Forward into Hell

by Vince Bramley

  ‘Let’s grab a corner,’ I suggested.

  Lying on the floorboards, we looked up at the shed roof, wondering why we were there. Only the type who could sleep through anything slept that night.

  At first light, we were all glad to get out and make our way ‘home’. We arrived, sweating after the extra uphill trek, to see Pete Gray gathering the NCOs for the daily Intelligence report. Taff and Steve went off to make a brew, while I came up alongside Skiddy to hear the latest.

  ‘Well, lads, bad news,’ said Pete. ‘The Atlantic Conveyor has been sunk.’

  ‘How the fuck did that get hit?’ asked someone from the rear.

  ‘You tell me.’

  Pete wasn’t a happy man, nor were we, for the ship had been carrying the Chinooks and luxury kit like tents, overboots and so on.

  Some bastard should fall for this, we thought. All that kit on one bloody ship.

  Bad news of our choppers being sunk hit us sorely and many of us were still thinking about it when Pete announced the next info.

  ‘No choppers, so the big wigs have decided we start walking a.s.a.p. Like today.’

  Pete gave us a breakdown of what was happening: 2 Para were to march on Goose Green; 45 Commando were to head north to a settlement called Douglas; we, of 3 Para, were to take Teal Inlet.

  Within an hour, all kit was packed tightly away, last meals and brews demolished, weapons oiled and ready and bunkers evacuated. We made our way up to the prominent part of Windy Gap, where most of the battalion was gathering. The CSM of B Company was organising which kit we were to carry and which to leave. No tripods for the SF guns and no sleeping bags, no bergens – all unnecessary weight was to be left. We repacked our kit. The bergens and tripods were centralised for a later pickup. They were to be choppered forward, if a chopper became available.

  We all felt pissed off about the Conveyor being sunk and the prospect of the coming tab. We now knew that the march would be about fifty-five kilometres. But we were all glad to be moving, breaking out across the island, on the offensive.

  We set out at about two-thirty that afternoon on what was to be an epic march for the regiment.

  7

  DONKEYS

  With the GPMG, webbing order and ammo slung over every part of our bodies, we tabbed, or rather hobbled, as fast as we could.

  Once over the first hill we started to march around the side of an adjoining hill. At this time, the Marines were walking alongside us, ready to break northwards towards Douglas settlement. Unlike us, they carried full kit, bergens and all.

  Within thirty minutes, we had a short break, to let the stragglers catch up. A young Marine was propped on his back beside me, with his Bergen as a support.

  ‘You lot have the right idea,’ he said. ‘No fucking extras. We look like donkeys here.’

  I couldn’t help but agree with him but thought to myself that, while we may move faster, we’d be the coldest at night. At that time, I didn’t know we’d be marching flat out all the way, day and night.

  Our march over the terrain was slowing, within an hour of starting out. But we tabbed on until the sweat ran from every pore of our bodies. My head was down, my arse was up and my shoulders ached with the weight of the ammo.

  Skipping, sliding, sometimes walking, we pressed on. When I looked about me during the occasional short breaks, I could see the lads strung out in one big line, all following each other, like sheep. We call it the ‘battalion snake’: a continuous, meandering ‘S’ wherever you look.

  The first river was more like a stream. We hobbled across on as many stones as we could find, to avoid wet feet. But dry feet were a short-lived thing because we soon came to low ground and, once over the small river, the terrain became a bog. Our DMS boots, made of compressed cardboard and leather, were not best suited to combat that terrain. Within a few metres of the river, they squelched into the smelly marsh and had to be dragged out. The marsh lasted about a kilometre and a half before we broke uphill.

  Over that hill, around another and down into a valley, we came to a wider river. This time, no stepping stones. Just very wet feet and denims, as it was about knee-deep. I struggled to keep balance as I crossed. Wet feet, fine, but I wasn’t going to fall over. I felt the freezing-cold water slop into my boots and soak my socks within seconds of stepping in. Gritting my teeth, I walked across the river, to see C and D Company lads sitting all around. The CO was walking among them, giving encouragement.

  We dropped to the ground. Skiddy and Johnny changed their socks. I slipped out of my sweat-soaked webbing to join them. Taff sat quietly to our side, while Steve threw on a quick brew.

  ‘Air raid red, air raid red,’ screamed the signaller.

  With no boots or socks on, we grabbed our weapons and as usual waited to hear where the attack would come from. We heard the scream of the approaching enemy aircraft, from the direction we had just marched. It came into view, but banked away from us southwards, totally unaware that 80 per cent of 3 Para sat there reorganising themselves.

  ‘I reckon if the bastard had seen us he’d have known we are on the offensive and heading towards Stanley,’ someone commented with accuracy.

  As far as we were concerned, his banking away was good news.

  We received new marching orders from above. Each company would follow another. The lead company would permanently have a point section feeling the ground for the battalion behind them. Last light was creeping in as we kitted up and sorted ourselves out into the battalion formation. We kept close together in the enveloping darkness. Keeping the men together was now just as important as reaching the settlement of Teal.

  In less than an hour, our bodies were struggling under the weight of kit and ammo. The GPMG seemed to weigh a ton. We swapped it over on every short break. Within the first two hours of the night march, orders were passed slowly back along the length of the battalion that we would be stopping for fifteen minutes in every hour. Some started clock-watching. Our boots and wet socks were becoming unbearable to march in, rubbing badly on the feet of most, if not all, of us. Blisters and sprained ankles added unexpectedly to the injury toll.

  Slowly, the battalion ground to a halt for its third rest within two hours. Taff worried me greatly. He was hobbling badly and his thin frame was too light for the kit we were carrying. Steve and I had taken his turn with the GPMG twice within an hour.

  The battalion now closed up into two lines, marching alongside each other. This helped some, because you could moan at whoever was marching beside you, which took your mind off the increasing agony of the march.

  About three-quarters of an hour after darkness had fallen, we had marched about twenty kilometres. We marched at about two and a half kilometres an hour after leaving Windy Gap – a fair rate, over that terrain.

  Our next stop was by a hillside. C Company had just split off to our left, putting about a hundred metres between us. However, the two-line march continued. Taff was by now causing a big gap between me and those behind me. Knackered though he was, I knew the lads would be getting fucking mad if he didn’t catch up. It meant less time to rest, because, when you caught up to where the others were sitting, they were on the move again.

  ‘Taff, move up, move up,’ I screamed.

  ‘I can’t, Vince. I’m fucked.’

  I was losing my rag. I could see he was out of it, but I couldn’t stand the fact that he was going to let us down before we’d even got there. Taff was trying to keep up and mumbling out loud that he could do it if only we were to slow down a bit. But this was impossible. Nobody could tell the lead elements to slow down. The gap got bigger, the swearing got louder. Taff wasn’t the only one to feel the strain. Many of the lads were struggling. At last, exhausted, we stopped on the slope of yet another windswept hill.

  Taff shook uncontrollably. He had bad cramp and lay there, totally out of the game. I informed the medics. Phil Probets, the company medic, came over, as we were busy rubbing Taff’s legs.

  ‘What’s up, Vince
?’ asked Phil.

  ‘It’s Taff. Look at him, he’s gone completely.’

  Together we sat him up and tried to revive some spirit in him, but with no joy.

  Steve was sitting beside us when the unusual order came from the CO, ‘Brew up a hot cuppa and make a snack.’ This shocked a lot of us. Theoretically, it was a no-no, sitting in the middle of an advance in the open, in pitch dark. Practically, though, it was the best order yet. A welcome brew was what we needed. The CO was obviously aware that the lads were suffering from the speed of the march.

  Within seconds of that order, little lights from our hexie burners started to appear all around and soon the brews had been thankfully drunk. While Steve had our brew going, I tried to get Taff motivated, still to no effect. I was getting niggled now because, although he was in my section, I also needed to see to my own sore and swollen feet.

  We fed Taff some porridge and shared out the brew equally. To me, Taff looked as though he was about to die. His nine-stone frame wasn’t strong enough for the rest of the march. Taff could run the Army’s British Fitness Test in around eight minutes and was considered our best runner. This proves, as do other accounts I heard after the war, that the fitness of troops cannot be determined by how fast they can run. The Paras always pride themselves on tabbing with kit, and rightly so, but I learned a lesson on our first night’s march. You must have body fat on you to waste, for the kind of long tab that we had embarked on.

  On the side of the hill, the medics gathered together those who were holding up the speed of the tab. They were a group of about six lads, whose conditions varied between exhaustion, sprained ankles and severe blisters, the last caused by the poor quality of our boots.

  As we started off without Taff, I was mad because this left only myself and Steve Ratchford to carry the rest of the kit. I was also worried about leaving Taff in the middle of nowhere. It turned out that the lads left behind at different rest points were left for three to four days to fend off the weather as best they could. We nicknamed the march the ‘Do or Die’. We didn’t mean that anyone would really die, but that if you were left you would feel like it. We slogged it out for another two or three hours of continuous hills, bogs, rocks, holes in the ground – everything that could possibly make you trip or get wet. On top of the bloody awful terrain, we had the rain, sleet, wind and freezing climate to cope with. Exhausted and near the point of collapse, we came to the first man-made thing I’d seen, apart from the small houses at San Carlos: a barbed-wire fence. There, right in the middle of nowhere, sat the fence, stretching far into the darkness on either side. Orders from above told us to rest up until first light. We had been marching for fifteen hours across the worst terrain you could imagine.

  Steve and I attached our ponchos with bungies (elasticated hooks) to the fence, and Skiddy, Kev and Johnny bashed up the other side, creating a tent-like accommodation. It rained hard for the remaining four hours of darkness. The wind blew the rain in on us as we all lay trying to rest in the ‘basher’. But although we were all exhausted, someone’s snoring soon broke into my thoughts and outside, around the basher, little whispers could be heard, with other voices shouting for silence.

  I closed my eyes, dreaming of a bath, clean sheets and a letter from home. I didn’t mind the rain as it hit my face. The chance to rest was welcome and I eventually managed to sleep. I was awoken by a nudge from Skiddy, who was already half-packed and ready to move. Steve and I crawled from our refuge and quietly packed our kit back into our webbing. The rain and cold had shrunk the webbing so that it was difficult to fasten. Cold and numbness had us swearing out loud.

  We all crossed the fence eventually and the company gathered together to make for yet another hill. We tabbed over more hills, through more bogs and marshes. My legs ached more than I had thought possible. Steve was, if anything, better than me with the weight. Every time I started to struggle with the GPMG, he took it without complaining. Carry that weapon he could.

  Kev turned to me after two hours of marching. Indicating Steve, he said, ‘He’s knicky with weight, isn’t he?’

  I grinned and agreed, ‘Without his help in carrying that, I’d be fucked.’

  Full credit to Steve. I’ll always remember his actions throughout that march.

  My feet felt worse since the rest back at the fence. I was now hobbling badly. The weight we carried seemed to increase all the time. We climbed a large hill and from the summit saw many smaller hills and a plain of grass, stretching as far as the eye could see. Below us lay a river that had to be crossed. We could see the lead elements of B Company crossing about eight hundred metres in front of us. The downhill march was, as always, easier than going up. Many of the lads, now low on food and water, stopped to refill their water bottles. Steve and I quickly filled each other’s, to avoid removing our kit. Then we splashed into the wide river.

  The water was just under waist-deep and we crossed with ease. I hated the feeling of the water slipping into my boots, even though my feet were already wet. When we reached the other side, the lads seemed to be standing about. Word from the CSM told us that, owing to our quick advance, we were now able to hold up for three or four hours. It was about three in the afternoon, so no move until 1830 hours, much to our delight.

  Resting again, Steve and I got out our rations for a longwished-for meal.

  ‘Rice, peas and an Oxo cube are the remains of our pantry,’ laughed Steve. Just that and a brew, but it went down well.

  The wind dropped, allowing the rain in. We put a poncho over us. With only a small meal inside us, the hunger soon crept in again. My stomach felt hollow. The wind and rain drained me of life. Lying there, feeling near to total exhaustion, I couldn’t even think of what was to come – the battle for Teal Inlet. My feet didn’t exist any more; they were just two blocks of numbed ice attached to my legs. Tapping them together brought a pain that felt as if they would shatter and fall off.

  Steve lay next to me. Lighting up a fag, he looked up through the rain clouds at the darkened sky.

  ‘If we carry on at this rate, we’ll all drop dead of exhaustion,’ he murmured.

  He passed the fag to me. I wasn’t a smoker, but the smell seemed to bring a welcome sort of warmth, so I accepted it. I took a drag, then coughed and spluttered. Steve giggled beside me.

  An hour or two passed. We drifted into sleep despite the rain and the feeling of total cold. When we woke, we saw B Company lads mingling and talking around us. I decided to check my feet over before we moved and try to restore some life to them. Steve said that he didn’t want to look at his feet because they felt like they were falling off. I peeled back my wet socks, saw blood on my right foot and discovered that the nail of my big toe was hanging off. Numbness had masked what would normally have been agony. Clenching my teeth, I pulled the nail away by its remaining roots. I wrapped two plasters around the wound and put on my last two pairs of dry socks.

  We had our last brew before next orders. Soon the shout went up to get ready to move. We were moving earlier than expected, to catch the last of the daylight. When I stood up my body ached from head to foot. I was minus one toenail too. I took up my kit and moved into line with the others, ready to go the last thirteen kilometres into Teal. So far, it had taken us about fourteen hours to march forty-odd kilometres. That was still good going.

  We set off very slowly, spaced out in one long line. We hobbled over the hill in front of us only to see more hills and marshes. I began to become conscious of my toe, and the more I thought about it, the worse it felt. However, the thought of dropping out at that stage seemed a fate worse than death and so I fought the pain. It is funny, looking back, but the further we went into the campaign, the less I thought of my home or family. I wasn’t thinking of Queen and Country either. I thought of myself and the lads around me. Letting the side down was my biggest fear. That fear kept me walking.

  8

  ‘KNOCKING ON THE DOOR’

  As darkness crept over us and we closed up
together, the march seemed to pick up speed. The lads tabbed as fast as they could. Kit changed hands constantly along the battalion snake. We were annoyed by the lack of info coming down the marching line to tell us where we were and how far we had left to march. However, at last light, we hit a fence line, which told us that we must be near to civilisation. A Company split off from us and headed in a different direction.

  ‘We must be near now,’ said Steve.

  ‘Wouldn’t count on it, Steve, the way we’ve been donkeying around.’

  After about half an hour, we stopped and the leading troops marched past on our right.

  Someone in front of me shouted, ‘Who the fuckin’ hell’s leading this show?’

  A voice from the darkness called back, ‘Me.’ It was the voice of the second-in-command of the battalion.

  Tittering was heard all down the line.

  We followed the fence for two hours. Sweat soaked our clothing. My feet ached beyond belief. All I wanted was to rest. Steve and I continually swapped the GPMG between us, from shoulder to shoulder. My webbing was much tighter than normal, as the wet had shrunk it to fit my body like a glove. In consequence, I suffered webbing burns on my hips and the base of my back. Sweat continually soaked our clothing.

  We came to a fourth river, smaller than the rest, and stumbled across it in the dark. The cold water mixed with our sweat to cause yet more sores on our feet. We were now about one and a half kilometres from the settlement of Teal Inlet. The agony of the marching disappeared quickly as it became clear that the tasks of battle could soon confront us.

  We were just north of the settlement when we were given a firing position. We placed the GPMGs, Skiddy’s and ours, together. We loaded and cocked the guns. In the darkness, we could just see the line of the battalion spread out over the hill, the men looking down, waiting for some sort of action. The sky was clear and the moon shone. It was like a pleasant evening of military exercise at home on the common. But the cold wind and the real ammo attached to the GPMG told us different.