Free Immediate Action by Andy McNab Page A

next-and I was putting my name down for every course that would have me.
        For young wives in a garrison town like Tidworth, life could be very boring. It was difficult to get decent work because employers knew they were not there for long, and that made it almost impossible for married women to have a career. The battalions liked to promote a ramily atmosphere, but for the wives it didn't really work out like that. There was a hierarchy, and there were more wives who wore their rank than blokes: "I'm Georgina Smith, wife of Sergeant Smith."
        The marriage started going to ratshit in about 1980.
        Christine was in Tidworth, in quarters, ready to go to Germany, sitting there and thinking: Sod this. The ultimatum was delivered one morning during the cornflakes. "Are you going to come back with me or are you going to stay here in Tidworth in the army?"
        No contest.
        "I'm staying here," I said. "Away you go."
        That was it. Over and done with, sorted out over bits of paper, and I didn't give a damn. I threw myself into all the bone bravado: I was out with my mates now; I was going to stay in the army forever; I didn't need a wife. There were many like me; I was not the only one.
        There was a NAAFI disco every Tuesday night at R.A.F Wroughton near Swindon. It was a great event, but then, so was anything that took place outside Tidworth.
        Six or seven of us in freshly pressed kit would pile into the chocolate and cream Capri, everybody stinking of a different aftershave.
        One Tuesday night I met a telephonist called Debbie and forgot all my resolutions about not needing women anymore.
        A posting came up as a training corporal at Winchester, and I grabbed it. Germany could wait. Careerwise the job was known as an E posting-a good one to get.
        By the time I came back I'd be a sergeant.
        My platoon commander was a lieutenant; under him he had the platoon sergeant and three training corporals.
        Each'of us full screws (corporals) was responsible for between twelve and fifteen recruits.
        One or two of the lads were fairly switched on with life and really wanted to join the infantry for what it offered. Most of them, however, were there because they wanted to be in the army but lacked the intelligence to be anything but riflemen-a bit like me, really.
        A lot of them hadn't got a clue what they were doing when they turned up. They'd been looking at the adverts of squaddies skiing and lying on the beach surrounded by a crowd of admiring women. They had the impression that they were in for three years lolling around on a windsurfer; then they'd come out, and employers would be gagging to get their hands on them.
        We had to show them how to wash and shave and use a toothbrush.
        I'd get into the shower and say, "Right, I'm having a shower now," taking with me the socks that I'd been wearing that day. I'd put them on my hands and use them like flannels, so I was washing my socks at the same time as my body. Then I had to show them how to shower, making sure they pulled their foreskin back and cleaned it and shampooed their hair.
        Every one of them had to do it exactly the same-way, cleaning their ears, cleaning their teeth in the shower at the same time, cleaning the shower out afterward. i,d then show them how to cut their toenails correctly. A lot of them didn't cut them at all, and they were stinking, or they just got the edge and then pulled it away so they were destroying the cuticle. In the infantry, if your feet are fucked, then the rest of you is fucked.
        A lot of them had never done their own washing. We even had to show them how to use an iron. But soon everybody was all squared away, and they knew what they were doing and, more important, why.
        The idea of the training was to keep them under pressure but make it enjoyable. The training corporals had to do everything that they did,