Secret War in Arabia. Shaun Clarke

you’d only been married six months,’ Ricketts said.

      ‘Six months too fucking long,’ Gumboot said. ‘Got her pregnant, didn’t I? Besides, we only had one weekend, which leaves no time to go all the way to Devon and back.’

      ‘You could have travelled on Friday night and come back on Sunday,’ Andrew pointed out.

      ‘OK, I’ll admit it,’ Gumboot said pugnaciously. ‘I didn’t want to spend my free weekend with a bloody bean bag, so I slipped into London. I’m amazed I didn’t run into Jock, since I had a few pints in King’s Cross on Saturday evening.’

      ‘I probably saw you and avoided you,’ Jock replied, ‘I can be fussy at times.’

      ‘Up yours, mate.’ Gumboot swallowed some more beer, wiped his lips, and grinned mischievously. ‘Ah, well, it was only a weekend – and over all too soon.’

      On that, at least, they all agreed.

      When they had returned to Hereford that Monday morning, some with blinding hangovers, others simply sleepless, they had been flung with merciless efficiency into their fourteen weeks of Continuation Training, learning all the skills required to be a member of the basic SAS operational unit: the four-man patrol. These skills included weapons handling, combat and survival, reconnaissance, signals, demolitions, camouflage and concealment, resistance to interrogation, and first aid. Continuation Training was followed by jungle training and a static-line parachute course, bringing the complete programme up to six months.

      Though Ricketts and the others had all come from regular Army, Royal Navy, RAF or Territorial Army regiments, and were therefore already fully trained soldiers, none of them was prepared for the amount of extra training they had to undergo with the SAS, even after the rigours of Initial Selection.

      Weapons training covered everything in the SAS arsenal, including use of the standard-issue British semi-automatic Browning FN 9mm high-power handgun, the 9mm Walther PPK handgun, the M16 assault rifle, the self-loading semi-automatic rifle, or SLR, the Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine-gun, the MILAN anti-tank weapon, various mortars and a wide range of ‘enemy’ weapons, such as the Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle.

      In combat and survival training they were taught the standard operating procedures, or SOPs, for how to move tactically across country by day or night, how to set up and maintain observation posts, or OPs, and how to operate deep behind enemy lines. This led naturally to signals training, covering Morse code, special codes and call-sign systems, the operation of thirty kinds of SAS radio, recognition of radio ‘black spots’, the setting-up of standard and makeshift antennas, and the procedure for calling in artillery fire and air strikes.

      As one of the main reasons for being behind enemy lines is the disruption of enemy communications and transportation, as well as general sabotage, particularly against Military Supply Routes, or MSRs, this phase of their training also included lessons in demolition skills and techniques, particularly the use of explosives such as TNT, dynamite, Semtex, Composition C3 and C4 plastic explosive, or PE, Amatol, Pentolite and Ednatol. Special emphasis was laid on the proper placement of charges to destroy various kinds of bridge: cantilever, spandrel arch, continuous-span truss and suspension.

      Many jokes were made about the fact that those lessons led directly to instruction in first aid, including relatively advanced medical skills such as setting up an intravenous drip, how to administer drugs, both orally and with injections, and the basics of casualty handling and care.

      This phase of Continuation Training culminated in escape and evasion (E&E) and Resistance to Interrogation (RTI) exercises. E&E began with a week of theory on how to live off the land by constructing makeshift shelters from branches, leaves and other local vegetation, and sangars, or semicircular shelters built from stones, and by catching and cooking wild animals. (Repeated jokes about rat stew, Ricketts recalled, had raised a few queasy laughs.) Those theories were then put into practice when the men were dropped off, alone, in some remote region, usually with no more than their clothing and a wristwatch, knife and box of matches, with orders to make their way back to a specified RV without either becoming lost or getting caught by the enthusiastic Parachute Regiment troopers sent out to find them.

      Those caught were hooded, bound, thrown into the Paras’ trucks and delivered to the interrogation centre run by the Joint Services Interrogation Unit and members of 22 SAS Training Wing, where various physical and mental torments were used to make them break down and reveal more than their rank, name, serial number and date of birth. Those who did so were failed even at that late stage in the course. Those who managed to remain sane and silent went on to undertake jungle-warfare training and the parachute course.

      ‘For me,’ Bill said, ‘that was the best bit of all. I loved it in the jungle. I mean, even though it was tough all I could think of was how I’d come all the way from the Stevens and Williams Glassworks to the jungles of fucking Malaysia. I was in heaven, I tell you.’

      ‘It wasn’t Malaysia,’ Andrew corrected him. ‘It was just close to there. It’s the only British dependency inhabited by Malays that didn’t join the Federation of Malaysia.’

      ‘He’s so fucking educated,’ Gumboot said, ‘you’d never think he’d been up a tree. What the fuck’s the difference? It was jungle, wasn’t it? That’s why you couldn’t possibly fail there, mate. You must have felt right at home.’

      ‘My family, comes from Barbados,’ Andrew said, flashing Gumboot a big smile, ‘where they have rum and molasses and white beaches. No jungle there, Gumboot.’

      ‘Anyway,’ Tom said, looking as solemn as always, ‘I agree with Bill. I was a lot more relaxed when we went there. It was too late to fail, I thought.’

      ‘So did some others,’ Jock reminded them, ‘and the poor bastards failed. One even failed during the parachute course. Can you fucking believe it?’

      ‘That would have killed me,’ Ricketts said. ‘I mean, to be RTU’d at that stage. I would have opened a vein.’

      ‘Hear, hear,’ Andrew said.

      Jungle-warfare training was a six-week course in Brunei, the British-protected sultanate of North-West Borneo, forming an enclave with Sarawak, Malaysia, where the SAS was reborn after World War Two and where it learnt so many of its skills and tactics; There the candidates were sent on four-man patrols through the jungle, some lasting almost a fortnight. During that time they had to carry out a number of operational tasks, including constructing a jungle basha, killing and eating wildlife, including snakes, without being bitten or poisoned, and living on local flora and fauna. Most importantly, they had to show that they could navigate and move accurately in the restricted visibility of the jungle. Failure in any of these tasks resulted in an even more cruel, last-minute, RTU.

      Those who returned successfully from Brunei did so knowing that they had only one hurdle left: a four-week course at the No 1 Parachute Training School at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, where Parachute Jump Instructors, or PJIs, taught them the characteristics of PX1 Mk 4, PX1 Mk 5 and PR7 (reserve) parachutes, then supervised them on eight parachute jumps. The first of these was from a static balloon, but the others were from RAF C-130 Hercules aircraft, some from a high altitude, some from a low altitude, most by day, a few by night, and at least one while the aircraft was being put through a series of manoeuvres designed to shake up and disorientate the parachutists just before they jumped out. Those who made this final leap successfully had passed the whole course.

      The men drinking around this table in the Paludrine Club had all just done that.

      ‘I still don’t believe it,’ Andrew mused, ‘but here we all are: in a Sabre Squadron at last. I think that’s reason enough for another drink.’

      ‘I think you’re right,’ Jock said, going off to the bar for another round.

      Once badged, the successful candidates were divided between the four Sabre Squadrons, with those around this table going to Squadron B, where they would spend their probationary first year. They were also allowed into the Paludrine Club to celebrate