When he got back to the bunker he checked his watch and counted down the last few seconds to the explosion. But nothing happened. After a few more minutes it was declared a misfire. The procedure at that time was to wait thirty minutes, and if by then the device had not blown, it was the range supervisor’s job to go back to the unexploded charge and, using a lump of plastic explosive, to detonate it. Nowadays, mainly due to this incident, when dealing with electronically initiated devices, ATO is brought in and the device is blown using a robot. On a range, a piece of plastic explosive is placed beside any electronically timed device so that no one need go back to it in the event of a misfire. The charge is blown electrically from the bunker.
At that time, going back to detonate unexploded devices was not uncommon, especially in training, where novices occasionally cocked up the initiation. As long as the correct amount of time was given for a possible ‘slow fuse’ it was a safe procedure, if a little nerve-racking.
Whilst training an anti-terrorist unit in Europe, teaching them how to throw hand-grenades one day, I had a string of misfires. The grenades were of poor quality, and after three in a row failed I had to go out alone each time, find them and blow them up. After the third time, feeling a bit frayed, I cancelled the exercise.
Coke went back to the charge while the others remained in the bunker. A minute later there was a shattering explosion.
When the others came charging out of the bunker and into the pit, Coke was lying beside the buckled sheet of steel. Both his legs were gone and so was one arm. His head and torso were severely scorched, but to their amazement he was still alive. The trained SBS medics immediately went to work to try to save him.
They rushed him to the nearest hospital, Blandford Military Hospital, but the doctors and nurses were so horrified by Coke’s injuries that they panicked and were useless. The SBS medics pushed them aside and took over. One of them found a vein in his arm and inserted a drip into it. They then transferred him to an ambulance and he was rushed to Poole General. But Coke died shortly after arriving there, surrounded by his colleagues who had worked so hard to keep their friend alive.
We will never know exactly what happened in those last few seconds before the blast.
The following day, most of the men could be found in the rugby club on camp, which we used for piss-ups. As is the tradition, a keg was opened and everyone gathered for a drink. As I came into the camp that morning I was called into the sergeant major’s office.
‘I’m afraid I have a rather unsavoury job for you,’ he said. ‘Someone has to go out to the range and clear it up, if you know what I mean.’
At first, I thought they had chosen me because I was Coke’s second-in-command and they did not want just anybody picking up his body parts and putting them into a bag. I was wrong.
When I arrived on the range I took a moment to look at the place where my friend had been killed. I walked slowly around, searching the ground. There were small pieces of his body everywhere and I set about picking them up and putting them into the plastic bag I carried. I did not use gloves. I was not disgusted by the lumps of bone and tissue in my hands. They were part of my friend.
I took them to Poole General, where I asked if I could lay them with Coke’s body, but the old man who ran the mortuary held his hand out for the bag. He was a gentle old soul who’d had some experience in dealing with the friends and relatives of those who had just died.
‘I wouldn’t see him if I were you,’ he said. ‘Take my advice, son. Let your memories of him be those of when he was alive, not as he is now.’
I took his advice, gave him the bag and left.
When I arrived back at the camp I went to the rugby club to join the rest of the men. As I entered, I noticed a few people glance at me then look away, as if they had been talking about me. There was an odd atmosphere. I got a pint of beer and while I sipped it I looked around. Several sat alone, some with tears in their eyes. Others talked quietly in small groups. The problem with being such a small, tightly knit unit, working closely together and often with the same few people for many years, is that the pain of losing one is so much greater, like losing a close member of one’s family.
One of the men in a group at the bar turned to me and said, ‘Job done then, Duncan?’
His tone was, if anything, aggressive.
‘You know why you were sent out to the range, don’t you?’ another said.
I didn’t understand.
‘Because you’re a cold, heartless bastard, that’s why.’
The comment hit me like a slap in the face. I looked around at the many faces, all of whom seemed in agreement with the comment. I saw Colby across the room finish his pint and head for the door. I left the bar and followed him outside.
‘Colby?’ I said.
He stopped and looked at me with sad eyes.
‘What did they mean?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you know?’
‘I don’t think I do,’ I said, wondering if he would confirm something that I had first heard from a drunken operative while with 14 Int.
He was calm and spoke softly. There was no anger in his voice, just sadness.
‘It’s just how they said it. They don’t dislike you or feel bad towards you. You’re just cold and emotionless. Soon as someone asked who was going to pick up the bits, you were the obvious choice.’
I had never considered myself emotionless. As I said before, I just kept it hidden better than most. You could not be as nostalgic as I was and not have feelings. I thought the reputation I’d gained in Northern Ireland for cracking right on with the job after we lost someone, as if nothing had happened, was an asset in this job. It was, but that didn’t mean people would like you for it.
Colby, however, had no time for my problems. He was lost in his own memories. As he stood in front of me, his shoulders began to shake as he started to cry. He could not hold it in any longer. Tears rolled down his face as he let it all out. Witnessing the deaths of two of his closest friends and in such a short space of time was a lot to hold on to, and now was a good time to let it out. It affected me deeply. Suddenly, all the control I had exerted so easily all my life was brushed aside. It was as if watching this powerful, accomplished soldier crying like a child had opened the flood gates. I could not help myself. Everything welled up and gushed out of me. The tears filled my own eyes and spilled down my face. I could not stop them, nor did I want to. I was in fine company.
‘I miss him as much as everyone else,’ I stammered.
Colby patted my shoulder then walked away and left me there alone.
I walked back to the club, opened the door and stepped inside. Men looked at me and were surprised to see the tears in my eyes and on my cheeks. I had not come back in to show I could cry, I just wanted to be with them. I made my way to the bar and to my pint, but I could not drink. As I stood there I felt an arm on my shoulder, then another old friend came over. Soon, several of those I had always considered my friends came over to share their grief. Before long the singing started and it turned into the good old piss-up Coke would have wanted us to have.
The following day faxes and signals came in from military units all over the world which Coke had worked with or trained with over the years, offering their condolences.
My thoughts went out to his wife, who remained strong throughout the ordeal. For days afterwards, there was always at least a couple of the men and their wives at Coke’s home to comfort her. She never showed signs of weakness and kept a brave face whenever she was with them, but sometimes she could be heard crying softly in her room alone.
Five years later, she married another man from the SBS, Lou, a quiet, private man who had been a friend of Coke’s. He had loved her from afar all those years after the incident and had respectfully been there for her whenever she needed help. He made her happy once again and we were all pleased when they married. She’d had no children with Coke, but a few years later she and Lou had a son.
A few weeks after the boy’s birth my father died and I went to London to bury him. He’d had a heart attack in his council flat in Battersea and immediately walked three miles, alone, to St Thomas’s Hospital, where he had another one and died. It demonstrated his toughness but also his loneliness. The next day, before I left my father’s flat for the last time, I telephoned Lou and his wife to tell them I was coming down to Poole that evening and I would pop round to see them – I had been away for some time. A stranger answered the phone, a friend of Lou’s wife, and said she could not talk to me at the moment. Lou had just been killed while on combined operations training in Germany with GSG9, German special forces.
16
A year after the Falklands conflict, I became part of the SBS training teams. I had come full circle in the squadron, now renamed the Special Boat Service, a title somewhat indicative of its promotion, and was instructing newcomers and passing on the knowledge and experiences I had gained.
As I left my office one pleasant afternoon, I bumped into the colonel of the camp, a non-SBS officer, but a great fan of the Branch. He was a tall, greying character, yet another former corps rugby player, and a practically minded and fair man. He knew me through my reputation as a hard but fair instructor – I was usually Mister Nasty on the selection courses. A few months earlier, the colonel had asked me to deal with a batch of young officers in training on a visit to the camp from CTC.
They had got themselves into a spot of bother the night before in town and he wanted me to give them a message, but not a verbal one. A dozen of them had unfairly tried to pick a fight with two long-haired locals who looked a contrast to the short-haired, jacket-and-tie get-up of the young officers. The two locals turned out to be SBS operatives from MCT out for a quiet beer after a long day. It was obvious to the operatives who the ‘yobs’ were and they declined the fight without divulging their true identities. But they reported the incident to the adjutant. We did not appreciate out-of-towners who caused trouble on our local turf, especially those who would give the Marines a bad name.
‘Take them for a little run,’ the colonel asked. ‘Early. And I don’t care to see them at breakfast, either.’
When I met the young officers that morning at 6:00 a.m. for their unscheduled PT session, they had no idea, although they were obviously curious, why an SBS instructor was taking them. When I introduced my two assistants for the morning’s activities, the two SBS men that they had picked on in town, their hearts sank. They had every reason to be concerned.
When I brought them back two and a half hours later, they were in a sorry state, some having to help others in through the main gate.
The colonel was an easy man to talk to and as we walked we got into a conversation. He asked me what unit I was originally from. I told him I had never been to a unit and that I had joined the SBS straight out of training. He paused to study me.
‘Is that so?’ he said.
I got the sudden feeling I had just made a big mistake.
‘A man should have a balanced career,’ he said.
And that was all he said on the subject; to me, that is. A few months later, I was called to the sergeant major’s office, where he handed me my new draft orders. I was off to join 42 Commando for eighteen months.
My heart sank. How could this happen to me? I asked myself. But there was a little more to it than that. It seemed the Falklands conflict had shown that the SBS were a little too detached from the way regular Marine commando units operated. This included troop and company procedures, such basic things as conventional section attacks, artillery and mortar fire control. It would behove us to fill in that gap. To that end, I was not the only SBS rank sent to the units over the following few years.
Several months after receiving my orders, I drove through the main gates of 42 Commando to begin a year-and-a-half term as a regular fighting soldier. That was bad enough, but when I heard where the unit was going to spend the next four months, I could only shake my head in self-pity. We were headed for Northern Ireland – and not only that, to my old patch in South Armagh. After all the years I had done in that country as a grubby undercover operator, I was now going over as a regular gravel-belly, patrolling the streets and countryside, rifle across my body, and trying not to become a target. There were going to be some problems, especially when everyone in the unit knew I was SBS, including the intelligence officer, who was aware I knew more about the players in that area than he did and that I could not divulge any information.
As it turned out, the colonel had been right. I learned a lot during those eighteen months and had some of the most fun times of my military career. I met many fascinating characters and got up to things I never could have in the squadron. Life was not as serious or intense in the regular units as it was in special forces. I found that a bootneck’s solution to soldierly problems was always practical, sometimes Neanderthal, and although always professional in planning, concept and execution, they carried out their objectives, regardless of conditions, with stacks of humour and playfulness.
One day in Northern Ireland a reconnaissance troop patrol, that should have been away from the camp for four days, returned after only a few hours. They had been dropped off not far from the border by chopper just before dawn, and inserted into a ditch concealed by a thick hedgerow to observe a farmhouse several hundred yards away. Soon after first light, the first activity they recorded was the farmer moving his cows into the field they happened to be in. Animals are the bane of concealed observation positions because of their curiosity, and cows are among the worst.
The four Marines remained as still as they could so as not to attract the cows’ attention, but this was clearly going to be impossible for the whole day. Sure enough, after a short time a cow wandered by, chomping at the grass, and saw the four lads in the ditch. As usual, with cows, she came over and stood and watched them with great curiosity from feet away. She was soon joined by another who stood alongside her, and then another and another, until finally every one of the fifty or so cows were standing in a semi-circle around the OP, heads down and looking in inquisitively. Apart from the fact that the Marines could no longer see their target because of the bovine obstructions, this crowd would attract the farmer’s attention. He would surely come and investigate and the OP would be blown. The Marines tried shooing the cows and tossing stones, but all this did was scatter them for a few moments, after which they returned. The Marine in charge finally decided the only way to get rid of them all was to give one a sound smack and hurt it. This would scatter them but they would think twice about coming back. He pulled a large rock from the ground and launched it mightily at the head of the closest cow only feet away. The rock bounced off the cow’s cranium and it instantly dropped forward unconscious with its head actually inside the ditch and its tongue hanging out. The other cows did indeed scatter and not return. However, the cow now lying out cold on the edge of the ditch was bound to attract the immediate attention of the farmer. The Marines had little choice but to close the op.