"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автораgot my head down under the mozzie net and listened to the jungle conducting
its life around me: crickets, beetles and other insects clicking and buzzing, unknown things scratching around in the undergrowth. It started to rain, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world to be snug under my basha, listening to the water splash onto the roof. I didn't sleep too well, tossing and turning, thinking about everything that lay ahead. "Let's just get the month over and done with," I said to myself, "and hope that you pass." At times I looked over and I could see that everybody was having the same problem. In the darkness around Mal's pole bed I saw the glow of a cigarette end as he inhaled. I slowly started to drift off. All of a sudden Tom leaped up. "We're late! We're late! It's half six! Stand to!" Bodies tumbled from pole beds into the mud as we scrabbled for our kit. I pulled on my wet clothes, keeping an eye out for the DS. If they came around now and caught us still in our beds, we'd be in severe shit. It would be seen as incredibly bad self-discipline. Mal was trying to put his boots on while standing up and fell over. I heard a soft fizz as his fag hit the mud. Tom was still ranting loudly when Raymond said, "Stop, stop, stop. It's fucking midnight, you dickhead. It's not half six." Tom had woken up in the middle of the night, looked at his watch, and misread the hands. He wasn't exactly flavor of the month as we sorted ourselves out again and got back into our beds. "First thing in the morning," the DS said, "slap loads of mozzie rep all over your clothes, face, and arms. As you will soon find out, it's so strong it melts plastic." He passed around his compass. He'd been there three weeks, and it had started to lose all its lettering and the roamers that measured the grid references. Mozzie rep melted through plastic, and there was us slopping it on our skin. As soon as we'd done that, we had to take our Paludrin antimalarial drug. We learned more or less straightaway how to blow landing sites and winch holes because we might have to do it. If somebody broke his leg, we'd have to stabilize him, cut a winch hole, and wait for the helicopter. "When blowing an LS for a long-term base, you can put direction on the way the tree falls," the DS said. "The higher the ground the better, because as the taller ones fall, they'll take the smaller ones with them. The explosive pack is called packet echo; ask for it, and a big wad of chain saws and explosives and augers will be dropped, enough to blow a site." We went out one day with explosives to practice blowing trees. Tom was flapping as we studied the massive buttress tree we'd just packed with PE4. "Do you reckon that's enough? I don't. I think we need more." "I quite agree," I said. "P for Plenty." We wadded another pound or two of explosive into the holes. In theory |
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