Scot drop past the window and had started to choke.

When the ambulance arrived, we got the Scot ready for the stretcher, but the paramedics ran right past us and into the restaurant to deal with the fat lady. We ended up carrying the Scot to the train station and then on home. He was fine apart from hardly being able to see because the flesh around his eyes was so swollen, his face resembling a slab of red-and purple-coloured pumpkin. And his neck and back muscles were in such a tight spasm that he walked around the hotel ever so slowly and painfully, occasionally scaring civvies in the corridors who had not seen him before.

When I left 42 Commando and came back to the SBS I joined a team on their way to Scotland for more trials work with submarines. I was winding down my career with the SBS by now, preparing to start a new and exciting one elsewhere. But the trip was, as always, interesting, and provided me in my last few months, working directly with old friends, with yet more fond memories. Of the many fun submarine stories, this is one of my favourites.

Our job that week, in the deep waters around the Isle of Arran, across the North Channel from Northern Ireland, was to assist in preparing sub captains for some of the more clandestine work. Military Intelligence agencies as well as special forces sometimes had personnel who needed to be recovered at sea, having been on some foreign powers’ territory for one reason or another. One of the techniques for locating and picking up people in these circumstances was the hook-and-line method.

The SBS used this system to collect divers, canoes or boats by submarine at night in most sea conditions, avoiding the really rough weather unless absolutely necessary. Like many of the things we did in the SBS, it looked straightforward enough on paper.

It required at least two people or two boats and had to be at a pre-arranged rendezvous with the sub. If two canoes were used, for instance, after paddling far out to sea to the approximate rendezvous point, the canoeist came together and connected a hundred-foot thin, nylon line between them strong enough to tow both boats. The line was passed through eyes at the bows of both canoes with the ends then fixed to quick-release devices within reach of the lead man in the front of the canoe. The canoes then backed away keeping their bows pointed at each other, until the rope was pulled into a straight line. Each canoe carried a device of a different frequency. The sub steered towards the canoes and, using the two different frequencies, carefully steered between them at periscope depth. The periscope snagged the line and towed the canoes out to sea to a safe location where they surfaced and brought the personnel inboard. I have used this technique with as many as six canoes at once.

On this occasion, there were four of us in two rubber hawks with no equipment. The hawks were small rubber inflatable boats with a small outboard motor, just comfortably large enough for two men plus their full equipment. It was midnight and the sea had a little chop to it. The sub was late and we had been hanging around for a couple of hours, but we were warmly dressed and prepared for foul weather. We’d already hooked up the hundred-foot line and paddled apart, our engines were disconnected and lashed inboard and our devices were pinging away. It was jet-black that night, cloud covered the stars and the only lights visible were from the small harbour village on Arran, miles away. We had been there from last light till 10:00 p.m., in the pub opposite the little jetty. We were no strangers to the locals – as individuals yes, but our types, no. For the past forty or fifty years, the SBS had been using the area to practise their secret trade. The islanders, mostly fishermen and farmers, were used to small groups of fit, weathered young men suddenly walking in out of the dark and often balmy night to order a pint or two, then most often at closing time, walking back out into the darkness towards the water and disappearing. They had no idea what we did, never had in all those years, and never asked.

Sitting there in the boats waiting for the sub did not mean we could relax our vigilance. We had to keep a constant eye open for the periscope. What the sub had to do was technically not quite as easy as it seemed to us. The sub, using sonar only, had an awkward perspective of the position of our boats since it could not see anything in reality, just ‘hear’. It could not tell the precise distance from each boat itself and therefore could come at us from almost any angle. The angle could be so acute the periscope might even hit one of the boats, which had happened more than once in the past. And apart from the possibility of coming at us from any point on the compass, it could also come at any speed between two and fifteen knots. So we kept a constant vigil, even after hanging around for hours.

There was some incentive to not missing the U-boat, too. It took the sub a long time to position itself and prepare for its run-up. If it missed the boats, it had to describe a large circle back to us. If it was late, the captain was quite capable of calling it a day and sodding off without a word. We might not know till the wee hours that the whole thing had been cancelled. Such is life on the ocean wave.

Therefore it was with great enthusiasm and effort that we sprang into action when the shout went up, ‘There it is!’

Zipper, in the other boat, had spotted it seventy yards away heading towards us at a difficult angle. Zipper was a popular operative in the SBS, bald as a peach and famous for two things: he was light and slight and could run like the wind for ever, an acclaimed marathon runner of international standing. He also had an awful stutter which, had he not been such a popular operative, might have been his downfall.

Zipper was an excitable chap, a northerner by birth, and never short of enthusiasm. ‘The . . . there she blo . . . bloody is!’ he cried. And then after a brief assessment, ‘She’s go . . . go . . . gonna fuckin’ m . . . m . . . missus!’

He was right. The sub was headed at a misleading angle across our front. It was going to cut past us on the outside of Zipper’s boat.

‘Paddle!’ the shout went up, and we did just that – like the clappers.

The periscope was three foot out of the water and going fast – much faster than we could paddle. But we had the angle – or so it appeared. Zipper’s boat might be able to get to it. What we were trying to do was paddle to a point across the front of the periscope’s path. It did not have to snag us in the middle of the line that connected us. Anywhere along it would do. We could then pull and slide the rope up and down until both boats were alongside each other and then we’d sit back for the ride.

As we paddled for all we were worth, it became obvious to Zipper, in the front of his rubber boat, that we might not cut across the sub’s path in time. The periscope closed on him at speed. At one point it looked like it was going to hit Zipper’s boat, but then Zipper realised it was not even going to do that. The periscope was slicing through the water on a track that would take it just past the front of Zipper’s boat.

As it went past, Zipper made his choice. He dumped his paddle, jammed his knees into the rubber boat, and lunged for the periscope. He grabbed just short of the top, but the periscope was moving, attached to several thousand tons of sub below, and it was not going to slow down. Zipper was dragged out of the boat, but his partner, reacting as swiftly as Zipper, managed to leap forward and grab his feet. He did it in such a way that he jammed his knees tightly into the forward corner of the rubber boat and off we went. I felt the powerful shunt forward in my boat, which nearly made me fall backwards.

And so there we were, steaming along, Zipper holding on to the periscope, his partner hanging on to his feet, the hundred-foot line, taut as a violin string, stretching back to my boat, and my partner and I being towed along faster than we could possibly paddle.

Inside the sub, after it had passed the pinging devices, the captain wanted to check if the boats had hooked up correctly. He looked through the periscope and all he could see was a bald man an arm’s-length away wearing a bug-eyed expression – a mixture of pain and determination.

There was no way Zipper could hold on for the next ten yards never mind ten miles, and he had to release the sub, whereupon he and his partner ploughed into the drink. The sub never stopped, and left us in the middle of the black ocean to pull Zipper and his partner back into their boat.

Had an islander been out that late, and had he paused on the coastline to listen to the sounds carried on the night air, he might have heard another sound far out to sea that was not unusual when those strange folk were about. Howling laughter.

17

When the SBS were called to the Gulf I was in the USA on ‘other work’. Once again it was a distressing time for me, for I thought I was going to miss yet another war. I was more than happy, but altogether curious, when I received a signal inviting me to return to take part in the war – but not to go to England, or even the Middle East, but Venice. I had no more information than that. I naturally accepted. I packed a small bag and caught a plane to Italy.

As I stood outside the arrivals lounge in Venice Airport, I looked around for my transport. I had no idea what to expect. I was a little miffed about the complete lack of information. They could have told me something. All I knew was that whoever was picking me up would have a description of me.

I was looking for a nondescript vehicle, or possibly even a military one, and therefore gave only a cursory glance to the stretch Mercedes that cruised past then pulled over across the road. However, it was a habit by now to watch everything else without appearing to, and I noticed a tall, casually dressed man climb out of the driver’s seat and cross the road towards the lounge. He looked like he was heading for me. Indeed, he was staring at me.

He stopped, introduced himself and said everything required of him. This was my ride – the limo. It was obviously all they could find. This was a fun perk, I thought. He took my bags, I made a move to take them back, but he insisted. This man did not look or act like an operative of any kind. He looked and acted like, well, a limo driver.

He opened the door for me and I stepped inside and sat down in the spacious vehicle. It was very plush. The drinks’ cabinet was full, but I was working.

As he climbed in and pulled away from the kerb, I asked where we were going.

‘The harbour,’ he said in an Italian accent.

I tried to figure this out. He was taking me to a boat, whereupon I would travel across the Med and be inserted into the Middle East. I wondered what I would be doing. I had visions of an OP somewhere, or perhaps a training mission. Hopefully not a BG (bodyguard) job. I disliked BG work. It was very boring and required only about 1 per cent of my expertise. I had no idea what the squadron lads would be doing in the Gulf, so it was all pretty much open.

We pulled to a stop on a long jetty. As the driver took my bag out of the boot I climbed out and faced a large ocean cruiser, a luxury yacht large enough to sleep a couple of hundred passengers. The driver handed my bag over to a steward in an immaculate white suit, who treated me like the President and ushered me on board.

It was like a floating Dorchester Hotel. I had known this was not some kind of mistake because the driver knew who I was and the reception had me down as a guest. I was shown upstairs to my cabin, on the top floor just behind the captain’s. It was one of the suites, with a balcony and a small living-room outside the bedroom. On the table was a bottle of champagne in an ice-bucket beside a bowl of fresh strawberries. The steward left me without waiting for a tip and I checked out the bedroom. On the bed were a couple of suits, one of them a tuxedo and classic black tie with, fortunately, instructions on how to tie it. They were my size.