Soldier L: The Embassy Siege

by Shaun Clarke

  Even so, while the men had found this form of training exciting, or frightening, in the early days, by now it had become too familiar to present any novelty. To make their frustration more acute, once the figures had been ‘stitched’ with bullets, or the room ‘cleared’ of terrorists, the men then had to paste paper patches over the holes in the figures, using a paste-brush and brown paper, in order that the targets could be used again by those following them. Because they had to do this mundane task themselves – even though they were firing real weapons, exploding ISFE, and hurling stun grenades – they became increasingly bored as they made their way through the various rooms of the killing house.

  Their irritation was made all the worse by the fact that a day of such training led not only to sweaty exhaustion, but to raging headaches from the acrid pall of smoke and lead fumes which filled the killing house. So, when finally they had completed their ‘rescue’ and could stumble out into the fresh air, they were immensely relieved.

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ Danny Boy said later, as they were showering in the ablutions of the spider. ‘If I don’t get killed accidentally by one of you bastards during those exercises, I’ll be killed by the fucking boredom of doing them over and over again.’

  ‘They don’t bore me,’ Bobs-boy said. ‘I just hate the CRW suits and body armour and helmet and mask. I feel buried alive in them.’

  ‘You feel buried alive because you’re like the walking dead,’ GG taunted him. ‘You’re as limp as your dick, kid.’

  ‘Nightmares!’ Danny Boy exclaimed.

  ‘Dreams,’ Bobs-boy corrected him.

  ‘All I know,’ GG said, ‘is that we haven’t done a real job since Northern Ireland and we’ve now had four years of bullshit. One more run through that bloody killing house and I’m all set for the knacker’s yard.’

  ‘Or Ward 11 of the British Army Psychiatric Unit,’ Danny Boy said, ‘like Sergeant “Ten Pints and a Knuckle Sandwich” Inman.’

  ‘Sergeant Inman was in a psychiatric ward?’ the relatively new Bobs-boy asked incredulously.

  ‘Correct,’ GG replied. ‘Oman, Belfast, Hong Kong and then straight into the horrors of Ward 11, where – I have it on the best authority – he made the insane look sane.’

  ‘But Sergeant Inman’s supposed to be one of the best soldiers in the Regiment,’ Bobs-boy said, looking even more puzzled.

  ‘He is,’ Danny Boy replied. ‘He just happens to have a couple of little problems that have to be sorted out.’

  ‘And they let him stay on with the Regiment?’ Bobs-boy asked, stupefied.

  ‘Right,’ GG said. ‘He likes a pint – or twenty – followed up by a dust-up. He’s only unhappy when he’s not fighting.’

  ‘Not giving knuckle sandwiches, you understand,’ Danny Boy added. ‘By fighting, we mean doing our job, which isn’t scrapping in pubs.’

  ‘And the fact that we haven’t done that since Northern Ireland,’ GG said, ‘which is all of four years ago, is what’s driving us – and Sergeant Inman – mad.’

  ‘He’s with the Commandos at the moment,’ Bobs-boy said. ‘That should keep him happy.’

  ‘It doesn’t keep me happy,’ Danny Boy said. ‘One more run around that fucking killing house and I’m going to kill myself.’

  ‘Hey, you lot!’ Jock bellowed as he entered the ablutions and looked in disgust at the naked men under the steaming showers.

  ‘The Head Shed,’ the staff-sergeant told them, referring to their Commanding Officer, ‘has just received a message from the Kremlin – the intelligence section at Regimental HQ, in case you new boys don’t remember. They told him, through the Metropolitan Police, that a group of armed terrorists has taken over the Iranian Embassy. The Bedfords will get us there in three hours, so get your bare arses out of those showers and cover them up and get ready. We leave in one hour.’

  Dripping wet and naked as the day they were born, the three men cheered and clapped at the news.

  4

  In the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre in Devon, SAS Sergeant Inman, formerly with the Royal Engineers, now thirty-eight years of age, was frog-marched between two NCO Military Policemen into an office where the Commanding Officer of the base, Lieutenant-Colonel William Fairworth, was seated behind his desk, studying the notes before him and sardonically raising his eyebrows at the SAS sergeant sitting in a wooden chair beside him. When Sergeant Inman had snapped to attention between the two MPs and saluted the CO, the latter stared steadily at him before saying: ‘At ease, Sergeant.’

  Inman stood at ease. Lieutenant-Colonel Fairworth glanced at the notes, then looked up and said: ‘Drunk and disorderly again, Sergeant. This is no laughing matter.’

  ‘Beg to differ, sir, but the other man threw the first punch, so I’d no choice in the matter.’

  ‘You’re being disingenuous, Sergeant. What matters is not who threw the first punch, but who started the argument.’

  ‘He insulted the Regiment, boss.’

  ‘Sir!’ SAS Sergeant Shannon snapped. ‘You are talking to the Commando CO – not the SAS. We don’t use the word “boss” here.’

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant. Keep forgetting.’

  ‘You forget a bit too much for my liking,’ Fairworth said, glancing down at the report again. ‘Such as respect for the traditions of other regiments, which is why you get into trouble in pubs.’

  ‘I can’t help myself, sir.’

  That much was true. Sergeant Inman had been on the sniper course for only a fortnight, but during that time he had been brought back by the MPs three or four times, either for plain drunkenness or for fighting in some pub or other. In fact, he was bored out of his mind and had had enough of the Commandos. He wanted to go back to Hereford with the men and routines he knew and loved.

  ‘You have an interesting track record, Sergeant Inman. Royal Engineers, then with the SAS in Oman, Belfast and Hong Kong, always with commendable results. Unfortunately, you appear to be unable to get anything right once you’re in a non-fighting environment. This has led to psychiatric problems that were treated – supposedly successfully.

  Sergeant Inman winced, having hoped that the Royal Marine Commando CO would not have been informed of his little experience in the psychiatric unit of the British Army.

  Well, fuck it, he thought. He should never have been sent there in the first place. Or, perhaps he should have been, since the psychiatrists were even madder than the patients, though with much less reason.

  He had his reasons, after all. He had been suffering from the exhaustion of a long run of ugly business: first the assault on the Jebel Massif in Oman, then Operation Jaguar, also in Oman, then the now legendary Battle of Mirbat, which even to this day gave him bad dreams and soaked his sheets in sweat.

  Some good men had died there. Their deaths had been gruesome. To make matters worse, the survivors had been returned to a Britain that did not know they existed – neither them nor the battle.

  Of course, that was the SAS way. Anonymity was everything. Nevertheless, Inman had found it pretty odd to have fought such a mighty battle, such a bloody affair, only to return home to an official silence that had made him feel worthless.

  Exhaustion – certainly. But also something much more than that: the emptiness of not being recognized, of being cast aside, combined with the terminal boredom of having nothing to do in a non-combatant environment.

  True enough, Inman was already feeling depleted when they sent him to Northern Ireland and the Q cars and covert observation. A right nasty job, that one. By the time he returned again to the SAS Sports and Social Club in Redhill, Hereford, he had killed too many in CQB and was feeling sick to his soul.

  Of course by that time, also, he needed it and could not live without it … Which is why he had taken up drinking and getting into the odd fight. This, in its turn, was why he had ended up in Ward 11 with all those barmy shrinks.

  So how did he deal with this matter when facing a Royal Marines Commando CO who did not k
now about his traumas and probably resented the SAS anyway?

  Be bold. Who dares wins.

  ‘Not supposedly, sir,’ Inman replied boldly. ‘The treatment was one hundred per cent successful.’

  ‘That may be the case, but I have to warn you, Sergeant, that your habit of drunken fights, table-smashing and insubordination is not being applauded. The fact that you’re a particularly good soldier in battle conditions is not going to save you if, as I think is happening, you start being seen as an over-the-hill, alcoholic troublemaker.’

  ‘I’m not alcoholic, sir,’ Inman said, as bold as brass. ‘I only drink too much when I’m not fighting – overseas with the Regiment, that is.’

  ‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’ Sergeant Shannon asked.

  ‘No, Sarge. The plain, unvarnished truth. No amount of training or retraining will keep me satisfied. I need a real operation.’

  Though both men were sergeants, Shannon was in this case acting as second in command to the CO.

  ‘We can’t create operations just for you, Sergeant. You’re thirty-eight and experienced enough to know that at this stage of your career most of your time will be taken up with training, retraining and guard duties. You should count yourself lucky that, given your age, not to mention your psychiatric history, you were still chosen for this Commando sniper course rather than cross-graining the bukits for the nth time on the Pen-y-Fan.’

  Why the fuck don’t you just stop yapping, Inman thought, and send me back to the Regiment, where I belong? I won’t beat up any of your bloody Commandos, then. I’ll be a good little boy.

  ‘I do appreciate that, sir, but I just can’t get my act together here. I feel all out of sorts.’

  ‘You’ve always felt out of sorts,’ Shannon snorted. ‘That’s why you had psychiatric treatment. You can’t adjust to anything but war. I’d call that unhealthy.’

  ‘Quite so,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Fairworth said, glancing again at the report lying open on his desk. ‘The evidence certainly indicates that you’re totally unsuitable to a peacetime Army, whether it be in the Royal Engineers, the SAS or here. I’m thinking of recommending that you be RTU’d back to the Royal Engineers and there put up for summary discharge from the service.’

  ‘Please don’t do that, sir.’ Now Inman was seriously worried that he might have overstepped the mark. This was a Commando officer – not a member of the SAS. In the latter Regiment, a tolerance for individual eccentricities was customary and Inman had survived many an episode for that very reason. Though aware of his own explosive tensions, his tendency to become rapidly bored, and his irresistible need to release his frustrations with bouts of heavy drinking and fighting, he was unable to control these impulses and knew that they would get him into serious trouble sooner or later. That time might have come. The very thought of being thrown out of the Regiment filled him with panic. ‘I promise to control myself in the future and concentrate on the training,’ he mumbled.

  ‘I’ll personally guarantee that he does that,’ Shannon said. Having served with Inman in Oman and Belfast, he admired him as a soldier and felt a great deal of loyalty towards him. He and Inman had been through a lot together and that counted for something. Also, regardless of his many faults, Inman was a damned good soldier who deserved to stay with the Regiment. ‘I’ll do it if I have to work him into the ground. He won’t get time to make a fool of himself again. Put him under my wing, sir.’

  Fairworth studied Inman’s report, shook his head wearily, then gently closed the manila folder. Turning to Shannon, he said: ‘That’s an admirable offer, Sergeant, but I’m afraid I have to reject it. Sergeant Inman has done this once too often for my liking and is, I believe, now too old to mend his ways.’ He looked directly at Inman. ‘It’s my intention to terminate your four weeks here and send you back to Hereford with the recommendation that you be RTU’d with a view to discharge. I’m sorry, but I …’

  The CO was cut off in mid-sentence by the telephone. Picking it up, he listened intently for some time, then slammed it down again.

  ‘The Iranian Embassy in London has just been seized by terrorists,’ he said. ‘Your Regiment is on stand-by. You’re both to leave immediately for Hereford.’ He closed the folder and handed it to Shannon when the latter stood smartly and approached the desk. Lieutenant-Colonel Fairworth smiled tightly at Inman.

  ‘Lucky you,’ he said softly.

  ‘Thank you, sir!’ Inman responded, snapping off a crisp salute, then gratefully turning away and following the excited Shannon out of the office. Once outside, the latter turned to his old mate and gave him a wicked grin.

  ‘Fairworth wasn’t kidding,’ he said. ‘You really are one lucky bastard.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Inman replied. ‘So what’s the story, Paddy?’

  ‘As I’m already an expert sniper,’ Shannon replied, ‘which is why I was teaching a prat like you, I’m bound to be in the perimeter containment group. As for you, since you’ve just been swilled out of the Commando sniper course, you’ll almost certainly be back with one of the assault groups, which places you in the front line of fire. Just where you belong, you fucking lunatic.’

  ‘Trust a Paddy to recognize a soul mate. So when do we leave?’

  ‘The Bedfords are being prepared right now. We pack up and move out within the hour.’

  ‘Sounds like heaven,’ Inman said as both men walked away from the HQ, revitalized by the thought of packing up and going back to their own world.

  5

  ‘As you all know by now,’ the Controller said to his men in a briefing room in the Kremlin, the intelligence wing of the SAS HQ in Hereford, ‘the Iranian Embassy was occupied this morning by six Iranian terrorists trained and armed in Baghdad. They’re armed with two Skorpion W263 Polish sub-machine-guns, three Browning self-loading pistols, one .38 Astra revolver and five Russian RGD5 hand-grenades. As far as we know, they have a lot of ammunition.’

  ‘We’ve got a lot of ammunition as well,’ the CRW Red Team leader, Staff-Sergeant Bill Harrison, said. ‘That’s not our major anxiety, boss.’

  ‘So what is?’

  ‘Their motive.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the motive tells us how they might react.’

  ‘Very good, Staff-Sergeant.’ The Controller smiled in his quietly understated public-school manner. ‘The stated purpose of their mission is to publicize the plight of Arabs in Iran and to demand the freedom of 92 political prisoners held in that country.’

  ‘Is that generally believed?’ asked the head of the Blue Team, Staff-Sergeant ‘Jock’ Thompson.

  The Controller shook his head. ‘No. It’s our belief that Saddam Hussein, a gangster of a politician, wants back the eastern half of the Shatt-al-Arab boundary with Iran, ceded to that country in 1975. It’s also our belief that following the successful Iranian seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran, Saddam is using the seizure of the Iranian Embassy in London as his own display of strength to the Arab world.’

  ‘Who’s in charge of negotiations with the terrorists?’ Blue Team’s Sergeant Inman asked, always keen to smell the meat of the matter.

  ‘As this is a political matter, the operation is in the hands of the Cabinet Office Briefing Room, COBR – pronounced like the snake. This top-level committee also includes representatives of the police, MI5 and, of course, this Regiment. In other words, we have a direct channel to the top of the decision-making pyramid and operational links with the police at the location of the siege.’

  ‘So they decide when we go in – not us,’ the contentious sergeant said.

  ‘Correct.’

  Nothing about Inman bothered the Controller, even if it bothered a lot of others in the Regiment. In fact, the Controller’s considerable respect for Inman’s talents had compelled him to drag him back for special training in CRW skills. Though Inman had made no bones about hating the necessarily repetitive training in the ‘killing house’, the Controller had not been disappointed.

>   Inman, with his special brand of sharp-edged aggressiveness, had proved himself as a CRW natural. Now, though he was grinning in a challenging manner at the Controller, the latter was merely amused and responded with the simple, albeit deadly, facts.

  ‘This being a political matter,’ he said, ‘we have to remain neutral and use force only when no other options are left. We’ll be informed when that time comes. Meanwhile, it’s the police who’ll negotiate with the terrorists. Initially we remain on the sidelines.’

  ‘We’re supposed to be an anonymous Regiment, boss,’ Staff-Sergeant Harrison said. ‘Seems to me that if we go into that Embassy we’ll be doing so right in front of TV cameras, radio commentators and the international news media. That puts us in the spotlight.’

  ‘Again, we’ve no choice,’ said the Controller with a shrug. ‘Besides, the days when the Regiment only operated overseas are already over. For the past few years London has become a battleground for numerous Middle East terrorist groups, so we’ve no choice but to tackle them on home ground. If they wear civilian clothing, so will we; it’s a new form of warfare.’

  ‘Do you think the terrorists can be talked out of the Embassy by the police?’ The question, surprisingly, came from Red Team’s Lance-Corporal Phil McArthur, not normally noted for putting himself forward. Sitting beside his closest Red Team friends, Troopers Alan Pyle, Ken Passmore and Danny ‘Baby Face’ Porter, he was visibly embarrassed even as he asked the question. Danny, nick named ‘Baby Face’ because he looked like the cowboy hero Audie Murphy and was just as deadly, was embarrassed by nothing.

  ‘Personally, I doubt it,’ the Controller said. ‘Those terrorists were making their plans in London when uncensored television reports of the Desert One disaster, in which the US Delta Force – widely viewed as our cousin – left eight dead in burning helicopters in their failed attempt to rescue American hostages from Tehran. The terrorists would almost certainly have seen those televised reports. To them, the American disaster would have been a good omen. So, no, I don’t think they’ll be talked out of there.’