First Man In: Leading from the Front

First Man In: Leading from the Front Ant Middleton NUMBER 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERNo one is born a leader. But through sheer determination and by confronting life’s challenges, Ant Middleton has come to know the meaning of true leadership. In First Man In, he shares the core lessons he’s learned over the course of his fascinating, exhilarating life.Special forces training is no walk in the park. The rules are strict and they make sure you learn the hard way, pushing you beyond the limits of what is physically possible. There is no mercy. Even when you are bleeding and broken, to admit defeat is failure.To survive the gruelling selection process to become a member of the elite you need toughness, aggression, meticulous attention to detail and unrelenting self-discipline, all traits that make for the best leaders.After 13 years service in the military, with 4 years as a Special Boat Service (SBS) sniper, Ant Middleton is the epitome of what it takes to excel. He served in the SBS, the naval wing of the special forces, the Royal Marines and 9 Parachute Squadron Royal, achieving what is known as the ‘Holy Trinity’ of the UK’s Elite Forces. As a point man in the SBS, Ant was always the first man through the door, the first man into the dark, and the first man in harm’s way.In this fascinating, exhilarating and revealing book, Ant speaks about the highs and gut-wrenching lows of his life – from the thrill of passing Special Forces Selection to dealing with the early death of his father and ending up in prison on leaving the military – and draws valuable lessons that we can all use in our daily lives. (#ud798aca1-5253-5685-8a15-a8a4b9a54248) COPYRIGHT (#ud798aca1-5253-5685-8a15-a8a4b9a54248) HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018 FIRST EDITION © Anthony Middleton 2018 Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018 Cover photographs © Andrew Brown (author), Shutterstock.com (background) A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Anthony Middleton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/green) Source ISBN: 9780008245719 Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008245740 Version: 2018-07-09 DEDICATION (#ud798aca1-5253-5685-8a15-a8a4b9a54248) For Emilie To the only person who can make me or break me with one sentence. This woman pushes me on a daily basis and will not accept anything less than one hundred per cent from me at all times. When I lose my way, she redirects me. When I put a foot out of place, she stamps on it. And when I fail, she is the only person who can lift me back up and make me feel invincible. My wife is the reason I am here today and she is the lady that has made me the man I am. CONTENTS COVER (#uc7f100b2-b64f-5387-b9d7-2dd2ae83d4be) TITLE PAGE (#ue7e307bf-ca34-5660-8370-518f8c9ce454) COPYRIGHT (#ua226e9c7-19ce-5fa9-93b2-a1c0e19dc93f) DEDICATION (#u17cf0914-83ea-59e3-9c43-b347e21410ba) INTRODUCTION (#ufa341594-72ea-5f00-bc6d-6c32c1391c4a) PREFACE (#uda5e2e1f-2b53-58cd-a430-3f9d263b8f5f) LESSON 1 DON’T LET ANYONE DEFINE WHO YOU ARE (#u9f8ba8a7-72b5-5861-bd63-778daae1dbc8) LESSON 2 MAKE YOUR ENEMY YOUR ENERGY (#u8c7b25cc-5a73-52e8-b8a3-a150ccc8b4b6) LESSON 3 LEADERS STAND APART FROM CROWDS (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 4 MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR DEMONS (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 5 YOU DON’T NEED TO BE THE LEADER TO LEAD (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 6 FAILURE ISN’T MAKING THE MISTAKE, IT’S ALLOWING THE MISTAKE TO WIN (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 7 THE WAR IS ALWAYS IN YOUR HEAD (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 8 THE POWER OF INTELLIGENT WAITING (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 9 HOW TO AVOID A MUTINY (#litres_trial_promo) LESSON 10 THE ULTIMATE LEADERSHIP LESSON (#litres_trial_promo) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo) ABOUT THE PUBLISHER (#litres_trial_promo) INTRODUCTION (#ud798aca1-5253-5685-8a15-a8a4b9a54248) Of all the people that I meet in my day-to-day life, most don’t have the courage to ask The Question. The majority only know me from the television and so are aware that I served two tours of Afghanistan with the Special Forces. Because my first TV appearance was on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, it’s often assumed that I was a member of the Special Air Service. In fact, I was a Special Boat Service operator. In military parlance I was a point man. My job was to lead a small group of men into Taliban compounds, searching out high-status targets on dangerous ‘hard arrest’ missions. Because of the great secrecy that surrounds Special Forces operations, I can’t talk about them. But I am able to give you a very general answer to The Question. Killing someone feels like gently pulling your trigger finger back a few millimetres. It feels like hearing a dull pop. It feels like seeing a man-shaped object fall away from your sights. It feels like getting the job done. It feels satisfying. But, beyond that, killing someone feels like nothing at all. You might find that shocking. You might even find it offensive. I’m aware, of course, that mine is not an ordinary response. It’s not even a response that I share with everyone who’s fought in war. Many brave men I served alongside will remain forever traumatised by the horrors they’ve witnessed and taken part in. I truly feel for them. Being part of a ‘hard arrest’ team meant working regularly in conditions of life-threatening stress and being surrounded, almost every day, by blood and killing. But my struggle wasn’t with the trauma all that created. Mine was with its satisfaction. I’d enjoyed it – perhaps, at times, too much. I thrived on combat. I still miss it every day. In Afghanistan, getting shot at was a regular occurrence. You came to expect it. I viewed survival as a numbers game. As point man, every time I entered a Taliban compound or a room within a compound and knew that there was badness on the other side, I played the odds in my head. It was a bit like roulette – a calculated risk. I’d think, ‘What are the chances of me going through that door and there’s a combatant there who knows I’m coming? If they do know I’m coming, what are the chances of them being able to fire more than one bullet before I shoot at them? What are the chances that one bullet’s going to hit me in the head and kill me?’ When I thought of it like that, I’d usually come to realise the chances were pretty slim. So I’d think, ‘Fuck it, the odds are with me,’ and that would get me through the door. Sometimes, at this point of entry, there’d be bullets flying in my direction. But experience told me these bursts were usually over in seconds and that the moment there was a pause in firing I could make my move – entering crouched low, because idiots with AKs usually can’t control the natural lift of their weapons and they spray rounds at the ceiling when they fire. I’d think, ‘If he pulls the trigger again, he’ll only have the chance to squeeze it once or twice, max, before I get the drop on him.’ If one or two rounds did come out of his weapon and strike me in the chest plate, it would only be my chest plate. If they hit me in the leg, they’d only immobilise me for a split second. If I fell down, I knew my pal would be right behind me, on my shoulder, and would finish the job in a blink. That was how I saw it – a numbers game. Always the odds. Always a little calculation in my head. Which is not to say I found it easy. Far from it. Going into an operation, the fear would be horrendous. But as soon as it all began – the moment I breached the compound or made contact with the enemy – I’d enter a completely different psychological space. The only thing I can compare it to is the final seconds before a car smash, when you see how it’s all going to play out in slow motion. Your brain goes into a hyper-efficient state, absorbing so much information from your surroundings that it really does feel as if the clock has suddenly slowed down – as if you’ve got the ability to control time itself. This enabled me to act with a level of precision in which it seemed I could count in milliseconds. It was a state of pure focus, pure action, pure instinct, every cell in my body working in perfect harmony with each other towards the same end, at a level of peak performance. I didn’t feel any emotion. There was only awareness, control and action. It was the closest thing I could imagine to feeling all-powerful, like God. And that’s what I was, in a way. When I was point man in the middle of a dangerous operation, godlike was how my mind and body felt – and godlike was how I had to act in judging, in a fraction of an instant, who lived and who died. The first man I ever killed came out at me from the hot, dusty shadows of an Afghan compound. It was night. He was wearing a traditional white ankle-length robe, called a dish-dash. There was a thick strap over his right shoulder. In his hands, an AK-47. He stopped, then squinted into the darkness. He couldn’t see me. He stared some more. His neck craned forwards. He saw the two green eyes of my night-vision goggles staring back at him from the blackness. And then it came, an event I’d soon know well. While a lot goes on within it, the moment of death always has an order, a sure sequence of events. It happens like this: Shock. Doubt. Disbelief. Confusion. Your target feels an urge to double-check a situation that they can’t quite believe is happening. Their thoughts race. Their lips open just a few millimetres. Their eyes squint into the night. Their chin moves forward. Their body begins to change its stance. And then … That moment – the one I’d watch happening time after time after time in Afghanistan in intimate, ultra-slow motion – is our secret weapon. Staying alive, and achieving our objective, relied on tiny fractions of time such as this. Special Forces soldiers are trained to operate between the tremors of the clock’s ticking hand, slipping in and out and doing their work in the time it takes for the enemy to turn one thought into another. And that’s how it went the night of my first kill. From my position in the corner of the compound I took half a step forwards, raised my weapon and squeezed the trigger once, then twice. The suppressor I’d screwed to the barrel made the firing of the bullets sound like little more than the clicks of a computer mouse. Perfect shots. Two in the mouth. He went down. The Special Forces are looking for individuals who have the ability to do this as a job, day in, day out, and not let it destroy them. That was me. People like this aren’t born this way. They’re made. This book is not just lessons in leadership that I’ve learned over the years. It’s the story of how I became the man I am. It’s a tale of a naive and gentle young lad whose first memory is of his beloved father being found dead. It’s the tale of struggle and pain and fury in the army, of darkness and violence on the streets of Essex, of days in war zones, days in prison, days hunting down kidnapped girls in foreign lands, days leading men out of impossible hells. It’s the story of how I became the kind of individual who leads from the front and who, no matter what danger he’s charging into, always wants to be first man in. PREFACE (#ud798aca1-5253-5685-8a15-a8a4b9a54248) Strange noises. People moving about. People talking. Footsteps. Heavy, grown-up footsteps that I didn’t recognise. I sat up in bed and tried to wake myself by squeezing and rubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands. It was the week after Christmas – perhaps Mum and Dad were having a party. I climbed down from my top bunk past my brother’s bed, which was empty. On the chest of drawers there was my favourite toy, a plastic army helicopter that Dad had bought for my fifth birthday. I reached up on tiptoes and gave its black propellers a push. I was about to take it down when I heard someone crying. I turned towards the sound. Through the crack in the door I saw a policeman. I slipped out and followed him, barefoot in my grey pyjamas, in the direction of my parents’ bedroom. I passed two more policemen in the corridor who were talking and didn’t seem to notice me. Lights were blazing in my mum and dad’s room. There were even more policemen in there, four, maybe five of them, crowded around the bed. Intrigued and excited, I pushed between the legs of two of them and peered up to see what they were all looking at. There was someone under the sheets. Whoever it was, they weren’t moving. I shuffled forward for a better view. ‘No! No! No!’ a policeman shouted. He bent down and manoeuvred me back down the corridor into the other bedroom, his bony fingertips pressing into my shoulders. My brothers were all in there, Peter, Michael and Daniel. Someone had taken the television up there from downstairs. They were all watching it. I sat down in the corner. I didn’t say a word. My next memory is about four weeks later. I was being woken up again: ‘Anthony! Anthony! Come on, Anthony. Wake up.’ The main light was on. There were two people standing over me, my mum and this man I’d never seen before. He was enormously tall, with a big nose and long, dark hair that went down past his shoulders. I didn’t know how old he was, but I could see he was much younger than Mum. ‘Anthony,’ she said. ‘Meet your new dad.’ LESSON 1 DON’T LET ANYONE DEFINE WHO YOU ARE (#ud798aca1-5253-5685-8a15-a8a4b9a54248) It felt as if we’d been driving for days. I gazed out of the car window, watching motorways turn to A-roads turn to winding, hedge-crowded country lanes, with every mile we travelled bringing me closer and closer to the new life I’d chosen for myself and further away from the familiarity of the family home and everything I loved, hated and feared. The clouds hung above us like oily rags and the November wind battered on the roof of our Ford Sierra as it sputtered through the Surrey countryside. Neither me, my mum nor my stepfather spoke much. We let the English weather do the talking for us. As the wheels of the car pounded the tarmac, anxious thoughts span around my head. Had I made the right decision? Would I find myself and thrive in my new home? Or was I just swapping one unpredictable hellhole for another? Who was I going to be when this new journey ended? If I’d known the answer to that, I’d have opened the car door and jumped straight out. The truth was, back in 1997 I didn’t have much of an idea who I was as a person. Who does when they’re seventeen? At that age we like to think we’re fully defined human beings, but the fact is we’re barely out of life’s starting blocks. We’ve spent our childhood being defined by teachers, parents, brothers, sisters, tinpot celebrities on the TV and, in the middle of all that, is a squishy lump of dough who’s constantly being shaped and reshaped. That’s why, especially when we’re young, it’s crucial that we’re surrounded by people whose influence is going to be positive and who are interested in building up our strengths, rather than drowning us in our weaknesses. I know that now. I wish I’d known it then. Eventually, on the side of a narrow road, a red sign came into view. I couldn’t read what it said through the steam and raindrops on my window, so I rubbed the condensation away with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. MILITARY ROAD: ALL VEHICLES ARE LIABLE TO BE STOPPED. I sat up and took a deep breath. The car slowed down. There was another sign, a white notice that just said PIRBRIGHT CAMP. Beyond that was a guard room outside tall, black gates. And then, the sign I had been looking for: NEW RECRUITS REPORT HERE. ‘Here we go, Mum,’ I said, trying to disguise the nervousness in my voice. ‘This is it.’ She pulled up in a lay-by. I got out, lifted my heavy black bag from the boot and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. If she was sad to see me go, she did a good job of hiding it. My stepfather wound his window down, gave me the thumbs-up and said, ‘Good luck. See you later,’ then looked away. Before I had the chance to think, Mum was back in the car, closing her door and turning her key in the ignition. The engine fired up and I watched them vanish into the grey-green scenery. I took a moment to steady myself. This was it. From now on, everything was going to be different. I took a deep breath, picked up my bag, slung it over my shoulder and turned towards the domineering complex of red-brick buildings. It looked like a prison or maybe a large hospital. There were rolls of barbed wire on the tops of the walls and security cameras on tall poles facing this way and that. I couldn’t see anyone else or hear any voices. I felt completely alone. It was almost creepy. I approached the guard room nervously, almost expecting there to be nobody behind the glass window. When I was two steps away it was pulled open with a crack and a skinny guy in his mid-twenties, wearing military greens and those round John Lennon-style glasses, peered out. I flashed him my best friendly, charming and disarming smile. ‘I’m reporting for Basic Training, sir,’ I told him. The soldier gave me a look like a bird had crapped on his spectacles. ‘Sir? Don’t call me Sir. I work for a living. It’s “Corporal” to you. Name?’ ‘Middleton, Corporal,’ I said. ‘Royal Engineers.’ He picked up a clipboard that had been lying on his desk and scanned it lazily. ‘Middleton … Middleton … Middleton …’ I shifted my bag onto my other shoulder and tried to squeeze some blood back into my hand. He turned the sheet over and carried on running his fingertip down it. Then, very slowly, he reached over, picked up a second clipboard and began examining that one instead. The winter wind whipped around my neck. Finally, his finger stopped. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Anthony. Is that it? Anthony Middleton?’ ‘Yes, Corporal.’ He smiled at me warmly. ‘Found you!’ I felt a huge rush of relief. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all. ‘You’re not due until next week,’ he said. And with that, his window slammed shut with another loud crack. I was so stunned that all I could do was stand there, gazing at my reflection. Looking back at me in the glass I saw an immaculately presented, naive, skinny teenager with blue eyes and thick black eyebrows that met in the middle. A nice young lad with not a clue what to do. I walked back into the road with my head down but could only go so far before I had to put my bag down again. What was I going to do? How the hell had I got the date wrong? I couldn’t believe it. My mum and stepdad would be a couple of miles away by now. I scanned the muddy landscape in the vague hope I might spot a telephone box so I could call someone. There were trees bare of leaves, some far-off horses in a field and a flock of anonymous birds careening in the distance. There was no telephone box. And who would I call anyway? Where could I sleep? I had no sleeping bag, nor enough money for a B&B. Maybe I could find a dry spot out of the way by the barracks wall. How was I going to last a week in the wet with no food? How could I begin my British Army basic training course starving, soaking and probably ill? I had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to get as far away from the army buildings as quickly as possible. Instead, I put my head down, gritted my jaw and paced up the road, back towards those imposing black gates. I’d have to find somewhere to camp out in the dry and my best bet, I thought, was to use some of that man-made infrastructure. Once I was settled somewhere I’d come up with a plan. I tried to think positively. There must be a town not far away. I could find a call box there and get hold of Mum. I wasn’t sure whether she’d come and get me, to be honest, but towns mean homeless people, and homeless people have shelters and maybe I could … ‘Oi!’ came a shout. ‘Where you going, mate?’ I stopped and turned. On my way I’d passed a smaller brick guard hut. It hadn’t looked occupied but a man in army fatigues was now hanging out of the door, barking at me. ‘You can’t go up there, mate.’ I stopped and turned back. ‘This is a military area,’ he said. ‘What you doing here? Who are you?’ ‘I’m afraid I’ve got my dates wrong,’ I told him with an embarrassed shrug. ‘I have to come back next week, so …’ I smiled, as if the whole thing was no bother at all. ‘New recruit?’ he said. ‘Yes.’ He shook his head and pointed with his chin back towards the large guard house. ‘Get over there and knock on his window,’ he said. ‘He’s fucking with you.’ Half an hour later I found myself standing in a large, spotless room in a line-up of new recruits. We’d come from across the length and breadth of the British Isles in all shapes and sizes, young, spotty, greasy and hairy, none of us comfortable in our own skin and yet all of us desperately acting like we were. A corporal was walking up and down the lines of bodies, silently examining us with an unimpressed eye. The sound of his clicking heels echoed around the shining walls and polished floors. He seemed to tower over us, his spine erect, his broad shoulders filling out his shirt so that the khaki material stretched tightly against his skin. I tried to stop my eyes following him around the room but it was impossible. As he approached closer and closer to me, I forced them forwards and raised my chin just a little bit higher and puffed out my skinny chest as far as I could. The corporal stopped. He stopped right in front of me. My eyes widened. My heart froze. ‘Name?’ he said. ‘Middleton, Corporal.’ He turned and bent down so that his face was barely an inch from mine. ‘Middleton,’ he growled. ‘In the British Army we prefer our men to have two eyebrows.’ ‘Yes, Corporal.’ He walked on. My eyes didn’t follow. My cheeks burned. I was intimidated, I was disorientated and was wondering what the hell I’d got myself into. After some brief words from the corporal, we were sent to our accommodation block to settle in. We were shown into a big room with a gleaming parquet wooden floor. There were rows and rows of identical beds with itchy blankets, and wooden lockers with their doors hanging open. Everything in there was immaculate. Spotless. For the first time I felt almost at home: this was exactly how my stepfather had always forced us to keep house. I found myself a bed – a bottom bunk in a far corner of the block – and took the opportunity to have a scan of all the others. There must have been about thirty lads in there, some teenagers like me, others in their early twenties. I guessed it probably wasn’t a coincidence that I’d been highlighted, like that, by the corporal. I looked different from the others. I wasn’t like them. You could just tell. The truth is, most of the young men who’d turned up for Basic Training that day were tough working-class lads who’d grown up immersed in the British culture of drinking, bantering and bashing the shit out of each other. My childhood hadn’t been anything like that. After my dad had died completely unexpectedly on 31 December 1985, my mother and stepfather had suddenly come into a lot of money. There was some confusion over my dad’s true cause of death, but it was eventually ruled that he’d had a heart attack. This official verdict meant his life insurance could pay out. My mum and her new boyfriend Dean, who’d been around from almost the precise moment my dad passed away, were suddenly awash with money. The family moved from a three-bed house in Portsmouth to an eight-bed mansion outside Southampton. Suddenly, everything was different. Me and my brothers were decked out in designer clothes, driven about in expensive cars and educated in the better private schools. My mum really started spoiling us. One Christmas it took us about three days to open all our presents. Then, when I was nine, the whole family upped and moved to northern France. We had a large, rambling plot of land with a big house that was once a farm on the outskirts of a town called Saint-L?, twenty miles from Bayeux. I attended a well-respected Catholic school and was always neatly presented, and extremely polite and respectful. Almost overly so. People would love it when I came to their house because they knew the dishes would get done. I was a product of that much more gentle and civilised French culture. I’d experienced my first hint of difference between the two nations on a visit back to the UK to see my maternal grandparents. There’d been a guy about the same age as me walking down the street, strutting along, and he just started staring at me. In French culture, you tip your hat, you’re polite and respectful. When you pass someone in the street you say ‘Bonjour’ and ‘?a va?’ So I said, ‘All right?’ He just glared at me like he wanted to kill me. I didn’t realise he was doing that stupid young-lad thing of who can stare the other one out. I found it so strange. I just thought, ‘What a weirdo.’ I couldn’t have been more different from these people. I’d grown up in a place where fourteen-year-olds visit bars to drink coffee, not to down jugs of vodka Red Bull until they beat each other senseless, then puke. I opened my bag, commandeered a locker and squared away all my kit, folding it neatly and piling it up. And then, as quickly as I could, I took my wash-bag and a disposable Bic razor to the toilet block. I popped the orange cap off the blade and held it under cold water, then, with a firm hand, I placed it on the base of my forehead and pulled it down over the black fuzz that connected my eyebrows. As I bent down to rinse the blade under the tap, I heard the voice of the corporal echoing out of the nearby dormitory. ‘Right, get your fucking PT kit on, you lot,’ he barked. ‘I want you lined up out on the parade ground in sixty seconds.’ I glanced up at the mirror to examine my handiwork. I couldn’t believe it. I’d shaved off a wide rectangle of hair, the precise length of the razor, from above my eyes. The good news – I had two eyebrows. The bad news – I looked like I’d been run over by a tiny lawnmower. ‘Fuck,’ I muttered. I ran back into the dorm, dodging the squints and smirks, and got changed as quickly as possible into the physical training kit that had been left out for us, folded perfectly at the end of each narrow bed. Out in the parade square we lined up in three rows in our green T-shirts and blue shorts. All I could do was pray the corporal didn’t spot what I’d done to my face and decide to humiliate me all over again. He took his place in front of us on the tarmac and stood legs apart, his hands behind his back. ‘I’ve got bad news for you lot,’ he said, scanning the lines of faces, each of which was trying hard not to show the cold, jaws clamped, nostrils flaring. ‘There’s been a minor cock-up. We’ve got too many of you here. We don’t have enough places. Not enough beds. “What does that mean?” I hear you ask. What it means is that some of you are going to have to stand back for two weeks and join the next intake.’ Was he being serious? Was this another wind-up? It was impossible to know. ‘So how are we going to choose between you?’ he continued. ‘How are we going to make this fair? We’re going to kick off this morning with a Basic Fitness test. We’ll begin with a mile-and-a-half run. You’ll have to complete that mile-and-a-half run in ten minutes or less, gentlemen. You’ll be competing. This will be a race. And the prize for the winner, and only the winner, is one guaranteed bed.’ With that we were marched off the parade ground and through the maze of gloomy brick buildings until we reached an airfield on the edge of the base. As soon as we were shown the starting line we began jostling for position. I already had a good sense of where I stood in this pecking order. I didn’t have much chance of beating some of these older, bigger, fitter lads. But I told myself I had to at least get into the front half of the pack. Still jostling – elbows poking, shoulders barging, feet inching forwards – we watched the instructor take his stopwatch in one hand and a steel whistle in the other. The moment I heard that whistle scream, I pushed my way forwards in the pack as best as I could and launched into it with everything I had. I could feel the warmth of the bodies around me, hear the sound of pounding feet and the breathing, feel the muddy turf slip and yield beneath my boots. I pushed harder and harder, desperate to clear the mass, shoving this way and that, finding little routes through the bodies. By the time I was halfway round the airfield I realised with a shock that there were only two men left in front of me. The sight of all the beautiful clear space in front of us spurred me on. I could feel myself surging with that angry competitive drive my stepfather had always instilled in me. I could practically see him there at the side of the field, with his big leather trench coat and his Rottweiler, shouting at me, telling me I wasn’t giving it enough, that I needed to push harder. I’d fucking show him. I picked the first man off and left him comfortably behind, as spots of cold mud flecked my legs and heat burned in my knees. Two hundred metres to go. I took the last bend, my legs pounding. The last man and I were neck and neck, sprinting with everything we had. From out of nowhere I was hit with a flash of the humiliation I’d felt earlier. I imagined my competitor laughing at me. A furious thought entered my head: these bastards think I’m nothing. They think I’m some skinny, monobrowed, nice middle-class boy. I found myself surging forward, faster and faster. By the time I got to the finish line I was a full twelve seconds in front of him. I couldn’t believe it. I’d won. Following that race, I charged with everything I had into this brutal, confusing and sometimes thrilling new world. Every day of Basic Training that followed was painful. We’d have press-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, assault courses, cross-country running with heavy bergens on our back. With all that and the fieldcraft lessons, we’d hardly a minute to ourselves, and any minutes we did have were spent ironing our kit or making sure our lockers were immaculate. During our first proper inspection, I was waiting by mine and the corporal stopped in front of the lad next to me, a nineteen-year-old called Ivan. ‘You look like a bag of shit,’ he shouted at him. ‘Look at your fucking boots.’ As Ivan looked down to see what he was talking about, the corporal punched him in the chest and sent him crashing through his locker, right through the wood at the back, which snapped in half. Ivan lay there, gasping like a fish, in a nest of splinters and dust. One thing I knew for sure: I wasn’t in Saint-L? anymore. I was going to have to toughen up. At that time I’d only ever thrown one punch in my life, and that was only because the situation had been forced upon me. It had all happened when I was living with my mum and stepdad in Southampton, shortly before my family had left for France. I’d been having some problems with a bully, a guy a couple of years older than me who’d taken it upon himself to make my life as miserable as possible, tripping me up, throwing me against walls and just generally being dumb and menacing. I tried to avoid him as much as possible, but it inevitably started getting me down, to the extent that I didn’t want to go into school anymore. When my stepfather noticed something was wrong, I made the mistake of telling him the details. ‘Well, what are you doing about it?’ he asked. ‘Nothing,’ I shrugged. ‘Do the teachers know? Have you told them?’ ‘Of course not.’ ‘Anthony,’ he said, ‘listen to me. I do not want you to come back to this house until you’ve punched that boy square in the face. If you don’t do that, do not come home tomorrow.’ I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I didn’t even know how to throw a punch. ‘I can’t do that,’ I said, trying to reverse out of the living room and escape upstairs to my room. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ ‘I’m not fucking about, Anthony,’ he said, barring my way. ‘Until you’ve properly hurt him, don’t even think about coming through this door again.’ The next time I came across the bully he was waiting in the dinner queue. I saw him before he saw me. He was holding a tray with a bowl of chips covered in steaming hot beans and a carton of Ribena on it. He was with his mates, I was alone. Despite the fact that I had no backup, I decided it was then or never. I walked up to him. ‘I just want to put everything to bed,’ I said. ‘Is that all right? Do you want to shake hands?’ The bully just stood there, looking at me, dumb as an ox. To be fair, he was probably trying to work out how he was supposed to shake my hand when he was holding his tray. But whatever it was that was going through his head, I decided that that was my moment. I punched him square in the bridge of the nose. He fell back, chips and beans flying everywhere, cutlery and tray clattering to the ground. I didn’t hang around to see what damage I’d done. I was gone. Later that afternoon my stepfather received a phone call from the headmaster. ‘I’m calling with unfortunate news,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve had to take the difficult decision to suspend Anthony from school for a period of one week.’ ‘Suspend him?’ said my stepfather. ‘I’m very sorry to have to let you know that Anthony physically assaulted another pupil today. We can’t let something like that pass without taking appropriate steps.’ ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’ ‘Well, yes, you obviously understand then that even though this was very out of character for Anthony, we do have to …’ ‘No, no, no,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m not saying I’m glad you suspended him. I’m saying I’m glad he hit that prick. I told him to do it. How long did you say he was suspended for?’ ‘A week.’ ‘You’ll see him in two.’ I can’t deny there was a certain pleasure in seeing my tormentor caught under a scalding orange rainstorm of Heinz’s finest, though to be honest I wasn’t especially proud of myself for hitting back. It might have largely ended my problems with that particular bully, but it just didn’t feel like who I was. I did at least manage to take one crucial bit of positivity out of it. From then on I knew I had that capacity within me. When push came to shove, I learned that I could react with some level of violence and cause a bit of damage. But that wasn’t the only thing I learned. Over the two-week holiday from school that the punch had earned me, I played the scene over and over in my head. I’d obviously been scared before the moment I struck out, but what exactly had been the source of all that fear? What had been holding me back from sorting the problem out for so long? I realised it was a dread of the unknown. I was scared of punching the bully because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. He could have thrown hot food in my face. His mates could have piled on top of me and kicked me shitless. He could have barely flinched, calmly placed his tray to one side and then calmly broken my jaw. Anything could have happened. That, I realised, was the truth about most of the fear we’ll experience in our lives. Humans don’t like being in the dark about things. We hate not knowing what’s behind the door. We like to be able to see the future, to put one foot in front of the other and walk through life steadily, carefully and predictably. Learning to cope with deep states of doubt would be the journey of my life in the military. That’s one of the things it teaches you – and it’s a long, tough lesson, because it’s going completely against the grain of your human nature. It was only years later, going into war zones as an operator, that I truly learned to cope with the fear of stepping into unpredictable situations. By that stage I knew that if I got to my target, I could act. I could punch through an enemy position, I could cope with being shot at and, if I needed to, I could pull that trigger and end a life. I had that capacity in me. And the seed of that capacity was planted way back when I was a boy, at that moment in the dinner queue. When I was a new recruit at Pirbright, those lessons were still an extremely long way off. Three weeks after I’d seen that young lad being posted through a plywood wall, I found myself on the parade ground beside him. We were in formation, waiting for the corporal to arrive for inspection. Next to us, looking confused and out of place, was a new recruit called Neil. He’d joined our troop after falling out of Basic Training, having suffered a broken ankle on week five of his intake. Now he was mostly better, he’d been inserted back into the programme. Neil was a big, leery lad and slightly chubby round the middle, probably out of shape after being out of action for a while. The problem was that Neil threw the numbers out. We were supposed to be arranged in rows of three, but now we had an odd number of bodies, so there was a gap at the front of our formation. I knew that in this eventuality you were supposed to arrange yourself in such a way that you still looked orderly from the front. The corporal was probably seconds away from rocking up and Neil was in the wrong place. He had to sort himself out, otherwise we’d all be in the shit. I flashed him a friendly smile. ‘Mate,’ I said to him. ‘Why don’t you jump up here, because the instructor’s going to come any second?’ ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he said, taking a step towards me. Seeing what was about to happen, Ivan spoke up. ‘All right, mate, he’s only trying to help you out.’ ‘And what’s your fucking problem?’ said Neil. ‘You’re the one with the fucking problem.’ ‘Do you want to sort this out then?’ ‘All right.’ ‘Once we’ve knocked off tonight, I’ll see you behind building 2D.’ I couldn’t understand it. Why was Neil being such a dick? Did he feel, coming into a new troop, that he had to dominate people to get respect? Maybe it was that he’d clocked up a few weeks’ more experience than us prior to his injury, and so when I told him where to stand he felt insulted. What was the point of reacting like that? I’d been polite and respectful to him. If I’d have said the same thing in France, I’d have been thanked. But the UK was a completely different culture and these kinds of situations would probably be solved with aggression or outright violence. ‘It’s dog-eat-dog over here’, I thought to myself. ‘It really is every man for himself.’ The cheeky and helpful manner that people found so charming at my mixed-sex French school were getting me nowhere quickly in this hardcore male-only environment. Rather than it winning me friends and allies, as it had over there, I was being met with an attitude of ‘Who the fuck does this prick think he is?’ I sensed there was something else going on too. People were defining me by my appearance and my polite cheerfulness. Neil, for one, had seen I wasn’t a big lad and was reacting to that, judging me as beneath him. ‘You little gobshite,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘I’m not taking orders from you.’ There was only one thing I could do. Everyone thought I was a soft lad, so I had to prove them wrong. I knew there was going to be a confrontation that night, and given the size differential between Neil and Ivan, my new pal was going to get pasted. As the dark silhouette of the corporal marched towards us, I silently decided I’d join him in the fight. I’d defend him as he’d defended me. That day passed slowly. When the time came and I saw Ivan slip out of the accommodation block, I trotted after him down the dark path. ‘What you doing?’ he said. ‘You were sticking up for me,’ I explained. ‘I’m part of this.’ ‘This is nothing to do with you,’ said Ivan. ‘I’ve got to stand up to this guy,’ I said. ‘I’m going to help you out, aren’t I? Otherwise, who am I?’ I liked the way that sounded. Loyal. Tough. But Ivan just laughed in my face. ‘It’s just not you, Ant, is it?’ he said. ‘I’m not being funny, mate, but go on. Get back there and get your tea down you before it gets cold.’ I was furious. All my anxieties about what the others thought of me had been summed up in that one dismissive comment. Maybe it was Ivan I should be fronting up to, not Neil. ‘How do you fucking know it’s not me?’ I said. ‘Because you’re better than that.’ Now that really did hit me, harder than any punch I might be about to take behind the kitchen block. The thing was, I could tell he meant it too. And he was right. What was I doing? Trying to prove I was one of them by turning myself into someone I wasn’t? If they thought I was a soft lad, that was their problem. By trying to prove myself to them, I realised, I was actually submitting to them. I was letting them control me. But what was I going to do now? I could hardly leave Ivan to take a beating. I had to ask myself who I was. I was someone, I hoped, who was a bit smarter than the average green army recruit. I was someone who wasn’t going to let ego and temper ruin my career. I realised that the only way to deal with this while remaining true to myself was to try to prevent the fight from happening at all. ‘Why do you need to fight this guy anyway?’ I said. ‘You don’t get it, Ant,’ he said. ‘It’s not like it is where you come from. It’s alpha male. It’s who’s got the biggest dick. You’ve got to step up to the plate.’ ‘We’ve just joined the army a few weeks ago,’ I said. ‘If word of this gets out or you tip up to parade with a black eye or a broken nose, they’re going to know what’s gone on.’ Ivan said nothing. ‘You’re risking your entire career to prove something to this idiot,’ I continued. ‘That’s not very smart. Do you really care about what he thinks of you that much that you’ll put everything on the line?’ He still said nothing. ‘You’re going to lose your career. You’re sacrificing everything you’ve worked for, for Neil Porlock. You’re letting him win, just by turning up.’ After that, it didn’t take long to grind him down. He stopped, turned around, and instead of a fight, we went and had a cup of tea and a biscuit. I can’t help but look back on that incident with a bit of pride. Even at that young age, and in that tough environment, I was able to keep a grip on who I really was and sense that the alpha-male bully-boy culture was trying to mould me into someone else. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that I managed to maintain that strength of character. As you’ll soon discover, I eventually let the worst of the army get the better of me. I became someone who couldn’t have been further removed from that polite and gentle young lad. It never ends, though. People always want to define you. Because these days I’m best known for the Channel 4 show SAS: Who Dares Wins, strangers try to define me all the time. They assume I’m this chippy rogue who deals with everything through violence. When they meet me, they expect me to have some hard, judgemental persona. I get people approaching me in the street and talking about my size. They imagine that I’m six foot eight, not five foot eight, and I always get, ‘You look bigger on TV.’ Or they say, ‘I don’t know what everyone’s so worried about, I reckon I could have it with you.’ They’re joking around when they come out with stuff like that … but also they’re not. Otherwise, why would they say it? I just laugh it off. I’ve got nothing to prove. I’m in competition with no one, especially now I’m in the TV world. I mean, it’s not as if I feel the need to compete with someone like Bear Grylls, is it? So I banter back with them. ‘Yeah, mate, you probably could have me. Don’t listen to all that TV stuff. They’ve got special lenses on their cameras that make me look bigger.’ I’m happy to do that. I don’t feel threatened at all. I know who I am. But being an approachable guy doesn’t mean I’m a pushover. When I work, I work. I think it’s important not to mix business with pleasure. When there’s a job to get done, I want to get it done and to the best of my ability. And I want to do it my way. This might sound arrogant, but in my field I genuinely believe that I’m the best at what I do. So while I think it’s important to listen to others and not surround myself with Yes men, at the end of the day I’m the leader. I’ll make sure the job’s done properly, the way I want it done and to my standards. And I expect everyone else to be in that mindset. People know, when they work with me, that they need to snap into a different mode. There’s no messing about. But then when I’m not working I’m a loving father and husband, and I like to think I’m a relaxed guy to be around. That no-nonsense persona is completely gone. It’s like I’m two different people. That’s why I think it’s crucial that you don’t define yourself as just one person. That, to me, is the sign of a fake. It’s the sign of someone who has this fantasy model of who they want everyone to think they are and just tries to act up to it all the time. When you’re true to yourself you know that you’re a different person in different situations, and you’re totally relaxed about it. I believe you can only get so far by trying to put on a persona. People who do that always hit a ceiling. They find themselves thinking, ‘Right, I’ve got this far, now who do I have to be to get to this next stage?’ If you’re yourself, that won’t happen. You’ll find your own place. You’ll get the job done the way you want it done. If you try to be someone else, you’ll get lost, because the person who’s got you to where you are is a total stranger. He’s a fantasy. You don’t know who he is. So when new challenges arrive, you’ll have to suddenly come up with a different game plan, a different strategy, a different person to be. And that’s not a sustainable pattern. If you’re yourself, you’ll get to where you’re going on your own instincts. There’ll be no need to constantly second-guess yourself, thinking, ‘Who do I have to be in this moment? How do I have to act? What do I have to say?’ You’ll be constantly rebooting yourself from scratch. You won’t be growing and learning, you’ll be panicking. You won’t be giving yourself the chance to optimise. When you start on the first square of the grid of being yourself, with every new square you strive to get to you improve who you are. Every struggle you go through will make you a better player. That’s what growth is. That’s what life’s journey is all about. It’s about taking who you are and making you a better version of yourself. It’s not about trying to be this person or that person. It’s not about trying to be like Neil or Ivan. It’s not about letting other people define who you are. This is why I always tell people, don’t try to better your life, don’t try to better your work, don’t try to better your relationships. Don’t try to be rich, happy, successful. Don’t do any of that. You’ll be wasting your time. It doesn’t work. Nothing will change, and you’ll get disillusioned and burned out. Instead, you should work at trying to better who you are as a character. Be the best version of you that you can imagine, and I guarantee that all the rest of it will just fall naturally into place. Why? Because you’re arming yourself. You’re giving yourself the tools to be honest with yourself and therefore to be honest with other people. If someone in your life has messed up, you’re not going to sit there being too nervous to talk to them about it. What’s not honest is always trying to be the person other people either want you to be or think that you are already. Back in Basic Training, because of the way I looked and spoke, everyone thought I was weak. I could have let that influence me and become weak. For a while I fought against it. There are always going to be people who want to define you by your worst qualities. They pick up on your flaws, zoom in on your most embarrassing and shameful mistakes, and decide that, deep down, that’s the person you really are. What makes this especially dangerous is that it’s so easy to believe. The trick is not to deny what these negative people are saying. If you do that, you’ll look dishonest and inauthentic, and you’ll lose the respect of anyone who does admire you. The best response is to accept what they’re saying, but know it’s only a small part of the truth. Everyone has flaws. Just be up-front about them. Here’s a scenario you might find it useful to think about. Imagine that your particular weakness is physical fitness. Someone has told you that you need to run five miles with a sixty-pound backpack on. If you were to turn around and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, no worries at all,’ nothing good’s going to happen. But what about if you said, ‘Actually, I’m going to struggle with that. Physical fitness is not my strong point. I will do it, I’ll get the job done, but I need to let you know this is going to be a bit hard for me. I might need a push along the way’? When you’re honest like that, I promise you that magical things will happen. People will think, ‘This guy’s comfortable with himself. He’s not trying to be someone he’s not. He’s a person who is steadfastly defining himself. He’s an honest person.’ And they’ll naturally want to help you out. They’ll want to say, ‘Do you know what, mate? I’ll give you a hand.’ People don’t get annoyed so much when you struggle, but when you fake it, that’s when their walls come up. They get defensive. Then you’re in conflict with that other person. There’s friction and the job is not getting done. People think, ‘If I admit my weaknesses, others will have less respect for me.’ But it’s actually the other way around. But there’s an exception to all this. Sometimes it’s a good idea to let someone else define who you are. There are times in your life when someone will see something positive in you that you didn’t realise was there. This is exactly what happened to me when, at the age of twenty-four, I was going through Royal Marines training. I’d got to week fifteen of the thirty-two-week course, at which point a new officer came in at the top of the hierarchy. He was an older boy, and everyone respected him. He’d only been there for a couple of weeks when he summoned me unexpectedly to his office. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted: I was coming first in everything and keeping myself to myself, so there was no personal trouble with anyone else, at least that I knew about. ‘Middleton,’ he said, ‘you’re in danger of losing grip.’ Losing grip? No I wasn’t. I took a moment to make sure my face wasn’t betraying my irritated confusion. ‘I’m not quite sure what the problem is,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re getting a bit too big for your boots or perhaps it’s just that you’re thinking about yourself too much. Well, whatever it is, I’m coming to the conclusion very rapidly that you’re not a team man. You need to understand something that’s crucially important if you want to achieve your full potential in this organisation. The Royal Marines aren’t here to provide you with a pyramid to stand on top of. You, Middleton, are a part of that pyramid. You’re just another brick. Do you understand what I’m getting at?’ ‘I think so, sir,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to prove that you’re the best. That’s not what all this is about. I think you have a lot more to offer than merely being number one. You’ve got to think about the bigger picture. You might be leading all the scoreboards but you’re not actually leading. The kind of men we prize here are the ones who bring the others with them. I think you have that in you.’ There was absolutely nothing I could say. He was right. All I wanted was to be the best at PT, the best at exercise, the first man at map-reading, and so on. I used to study alone. If tests were coming up about fieldcraft or map-reading I’d be in my corner, getting my head down, making it clear that no one should disturb me. I’d assumed that that’s what success in the Forces looked like – dominating as many scoreboards as possible. My conversation with this officer was my first inkling that there was more to leading than simply being first. I realised I could afford to take a little bit of a back step and allow myself to be second or third at some things – to go for ninety per cent rather than one hundred. At the time, all the lads were preparing for an important test that would assess our knowledge of everything we’d learned to date – fieldcraft, marksmanship principles, camouflage and concealment, the whole lot. I was aware that one skill a lot of the guys had struggled with was a particular way of identifying the cardinal directions. It was known as the ‘stick and stone method’. You’d put a stick – a length about a foot and a half would do it – in the ground and mark the tip of the shadow it made with a stone. Then you waited twenty minutes. By that time the shadow would have moved. You’d put another stone where the new tip of the shadow was, and you’d know that the line between your two stones ran east to west. After my meeting with the officer, I went back to my block, gathered my thoughts for a bit, then approached a gaggle of guys who were chatting in the corner. ‘Are any of you lot struggling with the stick and stone method?’ I asked them. About five men said yes. Then I went to the next block and asked them. When I’d been round all the blocks, I gave a demonstration outside to at least a dozen lads. This was my first experience of true leadership. And I loved it. The amazing thing was, it began to change me. The more I approached people, the more approachable I became. I’d only been vaguely aware of it beforehand, but my being on my own all the time had been putting noses out of joint. Back in my army days I’d done the same thing and, as you’re about to learn, it had led to disaster. But now, in the Marines, my problem had been picked up through effective training. Not only did that leader give me a new definition of success, he allowed me to enjoy my Marines experience more. Up to that point I’d just been pushing, pushing, pushing, my rev counter constantly in the red. But where can you go from there? And who’s with you? You’re up there by yourself. If you’re alone, who’s going to be there for you? Nobody. In the battlefield, that’s not a trivial problem. But all these essential lessons I’d learned with the Marines were still a long way off when I was that still all-too impressionable young lad doing Basic Training at Pirbright. The next chapter of my story wouldn’t make itself known until I was in the final fortnight. I was in my accommodation cleaning my boots when I heard a shout: ‘Middleton!’ I ran to the door and stood to attention. ‘255700 Sapper Middleton reporting for duty.’ ‘You’re wanted in the office, Middleton.’ I marched over to the office and found the commanding officer behind the desk, with his mugs, piles of paperwork and little flags. I had barely banged out a salute before he said, ‘All right, Middleton, come in. We’re going to need you on the parade square in a couple of hours, to go through the drill.’ ‘The drill, sir?’ He looked up at me. ‘Yes, Middleton, the drill. For the passing-out parade.’ The passing-out parade? OK. But everyone was going to be at the passing-out parade. Why had he asked only me to go through the drill? ‘You’ll be picking up your awards,’ he said, reading my thoughts. ‘So you’ll need to familiarise yourself with the ceremony.’ ‘Awards, sir?’ ‘Yes, Middleton. Best at physical training. Best all-round recruit. You know, I don’t remember anyone ever having won both before. So well done.’ I couldn’t help but let off the most enormous grin. ‘Have you given any thought to your next move?’ he asked me. ‘I have, sir,’ I said. ‘I want to join 9 Parachute Squadron.’ ‘You want to jump out of planes,’ he said. I smiled again. ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Very good, Middleton.’ 9 Para. Airborne! I couldn’t believe it. The opportunity to join this legendary squadron, and wear a maroon beret, was a dream come true. All through training, whenever an instructor appeared wearing a maroon beret and parachute wings, everyone worshipped him. The Parachute Squadron were above the regular army. It gave you automatic respect. Actually, it was more than respect. It was godlike. Out of all the challenges I could have taken on next, none would be more thrilling than the ‘All Arms Parachute Course’, which is known as ‘P Company’. I’d never been happier, nor had more confidence in my ability to excel. I had absolutely no idea what was waiting for me. LEADERSHIP LESSONS Don’t let anyone else define who you are. People always make rapid judgements about what sort of person you are from their first impressions, and sometimes these first impressions will be negative. It’s so easy to take that on board and simply fall into the mould that other people put you in. Have the strength to realise what’s happening and ensure that you define yourself. Meet that negativity with positivity, every single time. Always have a plan. And make sure that no part of that plan is ‘give up’. If I’d had to camp out for a week under a hedge outside Pirbright Camp and wash every day in a stream, then that’s what I would have done. Keep that plan dynamic. Don’t be that stubborn leader who, for reasons of pride, refuses to change his plan when new information presents itself. You might think you’re asserting your leadership by sticking resolutely to your plan, but you’re undermining it. Your team will lose respect for you, and that’s the beginning of the end. Fear of taking action is fear of the unknown. True leaders don’t underestimate the potential destructive power of what lies behind that door, but neither do they let that stop them bursting through it, as long as it’s done carefully and intelligently. LESSON 2 MAKE YOUR ENEMY YOUR ENERGY (#ulink_431d7f48-007c-5b4f-adb8-8d649d568901) And, just like that, I was back at the bottom of the pile. When I arrived at 9 Parachute Squadron I was made to feel as if the blue beret and awards I’d been presented with in front of my mother and stepfather at the passing-out parade at Pirbright had all the value of a stone in my shoe. We’d been instructed to report to Rhine Barracks at Aldershot Garrison, which is popularly known as the ‘Home of the British Army’ or sometimes ‘Aldershot Military Town’. They call it a ‘town’ because it’s enormous. Tipping up there on a blustery morning I could hardly believe the extent of the place. I passed building after building, road after road, and parade squares and offices and flags on poles and rows and rows of blocks of accommodation that held enough beds for more than ten thousand people. The deeper I got into the complex, the more it felt as if I were being swallowed up by some great machine. But I was also becoming part of that machine. Now that I’d passed Basic Training I was on my way. Before we could get onto P Company, up at the Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire, I first had to pass what they called ‘Pre-Para’, a series of physical tests that would prove it was even worth my showing up. I was excited about this new challenge and looking forward to seeing my quarters, finding my little spot and settling in. I wasn’t expecting Claridge’s – I wasn’t even expecting Travelodge – but I knew this would be a bit of an upgrade from what we had to suffer as lowly sprogs down at Pirbright. After a bit of a hunt, I found the special accommodation block that was kept for trainees. I pushed at the door and glanced inside. I was in the wrong place. I must have been. It was the smell that hit me first. Opening that door unleashed a funky, sour stink of damp and human dirt. Blinking through the foul pea-souper, I saw a concrete floor covered with stained and stinking mattresses and wooden lockers that had been smashed to bits. I knew that paratroopers had the reputation of being tough, grotty and contemptuous of comfort, but you wouldn’t let a stray dog sleep in there. I retreated quickly and loitered outside on the kerb until a uniformed man in his forties strode past. ‘Excuse me, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for the trainee accommodation.’ ‘You’ve found it,’ he said, frowning at the place I’d just exited. ‘You a craphat?’ A craphat? I guessed I must have been. ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ ‘Best go make yourself comfortable, then.’ I soon learned that all the Paras called us ‘craphats’ because, to them, that’s all we were. Trainees were seen as too lowly to even speak to. Unless they were doing us some kind of damage, the Paras would not even acknowledge our presence, literally looking through us as if we were invisible. To those guys you were Airborne – or you were shit. And we were definitely shit. And they let us know we were shit by the way they behaved around us, and by thrashing us as hard as they could, in the field and in the gym, every single day of training. These days the Pre-Para course is led by formally trained, specialist instructors who make sure everything is done correctly, with proper warm-ups and breaks and an eye for the health and safety of the guys. But 1998 was a different era. Back then the whole thing was led in-house by two random lance corporals who’d just happened to have been selected for the task, and probably reluctantly. It seemed as if there were no rules or regulations or standards of care for us craphats that they took seriously – or even knew. This made for a very particular atmosphere that hung over the entire course. It felt dangerous, unstable. Lost in the maze of the Aldershot Military Town, you believed that nobody knew who you were, where you were, or cared what was happening to you, and that the lance corporals could do whatever they wanted to you. It was those same lance corporals who decided if you were good enough to be sent up to Catterick for the P Company course. If they thought, for whatever reason, that you weren’t ready to make the leap, you’d just have to keep going on Pre-Para … and keep going … and keep going … and keep on fucking going, while praying with every morsel of faith you could find inside you that they’d put you in for the next course. If things went really badly, you’d be ‘RTU’d’, or ‘Returned to Unit’. Getting RTU’d meant they didn’t want you in their squadron at all. They’d seen what you had, and had come to the conclusion that there was no point in your persevering with Pre-Para. For me, that would have meant settling for being just an ordinary engineer. There was no way I was going to allow that to happen. I might have been lighter in build than most of the other lads, and I certainly wasn’t as tall, but I was confident I’d make it through – and quickly. My achievements at Pirbright meant nothing here in Aldershot, but that didn’t matter. The fact remained that I’d smashed it. It would be a first-time pass for me. I wasn’t deluded, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It might even be the hardest thing I’d ever done. But the simple truth was I’d never failed at anything physical that had been thrown at me in my life. Couple that with my massive desire to achieve, and there was no way I was going to be hanging around here for long. I’d never wanted anything as badly as this. Every glimpse I’d grabbed of a full-blooded Para, on that first morning at the barracks, had felt like stealing a glimpse of God. To be able to wear the maroon beret and wings that would identify me as a member of the notorious ‘Airborne’ would feel like the ultimate achievement. By the time I’d got myself settled in the tramp’s nest that was our accommodation, some of the other lads had started drifting in. There were about five new boys who’d turned up that day, all just as hungry as me. The guy sitting on the mattress next to me, it turned out, had been there for a few weeks already. ‘Neil Cranston,’ he said, introducing himself in a thick Brummy accent. He was a funny-looking lad, with a massive, bouldery head and a tiny face stuck in its middle. His ears looked like a bulldog had been at them, and there was a deep crevasse in the middle of his chin that had a strip of gingery brown hair inside it where his razor couldn’t reach. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said. ‘Anthony Middleton.’ I raised my hand for him to shake, but for some reason Cranston pretended he hadn’t seen it. I rubbed it awkwardly on my trousers. ‘So tomorrow morning we’re going to have to be outside at 6 a.m. sharp, OK?’ he said. ‘Green T-shirt, DPM (disruptive pattern material, aka camouflage gear) bottoms and your bergen (backpack) filled to forty pounds. There are scales over there in the corner, next to the bin. You’ll want to check your weight once you’ve packed.’ ‘Great. Thanks, Neil,’ I said. ‘Cheers for letting me know, mate. So what’s it like here?’ I flashed him a smile. ‘Anything on the room service worth checking out?’ ‘And don’t forget your water bottle,’ he said, completely ignoring my friendly attempt at bonding. ‘Fill it right up. He’ll be checking it too, so give it a good run under the tap, yeah?’ ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Thanks, man. Appreciate it.’ He stood up and walked off. Not the warmest of blokes, I thought, but at least I was now clued in. The next morning found me out of bed at 5 a.m., present and correct outside at 6 a.m., kit on, bergen packed, water bottle filled all the way up. All the craphats were lined up in formation on a small patch of concrete that was being used as a makeshift parade square. In front of us stood a lance corporal who looked as wide as he was tall. ‘To join this squadron you’ve got to be the best of the best,’ he said. ‘Every fucker wants to get into 9 Para Squadron, and they want to get in for a reason.’ My gaze drifted to his maroon beret. I felt my body tense in anticipation of the extreme exertion I was about to put it through. ‘So if any of you new lads have tipped up here today with the idea that we’re about to accept any old shit, you’re sorely mistaken. We will begin with a basic fitness test. We’ll be doing a mile-and-a-half run and you’d better fucking keep up.’ A run? This was perfect. My legs fizzed with energy. I was a pent-up racehorse. All I wanted to do was launch into the run and show this guy what I had. ‘But before we begin, water bottles,’ he said. ‘Let’s see ’em. Come on. Open ’em up.’ We did as he asked, removing the caps and lifting the bottles up gingerly for inspection, making sure we didn’t spill a drop. I could hear him going up the line as he checked each one, ‘Put it away … put it away … put it away …’ Then he got to me. He stopped. He stooped. He peered into my bottle. He grimaced. He smelled of soap and fury. ‘What. The. Fuck. Is. That?’ My eyes flickered to my bottle. ‘I don’t understand, Corporal.’ ‘Why is your fucking bottle not full to the brim?’ I glanced down at it again, just to make sure I wasn’t going mad. ‘It is full, Corporal.’ ‘Get out there,’ he said, pointing to a central space on the parade square in front of everyone, ‘and pour that fucking water over your head.’ I stepped out, turned to face the lads and did as he asked. The water was absolutely freezing. It ran down my neck and back, trickling down the crack of my arse and hung heavily in the cotton of my T-shirt. All the guys were staring directly ahead of them, showing me the respect of not watching in an obvious way. All except Cranston, that is, who was eyeballing me throughout with a subtle but undeniably smug expression on his face. ‘Now go and fill it up to the brim,’ said the lance corporal. I bolted back up the stairs to the accommodation, the saturated material of my T-shirt slapping against my skin, and ran the bottle under the tap again. I made sure not to panic, to take my time, and to make sure it was absolutely as full as it could be. No more than forty seconds later I was back out in front of the lance corporal on the parade square again. ‘Middleton!’ he shouted. ‘Are you fucking stupid or are you fucking deaf? I said full to the brim.’ It was full. It was touching the brim. It really was. There was literally no way I could get it any fuller. ‘I don’t understand, Corporal.’ ‘Get out there and pour it over your fucking head.’ I poured the water over my head again, trying to avoid Cranston’s shithawk squint. What the hell was going on? Why was I being singled out? How had I highlighted myself? I took a guess that the lance corporal checked my records. Maybe he’d seen how well I’d done at Pirbright and was putting me in my place. Or what if it was worse than that? What if he was trying to break me? ‘Now fill it up to the brim,’ he said. I ran up the stairs again. Painstakingly, I made sure every last drop of water entered the bottle and, with the care of a master watchmaker, gently fastened the lid. Forty seconds later: ‘Are you deaf or fucking stupid? Pour it over your fucking head.’ When I’d tipped four full bottles of freezing water over me and somehow managed not to show one glimmer of distress, he finally relented. ‘Will one of you craphats show this dickhead how it’s done?’ That evening one of the lads demonstrated the proper technique. You had to fill a bath with water, fully submerge the bottle, bang it to get all the bubbles out, then put the lid on in the bath, with the bottle still underwater. That was the only way you could get it filled up to his standards. And that wasn’t all. When the lance corporal came round to inspect it, you had to squeeze the bottle a little bit so the level came right up to the brim. Everybody knew how it was done except me. I couldn’t believe that Cranston hadn’t told me this the night before, and then had rolled around in every second of my humiliation like a pig in shit. But, I told myself, at least the lance corporal hadn’t been singling me out. On the contrary, he was teaching me something that I’ve never since forgotten. It’s the attention to detail that’s important, even with something that seems so irrelevant as having your water touching the bottle’s brim. On the battlefield, those last two sips might be the ones that save your life. I’ve carried that lesson through my career. If you fuck up the small things, it leads to a big fucking disaster. But this wasn’t much help to me during our Basic Fitness Test that morning. By the time I finally started out on the first mile-and-a-half run I had four bottles of freezing water hanging in my hair and clothes, and was wet, cold and humiliated. I realised right then that I could either allow what had happened to eat away at me or I could use it. Rather than trying to squash the anger, I let it grow. It became an energy. With every stride I visualised Cranston’s smug look, turning his animosity and betrayal into a battery that powered me. This, I knew instinctively, was the best revenge I could have possibly taken. Despite the events of that morning I managed to come in second. Cranston, meanwhile, had finished somewhere near the back. At the end of a hard morning’s PT, we filed in for lunch. As ever, I sat alone on the corner of a table with a beaker of water and my rice and fish. Over my shoulder I could hear some of the boys talking to Cranston about me. ‘That Ant’s a fit lad,’ someone said. I couldn’t make out what he came back with, but I ate the rest of my meal happily. It wouldn’t be long until I’d be far away from that loser, earning my maroon beret up at Catterick. No doubt he’d be RTU’d before long and I’d never see him again. After lunch it was time for another run, but this time with weighted bergens on our backs. They call it ‘tabbing’ – Tactical Advance to Battle. We had eight miles to cover with the forty-pound bergens we’d packed the night before using appropriate kit, a combination of our sleeping bag, mess tins, rations – anything we’d actually take into the field as a serving Para. At the allotted time we reported to the lance corporal, all lined up in formation once again with our bergens between our feet. On one side of him was a duty recruit with a set of scales. Spine straight and chin up, I watched the lance corporal going round, lifting up the bergens one by one and weighing them. He and his partner had arranged themselves so only they could see the result on the scales. This was no accident. It meant each one of us was shitting ourselves until the moment we were nodded through. It was all I could do not to break out into a huge smile when Cranston’s bergen came in a pound under. ‘Go and get a rock,’ the lance corporal told him. He pointed to a particularly large specimen beneath a tree in a small patch of greenery on the other side of the road. As Cranston waddled back with it, I realised it must have added at least ten pounds to his bergen. Soon it was my turn. As I watched them lift my bergen onto the scales, I noticed Cranston was showing as much interest in the result as I was. A thought flitted through my head – maybe he’s tampered with it. For the longest two seconds, the lance corporal didn’t say anything. ‘All right, put it on your back,’ he said, finally. Thank God for that. Then, the second our bergens had all been weighed, it began. ‘Follow me!’ shouted the lance corporal. With that, he and the duty recruit set off. And when I say ‘set off’ I mean, boom, they were gone, as if on rockets, out of the parade square, out of the base and into a massive military training area that must have covered at least twenty square miles. And I kept up with them. I made sure I did. For the first two miles. But then, at first almost unnoticeably but soon undeniably, I started flagging. ‘I can run,’ I thought to myself as my knees pumped and sweat ran down my neck, ‘I know I can run. But this weight is killing me.’ It took me a while to realise why it was so much easier for the others. The problem was my height. My legs were relatively short, which meant that I had to work that much harder. Whereas they could quickly stride, I had to sprint. Not that there was any point in making excuses. Tabbing was part of Pre-Para for a good reason: you go into operations with the weight that you need to survive on your back. You carry what it takes to sustain yourself in a war zone. If you couldn’t keep pace it meant you didn’t have what it took. It was as simple as that. There was no free pass for height, just as there was no free pass for the physically weak or the unmotivated. And I had no argument with that at all. But still, I was finding it exhausting. With every step I took, the weight of the bergen shot up my calves into my chest, and seemed to punch another lump of energy out of me. And I knew there was a whole lot worse to come. The muddy track eventually took me to the base of a climb that I’d already heard all about. This one was legendary. Craphat Hill was called Craphat Hill because it eats Craphats. The sight of it bearing down on me swiped at my faltering energy like a bear’s paw. On my left I heard the breath of another lad about to overtake me. I turned. It was Cranston, who was still going hard with that big rock in his bergen. ‘You can run with fuck-all weight on your back,’ he panted, ‘but you’re shit now, aren’t you?’ What strength I had left melted away. I looked up. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Craphat Hill was pretty much vertical. Desperately, I glanced behind me. With a sinking sense of shame and horror I realised I was last. And that was how it went, first for days and then for weeks. Whenever we had tabbing I came in last, panting, short and sorry, every single time. Ironically, being last was a first for me. I hadn’t felt anything like this since I’d been bullied back at school. I began to dread tabbing. Perhaps because I’d highlighted myself by doing so well in that first race, some of the guys seemed to take a special pleasure in seeing me brought down to size. Usually led by Cranston, they began giving me a hard time back at the accommodation. It started as stage whispers in my presence – ‘What the fuck is he still doing here?’ Before long, people were up and in my face. ‘Just fuck off back to your unit, Ant,’ they’d say. ‘Give it up. You’re not going to make it.’ I knew they wanted a fight, and I knew Cranston was in the middle of it. But there was nothing I could do but try to maintain my strength of character. Just as it had been with Ivan in Pirbright, I wasn’t going to let them push me into being someone else. Despite how they were acting, I treated them with the very respect they were finding it so hard to extend to me. At least things were going better outside of the tabbing. I was running well with nothing on my back and smashing it in the gym. I was pretty certain my success in these areas was the only reason I hadn’t been RTU’d yet. But the instructors would only let me get away with that for so long. The clock was ticking for me – and I knew it. The undeniable fact was that I was showing no signs of improvement. Every four weeks we’d be made to line up outside the corporal’s office. One by one we’d be called in. On the corporal’s desk there’d be two items. On the left there was the coveted maroon beret that paras call their ‘machine’. On the right there was a glass of sour milk. If the decision had been made to send you up to Catterick, you were told to touch the beret. If you’d not made it, you’d sniff the milk. I was getting sick of it. Every time, I was being told, ‘Middleton, smell the milk.’ And then, one week, I was waiting my turn when I saw Cranston exiting with his face lit up like fireworks night. He didn’t even have to say anything. It was obvious. Cranston had touched the maroon machine. Meanwhile, up on Craphat Hill, practice wasn’t making perfect. The tabbing was getting harder, not easier. My feet were becoming badly damaged and, because everyone else was striding while I was running, my bergen was sliding from side to side against my lower and upper back. Everybody suffers from what they call ‘bergen burns’, but mine were on a different level. Across large swathes of my back my skin had pretty much worn away, so I’d spend my evenings carefully strapping my wounds with black tape. When I was running I simply tried to shut out the pain. What else could I do? But there was one truly bright spot in my Pre-Para schedule. Most weekends I’d actually be able to get out of Aldershot. I’d leave the barracks and travel down to Portsmouth to stay with my nan, partly to get away from the squalor and the terrible food, partly to get away from Cranston and his pals. I didn’t want to burden nan with my problems, or spoil our time together by being negative, but I knew she was wondering why I was still around and not in Catterick because she’d ask these little probing questions that I’d have to bat away. But then, one Saturday night, after months of punishment on Pre-Para, I sat down at the dinner table for my favourite meal of sausage, cabbage and mash and, forgetting myself, I accidentally winced in pain. ‘What’s the matter, Anthony?’ ‘Nothing, Nan,’ I smiled. ‘Let’s tuck in. This looks amazing.’ ‘What’s wrong, love? Are you in pain? Is it your back?’ ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Are these sausages from the butcher? They’re a decent size.’ ‘Show me,’ she said. ‘You never know, I might be able to help.’ I tried to distract her with a bit more of my sausages talk, then I tried laughing it off, but I knew she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Reluctantly, I stood up, turned around and peeled my shirt up to show her. There were scabs, scars and bloody, weeping wounds under there. Whole layers of skin were missing. ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, trying to control her voice. ‘What are they doing to you?’ I pulled my shirt back down again and shrugged. ‘It’s what I want, Nan,’ I said. ‘But why, Anthony?’ ‘I want to join 9 Para Squadron and this is what you have to do. It’s normal. It’s nothing that’s going to kill me.’ ‘You don’t have to prove anything to anyone,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be a paratrooper.’ ‘But I can’t just be a normal engineer, Nan,’ I said. ‘Why? Why can’t you?’ ‘Because I have to get my wings,’ I said with a shrug. I picked up my knife and fork again and began to attack my dinner. When I looked up, Nan’s eyes had turned bloodshot and wet. That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about what she’d said. How could I explain why I wanted to earn my wings so badly? It was like trying to explain why green is green or why Cranston was a dick. It was obvious, wasn’t it? The Paras were the best. They were gods. Who doesn’t want to be a god? And it was more than that, too. It felt like my destiny, to wear those wings on my shoulder and the maroon machine and the Pegasus insignia that showed I belonged to 5 Airborne Brigade, of which 9 Parachute Squadron was a part, and to walk among those gods as an equal. I hadn’t ever really questioned why I wanted it, nor whether or not it could happen. But I’d been on Pre-Para for months now and, if anything, it was getting harder. Perhaps, I thought, it just wasn’t going to happen. The lads back at base seemed to all be in agreement. And, you know, what would happen if I did decide to quit? It would be my business, and my business only. The reason I was coming last was simple – my legs weren’t long enough, and I couldn’t help that. Perhaps I’d be wiser just to accept it. I should listen to my nan. She’s been around for a while and knew a bit about the world. ‘Go to a normal engineer regiment,’ I told myself. ‘Stick to your strengths.’ The next morning I awoke feeling flat and tired, but relieved to have finally come to a decision. I gave Nan a hug goodbye and pulled my bag over my shoulder, now flinching openly at the pain. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I’m not built for it. It’s my legs. Nothing’s gonna change that, no matter how much I want to wish it away.’ I was expecting her to look pleased, but she just sighed. It was confusing. Had I disappointed her? Back at the barracks the next morning it was more of the same. Out once again with the heavy bergen, eight miles of raw pain, all the way up Craphat Hill, dragging myself across the hellish Seven Sisters, pushing myself through what they called the ‘Hole in the Wall’, which involved crawling through a pit of stinking mud that was full of smashed glass bottles that civilians would throw into it, then squeezing through a narrow gap in a brick wall. As I slogged, I stewed over my nan’s reaction. I knew she had my best interests at heart, but I also felt that she thought I was better than that. What should I do? I couldn’t just chant a magic spell and put ten fucking inches on my legs. I came last again, that day. It was my worst time ever. As I was catching my breath, alone by the wagon, one of the lance corporals beckoned me over. ‘Middleton, come here,’ he said. I staggered over to where he was standing. ‘Listen, lad, you’ve got the drive and will, nobody can take that away from you. It’s why you’re still here. But you’re too small. You’re not like the others. You haven’t got the build.’ There was nothing I could say to that but, ‘OK, Corporal.’ As the wagon bounced us back towards the barracks, I watched the mud track and military fencing pass by outside the canopy. I finally decided that that was it. They were obviously going to RTU me soon, and I might as well go out with dignity and save them the trouble. I imagined Cranston’s expression when he found out, that nasty grin. ‘You’re not like the others,’ the lance corporal had said. Not like Cranston? Not as good as him? I found myself filling with a sense of angry defiance. And then something odd happened. The angrier I felt, the more the pain in my back seemed to fade away. I remembered how I’d got through that first Basic Fitness Test by using my hatred of him as a source of energy. I focused on him, hard. I felt pumped. Violent. By the time the wagon pulled up, I was almost ready to ask the driver to turn around and take me back to Craphat Hill, so I could do the tab again. Just by chance, another new intake arrived two days later. One of the boys happened to be slightly overweight, and this meant that the limelight, finally, was taken off me. It also meant that I didn’t come in last. As well as using my rage at Cranston to fire me up, I allowed myself to use someone else’s struggle as my strength. With each tab, from thereon in, I slowly became better and better. That improvement was one hundred per cent psychological. I started climbing the ladder again, getting faster and faster, closer and closer to the front. And before I knew it, there were probably two or three of us going on the next course, and it seemed clear I was going to be one of them. That experience gave me a lesson I’ve never forgotten, and it’s one I still use regularly. Your enemy is fuel. He is energy. Hatred can be the most powerful motivator there is. In life you’ll always come across jealous and negative people, or people who simply don’t believe in you. Every single one of them is a Duracell battery. Plug them in. Give yourself that edge by using their own electricity against them. Success isn’t only the most satisfying form of revenge – it’s the only positive one there is. But using your enemies like this can also be dangerous. I only truly learned this during my time in the Royal Marines, many years after my endless struggles up Craphat Hill. It was just before lunch on a sunny day in July, and I’d returned from a session on Woodbury Common military training area. I was outside my accommodation block removing the twigs, leaves and grass from my gillie suit, and was about to go back inside when a young guy I’d been chatting to a few days previously in the mess hall passed by. ‘Hey, Ant, did you hear about that Marine who died in Afghan?’ he said. My heart thumped. ‘Who is it?’ I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t know. It’s going around the drill quarters. They’re planning the funeral back in the office. Right in the middle of it now. Didn’t get a name. I was wondering if you knew?’ ‘No, mate. No idea.’ Once he’d left I paced as quickly as I could to the Sniper Troop office and knocked on his door. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I said. ‘But I’ve just heard that one of the lads has caught it up in Afghanistan. Is it true?’ ‘I can confirm that,’ he said. ‘Who is it?’ ‘I can’t say any names, Middleton,’ he said. ‘We haven’t released the news to his family yet.’ ‘Mate, please.’ There was a long silence. ‘What I can say,’ he eventually replied, ‘is that he liked to juggle.’ This was impossible. It was Lewis. He was a good friend. I’d got to know and trust him during my counter-terrorist sniper course, but everyone at Lympstone knew of him. He was unusually well-spoken, relentlessly positive and a bit kooky. It wouldn’t be unusual to see him walking through the accommodation blocks in rest periods practising his favourite hobby, which was juggling. Sometimes he’d be throwing sparkly balls around the air, sometimes knives. If you met Lewis in the street, you might guess that he was a lawyer or a kindly geography teacher. In fact, he was one of the most efficiently deadly men in the British services. Of course, deaths like his were part of the deal. You heard about military people being killed in action all the time. But it was a shock to hear that one of our guys had caught it up. There was just something about being an operator that made you feel invincible. It sometimes felt as if we could dodge bullets. All I could do for the next few minutes was sit on the edge of my bed, looking at my phone. I wondered how it had happened. Enemy fire? An IED? A corrupt Afghan who’d been employed by the British military? There were plenty of stories of those flying about. Ten minutes later I stood up, brushed myself off and began preparing for the afternoon’s exercise. Because what else could I do? Within the week, Lewis’s body had been repatriated. Ten days after I heard the news, I arrived at a huge, dark, stone cathedral for his funeral. He was sent off with full military honours, including a ten-gun salute and a ceremonial flyover by two Hawk jets after the service. I was invited to join the burial party too, about an hour and a half’s drive from the cathedral, and be one of the pall bearers. There were only ten of us there, including the family. I watched his wife and two daughters, aged eight and ten, stand beside the dark, damp, black hole in the ground. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head – their husband and dad was going in there. They read poems and managed to somehow hold themselves together. I was struck not only by their courage but by the endless depth of their love for their man who was now gone. When the time came to finally say goodbye, the coffin was lifted into the air by ropes. I removed the metal stands from beneath it and guided it over the pit. Then, slowly, it was lowered in. Lewis’s family stepped forward to throw roses into the ground. They tossed in handfuls of dirt that clattered on top of the coffin. That was when it became too much. The daughters broke, sobbing desperately, their hands pressed to their faces, tears leaking out from between pale fingers. It was hard to know how they’d ever learn to live without him. Maybe they wouldn’t. Their despair was such that it felt like a fog that had escaped from their hearts and was enveloping all of us. What affected me most was the bravery of Lewis’s wife, who steadfastly held it together for the sake of her children. When the ceremony was over, I approached her. ‘Lewis was an honourable man,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything that I or any of the lads can do, we’re always here.’ She gazed back at me emptily. I could tell she wasn’t really present, that the reality of what she was going through was simply so unbelievable that some protective instinct in her mind had removed her from the moment. Glassy eyed, she gave that generic answer, ‘Thank you, thank you.’ I was just about to move on when something stopped me. ‘I want you to know that Lewis’s death is not going to go unanswered,’ I said. With that, she clicked into focus and looked back at me directly. Suddenly present, she said simply, ‘Good.’ When I was out in Afghanistan, the loss of our friend rarely left my mind. He felt ever-present, pushing us forwards, our primary motivator. All I wanted was to get revenge for my pal and revenge for his wife and girls. The problem was, this hatred almost overwhelmed me. I could feel myself spiral into a mode of just wanting to kill everyone. All the people I met out there on patrol were to blame. Every local that showed even a hint of a threat or the slightest bit of negativity I wanted to aim and fire at. For a while I simply hated Muslims. The strange thing was, I’d also meet the loveliest Afghani families and be eating bread with them and cracking jokes, and I wouldn’t be thinking like that at all. But then, as soon as I’d left their compounds, I’d be back in the zone, thinking, ‘All right, you fuckers.’ I wanted to mow them all down. Most people don’t understand hatred. The truth is we need it. Hatred is why we’re motivated to defend ourselves. Hatred of fascism and hatred of communism got us through the twentieth century with our values intact, just as hatred of radical Islamism and the terrorism it breeds are getting us through our problems today. Hatred is a natural human instinct. We have it for a reason. But it’s a dangerous tool that needs using with wisdom, strength and delicacy. You need the presence of mind to tap into it just enough that it serves you, but not so much that it twists you up and throws you into a dark place. But that’s what started happening in Afghanistan. Lewis’s death had made it personal for everyone who knew him. The hatred it generated caused many of them to make bad decisions. When I got out there all I heard was, ‘If they’ve got a weapon on them, they’re a bad guy. Just take them out, even if they pose a minimal threat. Just do what you’ve got to do.’ I felt exactly like they did, but I didn’t want to be a bully with a weapon. When that mindset runs away with you, you’re in war crimes territory. I’m not judging any of them. I know how it feels. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, at times, I felt like a dog with bloodlust. Getting my head back under control was one of the toughest challenges of my military career. It’s the kind of energy that can eat you from the inside. If you internalise your enemies too much, they can begin to obsess you to the extent that you become both defensive and aggressive, the kind of person nobody wants to be around. I met a character who personified this perfectly when I was filming Series 2 of SAS: Who Dares Wins at an old military base in the Ecuadorian jungle. Geoff was a satellite installer and former drug addict who’d been deported from Australia after some sort of violent incident. He’d also served six months in prison. From the moment I first laid eyes on him, on morning number one, I knew everything about him that I needed to. All the contestants were lined up in formation in our makeshift parade square, which was surrounded with military buildings and corrugated roofs. I’d decided to welcome them into the challenge with the opposite of a motivational speech. ‘This environment is brutal,’ I said. ‘It’s hostile. It’s claustrophobic. It will chew you up and spit you out. This environment is enough to break most of you. If you fight it will fuck you up. Trust me. If I have to babysit any of you, we’ll just fuck you off. We want individuals who can look after themselves. You’re ours for the next nine days. Embrace it, gentlemen.’ Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/ant-middleton/first-man-in-leading-from-the-front/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.