Lethal Shot

by Robert Driscoll

  On days like that I really felt we were a force for good. Other times we looked like amateurs. Embarrassingly, on one occasion our own forces played a role. Somehow we got wind of information that there was going to be a significant attack on one of our helicopters. It was just a whisper at that stage, but it was enough to make everyone’s ears prick up. Given the shortage of any real activity there was a sense of excitement around Z Company, because we were going to be the ones to shut this potential attack down.

  Everyone jumped at the chance to get involved. The surveillance team were as bored by the lack of activity as anyone. Thanks to them we tracked down a farmhouse in a particular village where, according to the snippets of intel coming in via our boys, the Germans and the Americans, we would find a missile stash, a gang of cut-throat bombers and leaders of the rebel militia. A trail of crumbs it may have been, but there was no doubt where it led.

  If we had been rushed off our feet in the region then maybe we would have gone in immediately, all guns blazing. Since we had the time, though, we planned the shit out of what we were going to do. We even carried out a mock raid on another farmhouse just so everyone knew their jobs when the real deal happened.

  You can only rehearse so much. On the day of the operation we mobilised before dawn. Stealth was the watchword. We wanted to catch the ringleaders red-handed. We’d done the drills. Everyone knew their tasks and their positions. I admit, I was bubbling with excitement. We all were. This was the most meticulously planned operation any of us had been involved in. It was also potentially the most dangerous.

  Bring it on.

  The various entry teams were in place. The commander on the ground checked with his leaders, then gave the signal. The farmhouse went from a normal quiet country scene to a mass of bodies charging at the doors and windows.

  As I sprinted towards the building I expected shots to rain down from the building at any second. They didn’t come. We entered through the rear and still I waited for the welcoming committee that didn’t materialise. Each corner I turned held, in my mind, the threat of an assailant just around it. There were none.

  The upstairs team had more luck. Even as we swept downstairs I could hear suspects being cuffed and dragged outside. After ten minutes of screaming, shouting, stamping, crashing and searching we all rendezvoused in the yard to assess our victory.

  There, surrounded by a circle of armed men, stood an old man and woman, in their pyjamas. Next to them were two grandchildren.

  I’m looking at my mates; they’re looking at me.

  ‘Are these the bombers?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Did we find the missiles?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  While we stood there the other teams reported back. They all had the same story. ‘Nothing to see here.’ It was disappointing, but that quickly turned to confusion. Then downright embarrassment.

  ‘We’ve been played.’

  It was the only conclusion. Someone, somewhere had a beef with this particular farmer, and had set the whole thing up. Maybe they thought the damned NATO forces would be more heavy-handed than we were. Maybe they predicted we’d do exactly as we did. The only thing I can say for sure is that this outwardly sleepy war-torn village had managed to con the world’s leading military powerhouse – for the United States led the NATO coalition – with little more than a few well-placed whispers.

  For the majority of us on the ground the exhilaration of the raid was genuine, even if the mission was not. For those of us working in signals, it was harder to bear. Steve himself was phlegmatic.

  ‘It’s war. It happens. We do the best we can with the intel we have.’

  ‘But, mate, it went tits-up today.’

  ‘But what if it hadn’t?’

  His positivity was legendary and, I have to say, contagious. Three more morose signallers you could not have found, but he turned us all around.

  * * *

  Because of my time at HQ seeing the threads of intel come in and then going out on patrol to act on them, I received a bigger picture of what we were doing in Kosovo than maybe a lot of others. The Card Alpha rules seemed unworkable in the field, but since, in seven months in the territory, no one in Z Company had discharged a single round, it was a moot point. I also saw that you can’t always trust the people on the same side. It was one thing being played by rival crime lords, but occasionally we were stitched up by people within NATO.

  It’s common knowledge that Germany’s GCG9 and America and France’s equivalent special forces were operating in Kosovo at the same time as we were. We didn’t really come into contact, but occasionally one of those would feed us a titbit of intel. They might do it upfront or, more likely, in a more clandestine fashion, so that we wouldn’t know it had come from them. Why? Because their operational boundaries were even tighter than ours. If they felt there was any shadow of doubt about one of their missions they’d encourage us to ‘discover’ the intel and carry out the raid ourselves.

  A couple of times we jumped in feet first and it paid off. Other times we blundered in, totally in the dark, and it showed.

  I didn’t actually mind. I was just grateful for the chance of action. After seven long months, that’s all Pristina had boiled down to for me: a chance. I’d come to Kosovo to scratch an itch and I really hadn’t. It was still there, arguably worse than ever. For half a year I’d been dressed like a commando but done little that warranted the title. I’d learned new skills in policing and diplomacy, as well as in waiting. Other than that, I couldn’t say my first tour had been the success I had wished for.

  At the end of those seven months, as we were packing to leave Kosovo, Steve McCulley asked me what my plans were.

  ‘I think you’re perfect officer material,’ he added

  ‘I’m not sure, Steve. I don’t know how you stick it.’

  He loved being a captain. He loved leading men, both in the field and in the office.

  I told him I wanted to be a marine.

  ‘You are a marine.’

  ‘A marine marine. I want to get my hands dirty. I want to get on the front line. I want to make a difference.’

  Steve assured me we had all made a difference. It just wasn’t through action in the field, as I had hoped.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I really want, Steve, and that is try to get into the SBS. But they won’t let me out of signals.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure about that,’ he said.

  With Steve’s help I drafted a new letter to the assignments board. If there’s one person who knows his way around military procedure, it’s Captain McCulley. We pointed out exactly why the board had no choice but to release me from signals. Under his guidance, I also put in for the SBS aptitude test. By the time we were ready to leave Pristina I had my answers.

  Yes, and yes.

  Thanks, Kosovo, you’ve been great. But now it’s time for some real work.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ARE YOUR FEET DRY?

  We flew into Glasgow, and the glamour didn’t stop there. Everyone involved in Kosovo was awarded a campaign medal during a big old ceremony at Arbroath. Watching Remembrance Day parades with Granddad, we’d see all these old boys and young lads with their various colours pinned to their lapels. Now I had one. The colour of the ribbon denotes the tour, and for Kosovo the colours were blue and white. I have to admit, wearing it on my blues – my parade uniform – gave me more of a boost than I had expected it to. I was proud, actually.

  I just wished I could have done more to earn it.

  I still couldn’t get over that sense of a missed opportunity in Pristina. My desire to serve on the front line was getting greater, not less. Wherever I went after 45 Commando I just wanted to be in the thick of it – although getting away from Scotland had its appeal as well. The SBS seemed the best of all worlds. While we were being global policemen in Kosovo they were running around actually fighting. They were storming buildings, creeping up on targets and slitting throats. And they were b
ased down south, at Poole, in Dorset.

  It’s fair to say that of the UK Special Forces, the SAS – the Special Air Service Regiment – is the most famous. The boys from Hereford, as they’re known, are the ones that get the public talking. They’ve been involved in some high-profile operations over the years, and been the subject of plenty of films.

  The roots of both services go back to the Second World War. For a long time the SBS – which for a time was known as the Special Boat Squadron – existed in the shadows. Their motto used to be ‘Not by strength but by guile’, and they prided themselves on remaining unknown. Apart from James Bond and Paddy (later Lord) Ashdown, not many people are known to have served in it.

  Traditionally, Hereford tends to attract the army boys whereas the SBS has proved more popular with marines, so to me it seemed logical to go with the flow. Operationally, both forces are very similar. If anything, the SBS has the greater range because while it is trained in all the land-based fighting that the SAS covers, including parachute jumps and helicopter assaults, it also has submarine and water-based utility. As specialists go, they are more all-rounders.

  Like everything else in the military, you don’t just apply to get into the SBS. You have to attend an aptitude course to see if you are a strong enough candidate for the actual selection process. And so, in April 2001, I found myself in Poole, preparing for the worst week of my life.

  Again.

  It’s impressive, really, how you think you can’t be pushed any further, can’t be made to feel any smaller, and then the military finds an extra gear. Of course, it was punishing physically. There were upper-body tests, mobility assessments and a hell of a lot of running around. There was also an emphasis on the mental side. You need to be able to digest information and produce results quickly, so they were throwing stuff at us.

  Learning curves don’t get much steeper. It wouldn’t be a boat service without a load of water work. We were given rudimentary instructions and diving gear, then literally thrown in at the deep end with diving gear. No allowance was made for those of us who had never done it before; indeed, the instructors actually preferred it if you hadn’t. That way they could chart how quickly you could adapt to a new challenge. For days afterwards I had blisters on my hands from canoeing, an infection from diving in dirty, muddy water, and dizziness from swimming a length and a half of an Olympic-size pool underwater. Did I mention the instructors were bastards?

  Psychologically, nothing I’ve ever done in training prepared me for the final exercise. It’s called a combat fitness test and at its core was an 8-mile (13-kilometre) run carrying 55 pounds (25 kilos) of kit plus a weapon. It’s a standard Marines test with a couple of twists. Number one, the time you’re given to accomplish it is reduced. Number two, not everyone is allowed to finish.

  We were about to set off when the instructor said, ‘You have to run full speed until one person drops out. If no one drops out you are all disqualified.’

  It’s evil. There is no other word.

  We set off, and obviously there was more pressure because no one wants to be the one dropping back. You also don’t want to set off at a stupid pace that you can’t maintain. Somewhere in the middle there’s a speed that you can manage that others can’t. It only needs one person to be having a bad day.

  The problem, however, is that everyone else is thinking the same thing. You’ve got twenty other men, all equally skilled, equally fit and equally motivated. The speed of the pack got faster and faster, and even though running was my speciality I felt the old legs beginning to wobble. If someone didn’t give up soon I had a genuine fear it could be me.

  For nearly two kilometres we kept the pace up, and then finally it happened. A lad who had actually been quite strong all week and had been pacing in the centre of the group suddenly just swore and disappeared behind us as though he’d been sucked out of the back of a plane. I can only imagine how gutting it felt for him, but to be honest I didn’t care. The second he vanished the rest of us virtually ground to a halt. We all needed a breather whether we cared to admit it or not.

  It was horrible willing someone else to fail. It went against all the camaraderie that we’d built up over our careers in the forces. Still, rather him than me. Of the thirty people who started the week, I was one of twenty who passed.

  ‘Congratulations, Marine,’ the trainer said. ‘You’ll get a letter but we would like to invite you to start selection with us in summer.’

  Plainly I should have snatched his hand off. The sooner I started selection the sooner I’d qualify for the SBS. But here was the thing. The course was about nine months long. That meant another nine months without front-line action. I don’t know why it was so important to me to get out there but the longer I went without doing it the more obsessed I became. I don’t know if it came from growing up with male family who were all operational: Dad, doing his bit in the Met, Granddad in the Second World War, Harry. At some level, did I want to take my place alongside them in the family annals? Whatever the reason, I knew my chances of seeing action would be greatly increased if I joined the SBS. But after three years in the Marines without achieving what I’d wanted to do, I was in too much of a hurry to wait any longer. Imagine training to be a lion tamer and in three years you never got to see a lion. No more delays. I decided to defer my selection and go back to the ranks.

  I just hope I don’t regret it …

  * * *

  No one has a crystal ball. Deferring my selection for the SBS was a huge call, and I hoped it was the right one. I thought of those lads who’d served eight or nine years in Arbroath without seeing action – then quit before we moved into Kosovo. You have to get the big decisions right. Time would tell whether I had.

  When I’d put in my request to leave 45 Commando I’d asked for a posting on general duties in the south. For about two minutes I got what I wanted.

  40 Commando is based near Taunton, Somerset. Like RM Condor, the base was split into two, one half accommodation, the other working areas. There the similarities ended. The camp itself is much smaller, but Taunton is a metropolis compared with Arbroath. Coming from another market town, Guildford, I felt more comfortable there than I had up in the Highland wilderness.

  I joined Charlie Company as a basic marine, but found there was a basic respect for me from the lads of equal rank and even above because this was my second draft and they knew I’d been operational with 45 Commando. I didn’t tell them how empty it had left me. Or that the experience was the reason why I had decided to leave HQ and go on general duties. Maybe I should have done. On my first day the company sergeant-major said, ‘We’re going to promote you to corporal.’

  I couldn’t believe it. They didn’t even know me. It would mean more responsibility and more money, but it also meant going on another bloody course first. How on earth was I going to tell them I wasn’t interested? Who turns down a promotion on their first day?

  ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant-Major, I’ve just turned down SBS selection because I wanted to work, so I have to turn this down as well.’

  Actually, he was relieved, impressed even. He was old school, and believed you should put in six or seven years before you got rewarded. How can you tell others what to do if you haven’t done it yourself?

  It was my second big decision in as many weeks. I regretted it almost instantly. We’d just got our orders for the next few months: mountain training.

  So I was going on a course after all, with less pay, less responsibility and in the country that warm weather forgot. Scotland (again).

  Nice one, Rob.

  It got worse. When we reached the Isle of Skye I realised we weren’t even the main event. The Brigade Reconnaissance Force was up there training and they needed something to hunt. We were the ‘something’. In fact, it was a lot of fun. Towards the end the sergeant-major told five of us – me, Pete Howe and three others – that there were three lance-corporal positions coming up. We’d all shown leadership qualities up on the mountain, w
ould we like to undertake an extra task for one of the posts?

  God, another decision.

  I’ve always loved being tested. The five of us did an extra afternoon’s work and I was one of those selected, on merit this time. It would be a £10-a-day pay rise, which I thought was a fortune, and best of all it was a local promotion. I wouldn’t have to go on any courses and it was only in effect while I served with 40 Commando. Perfect, then.

  * * *

  Because it is an arm of the Royal Navy, a lot of people assume that the Marines are sea-based. In three years of being qualified I’d done Arctic training, mountain training, even jungle training, but I hadn’t been on water once. Now, in the summer of 2001, that was about to change.

  Part of the country’s military readiness is its Amphibious Ready Group (ARG). At any time there is a Royal Navy warship touring the seas, packed to the gills with artillery and a strike force-capable unit. In August 2001 the ship was the flagship of the Royal Navy, the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean, and the unit was 40 Commando. We were the R1 of the water.

  There’s plenty of repetition in the military. I had not expected how much. My first role as a lance corporal was to join the advance party for the company’s roll-out. So, just as I had been in the signals, I was sent out to prepare the ground.

  HMS Ocean was massive: 203 metres long, 35 metres wide, with a top speed of 18 knots (21 kph). She carried 18 helicopters, 40 vehicles, and had a crew of 285 plus 180 Fleet Air Arm or RAF personnel. Crucially for us, however, she had capacity for an armed force of 830 Royal Marines. It was my job, along with other corporals, to get on board early to work out where the hell everyone was going to go.