Down Among the Weeds

by Harry Beaves

  I was extremely nervous as this was the most junior MA, but there was no way out. Barbara looked up from the corner and a vengeful smile crossed her lips. The MA approached with a needle at least ten inches long, trailing a long length of hawser. ‘Just a slight sting, sir,’ as he plunged the needle in. The hawser rasped as he dragged it through the flesh and he drew the wound together and I recoiled down into the chair.

  Barbara drove me home with a silent smile of satisfaction and I was allowed a cup of cocoa with my reheated Chinese meal.

  The next day was the last working day before Christmas and, as always, involved a general tidy-up before the Battery ‘fell out’ around midday. The junior MA had filled my lip with stitches that would have looked untidy on a mail bag. They ran in a line slightly above the moustache, had long ends and, to cap it all, were a pale blue. The jungle drums had told of my trip to the Medical Centre, but none of the soldiers knew the cause of the accident so I spent most of the time ‘busy’ in my office. Together with the officers and seniors, I was nursing a hangover that would have killed a mere mortal.

  At midday George Malcolm assembled the Battery and, with due formality, handed the parade over to me for the customary pre-Christmas address. This follows a similar format every year along the lines of, ‘Well done and thank you for all your work last year… look forward to a busy and exciting time next year… have a very happy Christmas and remember, don’t drink and drive.’ The Battery looked and listened, eyes focussed questioningly on the scruffy blue stitches in my top lip. I delivered the standard message and ended with the words. ‘… and remember if you go for a drink, don’t drive home. Because if I can do this on a bicycle, think what you can do to yourselves in a fast moving car.’ I don’t think I ever delivered that message more effectively!

  We all went home to begin our Christmas leave and after lunch I took the dog for a walk, not along the beach, as normal, but towards the Chinese take-away. I noticed a VW campervan parked outside one of the houses and as I walked by I cautiously looked more closely at the back of it. Something had rubbed against the mud and dirt on the rear panel, but there looked to be no damage done. Relieved, I walked on, wondering if, since this was my third drunken-cycling incident, I might have some diagnosable problem.

  Poole was a place where the unusual frequently happened. One Wednesday I was playing rugby for Royal Marines, Poole against HMS Sultan in the Navy Cup. We ran out of the changing rooms to discover a helicopter standing right in front of the posts. ‘Typical bloody air crew, can’t be bothered to park their chopper on the proper dayglo-painted landing site, have to park on the sports field.’ The Provo Sgt was standing by with the Fire Piquet and he told us the passengers would only be a few minutes.

  We threw the ball around and waited until a group of important-looking people, headed by a batch of senior Royal Marines officers, approached from behind the Sergeants’ Mess. At this point we stood in a line, arms folded, scowling like a team facing the Haka. Then, as they got into the aircraft, we noticed amongst them a diminutive lady with striking fair hair and blue eyes who had been visiting from her office in Downing Street. Delaying the kick-off of a Navy Cup rugby match is a serious error, even for a Prime Minister!

  For all the highly professional attitude to the job we still liked to cultivate the image. On one occasion we had jumped on to Everleigh DZ on Salisbury Plain. The teams had shaken out and were moving off to their deployment areas which left BSM George Malcolm and me with time to spare before we had to open radio coms, so we nipped off to a little transport café in Tidworth.

  The place was empty, but we made our entrance – square-jawed, green berets at just the right angle and para smocks be-decked with wings and other parachuting insignia. ‘Two egg banjos and two teas please, miss,’ said George.

  The young girl busied herself with the task, regularly looking up in what we took to be admiration. She probably just didn’t recognise us as from a local unit and eventually her curiosity got the better of her. ‘Where’ve you boys cumfrum?’ she said in her cheery Wiltshire accent.

  George fixed her with a steely airborne stare and, without batting an eyelid said in his Scottish accent, ‘Oota the sky!’ Wow, two egg banjos on our way to Valhalla and neither of us could make five foot eight inches in DMS boots. Wide-eyed, she made the tea.

  It is always good to beat the system, particularly when in doing so you help one of your mates. Les Simpson’s application to join the SAS was a good example of this.

  Each Observation Party in 148 Battery included a Royal Navy Radio Operator who was responsible for specialist communications with the ships. At that time a total of eight were serving with the Battery. They completed the same training as all the other members, including the Parachute Course and the Commando Course. They were often square pegs in round holes in the Navy, but we provided a square hole and, almost to a man, they were popular and highly regarded by us all. They were drafted to the Battery for five years, but the problem came when they had completed their tour of duty, as few of them wanted to go back to sea. Some left the Navy, several others transferred to the Army; one of these, ‘Benny’ Benfield, spent thirteen years in the Navy reaching the rank of Petty Officer, transferred to the Royal Artillery and spent another thirteen years as a Sergeant before he finally left us to become a special communicator with GCHQ.

  Radio Superviser (RS) Les Simpson (not his real name) was an excellent man who had been promoted while he had been with us. The Navy saw him as a bright young NCO and wanted to send him to sea to consolidate his newly awarded rank. Like most of the sailors in 148 Battery, the mere thought of sea service turned him green, so he put in an application to attend for SAS selection. I had a long chat with him and he was very positive about what he was doing. At the time there were six ex-members of the Battery serving with the SAS (remarkable for a unit with a strength of about forty) so he had a good idea of just what was involved.

  I forwarded his application and the SAS, who rarely turn away volunteers, accepted him for the next selection course. Off he went and we waited to see how long he would last. We heard on the grapevine that he was doing well and some weeks later I received a call from the Training Officer at Hereford. ‘This chap Simpson, of yours, we like him and he’s doing very well, but he’s in the Navy.’

  ‘Yes. You accepted him.’

  ‘I know, but, if he is going to join us he will have to transfer to the Army.’

  ‘OK,’ I stalled. ‘Well, I can’t do that. You’ll have to speak to the drafting officer at HMS Centurion.’ I gave him the phone number.

  Some days later I received an ear-singeing call from HMS Centurion. ‘… What the hell did I think I was doing sending one of his sailors to the SAS?’

  I apologised and said that I thought I could send any of the members of my Battery on any course that I saw fit. I was told to get Simpson’s application to transfer with all of his documents to Centurion straight away.

  That weekend Simpson came back to Poole. He had passed Test Week, the first major hurdle, and was about to go back for Resistance to Interrogation, the next hurdle, before Continuation Training, on successful completion of which he would be ‘badged’ as a member of 22 SAS Regiment. We had a long chat and a good laugh about ‘Draftie’s’ reaction, but there was one quite serious problem. He was still a long way from being accepted by the SAS, but he was being asked to transfer into the Army, a very serious commitment. I remember his words: ‘The last thing I want is to fail selection and find myself a Corporal in the Parachute Regiment in Aldershot.’ Indeed not.

  He would have to transfer eventually, but we decided to do all we could to delay matters and create some breathing space. He filled in the transfer application, I promised not to send it off until he gave me the nod, and I put it to the bottom of my ‘Pending’ tray.

  A couple of weeks later I got another call from Hereford. ‘Young Simpson’s done well. Any news on his transfer?’

  ‘No. You’ll have to speak to Cen
turion.’

  Then a week later a call from Centurion. ‘Any news on Simpson’s transfer app?’

  ‘No, I need his signature and he’s away at Hereford and I can’t get hold of him.’

  There were several phone calls over the next few weeks and my excuses were growing thinner and thinner. Then came the call I was waiting for. ‘Hi, Boss, it’s me. I’m in. You can send my docs off now.’

  Brilliant! I took his documents from the ‘Pending‘ tray, placed them in an envelope and dropped them in the ‘Out’ tray, and in due course RS Simpson became Trooper Simpson of 22nd SAS Regiment. The system was well and truly beaten and Les Simpson became (I believe) the first sailor ever to serve with 22 SAS. He did so with distinction, rising to the rank of WO1 and eventually serving as an RSM, and if I helped put his foot on the first rung of the ladder then I am immensely proud.

  If I was enjoying life back in 148 Battery, then the family enjoyed life in Poole just as much. Our quarter was just outside the camp and had a large garden, ideal for football, climbing frames and all manner of paraphernalia. It was a stone’s throw from the scruffy little beach at Rockley Sands so that most summer days the boys could play by the sea.

  There were always interesting things going on with the Royal Marines for them to see and on one occasion I came home after a few days away and Barbara said to them, ‘Have you told Daddy what happened yesterday?’

  ‘What?’ asked John.

  ‘You know. In the garden.’

  ‘What about the garden?’

  ‘You know… In the garden… Yesterday afternoon…’

  ‘Oh, a parachutist landed in the garden, Dad,’ he said obligingly and then went back to his toys.

  The previous day a member of the Royal Marines Free Fall Parachute Display Team, who were practising at the camp, had misjudged the wind, decided he wasn’t going to land safely on the sports field so had decided to touch down on our back lawn, draping his ’chute over Barbara’s washing line. The Beaves brothers had a wonderfully exciting life. They had sat in a helicopter, ridden on a rigid inflatable, seen parachutists close-up and done many other similar exciting things before they had even started school!

  When they did start at the playschool in the Camp, Barbara went along as a ‘mum helper’ and when they began at Hamworthy First School she did the same. She loved being back and soon began picking up the occasional day of supply teaching.

  * * *

  In December 1982 my father died of a heart attack. He had been diagnosed with angina many years earlier, but in those days coronary bypass and coronary stents, things which today would have prolonged his life, hadn’t been fully developed, nor were they generally available.

  My father with John.

  In 1971, at the time that Stella got married he had a breakdown and was admitted to the Old Manor Hospital in Salisbury. I firmly believe that he should have been given some sort of counselling much earlier after my mother’s death, though his problems, quite likely, lay rooted even further back in his past. In hospital he had been given Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), a treatment where the patient is sedated and a strong electric current is passed through the brain. When I visited him on one occasion he told me he had been talking to the doctors about Burma and how it had been ‘in the jungle’. I suspect that his experiences during that period were at the heart of the problem and were his ‘submarine’. My mother’s death was another massive unshared trauma and he had hung on valiantly for several years before events finally overwhelmed him.

  My father on his last day in the Wiltshire Constabularly.

  He came out of hospital and resumed his normal life as a carpenter, having retired from the Wiltshire Constabulary some years earlier, but Stella and I both felt his personality had been changed by ECT. I have no idea how his treatment was supposed to work, but his attitude to many things had altered completely and he was just not the abrasive old dad that we knew – and loved.

  One radical change indicative of his new positive thinking was his decision to go out and find a second wife, something that in the years that followed my mother’s death would have been unthinkable. In 1975 he married Freda Groome, a widow who in physical description was very similar to my mother, but even then his troubles were not over. In 1980 Freda died unexpectedly of bowel cancer, a condition that had not been diagnosed. Her death was sudden and gruesome and yet another highly traumatic experience for my father, but, as ever, he coped manfully with it and somehow carried on. His remaining years were happy and he was immensely proud of his little grandsons and loved to play with them.

  But never again would I receive that manly handshake.

  * * *

  My posting to Poole was for two years and to our great delight it was extended by another year, but eventually I would have to go into another office job to stay within the career pattern. I had avoided the drudgery of service in BAOR since leaving 19 Regiment, but I thought if the next job was likely to be dull, then we might as well enjoy a fat, dumb and happy duty-free lifestyle so I asked to go to Germany. An order arrived posting me to the G1 Branch of HQ 3rd Armoured Division in Soest. The job involved the welfare and conditions of service of the soldier and his family. If a soldier had welfare problems in 148 Battery we posted him – simple. Now I was going to spend my time wiping noses, back as far away from the weeds as it was possible.

  I made the most of my last few months in Poole and for my final exercise with the Battery I took them to the La Courtine Training area in the Massif Central of France. Unfortunately we had to return from France directly to 29 Commando Regiment’s practice camp at Wathgill in Yorkshire (nothing like as warm or attractive as France!). As usual I was keen to do something out of the ordinary, particularly as it was my swansong. Commando Forces at that time had a particular emphasis on Nuclear Biological and Chemical (NBC) training and I had heard it was possible to parachute in full NBC kit, including respirators (gas masks). I spoke to our RAF Parachute Jumping Instructors (PJIs) and they were very apprehensive. It could be done, but they felt it would be dangerous because the respirator would limit the vision you had when you needed to look down at your feet to judge your height as you came in to land. They had never actually done it themselves, but agreed to let us give it a try.

  For the final exercise I wrote an exercise narrative in which the enemy had an NBC capability and included an ‘exfiltration’ phase so that the Observation Teams were extracted covertly by vehicle to the grassy edge of the airport at Clermont Ferrand. An RAF Hercules landed and taxied across to where we were waiting. The lads drew and fitted parachutes and were beginning to relax a little as they could guess that we were going to drop back in to Yorkshire and it would be ENDEX. I went on board the aircraft with the BSM to meet the air crew and chat about what we were going to do.

  The PJI gave us the standard safety brief, described the layout of the DZ at Wathgill, then, at the end, he took a piece of paper that I had given him, from his pocket and read, ‘The Captain of the aircraft received a radio message on the way over saying that the enemy have escalated their activities and have threatened to explode a chemical device in Yorkshire. As a result Wathgill is now at NBC State Amber.’

  With that the BSM said, ‘OK, lads, that’s it. Get your NBC suits on.’ The ‘we’re going home’ atmosphere evaporated in an instant and worried faces began to wonder just what it might entail. ‘Surely the BC wouldn’t make us parachute in full NBC kit, that would be daft and ****ing dangerous.’

  The pale-faced members of 148 Battery embarked on the Hercules, each man wearing his parachute over his NBC suit and carrying his respirator. The only way I could ask the Battery to do something risky like jumping in NBC kit was to lead from the front and be first out of the door myself, so I was last on the aircraft with my four-man stick. Flying in a Hercules is hot, noisy and uncomfortable at the best of times. Dressed in an NBC suit and trussed in a parachute harness, it was doubly so.

  Our expected flight time was a bit more than two ho
urs, and about forty minutes out from Yorkshire the Captain came on the loud speaker and announced, ‘The DZ Safety Officer (DZSO) reports the weather is clear, wind gusting, but within limits.’ Then a little later he announced. ‘We have just been informed that a chemical device has been exploded on Wathgill. NBC State Red.’ It was what everyone was dreading, the instruction to put on our respirators.

  Wearing full NBC kit about to make my final parachute jump with 148 Battery.

  The aircraft made its final approach and, as it circled, the tailgate was lowered. The PJI stood the first stick of parachutists up and we hooked up to the static line. We shuffled forward to the edge of the tailgate with me in the lead and I wondered just how I had got such a hare-brained idea. Then all at once it was ‘Red on. Green on. Go.’ And I was away.

  My ’chute opened and I struggled to do my checks with the limited vision caused by my respirator. The DZ at Wathgill ran along the top of a high hill and I registered the track running down the centre which the PJI had described in the safety brief. At the end of the track was the DZ RV with several vehicles and dozens of people, including the CO, who had gathered to watch the drop, but something was wrong. We were screaming through the sky at a hell of a lick and I quickly realised we were passing over the DZ RV and heading off the DZ altogether. I should have added that, though the top of the hill was flat, the sides sloped away with alarming steepness.

  Coming in to land I was faced with two choices, take a slower backwards landing facing the wind, but down a very steep slope or take an easier side landing down the steep slope with the wind adding to my momentum. I probably did something between the two and hit the ground unprepared with an almighty clatter in a manner that the parachute fraternity refers to as ‘heels-arse-head-hospital’. There was a searing pain in my right ankle and the wind filled my ’chute and dragged me on down the slope. I finally managed to collapse my ’chute and lay panting, unable to see as my respirator had been pulled upwards as I was dragged on my face. Willing hands helped me out of my harness and supported me as I hopped on one leg all the way to the ambulance which could not get down the steep slope to me.