Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [43]
That was how they played it.
You were only ever safe if you gave 150 per cent, stayed near the front, and never gave up.
It was becoming apparent that this was the hallmark needed to still be there the next week.
Or they might get us to do some ‘milling’. Two-minute bouts, in full gloves, where the aim was to punch your opponent with everything you could throw at him. No technique, just blood and guts.
I always got paired with the six-foot-four bruiser. And came off worse.
Then more press-ups. And lifts. Until we could no longer stand.
At this stage it wasn’t about even passing Selection – it was about just not getting thrown off the course – today.
Yet after each ‘beasting’ session the exhilaration always surpassed the doubt, and I was slowly learning to get used to the pain.
That seemed to be the key to survival here.
CHAPTER 39
Finally, our first pre-Selection weekend was approaching.
I arrived at the barracks at around 5.30 p.m., Friday night – we were to be driven to the SAS HQ, for what they called the pre-Selection tests.
These were simply intended to ensure we were ‘serious about doing this course, and aware of what would be required’. This was what the SAS officer told us, as we sat huddled on the cold concrete floor of a semi-submerged hangar that first night.
He added, ‘I hope that you will all pass, trust me, the regiment always needs more numbers, but it won’t happen like that. I can guarantee that out of all of you here, I will be able to count on just two hands the number who’ll eventually join.’
I hardly slept at all that night. Instead I lay awake, waiting for 5.30 a.m., on that hard concrete floor, in that dark, dank hangar, that I was to get to know so well in the months ahead.
At 0600 we set off running as a large squad. (All of the 21 SAS Squadrons had come together for this pre-Selection weekend.)
This was the first simple test: an eight-mile hill-run in under an hour. I dug deep as the forest track wound up the hill and we all went up it for the fourth time.
The rest of the morning was spent on ‘basic skills’ lessons from the directing staff (DS), and a briefing about the afternoon’s ‘activities’ ahead.
We then got run down to the assault course.
I’d done a few tough assault courses before with the Royal Marines. This somehow felt different. Before, the assault courses had been fun; this one had a sense of impending pain.
What the DS wanted to see was total commitment and real effort, and there was always an officer or DS watching your every lurch and move.
Occasionally they would swiftly step in and drag some poor person off and quietly tell them to start all over again, saying, ‘Do it properly, and with three times the speed and effort.’
After two hours of non-stop rolling, crawling, climbing and diving, I was dead on my feet. We all were.
Legs and arms screaming for rest.
Before we had a second to recover we were run through the woods, fast, to a small clearing. Manhole covers peppered the whole area. They were the hidden entrances to a covered network of underground tunnels.
If you hated confined spaces, this was going to be a bad place to find out.
But we weren’t given a chance to think about it. We were just each pushed individually down into these tiny manholes – then the covers were locked above us.
On our own, we each negotiated our way round this dark, underground, and cramped maze of narrow passages only three feet high.
Each was semi-submerged in six inches of water and mud. I crawled and crawled, feeling with my hands stretched out in front of me to probe the way ahead. Whenever I reached another manhole cover and some light, seeping through the cracks, I would hear heavy army boots stamping on the metal grate above me.
‘Keep moving,’ one of the DS would shout, ‘faster.’
Claustrophobia was a big no-no in the regiment. You needed to be able to work in close, confined conditions, you needed to be able to control your emotions and feelings,