The Big Breach Read Online Free PDF

flattering, but my priority was to get overseas quickly and the prospect of having to put in two or three years behind a desk in London first did not appeal. I screwed the letter into a ball and threw it away.
     
    Though keen to go travelling, my debts obliged me to earn some money. Most of my friends from university were settled into steady careers in London in banking or management consultancy. Their lifestyle held no appeal, but pragmatically it offered the best way to save some money. It was the start of the Thatcher boom years and it was easy to get a highly paid job. Booz Allen & Hamilton, a management consultancy in Mayfair, employed me on a salary three times that on offer at MI6. But despite the welcome fat pay cheques, it was clear after a couple of weeks that it wasn't the career for me. Not replying to Halliday's letter was a mistake, and also rude. Writing back, I explained that having taken another job it would be wise to stick it out for a year, but would like to keep in touch. Halliday sent me a polite and understanding reply by return post.
     
    Finding little stimulation in the sedentary consulting job, I needed a more challenging activity to occupy me. When I saw an advert in a newspaper to join the Territorial Army, Britain's reserve army corps, it seemed an ideal avenue in which to channel my spare energy. As it only required attendance at weekends and for two weeks' annual camp per year, joining up would not oblige me to leave the job that paid my bills. Flicking through the glossy recruitment brochure that arrived in the post a few days after my enquiry, I glanced at descriptions of the various reserve units, but the choice was clear: the Special Air Service volunteer regiment. When I rang the recruitment number, a gritty Scottish voice growled the instruction to report to the Duke of York's barracks on King's Road in central London the following Saturday with running shoes and tracksuit for a basic fitness test.
     
    That first test was relatively easy for a fit young man - just five miles around the barracks running track in under 40 minutes. But that was just the start of the demanding selection process. The PT instructor who led the test said that we would need to attend every second weekend for the next year to undertake a series of daunting tests of endurance and stamina, plus a two-week intensive selection camp.
     
    The following weekend just over a hundred other hopeful recruits turned up at the Duke of York's for the first stage of the selection process. Most were former regular army soldiers, or had experience in other parts of the Territorial Army. Some were condescending towards the few recruits, like myself, who had no previous military experience. `You won't get past the first weekend,' scoffed one shaven-headed former marine. We were briefly interviewed to assess our previous military experience and suitability for the course. Those with criminal convictions and the weirdoes who turned up equipped with black balaclavas or armed with knives were shown the gate. The quartermaster's store issued us with basic army clothing and equipment which we would have to use for the selection course - camouflage trousers, a pair of boots, a couple of hairy woollen shirts, a woolly pullover, webbing, water cans, sleeping bag, a waterproof poncho, a bergen to put it all in and, most importantly, a compass. We were given another running test - this time eight miles in one hour in our new boots. About 20 per cent immediately dropped out and were told to return their newly issued kit.
     
    Soon passing selection became my only goal. My work at Booz Allen & Hamilton was unimportant - just something that had to be done between TA weekends to pay the rent. Every second weekend for the next five months, along with the other surviving candidates, I reported to the Duke of York's at 1930 on Friday evening after a boring but tiring day in the office. We were issued rations and our kit was checked by the DS