Immediate Action (24 page)

    It had been a really good trip for me. I was fortunate in joining the squadron when the majority of people were together. Sometimes, I heard, blokes could join a squadron and not see all the members for maybe a year or two because of all the different jobs.

    True, I could hardly count myself as a mate, but at least I was aware of them and they were aware of me. I felt that in my own small way I'd arrived-whether for good or bad, I didn't know. And the memories of Malaya wouldn't leave me for as long as I lived-or at least, not as long as I had a small brown circular scar halfway down the leech's dinner. e were on probation for our first year. After Selection we lost our rank but kept the same pay since we hadn't qualified yet as Special Forces soldiers. I became a trooper but was still receiving a sergeant's infantry pay, which was less than a trooper earned in the Special Air Service.

    To qualify for SF pay, I would have to get a patrol skill-either signals, demolitions, medical, or a language. The first one everyone has to have is signals; if the shit hits the fan, everybody's got to be able to shout, "Help!

    I would also need my entry skill. Mobility Troop need to know how to drive a whole range of vehicles; divers need to be able to dive;

    Mountain Troop need to get themselves up and down hills; free-fallers need to learn how to free-fall into a location. No patrol skill, no extra pay, but it was a Catch-22: We were going away and doing the job, but we couldn't get paid unless we'd got the qualifications to do the job, but we couldn't get the qualifications because we were too busy doing it.

    Soon after I came back from Malaya, we were going to start training for the counterterrorist team. One troop from the squadron would go to Northern Ireland; the other three troops would then constitute the counterterrorism team. Seven Troop had been designated for over the water.

    There were no patrol skill courses running in my time slot, but there was one for my entry skill. It wouldn't qualify me for the pay on its own, but at least I would understand what the other blokes in the troop were talking about when they mentioned riggers, risers, brake lines, baselines, or flare.

    When people think about the S.A.S, their image is either of Land Rovers screaming around the desert, men in black kit abseiling down embassy walls, or free fallers with all the kit on, leaping into the night. Free fall, like the other entry skills, is in fact just a means of getting from A to B.

    To count myself as proficient in the skill, I would have to be able to jump as part of a patrol and keep together in the air at night on oxygen, with full equipment loads weighing in excess of 120 pounds.

    I would have to be able to follow a bundle (container) holding my own extra equipment or gear that we were delivering to other troops on the ground, and the patrol must have maintained its integrity. If the entry phase went wrong, there would be a snowball effect and big cock-ups.

    For all that, it was obviously addictive. There were world-class free fall jumpers in the Regiment, people who had represented the UK in international competition.

    The free fall course was about six weeks long, and by the end of it I would be able to jump confidently. It would provide a baseline; from there the troop would bring me on.

    My particular course entailed two weeks in the UK, two weeks in Pau, a French military base in the Pyrenees, and then two more back in the UK.

    If the weather was bad, some courses would take place entirely in the United States, with R.A.F instructors. It's no good having an expensive aircraft sitting down doing nothing because the weather's shit; it's cheaper and better to go to somewhere with a guarantee of sunny skies, so the job can get done.

    The way of, life in Brize Norton was even easier than it had been on the basic parachuting course. The intake consisted of just me and four SBS (Special Boat Service) blokes, and we had an excellent relationship with the instructors. The majority of them were on the Falcons display team; they knew that a lot of the stuff they were teaching us was outdated, but that was what the manual said. I found it strange to be learning for the sake of learning again; I thought I'd left "bullshit baffles brains" behind me at the basic parachuting phase. It was only later that I found out that free fall manuals were obsolete almost before they were printed. Sport techniques, were changing at a weekly rate; the Regiment monitored them constantly to see how it could adapt their equipment and methods to a military context.

    We had about two days of ground training, learning how to put on the basic free fall kit. Our first lump would be with a PB6, round-canopy parachute. We would then go on to a TAP, which was much like the sports rig, a Para Commander. Even that was an antiquated bit of kit; all it could do was turn left, turn right, and go with the wind.

    On day three I sat there in the C130 (Hercules transport aircraft) thinking, Whatever happens, I don't want to look like a dickhead. I was going to jump, there were no problems with that, but I just didn't want to cock it up. I was mentally going through my drills.

    "Even professional jumpers who've been jumping for years and years do the same," the instructors had told us. "As they go up in the aircraft, they're mentally and physically dry drilling, simulating pulling their emergency cutaway, then deploying their reserve." it didn't mean they were scared; it meant they were thinking about their future.

    I closed my eyes and went through the exit drill: One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, check canopy.

    No canopy? Cut away from the main chute; then pull the reserve.

    Once we got above six thousand feet it turned quite cold. I started to feel a bit light-headed as the oxygen got thinner. If we'd wanted to talk, we'd have needed to shout; the noise of the aircraft was deafening, even from inside our helmets.

    There was one instructor per student, and we jumped together. When my time came I was called up onto the tailgate. I stood on the edge, on the balls of my feet, facing back down the aircraft. My instructor was looking at me and holding me steady with one hand. Our eyes were locked together as I waited for the signal. A gale was thrashing at my jumpsuit; twelve thousand feet below us was Oxfordshire.

    "Ready!"

    This was it. On the next two commands he would pull me toward him slightly in a rocking motion and then away-and down.

    "Set!"

    I rocked forward.

    "Go!

    I launched myself back.

    I kept my eyes fixed on the tailgate and watched the instructor exit a split second behind me. A,gap of orfe second between jumpers equated to in excess of sixty feet, so he was jumping virtually on top of me. The slipstream created a natural gap.

    For the first couple of jumps we had to be stable on heading" -as we jumped, we didn't turn left or right, or tumble.

    I came out; I didn't tumble.

    I kept looking ahead. We were supposed to pick a point on the ground and make sure that we were not moving left or right of it or going forward or back-just stable on heading, falling straight until the altimeter read thirty-five hundred feet and it was time to pull the cord. I was moving slowly around to the left, and I didn't correct it.

    The altimeter reached thirty-five hundred feet, and I pulled.

    There was a rumbling sensation as the chute unfurled, then flapping and a fearsome jerk.

    I felt as if I had come to a complete stop.

    I looked up, checking the canopy. Everything was where it should have been. I reached for the steering toggles and looked down and around to make sure there were no other canopies near me.

    I watched the main dual carriageway going into Oxford, then the vehicles, huts, and people at the DZ (drop zone). There was total silence. It felt as if I was suspended in the sky, but before I knew it, the ground was rushing up to meet me. I hit, rolled, and controlled the canopy. And that was it, straight into a vehicle for the half hour drive back to the airfield and the waiting C130.

    The first couple of jumps were rather cumbersome, as we just thought about how to move and control ourselves in the sky. We were in "clean fatigue"-just the parachute, no equipment, no weapons, no oxygen kit.

    Once we could fall stable on heading we had to turn left and right through 360 degrees, then do a somersault. To get used to handling an unstable exit, we next had to force ourselves to fall out unstable. It was quite strange.

    Only a week before we hadn't had to practice at all; it just happened.

    If we got unstable, we "banged ourselves out"stretching our limbs out into a big star. Like the concave surface of a saucer falling toward the earth, you instantly level out. It was no big problem at all-until we jumped with our kit on.

    We learned how to prepare and pack our equipment and to rig it onto our parachutes. We would only find out a bit later, when we got to the squadrons, that what they were teaching us on the course wasn't that realistic; they were teaching us to release our equipment once we were under the canopy and let it dangle on a nine-foot rope. If we had sensitive equipment in the bergen, this method would damage it. So what we would eventually learn to do was release it and then gradually bring it down our legs so that the shoulder straps were on our toes and we were holding it. just as we landed, we'd gently let it tap onto the ground and we'd flare the canOPY.

    We then started learning about the oxygen equipment that we would be jumping with. When we went onto an aircraft, we had our oxygen bottle on, but we didn't use it. There was only a certain amount of gas in the bottle, so we went onto the main console instead, linking us to the aircraft's supply. When we jumped, we switched onto our own.

    There were drills that we had to learn, and it was all done with big flash cards held up by the oxygen NCO. It was serious stuff, learning how to rig on to one console, then come off that and go on to your own.

    The next jumps were called simulated oxygen. We'd go up in the aircraft, go through all the drills, and jump with our equipment but without weapons. We weren't doing any jumps higher than twelve grand, the maximum height we could go to without oxygen.

    Our first lot of night jumps started, and they were wonderful-absolutely splendid. I was standing on the tailgate and could see nothing but the lights of Oxford twinkling away below me.

    Soon we were doing night jumps with oxygen and kit.

    Whenever we "jumped kit" and whenever we jumped at night, we would have an automatic opening device attached to the parachute. This worked by barometric pressure; every day a reading had to be taken so we knew the pressure at thirty-five hundred feet. I'd make the necessary adjustment so I knew that at thirty-five hundred feet the AOD (automatic opening device) was going to kick in; if I got into a spin or had a midair collision and knocked myself out, nothing was going to open; this device was there at least to get the rig up.

    Within the squadrons there were horrendous stories of people going into spins, especially with heavy kits. If the kit wasn't packed or balanced right, then as they jumped and the wind hit them, it did its own thing.

    You'd have to adjust your position to fly correctly with it. If you had to fly to somebody and dock with all your equipment on and one of the straps wasn't done up tight, or one of the pouches on the side was catching air, that might lift up your left-hand side and you'd have to compensate with your right; you could end up flying in some really weird positions. But most dangerously, it could put you into a spin, and once that starts it just gets faster and faster.

    One fellow in D Squadron got into a spin, and the only way he could get out of it was to try to track to get away. He did, but all the capillaries in his eyes exploded.

    He looked like Christopher Lee for months afterward.

    We reached the point where we were simulating oxygen jumps, doing all the drills but not going high; we were doing it at night, with equipment, and as individuals. That was us ready to go to France.

    The French DZ had a quick turnaround because the site we jumped onto was also where the aircraft landed.

    In the UK we had to jump on a DZ and from there get transport back to Brize Norton; the turnaround was inefficiently long. In Pau we could jump, the aircraft could land, get us back on, and throw us back out again.

    We were starting now to do day jumps in teams of four, practicing keeping together, then night jumps with equipment. We started to learn how to put weapons on the equipment, first so that they were good and secure while we were in free fall and second, so we could get them off as soon as we landed.

    The rule within the R.A.F was that we did only three jumps a day.

    There was a big fear of hypoxia if we were going up to twelve thousand feet continuously; the symptoms were rapid tiredness, which could lead to mistakes. Hypoxia didn't affect people in the sports world because they took little oxygen bottles up with them, but it was the R.A.F's ball, and we had to play by their rules.

    We went afterward to R.A.F Luffingham, the R.A.F medical center, for chest X rays and lectures about the sins and symptoms of h poxia and what would happen if our teeth were not in good condition. A small air pocket in a filling would expand with altitude, until finally the tooth exploded.

    I saw it happ,-n twice to other people, and it was nasty. Stomach gases also expanded as we climbed in an unpressurized aircraft, so we farted continuously. I'd have taken the exploding tooth any day.

    We then spent time in a decompression chamber, doing exactly the opposite of what divers do, gradually being starved of oxygen. We sat there chatting away and were asked to do our ten tim&s table and draw pictures of pigs and elephants. My elephants were outrageous, with disproportionately big eyes. Then, as the chamber drained of oxygen, my ten times table went to ratshit; I felt myself getting slow and lethargic. The moment I was allowed to put my mask back on and take a breath, it all came good again. Apart from the elephant; the monster with big eyes was the best I could do under any conditions.