Mud Sweat & Tears - Bear Grylls [60]
By the morning of the next day I noticed a few less trucks. I had heard that quite a lot of recruits had already been binned. They had either got lost, been beaten by the weight of their pack or failed to make the time.
It was hard to keep track of, but the noticeboard listed the recruits left on the course each evening, and so far my name was still on there.
I wanted to stay the grey man, no dramas, no fuss.
Just do the job, keep within the time and stay on the list.
CHAPTER 54
Our slowly diminishing group of recruits clambered once more into the back of the big metal lorries, heading yet again to the moon-grass hellhole.
That day we would be covering a lot of the same area that I had been in when I had failed six months earlier. It was time to put those demons to bed.
I was careful not to make the same mistakes: I nibbled on the snacks that I had stuffed in my pocket from breakfast and I drank regularly to keep hydrated.
But just when I was gaining confidence that I had this one under control, I made a careless mistake.
I dropped off the high ground too early, and soon found myself floundering again in the worst of the boggy marsh. Burning up valuable energy and precious time. I could feel my tired limbs leaking energy, and the weight of the pack was pushing my sinking legs further and further into the boggy ground with each step.
To make matters worse, I could see distant figures on the skyline above steaming past me.
I was soon so exhausted that I just had to stop and rest. Just for a minute, to get the weight off my shoulders. I needed to take stock. I downed all the nibbles I could find in my pockets. Rationing was now out. I needed energy.
I reassessed the map and my timing. I had to come up with a plan to get myself out of this mess, and fast.
I turned 90 degrees and started to climb back up on to the high ground that I had just come off. This was way off-route, I should be heading down, but I just knew that the high ground would be better than fighting a losing battle in the bog. I had done that before – and lost.
The wind was blowing hard now, down from the plateau, as if trying to deter me. I put my head down, ignored the shoulder straps that pulled and heaved against my lower neck muscles, and went for it. I had to take control.
I was refusing to fail Selection again in this godforsaken armpit of a place.
Once on the ridge, I started to run. And running anywhere in that moon-grass, with the weight of a small person on your back, was a task. But I was on fire. I kept running. And I kept clawing back the time and miles.
I ran all the way into the last checkpoint and then collapsed. The DS looked at me strangely and chuckled to himself.
‘Good effort,’ he commented, having watched me cover the last mile or so of rough ground. I had made it within time.
Demons dead. Adrenalin firing.
There were only three more marches to complete on Test Week. But they were monster ones.
The first march was back in the Brecon Beacons. It was some twenty miles long, between the three highest summits – but with three RVs cruelly placed all the way back down at the floor of each valley.
The weight of our packs had also been increased substantially. I had had to take a second look at the noticeboard the night before just to confirm it.
Each morning, as we waited in line to start the march, it was a struggle just to heave the weight of the pack on to my back. Often the easiest way was to squat on the ground, slip your arms into the shoulder straps and then get a buddy to haul you up to your feet.
Once up, you had to stay up.
The weight of the pack was always worse at the start and end of each march, and the first couple of hours invariably felt the most painful.
Any blisters on your shoulder blades would weep painfully, as the weight of the pack went back on. Then somehow your mind would shut out the pain, for a while. Until, by the end of the march, your shoulders would start to wilt and cramp up as if they were on fire.
The bloodied, taped-up, and blistered lower backs and shoulders of so many of