Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [50]
Simply put, we both had a different purpose in our lives.
Our next exercise was in the Black Mountains in Wales. For some reason the dreaded midges were not out, maybe the altitude and wind. Whatever the reason, it came as a great relief.
This, now, was to be our first march in pairs, and not as a group, and I made sure I got coupled with Trucker (by doing some nifty manoeuvring in the line-up).
Each pair was set off at timed intervals, and Trux and I got away early at 6.30 a.m.
The sun was out, the morning flew by, and we made fast, but hot, progress across the mountains. Visibility was good, which made navigation a breeze, and we were full of confidence.
We soon reached a dam and had to make a decision.
We knew it was forbidden to cross a dam, in the same way that it was forbidden ever to use a footpath or forestry track. (Unless it was part of the dreaded morning battle PT.)
This was a simple rule on Selection to make sure that you got used to navigating properly and that the going underfoot was always hard, which it inevitably always was. (In fact I, still to this day, feel a bit guilty if I go hiking on a footpath – old habits die hard.)
But not crossing the dam meant that we would have to drop down and up the other side of the four-hundred-foot ravine beneath the dam.
Are we being watched by a DS, or can we risk it?
In the regiment’s spirit of ‘Who Dares Wins’ and all that, we climbed carefully over the locked gate and ran across the two-hundred-metre dam at a sprint.
All clear.
We then set about climbing up the steep face up to the next DS checkpoint some seven miles away.
Six hours into the march, though, we were both starting to wane.
The heat had been relentless, and when you are burning through six thousand calories a day, carrying a heavy pack, belt kit and rifle up and down steep mountains, then you need to make sure you are drinking enough.
We hadn’t been.
We had both been in that zone where we were moving well, feeling good and probably got a little over-confident. That would nearly cost us our chance of passing Selection.
We had one last climb up over a two-thousand-foot ridge before dropping down to the final checkpoint. But already I was struggling. I wasn’t sweating any longer, despite the heat and the exertion. That was a bad sign.
Each step up that steep face felt like I was carrying the world on my back. I felt dizzy, I felt delirious, and I had to keep sitting down.
In short, I had heat exhaustion.
I had never experienced this deliriousness and weakness before. The feeling of semi-consciousness, as if in a drunken stupor – and time and time again, I kept falling to my knees.
All you want to do is to stop and lie down, somewhere dark, quiet and cool. But you can’t. You have to drink, then get on and get moving – and hope the rehydration will take effect.
Eventually I crawled over the summit and let my body tumble down the other side towards the final RV. I checked in and then collapsed in the woods with the other recruits.
I had a screaming, migraine headache, and felt nauseous and light-headed. I needed to start rehydrating and getting a grip of myself, and fast.
Meanwhile, five other recruits had failed to complete the route, and two others had been picked up, all suffering from heatstroke. All were removed from the course.
Part of me envied them as I saw them sprawled in the medic’s truck, being well looked-after. It looked like welcome relief from what I was feeling.
But I knew that all I had to do was hang on in there. By this time the next day, it would be another test down and another step closer to my goal.
So I sat down and started to brew myself some warm, sweet tea, and hoped I would soon be able to open both eyes beyond a squint.
Before the night-march started, we were all called on parade early. This boded badly.
As we stood there, two recruits’ names were read out, and the individuals were called