Chris Ryan (19 page)

survivors, a particularly memorable day was the one on which he brought General Schwarzkopf to Hereford. The big American couldn't have been more friendly or informal: he shook hands with each of us, sat down for a debrief, signed our escape maps, and was exceptionally gener�ous in his praise of what the Regiment had achieved. My involvement with American Special Forces was renewed when Major General Wayne Downing asked me to go across and give a talk to their Training Wing about lessons learnt in the war. The guy who picked me up at the airport didn't know what I'd done, and began talking big about some escape-and-evasions in which his people had been involved. `We had one of three, and one of seven,' he told me proudly. `Seven what?' I asked. `Seven hours � it was quite something.' `Great!' I said. 'I've just done one of seven days.' After that initial hiccup, the Americans looked after me magnificently. Among other facilities, they showed me a big interrogation centre out in the middle of Fort Bragg, built to look like a Vietnamese camp. When my guide said casually, 'By the way, we've arranged for you to spend a couple of days going through it,' I nearly died. 'There's no way I'm entering that place,' I told him. 'I'll walk round it, but that's all.' More to my liking was a vertical wind-tunnel, designed to teach free-falling techniques. I'd never done any free-falling, but the Americans soon had me in the tunnel, where a power�ful rising column of air, created by a jet engine, enables you to learn how to become stable and manoeuvre before you jump out of an aircraft. My hosts were hell-bent on arranging a full course for me, and actually did so but unfortunately my own training commitments prevented me taking up the offer. Wash-up 257 When I came to learn free-falling proper, I found that my half-hour in the tunnel had given me a tremendous advantage over other beginners, and that on only my second jump, from 12,000 feet, I was immediately stable. My trip to America was good fun, but I was amazed to learn that an F-15 E fighter-bomber had been shot down by a sur�face-to-air missile over northern Iraq on 19 January � three days before Bravo Two Zero had been deployed. The target had been the nuclear refinery at Al Qaim, and the pilot and navigator had landed by parachute next to the very power cables which I had followed. The downed aircrew had man�aged to contact another pilot with their TACBEs, but in trying to escape, they walked up to three buildings which they thought were houses � only to find that they were bunkers housing the troops from the nearby anti-aircraft position. It was extraordinary to realise that these were the buildings which I myself had approached, and had sheered off in the nick of time. I also learnt that Al Qaim had been one of Iraq's main Scud-holding areas. I found all this fascinating � but also it was disturbing that none of the information had been passed to us in Special Forces, before we were sent across the border. We had not even been told the refinery at Al Qaim was one of the Americans' main targets. Looking back, it seemed all the more incredible that I had come through unscathed. First, the Americans had repeatedly bombed the plant. Then the air�crew had been captured near it. Then Andy and the rest of our patrol had been picked up or killed close by. The very night I passed through the complex, the Americans bombed it again. Had I known how hot the area was, I would never have gone near it. For a while after our holiday in Tenerife, my relationship with Jan was all right. I was kept busy on exercises, and seemed to be more my old self. Then in August 19911 and one other guy were detailed at short notice to go out to a central African country, where the political situation was deteriorating fast and 258 The One That Got Away people were needed to guard the British Embassy and evac�uate the ambassador, together with his remaining staff. Jan was furious that I, out of everyone available, had been selected for what was obviously a dangerous task. But in fact the team grew from two to four, and then to eight. By the time we flew out, things had become so bad that there was a strong possibility that we might have to stage a fighting withdrawal across a large river into the friendly state next door � but the limitations on our equipment raised un�comfortable echoes of Bravo Two Zero. We decided we would need anti-personnel mines, 66s, a 7.62 gympi, claymores .. . and the Government turned round and said, 'We can't send you with all that; you'll take pistols and 9mm. sub-machine�guns.' Those would be little good against a crowd on the rampage. We arrived in Africa to find the atmosphere highly volatile; riots and looting were being orchestrated by the military, but things seemed to cool down as quickly as they heated up, and it was impossible to tell what would happen next. An operation that was supposed to be over in three days ended up lasting three months � and three very long months they seemed. One by one the other nations pulled out � first the French, then the Belgians, then the Americans, leaving us on our own. The British Ambassador was constantly talking over a satellite telephone to Douglas Hurd and other leading figures at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, but the mes�sage didn't seem to sink in at the other end. Even when we'd reported a major riot within 200 metres of the Embassy, London kept asking, 'Yes � but what's the atmosphere like?' The straight answer was 'Bloody dangerous!' and we felt like saying, Tor Christ's sake get us out of here.' The reason we stayed so long was that the diplomatic com�plex was brand-new � a �5 million building which dealt with five of the surrounding African countries. Outside it, the place was in chaos, with inflation raging, and food running out. Out�side, the hospital lepers were carrying off the bodies of patients who'd died, to eat them, and they were even scrounging the limbs of amputees. Wash-Up 259 One night things seemed so edgy that we told the staff to collect their possessions, leave their houses, and gather in the embassy itself. The manager heard that people were raiding his home, and came running for help. Gary, who was in charge, got the team together, but I said, 'What's the point of going up there, just to save a load of crap? There's nothing worth having.' But Gary said, 'No � we've got to do it.' So we put on our ops waistcoats, collected our MP5s and pistols, with night-sights, and drove down a back-alley between whitewashed buildings. We could hear the rumble of the crowd in the dis�tance; when the vehicle stopped, and I lifted my kite-sight, I could see several hundred people, all looking at us. `If they've got weapons, we're knackered,' I said. But we got out and started walking down towards them. At our approach they fell back, tripping over each other. The noise of so many people moving was enough to scare the pants off you. Then the manager went running into his house, and back out again with a single pair of trousers in his hand. As he jumped into the vehicle, he was yelling, 'Let's go! Let's go!' The second we moved off, the crowd erupted. They poured over his house, into it, through it, like ants, and ripped the place to shreds. Back in the embassy I was furious with Gary, effing and blinding. 'Cunt!' I stormed. 'We could all have been killed, just for a pair of trousers!' Poor Gary did his best to soothe me down, but I stormed off to my room still in a rage. The situation was frightening by any standards � there are few more alarming sights than that of an African mob on the rampage � but on a personal level I was becoming worried, because my own behaviour had grown noticeably erratic. The other SAS guys noticed that I wasn't my normal self; I would refuse to carry out quite reasonable requests, and often gave way to outbursts of anger. In the end, in November, the Ambassador heard that I had been summoned to go to Buckingham Palace to collect my Military Medal. Because a young secretary needed escorting home, he asked me to go with her. At the airport check-in, the official told me to open my suit�case, and also my Lacon box, in which I had several native clay 260 The One That Got Away masks which I'd bought in the market. He started unwrapping the masks, and said, 'These are works of art, which you're taking out of the country. I need money off you.' `No, no,' I said. 'They're not worth anything. You can buy them everywhere.' `I need money,' he repeated. `Well � I haven't got any.' For some reason I went into a deep panic, as if I was physi�cally scared of the man. He became so upset that he threw my case off his desk, so that my things went all over the floor. If I'd been myself, I'd just have said, 'Sling it. You can have the lot,' and I'd have left everything where it lay. As it was, I behaved as if these things were all my worldly possessions, and grovelled about trying to get them re-packed. Behind me came some Japanese people with a television set packed in a wooden case. Again the man demanded money, and when they said they had none, he ripped the packing to bits and threw the television aside, so that it had to travel without protection. God knows what state it was in when it arrived at the other end. Altogether, the atmosphere was horrible � and in the VIP lounge the security people were into my briefcase, demanding money again. (The girl I was supposed to escort had to fly economy, so that she was already checked in.) During the flight I was so wound-up that I spent a lot of time in the toilet, being physically sick. I couldn't eat or drink anything, but sat there feeling ashamed of myself at being so frightened. Back home, my symptoms grew even worse. When I was under pressure at work, a rash like psoriasis came out on my face and chest, and the nightmares started recurring. Worst of all, I had changed emotionally � how, [don't know � but when I came back, all I wanted was to be by myself. Suddenly I didn't want to be married any more. I didn't want to be with Jan, or even to see Sarah. I began behaving impossibly. Jan was destroyed; she couldn't make out what she had done wrong � and of course I couldn't explain, because she hadn't done anything. The trouble lay in me. All could say was, 'I don't know what the matter is. I just don't want you around.' Wash-Up 261 Things became so bad that she decided she'd take Sarah to live with her parents in Ireland. I mortgaged our house as far as I could afford, to give her some money, and we agreed to try a separation. So she planned to move across, and I faced the prospect of living on my own. Even as I was walking out, on the day she was leaving, I said, `You know, this is probably a mistake.' We went through with it for the time being; but, almost as soon as she'd gone, I seemed to realise what I was throwing away. Three or four months later I rang her up and said, 'Listen, I'm off to the jungle for six weeks, but when I'm home again, will you come back?' Her re�sponse was guarded: she said she'd come across, because she wanted to talk, but she didn't commit herself. While I was away she moved back in, so that I found her and Sarah in the house when I returned. Things remained up and down for a while, but then, I'm glad to say, we got back to the level we'd been on at the beginning. At the time I just didn't know why I behaved as I did. Now I see that the trouble must have been post-traumatic stress, coming out months after the event. When I returned from the Gulf, I didn't feel any different from normal, but a few of the guys noticed that I wasn't myself, and it seems to have been the pressure of life in Africa that brought the problem to a head. On the family front, my mother was pleased that, of her three sons, I was the one who had had that unnerving ex�perience. 'I knew that if anyone would come back, you would,' she said. My Dad had always maintained he would never forgive my cousin Billy for getting me involved with the SAS in the first place, and my reply had always been, 'Well � look at the good side. If I hadn't joined up, I'd never have met Jan, or had Sarah.' Now he wasn't going to change his tune, and he said very little about my long walk. But I think that he was secretly proud of me. Oddly enough, in the past few years he'd gone right back to where he had started in terms of shooting; having given it up, and frowned on me for wanting to kill birds and animals, he was once again as keen as ever. As for our visit to Buckingham Palace: it was all very splen�did going to London, and an honour to meet the Queen, but I 262 The One That Got Away would have much preferred to receive the Military Medal in front of the whole Regiment. My ideal would have been to have all the guys on parade, and for every man who had been decorated to be brought out of the ranks and get his award with all the rest watching. I knew that the medal-winners included some of the bravest soldiers in the world. In the SAS, no award is given away, and every one had been fully earned. When I came home, I pinned the medal on Sarah, and she wore it as a badge. Lying in bed four years later, I still see incidents from the patrol, and hear the sounds, as clear as day. I see rounds flying between us during the first contact. I see Stan walking off down the wadi with the goatherd. I see the two hooded Arabs waiting for me on top of the mound. I try to put the images from my mind, but they creep back in. More and more I realise how lucky I was not to be shot, not to be captured, not to be caught up in the barbed wire on the border. Sometimes I feel that I must have used up all my luck. All in all, my experience taught me a good deal about myself. Most people, I think, don't know what they're capable of until they're put to the test. Before the Gulf War, if somebody had told me I could walk nearly 300 kilometres through enemy territory in seven nights, with no food and practically no water, with inadequate clothes, no proper sleep and no shelter, I wouldn't have believed him. When I had to, I did it. Whether I could do it a second time is another matter. In 1991 I was at a peak of physical fitness, and armed with the skills, the endurance, the competitive instinct and the motivation which SAS training had instilled in me. In any event, I devoutly hope I'll never again be faced by such a challenge. With an ordeal of those dimensions, once in a lifetime is enough.