The recruits are exhausted and starving. Many of them have blisters and some have twisted ankles or strained knees, but the only way to our destination is by foot. We start to string out a bit as the slower ones fall behind but somehow everybody manages to keep going – galvanised by the promise of a 'memorable' meal.
Eventually we arrive at our destination – a thick area of forest. The recruits, told they can rest, promptly drop to the ground where they stand. Some stretch out, some curl up, and some sit down and lean against each other back to back. But every man falls asleep within minutes of arriving. The training team let them slumber for a while – long enough to bring in the special meal that spurred everybody to this point. The meal is placed immediately adjacent to the sleeping recruits so it will be the first thing they see when they wake up. Before they can eat it, however, the recruits will have to cook the meal for themselves. But before they can cook it there will also be the small question of killing it as well. Next to the sleeping recruits there is now a large wire cage holding eight, fat, white, fluffy, pink-nosed rabbits.
'That's supper,' whispers Orlando. 'Boiled bunny – delicious. When they wake up the recruits will be shown exactly how to kill and cook these rabbits by a mountain leader. They are all so hungry there shouldn't be anybody too squeamish and we don't have any vegetarians so I reckon these rabbits are going to go down a treat.'
Half an hour later the recruits are mostly awake and playing with the rabbits and feeding them wild dandelion leaves. But, as Orlando suggested, they are not displaying much in the way of compassion for the creatures – more a sort of slavering impatience to devour them.
'What they are going to learn now is how to look after themselves using only what they find around them. The scenario is that after yomping for hours they've lost all their equipment, rucksacks, daysacks, webbing – everything. They just have what's on their belt and in their pockets – knife, compass, matches and maybe a few metal mugs between them. They won't have to hunt this time as we've laid on the prey for them, but they have to get used to killing animals and eating them – just about every bit as well.'
A mountain leader calls the troop over to him and tells them to sit on the ground around him.
'Welcome to the most enjoyable part of training – killing!' he says. 'I'll show you how to do it and then you'll do it yourselves, so watch carefully. We have eight rabbits but also some chickens for you as well. Right, the chicken gets it first.'
The mountain leader produces a flapping chicken from a Land Rover.
'Say hello to Suzie.'
'Hello, Suzie,' say the troop obediently.
'The first thing is to relax the animal. Take it by the legs and start to swing it gently to and fro. This will almost hypnotise it.'
He swings the bird in one hand but picks up a broad stick from the ground with his other hand.
'Take a small branch – not dead brittle wood but something with some bend in it and then place the critter on the ground and put the stick across its neck like this.'
He does exactly as he explains and then stands on either end of the stick.
'Now, quickly pull the feet sharply backwards, like so!'
He wrenches the bird back, pulling it upwards from the ground and instantly decapitating it. The body flutters wildly and blood splatters the recruits sitting too near.
'Right – one dead chicken. Now there's loads of meat on it obviously but that's not all.'
He promptly pulls off the wings and rips off the outer skin with all the feathers attached.
'This is good insulation and if it's real icers this could make the difference between warming yourself up or fucking freezing and losing some digits or toes.'
He then opens up the chicken and pulls out the guts with a single movement.
'All good stuff here. Bladder and intestines – good cordage. Kidney – good nutrition but make sure you separate it from the gall bladder because that's full of toxins and poisons, so bin it.'
He holds up two golden spheres.
'Yolks of eggs. Good calories. Waste nothing – apart from the gall bladder. As for the carcass, cook it till the meat comes off the bone and then for an extra twenty minutes. Don't risk fucking food poisoning because you may have quite enough on your hands with the fucking enemy trying to track you down without giving yourself fucking gut ache.'
The recruits look at the still twitching chicken with lip-licking ardour.
'OK. Take one rabbit,' says the mountain leader. 'Cuddle it. Make friends with it. Talk to it. Relax it.'
He picks up a rabbit from the cage and lays the creature across his knee. He then strokes it gently against the lay of its fur until it becomes seemingly entranced. He then holds it up by the feet with his left hand and brings his right hand, palm open, up to his shoulder.
'Heard of the rabbit chop?'
He brings his hand down sharply on the back of the rabbit's neck, killing it instantly.
'Once dead you have a treasure chest of goodies all for the taking. Now watch carefully.'
He lays the rabbit on its back and then, with a knife, makes a small cut in the skin at the top of its inside hind leg. He then bends down and blows hard into the punctured skin. The rabbit instantly expands like a white fluffy balloon as the outer skin and fur come away from the body.
'Right,' he says, pulling white hairs off his tongue, 'now you can simply rip the fur off the body – like this.'
He skins the rabbit with a single sharp tug.
'Fur! Good for warmth. Keep it.'
He then bends down and sucks out both the eyes.
'Keep these as well. Eyes are 80 per cent water so eat 'em. You could be dehydrated.'
He promptly throws back his head and swallows them.
'You'd need loads of rabbits' eyes to quench any thirst obviously, but there's a lot more water in the eyes of bigger animals like deer or goats.'
The recruits do not look overly impressed with the prospect of rabbits' eyes as an hors d'oeuvre.
'And here you have a lovely rabbit carcass. The guts are useful so don't throw it all away. The lungs, for example, are a good source of calcium and protein, but of course the main meal's going to come from the meat.'
He then shows the drooling recruits how to joint a rabbit ready for cooking before telling them all to grab a 'bird or a bunny' for themselves.
Ten minutes later every recruit is petting an animal. Terry John is holding a rabbit under one arm and gently stroking it with the other.
'This is Bugs,' he tells me with a smile.
'Is it going to worry you having to kill it, Terry?'
'No! I'm so hungry, Chris, honestly. I tell you, I'm going to rip this rabbit to shreds tonight when it's out of the pot.'
'Really?' I say. 'I'm a bit surprised. I thought you might have had a problem killing it somehow.'
'No, no problem at all,' he says, still stroking the rabbit gently and apparently lovingly. 'It's people I have a problem killing. I was thinking about that this morning because a lot of the lads just want to get out to Afghan and start shooting the bad guys.'
'And you?'
'I would kill if I was ordered to or if I was defending myself or my friends but I wouldn't enjoy it. I mean, I won't enjoy killing Bugs but I have to eat and it's the circle of life, isn't it? But, killing people? I ask God sometimes if I'm doing the right thing.'
'And what does He say?'
'He hasn't really told me yet. I expect He will in His own way.'
The mountain leader steps forward and gives the order for the executions to start. In a scene of instant carnage, recruits start ripping the heads off chickens and karate-chopping rabbits. Within seconds the dark deeds are done so that skinning and disembowelling can commence. Entrails are torn from the carcasses and sorted out into what is edible or otherwise useful. The bolder recruits sample rabbits' eyes as an emergency source of water – including Terry.
As soon as the meat is prepared the recruits set about building shelters
for the night as well as fires by which to keep warm and on which to cook. Before long rabbit and chicken meat is either being boiled in tin mugs or barbecued on the dancing flames. The troop, distributed around several separate fires, settles down for a night under the stars and a feast that has been a long time coming. Once cooked it is quickly consumed and though gritty, woody, smoky, gristly, stringy, bony and rubbery it is one of the finest and most delicious meals we have ever tasted.
We lie back on a carpet of leaves replete and happy. Sucking on now meatless bones, we chat idly in the warm orange glow of the crackling wood fires.
'How are your feet, Williams?' asks Orlando from the shadows.
'Throbbing, sir. Not taking my boots off cos I think me toes will fall off.'
'How was the rabbit, John?'
'Lovely, sir,' says Terry. 'Better than a Big Mac, though chips would have been good.'
'Are you enjoying this?' says Orlando. 'Cos I tell you what, lads, this is the bloody life, you know.'
'This is the best, sir,' yawns Adam Collins, casually throwing a chicken bone into the fire.
'You're beginning to get a taste of real Bootneck life out here,' says Orlando as he pokes the fire with a stick. 'This is the best job in the world, I reckon, and once you guys get through training you'll think so as well. Imagine your life is like a banister rail and you're sliding down it – Lympstone is just a short sharp splinter in your bum. It hurts for a moment but then it's gone. Once you have that Green Beret and start going on operations you will forget the pain of training and . . . lads . . . lads!'
Orlando's words of philosophy and encouragement are lost in the night air because the recruits, to a man, have fallen into a deep, contented and well-deserved slumber.
22 September
We have come to Okehampton military camp on the edge of Dartmoor for live firing practice on the ranges, but are taking time out this afternoon to be introduced to speed marching – a technique essential to tactical success and safety on the battlefield because it maximises a troop's mobility in the absence of mechanised transport. The final commando tests that we all hope to take in about five months from now will include a massive nine-mile speed march over undulating rough ground wearing full fighting order weighing thirty-two pounds. Today, however, to be acquainted with the method, we are going to cover no more than two miles over roads and will be carrying only ten pounds.
The whole training team – 'H' Quinn, Hamish Robb, Matt Adams, Sean Darnell and Jim Glanfield – join the entire troop (now down to just eighteen original recruits) for this introduction. We march outside the camp at normal pace and stop at the beginning of a small road that leads up a gentle slope to the very edge of the moor.
'Right, lads,' shouts 'H'. 'We're going to start by walking in quick time. Keep the time and the pace. After a bit we will break into double time – so you will start running but again keep time and pace. And most importantly stay close to the man in front – touching distance. Once you fall off the pace and start going backwards you're in fucking trouble because it's going to get increasingly difficult to catch up again.'
We line up in two ranks and wait for the order.
'Troop,' shouts Hamish Robb, 'by the right – quick march!'
We start off and move straight into quick time – fast walking – but keep strictly in step. After about twenty yards we get the order to speed up.
'Troop – double time!'
We break into a shuffling run and try hard to keep the shape of the troop. It proves much more difficult than you might expect because maintaining step seems almost impossible. At first we are in disarray and nobody seems to be able to keep time, rhythm or pace, but gradually we start to fall in with each other. Rather than looking like a lot of individuals just running close together like a random pack of joggers, a speed-marching troop should look almost like it is a single organism on the move. Soon, however, we all begin to realise how incredibly exhausting speed marching is. It requires great collective technique but also significant individual fitness.
The training team raise the pace on the flat and on the downhill but take us down to quick time on the uphill sections. On the way back and entering the last half-mile of the march, the road surface degenerates and we have to adjust our strides to avoid loose rocks and potholes. Suddenly there is a shout from the middle of the troop as someone catches his leg on another in front of him and falls to the ground with a sickening thud. It is Terrance Callow, a six-foot-four Scouser, and by the way he is clutching his leg, he looks like he's hurt himself. We crowd round to survey the damage and are shocked at the sight of his knee as he pulls his ripped trousers apart. The skin is split wide open and the knee bone is clearly visible. We help him back to the camp and he is immediately driven back to the sickbay at Lympstone. Later we hear that he needed a dozen stitches internally and externally and will have to join Hunter Company till he's better. So 924 Troop has lost yet another original.
Today was a short but sharp introduction to speed marching and will be followed in the weeks to come by an increase in both the distance we will have to cover as well as an increase in the weight we will have to carry. Having said that, today's little outing – albeit introductory – has already illustrated, at least to Terrance Callow, the potential dangers of speed marching if you don't get it right.
'What do you reckon to speed marching?' I ask Terry at supper.
'I like it! It's good running together like that. We'll probably have to do a lot of speed marching in Afghanistan – up in the mountains. I'm looking forward to doing more – going further and carrying more weight.'
9 October
I join 924 Troop and Jon Stratford on the Bottom Field because, before we do any more speed marching, we have to be introduced to the legendary Bottom Field assault course – the dubious reward for having succeeded in the Gym Pass-out. The course consists of a series of torturous obstacles set out on a permanently muddy field located at the base of the hill on which the camp is built. It represents the next stage in the continuously progressive training that is designed, eventually, to prepare recruits for the ultimate commando tests that lead to the coveted Green Beret. Just as we all had to go through Gym Pass-out we will, in a few weeks, have to go through Bottom Field Pass-out before we will be allowed to graduate to the Tarzan assault course – a horrendous series of obstacles involving ropes and wires some forty feet off the ground and without safety nets. But first things first – the Bottom Field.
'Troop, listen up,' says Jon Stratford. 'The Bottom Field assault course has been run by commando recruits since the Second World War. It is designed to test your speed over the ground as well as over a series of very varied obstacles which will, in turn, test your agility as well as your upper body strength, as you will eventually have to run it carrying full fighting order. But in addition to the course you will also have to climb a thirty-foot rope carrying fighting order as well – some thirty-two pounds of weight . . .'
I already knew about this outside rope test but to hear it officially from Jon Stratford is chilling. I managed to pass the rope test in the gym but now, looking at these ropes swinging in the offshore breeze, I am filled with a new dread.
'And you will have to run two hundred yards carrying a man on your shoulders in under ninety seconds – with both of you also carrying full fighting order.'
My sense of dread increases as I survey the two-hundred-yard 'track' – it is a veritable mud field that looks as if it would be almost impossible to walk across let alone run across with a man on your back.
'Finally,' says Jon, 'you will all have to do a full regain over this tank.'
The full regain is perhaps the best known and most feared of all the Bottom Field ordeals. The apparatus consists of ropes stretched some twenty feet over a massive tank of murky, freezing cold water. The test is to first cat-crawl along the top of a rope to the halfway point. Then you have to let yourself fall under the rope and let go with your feet so, holding on with your hands, you are
left dangling over the water. You then have to 'regain' your position on top of the rope by way of a complex, acrobatic technique before crawling the rest of the way over the tank.
'To complete the Bottom Field Pass-out,' Jon continues, 'you must execute a full regain wearing full fighting order after having completed the rope climb, the assault course and the fireman's carry – and all in quick succession. Everybody happy?'
'No . . .' I whisper inaudibly. My sense of dread and trepidation is complete.
For the rest of the morning we practise the various disciplines of the Bottom Field. We don't have to wear webbing or carry a weapon as we will eventually have to – even so, most of us are pushed to our limits.
As I expected the ropes prove horrendously difficult. They are thicker than the ones in the gym, rougher to the hand, and although dry today I can only imagine how difficult they will be to climb when they are damp or saturated with rain. I only make it three-quarters of the way up.
We run the assault course in groups of four. The first run is necessarily cautious because the obstacles are clearly potentially very dangerous until techniques are perfected. Nevertheless we have to go as fast as we reasonably can because there is a five-minute time limit to observe. As it comes to my turn I line up alongside three other recruits and wait for the order to start.
'Three, two, one . . . go!' shouts Jon Stratford.
We power off one foot like sprinters off the blocks and dash about twenty yards before trying to leap a flooded tank trap – about ten feet across. I do not quite make it to the other side, landing in water and so saturating my boots, instantly making them heavier. We then sprint thirty yards to a six-foot brick wall. I jump to get my elbows on top and then gradually and painfully pull myself up and then jump to the ground on the other side.
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