'Very good, just like an officer on the job,' observed Tim wryly after I had struggled along for a few moments. 'Right, as you're obviously an expert you might as well continue across the trench while you're down there!'
I took a deep breath and plunged into the foul mess. It was an ugly experience. Two feet doesn't sound very deep, but when you are crawling on all fours so close to the ground it is very deep. As I felt the loathsome liquid begin to crawl through the gaps in my clothing, I really understood for the first time why they called this part of selection Sickener 1. Halfway across, weighed down by my bergen, I felt my belt snag on a rock. I couldn't use my hands to free myself as they were holding my rifle clear of the surface. I had to resort to wriggling free by shaking my hips – and as I did so I set up a turbulence in the water, and the filthy stinking sheep-gut-filled liquid splashed up around my lips. I coughed and spat out in disgust.
As each trainee made it through the ordeal we assembled on the other side of the ditch, with the noisome liquid dripping from our clothes, until we stood watching the last man struggle across. The only consolation was that this was the last exercise of the day. Smelling like old decrepit tramps in a doss house, we settled down for the night.
At first light on the final day, as I rubbed my numbed limbs back into life, Tim gave his instructions: we were to set off straight across the river in front of us. As we waded across, our rifles above our heads, up to our chests in fast-flowing water, Tim watched us comfortably from a nearby bridge. Although dripping wet, at least when we emerged on the far bank we were fresher and cleaner than we had been after the previous day's ordeal. I thought to myself, I've survived two days and nights. Only one more day to go and it's back to basha, a decent meal and a soft bed. I focused my mind on this comforting picture all that day as we sweated again over endless bukits. I locked out every urgent protest from my body, which had never been pushed to such physical extremes; and I ignored every scream from every tortured muscle.
As the afternoon of the following day drew to a painful close, we were briefed on the final exercise of the day: the stretcher race. We had to cover the last mile carrying a stretcher, upon which Tim perched – complete with loaded bergen, heavy rifle and satisfied smile. Labouring towards the final RV, just when I thought I couldn't force another step out of my weary body, I caught sight of the Bedford four-tonners lined up in the distance. Thank Christ for that, I thought.
'There you are lads,' barked Tim. 'Your ticket to easy street. Your transport out of hell!'
The pace quickened, the relief swept over me; it wouldn't be long now. When we were about a hundred yards short, I heard the engines cough into life. They're just warming them up, I thought to myself. Then, to my horror and disbelief, one by one the Bedfords pulled away and disappeared like a bad dream down the road through the woods. Shit, I thought, we've been conned.
By now the other patrols were alongside. Tim walked stiffly to the front of the shredded soldiery. 'Fresh orders from the top,' he boomed. 'The transport has been called away on a rush job. Alternative transport is to be found ten miles from here,' and he rattled off a new grid reference.
Suddenly, Tommo exploded. He lunged at Tim with clenched fists, screaming, 'You bastard!' I just managed to push him to one side and the punch whistled past Tim's ear. Two of the other lads knocked Tommo to the ground and restrained him until he was led away, muttering and snivelling, and thrown into the twat wagon.
'That's amazing,' I said. 'That's the first time I've seen him reveal any real emotion. Mind you, I can't say I'm surprised at what happened. I didn't like the look of him from the start.'
'That's what happens when you bottle it up so much,' said Tim knowingly. 'You can only hold it back for so long, then you explode.'
We set off on the compass bearing, heads bowed, a Para NCO at the front. I was determined not to end up like Tommo. The pain returned in all its throbbing sharpness. All I could see in front of me, through glazed eyes, was yet another hell. Suddenly, as we struggled over the brow of a hill, we could not believe it – salvation! There they were – the Bedfords. We looked back at Tim. He was expressionless. Nobody dared say a word. We just plodded on in stunned silence. As we got nearer we realized that the Bedfords were definitely on our compass bearing. I strained my ears for the sound of an engine starting. Surely they wouldn't do it twice, would they? A hundred yards, fifty yards, twenty yards. I was praying harder than I'd ever prayed in my life. Ten yards, five yards.
Tim moved to the front as we reached the wagons, gripped the tailgate of one of the Bedfords and said, 'Think yourselves fucking lucky they're not really ten miles away!'
I collapsed into a corner of one of the Bedfords, totally exhausted, but exhilarated at having passed my first big test. 'Only two more weeks to go,' was the last thing I remember thinking before dropping into a deep sleep that even the rattling, jolting Bedford could not disturb. A blissful interlude. A lull before the next storm.
Sickener 2
All too soon we were back to the familiar hard physical grind. Week Two. The future didn't look too bright to me just at that moment. We were down to ninety out of the original 135, and the worst was yet to come. I was tormented by the possibility that I might be No. 89, the next candidate for Platform 4. My desire to succeed was strong enough, but all the time I wondered whether my mind and body would carry me through. I certainly got to know myself better during the three weeks of selection. I discovered to my surprise that just when I thought my energies were totally spent and failure was beckoning with open arms, I would suddenly open up reserves of stamina that I never knew existed. It was as if an inner resolve, so deep I couldn't truly fathom its nature, lay at the very core of my being, like a steel rod refusing to bend or break.
It was on Day Three of Week Two that we were introduced to the controlled agonies of the Skirrid, a stark, barren monolith that towered ominously 500 metres above the surrounding flat green countryside near Llanfihangel. From the trig point at the top there was a commanding 360-degree view of the land for miles around, and for that reason it was ideal for map-reading exercises. The problem, of course, was that you had to get to the top first, saddled with full kit, and inevitably we were assembled not at the gently sloping side, but at the foot of the near-vertical side. So fierce was the slope that when I checked the map, all I could see was a brown blur of bunched-up contour lines floating threateningly in a sea of green.
I set the bearing on my Silvas compass and lined up the arrows. They pointed straight to the top, directly up the steep side. We set off wearily, a private in the REME up front. When we reached the summit, it was down again, change the leader, then back up. Tim kept us at it all day without respite. Beads of perspiration fell from my forehead and clouded my eyes with a salty film; sweat trickled down my spine and collected in the small of my back. The bergen pounded with each painful footfall, the straps pulling viciously at my shoulders. My calf and thigh muscles gradually tightened until they were virtually locked rigid, and the blisters on my feet grew larger and more inflamed by the hour.
The only relief came at midday, when we paused to take a visual map-reading test. When my turn came, the more I tried to concentrate and stare at the map, the more the contour lines and compass settings became first a blur, then a swimming morass of shapes, like a crowd of elvers in a fast-flowing stream. It was almost as if my mind had become disconnected from my optic nerves. I could still see the shapes and lines, but no message was getting through to my brain. I shook my head and tried to clear it, and fortunately managed just in the nick of time to remember one of Tim's survival rules: calmness and coolness at all times. I took a deep breath, determined not to be hurried beyond my own judgement. Mercifully, the features on the map gradually came back into meaningful focus, and with them Tim's magic formula for mapreading: grid to mag add; mag to grid to get rid. It worked.
I passed. My blisters didn't, though. After touching the trig point on top of the Skirrid for the last time and beginni
ng my final descent, all I could think of during the journey to the bottom was getting my boots off and hitting the blisters with another shot of Jenson's Violet!
As we drank our final brew of the day, Geordie exclaimed, 'I'm going to get rat-arsed when this lot's over!'
Tim looked at Geordie and frowned. 'It's not the answer to everything, believe me. I remember when we were on operations in Malaya, one day we decided to march over the hill and visit one of the other troops. When we came down towards the beach we found the building the other troop had been using as a base. It was empty and no one was around. I began to feel apprehensive. My heart pounded as we reached the beach and saw what appeared to be bodies scattered around on the sand. My God, I thought, they've been ambushed! They're all dead! They were dead all right – dead drunk, lying face down, their mouths full of sand. It turned out they'd found a native still, together with several large tin cans full of sansu – that's rice wine. It took us ages to bring them round and they were really ill. It was days before they were fully recovered.'
Recounting this anecdote, Tim was beginning to warm to us. Stories from his days in Malaya now started to flow freely.
'As the Colonel explained to you,' he went on, draining the last of the tea from his mug, 'we are essentially a unit that keeps a low profile and jealously guards the secrecy of our operations. Even a winged-dagger badge spotted in the wrong place can blow your cover completely. I remember in the latter part of 1952, A Squadron were called up to Penang from our base in Kuala Lumpur to deal with an outburst of terrorist activity. On the move up to Penang we endeavoured to conceal our identity by sporting the blue berets and cap badges of the Manchester Regiment. But as soon as our squadron HQ was installed in Mindon Barracks, our OC, a colourful ex-Indian Army officer, quickly dispelled any notion of a low-profile operation by driving around in a scout car, flaunting his winged dagger for all to see and ostentatiously smoking cigarettes through a long cigarette-holder. Can you imagine the scene! He quickly acquired the nickname El Supremo. He managed to get away with it, but it's not to be recommended I assure you!'
Unlike the first two weeks, when we were part of a team, the third week – test week – we were strictly on our own. We were now being subjected to a finely tuned trial of motivation and navigation, and individual effort against the clock. Distances and bergen weights increased daily. To add to the pressure, we had to undergo deliberate disorientation techniques – last-minute changes of plans, sudden extra distances, later nights and earlier mornings than had been announced – all designed to break down our natural defences, to take us to the edge of exhaustion and rebellion, to the point where our true characters would come through. No acts of bravado, no fake façades could survive this scrutiny. Deep-lying personality flaws that would normally have taken years to reveal themselves stood out in stark relief. The instructors were like scientists employing accelerated-ageing techniques. All mental and physical stress fractures had to be identified and rejected before they grew large enough to cause a disaster.
Day Three of Week Three, and we were heading for the ordeal of point-to-point three times over the highest bukit in the Brecon Beacons. Compared to Pen-y-fan, the Skirrid looked like a pimple on a pig's arse! The strain was now beginning to tell. Our numbers had already been depleted by well over half since Day One of Week One; the red felttipped pen had been really busy.
Platform 4 was getting busier by the day. There had been a steady stream of dejected egos heading for the station over the last two weeks. Selection had brought back down to earth those who had thought it would be easy, the jokers and shirkers who'd just fancied a few weeks away from the normal routine, a chance to impress their mates and girlfriends, and all but destroyed the self-esteem of the serious candidates. They were easy to spot. They sat on the ancient-looking 'GWR'-inscribed wooden benches on Platform 4, hunched over, not saying a word, drawing deeply on their cigarettes, brooding on their failure. Excellent soldiers to a man – but not excellent enough. The train rattles in, the doors swing open, they step on board and they've already left Hereford, a town they'll probably never see again. A few seconds later, the train pulls out – and the dream has ended.
The Bedfords coughed into life at 4.00am. I eased my shattered frame – blisters, bergen rash, aching muscles and all – into the most comfortable position I could find, and we rumbled out of the camp gates. As we picked up the A438 and passed the sign for RAF Credenhill on our right, I carefully surveyed my preparations. I checked that the strips of foam were still taped in place around the frame of my bergen. This padding gave some relief from the constant thudding and the sweat-induced friction rash that resulted. After starting the week at 35lb, today my bergen had tipped the scales at 40lb as it swung on the spring balance in the early-morning mist shrouding the camp. Even though I was a young and impressionable soldier, I knew there was no sense in having the weight made up to the required level by the addition of bricks, which was the usual practice. I would rather carry 40lb of Mars bars! I checked that my socks had been thoroughly soaked in oil. I'd heard from an old sweat that olive oil reduced the friction between skin and wool. Its efficiency would certainly be put to the test today.
As the Bedford laboured up the increasingly steep inclines, temporarily held up behind an even slower tractor pulling a rusty cylinder full of evil-smelling manure, we got our first view of the Black Mountains, rising just to the east of the Brecon Beacons, as we crossed the border into Wales. All I could see were slate-grey outlines of the ridges and peaks. They were too high for any detailed features to be discernible. A few miles further on, just after joining the A470, which winds its way southwards through the town of Brecon and on to Merthyr Tydfil, we got our first sight of Pen-y-fan – all 2,906 gruelling feet of it. 'There she is, lads, there's the monster,' said Geordie cheerfully. 'Pen-y-fan! Sounds like a cheap prize from a fairground stall, doesn't it? Well, we're certainly going on a merry-go-round, but we won't be riding and it won't be fuckin' fun!'
We were passing signs to Brecon more frequently now: ten miles, eight miles, six, five, a countdown to torture. As the Welsh place-names became increasingly unpronounceable, the small towns we passed through became more and more dreary. Rows of terraced houses with stained pebbledash and faded paint stared coldly at us as we went by. We finally pulled up in a rough stone car park just beyond the Storey Arms, a small, white-walled building nestling close to a copse of newly planted conifers. In its time it had been a pub, then a café, and was now a YMCA hostel. It was 6.00am.
It was like a Le Mans start. Fifty bergens, having been weighed again to ensure no one had jettisoned any of the ballast, were lined up in a row across the road. We were assembled 100 yards back from the rucksacks and waved off by Dave, the SSM. When the arm came down, I sprinted to my bergen, hoisted it onto my back as quickly as the weight would allow, crossed the car park to a gap in the trees and pushed through the gate. I splashed through the stream that tumbled down from behind the saddle of Pen-y-fan and across the bottom of the path leading up to the summit. It was into this stream that the next two times around I would throw myself face down, seeking momentary relief in the cool water. Then it was up the pink-tinged sandstone path peppered with glistening sheep droppings that ribboned its way up to the top of Pen-y-fan. Once at the top, we had to drop down the other side beyond a long gentle ridge, sweep around the foot of the ridge, cross the plain, then continue over the road we'd travelled up, right around, behind and over the imposing peak which faced the Storey Arms, down the slope and back to the car park to begin all over again – and then again. I reckoned it would be not far short of thirty miles in all.
Many hours later, as I hovered briefly on the summit of Pen-y-fan for the last time, soaked in sweat and on the verge of exhaustion, bracing myself against the wind as it tugged furiously at my equipment and contoured the material of my boiler suit tightly around my limbs, an instructor materialized as if from nowhere and advanced on me menacingly. Then he hit me with the question, 'Wha
t's 240 multiplied by 250, divided by 12?' Oh God, I couldn't believe it, mental gymnastics in my state, when it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. I composed myself and worked through the question methodically, then put my brain into fast forward and gasped out an answer: 'Five thousand.' The instructor's face was expressionless as he gave me a qualifying nod. Relief swept through me and I headed for the final descent. My pace quickened when I saw the three Bedfords parked on the road far below me in the distance, shimmering through the heat haze – the final RV. I went for it.
One more day to go, but the last day was the worst. Day Five, Week Three, the endurance march. Otherwise known as Sickener 2, this was the climax to initial selection, the ultimate challenge of strength, stamina, motivation and good old-fashioned guts. Forty-six miles crossgraining the Beacons, complete with rifle, four 1½-pint water bottles slung from my belt and a 55lb bergen crucifying my back, and twenty hours to do it all in. I'd worked it out: one Mars bar per bukit. I would need the two-dozen box. When I saddled up I could hardly move. The thirty-seven of us who were left set off at first light from the disused railway station at Talybont, which lay eight miles almost due east from the Storey Arms across the mass of Pen-y-fan and the surrounding hills. By the end of that long day it would need only one Bedford to cart the weary survivors back to camp, and even then there would be some empty places in the twenty-seater.
Soldier I Page 4