Knife Edge: Life as a Special Forces Surgeon (8 page)

Yet somehow, for reasons I still do not understand, no close inspection was made. I can only suppose it was the weather that kept the guards inside. We took it in turns in the end, in twelve-minute shifts, waiting for the next head to appear before resuming our task. On one occasion a policeman did come very near to the target door, when number 2 was sawing the lock. The patrol, if that is what I can call it, was unexpected. Number 2 got the fright of his life. We had decided, if caught, to abandon everything and run. The SAS operative thought he had been rumbled, throwing the hacksaw firmly into the dustbin beside the door. As he did so, the dustbin lid slid off, landing with an enormous crash on the ground. The noise went on forever. Number 2, meanwhile, was stood in the doorway, bathed in orange light, as clear as day. I can see the policeman now, looking disinterestedly our way. He missed number 2 altogether, ignored the clattering dustbin lid and returned to his warm base. Perhaps he felt the wind had been responsible for the noise. After all, no self-respecting SAS patrol would make such a din, would they?

After ninety minutes, not ninety seconds, we were successful. The lock had been cut, dummy charges laid and we were away, heading towards the secondary target. Perhaps we were being overambitious, but by now our blood was up. It was as we approached the transformer that the police discovered evidence of our successful primary attack. All hell broke loose. Sirens, lights, cars, dogs. You name it and they had it. The number of times a searchlight passed directly over me that night was horrifying. On each occasion I froze and on each occasion it passed me by. We had now been rumbled, though not captured. It was time to beat a hasty retreat if we could, though via the transformer, our secondary target. I almost made it there, but had to go to earth ten metres away when a dog patrol arrived to inspect it. Now, at last, the police were taking their job seriously.

The dog went crazy, jumping, leaping, growling and barking. I could hear it straining at the leash, pulling hard on the handler’s shoulder. I lay there, inches away, completely motionless. On one occasion the animal came so close its saliva hit my neck, but it was dark and the transformer had no floodlights to illuminate it. Several times the handler shone his torch at me, and over me. Each time he failed to see me. I knew I was there, the dog knew I was there, but the handler did not. A guard dog is only as good as the person controlling it.

Target attacks like this are the staple diet of any SAS soldier. They can be immensely challenging and at times dangerous. No holds are barred on either side. I remember well a night attack on a dockyard, near Southampton. We were successful, in that charges were laid on several naval vessels. The security forces, however, were certain two of us had taken shelter under their main quayside, having approached it from the sea. They were right, though could not prove it. It was high tide, but there was a tiny pocket of air between the water’s surface and the underside of the quay. It was a perfect place to hide, allowing easy access to the boats moored each side. The security people were not to be deterred and ran their patrol vessels up and down the water either side of the quay at top speed. If we were there, I am sure they felt, their wash would drive us out. Their ploy nearly worked. The two of us hung on for dear life, being thrown forcibly and repeatedly against the barnacled underside of the quay. Like a fool, I had not worn gloves and so had to grip the razor sharp barnacles with my bare hands for protection. In my frantic efforts to prevent my head from being smashed to pulp on the quay’s underside, the skin from two fingertips was ripped completely away. They have since recovered, but made surgery impossible for several weeks thereafter. I still cannot feel properly as a result.

Throughout these events, I was part civilian, part soldier. The transition from one to the other was frequently difficult. As a medical student, neither bosses nor colleagues had any idea of what I was up to. It was best kept that way. Jim T, my parachuting friend, had long since returned to Hull after his confirmation of my insanity for joining the SAS at all. I noticed my loyalties slowly changing. Civilian friendships began to fade, while military ones developed. Relationships with girlfriends struggled to survive. I was either working all hours God gave in hospital or miles away from London on SAS training. I was engaged to be married, but my wife on this occasion was the SAS. I imagine those girls who knew me must have thought I was gay. The reality was simpler. I was more interested in medicine and the SAS than lifelong liaisons or carnal satisfaction on a Saturday night.

For my last six months at medical school I packed away my camouflage uniform and studied hard. The final medical examination is no laughing matter and needs endless hours of book work and research. Twelve hours of reading a day would not be an exaggeration. Having failed my SAS medical course I was determined not to do the same with its civilian equivalent. I found the only way truly to concentrate, apart from the vivid terror of forthcoming examinations focusing my mind, was to remove all distractions from around me. Nonmedical books, guitars, pictures on the walls. All had to go, otherwise I would find an excuse to tinker with them rather than deal with the prime object of qualifying as a doctor. A medical colleague taught me a particularly good way of staying awake during the endless book work. He, too, would remove all extraneous distractions from around him. For maximum concentration he had to sit facing a blank wall, the one relevant textbook open on the desk before him. He would place a scalpel vertically, blade upwards, beside the textbook and rest the palm of his hand gently on the tip of its cutting edge. Each time his concentration lagged, or should he fall asleep, his hand would sag and the blade would jab him awake. It was an excellent method of cramming in the book work over the shortest possible time. Painful, occasionally bloody, but a brilliant idea. I take no responsibility should you try it.

I was fortunate to qualify at the first attempt. Now, grandly, I could be called
Doctor
Villar, Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. It sounded tremendous. My chest was puffed with pride. As with SAS Selection, however, such feelings last for barely a day. Suddenly you realize that these grandiose qualifications represent only the beginning of medical life. You have not yet treated any patients at all. So far it has been theory, plus closely supervised instruction. The real thing, making life and death decisions, is far more terrifying. Becoming a surgeon, particularly an orthopaedic one, was still a long way away.

It was a difficult time for the UK’s National Health Service. Healthcare is a political football, from whichever country you originate. You must become accustomed to rules and regulations changing almost every year, often for no apparent reason. Despite my deeply held ambitions to become a full-time SAS doctor, it was still hard to take the final plunge. Until now I had always the option to switch between SAS or civilian medicine at will. To leave the warm, parental feel of my teaching hospital worried me, even if I also felt the place was too constrained and political. Six months away from SAS activities while I qualified had put tiny, infinitesimal doubts in my mind. They did not last long.

I had the good fortune to have the British monarch’s surgeon as my first boss. He, and his colleague, were charming and professional, but their job immensely demanding. A 120-hour week was routine. That would not be accepted now, but in 1978 was regarded as normal. The moment I realized the intensity and impracticality of such a rota, I welcomed an alternative. Within six weeks I had volunteered for Regular Army service. The NHS, well used to its junior doctors showing signs of strain, did not bat an eye.

I was not allowed to join as a soldier, irrespective of what military skills I possessed. My recent medical qualification prohibited it. I did not wish to anyway. It was SAS medicine that interested me now. I had long ago decided that 22 SAS Regimental Medical Officer it would be. 22 SAS only had one doctor. At that time the route in was through the Royal Army Medical Corps, the RAMC. As before, the civilian world thought me mad, advising against stepping outside the bottomless rut of NHS hospital practice. By then it was too late. I had already applied to join. Determined, and with a chest full of anticipation and ambition, I arranged to meet 22 SAS’s commanding officer, Colonel M.

Despite extensive experience with the Territorial 21 SAS and all manner of Special Forces activities over several years, I had only ever passed through Hereford’s Regular 22 SAS camp for very brief periods, usually in transit elsewhere. I was invited to join Colonel M in the Officers’ Mess bar. He was a huge man, positively charming. He explained that the SAS doctor’s post used to be the most unpopular in the British Army. Now, for some reason, he said, ‘Everyone wants to join.’ He was right. There was a list of applicants as long as my arm, including one who had left 22 SAS several years earlier, specifically to train as a doctor. My heart sank. He was bound to get the job, I thought. In the event, it was I who was successful. I do not know why. Whatever the reasons, I was shortly to embark on the most astonishing journey of my life.

Entering the main gate of 22 SAS’s Hereford Camp, an immense wave of awe overtakes you. Instantly, you become aware that the place is special. Few ever have the chance to enter. Those who do guard this privilege jealously.

Unsignposted, and surrounded by a housing estate in Hereford’s suburbs, the then Bradbury Lines was a forbidding sight: a central encampment, consisting largely of slatted wooden huts, surrounded by twelve-foot high unfriendly fencing. The Officers’ Mess, my home when I started as Medical Officer, stood apart from the rest. Again wooden, again fenced, it struck a lonely figure immediately beside the main camp. It was drizzling, cold and misty. It is always drizzling, cold and misty in Hereford. I remember one year when the sun did not appear until May. Despite being a fully badged member of 21 SAS I knew this occasion was different. No longer did I have the security of civilian medicine. I was now committed to full-time service with the most feared and professional military unit in the world.

With a trembling hand I approached the reinforced gate, aware I did not have the magnetic card which would allow me to enter. I pressed the button to one side. ‘Yes?’ came the instant, crackly, male reply from its adjacent loudspeaker. I withdrew my hand immediately, as if I had received an electric shock. I could see no one. No cars. No lights. No pedestrians. No guards. No dogs. Just me, and a gate in a fence, standing twenty yards from a lonely wooden building. Taking a deep breath, I bent towards the loudspeaker and whispered, glancing either side of me as I spoke. I was imagining all manner of things in my insecurity, including hidden IRA men lurking in nearby hedging, telescopic sights aimed to kill.

‘Villar, Dr Villar,’ I said, voice as low as I dared, praying someone would come and help. It was reminiscent of my day in the south London Careers Information Office, though this time there was no deaf Warrant Officer. Just me, the loudspeaker and the gate.

There was no answer. I stood transfixed, staring at the loudspeaker, but it remained silent. Worried, forehead wrinkled, I looked through the wire gate to the building beyond. When I had paid my earlier visit to Colonel M, I had not noticed these security arrangements. Nothing moved in the Officers’ Mess. Its unlit, darkened windows gave no clue as to what, or who, lay beyond. Silence persisted. Then, suddenly, the loudspeaker broke into life once more. ‘Yes? Who is it? Come on, speak up! I haven’t got all day!’ it crackled.

Again I leaned forward, whispering ‘Villar. Dr Villar. I-I’m your new doctor.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ replied the loudspeaker. I could hear voices talking in the background, despite the electronic fuzz. At least there are two of them in there I thought. The loudspeaker continued. ‘I don’t know who you are, but for God’s sake press the bleeding button! We can’t hear until you do.’

My heart sank. It was so obvious. I looked again at the loudspeaker, now seeing the small, aluminium button to one side. I pressed it and tried again, feeling suitably humbled in my attempt to give a good impression on first arrival. ‘Dr Villar,’ I said. ‘You’re expecting me?’ Perhaps it was a mistake, I began to think. Perhaps a joke. The Army never intended to post me to 22 SAS at all. Perhaps there had been significance in the posting major’s wicked smile when my Regimental attachment had been announced at London’s First Avenue House, dominating one side of a dreary High Holborn.

‘Doc Villar?’ came the reply. ‘We’re expecting no Doc Villar. Who are you anyway?’

My heart sank still further. For years I had trained for it and it had come to this. 22 SAS were not expecting me. I had been set up after all. It was as I turned to leave that the loudspeaker crackled noisily once more. ‘Wait one!’ it shouted. ‘Doc Villar? Yes. Here we are. We got the notification today. I’ll send someone out to let you in.’

An overwhelming sense of relief overtook me. I turned to face the gate once more, looking through it at the main entrance door beyond. I broadened my shoulders, stood as upright as I could and wiped my sweating palms surreptitiously on my trousers. I wanted to be sure I could respond in kind to the firm, muscular handshake I was sure to receive from whichever SAS operative allowed me in. David Stirling himself, perhaps, the founder of the SAS? I stood even more upright, now preparing what steely-eyed gaze I could muster. The drizzly weather no longer made any impact.

With a thump the Mess front door swung open. I waited for the tall, confident figure who would greet me. I had, after all, forsaken an entire civilian medical career to come here. I was sure the SAS would roll out the red carpet as welcome once they knew I had arrived. It was as the figure appeared I began again to have doubts. No uniform. No weapon. No steely-eyed stare. ‘Doc Villar?’ it said as its small frame waddled towards the gate. ‘I’m Anna, one of the cleaners. Wait just a moment and I’ll let you in.’