Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [54]
It was a horrible feeling, having this intense desire to lie down and sleep, yet needing to fight to suppress that and just push ever onwards.
An hour and a half later I reached this small, remote quarry, cut into the mountainside. As bleak a reward for finishing a night-march as you can imagine.
It was raining hard now, and there was no tree cover to tie a poncho to. I lay down on the marshy ground, pulled my poncho across the top of me and fell asleep.
I was soon shivering with the cold and utterly soaked through. I just longed to get this miserable test weekend over with.
After being so cold, the battle PT was a welcome relief. I felt I had gone into a different zone in my head now. I no longer cared about the cold or wet or my aching limbs. I just wanted to get it all done.
After two hours of running up and down this steep-sided quarry, as well as doing endless press-ups in the mud, those of us remaining were stood down.
Totally beat up, totally filthy, totally drenched.
Totally wired.
I collapsed in the truck. The first test was complete.
CHAPTER 48
Our next test weekend was in a particularly hellish area of the Welsh mountains – remote, godforsaken, and full of even more boggy, ankle-twisting moon-grass.
The area became known affectionately by the other recruits as simply: ‘The asshole of the world.’
The first march started badly for me.
I just couldn’t sustain the pace that I knew was required. Soon everyone was passing me.
Why did I so often feel like this at the start of a march? Was it nerves?
I was so frustrated with myself as I neared the first RV. And I knew I was slow.
To make matters worse, twice I found myself lost in this vast quagmire of boggy wetland, only to have to use up valuable time moving off course to higher ground, in order to reorient myself.
I was just having a bad day. I couldn’t understand why I was tired when I should be firing, and why I was flustered when I should be keeping my calm. I didn’t know how to stop myself from sliding like this, and I knew that each minute I was falling further behind the required time.
At the second RV I made a bad navigational decision. It cost me vital time. Time I didn’t have to spare.
The navigational error was selecting to contour round a mountain, rather than go up and over it. It was a weak decision to try and save me energy – and it proved a disaster.
If anything, choosing the longer, less steep, route only served to exhaust me further.
Tentative holds no power. Sometimes you have just got to tackle these mountains head-on.
As I arrived at the next checkpoint, the DS made me do endless press-ups in the mud, pack still on, as a punishment for approaching the last thirty yards on a track, instead of along the ditch.
He delayed me a full fifteen minutes with this impromptu beasting, and I was now pretty beat-up.
When I finally made it out of the checkpoint, the DS made me wade across a fast-flowing, waist-deep stream, instead of allowing me to use the small footbridge. It was a parting gesture from him to piss me off.
I was now soaking wet and struggling big time. I staggered on for a hundred yards to get out of the DS’s view, and then collapsed in a heap to sort myself out. I just needed to rest for a few minutes. I was beat.
The DS had been watching. He shouted and called me back.
‘Do you want to pull yourself off the course, mate?’ he asked.
He wasn’t being unpleasant; he was simply being straight. He knew, from looking at me, that I was in a mess.
‘No, Staff.’
I staggered to my feet, turned and staggered on.
‘Then go for it, and make up some time,’ he shouted after me.
A big part of me simply longed for someone else to make the decision. I half-hoped he would shout again, and just pull me off the course. But he didn’t. You fail yourself.
Yet something deep inside said: Keep going.
I knew that nothing good in life ever came from quitting; that there would be plenty of time for rest when the hard work was finished.