Free Narrow Escape (A Spider Shepherd short story) by Stephen Leather Page B

back in the days when the SAS first arrived in Hereford after long service in the Far East, the trains to London had departed from Platform 4, and the old phrase had stuck. 
    That had been the previous evening, and now Shepherd’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps, scuffing the gravel and rattling the wooden steps of the hut. The first faint glow of dawn was showing in the sky as one of the instructors strode in. ‘Let’s get to it,’ he said. ‘Continuation Training begins today. I want you outside in five minutes.’ He paused. ‘And don’t get complacent. You’ve passed Selection, but there’s a long way to go - around another twelve months before you become a badged member of the Regiment - and not all of you will make it that far.’ He turned on his heel and strode out again.
    Shepherd jumped out of bed and began to pull on his kit. McKay winked at him as he struggled into his own gear. ‘A few words of congratulation would have been nice,’ said McKay.
    Shepherd grinned. ‘This is the SAS, mate. They don’t do “Well done”, they just do “Get on with it”. And we’re lucky to get that.’ He sighed with relief. ‘I tell you, I’m bloody relieved, I wasn’t sure if we’d passed.’
    ‘Come on. You’re one of the fittest guys here. I always knew that provided I kept pace with you, I wouldn’t be RTU’d.’
     After the acutely physical mountain bashing of Selection, Shepherd and the other ten successful candidates were thrown straight into the Continuation process.  There was no time to feel good about themselves, just more pressure being heaped upon them, but it was during the Continuation phase that Shepherd began his love affair with the Regiment, and it also gave him an understanding of the SAS’s affinity with Wales.
    The training process followed a simple, tried and tested formula.  First, the theory of a subject was taught in a lecture room by the permanent training staff.  Then Shepherd and his comrades were taken into the Welsh mountains to test their knowledge of the subject in a series of exercises.  On these they were always accompanied by members of one of the Sabre Squadrons, who had now been drafted in to judge the trainees’ competence.
    During the following months, Shepherd spent long periods alone on the Welsh hills, learning how to use the terrain to give cover, whether moving by day or night, and mastering the SAS’s complicated system of rendezvous drills, in which they linked up only to attack their target, then separated again to make their return to a safe zone. He notionally destroyed power stations, oil refineries, coal mines, power lines and rescued kidnapped VIPs, and along the way, he discarded most of what he had learned in his time in the Paras.  He quickly realised that when the Paras deployed, they always looked for trouble, having the numbers and resources to deal with it.  The SAS, on the other hand, went out of their way to avoid trouble until they could deal with it on their own terms, not through any fear but because the task at hand was what mattered, and getting into avoidable contacts with enemy troops was just a needless distraction from it.
    Like the rest of the regular army, the Paras were trained to have a standard reaction to particular circumstances, so that everyone operated in the same way and one that was predictable to the Army hierarchy. The SAS training was designed to produce precisely the opposite result; the Regiment wanted every individual to react differently to circumstances, while still achieving the mission objectives.
    As he trained, Shepherd found himself slyly observing the Sabre Squadron troopers.  The first thing he noticed was that whether they were training or relaxing they were always remarkably reticent about themselves. They weren’t even forthcoming with details of rank and name, always using a pseudonym or a nickname instead, and any discussion of their private lives was absolutely