Immediate Action Part 8

Even senior officers in the Regiment had perished on the hills.

I'd heard that a major set off once with a bergen full of bricks rather than warm clothing. The weather came down, and he failed to return.

The standby squadron got up onto the hill and found the body, but they couldn't get down themselves because the weather was so bad. They had to get the biwi bags out, and they used the frozen rupert as a windbreak. When the weather cleared, they laid him on his back, piled their bergens on top, and sledged him down the hill.

I arrived back at Stirling Lines in mid-January. I sensed that people were more apprehensive than the summer intake had been. I knew I was.

As it turned out, the weather was a great leveler. In thick mist or driving snow, everybody had to rely on his navigation. The elements slowed us all down equally; it was just a question of cracking on with the bearings, having confidence in the map and compa.s.s. Every day I felt better, and my confidence grew.

Snow fell heavily for much of the second and third weeks. We were given a six-figure grid that was accurate to within a hundred meters, which is a big area when all you're looking for is a biwi bag in a snowdrift.

Visibility was down to twenty meters one day. I got to the vicinity of my next checkpoint and was running around for valuable minutes trying to find a hint of green Gore-Tex. Eventually I found it, tapped on the bag, and the zip came down. I was a sweaty, dirty mess, starting to shiver because I'd stopped moving. Even in the very cold weather I wore just a pair of trousers, boots, and a T-shirt with a waterproof over the top.

I was. .h.i.t by the waft of coffee fumes and a cloud of steam from the boy in his sleeping bag. He was probably blowing the vents because he was so hot.

I wanted to be out of there as quickly as possible, number one because of the timings and number two because I was starting to freeze.

I was dripping all over him.

He looked up, took a sip of coffee, and said, "Stop f.u.c.king sweating on me."

As he gave me my next grid reference, he said, "See you," and did up the zip.

I turned to face into the blizzard again and trudged on.

I arrived at one checkpoint at the same time as two ruperts who'd tabbed in together from a different direction.

"This checkpoint is not where it should be," one of them said to the DS.

The biwi bag was in a snowdrift on a piece of ground called a spot height. The DS, who happened to be Peter, the chief instructor, said, "Well, where do you think it should be then?"

The rupert pointed on the map; then the two officers started to argue between themselves. There was only a difference of one or two hundred meters; it wasn't as if we were in. different valleys.

The DS said to me, "Where are we?"

I pointed to the spot height on the map and he said, "Correct." I wasn't going to argue.

Then he turned to the two ruperts and said, "Wherever you think you are, here is your next grid.

Off they went, and as he gave me my grid, he shook his head and said, "I can't understand what's the matter with these guys. They're here to become part of something that I'm already a member of. I'm the chief instructor, and they're arguing with me. Even if I'm wrong, what's the point in arguing with me?"

I didn't see them again. Next time, if there was a next time for them, perhaps they wouldn't approach Selection with their ruperts head on. At that stage the DS couldn't even be a.r.s.ed to know our names unless,we'd done something wrong. All they were trying to confirm was that we had endurance, stamina, and determination. They couldn't give a monkey's about our skills and apt.i.tudes.

A character called jock was in the next bed to me.

Every night, when we got back from another shattering day on the hill, he'd say, "Och, I think I'll just nip down the town and have a drink."

He'd get all dressed up and go down to one of the discos, rolling back at three o'clock in the morning, stinking. He'd fall into bed, curl UP, and fall asleep.

Next morning I'd give him a nudge and say, "Jock, it's scoff."

"Och, aye."

He'd get up, right as rain, put his kit back on, make loads of toast, and carry it to the wagon in his hands.

The most I could manage, and it certainly wasn't every night, was a trip to the local chip shop and a couple of pints of Guinness on the way.

At the end of the first two weeks the really serious stuff started, revisiting the Elan valley. I used to like the drive up there because we had to start really early in the morning. I could get my head down in my sleeping bag and drink loads of tea. All good things come to an end, however, and the truck would eventually stop, the engine would be switched off, and there would be silence.

Time to ' get out.

The cold air always attacked my ears first; then my feet started to go numb. I'd be torn between wanting to get moving to get warm and knowing that it was going to entail a fearsome tab of eight or ten hours.

The Elan valley was as I remembered it, a G.o.dforsaken, daunting place, full of reservoirs and big stumps of elephant gra.s.s, ranging from knee to chest height.

The area was very boggy, and because of the reservoirs, we could move only on the top half of the hills. We did a lot of night marches there as well, and I spent a lot of time falling over. I hated the Elan valley.

By now we were carrying a rifle as well as a bergen, and it always had to be in our hands. They were only drill SLRs (self-loading rifles), but it was a bit of extra weight I could have done without.

The carrying handles had been removed; there was no putting it over the shoulder or strapping it into the bergen. I found the SLR made life much more difficult because I couldn't swing my arms to pump uphill.

We had to,cross a lot of fences, and if you were seen resting the weapon on the other side before you clambered over you got a fine-and mentally they'd got you.

Some of the tabs went on and on. Sometimes I could see the checkpoint about ten kilometers away; I'd come off the high ground on that bearing, so I knew it was at the end of that delta, but then I'd just seem to be going on and on-and on. The Elan valley took a h.e.l.l of a lot of people out. It wore them down. And because it was farther away, it meant we got back later, and we had to start earlier.

As the week went on, jock carried on p.i.s.sing it up. He explained to me that he'd just got over a bad dose of penile warts. For eighteen months he had been "off games," and he wasn't going to let a little thing like Selection get in the way of his rehabilitation. He opened his flies one day and showed me the damage. The end of his c.o.c.k looked like the moon.

Day after day we'd be humping over hills. The weather was horrendous.

On one of the tabs the snow came up to my waist. It was quite a long one-thirty-five kilometers-and it was scary stuff. The mist was in, visibility was down to about ten meters, and we all failed to find a checkpoint. Eventually about six of us all b.u.mped into one another, flapping about our timings. At long last one of the blokes found the DS's biwi bag, and we were all busy making our excuses about the weather. No need. They'd already accounted for all this. They made the decision that we'd carry on, but in a group until we got to the next checkpoint.

Timings-wise I was in the middle of the order of march. I was on my chinstrap after wading through the snow for so many kilometers, but I got lucky. There was a Canadian jock who wanted to lead from the front, and I tucked in behind him. He was forging-through the snowdrifts like an icebreaker and we were tabbing in his wake, grinning our faces off.

The Endurance phase culminated with Test Week. The routes were a selection of everywhere we'd been and ranged from twenty to sixty-four kilometers. This was where all the lnj'uries began to play on people.

There were only about forty of us left, which I thought was great; less of a wait for food. Each day now I was feeling stronger because I knew the ground and what to expect.

I hadn't had a gypsy's, so I reckoned I could even screw up on one of them and I'd be all right. Best of all, I had no blisters, which I was really impressed with, but I was still strapping up my feet because the ankles were taking a fearsome pummeling.

By now I was always landing up in the same wagon as another fellow, George. I discovered that we'd both been in Crossmaglen at the same time. He was in an engineer unit that was building the submarines; he then transferred, and was now in 59 Engineers, the Royal Engineers attached to the Commando Brigade. He was into mountain climbing and had all the kit. He really annoyed me because every time I'd get there, he would already be in, lying in his sleeping bag, eating oranges.

We'd sit together in companionable silence and wait for the wagon to fill up. George was tall and lean, with varicose veins behind one of his legs. It looked like a relief map of the Pyrenees.

The day came when it was time for Sketch Map.

There was no way I was going to c.o.c.k up this time, and I didn't.

We got back to camp at about 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon after a 4:00 A.M. start. At 10:00 o'clock that same night we'd be setting out for Endurance, so it was straight in, sort the kit out, and have a bath.

I'd always been a shower man, until I'd seen all the boys going in with boxes of Radox,and I thought, Right, I'll have some of that for Endurance. But I put far too much in. It was like floating in the Dead Sea. I didn't know if it did me any physical good, but in my mind I felt that it did.

We drove to Talybont, one of the reservoirs. When I got off the wagon and put the bergen on, I started getting pins and needles in my hands because the weight on my shoulders was restricting the flow of blood. I had that initial pain of getting it on, then even more pain as welts broke out where it was rubbing. And then after about ten minutes, as soon as I got moving, my skin started to tingle because I was starting to leak. I got the wetness around my neck, and it started to get at the base of my hair. That was always quite an uncomfortable time, that very first ten minutes or quarter of an hour, because my legs were really stiff. Then I started to get my second breath and everything started to loosen up.

After about twenty minutes I was into the swing of it again. My mind was switched off; I was listening to jingles in my head. It was bitterly cold, and the wind was getting in all the little gaps. Until I got a good sweat on, it was a horrible feeling, especially after getting out of the cozy sleeping bag I'd been lying in for the hour-and-a-half drive.

Most of Endurance was in darkness, and because it was wintertime, there was even less daylight. Everybody looked quite excited but apprehensive. I was feeling confident and fit. I had no bad injuries, just bergen sores.

They called out the names, and off we went. The bergen was the heaviest it had ever been, about fifty-five to sixty pounds, because of the extra food and water. I always took water from the camp because I knew it wasn't contaminated. I didn't fancy drinking water from a stream, even with sterilizing tablets, only to see a stinking dead sheep upstream; if you start getting gut aches, it's going to slow you down.

The extra weight was worth it.

We were not allowed on roads. If the checkpoint was on one, we had to hit at an angle, not aim off and then move along it. We couldn't use tracks or pathways either; everything had to be cross-country. We'd get to the checkpoint, where sometimes they had water. If there were other people coming in, they might hold us for five minutes, and that was the time to fill up from the jerry cans if there were any. If they weren't going to hold us, I wouldn't waste time filling up.

If I met other people on the route, there was never time to say more than "All right?" before shooting off again.

All I wanted to hear them say was that they were late, and I'd think, That's good. If it was so bad that they said, "f.u.c.k!" I was even more pleased. It didn't make me go faster, but it made me feel better.

I was just b.u.mping along, my head full of jingles, thinking about the route ahead, trying to remember what was on the map so I didn't have to stop. "If you stop every five minutes for thirty seconds," Max had said, "that's minutes taken up every hour." I did my map checks on the move.

I had an extra pouch on my belt that was full of aniseed twists and Yorkie bars, which I had stocked up on just for Endurance. I didn't use them on other tabs, but for some reason I just went downtown and bought them for this one. Now I was digging in and eating and wondering why I'd never done it before.

I tabbed through the second night. On the last five or six kilometers the batteries went in my torch. I knew because of the lie of the ground that I had to go downhill, hit the reservoir, chuck a right, and then head for the bridge, which was the final checkpoint.

Unable to use my map, I was cursing the G.o.ds at the top of my voice. On the side of the reservoir was a big forestry block. I searched for a firebreak to get through, honking to myself and remembering why I failed last time.

I found a firebreak, a good wide one. No problem. I was moving along, but then I hit, fallen trees. Extra sweat, extra cuts. Every few meters I'd have to get the bergen off, throw it over a horizontal trunk, roll over it myself, find the bergen in the pitch-blackness, put it back on. I was flapping; I couldn't believe my future was in danger through making the same mistake twice.

I.was relieved to see the first rays of moonlight and made my way down to the bottom of the reservoir. I knew I had to turn right, and off I trogged, dragging along.

I reached the last checkpoint after a tab of twenty-one and a half hours. I was pretty chuffed with myself, but George had got in before me. So what was new?

I noticed a distinct change in the att.i.tude of the DS. It was as if we'd turned a corner, as if a phase was over and done with. There was no praise or anything, but they said, "All right, are you? Right, dump. your kit down, and there's some brew by the wagons."

The medic was there for any problems, but everybody was too elated to notice if he had any.

The QMS on training wing turned up with big slabs of bread pudding and tea, which he laced with rum. I discovered there was a big tradition with the Regiment that when on arduous duties they got this G10 rum, called gunfire. They saved up the rum ration and served it up on big occasions. I hated rum, but this didn't seem the time to say so. I didn't like bread pudding either, but I threw a lot of that down my neck as well.

One of the ruperts came up to me and said, "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, were you having some problems down by the reservoir?"

I explained what was going on and he said, "I could hear you. All I could hear was this 'f.u.c.king f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k ya!"

" He had been caught up in another firebreak, having the same problem.

We climbed into the wagons for the last time. Everybody was happy but subdued. n.o.body was sleeping; we were all too deep in thought.

I had the big Radox bath and tried to get all the strapping off my legs.

It was two-inch tape which like a d.i.c.khead, I'd put on the sticky way around. All I'd needed it for was support, so it could have been the other way around. I was in the bath, talking to George, and erring and blinding as I ripped the tape off. By the time I had finished, half of my leg hairs had disappeared.

One of the DS came around and said, "Everybody be in the training wing lecture room for eight o'clock in the morning."

I was feeling confident. There were some who were on a dodgy wicket who weren't too sure, but they were soon going to be finding out.

As soon as the DS said, "The following people go and see the training major," I knew that they were binned. If they didn't call my name out, I'd know that I'd pa.s.sed.

He called out ten names. No McNab.

"The rest of you, are there any injuries? The medical center's open now; go and get them sorted out."

There was one little job I had to do first. One of the blokes who had failed needed driving to the station, and I had offered. There had been an unfortunate incident on the hill-at least according to his version of it. He was doing well and had got to a checkpoint at night where he was held because a rupert had arrived in s.h.i.t state and binned it. He was told, "Go with this officer, make sure he's all right." He got the man safely down to the next checkpoint but by now was very late.

"I was told to wait," he told the DS.

The DS just said, "Tough s.h.i.t."

He was held because of the rupert, and quite rightly so; his job was to make sure the rupert got down to the next checkpoint that had a vehicle; he would then carry on. But he was late because of it, and they didn't seem to take it into account. Maybe there was a c.o.c.k-up in the administration. Whatever, this boy was stuffed. As I drove him to the station, he was crying. This had been his second attempt; for him there were no more tomorrows. I could imagine how he felt.

We had the weekend off, and it was very much needed. My feet swelled up as if I had elephantiasis and I couldn't put my shoes on. I had to cut holes in my trainers with a pair of scissors.

I wanted to tell everyone that I'd pa.s.sed Selection, that I was a big boy now. But it meant jack s.h.i.t to the blokes in the camp.

Apparently a lot of them did Endurance once or twice a year anyway. It was good for them to get up on the hill; it showed example and also meant there were more people in the area for safety reasons.

Some people slipped through the safety net. Two weeks later a fellow from R Squadron was missing after a tab, and the standby squadron was called out to search for him. They found him in his sleeping bag, half in, half out, with biscuits in one hand and a hexy burner in the other.

He must have died in that position.

We had pa.s.sed Selection, the only phase that we had a certain amount of control over. Now, as we entered the lecture room on Monday morning, we were going into the unknown.

The training sergeant major stood up and said, "You are starting continuation training now. There's going to be a lot of work involved.

Just switch on, and listen to what's being said. Remember, you might have pa.s.sed the Selection phase, but you're not in yet."

From the original intake of 180, we were now down to just 24.

Sitting around me were people from many different organizations-blokes from the signals and Royal Engineers, infantry, artillery, and a marine.

It was accepted that everybody would have different levels of expertise and different levels of experience. In terms of training, it was back to the drawing board.

The first step was to train us in the use of the Regiment's weapons. "If you finally do get to the squadrons," the DS said, "you might find yourself arriving, and going straight on jobs. They won't have time to train you; you've got to go there with a working knowledge of all the weapons."

The standard expected of us would depend on our previous experience. I was a sergeant in the infantry; weapons were my business. But the last time a lance corporal in the Catering Corps had touched a weapon might have been a year ago, and even then it would probably just have been a rifle; he'd know nothing about the GPMG, sustained fire, or any of the technical stuff.

He'd find it more difficult than I would but wouldn't necessarily be doing any worse. The DS said that to their way of thinking, if one person hadn't got the same experience as another but was learning, and was getting to a good standard compared with the more experienced bloke, then in essence he was learning more.

It was very much like a Bible story I remembered, when the rich man turned up at the church and dumped off six bags of gold and everybody was thinking how wonderful he was. Then an old woman came in and she had two coins, her whole wealth, and she gave one of them to the church.