Shaun Clarke - Heroes of the South Atlantic

‘Christ, what a hell-hole,’ Jock said that first evening as he drank beer with his mates in the Volcano Club, the American bar on Wideawake airfield, its windows giving a view of the rows of aircraft outside, including Vulcan bombers, Victor tankers, Starlifters, Nimrod recce planes and their own cumbersome Hercules transports. ‘It’s no more than a lump of scraggy rock in the middle of the bleedin’ South Atlantic. What the hell are we doing here?’

‘This is the nearest base for an amphibious assault on South Georgia,’ big Andrew explained. ‘ That’s why we’re here, mate.’

‘And not alone either,’ Taff said, sitting beside Baby Face Porter. ‘Just look around you.’

He was referring to the other men in the packed, smoky bar, representing M Company, 42 Commando, Royal Marines, the RAF, the Royal Naval Aircraft Servicing Unit, Royal Engineers, and other members of the British Forces Support Unit. Though no more than a volcanic dust heap, nine miles across at its widest, the island had a BBC relay station, a 10,000-foot runway built by NASA, a satellite tracking station and a firing range. Now being used as a staging post for the Task Force, it was receiving an average of six Hercules flights a day, as well as a constant stream of men and equipment ferried in from the fleet anchored out at sea. As there was not enough accommodation for the personnel arriving daily, the men were forced to spend most of their time aboard ship, only being ferried to the island when it was their turn for weapons testing on the firing range, craft drills on the beach, other forms of training, or work. A lot of those men were here now, filling up the formerly quiet Volcano Club.

‘Fuck ’em,’ Gumboot said, polishing off the last of his inch-thick steak in garlic butter and washing it down with another mouthful of beer. ‘Them Argie bastards made British RMs lie face down on the ground. I say crash a couple of Hercules into the fucking runway at Port Stanley. Two C-130s filled with our men. We’d have the Argies running like scared rabbits before we were out of the planes.’

‘If you got that far,’ Ricketts said. ‘Rumour has it the airfield is ringed with 7000 Argentinian troops and an anti-aircraft battalion equipped with ground-to-air missiles. The C-130s, not fast at the best of times, would be sitting ducks.’

‘Right,’ baby-faced Danny put in, nodding emphatically. ‘We would not beat the clock, my friend.’

‘Well, when are we going to do something?’

‘When the diplomats fail, as they will. Only then will we move.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Gumboot exploded.

The special training began the next day and covered a wide variety of situations. Though the eighty-odd troops were already sweating in the tropical heat of Ascension Island, they were compelled to wear outfits suitable to the Arctic conditions of their eventual destination.

‘The Falklands are notable for cold weather and wind,’ Sergeant Ricketts explained as the men prepared. ‘The two together can result in windchill, which can freeze exposed flesh in minutes. So you have to get used to operating in this gear, whether or not you like it.’

The ‘gear’ to which he referred was windproof and waterproof clothing which covered the whole body and was based on the so-called ‘layer system’, whereby layers of clothing are added or taken away depending on the temperature and level of activity. If moisture is trapped inside garments, sweat cools very quickly in the Arctic and the wearer starts freezing. Most of the Arctic battle gear was therefore made from Gore-tex, which keeps heat in but allows moisture to escape.

Other items of kit distributed to the Regiment that first morning included mittens, face masks, ski boots, snow shoes and skis. Nevertheless, even kitted out like this, the kind of training the Regiment could do was fairly limited. Wearing their bulky Gore-tex weatherproof jackets, wool sweaters, Royal Marine camouflage trousers and heavy boots in the heat of Ascension Island was a distinctly uncomfortable way of undergoing so-called ‘special training’. As for the training itself, given that the Arctic climate of the Falklands had to be simulated in a very different environment, very little new, relevant training could be managed. They tested their weapons on the firing range, rehearsed in canoes and Gemini inflatable assault boats in the shallow waters just off the beach, and practised abseiling from noisily hovering Wessex helicopters. But most of it was fairly basic stuff and all too familiar.

‘We’re just wanking here,’ Gumboot said, summarizing the widespread feeling of frustration. ‘Just passing time. Those Navy choppers are cross-decking troops every day, so they can be shipped on to the Falklands – it’s just us being left here. I’m gonna go mad with fucking boredom if they don’t move us on soon. Completely out of my mind.’

‘Right on,’ young Danny said, looking yearningly at all the ships anchored out at sea. ‘I know what you mean.’

Pretty soon, just to keep the men busy, the instructors were resorting to the well-known torments of Continuation-and-Cross Training, including four-man patrol tactics, signalling, first aid, demolition, hand-to-hand combat and general combat survival. While most of it was of obvious use, it had all been done before, and after a few days the men were sick of it. To make matters worse, the Navy had placed many restrictions on what could be done on the island. This further displeased the members of the Regiment.

‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Corporal Paddy Clarke said two days later in the Volcano Club. ‘I’m fucking tired of playing amateur soldiers every morning on this bit of volcanic rock – just learning the terrain and repeating the lessons of Sickener One. Then listening to the green slime givin’ their boring lectures every bloody afternoon. Bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit. If we have to retrain, let’s do it properly – not all this basic REMF stuff.’

REMFs was the SAS term for the boys at the back – the ‘rear-echelon motherfuckers’.

‘It’s the Navy’s fault,’ Baby Face said. He was yearning for Darlene and looking lovelorn. ‘As the Head Shed said at the briefing back in the Kremlin, the Navy’s limiting the numbers of troops who can be ashore at any time – and that limits our training. It’s always the Navy.’

‘Right on,’ Gumboot said. ‘It’s always the Navy’s fault. They’re just tryin’ to take advantage. Those bastards want to keep us trapped here while they get all the glory.’

‘No glory to be had,’ big Taff Burgess pointed out mildly. ‘At least, not so far. The politicians are still farting around while we sit here sweating.’

‘Besides,’ Ricketts added, ‘it’s not just the Navy. It’s this damned terrain. We can’t train you properly in this place because we’ve nothing to work with – no snow, no ice crevasses, no mud. Here we only have featureless terrain and sea, which is not much use to us.’

They all knew what he meant. The main key to survival in an Arctic environment is to get out of the wind and defeat the cold. For this reason, all SAS troopers routinely receive training in the construction of shelters such as snow holes, snow caves and igloos, as well as instruction in ski techniques and navigation in Arctic conditions. Special training in those areas was clearly impossible on Ascension Island, where the ground was too hard to simulate snow holes and too flat to construct dry ski runs.

‘At least we’ve done some weapons training,’ Ricketts said. ‘Thanks for small mercies.’

In fact the only special weapons training they had done was in how to keep their weapons in working order in the dismal weather of the Falklands. Because in extremely cold conditions lubricants thicken, causing jams and sluggish action, all unnecessary lubricants had to be removed, with only the surfaces of the bolt being lubricated, and the rest left dry. Similarly, ammunition had to be cleaned of all oil and condensation. This required a little learning, but not much, so the men were soon bored again.