Spider Shepherd: SAS: #1

by Stephen Leather

  ‘You’re a masochist, mate,’ said Liam.

  By now, Geordie Mitchell and Jim “Jimbo” Shortt had also wandered over to join them. Jimbo was a couple of years older than the rest of the team. His pale blue eyes seemed faded by the sun and even in his mid-twenties, there were stress lines etched into his forehead. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘Dan’s having a moan about the Directing Staff,’ said Liam.

  ‘When’s he never not moaning?’ said Geordie. ‘A couple of the trainers are pretty canny, mind,’ he said. ‘Lofty’s good and so’s Taff.’

  ‘Yeah, they’re good, though no one could ever accuse them of being imaginative in their choice of nicknames, eh Geordie?’ Shepherd.

  ‘You don’t get to choose your nickname, you know that,’ said Geordie. ‘We’re still working on yours. ‘How about Sheepish?’ He was the same age as Shepherd - twenty-two - but a good bit taller than the typical SAS man. Shorter, stockier men tended to have greater powers of endurance and, since the ability to carry a monstrously heavy bergen over long distances at a ridiculously fast pace was one of the many things that set SAS men apart from the rest, most of them were no more than five foot nine.

  ‘God, I’m starving,’ Liam said. He claimed to have a metabolism that made it necessary for him to eat every two hours or keel over, and his principal hobby seemed to be searching for food. ‘I don’t suppose anyone’s got some spare scran squirreled away?’ he said, more in hope than expectation. ‘I’m that hungry I could even eat my mother’s cooking.’

  ‘Her cooking’s not that bad, is it?’ Jimbo said.

  ‘Come to lunch when we’re home then, if you’re brave enough,’ said Liam. ‘We try to have takeaways whenever we can.’ He broke off as he caught sight of an older-looking soldier standing in the shadows at the edge of the clearing. ‘Where the hell did that guy come from?’

  There had been no sound or visible movement, but the man now stood there, watching and listening, his posture upright and alert, the barrel of his weapon tracking the path of his gaze. Satisfied, he lowered his weapon and stepped into the open. He was hard-muscled, but lean and whippet-thin, and his skin was pale enough to suggest that he had seen little sunlight in quite some time. His green uniform was almost black with the sweat and humidity caused by the long hard march he had made through the jungle.

  He walked across the clearing, pausing to shake hands and exchange a couple of words with two of the trainers, Lofty and Taff, but pointedly ignoring the others. He walked on, found a space away from everyone else and, without cutting any foliage, put up a very spartan basha: a waterproof sheet and a hammock. Ignoring everyone, he then spent the remaining hours of daylight studying his maps. He was alone, self contained and apparently completely at home in the jungle environment.

  As night was falling, Shepherd went across to Lofty’s basha. ‘Who is that guy?’ he said., gesturing towards the new arrival.

  Lofty smiled. ‘His nickname’s Pilgrim.’

  ‘Pilgrim? That doesn’t sound like a typical regimental nickname.’

  ‘It isn’t. It’s more of a mark of respect. The very last thing you’ll have to do before you complete the final stage of Selection is to memorise part of a James Elroy Flecker poem called “The Golden Journey to Samarkand”. It’s our creed, if you like:

  “But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes,

  You dirty bearded, blocking up the way?”

  “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

  Always a little further: it may be

  Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow,

  Across that angry or that glimmering sea.”

  ‘There’s more of it, but you get the drift: we are the Pilgrims. There are only two ways to get the experience you need in the Regiment: one is to serve long enough to do everything, and the other is to learn at the feet of a master. Most of the highly skilled guys in the Regiment learned their tradecraft from a senior mentor.’

  ‘Got you,’ Shepherd said. ‘So Pilgrim’s a mentor - one of the “old and bold” - but what’s he doing here?’

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow,’ Lofty said. ‘Meanwhile get some shut-eye, you’ll need it.’

  The following morning, as Shepherd, Liam, Geordie and Jimbo were sorting their kit, ready to join the others on the march back to the road-head for the transport back to base, Pilgrim walked over to them. He didn’t introduce himself, just said, ‘You four are not going back with the others. You’ve been picked out for further testing, so I’m going to take you on a patrol to evaluate you and see how good you actually are.’

  Shepherd looked across at Liam and couldn’t help but smile. This was the sort of training that he wanted.

  ‘The criteria I will be applying is whether you’re good enough to be accepted into a Sabre Squadron Troop or a patrol led by me on active service,’ Pilgrim continued. ‘You won’t find it a picnic; one of the things that makes the SAS unique is that the physical and mental effort required of you is greater in an operational squadron than in any and all of the various tests you have undergone during Selection.’

  He paused, holding the gaze of each of them in turn. ‘You’ve been issued with maps of this area. I suggest you devote some time to studying them. When we first came here, the only maps of Belize dated from before the Second World War and we had to update them as we went along. The bedrock’s limestone, so the topography is always changing. There was one big river marked on the old map that had gone underground years before. The jungle had reclaimed the riverbed and we spent days searching for a river that no longer existed. You won’t have that problem to deal with but, as you’ll already have noticed, you can’t use the sun, the stars or the topography to navigate in the jungle, because you can’t see any of them, so you have to be able to navigate with map and compass alone.’

  A mosquito landed on his neck and he smacked his hand against it as he continued.

  ‘In the jungle noise and smell are always more of a giveaway than movement. Even the absence of noise can be significant; if the constant background noise of bird and animal calls is interrupted, it can only indicate that something’s alarmed the wildlife. You can hear much further than you can see, so to survive, you spend much of your time just listening. Animals do not break twigs; if you hear a twig breaking it has been done by a human. You also use your sense of smell because anything from the smell of food to a whiff of sweat or aftershave can be enough either to give you away, or enable you to detect an enemy. You’ve probably already been told that we never drink coffee in the jungle because the smell of coffee travels a long way. Your eyes are pretty much your least valuable sense in the jungle because most of the time you can’t see more than a few yards in front of you.’

  As Pilgrim paused, Shepherd glanced at his companions. They were all hanging on the veteran SAS man’s every word. ‘And no matter how good your eyesight,‘ Pilgrim said, ‘you can’t travel after dark in the jungle, so there’s a lot of downtime which you can use in one of two ways. You can either piss the time away reading James Bond or Harold Robbins, or you can take a course of study. In my experience, the easiest and best time to learn a language is when you’ve got nothing else to do in the jungle at night. Most languages have a core vocabulary of about six hundred words. If you learn twenty a night, then in a month you’ll know enough words to speak a pidgin version of the language, and if you can conjugate a few verbs you’ll be able to have an educated conversation.’ He shrugged. ‘Just a suggestion. What you do with your down time is your own business.’

  ‘I was thinking of learning the piano,’ joked Jimbo, but Pilgrim silenced him with a dark look.

  ‘Right,’ he continued, ‘let’s talk about uniform. The Army-issue camouflage uniform you’re wearing is useless in the jungle because of the high humidity. It’s much better to use an older jungle green uniform which dries out much quicker.’ He tugged at his sleeve and rubbed the material with his fingers. ‘Get one. You’ll really notice the difference. No
w rations: to survive when patrolling in the jungle you must eat at least seven thousand calories a day but it’s almost impossible to carry that amount of rations on a long patrol, so we rely mainly on lots of sugar, sweets, dark chocolate, biscuits, nuts and raisins. The good news for those of you carrying an extra pound or two,’ he gave Jimbo a meaningful look, ‘is that you’ll be coming back from patrol a lot lighter than when you set out.

  Shepherd grinned – Jimbo was carrying a few extra pounds around the waist.

  ‘You carry your weapon at all times, you don’t have it slung over your shoulder, because it’s always got to be ready for use,’ continued Pilgrim. There are no long-range views, no early warnings in the jungle. The lead scout has a split second to respond to danger. Any slower than that and we’ll be looking for a new lead scout.’

  He took out a tube of insect repellent and rubbed some on his neck. ‘Watch out for the mosquitoes,’ he said. ‘If you catch malaria it’s game over, you’re Returned To Unit, no ifs or buts. Malaria is totally preventable.’ He put away his mosquito repellent and pointed at Liam’s shirtsleeves which were rolled up to the elbow. ‘That’s an amateur mistake right there,’ he said, and Liam’s cheeks flushed red. ‘You’ll never see anyone from a Sabre squadron with his sleeves rolled up. Out in the field, it’s long sleeves, end of. It become such a habit that we tend to keep it that way back in Hereford. So, keep your cuffs buttoned, wear long trousers, never shorts, and use insect repellent on all exposed skin. Use it on your clothing and on your boots as well. Keeps the mossies away but leeches and anything else that might want to sink its teeth into you will also be put off. But that’s no reason to forget your anti-malarials – paludrine and chloroquine. Don’t get RTU’d because of forgetfulness, got that?’

  The four men nodded and Liam rolled down his sleeves. ‘Any questions?’ asked Pilgrim. He was faced with a wall of shaking heads. ‘Okay, we’ll move out at first light and we’re doing this as if it’s a real operational patrol, so from now on, you’re going to be more silent than Trappist monks. If we need to communicate, it’ll be done by signs or whispers.’ He turned and walked back to his basha.

  ‘Impressive,’ Shepherd said to Liam as Jimbo and Geordie ambled away. ‘Walks the walk and talks the talk.’

  Liam nodded. ‘Looks like you got your wish, that’s for sure.’

  The next morning they woke before first light, as soon as the insect dawn chorus began. Following Pilgrim’s example, Shepherd and the others broke down their bashas, packed their bergens and then sat motionless, listening and scenting the air. As soon as it was light enough to move, Pilgrim led them out of the clearing and into the jungle. As they moved on, the undergrowth grew dense and almost impenetrable. Thickets of understory palm formed fearsome barriers, spines bristling at all angles from the trunks. Above them, the succeeding layers of trees were bound together in the stifling embrace of lianas. However, Pilgrim led the way, following animal tracks so faint that at first Shepherd and the others could barely detect them at all. They continued their painstaking progress through the jungle for about fifty minutes, then stopped, sat and listened again. They brewed up a mug of tea, ate some hard tack biscuits and moved off again for another fifty minutes, then stopped for another ten.

  As they went along, Pilgrim would occasionally stop and ask one of them where they thought they were, making them use the fine point of a leaf to indicate the exact place on the map. Liam, Jimbo and Geordie were generally wrong but Shepherd was more often than not correct to a few dozen metres. Whenever Shepherd did correctly pinpoint their location, Pilgrim would reward him with a grunt of acknowledgement which he took to be the highest praise any of them was ever likely to receive from the man. Navigation had always been one of Shepherd’s strengths, his near-photographic memory meant that he usually knew exactly where he was, even if he didn’t have a physical map to hand.

  The stop-start patrolling routine continued until midday when they stopped for an hour and ate a lunch of more tea, biscuits and cheese, then carried on patrolling until two hours before dark, when they ate their main meal of patrol rations, tea and more hard tack biscuits. After that the patrol moved on for another hour, then sat and listened again. Once they were sure everything was quiet, they doubled back on their tracks, stopped to listen again for one more hour and then after night had fallen, they put up their bashas, changed into clothes from their bergens that were only damp instead of soaking wet, and stripped down, cleaned and oiled their weapons. They did it one at a time, so that the rest of the patrol was always armed and ready to respond to any threat. Eventually they bedded down for the night on the jungle floor, using a candle to read or study for an hour or two.

  Shepherd lit a candle and unpacked his kit then sat by his basha and stared into the black depths of the jungle. The iridescent shells of beetles sparkled in the flickering light of his candle and huge luminous eyes reflected it back to him. Lizards of all colours, salamanders and frogs were captured by the light for a moment before disappearing among the foliage.

  He blew out the candle and lay back, feeling rather than hearing the sonar of bats swooping and twisting between the trees as they hunted down moths, while a torrent of other noises flooded through the darkness. A gibnut foraging in the litter of the forest floor gave a hoarse bark and clattered off deeper into the jungle. A howler monkey screamed its defiance into the night, frogs and toads croaked endlessly and there was the squeaking, buzzing, clicking and rattling of a million insects, but none of the jungle noise sounded threatening to him, not even the snarl of a jaguar deep in the forest. He fell asleep at once, so tired from the exertions of the day that he was oblivious to the thought of the snakes, scorpions and other venomous creatures that he knew roamed the forest floor.

  For five days they followed the same hard routine, sleeping on the ground, eating cold rations and drinking water collected from small tributaries of the river system. They kept up their silent patrols from dawn to dusk, following Pilgrim through the jungle. As Shepherd watched him, learning from his actions, he became convinced that if he wanted to, Pilgrim could probably walk on water - he seemed to be able to do everything else.

  A couple of hours before sunset on the fifth day, Pilgrim called a halt in a space where a fallen hardwood had created a temporary clearing. Nothing was said, but Shepherd had the feeling that all four of them had passed the test Pilgrim had set. ‘You’ve earned a hot meal so we’ll cook tonight,’ he said, his voice sounding unnaturally loud after so many days of communicating in whispers. ‘Jimbo, gather some dead standing wood - dead branches still on the trees.’

  Jimbo worked his way into the forest and snapped off several long, dead branches. ‘Now we have to feather it,’ Pilgrim said. He stripped off the damp bark from the smallest pieces, then feathered the wood by shaving a ring of fine flakes away from the branch. He set Geordie and Liam to do some more. ‘We need about fifteen of those; no shortcuts if you’re going to light it with one match - or one strike of the flint if your matches are wet.’

  When they’d prepared enough wood feathers, Pilgrim pulled a few tufts of cotton wool from the medical kit and handed it and a flint to Shepherd. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Now all you have to do is light it.’

  Very aware of Pilgrim’s eyes on him, Shepherd flinted it, blew gently on the spark, and then began feeding in the wood feathers one at a time as the cotton wool burst into flame. He added sticks and larger branches as a thin column of blue smoke drifted upwards and the sticks crackled as the fire caught hold.

  ‘Not bad,’ Pilgrim said. ‘Boil up some water in a mess tin, Geordie, and make a brew while Shepherd and I find us something to eat. You’ll never starve or die of thirst in the jungle; the one thing that will kill you is disease.’

  ‘Or drug-traffickers or Guatemalan soldiers,’ Shepherd said.

  ‘Or those,’ he said. ‘But food’s no problem. Not if you know what to look for.’

  They walked into the jungle and Pilgrim found a standard palm t
ree. He pulled out his bush knife and gave it to Shepherd. ‘Shin up the trunk and cut off the top growth.’ Shepherd climbed a few feet up the trunk and hacked off the pale green top growth. He dropped it down to Pilgrim and slid back down the trunk. Pilgrim carried it back to the clearing, stripped off the outer layers and threw them on the fire and then passed the tender heart of the palm to Geordie. ‘That’s our vegetable, I’ll go and get the meat. There’s a softwood tree in Belize, softer than birch - you can cut it down with a parang - your jungle knife - strip off the bark and the heartwood looks and tastes like chicken.’

  ‘What if the tree doesn’t grow in this area?’ asked Liam.

  Pilgrim gave an enigmatic smile. ‘Then we’ll be needing the curry powder.’ He returned a while later with his supplies wrapped in an attap leaf and announced ‘I’ll cook it. It needs a special knack to bring the best out of it.’

  He chopped up the meat, roasting it until it was brown, then made a curry and served it up with the palm heart, using more attap leaves as plates. Shepherd and his mates fell on it like starving men, the first hot food they’d had in a week.

  As they sat eating, Pilgrim glanced around the circle of faces. ‘Any of you done a jungle survival course yet?’

  All four shook their heads.

  ‘I used to train pilots - they all have to do the course in case they have to eject from their aircraft and E & E through enemy territory. The biggest problem is always a psychological one, getting people to eat things that their bodies need, but their minds might reject: plants and fish, but also insects. Pound for pound insects will give you more protein than beef.

  ‘The first time I did the course, I made a serious mistake. I gave them some insects to eat: termites, ants eggs and rhino beetle grubs. The beetle grubs look especially revolting. They’re grey and bloated, about seven inches long, and have four sets of legs on the middle. They look even more hideous when they’ve been boiled, but they’re very nutritious. I managed to persuade one pilot to volunteer to taste one but as he tried to put it in his mouth, it flopped over onto his chin. It wasn’t alive, it had been boiled after all, but the pilots all took one look and then point blank refused to touch them.’