Going Commando (14 page)

It was a case of ‘what happens in Lympstone stays in Lympstone’, as they clearly didn’t want parents knowing that their little Johnny couldn’t make a bed pack and had to swim for half an hour naked in the regain tank because he couldn’t do a ‘make safe’ on his weapon quick enough.

The troop sergeant noted we were sat alone. ‘Where’s your folks, fellas?’ he asked, downing a pint in the process.

‘It’s too far to come for mine, Sergeant,’ replied Jock, whose parents lived in the far north of Scotland.

‘What about you, Time?’ he asked, sucking the beer head from his moustache. Before I could reply he interjected, ‘They don’t like you either?’

He could have had a point.

‘Uh, too busy, Sergeant, they own a business.’ I hoped I was making it sound as though they ran a multinational conglomerate and not a council-estate chippy.

‘Right, seeing as though you are a pair of sad fucks you can thin out early on long weekend leave. Go on, fuck off.’

It was the most compassionate thing I had yet heard.

If my parents couldn’t be bothered to come and see me, I took on the role of petulant teenager and decided I couldn’t be bothered with them either. Heading straight to Knottingley, I spent the duration of the three-day weekend with my mates, not even telling my parents I was back. With my newfound reliance on my fellow recruits, mates had become my new family, and while the mates I went back to see weren’t military they were still people I could rely on.

WHEN NODS TALK about the second half of training, the general consensus is that as the intensity is cranked up the bullshit is lessened. What a load of bollocks…

On our return to CTC after a wonderful three days without getting flogged, we were greeted with a notice stating formal rounds of the accommodation were scheduled for 07.30 the following morning. Therefore, in between tales of numerous rejections from girls back home despite being a week sixteen recruit, those of us who had returned early cracked on with the familiar routine of cleaning every visible item, putting in extra effort to cover recruits who were returning as late as they possibly could.

No matter how much effort we put in, it was always going to be a waste of time. The training team, it seemed, was intent on making our return a difficult one. The standard of our accommodation was apparently way short of that nebulous mark of no tangible value.

After the mandatory flinging from the second-floor window of our bedding, the contents of our lockers were swept onto the floor in a rather childlike tantrum, leaving our room looking as though a Tasmanian devil had just visited. Fred muttered that the inspecting corporal was a ‘cock muncher’ as he stared out of the window at his clothing two floors below; yet even humour couldn’t hide the fact we were being thrashed for no good reason. A lunchtime weapons inspection followed yet another room inspection. All these failed inspections apparently indicated we were still on leave and had to start switching on. These inspections would only get worse if they didn’t get better.

Now, in Chatham Company phase two training, the training team needed to know we still had every bit of kit issued to us. The only way to do this was through us laying out a full kit muster, which was called after the evening meal.

Think of a kit muster as the desktop of a computer user diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. Each item of clothing a computer file meticulously displayed in its rightful place in a certain way, in a certain position on the bed. Not only was the purpose of a kit muster to check our equipment, it was an easy way for the training team to pick us up should we lose any bits of kit or place an insufficient gap between items.

It was evident we were in the shit. The only variable was how deep. My kit muster now looked like the desktop of a deranged axe murderer. At 22.30 another kit muster ensued. I don’t know whether they realised, but any kit we were now deficient in had probably blown away during their earlier hurling tantrums. Again, all our kit had to be laid out neatly on our immaculately-made beds. Every piece of equipment was scrutinised yet again, as if found on some archaeological dig. Anything that wasn’t spankingly clean was thrown around the room. Nothing was good enough, unsurprisingly.

At 02.00 the DL woke us all and ordered us all out onto the landing. No shouting, no threats, just a quietly spoken order: ‘Full kit muster, including beds, laid out on the bottom field, one hour. Go.’

It would have been suicide to suggest that it was raining and a kit muster in such conditions would only render it less useable for the next day. So, in the spirit of being fucked about for the sake of it, we rushed panic-stricken to our rooms to get all our beds and equipment down to the bottom field. Would it be better to arrange our kit muster on the beds now and carefully carry our beds to the field? Or should we get the beds there quickly and make shuttle runs back to the accommodation with our kit and equipment?

Fred and I took the former option. He was a good choice of partner as he’d been a removalist prior to joining up and so was expert at carrying large objects up and down stairs, a skill I doubt he’d ever thought would come in handy again.

We hurriedly laid out the muster before carrying the fully-laden bed carefully down two flights of right-angled stairs, out
of double doors that were so heavy if one swung back it felt like you’d been punched by Marvin Hagler, down the steep stairwell to the bottom field, past the regain tank to plonk down the bed as neatly as one could expect on a muddy field next to the 6ft wall and tank trap of the assault course, all the while feeling the rain slowly drench our kit.

Watching others do the same, I could only wince as some got their angles wrong on the stairwell, their kit sliding from the bed onto the floor. This would cause a staircase bottleneck, with some cursing and those who saw the funny side of this whole exercise in bullshit giggling.

The DL returned to the accommodation block after half an hour to apologise. He hadn’t realised it was raining so hard. He paused to gauge our expectant joy. The kit muster would now be under cover, in the drill shed. The bastard…

As word passed around the troop to those already neatly organising their clothes in the muddiness of the bottom field, the giggles turned to disquiet. Even Charlie, who up until now wore a permanent smile and would thank you for setting his head on fire, cursed in anger as once more we crash moved our beds to yet another location not designed for displaying beds.

At inspection time, the DL arrived. We all stood to attention. He, I am positive, revelled in the loathing of the thirty pairs of eyes now upon him. By now, we had all been taught a number of ways to kill someone. At this moment in time he was a likely candidate to be my first. He slowly walked around our beds, a cursory check here and a casual glance there. He occasionally commented with a big dose of sarcasm that our kit looked wet.

No shit, Sherlock
.

But in the main, he walked around looking at our tired, angry faces. Then, without any further ado, he just plainly said, ‘Good night, gentlemen.’

On the scale of ‘good’, tonight was well down. In fact it was pretty near the bottom. Although the kit muster was over, the night (or more correctly the morning) had just begun. Wiping our beds clean of mud, drying and pressing our wet clothing and equipment again, we had only another day of tiresome inspections to look forward to.

We were clearly under a ‘welcome to Chatham Company’ banner for the rest of the week, when constant beastings ended with the mantra that training would only get harder. We were certainly part of the teabag syndrome, which suggests the longer you are in hot water the stronger you become. We were on a rolling boil, under constant pressure from the moment we woke to the moment we crashed exhausted into our beds.

I occasionally bumped into guys from my original troop, and retold my stories of the continual beastings of week sixteen.

‘Yeah, we did a full bed kit muster too, but in the River Exe, naked. You had it easy, geezer.’

Of course I should have known better. One-upmanship was prevalent in training and everyone had it harder than anyone else in the weeks behind them. This sort of black catting followed people through their careers. I am sure that, in 1664, when the forefathers of the Royal Marines were formed under the auspices of the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime
Regiment of Foot, number two troop got shit from number one troop about how their training was harder.

Yet the continual testing, including commando tests, is the benchmark. After beastings were discontinued in 2000, one could assume training had become easier, but as recent history has shown, in the last few years those guys have undertaken operations far more dangerous than I experienced, and performed with distinction whether they had to lay a kit muster in a field or not.

My contact with 299 Troop members also brought some quite strange news. Corporal Stevens, the man I’d admired with near hero-worship despite him throwing copious amounts of shit my way, had been killed in a road traffic accident. Apparently, he had inexplicably swerved in front of a lorry on the road up to Woodbury Common.

My shock and horror at this news soon subsided as the story continued. A new troop sergeant, evidently more sober than the man he replaced, had suspected Corporal Stevens was the infamous troop thief and had therefore set a trap.

Corporal Stevens took the bait and stole the £10 notes deliberately left there. It was him: a man who we looked up to no matter how much shit he gave us, a god, a bastion of honour and integrity, the sculptor who chiselled us into commandos, a King’s Badge man, a sniper, a thief.

After all the shit I’d been given over the stealing accusation, and the humiliation it caused me within the troop, it seemed unbelievable that this man could watch it all go on around him and still continue to steal. He may have been initially revered by the nods, including myself, held in the highest
regard around commando units, he may have even been a best mate to some; but to me, he was now nothing more than a cheap, cowardly thief.

While my physical fitness in the gym was of the highest order, placing a further quarter of my bodyweight onto my back added a whole new dimension to personal fitness. From week sixteen onwards, the bottom field was our new arena of pain.

The gym had been only the warm-up to the real challenges of the bottom field, the open-aired coliseum of the PTIs. The only things that could have made the bottom field more difficult were the addition of chariots and hungry tigers.

Our gleaming white tops, shorts and daps were replaced by denims, a PT top and a coat lovingly referred to as a ‘beasting jacket’, and our most comfortable boots. It would be here where the England Rugby Union team prepared for their successful 2003 World Cup campaign, and one would hope they received similar treatment in the glorious mud.

While I never failed anything down there in the chaos of battle fitness training (BFT), the high impact was taking a toll on my body. Conquering the high obstacle course, climbing 30ft ropes with the girth of an elephant’s tadger, and a 90m fireman’s carry in full battle gear carrying 70lbs of weight, two weapons, oh, and a fellow recruit, were the warm-ups to taking on the assault course: a well-chosen selection of obstacles placed in order to sap energy systematically from one part of the body to the next.

Already balls-achingly knackered, we would finish off in style: the full regain over the water tank, crawl along the chasm, a 15m rope stretched high above the regain water tank, halfway across slip the body around until it was inverted under the rope, release the feet from the rope, then swing them back on. From the inverted position, roll back over the top of the rope and continue onward.

The regain would have been easier if the rope across the chasm wasn’t so slack. The bounce could make swinging a disaster should the momentum not be carried correctly. If the swing back onto the rope on the first attempt was unsuccessful, it was unlikely one could get back on without momentum. Should this happen, a series of ever more desperate yet comical, writhing air kicks, grunts, squeals and struggling would conclude with the PTI ordering the recruit to let go of the rope and fall into the icy waters of the regain tank, resurfacing to some earthy language.

Fortunately, I found the regains quite achievable, although I did fail once, making a pathetic splash – hardly pleasant in a British winter. As troops ran back from the bottom field it was always obvious who struggled on the regain rope, a troop of muddy but relatively dry recruits intermingling with a few who were saturated from their plunge.

In this second fifteen weeks it now seemed our CEFO (fighting order) – all 35lbs (16kg) plus weapon – had become an extension to our bodies. Apart from indoor lectures, we wore it everywhere during the working day. It felt like a goblin on my back poking and prodding me, making fun of my aching body every time I ran anywhere, banging into me
to add more pain to the ever increasing webbing burns on my lower back that now took over from my blistered feet as the sores of choice. It was evident that the only thing more painful than running with webbing burns was showering with webbing burns.

Visits to Dartmoor became more frequent. Our night navigation exercises were longer, as our increasing familiarity with Woodbury Common meant the challenges it presented were lessened. Dartmoor, in national park terms, is the girl with the curl: when she is good she is very, very good, but when she is bad she is awful. When the sun shines across a blue sky, the moor is God’s own country, the vistas across the tors, forestry blocks and dales truly enchanting. However, when the weather clags and precipitation is on the heavy side, it is a desolate, godforsaken place where no sane person would choose to venture. No wonder they put a prison there.

As Murphy’s Law edicts, we only went there when it rained, snowed or the fog rolled in. I am sure someone at Okehampton Battle camp has a Dartmoor weather switch and whenever Royal Marines are scheduled to train, it’s turned to ‘cold, wet and miserable’. After all, we were often told, ‘If it’s not raining, it’s not training.’

Venturing onto the moor for the first time filled me with trepidation. I recalled watching the 1939 version of
The Hound of the Baskervilles
with Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes. As a child it was only natural to be fearful of such a beast in grainy black and white, but my lasting impression was of the infamous, if fictitious, Great Grimpen mire – the bog that swallows the unwary.

The training team did nothing to dispel my fears. During winter these bogs were exceedingly dangerous; apparently they could easily swallow those who ventured too far into them. The prospect of dying a slow, sinking death in the middle of such a depressing place sent my overly imaginative mind into overdrive. Walking over wet, sodden terrain during the bleak nights that I crossed the moor became a frightening experience. Jumping from tussock to tussock was a good way to avert the ‘quakers’ and ‘featherbed’ areas of sodden earth, but the tussock jumping was a bone-shattering experience and ankles were easily turned.

The story goes that a young man was traipsing home across the moor when he came to a livid green ‘featherbed’. To his astonishment, there in the middle of it was an expensive-looking top hat. Obviously, someone of the gentry had dropped it whilst trying to extricate himself from the mire. Never one to pass an opportunity, the lad delicately picked his way into the featherbed and picked up the hat. As he lifted it out of the quagmire his heart leapt into his mouth, for there, under the hat, was a human head. The sunken gent smiled and formally introduced himself in a posh city accent. The young man immediately started to heave the man out of the bog but, pull as he might, he could not budge him. Again, the gent smiled and explained that, if the lad would wait a moment, he would try to take his feet out of the stirrups of the horse he was sat upon.