Immediate Action (22 page)

    For a month we were taught a lot of drills that we later found out were crap, but they had to teach hundreds of people a year, so everybody was pushed in together and around went the handle. Brize Norton was a sausage factory.

    The upside was that the R.A.F always tended to have superior recreational facilities. Here the N disco was called the Starlight Club. Every night the baby paras on our course turned up, all crew cuts and Brutus jeans, desert boots and maroon sweatshirts, as hard as nails.

    Two of them were pissed and dancing together one night. The next morning they were all out on parade, helmets on and ready to go. Their corporals came out and said, "Oi, Smith and Brown, come here. Smith, were you dancing last night?"

    "Yes, Corporal."

    "Who with?"

    "Him, Corporal."

    "And Brown, you was dancing last night. Who with?"

    "Him, Corporal."

    The full screw went inside and came back out with an ironing board under his arm. With the two baby paras standing at attention, he banged them rhythmically on the head: "We…. don't… dance..

    . together… in… the…. airborne."

    "Yes, Corporal."

    And off they went. All the other recruits were rolling up. It was a fun thing; they obviously had the same relationship with their recruits as my team had had at Winchester.

    We got our parachute wings and went back to Hereford to be badged.

    We turned up with our normal regimental kit on and hung around in the "Kremlin" (head shed building). I had a fantastic feeling of achievement. Everybody seemed pleased for us; probably there wasn't a single person in the Regiment who couldn't remember how he felt when he got badged.

    The RSM came out, shook our hands, and said, "Well done, congratulations. What you're going to do in a minute is go in and see the colonel. He's going to badge you, and then you start moving off to your squadrons.

    I'll give you one piece of advice. When you get to your squadron, look at somebody you think is 'the' regimental soldier, and copy him.

    Take example from him, learn from him. Don't start going off thinking that you rule the world because you don't. Just keep your gab shut, look and listen."

    The CO had a pile of sand-colored berets on the table in front of him and flipped one at each of us. No formalities, no handshakes.

    Then he said, "Just remember, it's harder to keep than it was to get.

    Right, good luck to you."

    The army doled out a horrible beret called a Kangoule. Within the army there was a definite fashion about such things; you could always tell a person by his headgear. We'd all sent away for the much smarter Victor beret.

    And that was it. George and I trooped off to B Squadron office, almost six months to the day since we'd done the Fan Dance. The first fellow we met was Danny, the clerk-skinny, no face hair, and looking sixteen.

    He was in fact in his early twenties and was, we were told, the person who really knew what was going on. The squadrons were all over the place, doing ten things at once, little gangs here, little gangs there, and the only one who had any continuity was the clerk, always there with the HQ element of the squadron. If we needed anything or wanted to know-what was going on, Danny, the clerk, was the man.

    "Nice to meet you," he said. "Everybody's away at the moment, but there's one or two people b mining around. just go and sit in the interest room anud we'll sort you all out."

    George and I spent a lot of time that day just hanging around. We couldn't contribute anything, the whole squadron was away, and everybody was busy. We were feeling rather helpless, sticking out like sore thumbs in our uniforms. The few blokes who were around were in tracksuits or jeans.

    The walls of the interest room were covered with plaques, photographs, AK47s from Borneo days to the present-all sorts of bits and pieces that people had brought back from all over the world. It was a history of the squadron written in bric-a-brac.

    Blokes came in and said, "You just joined the squadron? My name's Chas.

    Nice to see you. You coming on the trip?"

    They seemed genuinely pleased for us that we'd passed. There was no feeling of us being the rugs, as we would have got in the battalions.

    They knew what we'd done to get this far.

    "I don't know," I said. "Are we going on a trip?"

    Danny said he didn't have a clue yet. I was hoping in a way that we weren't. I'd now got everything I'd wanted, but I'very much needed to get things sorted out with Debbie. Our conversations on the telephone were still a little strained. The relationship seemed fine on the surface, but underneath I wasn't sure what her feelings were.

    She seemed to understand how important it had been to me to get into the Regiment, but I knew she was fed up with taking second place; when she arrived from Germany, I wanted the quarter to be ready. In the meantime I didn't know how she'd take the news that I was going away with my squadron for a couple of months.

    We hummed around to the stores, handed in all the equipment from training wing, and drew out our squadron equipment. Unfortunately everything we drew out was brand-new. We looked as if we'd just stepped out of a catalog"Turn up tomorrow," Danny said, "and we'll see what's going on."

    This was at ten o'clock in the morning.

    "What do we do in the meantime?" I asked.

    "Nothing. Go downtown if you like."

    This was so different from the battalion, where we'd have had to stay, even if there was nothing to do.

    When we did go back the next morning, we were told: "Malaya, Thursday. 5 We packed all the brand-new kit and drew out shiny new jungle boots.

    There wouldn't be time to break them in. On Thursday we boarded the aircraft. I still hadn't organized the quarter for Debbie; I only hoped that things would be sorted while I was away.

    Some of the blokes had already been in the jungle for quite a while by the time we turned up at the base camp, two hours' drive from Kuala Lumpur. We drew some more kit, and the next morning we were choppered in to join them: four new blokes, every bit of kit shiny and squeaking.

    I felt like a nun in a whorehouse, knowing none of the jargon and none of the people using it. Nobody wore rank, everybody was on first-name terms; it was impossible to make out who was who.

    Best, I reckoned, to follow the RSM's advice. I shut up and listened.

    The squadron setup in the jungle was very much as it had been on Selection. There was the squadron HQ element, then the troops positioned satelliting it. People had set up home in the admin areas;

    A-frames were dotted around, many of them sprouting extensions. Figure "targets had been made into sit-up angle boards as a makeshift gym.

    Tables and chairs had been made out of crates. Here and there two or three ponchos had gone up to join A-frames and make what looked like minicommunes.

    Everybody in sight had a beard and long, greasy hair.

    Some blokes were lying in their A-frames reading books; others were bumming around in shorts or squatting over hexy burners, brewing up. But whatever he was doing, every bloke had his belt kit on, as well as his golack and weapon.

    The medic came up to us and said, "Most people are out at the moment.

    When they come back, everything will be sorted. Do you want a brew?"

    While we were drinking tea, the squadron O.C came over with all his entourage.

    "Good to see you! Right, we need a bloke for each troop." He looked at each of us in turn, then said, " You look like a diver George was a mountain climber, so he said, "I'd like Mountain Troop."

    "Okay, you can go to Mountain Troop. You, go to Mobility, and you look like a free faller."

    The last bloke he was pointing at was me, and that was me in Air Troop.

    "Wait here," he added, "and somebody will be along to pick you up."

    Blokes from different troops came down to pick up their new boys.

    The O.C and his party disappeared. I was sitting there on my own, taking in a bit of the setup, watching the signalers and medics at work at makeshift tables under ponchos. People were coming up and saying,

    "All right? How you going? What troop you going to?"

    "Air Troop."

    "Bloody hell, you'll have fun-the fucking ice-cream boys! Got your sunglasses with you, I hope?"

    I didn't have time to ask what they meant. A fellow who was six feet his and four feet wide appeared, p walking on the balls of his feet. His hands were so big his M16 looked like a toy.

    "Your name Andy? I'm Tiny, Seven Troop. We'll sort out some bits and pieces, and then we'll go back up to the troop area."

    I was smelling all nice, got my new boots on, and feeling like it was my first day at big school. Off we went, my eyes scanning the ground for a patch of mud to dunk my boots in.

    As we walked up the hill he said, "What battalion are you from then?"

    "Two."

    "Great! I'm Two Para myself."

    "No, two RGJ. I was a Green Jacket."

    Tiny stopped in his tracks, turned, and said, "Well, what the fuck are you doing here?"

    "I don't know-they just told me to come."

    "Fucking hell, we haven't had anybody here for eighteen months, and now they're sending you."

    I'd never felt such a dickhead in my life.

    We went into the troop area, which was on a small spur occupied by A-frames. In the middle was a large fire. All eight members of 7 Troop were sitting around, having a kefuddle and brewing up.

    As we walked in, Tiny said, "We've got this fellow here turned up; his name ' s Andy McNab, and he's a Green jacket. What the fuck's he doing here?"

    He started having a go at a guy called Colin, who I assumed was the senior bloke present.

    Colin was about five feet six inches, very quietly spoken but extremely blunt in his replies to Tiny. He sounded as if he was from Yorkshire.

    "I'm a para, too," he said as he shook my hand.

    Christ, was anybody in 7 Troop not from Para Reg?

    They introduced themselves.

    "Nosh."

    "Frank."

    "Eddie."

    "Mat."

    "Steve."

    "Al."

    "Get yourself over there," Colin said, and bung a pole bed up."

    I went to the edge of the clearing, dropped my bergen, and got out my golack.

    I'd only ever made one A-frame, and now everybody who was sitting around brewing up was able to watch me make a bollocks of the second.

    Brunei seemed a long time ago as I thrashed at the trees and tried to chop branches to required lengths. Every time I pulled up one bit the next would fall down. God knows what they must have been thinking.

    I wanted to make a ood impression and was flailing away like a man possessed, but my pole bed was all over the place. And they were sitting there, chatting away and smoking, watching me and scratching their heads.

    I finally sorted it all out just as it started to come to last light.

    They didn't stand to. I thought, Well, what goes on now? I didn't want to intrude on their session, so I did a few exaggerated yawns and stretches and got my head down. They carried on the fuddle all night, probably thinking that I was a right -antisocial prat.

    In the morning I got a brew on and some food. Then I wandered over to Tiny and said, "What happens now?"

    "Just get ready and we'll go out, I suppose."

    "When do we go out?"

    "Don't worry about it."

    Colin took me in' his patrol. He seemed really switched on, and I clung on to him. Colin was my role model.

    We were going to do jungle lanes, very much as we'd done on Selection.

    We patrolled along in a group of two, then in a group of four, practicing contact drills.

    The Communist insurrection in Malaya had started in 1948, and twelve hundred guerrillas, under the leadership of Chin Peng, still subsisted in the mountains along the Malay-That border. It had been one of the longest wars in Asia, but fairly inconsequential; however, hundreds of people had been killed during anti-Chinese riots in Kuala Lumpur in

    

    

    The New Zealanders had a battalion stationed in Singapore. They operated in Malaya, but they couldn't commit the battalion to work in the north, for whatever political reason. We were there to demonstrate a presence.

    As Colin and I were patrolling, we saw a target. I remembered my drills well; I got some rounds down, turned, and ran back.

    Inexplicably Colin gave it a full magazine, dropped in another one, and kept going forward.

    He turned and shouted, "What the fuck are you doing?$) "We weren't taught to do it like that."

    "Oh, for fuck's sake.$' Every squadron did it differently, I discovered, and so did every troop. For the rest of the day Colin had me running to and fro on the range until I was decimating targets with the best of them. When we finished that night, I felt quite good. I'd shown a shortcoming, but I had done what was expected of me: I had learned. I felt a little bit accepted.

    We were sitting round in a fuddle that night, and I sampled my first "fruit cocktail," a unique B Squadron concoction made from rum and boiled sweets. I didn't have a clue what or who anybody was talking about.

    There were all these different terminologies and personalities, and I had no idea. I had to ask for translations.

    I gathered that Colin had been rebuilding his house.