The End is Where We Start From Behind the Lines

'For seven months, they've been training for this moment -

'a dusk departure for a 200-mile trek across cruel country

'under conditions that would prevail behind enemy lines.'

Best of luck.

This is it, then. How important is this for them?

Oh, very important, yeah. It is for me. I hope it goes right.

I hope they come up to expectations. I'm sure they will.

-What can go wrong on this?

-Everything, really.

With the weather closing in like it is now, failing to make their objectives

and losing them.

That's the main thing. Losing them. That's my biggest worry, it's losing them, I suppose.

So...

I don't know who's more nervous, them or me. Let's hope it works.

Exercise Nordic Finale is the culmination of an ML2 Arctic training phase.

It is designed to test the ML2 course on the following subjects:

helicopter insertion, deep penetration patrolling,

post-target reconnaissance, agent contact drills, communications, mountain movement and safety,

the use of caches, agent pipeline routine, observation posts

and limited arctic survival.

The exercise will take place in the area from Grotli across to Dombas, south of Hjerkinn through Grimsdalen,

down here and then carrying on down here to Lillehammer, Nordseter and Sjusjoen.

'Total distance, about 270 kilometres.'

The Royal Naval Sea King helicopters dump them in a place so godforsaken that it has no name,

only a grid reference on a military map. It is 100 miles from anywhere

and the temperature is a brisk minus 40.

They will travel on skis in teams of four.

Each man carries almost one hundredweight of equipment.

It is more now than a mere thesis in survival.

It is a fully operational mission in which information, all coded, is continually fed back to base.

CRACKLY RADIO MESSAGE

'..Alpha November Foxtrot.

'November Romeo.'

Surreptitiously, they're shadowed by the ubiquitous and also mechanised Sergeant MacLean.

The nearer pylon is their first objective. Interred close by under freshly fallen snow

are their first rations for three days, but here when you've seen one pylon, you've seen them all

and Norway has several hundred thousand. By map reference only,

they must pin down an area of 20 square feet.

They've done great with the weather conditions. You know what it was.

Tell us what it was.

It's 25-knot winds, temperature minus 20,

which probably gives them minus 35-40 temperatures.

Complete whiteout conditions.

So they've now skied 50k.

-How crucial is it that they hit these food caches?

-For them, very crucial.

If they don't hit them now, they'll have a lack of food for the next three days. That's the next one.

So it's crucial that they hit them.

They'll have emergency rations, but you can't live on emergency rations and ski these distances.

'War conditions are strictly observed. A sentry is posted.'

It seems they're trying to tell us he had blue-nosed last night.

'Only the avalanche probes can now confirm whether they've found the correct pylon

'across thousands of square miles of wilderness.

'Bearing the treasure that brings a whole new meaning to frozen food,

'they ski on to their next assignment, two full days away.

'This task requires timing as well as navigation.

'A rendezvous with an agent, a member of Norwegian Special Forces, on a lonely bridge.

'They're to hand over photographs they've taken for use in future sabotage.'

This is the agent contact point. Now what's going to happen is

that they're going to meet an agent to give them orders for them to be put in agent pipeline.

They've carried out their task and done all their OPs and close-target recognition.

They'll pass on all that information to this agent. He'll then give them another location to ski to

where they'll meet probably another agent and then go on through the pipeline for three or four days.

-To be frank, isn't that a bit James Bond-ish?

-No.

It sounds it. In actual fact, that is the way you would operate

and we have operated that way before, for real.

For them to operate as they are, in four-man teams, it's no good flying a helicopter in to re-supply them.

If they will be operating this far forward, as the exercise is and they would operate anyway,

they would have to go through a pipeline to get them out of it.

The handover is to take place at night and once again our pictures are from image intensifiers.

The first Marines group win few marks for an unimaginative contact.

They send a man with a rifle, conspicuously a soldier.

Cream peaches for breakfast.

SPEAKS IN NORWEGIAN

Half an hour later, an apparent civilian arrives, speaking excellent Norwegian.

THEY SPEAK IN NORWEGIAN

Cream peaches for breakfast.

'When I saw this civilian coming towards us, he asked about the way to Lillehammer.

'I was a little surprised. He looked like men I know from the area here.

'I really thought he was a civilian.

-'He was speaking in Norwegian?

-He was partly speaking in English,

'but at last he spoke very good Norwegian, yes.'

OK.

'And I asked everyone in Norwegian if they had problems. They said yes, they had problems.

'It was only two of them here. The others were seven kilometres from here.

-'Did they say what the problems were?

-A problem with the radio.

'They had been to a telephone kiosk and made a call to get a new radio. I had a new radio for him here.

'But he was speaking very good Norwegian, so it was no problem for me.'

-How do you know it's for me? How...?

-Yes, yes.

-'That was a pretty good performance, wasn't it?

-Yeah. It was textbook.'

They did everything they should do and it was more or less perfect.

Were you surprised that he was in civilian clothes?

Normally I would, until I saw who it was.

-What do you mean by that?

-Well, he used a lot of initiative.

I think for an area like this, with a lot of people knocking about,

and also the problems he had earlier on in the day,

for him to ski about in uniform, he's got to try to get hold of some civilian clothing. He did do.

'The photographs and sketches that the departing Lt Smith has delivered to the agent

'go back to HQ for analysis.

'They contain explicit details of how to blow up an integral part of the Norwegian railroad system,

'an exercise which never goes further than the theoretical stage!'

What we discovered was along here, yards from the railway line, there was a sheer cliff

going down to the gorge which your bridge goes over, in fact. One Section's bridge.

And my first thought was if you could crater that there, you could block the line completely

and they'd be stumped. We recommend that the western end is attacked. The eastern end is easier to approach

and they've got more equipment to bear to fix the damage.

The actual tunnel itself starts off with a concrete surround at the front.

It's about seven metres in height, six metres wide. I've got all the dimensions. Just to give an idea.

14 metres into the tunnel is reinforced concrete.

It then ends abruptly. There's a recess on each side, about half a metre,

a little over half a metre, then you've got bare rock.

Anyone laying charges would have to move at least 20 metres into it.

Those two black dots there are the two tunnels. We put our OP in just above them, up here.

When they actually did the CTR, they looked back from the station and could not see our position.

I won't go in to train times. It's in the pack we handed to the agent.

Suffice to say, this gives us passenger and goods times.

We also managed to pull a line off a friendly agent - an actual civilian train timetable,

which, if you were going to blow the tunnel, you don't want to do it with a civilian train in the vicinity.

OK?

I'll now cover the CTR for Three Section on the actual junction.

We'll show you the view in two parts.

To orientate you, this here is the road that leads to Dombas.

This is the footpath that we keep talking about.

It goes up quite steep ground, up back here, and eventually joins onto the E6.

'Ostensibly, their graduation examination is coming to a close.

'They have 40 miles to go and all four teams have been ordered to link up for the final phase.'

You don't need it any more, do you?

'Their last rendezvous is with the helicopter they assume is to fly them out to warmth, a bath,

'fillet steak, a phone call to their wives and sleep.

'One helicopter, but no marines.

'So enthusiastic is their commanding officer John Lear to see them again, he lands before the helicopter.'

-Aren't you annoyed that they're not here?

-I'm not annoyed.

I'm perhaps a little...a little sorry they didn't make the last 6km.

They've skied, I would say, just under or just over 200km in the last 10 days. Good going

for what they had to do. And they spent two days on an operation doing nothing but sitting still.

-Do you want them really rock bottom when they come in?

-No, I want them to still have the ability

to go on and do something else, but I want them to know what their limits are.

I believe that they will be close to their limit at the moment.

'They do make it, an hour late, hanging on to the single acronym that will mean it's over.'

ENDEX!

'ENDEX - Marine-speak for "end of exercise".

'But it's not quite that simple to qualify for this elite unit.

'They're ordered into the helicopter for a reception and a destination they've never dreamed of.'

We had an idea that there was something happening, so we arranged that we wouldn't go without a fight.

So what we planned on, when we embarked on the helicopter,

was to leave George and Jan, the big Dutch officer,

in the last two seats, so they'd be first out. They could handle anybody who was there.

Then we'd all pile out any door we could and have a go at it.

'At their lowest physical ebb, they've been set up for capture to test if they'll resist. They do.'

They were all standing there. We piled out. "What's going on?" They realised we were running for it.

The ones that didn't get far enough had to stand and fight.

That's when people started getting hurt. It escalated.

I mean, you imagine trying to hold someone like big Jan.

They did it, but it took six of the buggers to do it.

And they were using everything.

So, consequently, we reacted in the same way.

It becomes the law of the jungle.

Do unto others, but do the bugger first, otherwise you'll get hurt.

And we all got hurt, them and us.

Obviously on a course, someone's got to be in charge of it, they've got to have rules,

but what we call spirit is a way of getting back at them without breaking those rules.

It's a way of, like, hitting back at who's hitting you.

Go for it, boys!

'What occurred in the final 48 hours of their little odyssey was sufficiently unrelaxing

'to become subject to the Official Secrets Act.

'But at last, after seven and a half months, it's over.

'The only remaining strain is the waiting to learn whether they've failed or passed.

'If their home base in Plymouth tends to look more like Cruft's than a military establishment,

'it's a timely reminder that Royal Marine Commandos are kindly, sentimental men

-'who have been pining for their mascot.'

-Still as vicious as ever. Just give it...

PARROT SQUAWKS

-One of the best fighters in the service.

-If they trained him up

and the next course could take him, he'd be quite a benefit.

I've seen him stalking the rabbits and screaming down from the sky.

We'll all find out today exactly how well or how badly we've done

and whether you've passed or not. Hopefully, everyone will have passed.

I can't really see any reason for anyone to have failed,

but, like we always keep saying, you never really know.

It's up to them, what they decide.

I don't think you should get this far and fail, but it does happen.

So we'll have to wait and see.

'It's worse than waiting for your 'O' Levels. Anyone who failed is sent straight back to his unit.'

Craig, Mills, the Sergeant Major wants you. Now.

Just shut the door, please.

As soon as you had the results, those that failed were to come here. Why haven't you started?

Nobody said anything, sir.

I heard Sgt MacLean say it to you this morning. Those of you who failed were to come here.

-We haven't had the results yet, sir. I don't know nothing about it.

-Oh.

All right, my apologies. I thought you had the results.

All right, that's your replacement underwear items. They should have come three months ago. Wait outside.

Come on, Mills.

-There's your CPAC to go on leave. Why haven't you been here before?

-No one told us anything, sir.

I heard Sgt MacLean tell you this morning on the parade.

-You were to come here immediately you had your result.

-I don't know it, sir.

-Oh. I've jumped the gun.

Go downstairs again.

See me as soon as you come out the boss's office.

'Corporals Craig and Mills failed, only to be immediately reinstated.

'The Sergeant Major will have his little joke.'

I was put up to that, you two!

Did you twig it, did you? Or what?

My underpants are full!

Adrenaline is brown.

I've got brown adrenaline running down my leg!

-Well, see you call the Sergeant Major for that.

-I will, sir.

Corporal Mills,

Corporal Clayton,

Corporal Miller, Corporal Johnson,

Corporal Dicks,

Corporal Thompson,

Corporal Prior.

Quick march. Halt in front of the boss's desk and salute.

Corporal Craig, stand at ease, stand easy. I've got your final course report

after seven and a half months. I'll read it to you.

"Lance Corporal Craig is a fit, determined, junior NCO. He always gives his best.

"He reached an above average climbing standard.

"As a novice in the Arctic, he found some of the skiing hard going, however his grit made him cope well.

"A little shabby with his practical demonstrations at times, but produced an above average final one.

"A likeable man who should be an asset to the branch."

No need to stand at attention to shake my hand. That's it. Hang on - sign this bastard.

Sign there.

Jan just chucked him out...

I'll read the bottom bit to you. "Matthews is the top student and will receive the Thompson trophy.

"He approached the course with a sensible, mature attitude as expected of a senior NCO.

"He will do well in whatsoever job he is employed, giving 100% effort.

"He is awarded a superior pass."

Congratulations.

I'm looking forward to getting to a unit now and doing the job.

It's something I've wanted to do for quite a while. I'm glad it's over.

In Norway, you said you'd leave if you failed. Did you mean that?

Yeah, I did. If I'd failed the course.

I've spent the last three years trying to get a career in the Corps.

This is the career I chose. If I'd failed this course, I'd have to start again,

start from scratch. So I'd have got out.

But as it is now, I'll probably sign on!

Well done.

- Good luck. - Cheers.

All the best.

Lads, don't go anywhere yet. I want someone to get the key for the lecture room.

I want a final word for you before you go and have your scran.

You've got the details for this afternoon. There's just one or two words I want to say.

Don't amble!

We've got work out there. I was going to say let's go to the boozer. We'll make that tonight.

When all the formalities are finished, then we'll get together.

The boss doesn't want it to turn into a hoolie. I'm not sure if it will!

Just so you don't disappoint him on the last thing you do. Don't anybody let me down tonight.

You're singled out. You'll find that now wherever you go.

Whatever course you do, you get treated that little bit better. And you're expected to be better,

combat sigs, para course, combat survival or what have you.

You've had a good set of classes and a good course. It's been a pleasure.

I'll see you tonight. Let's go.

Don't take them away. Can I have them back?

-SIREN WAILS

-A fanfare and a police escort for those who have made it.

Eight months ago, 26 men set out to become members of the Royal Marines Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre.

13 fell off rocks or by the wayside.

13 came through.

They are men of style, men of a very special Special Forces unit.

That's nice. That's good.

I'll run through a few now. That's it.