Immediate Action by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online Page B

days later a character turned up at a hospital in the South with a 7.62 wound in his leg. We were sparked up. Gil and I were the local heroes for the next day or two. In a rifle company we were just two dickheads, but now we had our fifteen minutes of fame because we were the latest ones to have had a contact.
        Then all the banter started about who claimed the hit.
        Both of us were crap shots; it was a surprise that anybody had been hit at all.
        The rest of our time in Ireland was just as busy. We had a bomb put outside Baruki sangar one night. It was an old trick, and it always worked: Two slappers came by, hollering and shouting at the boys inside, flashing their arses and working parts. While the lads were checking out the special of the day, a player walked behind the sangar and placed a bomb. When the stag changed, as they opened the door, the bomb should have gone off.
        The two blokes inside didn't have a clue what was going on.
        Luckily the bomb was discovered just in time, and there was a controlled explosion.
        Our colonel, Corden-Lloyd, was very keen on individualism. As far as he was concerned, we all had to wear the same outer clothing, purely so that we'd be recognized in the field. But what we wore underneath was down to us.
        In theory, we should have worn army-issue shirts, thick woolly things that were a pain in the arse. The UN shirt was a much more comfortable alternative, but it was expensive. Corden-Lloyd worked 'out a deal with the manufacturers and took a vote. "If everybody buys two UN shirts, we'll wear UN shirts when we get back to Tidworth," he said. They would work out at sixteen pounds for two-quite a lot, but money well spent.
        Very sadly, the purchase could not be completed. Colonel Corden-Lloyd was aboard a Gazelle helicopter that came down. PIRA said that they shot it down, MoD said it was mechanical failure. Whichever, the best officer I'd ever met was dead.
        When I joined the battalion in Gibraltar, there were one or two blokes that were getting ready to go on selection, running around the Rock on a route called the Med Steps, but being the rug, I'd no idea what it was all about. Then I heard-they were going for the S.A.S, pronounced Sass.
        It was only much later that I found out that to people in it or who work with it, it's not the Sass or even the S.A.S.
        It's just called the Regiment.
        A fellow called Rob lived in a little room in the base at XMG that was no bigger than a cupboard. Sometimes I'd go past and I'd hear the hish of radios and catch a glimpse of plies of maps of South Armagh all over the place. The room was like a rubbish tip; there were bergens, belt kit, and bits and pieces everywhere. Then Rob would go missing, and nobody saw him for weeks and weeks.
        He turned up in the washrooms one day, so I was scrutinizing, seeing what he looked like. He wasn't six feet six inches tall and four feet wide, as I'd expected.
        He was about five feet six inches and quite normal-looking. He was wearing a pair of skiddies, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. His washing and shaving kit consisted of a bit of soap in a plastic teacup from a vending machine, a toothbrush, and that was it. He had his wash and left, and that was my introduction to the Regiment.
        There was a warning one day that a chopper was due in ten minutes.
        All the spare hands that were on cookhouse fatigues had to come running out to pick up the load, so the helicopter would have the minimum amount of time on the ground. it could be delivering anything from equipment to food. Sometimes it would have a patrol on board.
        As the rug I was simply told, "There's a helicopter due in in ten minutes, and there's some plastic bags. I want you to pick up the plastic bags and bring them into the camp."
        The chopper came in, the corrugated iron gates were flung open, and everybody ran like an idiot to pick