Bravo two zero Read Free Page A

my parents and a whole lot of other things that I hadn't thought about in a long while.
        

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        I had never known my real mother, though I always imagined that whoever she was she must have wanted the best for me: the carrier bag I was found in when she left me on the steps of Guy's Hospital came from Harrods.
        I was fostered until I was 2 by a South London couple who in time applied to become my adoptive parents. As they watched me grow up, they probably wished they hadn't bothered. I binned school when I was 15-and-a-half to go and work for a haulage company in Brixton. I'd already been bunking off two or three days a week for the last year or so. Instead of studying for CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education) I delivered coal in the winter and drink mixes to off-licenses in the summer. By going full-time I pulled in 8 a day, which in 1975 was serious money. With forty quid on the hip of a Friday night you were one of the lads.
        My father had done his National Service in the Catering Corps and was now a minicab driver. My older brother had joined the Royal Fusiliers when I was a toddler and had served for about five years until he got married. I had exciting memories of him coming home from faraway places with his holdall full of presents. My own early life, however, was nothing remarkable. There wasn't anything I was particularly good at, and I certainly wasn't interested in a career in the army. My biggest ambition was to get a flat with my mates and be able to do whatever I wanted.
       I spent my early teens running away from home. Sometimes I'd go with a friend to France for the weekend, expeditions that were financed by him doing over his aunty's gas meter. I was soon getting into trouble with the police myself, mainly for vandalism to trains and vending machines.
        There were juvenile court cases and fines that caused my poor parents a lot of grief.
        I changed jobs when I was 16, going behind the counter at McDonald's in Catford. Everything went well until round about Christmas time, when I was arrested with two other blokes coming out of a flat that didn't belong to us in Dulwich village. I got put into a remand hostel for three days while I waited to go in front of the magistrates. I hated being locked up and swore that if I got away with it I'd never let it happen again. I knew deep down that I'd have to do something pretty decisive or I'd end up spending my entire life in Peckham, fucking about and getting fucked up. The army seemed a good way out. My brother had enjoyed it, so why not me?
        When the case came up the other two got sent to Borstal. I was let off with a caution, and the following day I took myself down to the army recruiting office. They gave me a simple academic test, which I failed.
       They told me to come back a calendar month later, and this time, because it was exactly the same test, I managed to scrape through by two points.
        I said I wanted to be a helicopter pilot, as you do when you have no qualifications and not a clue what being one involves.
        "There's no way you are going to become a helicopter pilot," the recruiting sergeant told me. "However, you can join the Army Air Corps if you want. They might teach you to be a helicopter refueler."
        "Great," I said, "that's me."
        You are sent away for three days to a selection center where you take more tests, do a bit of running, and go through medicals. If you pass, and they've got a vacancy, they'll let you join the regiment or trade of your choice.
        I went for my final interview, and the officer said, "McNab, you stand more chance of being struck by lightning than you do of becoming a junior leader in the Army Air Corps. I think you'd be best suited to the infantry. I'll put you down for the Royal Green Jackets. That's my regiment."
        I didn't have a clue about who or what the Royal Green Jackets were or did. They could have