designed to hammer in very big tent pegs. In his defence, he didn’t actually hit Davies on the head with it. He just let the natural weight of the mallet fall with a thud that drew a collective ‘ oof ’ from the rest of us.
‘Awake now are we, Princess?’ asked the Unsmiling Assassin politely.
Davies, rather shell-shocked but awake, was speechless. Funnily enough, he didn’t fall asleep again, probably due to pain from the large haematoma that bulged from his bonce.
We practised sentry duty that night. As the youngest I was the least important, so I was detailed to the shittiest watch. Other than contracting Ebola, it was the last thing I wanted. In the summer, doing the 03.30-04.30 watch meant finishing just prior to being called for first light stand-to. Stand-to was a call for alertness; everyone had to lie in the harbour position, in a small circle of bivvies, for forty-five minutes before both first and last light, the logic being this was the most likely time for enemy attack. For a recruit, it was also the most likely time to get a kick up the arse from the training team should we not be positioned correctly. Once the light had sufficiently changed we would then be allowed to ‘stand down’, and rub the aforementioned kicked arse.
My first sentry duty was textbook: alert and awake, I scanned the trees and paths in my arcs of vision. Any timethere was even a hint of a rustle I’d shout, ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ to nothing more than the breeze. On my second sentry duty, I listened to my quick brief, laid down, got comfy and… zzzzzzzzzzz.
Luckily, there is an inner panic button we develop when asleep, a primordial survival instinct, and mine kicked in. Admittedly, it did take twenty minutes – thankfully, a short enough time not to get caught and thrashed to within an inch of my life.
I wasn’t the only one to succumb to the heat of the day and general lack of sleep. One favourite trick of the trainers was to wake us from our slumber, and force us into a game of ‘It Pays to Be a Winner’.
The rules were simple. On the command ‘Go!’ we would race over rough ground like demented maniacs to a distant object, usually a solitary tree at the top of an incline, and back to the starting point. It would have taken an Olympic athlete about a minute to complete the race, but the training team expected us all to return within half the time as a mark of ‘putting effort in’. The first lad to return would be the winner and exempt from the repeat race, with the winner of each rested from the subsequent races until only the last few remained.
It certainly didn’t pay to be a loser. The slower lads would run more than ten times the distance of the faster lads, and despite what the corporals said, it didn’t make them any faster. It was pretty obvious who the fastest lads were, and it would have been easy not to put in 100 per cent effort for the first few races as we knew it’d be a waste of energy trying to keep up with Hopkins and the like. However, the training team waswise to the trickery of those who ‘loafed’, and happily dished out press-ups or star-jumps as an alternative. This slowed down the recipients even further.
Up to now, we had only worn badly-shaped blue berets and field caps. Now we were running around with helmets that seemed to be designed by that benevolent old soul Torquemada. Imagine a WWI German helmet with the point sticking out from the top: our helmets had the point protruding downwards inside the helmet. This sharp point was the male fixing for securing to the female fixing of the inner cap that looked like a Tour de France cyclist’s helmet. Should the inner cap and the spike not fit properly then the spike would bounce into your skull as you ran, the stabbing pain magnified by the bounce of the elastic chinstrap. Too scared to disclose that my male and female fixings didn’t fit, I winced every time I went over broken ground or had to run, which was pretty much all
‘Awake now are we, Princess?’ asked the Unsmiling Assassin politely.
Davies, rather shell-shocked but awake, was speechless. Funnily enough, he didn’t fall asleep again, probably due to pain from the large haematoma that bulged from his bonce.
We practised sentry duty that night. As the youngest I was the least important, so I was detailed to the shittiest watch. Other than contracting Ebola, it was the last thing I wanted. In the summer, doing the 03.30-04.30 watch meant finishing just prior to being called for first light stand-to. Stand-to was a call for alertness; everyone had to lie in the harbour position, in a small circle of bivvies, for forty-five minutes before both first and last light, the logic being this was the most likely time for enemy attack. For a recruit, it was also the most likely time to get a kick up the arse from the training team should we not be positioned correctly. Once the light had sufficiently changed we would then be allowed to ‘stand down’, and rub the aforementioned kicked arse.
My first sentry duty was textbook: alert and awake, I scanned the trees and paths in my arcs of vision. Any timethere was even a hint of a rustle I’d shout, ‘Halt! Who goes there?’ to nothing more than the breeze. On my second sentry duty, I listened to my quick brief, laid down, got comfy and… zzzzzzzzzzz.
Luckily, there is an inner panic button we develop when asleep, a primordial survival instinct, and mine kicked in. Admittedly, it did take twenty minutes – thankfully, a short enough time not to get caught and thrashed to within an inch of my life.
I wasn’t the only one to succumb to the heat of the day and general lack of sleep. One favourite trick of the trainers was to wake us from our slumber, and force us into a game of ‘It Pays to Be a Winner’.
The rules were simple. On the command ‘Go!’ we would race over rough ground like demented maniacs to a distant object, usually a solitary tree at the top of an incline, and back to the starting point. It would have taken an Olympic athlete about a minute to complete the race, but the training team expected us all to return within half the time as a mark of ‘putting effort in’. The first lad to return would be the winner and exempt from the repeat race, with the winner of each rested from the subsequent races until only the last few remained.
It certainly didn’t pay to be a loser. The slower lads would run more than ten times the distance of the faster lads, and despite what the corporals said, it didn’t make them any faster. It was pretty obvious who the fastest lads were, and it would have been easy not to put in 100 per cent effort for the first few races as we knew it’d be a waste of energy trying to keep up with Hopkins and the like. However, the training team waswise to the trickery of those who ‘loafed’, and happily dished out press-ups or star-jumps as an alternative. This slowed down the recipients even further.
Up to now, we had only worn badly-shaped blue berets and field caps. Now we were running around with helmets that seemed to be designed by that benevolent old soul Torquemada. Imagine a WWI German helmet with the point sticking out from the top: our helmets had the point protruding downwards inside the helmet. This sharp point was the male fixing for securing to the female fixing of the inner cap that looked like a Tour de France cyclist’s helmet. Should the inner cap and the spike not fit properly then the spike would bounce into your skull as you ran, the stabbing pain magnified by the bounce of the elastic chinstrap. Too scared to disclose that my male and female fixings didn’t fit, I winced every time I went over broken ground or had to run, which was pretty much all
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