Knife Edge: Life as a Special Forces Surgeon Read online

  Fortunately, Jim was successful. Though he had left the Hercules after me, he had landed well before me. After my own, very inept, parachute roll, I found him lying on the grass looking up at the sky. His parachute was collapsed, though still attached to him. ‘Thank ****, thank ****, thank ****,’ was all he could say.

  As well as the twists, parachuting problems are numerous. They can include failure to open at all, in which case you are dead; rigging lines caught over the top of your canopy; or someone going below you and stealing your air. That, too, can kill you. In fact your worst enemies in a military static-line jump are your colleagues. It is fortunate the average military canopy is only steerable to a limited extent. A Hercules disgorges more than sixty parachutists in under a minute. Some will have their eyes open, some will have their eyes shut, whatever they are told in training. The thought of sixty soldiers careering round the sky under their parachutes, each with independent steering, is terrifying. It is best to allow the wind, and Mother Nature, to let each one down in a safe, orderly fashion. Full control is reserved for freefallers. There are fewer of them, jumping from a greater height, allowing more room for error.

  The final danger is landing. A significant percentage of any parachuting course is spent on how to hit the ground and roll. It is roughly equivalent to jumping off a wall, twelve feet high. Grandly called ‘ground training’, the various parachute centres are wealthily endowed with devices to simulate heavy landings. Once a freefaller, life is different. It is possible to turn into wind just before ground contact. The lift this provides should give a soft landing. Static liners take what comes. Knees together, feet together, elbows in, chin tucked down and roll. Most of the time they get away with it. Unfortunately casualties do occur, particularly broken ankles, broken heel bones, broken shin bones and the occasional broken back. Alastair, a very good friend and an excellent doctor, managed to break the lot in one go. Parachutists can also develop awful spines by the time they reach middle age as a result of repeated injuries and arthritis. For certain active-service scenarios, to ensure soldiers are not exposed for too long to enemy fire, jump height can be as low as 350 feet. This gives no room for error. Casualty rates of over 10 per cent have been associated with this.

  In later years, once I qualified as a doctor and had joined the SAS, my parachuting skills made me fair game for dropping-zone, or DZ, medical cover. I would be thrown out first, wherever we might happen to be, medical kit in hand. Not in hand really. Equipment was attached to two large hooks in front of me, just beneath my reserve. Once clear of the aircraft I would open the two hooks, the equipment falling away, though remaining attached to my harness by twelve feet of sturdy rope. This was useful, particularly when jumping at night. I could hear the equipment strike the ground first, giving time to brace before Mother Earth leapt up and grabbed me for her own. The problem is who provides DZ medical cover for the medics? No one, I am afraid. The first out is on his own.

  The purpose of jumping at night is to lessen the chance of detection by the enemy. Even if a parachutist breaks a leg as he lands, he is unlikely to scream about it in the middle of a war zone. He will lie there and suffer, or should do, until help arrives. As a doctor, I became accustomed to listening for the sound of breaking limbs. It is unmistakable once you have heard it. You can see nothing, it is all done on sound. As a parachutist lands there should be two thumps. The first is his equipment, the second is himself. A third sound, usually a high-pitched ‘click’, following close behind the second, is the fracture. The moment I heard that tell-tale sound, I would prepare my splints, ready to immobilize what I was sure would be a broken bone.

  That first day, as Jim and I staggered from the DZ, I began to relax. The intense emotions I had gone through, the total fear, were subsiding. I started to think once more, my head bowed to the ground, as I carried the heavy weight of the parachute in its large green bag on my shoulders. Jim disturbed my thoughts.

  ‘Penny for them.’

  ‘They’re not worth it.’

  ‘Go on. Try me,’ came the challenging reply.

  ‘The SAS. What do you know about them?’

  ‘Bugger all. Bunch of lunatics I reckon. Why?’

  ‘I’d like to join them. What do you think?’

  ‘You must be ****ing mad, Richard. They’re all brawn, no brain and you’ll get yourself killed. Anyway, you’ve got your medical career to think of.’

  ‘It was my medical career I was thinking of. It could be ideal. Why not do both? I mean, why can’t you be a doctor and join the SAS? Someone must look after them if they get hurt. Just think of all the experience you would get.’

  I heard Jim grunt with disbelief beside me. At that point I doubted there was anything he could have said to change my mind. The moment I had seen the small group of HALO parachutists in the Hercules, I resolved that, one day, I would join them and become their doctor. Rumour had it the SAS spent much of their time on active service and real-life exercises. If so, they were bound to have broken bones, twisted knees, dislocated shoulders and all manner of orthopaedic conditions. A major part of orthopaedics was in the management of injuries and major trauma. What better training than with the SAS? Rumour also said they worked extensively overseas. Any doctor with them would be as far away from a teaching hospital as it is possible to go. I would learn how to deal with injuries, from the moment a patient was wounded, until he was evacuated to hospital and taken to the operating theatre. For a young, ambitious orthopaedic surgeon, with his eye on the Third World, I could do no better. For sure, the SAS it would be.

  The moment I returned to London, I sought advice about leaving mainstream medicine from a few, highly selected advisers, all of whom were sworn to secrecy. They, and my parents, sided with Jim. They thought the idea mad. I was, after all, already established on the first rung of a major teaching-hospital career. Was it really worth giving up all that for such a whim? I still knew very little about the SAS, but anything I heard convinced me that nowhere else in the world would I obtain such excellent training. I was also young enough to take a risk, barely twenty-one, and had time on my side.

  Jim and I parachuted together on several occasions after our basic Abingdon course, though he never fully recovered from the twisting episode at his first jump. His tale of the event, told with a charming accent in various pubs, became more unbelievable at each telling. Whenever we met he would take me to one side and ask, ‘Have you thought more about the SAS?’

  ‘Continually,’ I would reply. I barely thought of anything else and had read every book available on the subject. There were not many. I daydreamed on ward rounds, endured endless sleepless nights and talked to myself incessantly. To most who knew me, I must have gone mad. It took several months to build up courage and take the plunge. ‘I’m going to join soon,’ I told Jim on one occasion. ‘Now I’m a third-year student, I have a few skills I can offer if they want.’

  I remember Jim’s look of astonished disbelief. ‘So you’re doing it after all? I thought you were joking. But no, I can see you’re serious. You are mad, Richard. Completely scarpers.’

  It was too late by then. I was hooked.

  My trouble was that I had no idea how to go about joining. Quite rightly the SAS does not advertise, or didn’t in those days. You had to seek them rather than the other way round. There will never be a shortage of people wishing to join the Regiment. That hidden something gripping me, grips thousands of others as well. If you were to believe everyone who says they have been, or are, in the SAS you would have enough manpower for a thousand Regiments. In reality, there are only three Regiments, two Territorial and one Regular. The Territorials are part-timers who combine a civilian job with military service. The Regulars are fully committed, day in and day out, to the SAS. To some extent that still applies now, though a high-readiness Territorial reserve has been created to assist the Regulars on occasion. Selection weeds out the unworthy from both, with more than 80 per cent falling by the wayside. The odds are worse for
officers.

  There is one major difference between Territorial and Regular SAS. The Territorial SAS soldier will have come in off the street, often without any prior military service. The Regular SAS operative must have come from some form of previous Services background. Those joining the Regulars are thus up to scratch with basic soldiering skills from the start. The Territorial soldier often is not. This difference was initially reflected in the roles of the various Regiments. Whereas the Regulars, 22 SAS, had a more aggressive approach to life, the Territorial units — 21 and 23 SAS — were more passive. Their primary role was one of observation. Their secondary role was more SAS-like, involving sabotage, snatches and the like.

  Those who fail the SAS Selection course often bring back tales of deeds and happenings that defy imagination, an attempt to justify why they did not succeed. Such tales are unnecessary. There is no dishonour in failing Selection; you are in good company if you do. The SAS is looking for individuals of a certain type and you, however strong God made you, may simply be the wrong person. One thing is certain, the day you first decide to try for the SAS is immensely awe-inspiring.

  I decided to join in secret. Apart from Jim, I did not want any colleagues knowing, in case I failed. To my earlier advisers, I had let the matter drop, though my parents knew I was up to something odd. One Thursday afternoon I found the remotest, tiniest, loneliest Army Careers Information Office I could, somewhere in south London, and strode resolutely inside. It was empty, save for one very properly dressed Warrant Officer, sitting ramrod straight behind an immaculately tidy desk. Everything was laid out in perfect order before him. Telephone, blotter, paper clips, files. Each item appeared to be parallel to the one beside it, like soldiers on parade. He looked directly at me as I approached the desk. ‘Yes, sir?’ he said as I drew near, a tight knot gnawing at the pit of my stomach.

  ‘I want to join the SAS,’ I said self-consciously, mumbling terribly — a family failing.

  ‘Sorry, sir?’ The man had obviously not heard me. I would have to try again.

  ‘The SAS,’ I said, still in hushed tones. ‘I want to join it.’ I could see the Warrant Officer was struggling hard to hear. His forehead wrinkled deeply as he leaned over his desk, head turned slightly to one side. With his hand he formed a cup behind his right ear.

  ‘Say again, sir. I can’t quite hear you.’

  My heart sank. We had just spent two weeks learning ear, nose and throat surgery at my hospital, so I knew all about high-tone deafness. Particularly in soldiers exposed, unprotected, to rifle and artillery fire for many years. Surely not? My self-consciousness had by now disappeared. Checking around me to be sure I was still alone, I put one hand firmly either side of the Warrant Officer’s ink blotter, and shouted.

  ‘The SAS. You know, the Special Air Service. How does one join it? I want to join.’ I was leaning so far forward, my face was only inches from his own.

  I was almost hoarse, but could see comprehension begin to dawn on the soldier’s face. He removed the cupped hand from behind his ear, raising his eyebrows and opening his mouth in realization. I had broken through at last. From the corner of my eye, on the pavement outside the office, I saw two passers-by stop in their tracks and look in the window. My heart sank still further. For sure, the whole of south London must have heard my request. I prayed the floor would open and swallow me up, but it did not. Instead, the Warrant Officer reclined back to his vertical sitting position, and reached for the pitch-black telephone to his left. ‘The SAS, sir? Of course, sir. I’m sure we can help.’

  So it was, twenty-four hours later, I appeared at the end of a long line of hopefuls at a barracks in central London. I had decided A Squadron 21 SAS, a Territorial unit, would be the correct first step. It would allow me a better understanding of SAS life without compromising my medical training. After full qualification as a doctor, only three years away, joining the Regular 22 SAS might be a possibility. ‘You can take medicine anywhere,’ my aunt had once said. After qualification, anything was possible.

  My companions in line came from all walks of life. You will never see such a cross-section of society as can be found at the start of SAS Selection. Black and white, straight or gay, rich or poor. Everyone is there from the streetwise mugger to the affluent professional. The one question you never ask is why someone wishes to join. For some it may be an escape, for others it might be a planned career move. You never know for sure. As far as the Regiment is concerned, you pass Selection first and they will ask questions afterwards, though there is obviously a degree of basic security clearance at the start. However, you are not exposed to the more covert, specialist SAS techniques until after Selection is complete. This can be immensely disappointing for some. Several years after I joined, a good friend tried the same. Having passed Selection with flying colours, and all the labour that entails, he was refused entry on security grounds. Whether or not it was due to his wife originating from the then Eastern bloc was never explained.

  Standing in line that evening I was, as seems frequently my lot, at its very end. I learned that I had already missed the first two of five Selection weekends, leading to a fortnight away in Wales at a final Selection camp. At that time, the Territorial Selection was similar in design to the Regular, though slightly downgraded. For a civilian it was just as demanding. Nothing less than utter dedication would see you through. In recent years the situation has changed, both Territorials and Regulars taking the same course. The two are separated by speed. Regulars should average four kilometres per hour across country, Territorials three kilometres per hour. A Territorial who can keep pace with the Regulars becomes eligible for a high-readiness Reserve.

  I noticed a total lack of conversation in the queue. At the far end, through an open hatch, a cheery quartermaster, the QM, was handing out equipment. His was the only voice to be heard. Everyone was taking this event very seriously. Twenty minutes later my turn came. I could see a vast expanse of empty shelves over the QM’s shoulder. He saw my gaze and spoke sympathetically. Sympathetically, that is, for an SAS QM. ‘Sorry, son. You’re new aren’t you? Afraid all the best stuff has gone. Here’s a Bergen rucksack and poncho anyway. You’ll find rations over there.’ He pointed to a pile of overladen, clear, plastic bags, being quietly decimated by the others. ‘I’d grab a few quick before they all disappear,’ he added. As I turned, the hatch was closed, eliminating any prospect of further conversation. I darted across to the pile of bags, grabbing the final two.

  The other applicants, let me call them trainees, had spread themselves and their equipment along the length of one wall. Ponchos were being folded, rations unpacked and repacked, maps covered in plastic. The atmosphere was one of frightening, albeit silent, efficiency. I had no idea what to do. Finding myself a small space in a distant corner I, too, started to reorganize my kit. This was difficult, as no one had told me what to expect. All I knew was that I was to be physically tested, somewhere in South Wales.

  The ration packs seemed a reasonable starting point. There were only three choices of SAS ration. Beef, mutton or curry. I subsequently learned that each tasted the same, even to the gastronome. I am sure they were identical. I suspect all the army ever did was to change the label on the pack, in the hope this would persuade the consumer the taste was different. They did not fool me. As I began to separate out my rations, mutton and curry had been my choices, a small orange pill fell to the floor in a tiny plastic bag. I picked it up and studied it, feeling it through the clear plastic, looking for some indication of identity. There was none. It was smooth on both sides, no grooves, no letters, nothing. What on earth was it?

  Beside me was another trainee, arranging his kit with alarming speed. A thin, wiry individual dressed in a cream shirt with sleeves rolled up, he looked very much the man who had seen it all before. He sensed my quandary and glanced towards me.

  ‘Suicide pill,’ he said, his voice deadly serious.

  I could not believe what I was hearing. I must have looked doubtfu
l, as he started to nod his head sagely and spoke again. ‘Sure. It’s a suicide pill. All over in less than ten seconds. In case you get caught. You’ll probably not need it, but you never know.’ Then he turned back to his pile of very orderly equipment, rapidly packed everything away in his Bergen rucksack, and strode purposefully through a door at the far end of the room to join an increasing throng of trainees.

  I stood there, mouth open, watching the rear view of the trainee disappear into the room beyond. The trouble with the SAS is that you can believe anything of it. Anything at all. It did not surprise me to find a suicide pill in a ration pack. I was only a volunteer, not a full-timer. “What about my medical studies? I may believe in my country, but not enough to kill myself. I had seen various films and read assorted books about the Special Operations Executive in the last war. The use of their lethal pill, buried deep inside a molar tooth, was well known to me. Naturally it made sense that the SAS should have the same. After all, what chance of survival would you have if captured behind enemy lines? It seemed odd to be issued with a suicide pill on Selection. Was this a way out for failures perhaps? Or even a test? Did I honestly have to take the thing when caught? How many had died on Selection as a result? Questions rattled through my mind. What were they going to do to me in South Wales? Would I ever get back at all? I can laugh about it now as I subsequently learned it was a vitamin pill. My competitive self was also secretly delighted that the man who teased me failed Selection.

  To the regular hill walker, South Wales is a paradise. To the SAS trainee it is hell on earth. If you survive Selection, you know almost everything about the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains by the end. That first weekend, having travelled by tube to Paddington, train to Newport, and four-ton lorry to the Brecon Beacons, it was 2. a.m. on the Saturday morning that we arrived. Unceremoniously dumped by some woods next to an old pub, the Storey Arms, we were told to be prepared for duty by 6 a.m. We should be packed and ready to move by then. That was it. No frills, no help, no light, no hot tea ready to welcome us. Nothing at all. It was pitch dark and pouring with rain. I was soaked to the skin within seconds of leaving the friendly shelter of the four-tonner. What on earth was I meant to do? Even the military parachuting course seemed a welcome relaxation compared to this. Already I was looking forward to Monday morning’s hospital ward round that, by tradition, filled most medical students with terror. In hushed tones I promised my Maker all manner of noble deeds if he returned me to London in one piece.