Fain Would I Climb Behind the Lines

GUNSHOTS

This programme contains some strong language.

It was probably the insane slaughter of the Battle of the Somme

which finally convinced the British that warfare

need no longer be played to the rules of cricket.

Why run straight at the guns when you can infiltrate behind them?

This strategic evolution produced some colourful new units.

The Long Range Desert Group, Popski's Private Army,

the Lovat Scouts, the Cockleshell Heroes and the SAS.

There was little emphasis on burnished badges

or glittering toecaps.

The premiums were initiative, subterfuge, courage and survival.

Such a unit is the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre

of the Royal Marines.

It must be conceded that Captain John Lear's arrival

at his office is hardly an exercise in stealth.

Since the Russians monitor all these military documentaries,

they might as well know from the outset

that he commands the training of the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre

and does not like desk work.

Sir!

Equally, Sergeant Mac McLean's arrival,

like some spin-off from the Tour de France,

is evidence of the unit's informality rather than some gullible disguise.

He hates desk work also.

The headquarters in Plymouth is immediately opposite

the intelligence section.

There too there appears to be an expedient solution

to the tedium of paperwork.

All the stores are issued. They're ready to go.

- The coaches are ordered for 08.30. - OK.

The casualness, even eccentricity of it,

should not dispose you to believe that what you will see

in these programmes is some kind of situation comedy in khaki.

They're planning the examination and possible recruitment

of 25 men to an elite corps.

Let's look forward to a good four days of good weather.

- And stacks of oggies, eh? - Stacks of oggies, yeah.

Their initiation starts here, in a village near Land's End.

For some, swiftly, it will also be journey's end.

The standards are quite uncompromising,

and there will be many days and nights when this command post,

in retrospect, will seem like Claridge's.

Thompson. No mail for you today.

Hicks.

When we give you these press-ups, obviously it's not for being bitchy

or anything like that. Just to build up your strength.

Make a joke about because it needs to be because you do so many,

it's no good being miserable. Laugh every time you do it.

For the slightest little thing, I'll make you do press-ups.

And you can make me. If you ever catch me

with my hands in my pockets, you can give me press-ups.

20 for catching me.

That lets me give you 40.

The perennial punishment for offences actual or invented is the press-up.

It causes no resentment. All are volunteers,

men and officers from every branch of the Royal Marines,

from the Special Boat Squadron, the Dutch marines

and from the Australian SAS.

All rank among the candidates is suspended.

In the eyes of God and Sergeant McLean, all applicants are equal.

OK, we'll scoot around, I bet you're all corporals.

No need to bother with it, just say, "Corporal", or what have you.

We'll just go around, corporal, lance corporal, acting lieutenant. OK.

If it's not how the Brigade of Guards would carry on,

it's because the sole function of these men is to fight

in pitiless terrain in appallingly low temperatures.

There's our starting area.

Give us it. How do you read the code?

20 press-ups for hesitating. What was it?

- Sequencer. - That's right.

He should have known it. He's been thinking about it all weekend.

Both these men, as did 21 of the 22 British candidates,

saw action in the Falklands.

While here that experience now counts for nothing,

there are certainly no rules about them being opinionated.

There are times, not just...

I won't just say places like Northern Ireland

and the Falkland Islands, when you are dealing with people's lives,

probably more so in this qualification we're going for now,

the MAW course,

you make the wrong decision and people can and will die.

And I think it's...

That doesn't come across to the average man on the street.

He thinks a servicemen is someone who, as Digger said,

has got all the creature comforts.

Every now and again, he goes and does his bit and most of the time

he's a drunken lout who makes the most of the time he's got off.

And is generally not a nice person to know. It's just not true.

Everybody has their part to play. It's a classic example.

One minute you can be the most obnoxious bunch of cretins

on God's earth and then an incident somewhere in the world blows up

and you have to go and sort it out and you become hand-slapping,

back-slapping, thigh-slapping,

the best bunch of kiddies we could ever have.

"Well done, boys. You've done your bit once again."

We're proud to be British and all that. It rankles a bit sometimes.

So when you come back, you become the brutal and licentious...

That's right. Within weeks of coming back

from Northern Ireland or the Falklands or anywhere,

all it takes is one small incident in a garrison town

such as Plymouth, Arbroath, Aldershot, anywhere,

and once again, you're wrecking bars

and pinching cars and punishing civilians

and God knows what. The British public are great people

but they have got hellish short memories.

Your mascot. You've had a lot of bad luck with mascots.

It started off, if I remember correctly,

in the selection course...

where I gave you a newt. In actual fact it was a Salamander.

LAUGHTER

And it mysteriously disappeared or died.

I have yet to find out what happened to it.

Although, when the course finished it was perfectly OK,

but then when we got back down here in September,

it had died.

That was the newt. Then I gave you a frog...

which didn't even have a name because you only had it two hours

and that died.

Then we had a black beetle which I do believe last Saturday someone ate.

I'm determined that you should have a mascot,

so what I've done at great expense...

is got you a peregrine falcon.

The reason I got this type of bird is because it needs to be tough...

because all the mascots in the past have died under your care.

This one has been a fighting bird

and will not die.

Right, lads. A peregrine falcon.

Steady.

BIRD CHEEPS

- Training manual. - OK.

We have the training manual here.

I want to see it sort of bringing down meat off the hoof in a week.

OK? Who's due a student?

BIRD SQUAWKS

Obviously, that's the mating call of the falcon, so watch out, boys.

Right, McClusky, it's all yours.

Remember, you need the glove, be careful,

because you need your fingers and that for climbing.

I don't want anyone seen off. It needs a name by 12 o'clock.

- Are you happy with it? - Oh, yeah.

The secret to order is a quick march and then by the left,

if you're going left wheel, by the right, if you're going right wheel.

By the right, cos the right hand files the front rank.

What brand of men are they? Here's the head of training

for the marine special forces, Major General Julian Thompson.

Well, I would think he was a rather special sort of chap.

He may not be the sort of fellow who's standing in the front rank

looking terribly smart, who catches everybody's eye.

I think he's got to be, and I've always described it

as rather like a badger, to have this ability to almost like an animal,

and I don't mean it in any derogatory sense,

suborn his personal feelings of discomfort

and take no notice of them, almost switch off the feeling of discomfort.

At the same time, not switch off his other senses

so that he's dozing away and doesn't notice what's going on.

And he must also be an absolutely first-class marine soldier.

Right, when I say go, I want to see the last man down to transport.

Standby, go. Right, all the way down.

Catch them up.

By definition, the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre

doesn't attract too many vertigo sufferers, but even so,

23 of the 25 have never climbed before.

Their testing ground is here,

the jagged promontories of Land's End.

These may be mere nursery slopes compared with what lies ahead,

but they still face an initiation test

calculated to sort out the likes of you and me from the likes of them.

What we're going to do this afternoon is the thing

you've been psyched up for all week, the Land's End long jump.

Really, there's nothing to it, nothing to get excited about.

We used to do it as part of the clifftop run.

Down from Logan's Rock, in kit and the first bloke across jumped it

and everybody followed the leader. If you do by some chance miss,

Sergeant Brown will catch you. That's what he's there for.

Because there's a strong wind blowing,

don't think you've got to jump to the right to compensate.

Just get down there, jump across.

I'm just going to do a quick demonstration now.

To prove how confident I am, I won't use any harness.

All right? Just to show you how easy it is.

But for you, cos you're students, you'll be roped on. OK.

This is the start position. Stand on here, get your bottle in your hand,

your heart in your mouth and just take a flying leap.

That's all there is to it.

Aim to get your feet on about this pancake here.

And you'll get on it quite easily.

All right, any questions?

I'll have you belayed here. Take the coils in your hand.

Now, a good positive movement when you go.

When you're ready!

Smaller coils than that.

Aye-aye.

Go on. The longer you hang about, the harder it will be.

As soon as you're ready, just go.

Come on, go for it.

Go for it!

Go on!

The deal is brutally frank.

It is to establish nerve.

They either leap the gap 270ft above the rocks

or their new career stops right here.

Phase two is the first encounter with a rock face.

Many of these men are experienced parachutists,

but the challenge here is entirely different.

Aye-aye.

I remember getting halfway and freezing and thinking,

"What am I doing here?"

And I reached for this hold and I felt myself starting to go.

And I just managed to get it.

I vowed there, once I got to the top,

that I would never sleep on a top bunk again.

Like anybody else, you still get frightened up there on the rock.

You talk to some of the more experienced MLs

and they'll tell you, they still sometimes get frightened themselves.

What did you think of the climbing? Any problems?

- Yeah. - In what way?

I fell off the demo route the first time.

You fell off the demonstration route?

- Yes, sir. - Not the demo route.

That's something which you'll fall off at a later stage.

What have you done this morning so far?

The top half, sir, over there.

What did you think of that?

It was quite difficult on the actual overhang.

- How did you feel about it? - Shit myself.

You shit yourself? Oh!

OK, good, I'll be talking to you some other time as well.

I guarantee it, I'll be watching you a lot. All right?

In fact, little more watching was necessary.

There's no stigma about being returned to a unit for attempting

what few sane people would attempt in the first place.

The man failed honourably

because he couldn't handle the challenge of a vertical rock face.

He wasn't alone in that.

Basically, because we're climbing all day up the Bosigran

I felt uneasy the two climbs that I did up Bosigran.

I didn't feel at all at ease on them.

And we did Commando Ridge,

and I started to get a bit terrified on Commando Ridge.

I thought about it that night,

well, the climbing wasn't for me and I didn't want to do it.

So I've come up, I've seen Sergeant McLean in the morning

and asked to be removed off the course.

And then he told me, "No, think about it",

and I thought about it more in the morning.

The more I thought about it, the more I was scared to go back on the rock.

Then he took me away, he took me on to some problems,

started me off on the problems, going back to square one again,

just starting off.

We come up on the problems.

At the end of the day, I felt really great,

got my confidence back in myself in climbing on the rock,

so I decided to change my mind and stay on the course.

I think I've done it now.

I think that I'll be able to go and be able to climb the rock now.

It takes a lot of courage to also admit that

you don't want to do it.

That was the biggest part, was admitting I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want to do that, but I felt that I had to.

Next week, we'll put him with either myself or the sergeant major

and we'll nurse him through,

probably not quite so fast as the other people,

until we think that that he's got his confidence.

Towards the end of the week, we'll start giving him more exposure.

And when his confidence comes, we'll know when it does or not,

and I think probably he'll be OK, no problem at all.

But there was a problem. He didn't make it either.

The criteria at this stage are absolute.

A harsh decision now can save lives later.

On the 5th day, a third man failed -

the candidate from the Australian SAS.

A third person didn't attend the selection course.

He's come from a faraway country.

Once again, I think it's his major problem is his physical fitness,

his medical fitness and his mental fitness,

his mental attitude towards it.

I think he could do it if he wanted to.

And if he'd been a bit fitter, he'd have no problems at all.

I don't know how much he's using his medical problems as an excuse

to get off the course, but he has used it.

He said he's got problems, so tomorrow, obviously,

I'm going to have to make some rather quick telephone calls

to some senior people and see what's to be done about him.

At the end of the week, and each week thereafter

throughout this preliminary nine-month course,

senior members of the cadre assess each man's progress.

It's perhaps as well that the candidates can't sue for slander.

Craig.

In the abseiling, he wanted me to allow him to take 20ft of slack,

then he jumped from the chopper, cos he wasn't getting a good start.

We're thinking of electing him the most ugly man of the ML2s course.

LAUGHTER

After a week at Land's End,

abseiling 200ft out of a helicopter

is regarded as a mere games afternoon.

You're now trained to be an instructor,

you'll have to show a better example. OK? 20.

Admonishments are frequent.

The most punitive punishment remains the press-up.

You should know this from being at Lympstone. 20 sit-ups.

What's this?

Legion...eh? That's not part of your uniform.

20.

There's no barrack-square bawling.

It's all done with almost courteous restraint.

You've all got your piece of rope in your pocket?

- Yeah. - Right. Stand up, tie a knot!

How many press-ups do you want if we haven't got our rope?!

LAUGHTER

Oh! I'll have 40 sit-ups from you.

It seems unlikely that any of God's creatures

would actually volunteer to become the cadre's mascot.

However, promotion to the rank of falcon

appears to have induced a sense of security.

He was very noisy. He wasn't very popular.

I think people were trying to strangle him,

and flush him down the loo.

Now, you catch them secretly talking to him.

When you come in, they pretend they weren't.

Penny Pool, at other times is a Cornish beauty spot,

well-known to poets and artists.

The only artistry demanded of a Marine Commando here

is that he should traverse this Atlantic cauldron without falling in.

At high tide, this neither arctic nor mountain challenge

is easier said than done.

For some, with heavy seas pounding through the gap,

the limit of ambition is to hang on.

I don't want anyone going in there.

Please don't clip that, somebody up there.

For Cpl Grant, hanging on is both agonising and essential for survival.

His right shoulder has been torn completely from its socket.

What was he reaching for?

Where's the doc?

Can you get that rope, somebody?

Argh!

One man safe, but now his rescuers must save themselves.

There are actually three men there somewhere in the water.

Bring the stretcher down, will you?

Where do you want it? Where do you want it?

Last man out, and lucky.

If that wave had been as massive as the last,

his next stop could well have been

in the neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts.

Probably quite fortunate I got the rope around that guy who was injured,

and Chris and the other guys jumped in,

which tended to jam the whole zawn up.

I think if just the two of us had been swimming around,

we might well have got swept out and off the ledge.

Especially the guy with the injured arm,

there was no way he would have got out.

You thought your time had come, didn't you, there?

Yeah, I did for a while in that cave.

There didn't seem to be much happening

in the way of getting me back out again!

When was the last time you thought

you weren't going to live to see the following day?

I took a bullet through the chest, that was the last time.

OK, still got another hour's work there.

Don't worry about getting a little wet, carry on with the problem.

"OK, you've got another hour's work left." There are no concessions.

It isn't that sort of club.

A bit unfortunate.

The sea was running a little bit high, but Lance Cpl Grant

unfortunately just happened to come up after he had done the problem.

He came off, his hand was left in there.

But as I say,

it's all part of the actual character building of the ML2.

You've got to have a person who when he is wet through,

and perhaps freezing in Norway,

is able to turn round to a half company or 30 men,

and smile, and generate motivation within them.

To do that, you have got to do these little foibles

that have been in the course for years.

They are part of the course. Everyone expects to do them.

Here are some more of the cadre's little foibles.

- You all right? - Bloody hell. Rope trick!

Everybody knows the rope trick!

They're expected to climb anything set before them.

In this case, a traverse of the sea wall at Sennen Cove.

I don't want to see anybody dry!

To the Queen's enemies, perhaps even to the Queen herself,

the horseplay must seem dangerously close to anarchy.

Get him!

What military system is it

which permits a sergeant to be roughhoused by his men?

Your legs are getting tired!

Your feet are slipping off!

Next, they steal the keys of the instructor's transport.

No-one escapes. Not even the director of this film!

But the skylarking can be switched off in an instant.

Sunset heralds the next stage in the curriculum.

After just one month on course, they take to scaling cliffs in darkness.

What I want to do now is confirm with you again the climbs

you are actually going to do.

Cpl Dale, you are on Corner Climb. Cpl Mills, Staircase.

Cpl Craig, Corner Climb. Lt Smyth, Banana Flakes.

Cpl Nash, Main Faith.

Are you sure you're up to it, Nash? OK.

On completion of this brief, what I want is no smoking, no talking,

and no lights. Understood?

The only illumination is from a pale moon and a distant lighthouse.

What you're seeing here comes courtesy of science.

It's being filmed through image intensifiers which give

an accurate impression of what it's like

to peer through the night sights of a rifle.

The test piece rock face is 80 feet high.

It's really scary up here, if you don't think about it.

I'm still sweating now.

Coming down this thing...

You're on the rocks.

Stopping there...

It is in situations like these that you discover why

the instructors never need to raise their voices.

They earn respect and maintain authority by sheer example.

Climbing down a cliff face in darkness

is even trickier than climbing up.

Sgt Mac McLean sets off without ropes.

See what it's like to reverse this diff climb on the left Banana Flakes.

There is a way down that we use quite a lot.

I know it very well.

You just have to feel around...

..and look with your hands...

where my feet are going to go.

Once I've found a foothold, I can then go back to it,

knowing there's somewhere there nice and easy for my feet.

It is a case of testing all the holes in the normal way.

Bit of a stretch there, but...

Lovely rock, it's great.

What I have to do is make my way down the outside of this rib here.

Stacks of handholds. No trouble.

This is a smaller leap across.

No good waiting.

You might as well just do it. If you hesitate...

Got it.

I just caught my finger there.

You can see the jump rope. I can't see any of the wall. Difficult.

To alleviate the anxiety of next of kin,

the trainees do have the benefit of ropes.

Now just the ones on the P-line.

Get your other runners out.

There was quite a big gap here.

When you get to this part of the gulley.

What you have to do is bridge it like so.

It's quite easy coming down.

But it's slippy with the waterfall coming down here.

These are normal techniques.

Feeling around. Nice handhold.

Feeling around for somewhere to put my feet.

Just climb it as you would during the day, really.

See if I can make that move down. Turn me around a bit.

Try not to scramble.

Gets the old adrenaline going a bit.

When you do it at night,

you get at one with what you are doing, I suppose.

At the top. That's it.

Grip Tight Gulley and Banana Flakes.

Gives you a nice sensation when you've finished that.

McLean is safely back up.

And so, without a scratch, are all his pupils.

But these are only the foothills of an Everest of training.

From the cliffs of Cornwall, they now move on to an altogether

different challenge in the bleak terrain of the Hebrides.

There, they will set out to prove there can be life after Egon Ronay.

It's about survival behind the lines, and it's not for the squeamish.