Going Commando

by Mark Time

  Into the pulsating maelstrom of the gymnasium, with shouts and screams all around me, I stepped through the ropes and saw my opponent. He had hair he apparently called ‘strawberry blonde’, which could only be justified should strawberries actually be the colour of ginger biscuits. Behind his anaemic face I saw a fear worse than my own. Did he volunteer for this or was he pushed? It was looking, at this moment of truth, like he’d made a terrible mistake; as if he had entered a game of Russian roulette not really knowing the rules until sat at the table. How could I lose? Cheers went up as our names were called and the troops’ numbers were chanted by opposing recruits.

  The bell rang, its metallic echo drowned in a sea of screaming cheers. In I launched, jabbing quickly, trying to drive the freckles into his soft face. Nothing came back as I ploughed forward, jabbing again and again, my left cross hitting him square on the jaw. He turned his back as if not wanting to play.

  ‘Stop!’ The referee stepped in. He turned my opponent back around as if he was in the trenches, telling him which way to go over the top. ‘Box!’

  On the order I pummelled him again; his nose splattered, red spray smeared across his rosy cheeks like a toddler with a ketchup bottle until the ref realised it was going to end in a mess. He stepped in between us to stop the fight.

  Was boxing this easy? Having my arm held aloft in victory, I felt like a world heavyweight champion, not the victor in CTC’s only light welterweight junior division bout. For the first time in training, members of my troop took an interest in me, shaking my hand, rubbing my head and congratulating my efforts to forge the reputation of 299 Troop.

  I now felt regarded as an integral part of the troop. My jovial personality had made me popular in some quarters, but my slowness in taking up the skills of a good soldier meant some didn’t particularly warm to me. People are often liked due to their abilities, not necessarily their character, and I fell part-victim to this. Possibly this is why wayward sports stars are supported through thick and thin. No matter what depths their behaviour sinks to, there are excuses to cover them. They may be a wanker of the highest order, but as long as they perform well on the field for the baying public then all is forgiven.

  My boxing career – all one minute of it – had given me a newfound confidence and I even managed to go a day without a bollocking, something I’d targeted as a measure of success. I fell into bed listening to my Walkman, as I always did, too tired to get beyond the first song but with a smile on my face.

  The next step in my ring career would take me to represent CTC in the Royal Marines Boxing Championship. The competition coincided with week eleven and 299 Troop’s survival exercise: a week of living off the land with nothing more than a set of overalls and a tobacco tin of items that would hopefully keep us alive. Because of the importance of the boxing competition, I was informed that I was not to go on the exercise but to represent CTC instead.

  On the morning of the competition, I skipped breakfast to ensure I’d make the weight. The boxers would be given a late breakfast after the weigh-in, where I could eat as much as I wanted and not get my knuckles wrapped by the chef for taking more than one sausage. The rest of the lads in the troop didn’t know when their next meal would be, so they trotted off intent on gorging until fit to burst. They wished me well in the competition before I had to leave for the pre-weigh-in.

  As we couldn’t be considered a true team, not having trained together, the two PTIs allocated as our coaches needed us all to have a pre-weigh-in to ensure we could make the official weight an hour or two later. I was 61.1kg, well under.

  ‘You need to lose 1.1 kilos, Lofty,’ said the PTI with his clipboard. ‘We have dropped you down to lightweight. We have a light welter already.’

  This actually raised my confidence. The guys who I’d be up against would be smaller. There was just a small problem of losing that kilogram.

  ‘You had a shit this morning?’ asked the PTI.

  ‘Yes, Corporal.’ I wasn’t lying.

  ‘Go have another one.’

  Off I trundled, taking my empty bowel with me, to sit on the toilet using colonic peristalsis to squeeze out something an accomplished tracker would identify as a pygmy spoor. I returned a little lightheaded and jumped back on the weighing scales. It seemed that my shit must have weighed 100g. It wasn’t quite enough. I was thrown a bin bag and a skipping rope.

  ‘Right, get in the sauna, put this bag on and skip for ten minutes. That should get rid of a kilo.’

  I daren’t tell him that I couldn’t skip, so I entered the sauna in a black bin liner and jogged on the spot. I don’t know how he thought I could skip in there, it was full of blokes in bin liners.

  I finally came out feeling extremely lightheaded. Sitting in there was far worse than squeezing out a poo straight from the duodenum.

  ‘Feeling okay?’ said the PTI.

  ‘Just a bit dizzy, Corporal.’ I certainly felt fresh with the cold air on my wet face.

  ‘Yeah, that’ll be not eating and skipping in the sauna. Once you’ve had breakfast and rehydrated, you’ll feel okay.’

  At the official weigh-in I was terrified and visibly shaking.

  ‘You got Parkinson’s disease?’ asked the PTI.

  ‘It’s not Michael Parkinson’s disease, I haven’t heard him say fuck all this morning,’ added the other PTI who, up to now, had been with the bigger guys.

  While I represented CTC along with the other recruits, not knowing each other only increased my feeling of loneliness. I looked around at the commando unit teams that sat in groups. Just the thought of fighting somebody from Zulu Company 45 Commando, even in my lighter weight category, put the fear of God into me.

  Recognising this, the PTI who took me under his wing tried to compose me by saying my opponent would be just a normal bloke. Yeah, the sort of bloke I looked up to. In my mind, he would, by default, be a hard bastard who knew how to box. He wore the green beret, a commando boxer. I was a spotty little twerp who still owned a Subbuteo set. They must have looked over and thought I was the CTC mascot brought along to present a match-day coin.

  Despite not having any breakfast and again evacuating my bowels, I was now in dire need of a nervous shite. On instruction, I approached the processing team to hand over my boxing card. I stood there pathetically, a Nigel of manliness.

  ‘Junior Marine Time?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’ Although I didn’t know his rank, calling him sir was a safe option.

  ‘It’s “Sergeant”, I work for a living.’

  ‘Sorry, Sergeant.’

  ‘It says here you’re not yet seventeen. Is this correct?’

  ‘Uh yes, Sergeant. I’m sixteen and three quarters, Sergeant.’ It was as if I was writing a letter to Jim’ll Fix It.

  He called over my PTI. It was the first time I had heard a PTI called by name, not rank, a strange feeling – like knowing the first name of your primary school teacher.

  ‘Al, you know this lad can’t box.’

  That’s a bit harsh, I thought; you’ve not even seen me.

  ‘He’s too young.’

  The PTI looked at me and then at the card.

  ‘Time, you knobber, why didn’t you say?’

  Why didn’t I say I was a junior marine? Why didn’t I say I was sixteen? Why didn’t I say I was too young? Probably because I didn’t fucking know it mattered! Like everything as a recruit, I was just told to get on with it and not ask questions.

  The sergeant turned back to me and returned the card. ‘You better fuck off back to your troop then, Lofty, you aren’t boxing today.’ My PTI gave me a concurring look.

  ‘My troop is going on survival ex today, Corporal.’

  ‘Well, you better double back smartish then,’ he laughed.

  So double back smartish I did. The troop was parading in front of the accommodation block with that look of contentment only being full of beans and sausage can give. The troop sergeant laughed at my explanation of why I’d returned, ordering me to chan
ge quickly into the overalls I’d been issued for the exercise and bring my survival tin. I was going on a survival exercise with no breakfast or liquids, and just for good measure, a dehydrating session in the sauna for morning exertion.

  If this wasn’t bad enough, the insertion yomp was seventeen miles over the wilds of Exmoor, a task in itself even on a full stomach of energy-rich fats. On an empty stomach and the hydration of a thirsty camel with a floppy hump, the miles passed with only food in my thoughts and weakness draining my body.

  The welcome finish line of the insertion march was a wooded glade that sloped down to a picturesque, babbling brook. At first glance it could have been the subject of a Constable painting, but this was not the time to admire the view. The sweat from our yomp would condense on our bodies and, in the cold of Exmoor, being without shelter and warmth could bring on hypothermia.

  As we had been taught, we immediately searched for materials to make our shelter. Logs, brushwood and tin sheeting were all conveniently laid around the area; nevertheless, we had to first arrange these materials into some form to protect us from the elements. Being hungry and tired, the logs seemed heavier, the tin sheeting seemed to drag in the dirt and the brushwood wouldn’t stay together as it should, but we continued until our first creation was complete. It had a roof and three enclosed sides, and under the circumstances it was bloody lovely.

  Next, we searched for kindling and materials for the fire. Shelter was imperative, but warmth was another important factor in surviving the elements. By the time darkness fell, we had both. The yellow, flickering flames seemed to mesmerise us into primordial contentment. Sleep came easily despite the bone-aching cold; the cuddling of fellow men doesn’t seem quite so odd when you have little more than a brushwood floor for insulation.

  The rest of the week was spent being famished, foraging for kindling, setting and resetting traps that entrapped no prey but gave up plenty of stories of the one that got away. Even the plants and shrubs we’d been shown that were edible, if not nutritious, were only evident by their scarcity. Our group did manage to catch a few frogs, which didn’t go a long way between the six of us, but a little frog was better than none.

  We had been warned previously not to go scrounging from the locals, as some were pretty unhappy about our use of the area – especially as a previous troop had managed to hunt down, butcher and eat a sheep; it was all very commando-like but sheep rustling didn’t endear us to the farmers. Yet the resourcefulness of the commando spirit lived within, so on the third day of hunger I decided to make a break for it and venture into the windswept desolation of Exmoor to scavenge from the local populace.

  Despite being searched thoroughly by the training team prior to setting off on our insertion march, many of the troop had managed to secrete the odd £5 note on (or up) their person and we were allowed to bring 10p for use of a payphone in an emergency. As I didn’t think I was going on the exercise I hadn’t secreted anything, so I volunteered to go instead of paying into the communal fund, hoping the coinage given hadn’t been shoved up anyone’s anus, but being dark it didn’t really matter either way.

  Armed with nothing more than a shit-free £5.50 and a button compass with a permanently spinning needle, I left the shelter area and followed the fence lines towards the far-away lights of the Exmoor farms. Being a cold, clear night, reference-point navigation was pretty easy so I managed to get to the first farmhouse within an hour. After I knocked on her door, the farmer’s wife looked at me pitifully. I must have looked and smelled like a Dickensian orphan, so she benevolently acquiesced to my request for any food she had to spare. Whether she had a golden goose I don’t know, but she charged me £2 for six eggs. (If there had been a Tesco’s nearby I could have bought six for 50p.) Unfortunately I was in the middle of Exmoor, so I suppose it only reasonable to pay a remote egg tax.

  In her defence, the farmer’s wife did throw in six slices of bread, but couldn’t spare the wrapper so I had to accept them in my grubby, unwashed hands. Managing to secure an opened tin of beans from another farm, my shopping trip was complete. So began the four-mile return journey to the shelter area, trying to make sure that I spilled no beans, the eggs in my pocket weren’t crushed and the bread I carried didn’t soak up too much grimy hand sweat.

  Greeted like the returning Messiah, I produced my wares to the group, hoping the darkness of the woods would hide the grubbiness of the bread. We boiled the eggs in the tin of water over the fire and quietly feasted on a meal fit for a tramp. Having buried the tin and eggshells, we knew we’d got one over on the training team and spent the next day gloating on our subterfuge. It’s amazing how a little food will give you a spring in your step when hunger takes over, and our happiness was seized upon by the other recruits.

  They say imitation is the best form of flattery. One of the other groups decided to have a wander the following night but, unfortunately, their mission ended after about 40m, snared by the training team. The training team was unimpressed, not necessarily by how the group had gone against orders but that they had been caught so easily. This was only going to end in unreasonable amounts of distress. We found out just how much the next morning.

  The river in which we had attempted to catch fish became our aqueous gymnasium, as we thrashed out naked press-ups, burpees and sit-ups in the icy waters. Even worse, the guys who had been caught were doing the same exercises in their overalls. At least we could dry out naked in front of our fires and afterwards put on our dry clothing. For those poor guilty bastards, extreme cold, saturated clothing and continual shivering meant a real survival threat, one that was monitored by us as their mates and from afar by the sadists in the training team, to prevent paperwork.

  As a reward for our gracious acceptance of a beasting, we were given pets. A rabbit was handed to each pair of recruits. We were instructed to give it a name and keep it safe and secure overnight. We knew what the outcome for the rabbit would be, but still we cherished its company. My oppo Stevie and I named ours Gordon, for no other reason than it sounded a grand name for a white rabbit; I am still hard pushed to think of anything grander. Cuddling it for twenty-four hours not only kept us warm, it also kept it secure in our possession. Some guys put theirs on a leash, using a snare as its collar before realising it was strangling the poor thing to a slow death; being cruel to the rabbits was something the training team would not tolerate.

  The next morning, our leporid-loving training team brought us to a table where, placed upon it, was a rabbit similar to the ones we now held affectionately. After the normal introduction, the rabbit that had moments earlier been nibbling peacefully on a piece of lettuce was dead, blood dripping from its nose, its neck broken from a sharp chop by the corporal giving the lecture. Whether it was subconscious or not, I averted my rabbit’s gaze; I didn’t want it to see its brother executed.

  For many recruits this was the first time they would kill an animal. I was ‘lucky’; I killed my first rabbit when I was around seven years old. My grandad was a poacher, and our kitchen would be forever filled with skinned rabbits hung on a washing line, emanating that deeply appetising aroma of blood. After his poaching days were over, my grandad built a pen and filled it with rabbits. I would treat them all as pets and gladly feed them until they were as fat as Grandad liked. I don’t know whether there was a hole in the pen but every so often one would ‘escape’, coincidentally on the day that we had ‘boiled beef’ pie for tea.

  While harsh on the rabbits, the skills learnt were invaluable and had to take priority over any juvenile love of animals. My oppo for this exercise, Stevie, had never killed before, so he was keen to do the deed and I was only too happy for him to chalk up the first rabbit silhouette on his headboard. Nervously, Stevie held Gordon as instructed and chopped down hard on the back of his neck; the dull thud and whelp was echoed all around, as the mass chopping of bunny necks was sickeningly orchestrated like the soundtrack to an 18-rated version of Watership Down.

  Gordon lay limp, but bloo
d did not run from his nose. I was not convinced that Gordon was done for. Indeed, when Stevie walked away with Gordon draped over his shoulder the rabbit winked at me, just the one eye as if to say, ‘Alright mate?’ Was he trying to haunt me?

  ‘Stevie, that rabbit’s still alive,’ I said.

  ‘Nah mate, it’s dead as a dead thing.’

  ‘Well if it is, then it’s the star of Poltergeist IV: Rabbit’s Revenge.’

  ‘Nah, it’s the nerves still working.’

  ‘I’d be fucking nervous if I was alive and draped over your shoulder. I’m telling you it’s alive!’

  As if to prove my point, Gordon started to thrash around violently. I don’t care how many nerves it has, a dead animal cannot attempt to scramble over the shoulder of its attempted killer. I had to give credit to Gordon, he was a fighter, but my admiration for him was short lived. I snapped his neck with, it has to be said, a respectful remorse. Remorse over, Gordon tasted wonderful and his pelt made a smashing hat.

  EIGHT

  ‘My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.’

  ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  BEFORE PROGRESSING INTO the second fifteen weeks of training, we would first have to successfully complete a number of criteria tests. Fail anything and we would be back trooped. No pressure there then…

  Firstly, we completed our PT pass-out. Although my feet were in bits, running around in pusser’s pumps presented little problem and gym work was my strong point. The pass-out was a doddle, so too our Annual Personal Weapons Test (APWT) on the blunderbuss that is the now obsolete SLR and the even more archaic Sterling submachine gun (SMG), which was only useful in the hands of a Star Wars Imperial Storm Trooper – even if they did always forget to attach the magazine.