Andy McNab: Boy soldier

1997, Colombia

Fergus had chosen the base camp carefully. He was always careful. Being careful had kept him alive during his twelve years in the Regiment and now that he was operating alone nothing was going to change.

The jungle floor was wet and muddy and covered with decaying leaf litter. Strong shafts of sunlight, as tight and bright as spotlights, speared through the tree canopy high above, illuminating the almost airless clearing.

The morning rains had stopped thirty minutes earlier but water constantly dripped from the canopy, and every small insect that flew or crawled seemed determined to take a bite out of Fergus. It was hot and sticky and uncomfortable, but then comfort never had been the top priority in his line of work. Staying alive had.

On SAS operations Fergus had learned the hard way about the seven Ps – Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance – so before setting up the base camp he'd made certain that two escape routes were available in the event of a surprise attack.

Carefully disguised rat runs had been cut into the undergrowth on either side of the camp. One led deeper into the jungle; the second went towards the river, where the four inflatable Zodiacs were hidden and camouflaged, just a metre or two from the water's edge. Their fuel bladders were still connected to the engines, their bows faced the water. They were ready to be launched within seconds.

Fergus stood facing the young guerrillas. They didn't look happy.

'Again,' said Fergus, in Castilian Spanish, keeping it as simple as he could. 'We do it again. Do like I do.'

One of the Colombians sighed and muttered to his friends. Fergus didn't understand what was said – the words came too quickly – but he knew exactly what was meant. They were bored; they didn't want to spend time stripping down and cleaning their AK-47 assault rifles. They wanted to use them.

Fergus held his AK in his right hand and the curved, thirty-round magazine in the left. He checked the top of the mag to make sure the shiny brass rounds were seated correctly before placing it in the assault rifle's mag housing and listening for the reassuring click as it locked into position. Then he gave the mag a quick shake to make sure it was fully home.

'Now you,' he said to the sweat-drenched guerrillas. 'Just do what I did.'

Fergus could load, unload and strip down a weapon with his eyes closed – he had done, thousands of times – but now he kept his eyes on the twelve young men as they copied his actions. Young men? They were kids, most of them not yet twenty and the youngest maybe seventeen.

Most were dressed in ripped jeans and old Brazil or Man U football shirts. Some had thin, wispy beards. It was as though they were trying to prove they really were man enough, mean enough and brave enough to be FARC guerrillas. The younger boys were smooth-faced; they probably hadn't even started to shave.

Their faces were sullen and sulky. They hadn't left their poverty-stricken villages to clean rifles. They wanted to make their fortunes. They wanted action.

They were about to get it.

The attack came suddenly, without warning and at the worst possible moment. The government troops must have been watching, waiting for the perfect time to strike.

Fergus heard the helicopter gunships first. The deep, throaty growl of the engines, immediately followed by the ominous chop of the rotor blades. The tree canopy swayed and shifted and rainwater came cascading down.

'Shit,' murmured Fergus, as he looked up and saw the first helicopter overhead. 'Stand to! Stand to!'

The guerrillas ignored the command. Most of them simply panicked and started to run towards the boats, unaware that a gunner was already lining them up through the sights of the heavy machine gun mounted in the doorway of the gunship.

Fergus grasped the pieces of his own rifle and dived to the ground. 'No!' he shouted, rolling away through the mud. 'Not the boats! Stay away from the boats! Stay low, stay low!'

But it was already too late. Bullets thudded into the wet earth as the young Colombians hurtled towards the river, their weapons forgotten and abandoned. The youngest boy, Nino, stood rigid, petrified like a rabbit in car headlights, his eyes wide with fear.

The camp was surrounded: ground troops were approaching from all sides and shouted orders were drowned out by the sound of automatic gunfire. The attack had been expertly planned, and Fergus felt a moment of professional admiration as he mechanically loaded his AK.

He grabbed the terrified boy and dragged him towards the forest escape route. Before they had moved more than a few paces Fergus heard a stifled cry, felt Nino jerk away and turned to see him falling into the leaf litter. Blood oozed from his head.

Fergus was hit before he could return fire. The bullet smashed into his thigh and sent him spinning away, face down in the mud. Searing pain burned through his body. He lifted his head and saw blood-red bone protruding from the gaping wound in his leg.

The thudding sound of heavy machine-gun fire drifted back from the river. Fergus knew that the guerrillas who had made it to the boats would have been picked off by the helicopter gunships and that, by now, their bodies would be floating downstream.

And then it was all over. The firing stopped as quickly as it had begun. Fergus tried to crawl towards the undergrowth as he heard more shouted commands and then men running towards him. He was grabbed by the shoulders and turned over. Four Colombian soldiers stared down at him, their camouflaged faces glistening with sweat as they jabbed their rifle barrels into his face and excitedly shouted to their commander. 'Gringo! Gringo!'

Two of the troopers moved aside and an officer wearing the uniform of the Anti-Narcotics Police stepped through. He smiled at Fergus, reached into the breast pocket of his camouflaged combat jacket and took out a photograph. He looked at the photograph and laughed, then beckoned to a paramedic before viciously kicking Fergus in his wounded leg.

The agonized scream echoed away into the jungle.

2005, Army RCB Centre, Wiltshire, England Danny was running. His pace was as steady and constant as his breathing; he moved with a natural rhythm. This was what he'd been waiting for – at last he was really showing what he could do.

Sometimes when Danny ran, when he was training, he would wear a Walkman and sing to himself under his breath, fitting the tempo of the song to his strides. It helped maintain the pace and stopped him from getting bored on a long run. But not today. Today he was focused. He wanted to win, even though they'd been told it wasn't a race. But Danny still wanted to win. He always did.

He was way ahead of the others as he approached the stream. The muddy stretch of water was too wide to clear without the aid of the strong rope dangling invitingly from the thick branch of a tree. Danny's eyes narrowed as he neared the edge and without breaking his stride he leaped into the air, grabbed the rope with both hands and swung effortlessly across to the other side.

The watching NCO smiled his approval and checked the list of names on his clipboard. 'Good effort, Mr Watts, keep it going,' he boomed as Danny ran on towards the high wall.

Danny grinned. Mister Watts. Him? He couldn't remember anyone calling him Mister Watts before. A few other things maybe, but never Mister. But it was all so different here.

When they'd assembled on Day One, nervous and self-conscious, a sergeant had told them they would all be referred to as Mister. 'That's because officers are gentlemen,' he said. 'And that includes potential officers like yourselves.'