by Rusty Firmin
*Crap-hats (or ‘hats’) = soldiers who aren’t serving in airborne units.
There must have been about 200 of us – officers and soldiers – formed up in three ranks outside Training Wing that first morning. Together with the maroon berets of the Paras, I could see people from the Commando Gunners and Sappers, the black berets of the Tankies, infantrymen, Military Policemen in their bright red berets, Intelligence Corps soldiers in their bright green ones, together with members of the Royal Signals and a range of others too.
One of the most memorable things about that parade was that it was quite clear that the SAS instructors didn’t have much idea about how to march or do drill. On the other hand, they did look like they meant business. They all wore the same functional gear: boots, OG trousers,* DPM** windproof smock with a shirt underneath, and all topped off with the SAS beige beret. None of them had starched or sewn-in creases on their uniforms like those of ‘normal’ soldiers: why waste the effort?
*OG trousers = olive green cotton denim trousers which were similar to the army’s ‘lightweight’ trousers but tougher, more comfortable and less smart.
**DPM = ‘Disruptive Pattern Material’, the British Army’s camouflage pattern.
Training Wing’s officer commanding was an Irishman known as Major B but the chief instructor, who would be running selection on a daily basis, was the legendary Lofty Wiseman, an ex-Para who had famously passed selection himself when he was only 18 and had, by the time I came across him, been in the Regiment for 18 years. I didn’t know it at the time but his SAS career had stalled when, as squadron sergeant major of B Squadron, he’d fallen out with his officer commanding and tried to twat him, though he only succeeded in punching his hand through the office wall behind him when the officer had ducked. The truth about Lofty was that he was a completely committed soldier and, from my dealings with him, a decent straightforward guy. In all the time I was at Hereford, I never heard anyone say a bad thing about him and that’s unusual in a regiment which has a lot more than its fair share of backbiting. Along with Major B and Lofty, there were a number of other instructors: lean, fit-looking bastards to a man.
First things first, they called the roll. This took a while as it emerged that various people who were down for the course had failed to show up. In fact, several guys who did show up and had been issued their kit – basically a rucksack, a set of webbing, a compass, a sleeping bag and a couple of water bottles – decided that they’d seen enough and jacked their hands in then and there. You could see that they mostly weren’t fit and didn’t have a snowball’s chance of passing. Personally, I wondered why they’d bothered: it seemed a long way to come – some had come from Germany, Cyprus, Hong Kong and some of the other places where we maintained garrisons in those days – just to turn round and go home again. That wasn’t for me: I was there to give it everything.
Before we could start training, we all had a medical followed by doing the army’s ‘basic fitness test’ (BFT) – basically a mile and a half jog, as a squad, to get warmed up, followed by a mile and a half at best pace as individuals. If you passed these you were certified as ‘fit to undergo arduous training’ but a couple of guys turned out to have medical problems and, much to my amazement, a few failed the BFT. I mean, fuck me, if you can’t pass the BFT you’re technically not fit to be a dental technician in the army, let alone an SAS trooper.
With the formalities complete we were sorted out into squads and each was allocated two instructors. The squads were organised so that there was a range of blokes from across the army in each of them, rather than forming into cliques of Paras, or Gunners, or whatever, and my squad got Brian G and Benny as our instructors: both of whom had plenty of experience in the Regiment.
We knew by now that the first month was effectively the most important part of selection because it demonstrated that you were physically robust enough to cope with the rest of the training. If you couldn’t keep up and failed to complete the tasks which were set, then it was fail and ‘RTU’ – return to unit – normally never to return. If you picked up an injury or illness, on the other hand, there was every chance of a re-course some time down the line when you had recovered. The point was that everything was voluntary. A volunteer is always worth ten pressed men but for the SAS you were expected to volunteer and demonstrate that you had the commitment to prepare yourself properly and the determination to push yourself through increasingly difficult tests. For the next three weeks we would be building up to ‘test week’, which was reputed to be a real beast.
But having said that, selection started surprisingly gently. I knew it was supposed to be the toughest course the army ran and that many of us would ultimately drop out because of illness or injury but, for the first few days, most of what we did was fairly easy walking with light weights in our bergans as the instructors made sure we were competent at navigating with a map and compass. The ability to get from A to B in rough and inhospitable terrain is a lot of what the SAS is about and everyone serving in the Regiment has to be competent at it: if you weren’t, you had zero chance of passing the course. Most of us in my squad were good enough but a couple of the guys needed some extra help and got it, so that we were all on a level playing field. This first phase of selection took place in the hills around Hay Bluff on the Welsh border. Not as hilly as the Beacons but a good place to do the initial navigation exercises and make sure we were all up to speed.
Right from the word go I decided that I would adopt a fixed routine. Every morning I made sure to be up in time for a good, solid breakfast. The cookhouse was close to Training Wing so it was no great hardship but I was also fascinated by the eating habits of a guy known as ‘Wally the Spoon’, an old-stager in the Regiment, now into his last few years and serving with G Squadron. Wally thought of himself as a bit of an intellectual and was certainly as fit as fuck. He used to get his breakfast in a mess-tin, rather than a plate, and would eat gigantic quantities of food. Back then, Bradbury Lines was still an old wartime hutted camp and the walls and windows of the cookhouse had several holes in them which allowed sparrows to come in in search of scraps. Wally had a pet hawk which he would bring with him and from time to time he would allow it to chase the sparrows which it would kill for its own breakfast. I somehow doubt that the health and safety inspectors would allow that nowadays.
After training had finished, my routine was the same one I’d adopted for the Commando course: sort out my feet and deal with any blisters; get my clothes, equipment and weapon cleaned and sorted for the next day; then get a good meal down my neck. More often than not, I would then wander into town with John Mac, Minky, Tommy, Gerry Bonner, a guy called Mick, and sometimes a few of the others on the course for a beer or two, a chat and a chance to wind down. Here’s the funny thing: quite a few of the lads on the course were spending their evenings doing strange relaxation routines, or downing muscle-building supplements or whatever, but most of us who ultimately passed were the ones who allowed ourselves to switch off and get out to the pub when we got the opportunity.
By the end of the first week, several people had fallen by the wayside through injury or the simple realisation that it wasn’t for them, but the little gang of us from the Commandos were all still hanging in there, and looking forwards to a weekend of hard partying, beer, girls and the rest of it.
The second week was noticeably more intense than the first. The weight we carried each day was steadily increased and the marches were getting longer, and by now we were back in the Brecon Beacons. 1977 was a hot summer and water management became an issue. You only got what you could carry with you which, in my case, was two standard black plastic water-bottles, so about four pints. This meant that you had to replenish with water when you came across streams and so on, so I was usually careful to use purification tablets as I didn’t want to wind up with a stomach bug. It’s no fun trekking at high speed through the hills when you’re shitting yourself to dehydration.
Training in the Beacons of course me
ant early starts and three or four hours every day sitting in the backs of the old ‘Three Tonner’ trucks they moved us around in. We’d be dropped off somewhere around the Beacons, briefed, given a six- or eight-figure grid reference for the rendezvous (RV) point we needed to head for and then, at this early stage, set off in pairs to get there. Once we arrived at the RV, an instructor would give us a new grid reference, and off we’d go again, repeating the same pattern for the rest of the day. You were never allowed to write the grid references down or mark them on your map. On an operation, being captured with a marked map would compromise the whole thing so you had to able to remember every last one. It isn’t rocket science teaching yourself to do this, but it’s surprising how many selection candidates have been caught out over the years for this basic fuck up and sent home.
Every now and again, they would throw in some ‘mind-games’ to see how we reacted. You could normally tell when you got to the final RV of the day because the trucks would be waiting there to get us back to Hereford but, on a couple of occasions, as we approached, the trucks would start up and take off, leaving us groaning with the realisation that we still had several miles to go. The best thing to do on these occasions was to put a big smile on your face and go to the instructor and get the grid for the next RV; it certainly wasn’t the time to start cursing and swearing. Once it had happened once or twice, it stopped bothering me – I was actually enjoying the physical challenge and didn’t mind what time we got back – but several of my mates got severely pissed off by it.
The aim during this part of the training was for the instructors to confirm that we could actually navigate from A to B with a map and compass and also to gradually wear down our bodies ready for test week. All of the instructors carried small, brass spring balances so that, at any time, they could check the weight of our kit and make sure we weren’t cheating. But apart from this, the instructors pretty much left us to our own devices. This is also a key part of SAS selection. On the Commando course, the instructors are in the trainees’ faces the whole time, shouting at them and beasting them on to do their best, but the SAS left us to it. If we couldn’t motivate ourselves to get on with the task at hand, they didn’t want us in their Regiment.
By the end of week two even more had quit. The instructors didn’t make a big fuss about it. If someone jacked they would quietly de-kit them, give them a commiserating pat on the back and a travel warrant, and they were gone. After another weekend on the beer I looked around my basha and could see that nearly half the beds were now vacant but I was still feeling confident, and my Commando mates were all still there too. It was looking good.
By now we’d begun to develop a relationship with the instructors and they were being genuinely helpful. They wanted to get as many of us through as possible but at the same time, they were uncompromising: if you weren’t up to the standard, you weren’t going to make it.
Week three was a continuation of week two; but the weights were still getting heavier and the distances longer. By now the training was taking its toll on my body. The heavy rucksack and webbing I carried every day had chafed and bitten into my back, leaving nasty sores and grazes where it rubbed against my skin but there was nothing much to do about it, other than try to keep them clean and free of infection. On the Friday we had the last big effort before test week: the Fan Dance.
The Fan Dance is one of the shorter marches but it was a real beast. It started in the car park on the A470 where we’d stayed while doing our training and the route was up and over the top of the Fan, then down to the disused railway on the other side, then back the way we’d come. The difficult part of it was that we were carrying weapons, belt kit and bergan weighing 75lb and we knew that the time limit to get through was around four to five hours depending on conditions. It was brutal, and by the time I got back, I was on my chinstraps. Once we were all there, it was back on the trucks for the journey back to Hereford.
Once we were back at Bradbury Lines we had a short time to get cleaned up and sorted out, then we had to report to the Training Wing. We knew that the instructors were meeting to decide who would be allowed to go through to test week and we were all on edge. With us all assembled in the classroom, you could have heard a pin drop when Major B walked in, closely followed by Lofty. There was no ceremony: he simply read out a list of names and that was it. To my delight, I was on it, as were John Mac, Ginge and the Mink. Those that hadn’t made it were all gone by first thing Saturday morning.
On the basis that we were going to live forever or die trying, we were out on the piss as soon as we could get away and Friday and Saturday night passed in a bit of a blur. Sunday night was quieter: I wanted to be in peak condition for the first day of test week and that was going to be an early start on Monday morning.
The first exercise in test week was ‘Point-to-Point’. Carrying a 50lb bergan, 8lb belt kit and a 10lb SLR we were set off individually to march between a series of RVs, zig-zagging across the Beacons. In the early morning sunlight, the Welsh countryside looked absolutely magnificent from the hilltops but slightly less so from down in the valleys knowing that I had a climb ahead of me to get back up to the top. That day we covered about 16 or 17 miles and I finished uninjured and still in the game.
Tuesday was ‘Pipeline’. The bergan weight was up to 55lb and the distance increased slightly, so that we finished the march in near darkness. I was running on adrenaline. Part of the reason for this was that we weren’t told what the cut-off times for each march were: you just got told to get yourself to the next RV as quickly as possible. Knowing this, I put my head down and went for it: I wasn’t prepared to take the risk of failure and I could see guys getting taken off the course after each event for not making the time: that wasn’t going to be me.
Day three was ‘Sketch Map’, so named because we didn’t get a proper map, just a sketch with a few key features drawn on it of the sort that you might have if you were escaping or evading an enemy. In my case I’d sketched my map in permanent ink on the back of a white handkerchief. The weather that day was really shit, as it often is in the Beacons, with unrelenting rain, strong winds, low cloud and mist; easily the worst it had been through the whole process so far. Soon after starting I was piss-wet through, but I managed to struggle on, plodding from RV to RV and I was one of only about four or five trainees to actually complete the exercise. In fact most of the rest were taken off the course, loaded onto trucks and driven back to Hereford with the result being that while the others who managed to finish and I were all soaked and tired, they had all had the chance to get back, get their kit sorted out and get some rest ready for the next day which was the climax of the whole week. I suppose this did piss me off, in a mild way, but at the same time I knew that I had the satisfaction of having finished that test when a lot of others hadn’t, and that gave me more confidence that I had a reasonable chance of passing.
The last exercise was now in sight. ‘Long Drag’ has become infamous as part of the SAS selection process and rightly so. It’s a march of roughly 40 miles over some really rough terrain which has to be completed in around 20 hours, depending on weather conditions. That’s tough enough, of course, but it’s complicated by the fact that we had to carry a bergan weighing 80lb, belt kit and a weapon. Even though I’d got back to Bradbury Lines late, wet and tired, I made sure that I had everything prepped for the next day before grabbing some food, a quick beer and getting my head down. Lying in my scratcher I was keyed up and thinking about what I was doing and how I’d got there. It was hard, even for me, to believe that I was the same person as the skinny runt who’d turned up at Junior Leaders and cried every night because he didn’t like the discipline and his dad wouldn’t buy him out.
I also thought about the adventurous training expedition I’d done in the Pyrenees with 49 Field Regiment. We’d managed 40 miles a day then but it had been with light hiking gear and we’d been using metalled roads when they were available. The rules for Long Drag were strict: stay off the roa
ds. There was no comparison.
My alarm woke me at 3.30am on Thursday and immediately I was up and ready for the off. I had a quick wash and shave, dressed and did a final kit check, including weighing my bergan to make sure that it was at the correct 80lb, and making certain that my map and compass were readily to hand. I went to the armoury to draw my weapon and then headed down to the cookhouse where I met John Mac and Ginge for a big breakfast: we all knew we’d need all the fuel we could get.
My body felt battered by the exertions of the last few weeks and the lack of sleep – I’d managed about five hours that night and that was relatively luxurious – but at the same time I was keyed up and ready and I jumped into the back of the three-tonner with a certain amount of enthusiasm.
I didn’t dare sleep on the two-hour drive out to the Beacons because I wanted to stay focused and alert and when I was dropped off at the start point, down by the Talybont Reservoir, I was ready to go for it. The march would follow the same basic rules as the others we had done: we would move from RV to RV as quickly as possible, check in and be given our next grid reference, and then on again. The twist on Long Drag was that if you were too far off the pace, the instructors would stop you and you’d be loaded back onto a truck and taken back to Hereford and failure.
Right at the beginning of the exercise I made my one and only mistake. Once I’d been dropped off and given my grid reference, I had a quick look round to orientate myself and check my heading, and I thought to myself: I know where that is, no problem! I stuck my map back in my pocket and took off, almost at a run, not even really bothering to check my heading on my compass. I’d been going for maybe 20 or 30 minutes when I thought: Hang on, I’m going downhill when I should be heading uphill to a trig point; what’s going on here? I looked round and, even though there was some early morning mist about, I knew I’d fucked up. I whipped out map and compass and very quickly realised I’d travelled more than half a mile in the wrong direction: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!