Lethal Shot

by Robert Driscoll

  It bloody well was to me.

  The worst occasion was when I was across the road from an amusement arcade when I heard the radio chatter that a robbery was in progress in one of the slot-machine venues inside. It was broad daylight, and I looked through the window and confirmed it.

  Over the radio I said, ‘I’ve got eyes on the perp. Permission to apprehend?’

  ‘That’s a negative. We have information that he is armed.’

  I looked again.

  ‘No, I repeat no. There is no weapon. Permission to apprehend.’

  ‘Stand down, MD665. That’s an order.’

  And so I watched as the guy filled a bag with cash then sauntered out into the sun. He walked towards me and actually winked as he went by. It was obviously not his first job. And he obviously knew how the system worked.

  I’m not saying that this particular incident was the tipping point but so many little episodes like that began to fill my day that it wasn’t long before I realised that I didn’t respect the organisation. I respected the individual coppers I met, they all work bloody hard. But our hands were tied by unseen overlords who seemed more interested in PR than public safety.

  Suddenly Card Alpha didn’t seem quite so restrictive. In fact, it started to look damned appealing. So much so that when my Marines mates down in the West Country started telling me that they were gearing up for a proper go at Afghanistan I felt that tingle of excitement I’d had when Kosovo, Iraq and Bagram had been in the wind. I tried to ignore it but in the end I asked my guvnor if I could join the RMR – the Royal Marine Reserve. This works in the same way as the Army Reserves (formerly the Territorial Army): you keep your job – and your salary – and train in your own time, but can be called to serve when necessary. It’s the best of both worlds and plenty of police have served in the reserve forces over the years.

  The problem was, I was not yet a policeman. To qualify I needed to finish probation and get five years’ service under my belt.

  ‘But the war will be over by then,’ I protested.

  ‘I’m sorry, Constable, that’s the way it works.’

  The truth is, I didn’t really want to go to Afghanistan. More than anything I just missed the physicality of my old life. I missed the camaraderie, the daily challenges, the knowledge that I was among the elite of my kind. I just missed being a marine.

  Being told I couldn’t be one for a few more years, not even as a volunteer, not even at weekends, triggered a response in me that I never expected.

  I handed in my resignation from the police and returned to Lympstone.

  * * *

  I’ve made some crap decisions in my life, but this was not one of them.

  I didn’t mind the two-week refresher course at CTC. I didn’t mind being busted down to the bottom rung again as a simple marine. I didn’t mind being made to feel like a raw recruit with the OCD-level ironing and saluting. I didn’t even mind that for my foreseeable future I’d just be doing courses again. My obsession with front-line action had passed. I was just happy being back where I belonged.

  For the remainder of 2005 I was back with 40 Commando at Norton Manor, Taunton. I was happy to knuckle down with whatever they threw at me. What they actually threw at me was a promotion. The Marines being the Marines, however, you don’t just ‘get’ a promotion, you have to pass a promotion course. And you can only go on that course if you’ve already been promoted. So in order to qualify as a corporal I first had to become lance-corporal – the rank I’d held in 40 Commando in Kosovo, seemingly a lifetime ago. Next stop an eleven-week Junior Command Course at CTC.

  Even while I was on the course, I already had my eye on the programme after that. I’d tried and failed to get loaded onto the mountain leader course before Afghan. Now I had another chance. By the time it came round it was 2006 and I was in peak physical condition. I needed to be: it was a nine-month course. I could see no reason why I shouldn’t pass. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas.

  Week 5, and one of the tests was to carry a guy twice my size up Sennen Cove, a stone’s throw from Land’s End. All the way up I could feel my ankle and my calf – my old SBS tryout injury – screaming at me. I made it and was halfway through the eight-mile run back to our accommodation when my friend Noisy said, ‘Rob, I don’t know what’s wrong but your right leg – it’s about twice the size of your left one.’

  It felt like it, too. I got hold of some painkillers and made it back to camp. I could barely breathe at the end, let alone run. The course leader took one look and said, ‘We’d better get you back to Lympstone because there’s something seriously wrong with your leg.’ I was in too much pain to really follow what was going on. But I soon snapped awake when the base medic said, ‘You’ve ruptured your calf – I’m afraid we’ll have to remove you from the course.’

  I was gutted, obviously. For the second time a frailty in my leg – the same frailty – had kept me from taking that next step up. A few years earlier I’d have felt like chucking the TV out the window with frustration. The new mature me found the bright side. Better to be thrown out after only five weeks. Imagine getting to eight months and failing. You’d be suicidal.

  There was another positive, as well. Mountain leaders, by definition, are away most of the time. Again, I used to thrive on that. But towards the end of 2006 I met someone in Taunton who I wanted to stay home for. Her name was Carly, she had a lovely son called Sam, and being a local girl she knew all about the Marines and their constant disappearing act. For that reason she was more than a bit wary of getting involved with me. When injury ruled me out of the ML course I think she found me that bit more attractive a proposition.

  It was mutual. I spent three months in rehab and most of that time I was plotting how best to stay in the Marines and yet stay local to Carly. Then I hit upon the answer: I’d do a physical-training instructor’s course. It’s one of the longest in the calendar and arguably the most important. PTIs are the guys who turn raw recruits into killing machines, civilians into commandos. Everything that follows begins with them.

  Carly was delighted. We both were, and with extra reason. Our whirlwind romance had resulted in Carly becoming pregnant. Getting that news was a big moment – asking her to marry me a minute later was another one. Now, more than ever, I needed to be local.

  We married in March 2007 and seven months later, in October, our son Will was born. Three months after that, in the new year, I finally started my course. I thought I knew what fitness was, but this took it up another level. Throw in middle-of-the-night feeds with Will and the forty-minute commute between CTC and our place in Taunton, and you’d have been pushed to find anyone in the UK at that time more in need of sleep.

  The PT course has legendary status in the service just for how shit it treats the students. There are so many rules which, if broken, result in a physical beating from your trainers. It sounds horrific, and it is. It always has been and always will be.

  I don’t know who was happier when the course ended: I, for getting through it with all my teeth intact, or Carly, for knowing she had at least two years during which I wold be working on our doorstep.

  Some of our friends were not so lucky, however. I came home one night to find Carly in tears. I immediately thought there was something wrong with Will or Sam but she said, ‘No. It’s Steve. Donna thinks he might die.’

  Donna was one of her best friends, and Steve was a mountain of a man who’d got me through my recce leader’s course. They were both good friends of ours. Steve was over in Afghan on one of the early Herrick operations (Operation Herrick was the codename for all British military operations in Afghanistan from 2002 until the end of military operations by UK forces in 2014). Word had just come back that he’d been caught in an ambush. The marines had gone out on patrol with the Afghan police. The two groups had split up, and then the Afghans had opened fire on the Brits. Steve was shot a number of times, and the rounds made a mess of his abdomen and everything below. Donna was right to be worr
ied. We all were.

  Steve survived and was shipped home for specialist care as soon as he was stable. When we went to visit him it was shocking. This giant, this pure physical presence, was barely a skeleton in the bed. His muscle mass had vanished. He looked a broken man.

  You can’t help thinking, This is the reality of war.

  As the war in Afghan took hold Carly and I started to see more and more of our friends return from the front with limbs missing. That is if they returned at all. Some of the worst casualties were among the SF guys. When a war is on, the television news becomes a nightly ritual – you just want to keep up with what the boys are doing. I was watching the news one evening in summer 2007 when I suddenly froze. On the screen was a picture of a young man I knew very well, Corporal Mike Jones, one of the great guys I met at SBS training. Since then we’d patrolled together in Afghan and Iraq, and had both been based in Plymouth. Just a few months earlier we’d shared meals during junior-command training. He was, in short, a friend. And now he was on the news. I was too stunned to hear what the broadcaster was saying. I didn’t need to. It was obvious.

  Mike was the sixty-eighth British serviceman to fall since the country’s involvement in the Afghan campaign began in 2001. He would not be the last.

  Military towns can be very dark places when the troops are away. Carly had grown up with living in a suddenly much emptier town and the prospect of death or wounding, conditioned to it by friends of the family and neighbours. It’s a unique situation. On the one hand, the troops and their families are conditioned to expect the worst. On the other, the worst is something they never get over.

  More than ever, she was relieved that my job meant that I was not going anywhere. And, if I’m being honest, so was I.

  * * *

  As the newbie on the PTI staff I got all the glamour jobs, like making tea. It didn’t bother me. I was no longer a potential victim for the trainers to pick on. I was one of those trainers.

  Some of the other guys had been there for years. Pete Howe, who’d gone up for corporal with me back in the day, was a good mate (despite my pipping him to that promotion) – now that we were both on the same side of the pupil/teacher divide. Pete was actually the envy of the whole camp. Once in a blue moon – well, every three years, to be precise – the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) recruits a leader from the PT branch. Pete was the next man up. No one knew exactly what he would be doing, but we all agreed it would involve action of the most violent and secretive kind.

  Like all of us, Pete loved his sport. Among his many talents he was a terrific footballer. About a week before he was due to leave us he was playing in a five-a-side match, and managed to break a leg – audibly. I was in a building close to the pitch and actually heard the sickening sound of his leg snapping. A moment later the door behind me flew open and the PT sergeant-major, shot out.

  ‘What the hell was that noise?’

  Like me, he’d heard it inside the building.

  ‘Pete Howe, sir,’ I said. ‘I think he’s broken his leg.’

  ‘Shit. He’s meant to be going on draft next week.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘gutting. If you need a replacement I’m available.’

  It was a joke. A flippant remark. I thought no more of it.

  A couple of hours after the match I got a phone call from the PT sergeant-major, who said, ‘Rob, will you come and see the “drafty”?’ – the branch officer in charge of drafting. I made my way to his office. As soon as we’d finished saluting he said, ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I need to know if you really think you could do this billet with the SFSG because they are going active very soon and they need a body.’

  Christ.

  ‘Well, I’m para-trained, I’ve served in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghan, I’m a corporal …’ I basically blurted out my whole CV.

  ‘But are you interested?’ he said. ‘Are you up for it?’

  I took a moment, and realised that, yes, yes I was.

  ‘More than you will know, sir.’

  ‘Excellent, Driscoll.

  It all happened so fast. I was back in the staff room before I thought, Carly is going to kill me. And, indeed, she was distraught, claiming we had agreed that it was too dangerous. I couldn’t disagree with her. But the second I was offered the chance I knew I’d been lying to myself about being ‘over’ wanting to see action.

  * * *

  Within two weeks I was packing my stuff at Lympstone and heading off to Wales and straight onto an advanced firing course. En route I couldn’t help smiling.

  Another decision I didn’t make.

  Another great, great result.

  * * *

  After a circuitous route around various Welsh bases I was delivered to the Brecon Beacons. I met the rest of the troop as they were midway through a firing package. I walked in and, after a couple of introductions, drew a weapon and was given a load of ammunition. We spent four weeks running around the ranges up there working on all the basic skills. I didn’t learn anything new, but there was definitely more intensity (and more money). It was also more realistic.

  The four weeks in the mountains took us up to Christmas and leave, which I spent at home. It was great to see Carly and the boys, obviously. Come the new year, however, I had to break it to her.

  ‘I’m going away now with the Special Forces. I can’t tell you where and I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

  * * *

  It had begun with a request from a foreign entity; specifically the government of another country. They wanted help training their troops to cope with insurgents. I suppose at some level they were willing to pay, an echo of the military-catalogue sales pitch to the Omanis all those years ago.

  The mission was simple: train as many men as you can to as high a standard as you can. We were there for four months working to a four-week cycle, so that’s four groups of men who passed through the system. It was … interesting.

  Without mentioning specifics, I can say, as you can discover online, that both forces went out to Afghan as part of the so-called ‘kill or capture’ of high-value targets (HVTs). Accompanying them were the SFSG. HVTs rarely sleep without a small army around them.

  Above them would be aircraft plus a Spectre – the legendary Lockheed AC-130 gunship, a heavily armed version of the C-130 Hercules developed for ground attack and close air support. Nothing would be left to chance. In fact, SF prefer a deck massively stacked in their favour.

  Some of the equipment the SF guys had was out of this world, almost futuristic. And it made a lot of what you were doing seem unreal. For example, each man’s weapon was equipped with a laser sight. These weren’t what killed the targets – it’s not Star Wars – but they might as well have done. Meanwhile, the aircraft overhead would be flying too high to be heard. But I imagine they could see everything from up there.

  Invisible fire support from above, silencers, laser beams, infra-red goggles – it all sounds like a computer game. And I imagine that’s exactly how it felt.

  I imagine that, in action, all the SF and SFSGs could hear would be the dull, click-click-click-clicking sound of rounds travelling through the air. I imagine that they saw their targets fall they would never fully feel connected to the process, even when the voice in their headphones said, ‘Target down’. They would feel almost detached from the outcome.

  I imagine.

  I learned more than I can reveal on duty with the SF. We were busy. Very busy. And I wanted to stay busy but mid-assignment I received my mail – even when you’re operating undercover the postman finds you. I had been selected for a promotion course. Did I want to go through with it?

  Promotion courses come round once a year. Other things come round even less frequently. Carly was pregnant with our second child. If I stayed with the SFSG I’d miss the birth. I admit the temptation to stay was huge. Thanks to one mistimed tackle I was finally enjoying the ‘action’ I’d trained for. The action I’d dreame
d of. But I was a family man now. I had responsibilities. A promotion would bring in more money.

  I returned home early in 2010. Ollie was born in April. But that was not the only good news. As soon as I finished my training, as soon as I made sergeant, I was offered the chance to join 42 Commando, which I took. No sooner had I arrived than I heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Sergeant Driscoll.’

  ‘Captain – I mean, Major McCulley. How are you doing, sir?’

  The formalities lasted barely seconds. This was the man who had transformed my Kosovo experience and helped me to get out of 45 Commando. We were mates, it was great to see him. But that didn’t mean business didn’t come up over a cup of tea.

  ‘Here’s the thing, Rob. We’re pushing out to Afghanistan as part of Herrick 14. I’ve got a vacancy for group leader. It’s a fighting group. It’s front line. It’s going to get noisy. The question is: do you fancy it?’

  We both knew the answer.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT’S MY TRAINSET NOW

  ‘I wouldn’t get too excited, mate, we’ve pretty much won this war already.’

  The speaker was a Para sergeant I’ll call ‘Frank’. He ran the Mulladad station in Afghanistan’s notorious Helmand Province. Apart from a sun-cooked face he looked like shit. Six months in theatre will do that to a man.

  ‘Yeah,’ I laughed, ‘like I’m going to trust the word of a para.’

  Now it was Frank’s turn to smile.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had a hellish tour. But we kicked Afghan ass. You hats can just put your feet up for six months.’

  Paras call every other branch of the armed services ‘hats’. They’re fair like that.

  The ribbing aside, he could tell I was disappointed. The news back home over the last six months had shown 3 Para having a torrid time all over the region. Now that they were being replaced by commandos it seemed that we’d missed the party again. My heart sank, if I’m honest. Half a year without my family, leading my own group of men in my own compound in Hell, and I was going to see fuck all action yet again. Just my luck.