The Man in the White Suit_ The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me - Ben Collins [55]
Photographic Insert
Back at barracks news broke that the final lengthy march of the week was being brought forward, reducing our recovery time from the previous run. A little extra test of character was needed to thin out the recruits to a more manageable number.
Where previous ‘walks’ had taken five or six hours, the final march took over eighteen. And we carried nearly 80 pounds, all in. Heavier, harder, longer.
Everyone was mentally and physically shattered. Just walking to the shower block made your thighs burn.
As darkness fell, the orange street lighting crept through Seventies curtains into the partly vacated dormitory. I lay on top of my sleeping bag pretending to sleep, but running a checklist of all my equipment, worrying about spare shoelaces, food and the little I remembered of the route. A blue flash signalled a text message from a mate in London. ‘Happy birthday big boy.’ I’d forgotten about that. I was twenty-nine.
Zinc oxide tape was all that was holding the welts across my back together, so I left it on and strapped a new batch around my ankles and feet. We formed up to receive our final marching brief in an atmosphere of apprehension. People stumbled around using head torches and small pocket lights to seat themselves on their bergens in front of the four-tonners.
The DS opened proceedings with a total ban on head torches and walking in pairs or groups. ‘If we catch any of you walking hand in hand like Mary fucking Poppins, you’re binned.’
There was limited gossip en route to the start point except for Cart-man, who was buzzing on a powerful cocktail of brufen, codeine and cough medicine. There was no stopping him now.
We arrived in the dark and scaled our equipment. I knelt by the headlights of the four-tonner, pounded some painkillers and tightened my shoelaces for the big off, with the barrel of my weapon on my foot and the butt on the ground.
‘Whose fucking gat is that on the floor? Who is that with their fucking weapon on the floor?!’
My heart sank. It was no time to argue the toss. ‘Collins, sir.’
‘Go and get a Fucking Big Rock and bring it here.’
I grabbed an FBR, had it authenticated with a number so that it could be checked at any one of the checkpoints along the entire march, and added this vital piece of equipment to my bergen.
Within minutes of starting I was scaling a slippery, muddy slope in total darkness. I drank all my water within the first half-hour. I had nothing left – pathetic. The enormity of the task suddenly overwhelmed me. It seemed I had found my breaking point. I stopped.
Breathe. I imagined hearing Cartman and Flash talking rubbish, singing the stupid chart-topping milkshake song, telling me to get the fuck up. I made out a tiny patch of light on my immediate horizon: the peak of the first hill. I broke the crest and felt a little better.
The first checkpoint lay at the bottom of a small valley next to a reservoir. It was littered with guys sitting on their bergens. I realised the group had jacked it in.
Next came a goat track that snaked its way up and around two giant mountains. There was plenty of tripping over loose stones in the blackness of the night, but at least each trip was a step in the right direction. At the highest point the track was bordered by a sheer drop. A few guys ahead pinged on their head torches to speed their progress and I followed suit.
After a few minutes I looked behind me. For over a kilometre, sixty or so head torches bobbed the length of the path. It was a magnificent sight, like the fiery beacons along Hadrian’s Wall.
The guilty pleasure of the head torch was short-lived. On the way back down the hill I made up some good time by running, but the further down the mountain we went, the more open the ground became. It felt exposed.
I cashed in my chips, switched off my light and slowed