If anyone had managed to build up any confidence, by now it was rapidly draining away.
‘Don’t think we are putting you through these agonies for the fun of it,’ Tim continued. ‘SAS doesn’t stand for Savage and Sadistic. No, you see, an inferior soldier means a weak link. You might get away with that in the regular Army where you can hide among the crowd. But a weak link in a four-man patrol means a weak patrol, a dangerous liability. So if you fail on a single point, it’s RTU, and down to Platform 4.’
Tim glanced around the assembled trainees. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘Don’t even think of cheating, and I’ll tell you why. In the SAS we have a very special kind of cosmetic surgery. You’ve heard of the nose job. Well here we’ve got the red-line job.’ He reached into the breast pocket of his windproof and pulled out a thick felt-tipped pen. ‘If you haven’t got what it takes, it’ll be a red line through your face on the photograph in training wing, and that’s you finished.’
My thoughts of Tim’s first briefing were interrupted as the wagons turned off the main road at Rhayader and headed down the B4518 towards Caban Coch Reservoir. Halfway along the reservoir, the road, now no more than a single track with passing places, took a sharp right. Shortly afterwards the Bedford jolted to a halt, giving a rude awakening to those who had temporarily escaped back into slumber. All we could see out of the back of the wagon was a vast expanse of desolate hills rolling into one another, the ridges along the tops looking like the scarred backs of a school of stranded whales.
Tim walked briskly across and pulled down the tailgate of the Bedford. He then addressed his two patrols. ‘Welcome to Sickener 1. This is what we call sorting the wheat from the chaff. This is where we nail the weekend adventurers, the day releases from Broadmoor and the eternal swanners.’ He glanced over his shoulder and pointed to a hill that loomed up into the mist. The slope was so severe it looked like the side of a building. Tim said simply, ‘There’s only one way from here lads, and that’s straight up.’
I checked my kit, checked my compass and started to sweat.
The next three days were spent in a nightmare world of physical pain and mental torture, being beasted across the hills by Tim, not just getting from point to point but, as Tim explained with relish, crossgraining the bukits. This meant going straight from trig point to trig point instead of contouring around the obstacles on some of the gentler slopes. It was demoralizing going down the other side of a hard-won piece of high ground knowing that you then had to climb back up again to the trig point, when all the time you could see a straight ridge linking the two points as inviting as Blackpool Promenade. And meanwhile the menacing figure of Tim always seemed to be hovering, staring and making mental notes. Just when you least expected it he would materialize as if from nowhere, suggesting that this was perhaps too much for you and wouldn’t you really be better off calling it a day and returning quietly to your own regiment. All such exhortations had to be strenuously rejected. Even the slightest sign of hesitation could mean a red-line job.
A primal sense of self-preservation and survival of the fittest quickly began to surface in me. Seeing the misfortunes of others – seeing someone really struggling, cursing through clenched jaws, ‘Shit, I feel like I’ve been kneecapped’ – was enough in an odd sort of way to spur me on, thinking, well I may be knackered, but I’m not as done in as he is. And all the time, in rhythm with the blood pounding through my ears, the same questions beat through my brain, ‘What am I doing here? Will I make it?’ – and each time I got the same answer, ‘I’ve got to. I must carry on.’ It was as if my thinking process had closed down. Swept along at an ever-increasing pace by this powerful experience, my mind became clouded by the strain of constant alertness, my vision channelled to a single point. And that point was only ever the present moment. There was no spare capacity of mental energy, no space to think either side of that single point, or either forwards or back in time. Total concentration had to be in the present. Failure lurked at every second. It was as if I was wading across a fast-flowing river, seeking with each step a firm rock base to put my weight on, fearing at every moment that my foot might slip and I would be swept away by the torrent.
Towards the end of the first afternoon, a heavy squall hit us. It was vicious in its suddenness and its intensity. We were caught without our windproofs, our shirts unbuttoned to the waist. Within seconds my hair was matted against my forehead and rivulets of water ran down my neck and over my chest. I was quickly soaked through, my OGs clinging clammily to my skin. All I could do was to put my head down and keep on going up to the top of the hill. To my horror, as I stumbled wearily over the last rise I saw that the ground fell away again to be met by a near-vertical rock-strewn slope leading up to the real summit, which was already swathed in racing storm-clouds. Conditions were deteriorating. ‘What do I do now?’ I thought. As I hesitated, turning my back to the wind and catching my breath, two other volunteers came alongside. Their shoulders sagged visibly when they saw the size of the task ahead of them. They looked at each other and both recognized the same thought in the other.
‘Sod this for a game of soldiers,’ one of them muttered.
They hadn’t seen Tim coming up behind them. Tim said in his gruff northern accent, ‘Right, you lads, get back down to that road and wait for the transport.’
As I watched them dejectedly trudge away, I said to myself, ‘I’m fucked if I’m going to jack now!’ I readjusted my bergen which was getting heavier by the minute as it soaked in the rain, took a firmer grip on my .303 and headed off into the gloom, with Tim hovering menacingly in the background waiting for the slightest hint of weakness to pounce again.
The route up to the top of the hill narrowed into a ridge which became more and more exposed to the driving storm the higher I got. The rain was hitting me horizontally, stinging my face until my cheekbones went numb. The wind howled into my ears until they ached. Quite suddenly, halfway up, I became aware that far from feeling even worse I somehow felt lighter. There was a new spring in my step. My breathing was deep and rhythmical. It was as if my breath was energizing and waking up my whole body. My senses now became more acute. I relished the velvet tingle of the rain as it fell down my face. The sweet saltiness of sweat prickled the corners of my mouth, the ground smelled warm, earthy and close.
Near the summit, I covered the last few yards on all fours; the wind’s ferocity had increased tenfold; and it was completely impossible to stand upright. I had never before experienced anything so powerful. I could not believe that moving air could make you feel as if you were being hit by waves of water. When the others reached the top we huddled together, shouting to make ourselves heard above the roar of the wind. One trainee, moving into the middle of the group to get some shelter, tried to steady his compass on the wildly flapping map to get a bearing for the final RV of the day. Tim loomed up, his face a mask of grim determination. ‘Come on lads, on your feet and over the top before you all die of exposure.’ Trying not to show our reluctance, we set off down again.
Base camp that night was set up in the lee of some woods. The storm had died away almost as quickly as it started. Already, what was left of the wind had dried most of the heavy rain from the ground. As we unsaddled our bergens, Tim greeted us with ‘Well done lads, that’s the easy bit over with. You can get some hot food inside of you now. You’re probably ready for it. I’m sure you’ve been looking forward all day to tonight’s feast.’ Tim had every right to joke about it. It would certainly be hot – our hexamine stoves would see to that – but whether the twenty-four-hour rations would qualify as a feast was doubtful. The food was in stark contrast to what we had been used to back at the cookhouse, but still I scarcely felt it was a hardship. In my mind, I’d already written off the whole three days as a ‘head down, arse up and keep going till you’re told to stop’ exercise.