"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автораCrickhowell, the training depot for the Prince of Wales Division.
Early each morning I put the bergen in the back of the motor and screamed up to the Black Mountains. I had a rusty old black Renault 5. One of the wings was falling off and had to be kept on with a rubber bungee. Some mornings it lacked the power even to get up the hill to my start point. When the roads were icy, I ended up more than once in a hedge. I'd train hard all day up on the hills, then drive back down to Crickhowell, have -my two pints of Guiness and a bag of chips, drink huge amounts of electrolytes, and strap myself up for the next day. On Christmas Day I treated myself to a few hours off, staying where I was and watching all the old number ones on Top of the Pops. I had Christmas dinner at one of the pubs and gave Debbie a call. There was no reply. Next day I did the Fan Dance. As I tabbed hard.up Pen-y-Fan with this big house on my back, sweating away, four or five blokes came sprinting past with track suits and day sacks on. As they went piling past the bag of shit-me-they said, "Trying for January, are you? Good luck." I was expecting the winter Selection to be more severe than the summer one. Cold can be so debilitating; it would be tougher to wade through snow than move over the ground, and poor visibility would make the navigation a lot harder. People died on winter Selection. Even senior officers in the Regiment had perished on the hills. I'd heard that a major set off once with a bergen full of bricks rather than warm clothing. The weather came down, and he failed to return. couldn't get down themselves because the weather was so bad. They had to get the biwi bags out, and they used the frozen rupert as a windbreak. When the weather cleared, they laid him on his back, piled their bergens on top, and sledged him down the hill. I arrived back at Stirling Lines in mid-January. I sensed that people were more apprehensive than the summer intake had been. I knew I was. As it turned out, the weather was a great leveler. In thick mist or driving snow, everybody had to rely on his navigation. The elements slowed us all down equally; it was just a question of cracking on with the bearings, having confidence in the map and compass. Every day I felt better, and my confidence grew. Snow fell heavily for much of the second and third weeks. We were given a six-figure grid that was accurate to within a hundred meters, which is a big area when all you're looking for is a biwi bag in a snowdrift. Visibility was down to twenty meters one day. I got to the vicinity of my next checkpoint and was running around for valuable minutes trying to find a hint of green Gore-Tex. Eventually I found it, tapped on the bag, and the zip came down. I was a sweaty, dirty mess, starting to shiver because I'd stopped moving. Even in the very cold weather I wore just a pair of trousers, boots, and a T-shirt with a waterproof over the top. I was hit by the waft of coffee fumes and a cloud of steam from the boy in his sleeping bag. He was probably blowing the vents because he was so hot. I wanted to be out of there as quickly as possible, number one because |
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