Immediate Action

by Andy McNab

  We couldn't automatically use our weapons to protect ourselves; that might compromise an operation that had been running for two or three months and therefore put other people needlessly at risk. If we could get out of a tight corner by using just our hands, head, knees, and feet, so much the better, but if we couldn't do that, we had to start using our pistols The instructor carried on. "'There's a big difference between firing at a static target on a range and being in a situation where people are trying to push and shove or get in the way, and the targets can fire back."

  Mick had been in charge of jap-slapping in the Regiment for years.

  He was about five feet six inches and wiry, slightly cross-eyed, and with only about two inches between his chin and his nose. He reminded me of Punch, but I wouldn't have mentioned it to him; we'd been told he came from the world's most aggressive family of Taffs.

  Apparently his old man still walked into pubs and tried to start fights, and he was in his eighties.

  As a schoolboy Mick had been picked for the Welsh gymnastics team but couldn't take part because his old man wouldn't give him the fare to go training. He then got seriously into the jap-slapping and fought for the UK. Mick had become a millionaire in his youth with a shop-fitting business but got ripped off by his partner and ended up in a council flat on social security.

  We'd driven to the training area in the civilian cars that we were going to be trained in. We were sitting in a big, long concrete shelter in our jeans and T-shirts and long hair, pistols in our belts.

  It was a dusty, musty building with gym mats on the floor, punch bags hanging from the girders and targets on the walls-all the equipment we'd need to go around beating one another up.

  "What I'm going to teach you is from twenty-seven years of experience,"

  Mick said. "However, the first twenty-five years of it, the martial arts, has been a waste of time. If you're my height and ten stone, and he's six foot six and sixteen stone, knowing a few chops and flying kicks isn't going to do you much good.

  "If a sixteen-stone monster hits you in the face, you're going to go down, no two ways about it. When you have a slight knock from a cupboard drawer, it hurtsso if you get a fist with sixteen stone behind it coming down at you, you're going to go down like a bag of shit, no matter who you are."

  What was called for was a combination of street fighting and certain skills from the jap-slapping catalog, together with the controlled use of weapons. If we got involved in a scuffle outside a Belfast pub, the other person wasn't going to bow politely from the waist and stick to the rules. It would be arms and legs everywhere, head butts, biting, and gouging. In other words, we had to learn to fight dirty. If we got cornered in Northern Ireland and did a Bruce Lee, they were going to say, "He knew what he was doing. It looked too clear and precise; there's something wrong." But if it just looked like a good old scrap with ears torn and noses bitten off, they'd think it was a run-of-the-mill street fight and nothing to do with the security forces.

  "And when it's done," Mick said, "the idea is not to stand over them, cross your arms, and wait for the applause. The idea is to fuck off as fast as you can."

  What we needed was, as always, speed, aggression, and surprise. "Once you've committed yourself to go for it, you must crack into it as hard as you can, apply maximum aggression, and get it done. If you dillydally, you'll go down, and once you're down, and somebody's on top of you, it's very difficult to turn things around. If the sixteen-stone monster gets you on the floor and is lying on top of you, it's going to be very difficult to get up again."

  He pointed at Tiny and said, "If he's on top of me, all I'm going to do is bite his nose off, and run like fuck."

  We learned how to use our weapons while being pushed against a wall or into a corner, or in a lift, or closed in on by a group of people. We learned how to use the weapon just as it came out of the holster; you don't need to be in a full on-the-range shooting position, just close enough to know you're going to hit what you're firing at.

  It has to be well practiced, however, if you don't want to land up shooting yourself. By the end of the session we were wet with sweat and covered with dirt and dust. For the others it was revision, but I was learning all this for the first time and really enjoying it.

  We learned how to get out of situations where people were aiming a pistol at us at close quarters. In the films I was used to seeing people with a pistol about a foot away from somebody, and they're saying, "If you move, I'm going to shoot you." In fact it's very simple:

  You just slap it out of the way and drop them. It's only got to move six inches and you're out of the line of aim. Even if they fire, it's going to miss. "Bang it out of the way," Mick said, "then use speed and aggression to get him down, get hold of the pistol, and decide whether you're going to shoot him with it or run."

  This phase included a lot of 'ap-slapping live on the range, where people would come up behind us, say, "Get your hands up!" and we had to fight our way out of it to a position where we were using them as cover and we were doing the firing.

  After a few days everybody was covered in bruises, lumps, and bumps. We moved on to the next stage, which was learning how to fight and shoot at the same time. We might be in a very closed environment but want to shoot some of the people around us.

  We might be in a shopping area, so we'd have to push people out of the way, maneuvering our way around them. We had to be looking for our targets, holding people down, yet still be firing.

  It might be that we were getting pushed around by a group of blokes.

  They're not exactly sure who we are at the moment, but we've decided we're not going to fight and go. This would be a terrorist situation, not just a couple of pissheads coming out of the pub looking for trouble. We'd have to decide when to draw our pistols and take these people down.

  . '. 'People who flap get killed," Mick said. "Make a decision about what you're going to do, every time. If you don't, you're going to die."

  He told us about a member of the Regiment who was operating in Londonderry. He had a job on where he had to go into a place called the Shantello, a large housing estate. He was on his own, wearing his pistol in the front of his trousers. As he was walking along, three players came out and began to follow him-not because they knew what he was, but simply because he was somebody strange they had seen getting out of a car and walking down one of the alleyways.

  As he neared the end of the alleyway, they came up behind him and gave him a push. The moment he felt it, he started to roll: "If you get pushed, you don't fall own on your knees; as soon as you feel that push, you know there's something wrong, so you're going to try to roll out of that and get into a position where you can fire."

  As the bloke rolled on his shoulder, he could see the problem behind: two boys with pistols. Still in the roll, he pulled his weapon out and shot two of them; the third one ran. The whole thing had taken no more than three seconds. The combination of jap-slapping-going with the shove-and the pistol drills, saved his life. He had a successful night.

  "You've got to remember what these people are going to do to you," Mick said. "If you look at the victims of the Shankill Butchers, you'll know that these people don't mess about. They start playing with you with electric drills and lumps of steel and rock."

  We were told that a lot of people in Northern Ireland had guns and were all macho with them, but it was the intention to use them that counted.

  Sometimes blokes had walked straight up to people with guns and disarmed them because they didn't know when to fire.

  We knew that every time we drew a pistol we must have the intention to use it; we were never to make a threat that we weren't going to carry out.

  Mick said, "It isn't enough to know how; you have. to know when.

  The intention to use the skills is as important as the skills themselves. Otherwise, in a place like Northern Ireland, you'd be drawing your pistol every five minutes, and that's just going to get you killed and compromise your operati
on.

  "Sometimes people will come up and say, 'Who the fuck are you?"

  Or people will stare at you the whole length of a street. You've got to have that Colgate air of confidence; it's your most important weapon."

  Walking through any of the housing estates over the water, we'd get the boys coming up. They might be coming out of their houses or just mincing around having a fag by the car. They'd look at us with their eyes, saying, "Who the fuck are you?" If we looked at the floor and thought, Oh, dear, I'd better get out of here, that would alert them- they wouldn't know who we were, or what we were, but they'd sense there was something wrong.

  "You don't draw your pistol," Mick said, rounding off the lesson.

  "You use your secret weapon: a good, loud Irish 'Fuck off!"-and nine times out of ten they'll take you as one of their own."

  Nosh said, "It's okay for you, you already have a bone accent."

  The training went on for weeks. We did everything from CTR skills to fast driving drills, shooting out of cars and shooting into cars, and I loved every minute of it.

  I was picked up at Belfast airport and driven to our location. The smells and sounds inside the building took me straight back to Crossmaglen: fried eggs and talcum powder, music and shouting. Four or five dogs mooched around the place, looking as if they got fed to no end.

  "Finished your leave, have you?" said a familiar voice behind me, followed by a resounding fart. "About fucking time. They said they were sending some wanker from the Green jackets."

  "Hello, Nosh." I grinned.

  He'd just come out of his room and was wearing a pair of jeans, flip-flops, and an old clinging T-shirt. His hair was sticking up, and there was a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. At least he had his teeth in.

  Brew?"

  I followed him over to the brew area just outside the living accommodation. The Burco boiler looked as if it was kept going twenty-four hours a day; next to it was a big box of NAAFI biscuits and jars of coffee and sugar.

  "How's the ice-cream boys then?" I said.

  I'd eventually solved the mystery of that nickname, discovering that the Air Troop had always had the piss taken out of them. Wherever there was a camera, said everybody else in the squadrons, the Air Troop would be posing in front of it-usually with shades and a deep tan. It stemmed from the way we had to operate. When there was troop training or squadron exercises, Mountain Troop would go and live on a mountain, Boat Troop might go down to the dark and murky waters of Poole Harbor and paddle about in the freezing cold, but we'd have to go where the clear skies were, and that happened to be where the sun and Cornettos were too, so a few jumps, then rig and jumpsuit off, get an ice cream and walk around in shorts and flip-flops, looking good. No one said it 'Would be easy. There was one exception, and that was G Squadron Air Troop, which was known as the Lonsdale Troop because they were forever fighting one another. They even fought a pitched battle on a petrol station forecourt one day because they couldn't agree about who should get out of the minibus and do the filling up.

  "Seen anybody yet?" Nosh said. "The ops room is up the top there. just leave your kit here. Fuck knows where you're sleeping. I think you're going in Steve's room. But if you go upstairs and see who's up there, they'll be able to sort you out. Tiny got his bike nicked in London, so he's really fucking pleased about thatmake sure you ask him about it because he gets all bitter and twisted. What's even worse, I'm living with him now, and he hates it. Got to go now, Blockbusters is on."

  Nosh, I discovered that evening, after finding myself a bed space in Steve's room, was still a nose-picking exmember of the civilized human race, living in a disgusting world of gunge. If he didn't like something on the television, he picked his nose and flicked the bogey at the screen. The glass was covered with things.

  "He's decided he wants to learn the guitar," said Frank. "He spends all his free time knocking out 'Dueling Banjos." Not that you'll be able to tell. It sounds like 'Colonel Bogey' to me."

  "Talking of which," Steve said to me, "don't look inside the guitar."

  "Why not?"

  "Just don't."

  I did. To judge by the volume of the crop, it was a miracle Nosh's head hadn't caved in.

  Besides fatting, picking his nose, and strumming, his other passion in life was eggy-weggies and Marmite soldiers. Every night he'd go to the cookhouse to get his boiled eggs and Marmite toast; then he'd come back, do the crossword, watch the telly, have a fag and a fart, and go to sleep.

  Johnny Two-Combs was also with us, from Boat Troop. There still wasn't a hair out of place. The last time I'd seen him was in a bar in Hereford. He was wearing a black polo-neck jumper, a yellow shirt over that, and black trousers. He went up to a girl and said, eyes half closed and half flickering, doing his best Robert De Niro, "I just want to tell you that you have the most beautiful eyes."

  It was the most ridiulous chat-up line I'd ever heard.

  Half an hour later he was escorting her into a cab.

  Colin had been in charge of the troop when I went to Malaya.

  Getting words out of him was still like drawing teeth; it would just be a sniff and "That was good," or a sniff and "That was shit."

  Eno had been on my first Selection and passed, getting in six months before me. He was from the Queen's Regiment, a rarity in the Regiment.

  Predictably, everybody spoke to him in a camp voice but for some inexplicable reason also shouted, "Three queens, three queens," whenever they saw him. A thin little midget, Eno was a tremendous racing snake, heavily into triathlons. He smoked twenty a day but was so fit that at one championship he stood at the start line with a fag in his mouth.

  "Got to spark myself up, ain't I?" he said. Eno was very much like Colin, never flapped, never got excited, and you had to beat him up to have a conversation.

  Jock was there, too, whom I'd met on Selection. There seemed to be no compromise with him. He had a policy of working really hard, being incredibly serious at work; then when it was fun time, it was outrageous fun time.

  We were at a squadron party once; he went up to the colonel's wife, and he said, "Do you fancy a dance?"

  She said, "Yes, that would be lovely," so Jock walked her onto the middle of the dance floor, pulled out a Michael Jackson mask, and taught her to moon-walk.

  Frank Collins was still Mr. Calm and Casual. He never shouted, never got annoyed. Steve told me he had been one of the youngest soldiers in the Regiment when he did the embassy in 1980. From the first night of the siege he and the rest of the assault team were ready on the roof, dressed in full black kit and expecting the order to go in at any moment. It must have been tense stuffbut not for Frank.

  Apparently he was so relaxed he took a pillow with him to snooze away an hour or two. I knew he was into climbing, canoeing, free fall, and religion, and I found out he was being called Joseph at this stage because he was into carpentry as well.

  "You'll never see Frank when there's nothing going on," Nosh said.

  "He'll be doing the family business."

  He was going down to one of the local timber yards and making tables and cupboards and things that he was going to be taking back to the UK for his house. In fact they were quite good-big kitchen tables and things.

  I was lying on my bed one day, scratching my arse and drinking tea, when Frank came in said, "You bored, or what?"

  "Yeah, I'm doing nothing, just hanging around."

  I "Do you want something to read?"

  "Yeah, what you got?"

  "I've got something with sex, violence, intrigue, you name it, it's got it."

  "Okay, yeah, I'll have a read of it."

  So Frank went to his room, fetched the book, and tossed it onto my bed.

  It was the Bible.

  I'd turned up with big wide eyes. One of the first things I had to do was familiarize myself with the various weapons. Over the water at that time they were using the Heckler & Koch family and the LMG-the old Bren gun, converted to 7.62-as well as GPMGS.
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  Pistols were 9MM Brownings and the Walther PPK, known as the disco gun because it was nice and small and therefore easy to conceal.

  If I didn't want to carry my Browning when I was out and about but not working, I could slip the disco gun into my belt.

  Most people would have an M16 or 203, an HK53 5.56 men or MPS, so that whatever job we were doing we could take the relevant weapon-whatever gave the right balance between concealment and firepower.

  I was talking to Tiny in the armory. Every day the weapons had to be checked, and Tiny, the armorer for that day, was showing me the ropes.

  ' "What's the score on this shoot-to-kill policy I keep on hearing about?" I said, half expecting him to say, "Hose the lot down."

  "Is there fuck such a thing?" he said. "If there was, we wouldn't still be here. We'd be back home and they'd be dead. We know where they all are. If someone was giving the green light, we'd just go in and take-them out."

  "Very clear-cut," I said.

  "And totally counterproductive. It's little things like that that bring down governments. Of course at the same time there can't be a shoot-to-wound policy either." Tiny went on. "It would take a laser gun that was self-guiding to the shoulder to do that shit. People's perceptions of what goes on are so wrong. I remember after the embassy, when we were making our statements, there were all these questions coming up, commentators on the TV saying, 'Why didn't they just shoot him in the leg?" How the fuck can you shoot to wound somebody?

  It's impossible. You can't say, if somebody's a hundred meters away, 'Right, I'm going to shoot him in the legs." You just see a mass of body, and if he's shooting at you, you're going to shoot back at him.

  It, s not a shoot-tokill policy; it's just reacting to the threat. The problem is, the people who make these sort of comments have never had a gun pointed at them."

  I knew that if I was staring down a barrel, I wasn't going to be firing at their legs. If thiqy ended up just wounded, they'd be lucky.