Going Commando

by Mark Time

  ‘Out troops,’ he shouted.

  As good recruits do, we obeyed the order to disembark – into rather deep water. It was far deeper than I expected. In fact I was up to my neck in cold seawater, full kit and all. I had to bounce to ensure I didn’t go under and the pull of the current sent me slightly off track. It was rather unnerving until I finally managed to breathlessly struggle ashore.

  We rendezvoused in a slightly submerged area covered by reeds. The training team then informed us we would be picked up tomorrow. They were leaving us to freeze our tits off.

  ‘Your new boots should keep you warm,’ was the last dose of sarcasm we received as they disappeared towards the teasing urban warmth.

  We had dry kit in our waterproofed bergans. But was it wise to change into them? We were in cold seawater surrounded by the warmth of sodden, marshy reeds, the cold wind as welcome as a matador at a vegan conference. Putting on dry kit would only mean drenching both sets of clothing, going against all the rules of the wet/dry routine we had been taught.

  We had to tough it out in wet gear, so we lay shivering in the reeds all night. It was a long, cold, sleepless night, and despondency kicked me up the arse yet again when I realised the gloves in my pocket were drenched – a prophetic start to Exercise Nightmare.

  The training team arrived at first light. I had never been so happy to see those bastards. We dragged ourselves back out to the landing craft and were taken to our original point to embark on our aptly-named exercise.

  The twelve-mile insertion yomp was counted as the first actual commando test, even if it was just a warm-up to the final exercise. Normally yomping such a distance wouldn’t have been an issue, but we’d now forsaken large packs and were issued proper 120-litre bergans. Three times as much space to put three times as much kit in to make it three times as heavy and, as I’d experienced the previous night, three times as difficult to drag through reeds. But it felt far more comfortable than the crippling packs we had used up to now, even if we were saturated.

  Crotch rot soon followed, with saggy, wet combats rubbing my inner thighs, each step shaving off just a little more skin – just what I needed on the first day of an exercise. I can’t remember hoping for unseasonably cold weather either, but I got it all the same. Laying up in preparation for a night raid on HMS Osprey, I contemplated whether I’d come close to hypothermia.

  Charlie woke me for the assault but I couldn’t find my balance, inertia stupefying me. He held me up and asked if I was okay. Of course I said yes, but I couldn’t feel my feet and hands and had a strange unease I’d never encountered before.

  Frost had settled on the ground and my throat rasped when I inhaled. Just to move seemed an effort and as I rolled up my mat, leaving a dark patch on the frosted ground, I tried unsuccessfully to shelter myself from the icy winds that blew from the English Channel onto the exposed heights of Portland Bill.

  Even now, I look back and consider this to be the point where I experienced the very coldest conditions. Yet pushing through this discomfort and pain is what makes a commando, someone who can take the extreme hardship and carry on. When the seeds of doubt are sown in the mind, it takes willpower and courage to press on regardless.

  With the thoughts of coldness stowed away with the rest of my kit, I loved attacking the base – especially as we made a matelot shit himself when storming his sentry post full of chocolate wrappers and pornography. We moved further southwest by helicopter. For the duration of the exercise we would endure extreme Dartmoor weather.

  ‘It’s as cold as a bastard,’ commented Fred, as we looked through squinted eyes over the whitened bleakness. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

  Heavy blizzards forced us to plough unceremoniously through knee high snow, trying to make good speed wherever we advanced to contact. The awaiting enemy, played by the specialist unit of marines, must have been freezing their tits off by the time we arrived. One actually went down with hypothermia.

  The weather was relentless, pelting us with freezing hail one minute then shrouding us in snow the next. The cowardly sun didn’t have the balls to shine through the greyness. Our jokes were diminishing and the only smiles were grins of perseverance to get through this communal hell.

  I had been sharing a bivvy with Fred, as I often did. At first we were like two naughty schoolboys who would giggle at the slightest oddity, should it be someone falling over or quite pitiful jokes taken straight from The Shit Joke Annual 1987.

  As the days wore us down I could see Fred’s cheerfulness ebbing away, something noted by the training team, who themselves must have wondered who they’d upset to be present on the moor in such conditions. They pulled Fred away for a while and he returned as he had left, a shivering wreck. His behaviour had become a concern to the team and they were worried he had succumbed to the conditions, but Fred had convinced them he was fine to continue. After all, one of the symptoms of hypothermia is mental confusion, something that Fred could present even on a warm summer’s day.

  However, his inability to rise from his sleeping bag for a later sentry meant I had to cover for him, something the beady eyes of the training team did not miss. In a role reversal of Captain Oates’ fateful last walk, I told Fred, as I trudged away towards the sentry position, that I wouldn’t be long. On my return an hour later, the bivvy was empty. He was gone.

  The training team saw his withdrawal as a final confirmation of hypothermia, the green light to take him from the moor and back to a warm bed in sickbay. It was exceedingly hard on Fred, and if I were to be honest, on me as well; my morale boost had gone. Missing even a few hours to reheat the body would see him fail the exercise.

  A few of the other recruits also succumbed to the cold, taken back to the comfortable bosom of civilisation. Nods were dropping like flies from the harshest of climates. Even sadder still, a few hours later, despite my best efforts in trying to cheer him with my crap jokes about dogs and pants, Charlie had also been taken off the moor. I watched him leave, his shivering body working in slow motion, dizziness causing him to stumble like a drunk. My two best mates had been taken from me.

  The bastion of mateship had already been breached, but I paired up with a new bivvy partner. As a Scotsman and Englishman together, we embraced our resilience, recognising that if we too were to succumb to the cold we’d only have to do it all again. Mind you, for him, being from Inverness, it must have been like a summer’s day.

  The cold dissipated on the final evening, to be replaced by torrential rain. Dry cold then rain is dangerous enough, but if the cold snap returned after such a downpour then many more of us would be in danger of hypothermia. I think even the training team were looking forward to the exercise ending. We had it hard, but they too had also to endure the weather. While they were seasoned veterans, slowly picking off hypothermic nods from the moor was not good for their morale.

  It must have been due to this rush to get things over and done with when Corporal Hagar hurriedly pushed me from a wall we were traversing. With a GPMG in my arms and a fully loaded bergan on my back, I fell awkwardly. Immediately, I knew my ankle wasn’t in a good state.

  I could have cursed him, called him names that my gran would have given me a thick ear over and, under my breath, I probably did. But, trashed ankle or not, I was determined to finish. No way was I going to repeat this exercise.

  With an increasingly sore ankle, I finished the exercise at Bickleigh Barracks, marching into 42 Commando’s home, watching the marines laugh at us as we walked in as proficiently as we could. The morning had started with a dawn attack on an old fort, then ended in a speed march to finish there, where tepid sausage, beans and egg had never tasted so good and the hot showers felt like ambrosia poured by the gods themselves onto our tired and grimy bodies.

  Part one – to my mind, the hardest test of the commando phase – was thankfully over. Returning to CTC a conquering hero, my first port of call was to see if Charlie and Fred were okay. Unfortunately, they had already left to do
the exercise all over again. I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend the next fortnight, other than to boil my head in a cauldron of piss.

  As for me, even without the benefit of a medical practitioner’s qualification, I knew something was definitely not right. As I made my ravenous way from Fred and Charlie’s accommodation it became increasingly difficult to bear weight on my foot and by the time I had reached the galley doors I was hopping, the pain unbearable. Like most, I hit my bed early, hoping I was just suffering post-exercise soreness.

  The next morning I woke up and felt little pain in my ankle. But on trying to get out of bed I feared the worst. The pain became hideous when trying to bear my weight, and the ankle had swollen to the size of a black and bruised melon (a honeydew, not a watermelon – that would be an exaggeration). I showed the training team who, to be fair, suggested I report sick, leaving me safe in the knowledge I wouldn’t be doing the Tarzan assault pass-out later in the day. I had pretty much deduced that, anyway.

  I limped pathetically for what seemed like miles to the sickbay and was treated by a medic, who immediately called the doc.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said, tapping a pencil against his cheek.

  ‘Aaagh,’ I screamed, as he prodded my ankle.

  ‘Does that hurt?’ he asked stupidly.

  ‘Uh yes, Sir.’ Being facetious without sounding insubordinate was a riddle in terms of intonation, but I think I got away with it.

  ‘Hmmm,’ he annoyingly repeated, studying my half-naked body.

  ‘Aaagh,’ I screamed again as he pressed my pelvis. He didn’t ask me again if I had felt any pain.

  ‘Well, the good news is you haven’t broken your ankle.’

  That was a relief; it would have been three months in rehabilitation, possibly shoving me into the ranks of ‘perma-nod’ – the name given to recruits spending more than a year at CTC.

  ‘Have you heard of Woodbury rot?’ The Doc was up to his old tricks again.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Well, by the look of things, that’s what you’ve got.’

  ‘But I was on Dartmoor, Sir.’ It was my turn to take up the idiot baton.

  ‘It isn’t exclusive to one training area, but could have been incubated from the endurance course or somewhere else. Either way you’ve got it. See this painful lump here in your pelvis?’ He prodded it again just to ensure I hadn’t forgotten it was painful. ‘It’s a lymph gland fighting the infection. You’ve got an ankle full of poison. Lucky you haven’t succumbed to septicaemia. You can die from that.’

  A double relief then – no broken ankle and I was alive. What a result – but the celebratory somersaults would have to wait. There was nothing else I could do but take copious amounts of drugs and lay in sickbay until it had subsided.

  My world once again fell around me. Totally gutted at the news, I settled into life as a sick bay ranger in a bed with a telly. It should have been a cosy few days feeling permanently warm, having food brought to me – not by a Barbara Windsor Carry On-style nurse in a tight-fitting uniform, I might add, but by a burly male navy nurse looking more like Bernard Bresslaw. Yet all I wanted to do was get out of there and finish the commando tests so that this purgatory could finally end.

  Other medics visited and did little to reduce my fears of a lengthy injury by taking photos of my ankle, which was acclaimed ‘a beauty’. I welcomed the odd visit from fellow recruits, informing me of the gossip and how the commando tests were progressing. The compassionate training team informed me I could do my commando tests with the lads who had failed their first attempt, but would have only two attempts before getting back trooped again. Bargain.

  I was discharged from sickbay on the Sunday morning of week twenty-eight. If I was to pass out with my troop I’d have to pass the commando tests prior to going on the upcoming Easter leave.

  If I’d been a professional athlete there was no way I’d be even contemplating walking without the aid of crutches. Even if was a normal civilian, I’d have been given a taxi on release from hospital and told to rest for a fortnight.

  Unfortunately I wasn’t. I was a Royal Marines recruit on my way to do a thirty-mile march.

  TWELVE

  ‘Son, one day you will make a girl very happy for a short period of time, then she’ll leave you and be with men who are ten times better than you could ever hope to be. These men are called Royal Marines.’

  ANON

  THE THIRTY-MILER is the final hurdle and the test that transforms a recruit into a commando, should everything go to plan. My own plans had gone slightly awry, thanks to my immune system deciding to have a week off. So I had to attempt what is normally the final commando test first.

  I staggered from my bed, like an old man with rickets, to join the troop for the route briefing for the following morning’s thirty-miler. I was popping strong antibiotic pills and painkillers, so I thought a quick phone call to Exeter air traffic control would be in order as I’d be flying over Dartmoor.

  And I virtually did. I wasn’t the only one on medication, a few lads had shin splints, another had inflamed Achilles’ tendonitis. To be honest, we were all being a bit soft – some guys had completed the thirty-miler with broken limbs.

  The weather was typical Dartmoor, having five seasons in one day, including the lesser-known ‘honking’ season. Ignoring whatever weather was thrown at me, I felt good, as one does when doped up to the eyeballs, and confident we could comfortably complete within the time.

  ‘How’s the ankle coping, Time?’ asked the troop PTI.

  ‘Fine, Corporal.’

  ‘Any pain?’

  ‘Not now, Corporal. The pain from my blisters bursting has taken over.’

  ‘That’s the spirit. Crack on.’

  Full of spirit, we conquered Ryder’s Hill and, forgetting the pain in our knees as we descended to Cross Furzes, saw the end in sight. Finishing in just over seven hours, we ran towards the small gathering that greeted us.

  The final metres of the thirty-miler is always lined with green-bereted commandos applauding those finishing. It is a salute to completion of the longest infantry training in NATO, and a welcome for those who will now stand by their side – an elite band of brothers that has few peers.

  Halting as if we were on the drill square, rather than completing a lengthy march over Dartmoor, we were split into two groups. I was part of the group still to pass all the tests and so was put on the flank of shame. Green berets were handed out to those who had successfully completed the previous tests. I was genuinely happy for them, but felt wholly envious and left out as the berets were placed upon the heads of those who’d earned them. Finishing the thirty-miler should be the pinnacle of training. For me it was a hollow victory.

  Returning to CTC in the back of the four-tonne truck, the mood was high. Everyone had passed the thirty-miler and, in truth, we’d all found it far easier than expected. Those who had passed all the tests were especially buoyant. They knew that, barring a cataclysmic event, in two weeks they would be passing out as Royal Marine Commandos.

  In the morning we would be officially in King’s Squad, dressed permanently in drill uniform. Their final two weeks would be spent on the drill square, practising for their pass-out parade. I, however, would be getting back into my beasting jacket and taking on the Tarzan assault course with the failures from the previous week’s test.

  There were only the three of us lined up at the foot of the death slide. I already knew I wouldn’t pass. My ankle had survived the thirty-miler by drugs and courage, but the rest afterwards had returned me to a pain level similar to that suffered after the final exercise.

  Mental discipline, fortitude and mind over matter are easier said than done when you can hardly walk. Telling the accompanying troop officer that I wasn’t fit to do it never even crossed my mind, but as I jumped into the first net the pain was too much. I staggered along the high wires feeling nauseous, but set off towards the assault course.

  ‘Time, stop. You’re finished,�
�� the troop officer shouted from behind.

  I was nowhere near finished.

  ‘Time,’ the shout came louder this time. ‘I said you’re finished. Stop.’

  I struggled on regardless at the speed of an arthritic octogenarian. Tears welled up in my eyes, and my teeth were gritted so hard my jaw ached. The shouts got louder and angrier. I stopped. I was so close to getting that green beret I could taste it, yet all that lay on my tongue was the salt of tears. I had broken down again, physically and now mentally. I had regressed to a young boy with failure as his constant sidekick, weeping inconsolably.

  ‘Listen,’ ordered the troop officer with a hint of sympathy.

  My head refused to draw away from the floor, the only place I could bear to look.

  ‘Look at me, Time.’

  I raised my head. He put his arm on my shoulder.

  ‘Look, Time, you’re already near the time limit. There’s no way you can make it. I can’t see you carrying on and suffering like this. All you’re going to do is totally fuck yourself up. You will have to get yourself sorted and then have another crack with another troop. You’re in no fit state to pass now.’

  Like an old horse, my time was up. He was sending me to the knacker’s yard. I was being back trooped – again.

  My mind swirled, not accepting the day’s events. I cleared out my belongings to retreat to a spare room of my new troop, still away on Exercise Nightmare. I was back trooped with a fellow injured recruit called Lee. While it was tough on us both, having someone else who was going through the same agony made it easier to bear. As I could see the finish line, with Easter leave approaching, I found myself trying not to be too despondent.

  * * *

  Joining my new colleagues of 523 Troop was a far easier experience than I’d imagined. Many were lads from the troop I had just left. They had either been back trooped earlier in training or been taken off my final exercise, so I knew many already – including Fred and Charlie.

  Out of the fifty-two that had started with 523 Troop, only four originals remained. This was not only testament to these lads’ incredible durability, but the demands placed upon all those who pass through CTC. Having such small numbers remaining was not unusual. Some troops even had to be amalgamated if natural selection devastated two consecutive troops’ numbers to insufficient levels.