by Rob Maylor
The mountain leaders (MLs) instructing on the course gave us a list of items we needed to carry in the pockets of our windproof smocks, which they regularly policed over the following two weeks by conducting spot checks. This was generally followed by a bit of PT in the snow if items were missing. Now I was confused; I thought I’d left this kind of punishment or ‘corrective training’ back at Lympstone!
I enjoyed the skiing and was grateful that I’d learnt my way down the slopes of New Zealand. But cross-country skiing is difficult, and even more difficult when you are carrying weight. To lighten our person load and to take more stores into the field we used a fiberglass sled called a pull, which is pulled from the front, or is pushed from behind by inserting the steel spike of the ski pole into a bracket at the rear. This is extremely hard work and very difficult for novice skiers like us. As the ski tuition continued and the days grew longer, we learnt ways of identifying avalanche areas and techniques to give you the best possible chance of surviving one. We even conducted an ice-breaking activity: the MLs took us out onto a frozen lake and chainsawed a rectangular hole in the ice, exposing the freezing water. The ice was about 30 centimetres thick, and the hole the MLs carved was about 2 metres by 3 metres. We novices looked at each other. Surely not. Soon our worst fears were confirmed. We were going in!
Before we entered the water we had to prepare our kit by removing one arm from the shoulder strap of our packs so we could get rid of it if we were in trouble. We had to take our hands out of the straps of our ski poles and hold them in one hand, then slacken off the ski bindings from the back of our boots so we could jettison them without too much trouble. The drill was to ski into the hole and swim to the other end, then climb out of the water using the spiked ends of the ski poles to stab the ice like ice picks, hand over hand dragging your body out of the water.
When I hit the water the instant cold forced the breath out of me. They told me to keep my face out of the water so when I gasped I wouldn’t take in a mouthful. The cold shock would place enough of a strain on the heart without that. In fact, we were told, the cold water would suck out the body’s heat 32 times faster than cold air, our extremities would quickly become numb and the deadly effects of hypothermia begin after the loss of only a couple of degrees of body heat. So every effort should be made to exit the water as soon as possible.
No argument from me on that one. I was in and out just as quickly as humanly possible. Once out of the hole you rolled in the snow which acted like a giant sponge and sucked most of the moisture from your wet clothing. After changing into a fresh and dry set of clothing the MLs supplied a tot of navy rum. I’ve always begrudged having just one drink, or just one tot; to me it’s more of a tease than a gesture of goodwill, but as a gesture of goodwill, I drank it.
The course culminated in a long cross-country ski and survival exercise. They split us into groups of five and showed us how to build a snow cave and soon after we had to do it ourselves. Our cave was pretty simple; we just dug into the side of an extremely compact wall of snow. We started low, which was to be our entrance, and gradually worked our way inside the wall. Once we had a decent-sized cavity we went to work inside on the sleeping benches and ‘cold trench’.
Cold air is slightly heavier than warm and will flow to the lowest point of the cave, so the cold trench kept this air off our sleeping benches. But we also needed an escape route, so off the end of the cold trench we dug a small tunnel that led to the outside. This was just big enough to slide down face first. Once the MLs checked it out and gave us the thumbs up for safety they took most of our food and warm gear then cleared out leaving us with just the basics.
It was a very long night indeed. We had a roster up and running so we had at least one person awake all the time. The man on duty also had to keep an eye on the candle that we kept burning inside the cave because if it went out it was from a lack of oxygen, and in that case we’d have to quickly check the ventilation or get out. The ventilation was a ski pole stuck through the roof of the cave.
It was so cold that night none of us got much sleep. I watched that candle for hours. It was about 5 centimetres in diameter but because it was so cold the wax on the outside didn’t melt except when the flame flickered and touched the sides causing a honeycomb effect all the way down to the base.
Exercise over, we shared our experiences with the lads from the other groups. Some stories were not so good. Some of the others had one of the three junior officers in who generally wanted to take charge of the whole situation and practise their skills of delegation. This pissed off the blokes immensely. One even argued that he should light a fire inside the snow cave to keep warm. Fortunately for me, the group I was in were all junior NCOs and below, and we worked well together.
We had an end-of-course piss-up in the township of Malselvfossen where we all had a skinful and enjoyed ourselves. A 4-tonne truck turned up to take us back to the accommodation. We were all so pissed that we didn’t feel the bitter cold of the minus 15 to minus 20 degree Celsius night temperature as we sat in the back of the truck wearing only jeans and a T-shirt.
Back in Ose we met up with the other lads and settled into the company routine. Our accommodation was log cabins specifically built for the summer season, but they served our purpose. About 1 kilometre to the rear of our cabins was a civilian ski field that provided us with extremely cheap lift passes. We put them to good use on our days off.
Our work routine consisted of section drills, troop drills and then building up to a company-sized activity. We practised the fire and movement skills on skis that we had learnt on NSSC and gradually reached the point where we successfully conducted section attacks without constantly falling over. Fighting on skis is extremely hard, slow work and requires a lot of practice. If you just had to concentrate on staying upright on your skis you could master that without too much trouble. But keeping up with others, wearing equipment, using your rifle, changing magazines, etc and it all becomes quite difficult to keep your balance. Even the kneeling firing position can become a challenge. Once you have fallen over, the momentum of the attack is slowed down, and generally the bigger the stack, the longer it takes you to get sorted again, and more often than not a foot has slipped out of the bindings. It can be quite comical at times.
When on the move and leading the section, troop or company in thick snow, you had to ‘trail break’, and we all took turns at this as it was quite hard work (very good for the quads and triceps), especially when there was a fresh dumping of knee-deep snow. We had to wax the base of our skis for certain snow conditions. The ski wax we used came in two categories: grip and glide. Klister was the grip wax we used for new snow and icy conditions, and Glide wax was used for normal or slightly slushy conditions. If you screw this up you’ll either find it very difficult to ascend or end up with clumps of snow stuck to the base of your ski. We would carry these two waxes with us everywhere.
Some other bits of kit we used to make life a little easier in those conditions were Gore-Tex gaiters that slipped over our boots to provide a certain amount of protection from the wet snow to help keep your feet dry, absolutely essential in those conditions. Snowshoes were good for walking on soft and deep snow. However, walking in snowshoes wasn’t the easiest thing to do and required plenty of practice and expended a lot of energy. We carried these everywhere as a backup for skis. Our packs were always very heavy, generally about 40 kilos, and contained warm clothing, sleeping bag and Gore-Tex bivvy bag, rations, safety equipment, snow shovel, radio equipment, as many batteries as we could pack and shared section stores. It wasn’t uncommon for a pack to get up around the 60-kilo mark, especially if you were the bloke carrying the four-man tent. I was unfortunate enough to carry one of the tents for our section for the whole deployment. And because the thing was so heavy it changed your whole movement dynamics completely.
The rations were a mix of dehydrated scran and ‘boil in the bags’. The dehydes were the best as you got a more substantial meal from
them; we also used to thicken them up by crushing the crackers into the mix. If our logistical chain was working properly we would sometimes get supplemented with fresh rations usually handed out by Chris, the CSM. Most blokes, me included, would take a selection of spices out into the field and add them to the ration pack meal. Curry was the favourite. Sometimes I used to take garlic or a fresh onion to add a little more tang.
Our clothes needed to be worn in layers and not too tight or blood flow could be restricted, which would invite cold-weather injuries. Wearing loose layers would trap air, increasing insulation to keep the body warm. Several layers of lightweight clothing are more effective than wearing one article of equivalent thickness; and you could always remove a layer to prevent excessive perspiration. If you sweat too much your clothes will become wet, thereby decreasing insulation, and when the sweat evaporates your body will cool. This is very noticeable when you stop and remove your day sack or pack. The sweat on your back rapidly cools down and so too does the sweat that has been transferred onto your pack. When it comes time to move and you throw your pack on, it’s like strapping a block of ice to your back–not a nice feeling.
You were constantly trying to keep one step ahead of the elements, but the one thing I found a real challenge was the wind chill factor. Minus 4 to minus 28 degrees Celsius was the average temperature range we experienced, and wind dramatically amplifies the effects of these freezing temperatures. Frostbite was a constant threat and we often had frost nip in the cheeks, which was recognisable by small white dots appearing on the skin–this is the tissue starting to freeze.
‘Creamed in’ was slang for having an accident which had the potential for injury. Many a time I ‘creamed in’ face first. We also called it a ‘Yeti’ because that was what we resembled afterwards. Thankfully I avoided injury this time. If the snow is soft and deep your arms will disappear up to the armpits and your bergen will slide forward, pinning your head down and causing you to suffocate. It may take a while for your mates to get to you because generally they will have fallen over too–from laughing. But once the boys get to you it generally takes two to help you back onto your feet.
Our first company-sized activity was on a day when the weather was pretty bad. The wind was very strong and it was snowing heavily. In fact, the wind was so strong that when I stretched my arms out to the side parallel to the ground, the wind blew me up a small gradient. Admittedly we were on skis, but when travelling with it we could really get some speed up.
It was this wind that was partly responsible for ‘Mac’ McDonald falling into a small ravine on our way back to the accommodation. We had decided to take a different route back to Ose, one that led us on a very tight path past a deep creek line. Mac was hit by a strong gust of wind which unbalanced him. He slipped and fell into the ravine. Two lads quickly removed their skis and climbed down to him. He had the stuffing knocked out him but was otherwise okay.
Sadly, Mac was later killed in Iraq when working as a security contractor. He was quite a comedian. Back on home turf, someone at 40 Commando organised some strippers and a comedian to do a show. After the strippers finished their first routine, the comedian took the stage and started his show; it wasn’t long before he was really struggling; military personnel are the toughest audience to please. Mac, seeing this as an opportunity to demonstrate his own talent as a comedian, bounded onto the stage, snatched the microphone and pushed the comedian out of the way. The crowd roared with laughter and he was extremely funny, but even he couldn’t compete with the strippers and it wasn’t long before the audience told him to shut up and get the girls back on. However, in Norway his accident was a reminder to treat the environment with caution; a momentary lapse in concentration could be fatal.
Another company exercise took us towards a mountain about 3 kilometres south-east of Ose where we split up into sections. Mike, my section commander, was very experienced in Arctic warfare and an experienced civilian and military ski instructor. We were dressed in our camouflage whites, a white silk jacket and trousers that allowed the snow to slip off the surface instead of melting and soaking the fabric. Underneath we wore a windproof smock and trousers. We also wore our belt webbing, rifle and day sack, which contained a few essentials like extra warm kit, a thermos flask of hot coffee and some safety equipment.
Mike led us off into our night exercise and we entered a narrow valley. He reminded us all about the dangers and signs of avalanche, especially ‘booming’. This is the sound made by tonnes of snow collapsing onto a lower, unstable layer of crystallised snow formed very early on in the season. It’s not a good sound to hear when in a steep-sided valley. And it wasn’t long before we experienced the booming of snow slabs becoming very unstable. Slab avalanches are extremely dangerous, but any avalanche can be bad.
We continued to ski carefully up the valley until we got to the base of a small mountain. We had previously applied plenty of fresh wax onto the underside of our skis, which gave us the traction we needed. However, it was a hard climb to the top. Once there we cracked open the flasks of hot coffee and admired the view and the lights of Bjerkvik. Suddenly the cloud cover came in and the wind picked up. We quickly put our flasks away and moved to the leeward side of a huge rock. The snow began to fall and became heavier by the minute. Mike made a decision to get off the mountain before we were forced to stay there overnight, but by this stage we were minutes from getting caught in a whiteout.
Just before we set off Mike issued a few instructions about staying together and avoiding injury. As we slowly and carefully skied down the side of the mountain the snow got heavier and the wind picked up even more. Because the majority of our eight-man section was relatively inexperienced in Norway, we struggled to keep visual on the person in front; and it was damn near impossible if you creamed in. But even (or especially) in times of trouble we still managed to have a laugh at each other–the more spectacular the crash the funnier we found it.
It soon reached the point where I didn’t have a clue where we were going. I was heading downhill, which was good enough for me. Hopefully there were no obstacles in the way. All of a sudden I heard a worried call: ‘Aarrgh, Rob, Rob, wait, wait!’ It was Simmo who was about 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) and not too good on skis. He was sliding on his back and floundering around like a flipped-over turtle. This image I found extremely funny, even when he knocked me off my feet. Still in hysterics, we picked ourselves up and tried to catch up with the others by following their fading tracks. When we reached the base of the mountain we all crashed into each other because one of the lads in front had fallen over.
The weather was still poor, so Mike continued to navigate using his map and compass and led us back to the company location. ‘Thank fuck for that,’ I said as I loosened the bindings on my skis and stepped out of them. Navigation is difficult in snow-covered regions because when the landscape is covered by a white blanket it looks completely different to what is shown on the map.
We had earlier erected a 10-man tent for our section, so as Mike went to check in with the boss, we all got inside and got the wets (naval term for any kind of drink) on. To pitch a tent, you first had to dig down into the snow deep enough to provide shelter from high wind and to also give cover from enemy fire and view. To aid in concealment we generally arranged a white net over the green tent. A few feet down, the snow had been compressed and become quite hard so it could be dug out in large blocks. We used this to build the side walls. Once they were up we shovelled the loose snow back on to take away the unnatural shapes of the man-made block wall.
Sometimes we would also dig a trench system that connected all the tents and sentry positions, particularly if we were going to be in the location for more than 12 hours. Weapons and skis were kept outside–the skis wouldn’t fit in the tent and it would be a nightmare getting out in a hurry with them. We always left our weapons outside so they wouldn’t be subjected to condensation; if that occurred the rifles would freeze and be inoperable.
In the snow pi
t we also designated a pisser, usually marked with a stick and surrounded by orange or yellow urine-stained snow–orange because the work routine in Norway was quite fierce and dehydration was a common problem. It took a few wets to get the body back to a reasonable state of hydration. To make a wet in the field we had to melt snow in a pot over the peak burner (fuel cooker), but keep an eye out for yellow/orange snow, definitely a trap for young players.
I made that mistake once. Several days into an exercise and after a long cross-country ski journey we stopped for the night. By dark all the tents were in and admin finished. I was absolutely knackered by this stage but it was my turn to collect the snow for cooking. We started our night routine and got stuck into cooking up some hot scran. Mine barely touched the sides. I needed more warm water to wash out my mess tin, so before long I was digging back into the bag of snow I had collected. ‘Aarh, for fuck’s sake’–it was mostly yellow.
It turned out that while digging in the tent, one of the blokes took a swamp (piss) right where I had collected my snow. Bugger all I could do about it now. I just made sure next time I had a better search of the ground before thinking of my stomach. Funny thing was, I’d cooked for two as usual and shared the scran and wets. I can’t exactly remember who my ‘oppo’ was that night, but I do remember he reckoned it was top scran. I said nothing.
The peak cookers worked from pressure-fed fuel, usually naphtha, which burnt extremely hot and clean. The standard operating procedure (SOP) to start your cooker was to release the pressure, pump it six to eight times, open the valve and attempt to ignite the gas. If you followed that procedure, more often than not you would be successful. But sometimes problems did arise like the jet becoming blocked, which caused blokes to gorilla fist it and force more pressure into the canister than usual. All this did was leak highly flammable fuel everywhere, but because the fuel was so light and thin you didn’t realise it had leaked. On one particular night when I was moving between tents, I heard this muffled thump and an excited commotion coming from a tent. As I turned I saw an orange glow from inside Yorkie’s tent, all of a sudden the flap was thrown open and a huge fireball shot out. The cooker landed with a ‘thump’ about 2 metres from the door of the tent and momentarily turned into a small cloud of fire. The commotion and swearing continued so I rushed over to see what was going on and just caught the tail end of Yorkie rolling around in panic and a couple blokes trying to lie on top of him to extinguish the flames.