Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [48]
The last few miles along the ridge and down the other side of the mountain dragged on, until we finally reached the day-march’s end. We were told to rest up for an hour in the woods, check our feet, and take on board some food and water.
But this rest was made truly miserable by the swarms of summer midges that enveloped each of us.
I had never known them so thick in the air.
The army mosquito-repellent was utterly useless against them, and all it did was give the midges something to stick to, leaving you to wipe off swarms of them with your hands.
All we wanted now was to get marching again, and to get the wind through our hair and the midges off our backs.
We were soon lined up again on parade, in the woods, and told: ‘Stand still and do not move.’
The air was so thick with midges that each breath you took you inhaled a mouthful of the brutes. All you wanted to do was scratch and brush them away from your face, and standing there, immobile, enveloped in the swarms, was truly hellish.
‘Stop moving,’ shouted one of the DS, who we had unofficially named ‘Mr Nasty’.
He then proceeded to stand in front of us, covered in midges as well, and watch us – waiting for one of us to quit.
I kept blinking my eyes and twitching my nose in a futile attempt to deter the midges that circled relentlessly around our heads. It felt like some old form of medieval torture, and the seconds went by like hours.
It was morale-sapping and miserable, but eventually after about forty-five minutes of this head messing, we were stood down, to await orders for the night-march.
It had been a simple reminder that mental strength was something that had to accompany the physical. And the physical is always driven by the mental.
It was a lesson that every one of us on that God-forsaken, midge-infested forest track was taught that day.
CHAPTER 43
The DS came forward and told us that the night’s march ahead would be an ‘educational introduction’ to the infamous moon-grass. This consisted of bogland – riddled with mile-upon-mile of tufts of clumpy grass, and ankle-twisting divots, that made any sort of progress almost impossible.
Over the following months we would learn to dread and hate this moon-grass. (Or ‘baby-heads’, as many of the recruits called it, as it resembled millions of small heads sticking out of the ground.)
That night I expected the worst, and I wasn’t disappointed.
Wading across mile after mile of these melon-sized clumps of weed tussocks was hellish. It was made worse by the fact that, in the darkness, each step you placed was a lottery as to whether you tripped or not.
Add to this the fact that much of the moon-grass also had razor-sharp, chest-high reeds growing out of it, and you can see why all the soldiers learnt to hate it so much.
In the pitch black my legs buckled and twisted on each step, and occasionally I’d slip in up to my thighs in stinking black, oozing mud.
Finally, as we came off the high plateau, we arrived at the perimeter fence of a farm beneath us.
We were warned to stay silent – the farmer had been known to chase lads on Selection off his land with a shotgun. This all just added to the excitement as we skirted cautiously round his house and over the fence.
After a final, fast and furious speed-march along forestry tracks in the dark, we reached our destination at about 3 a.m.
Three hours of precious rest lay ahead of us now, huddled in the woods.
These times of sleepless, wet, cold, waiting constituted some of the worst parts of Selection for me.
Physically your body was in bits: your knees, and the soles of your feet, would be swollen and stiff, and your body would be crying out for decent rest. But we rarely got more than three hours in-between marches – and it was neither long enough to rest, nor short enough to stay fired up on that exercise-high.
Instead, you would just get cold and stiff, and even more sleep-deprived and exhausted – it was a killer combination.
The SAS directing staff knew this.
The self-will needed to get back up, time and time again, to keep