Knife Edge: Life as a Special Forces Surgeon (26 page)

When the task force set sail, amidst all manner of tub-thumping and media hype, I was certain nothing would happen. I felt Argentina was sure to see reason and withdraw. Nothing of the sort. Slowly it became apparent they would have to be pushed off. Their politicians had too much to lose by capitulating.

While Britain hovered on the brink of war, I was hard at work as a trainee orthopaedic surgeon. Supervising my somewhat inept attempts at what surgeons call ‘cutting’ were two of the finest practitioners I have met. I shall call them Colonels Jack and Graham. Both had that enviable skill that so few surgeons have. When they used a scalpel to cut the skin, a patient would barely bleed. It cannot be learned and most certainly cannot be taught. My immediate superior was Martin. In civilian life he would hold the rank of Senior Registrar, an experienced surgeon shortly to become a consultant. Martin is, and was, one of life’s great characters. Once a medical officer to the Parachute Regiment, he is a man of action, decision and firm convictions. Together we would sit in the surgeons’ coffee room between operations, bemoaning the fact we had been left behind as the task force sailed south.

‘It’s easy, Richard,’ he would say.

‘How?’ I would ask.

‘Just bomb the bastards. Drop a nuc. That’ll sort ‘em out.’

Our fanciful conversations would become ever more wide-ranging. By the time the ships had reached Ascension Island, the halfway stage, Martin and I had hatched dozens of different plots and secret missions. Galtieri was to be assassinated and the entire Parachute Regiment would be dropped over Port Stanley in a full frontal assault. President Reagan, meanwhile, was to be blackmailed to ensure American participation. Of course, in reality, none of these ever happened. Colonels Jack and Graham tolerated our manic discussions as only wise men can, while Martin and I resigned ourselves to the role of armchair warriors. True REMFs, as the Americans call them: Rear Echelon Mother Fuckers. Several of the guys from stores were whisked away to the South Atlantic at short notice. For the rest of us life continued at its weary, somewhat tedious pace. My role had been established as one of caring for casualties once they returned to the United Kingdom. The South Atlantic medal was not one for me.

It was at half past midnight in mid May that my life forever changed. I had been out at a stag night and was feeling terrible. I had had far too much to drink. The telephone rang in my central London flat. It was the Ministry of Defence - Major N, who had been trying to find me for three hours. The bleep system had let him down at every turn. I was summoned to an urgent meeting at the hospital and was given thirty minutes to attend. Major N did not explain the reasons over the telephone.

I met him in a small room in the building’s administration wing. Across a bare mahogany table the two of us sat. There was no one else present. Considering a war was in progress, his briefing was remarkably limited. In retrospect it was probable that he, too, had been told very little. The operation was highly sensitive. That night he had been asked to find two surgical teams for an SAS operation. My name had been given as a starting-point. There was no time to lose. He could not say what the operation involved, but it would mean working in the back of an aircraft. There would be no facility for fancy surgery. Our task would be to keep operatives alive as long as possible, until they could reach established medical care.

I asked several questions about the background to the request, and more specific detail of what was involved. He could not answer them. In the end I gave up asking and concentrated on bringing the teams together. Though SMTs were available, nothing existed for this new scenario. I imagine the RAMC had never considered such a situation would arise. Whatever the reason, everything created that night came from thin air.

At 2 a.m., forming two three-man medical teams by dawn is a difficult task. I had a free hand. Naturally, and immediately, I thought of Martin. We had both already imagined a multitude of situations in which the war could involve us. Here was our chance, whatever that might be.

To his eternal credit, the moment I telephoned, he offered his services immediately. When Martin says he will do something, you can be sure it will happen. Together we set about finding the other four we needed. There was no purpose in having six surgeons. Though a surgeon may be a good, practical person with his hands, he requires much support. We decided the others should be nurses and operating theatre assistants.

By 4.30 a.m. the MOD had its teams. I was astonished how readily everyone agreed to help, particularly when I could tell them so little about the operation. One assistant was due to move house that very morning. As he lived in a married quarter near the hospital, I went to his house. The assistant, his wife and I sat on the various packing cases that littered his living room to discuss taking the man of the house to war. I could see how torn he was. I was unmarried then, without children. It never crossed my mind he could have loyalties anywhere other than active service. I can still see his wife’s distressed face as, after initial hesitance, he agreed to come.

During war, RAF, Navy and Army have different agendas and varying ambitions. The senior hierarchy may speak with one another and cooperate, or so one hopes, but at ground level the situation is far from satisfactory. Inter-service rivalry may sometimes be frankly hostile. The Falklands War, known to us all as Operation Corporate, was my first experience of a major, tri-service, conflict. One might imagine that all involved are kept fully updated and briefed. The reality is different. You are a small cog in a very large wheel. Whether by accident or design, you are well-informed in your one, specific, tiny area of activity but rarely privy to the big picture. The Army calls it ‘need to know’. What you don’t need to know cannot hurt you. The SAS is better off than most. Even then information can be lacking. No surprise therefore that the CO learned of the original invasion from the BBC. No surprise also that all of us were glued to every World Service bulletin to hear how the war progressed. The BBC has a style, an accuracy, a relaxed manner, with which few can compete.

Whatever the reasons, the true hazards of the operation were never made clear at the initial briefing. I was subsequently to learn that I had been selected, and selected others, for a mission with an optimistic 30 per cent chance of survival for those involved. I knew that for normal troops the risk of dying in war was small. This operation, whatever it was, was something very different. Given a choice, I imagine my
Boys’ Own
approach to life would have ensured my involvement. However, I would have thought very carefully about taking married men if I had known.

You know things are bad when the military top brass have to get out of bed to agree things. I should have guessed the Director-General being woken at 4 a.m. by Major N’s telephone call spelt trouble, but I did not. With his blessing, we were told to be ready to move to a tiny airfield in central England by 1.30 that afternoon. I still had no idea what to expect. Even the destination after the airfield was kept from us.

Major N had asked that I should also collect the equipment needed for the job. As I had no idea what the task was, this was an impossible order.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

‘Dunno,’ came the reply.

‘How many casualties can we expect?’

‘Dunno.’

‘OK then. How long will we have to keep them alive?’

‘Dunno.’

I got the message quickly. We were on our own. Eventually, Major N contacted me with a very vague casualty estimate, saying we should be prepared to keep them alive for twelve hours. I knew that, somewhere in the bowels of Hereford, there were several sets of antiterrorist medical kit for the SMTs. As there was no time to design and prepare equipment specially for this task, I asked that two complete sets be sent to meet us at the airfield. The equipment was mainly designed for use in a friendly country, where hospital facilities were close by. It could not cope with the large numbers likely on this occasion. I therefore instructed that extra surgical items be obtained from the Army’s main supply depot. They, too, pulled out all stops that morning.

The final hours before one goes to war can be immensely confusing. There is certainly no time to worry. From all corners come strange items of equipment the Quartermaster hotly denied existed during peacetime. Suddenly they miraculously appear from a hidden shelf, somewhere in a backroom. Everything for this operation was spanking new.

The administration must also have their say. You cannot go to war without every form being signed and fully completed. I must have put my signature to a hundred that day. My favourite was the FIdent 107, with its two brilliant red crosses at each top corner. Safely protected in its plastic cover, and carrying an appalling photograph and fingerprint of its immature owner on the reverse, it proudly proclaimed I was a doctor. ‘The bearer of this card is protected by the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949,’ it said. Some hope, I thought, knowing what the average Argentinian would do to an SAS doctor captured in the field.

The identity card was supported by the FIdent 189, specially designed with a tear-off portion to be handed to the opposition in the event of capture. As well as name, rank and number, it also proclaims, ‘If you are captured you are required, under the provisions of Article 17 of the Prisoner of War Convention, 1949, to give your captors the information set out below so that your capture may be reported to your next-of-kin. When you are interrogated, but not before, tear off the duplicate portion and give it to the interrogators, give no other information.’ War was coming frighteningly close.

That morning, before leaving London, I made one vital telephone call. To my mother. I could not tell her where I was going, even if I had known. With a husband in Intelligence, and a son in the SAS, she had become highly skilled at the art of veiled conversation. I suppose this was one more episode to add to the already lengthy list of worries I had given her since leaving home.

‘I’ve got to go away for a while, Mum,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure for how long.’ I tried to sound as jolly as I could. Mum picked it up immediately. I could sense her distress even though she would never admit it. Dad, the voice of reason, came on after her. Having been sunk himself three times in the Second World War, I was sure he knew what faced me. Neither asked any detailed questions, just calmly wished me well. Mum whispered, ‘Be careful,’ and hung up. While I was away she listened to almost every news bulletin, at least twelve in a day. She had also faithfully stuck pins into a model of Galtieri daily.

It took three and a half hours to reach the airfield, lurching our way in the hospital minibus, crammed together with our kit: Bergens, waterproofs, mess tins, Red Cross armbands. Everything was there.

Running a war is a massive logistic exercise. Running one 13,000 kilometres away is a challenge most will fail to meet. I can see now why the RAF’s palette-packers were awarded South Atlantic medals. They must have worked twenty-four hours a day to keep the likes of ourselves supported. With so much kit available, there is a risk you can lose your own. It must be instantly recognizable by day or night, indoors or outdoors, rain or shine, from the many other items going in the same direction. Therefore mark it you must, though without any sign of rank, name, unit or location. Nothing to give you away when caught or if your equipment is found abandoned. After heated debate we decided on a team logo. A small, fluorescent orange mushroom. It was not my idea.

‘Mushrooms are fed on shit and kept in the dark, aren’t they, boss?’ an assistant observed as we forced down a suspect meal at the airfield. From that moment the mushroom became our sign and we set about cutting dozens of small fungi from a large sheet of adhesive orange plastic, sticking them as markers on every item of equipment we possessed. At least our recently formed team had an identity, even if its mission was still unclear. I was willing to stake my life an Argentinian interrogator would have no idea of a mushroom’s significance. Indeed I might have to.

At 3 a.m. the following morning we left for a tiny location in the middle of nowhere. The six of us were squeezed, like sardines in a tin, into the tiny recesses a Hercules’ huge freightload would allow. The C130 is a wonderful machine. You cannot escape that feeling of real flying. Shaking, vibrating, rattling one’s way around the world, she seems able to cope with anything. She is also unbearably slow. It took twenty hours of juddering to reach our destination.

This was to be our holding area. A volcanic region, full of rough, jagged promontories and spurs. In its centre stood a faded green hillock, unjustifiably called a mountain by the locals. The tiny airfield on which we landed was packed with aircraft, though this time they were bombers rather than Hercules transports. I had never seen a Vulcan bomber close up before, but they are
huge —
absolutely massive - guaranteed to reinforce that now established feeling I had developed: the tiny cog in an enormous wheel.

As I stumbled from the tailgate of the C130 I was greeted by numerous, smiling, familiar faces. Men I had known well while I had been RMO in Hereford. Their greeting was so warm it was as if I had never been away, 22 SAS was here in force and had been stood by to act for three weeks already. What was strange was why Major A was there, acting as Squadron Commander. As far as I was aware, Major D was in charge, and yet nowhere was he to be seen. Major A was very senior to be in such a post. A likeable man, he had the most impenetrable, rockhard facade I have seen - a truly professional soldier. He ushered me in the direction of his Land Rover, as he wanted to brief me, which meant there was probably little time to spare. His first words, spoken as soon as I had slammed shut the Land Rover door, set the scene. ‘Doc, it’s great to see you,’ he said. ‘I wondered whether it would be you who volunteered for this.’

Who the hell had said anything about volunteering? At no stage had anyone in the UK said there might be an opt out. Now at the operational holding area, nothing would be gained by pointing this out. Unless I wanted to look a complete fool, or worse still be accused of cowardice, I was stuck with the situation. Major A started his briefing as we lurched towards the holding area.