First Man In

by Ant Middleton

  And that was how it went, first for days and then for weeks. Whenever we had tabbing I came in last, panting, short and sorry, every single time. Ironically, being last was a first for me. I hadn’t felt anything like this since I’d been bullied back at school. I began to dread tabbing. Perhaps because I’d highlighted myself by doing so well in that first race, some of the guys seemed to take a special pleasure in seeing me brought down to size. Usually led by Cranston, they began giving me a hard time back at the accommodation. It started as stage whispers in my presence – ‘What the fuck is he still doing here?’ Before long, people were up and in my face. ‘Just fuck off back to your unit, Ant,’ they’d say. ‘Give it up. You’re not going to make it.’

  I knew they wanted a fight, and I knew Cranston was in the middle of it. But there was nothing I could do but try to maintain my strength of character. Just as it had been with Ivan in Pirbright, I wasn’t going to let them push me into being someone else. Despite how they were acting, I treated them with the very respect they were finding it so hard to extend to me.

  At least things were going better outside of the tabbing. I was running well with nothing on my back and smashing it in the gym. I was pretty certain my success in these areas was the only reason I hadn’t been RTU’d yet. But the instructors would only let me get away with that for so long. The clock was ticking for me – and I knew it. The undeniable fact was that I was showing no signs of improvement.

  Every four weeks we’d be made to line up outside the corporal’s office. One by one we’d be called in. On the corporal’s desk there’d be two items. On the left there was the coveted maroon beret that paras call their ‘machine’. On the right there was a glass of sour milk. If the decision had been made to send you up to Catterick, you were told to touch the beret. If you’d not made it, you’d sniff the milk. I was getting sick of it. Every time, I was being told, ‘Middleton, smell the milk.’ And then, one week, I was waiting my turn when I saw Cranston exiting with his face lit up like fireworks night. He didn’t even have to say anything. It was obvious. Cranston had touched the maroon machine.

  Meanwhile, up on Craphat Hill, practice wasn’t making perfect. The tabbing was getting harder, not easier. My feet were becoming badly damaged and, because everyone else was striding while I was running, my bergen was sliding from side to side against my lower and upper back. Everybody suffers from what they call ‘bergen burns’, but mine were on a different level. Across large swathes of my back my skin had pretty much worn away, so I’d spend my evenings carefully strapping my wounds with black tape. When I was running I simply tried to shut out the pain. What else could I do?

  But there was one truly bright spot in my Pre-Para schedule. Most weekends I’d actually be able to get out of Aldershot. I’d leave the barracks and travel down to Portsmouth to stay with my nan, partly to get away from the squalor and the terrible food, partly to get away from Cranston and his pals. I didn’t want to burden nan with my problems, or spoil our time together by being negative, but I knew she was wondering why I was still around and not in Catterick because she’d ask these little probing questions that I’d have to bat away.

  But then, one Saturday night, after months of punishment on Pre-Para, I sat down at the dinner table for my favourite meal of sausage, cabbage and mash and, forgetting myself, I accidentally winced in pain.

  ‘What’s the matter, Anthony?’

  ‘Nothing, Nan,’ I smiled. ‘Let’s tuck in. This looks amazing.’

  ‘What’s wrong, love? Are you in pain? Is it your back?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Are these sausages from the butcher? They’re a decent size.’

  ‘Show me,’ she said. ‘You never know, I might be able to help.’

  I tried to distract her with a bit more of my sausages talk, then I tried laughing it off, but I knew she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Reluctantly, I stood up, turned around and peeled my shirt up to show her. There were scabs, scars and bloody, weeping wounds under there. Whole layers of skin were missing.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, trying to control her voice. ‘What are they doing to you?’

  I pulled my shirt back down again and shrugged. ‘It’s what I want, Nan,’ I said.

  ‘But why, Anthony?’

  ‘I want to join 9 Para Squadron and this is what you have to do. It’s normal. It’s nothing that’s going to kill me.’

  ‘You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be a paratrooper.’

  ‘But I can’t just be a normal engineer, Nan,’ I said.

  ‘Why? Why can’t you?’

  ‘Because I have to get my wings,’ I said with a shrug. I picked up my knife and fork again and began to attack my dinner. When I looked up, Nan’s eyes had turned bloodshot and wet.

  That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about what she’d said. How could I explain why I wanted to earn my wings so badly? It was like trying to explain why green is green or why Cranston was a dick. It was obvious, wasn’t it? The Paras were the best. They were gods. Who doesn’t want to be a god? And it was more than that, too. It felt like my destiny, to wear those wings on my shoulder and the maroon machine and the Pegasus insignia that showed I belonged to 5 Airborne Brigade, of which 9 Parachute Squadron was a part, and to walk among those gods as an equal.

  I hadn’t ever really questioned why I wanted it, nor whether or not it could happen. But I’d been on Pre-Para for months now and, if anything, it was getting harder. Perhaps, I thought, it just wasn’t going to happen. The lads back at base seemed to all be in agreement. And, you know, what would happen if I did decide to quit? It would be my business, and my business only. The reason I was coming last was simple – my legs weren’t long enough, and I couldn’t help that. Perhaps I’d be wiser just to accept it. I should listen to my nan. She’s been around for a while and knew a bit about the world. ‘Go to a normal engineer regiment,’ I told myself. ‘Stick to your strengths.’

  The next morning I awoke feeling flat and tired, but relieved to have finally come to a decision. I gave Nan a hug goodbye and pulled my bag over my shoulder, now flinching openly at the pain.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I’m not built for it. It’s my legs. Nothing’s gonna change that, no matter how much I want to wish it away.’

  I was expecting her to look pleased, but she just sighed. It was confusing. Had I disappointed her?

  Back at the barracks the next morning it was more of the same. Out once again with the heavy bergen, eight miles of raw pain, all the way up Craphat Hill, dragging myself across the hellish Seven Sisters, pushing myself through what they called the ‘Hole in the Wall’, which involved crawling through a pit of stinking mud that was full of smashed glass bottles that civilians would throw into it, then squeezing through a narrow gap in a brick wall. As I slogged, I stewed over my nan’s reaction. I knew she had my best interests at heart, but I also felt that she thought I was better than that. What should I do? I couldn’t just chant a magic spell and put ten fucking inches on my legs.

  I came last again, that day. It was my worst time ever. As I was catching my breath, alone by the wagon, one of the lance corporals beckoned me over. ‘Middleton, come here,’ he said. I staggered over to where he was standing. ‘Listen, lad, you’ve got the drive and will, nobody can take that away from you. It’s why you’re still here. But you’re too small. You’re not like the others. You haven’t got the build.’ There was nothing I could say to that but, ‘OK, Corporal.’

  As the wagon bounced us back towards the barracks, I watched the mud track and military fencing pass by outside the canopy. I finally decided that that was it. They were obviously going to RTU me soon, and I might as well go out with dignity and save them the trouble. I imagined Cranston’s expression when he found out, that nasty grin. ‘You’re not like the others,’ the lance corporal had said. Not like Cranston? Not as good as him? I found myself filling with a sense of angry defiance
. And then something odd happened. The angrier I felt, the more the pain in my back seemed to fade away. I remembered how I’d got through that first Basic Fitness Test by using my hatred of him as a source of energy. I focused on him, hard. I felt pumped. Violent. By the time the wagon pulled up, I was almost ready to ask the driver to turn around and take me back to Craphat Hill, so I could do the tab again.

  Just by chance, another new intake arrived two days later. One of the boys happened to be slightly overweight, and this meant that the limelight, finally, was taken off me. It also meant that I didn’t come in last. As well as using my rage at Cranston to fire me up, I allowed myself to use someone else’s struggle as my strength. With each tab, from thereon in, I slowly became better and better. That improvement was one hundred per cent psychological. I started climbing the ladder again, getting faster and faster, closer and closer to the front. And before I knew it, there were probably two or three of us going on the next course, and it seemed clear I was going to be one of them.

  That experience gave me a lesson I’ve never forgotten, and it’s one I still use regularly. Your enemy is fuel. He is energy. Hatred can be the most powerful motivator there is. In life you’ll always come across jealous and negative people, or people who simply don’t believe in you. Every single one of them is a Duracell battery. Plug them in. Give yourself that edge by using their own electricity against them. Success isn’t only the most satisfying form of revenge – it’s the only positive one there is.

  But using your enemies like this can also be dangerous. I only truly learned this during my time in the Royal Marines, many years after my endless struggles up Craphat Hill. It was just before lunch on a sunny day in July, and I’d returned from a session on Woodbury Common military training area. I was outside my accommodation block removing the twigs, leaves and grass from my gillie suit, and was about to go back inside when a young guy I’d been chatting to a few days previously in the mess hall passed by.

  ‘Hey, Ant, did you hear about that Marine who died in Afghan?’ he said.

  My heart thumped. ‘Who is it?’ I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t know. It’s going around the drill quarters. They’re planning the funeral back in the office. Right in the middle of it now. Didn’t get a name. I was wondering if you knew?’

  ‘No, mate. No idea.’

  Once he’d left I paced as quickly as I could to the Sniper Troop office and knocked on his door.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I said. ‘But I’ve just heard that one of the lads has caught it up in Afghanistan. Is it true?’

  ‘I can confirm that,’ he said.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I can’t say any names, Middleton,’ he said. ‘We haven’t released the news to his family yet.’

  ‘Mate, please.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘What I can say,’ he eventually replied, ‘is that he liked to juggle.’

  This was impossible. It was Lewis. He was a good friend. I’d got to know and trust him during my counter-terrorist sniper course, but everyone at Lympstone knew of him. He was unusually well-spoken, relentlessly positive and a bit kooky. It wouldn’t be unusual to see him walking through the accommodation blocks in rest periods practising his favourite hobby, which was juggling. Sometimes he’d be throwing sparkly balls around the air, sometimes knives. If you met Lewis in the street, you might guess that he was a lawyer or a kindly geography teacher. In fact, he was one of the most efficiently deadly men in the British services.

  Of course, deaths like his were part of the deal. You heard about military people being killed in action all the time. But it was a shock to hear that one of our guys had caught it up. There was just something about being an operator that made you feel invincible. It sometimes felt as if we could dodge bullets. All I could do for the next few minutes was sit on the edge of my bed, looking at my phone. I wondered how it had happened. Enemy fire? An IED? A corrupt Afghan who’d been employed by the British military? There were plenty of stories of those flying about. Ten minutes later I stood up, brushed myself off and began preparing for the afternoon’s exercise. Because what else could I do?

  Within the week, Lewis’s body had been repatriated. Ten days after I heard the news, I arrived at a huge, dark, stone cathedral for his funeral. He was sent off with full military honours, including a ten-gun salute and a ceremonial flyover by two Hawk jets after the service. I was invited to join the burial party too, about an hour and a half’s drive from the cathedral, and be one of the pall bearers. There were only ten of us there, including the family. I watched his wife and two daughters, aged eight and ten, stand beside the dark, damp, black hole in the ground. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head – their husband and dad was going in there. They read poems and managed to somehow hold themselves together. I was struck not only by their courage but by the endless depth of their love for their man who was now gone.

  When the time came to finally say goodbye, the coffin was lifted into the air by ropes. I removed the metal stands from beneath it and guided it over the pit. Then, slowly, it was lowered in. Lewis’s family stepped forward to throw roses into the ground. They tossed in handfuls of dirt that clattered on top of the coffin. That was when it became too much. The daughters broke, sobbing desperately, their hands pressed to their faces, tears leaking out from between pale fingers. It was hard to know how they’d ever learn to live without him. Maybe they wouldn’t. Their despair was such that it felt like a fog that had escaped from their hearts and was enveloping all of us.

  What affected me most was the bravery of Lewis’s wife, who steadfastly held it together for the sake of her children. When the ceremony was over, I approached her.

  ‘Lewis was an honourable man,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything that I or any of the lads can do, we’re always here.’

  She gazed back at me emptily. I could tell she wasn’t really present, that the reality of what she was going through was simply so unbelievable that some protective instinct in her mind had removed her from the moment. Glassy eyed, she gave that generic answer, ‘Thank you, thank you.’

  I was just about to move on when something stopped me.

  ‘I want you to know that Lewis’s death is not going to go unanswered,’ I said.

  With that, she clicked into focus and looked back at me directly. Suddenly present, she said simply, ‘Good.’

  When I was out in Afghanistan, the loss of our friend rarely left my mind. He felt ever-present, pushing us forwards, our primary motivator. All I wanted was to get revenge for my pal and revenge for his wife and girls. The problem was, this hatred almost overwhelmed me. I could feel myself spiral into a mode of just wanting to kill everyone. All the people I met out there on patrol were to blame. Every local that showed even a hint of a threat or the slightest bit of negativity I wanted to aim and fire at. For a while I simply hated Muslims. The strange thing was, I’d also meet the loveliest Afghani families and be eating bread with them and cracking jokes, and I wouldn’t be thinking like that at all. But then, as soon as I’d left their compounds, I’d be back in the zone, thinking, ‘All right, you fuckers.’ I wanted to mow them all down.

  Most people don’t understand hatred. The truth is we need it. Hatred is why we’re motivated to defend ourselves. Hatred of fascism and hatred of communism got us through the twentieth century with our values intact, just as hatred of radical Islamism and the terrorism it breeds are getting us through our problems today. Hatred is a natural human instinct. We have it for a reason. But it’s a dangerous tool that needs using with wisdom, strength and delicacy. You need the presence of mind to tap into it just enough that it serves you, but not so much that it twists you up and throws you into a dark place.

  But that’s what started happening in Afghanistan. Lewis’s death had made it personal for everyone who knew him. The hatred it generated caused many of them to make bad decisions. When I got out there all I heard was, ‘If they’ve got a weapon
on them, they’re a bad guy. Just take them out, even if they pose a minimal threat. Just do what you’ve got to do.’ I felt exactly like they did, but I didn’t want to be a bully with a weapon. When that mindset runs away with you, you’re in war crimes territory. I’m not judging any of them. I know how it feels. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, at times, I felt like a dog with bloodlust. Getting my head back under control was one of the toughest challenges of my military career.

  It’s the kind of energy that can eat you from the inside. If you internalise your enemies too much, they can begin to obsess you to the extent that you become both defensive and aggressive, the kind of person nobody wants to be around. I met a character who personified this perfectly when I was filming Series 2 of SAS: Who Dares Wins at an old military base in the Ecuadorian jungle. Geoff was a satellite installer and former drug addict who’d been deported from Australia after some sort of violent incident. He’d also served six months in prison.

  From the moment I first laid eyes on him, on morning number one, I knew everything about him that I needed to. All the contestants were lined up in formation in our makeshift parade square, which was surrounded with military buildings and corrugated roofs. I’d decided to welcome them into the challenge with the opposite of a motivational speech.

  ‘This environment is brutal,’ I said. ‘It’s hostile. It’s claustrophobic. It will chew you up and spit you out. This environment is enough to break most of you. If you fight it will fuck you up. Trust me. If I have to babysit any of you, we’ll just fuck you off. We want individuals who can look after themselves. You’re ours for the next nine days. Embrace it, gentlemen.’

  As I was talking, I was checking out all their body language. Geoff’s attitude problem simply exploded out of him. Just the way he was standing told me he had a major problem with authority. He was a short guy and he was broad. When I began asking questions, the other lads would reply snappily with, ‘Yes, Staff!’ But when I questioned Geoff, all I got was, ‘Yep. Yep.’ Here, I realised, was the classic problem child. He was completely possessed by all those perceived enemies that he carried around inside him. They were controlling his every thought and action. He wasn’t using them as an energy – they were using him.