"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

ground and tracks are where every Tom, Dick, and Harry move and where
ambushes are laid.
We navigated across country, using a technique called cross graining.
Up and down, up and down, not keeping to the high ground.
It took us much longer to travel a small distance, but tactically it
was better: We weren't getting ambushed; we weren't leaving sign; we weren't
going to bump into any opposition.
The DS said, "You never cut wood; you move it out of the way, patrol
through, and move it back. If somebody's tracking you, he's looking for two
types of ground sign-footprints and top sign. If you see cobwebs, you don't
touch them; you go around them. If a tracker isn't getting cobwebs over his
face, it's another good indication that somebody has walked past."
People were getting severly on one another's tits now, especially
during the navigation phases. The navigation was not just a matter of taking
a bearing and off you go.
We had to confirm regularly where we actually were; we could not see
any lower or higher ground at any distance because of the vegetation and
canopy. It was pointless going down from a high feature if we'd gone down
the wrong spur. That would mean that we'd have to come all the way back up
again and start again. So we had to stop, sit down, work out where we
were-where we thought we were-and then send out recce patrols. Two blokes
would go out and confirm that at the bottom of this spur there was, for
example, a river that ran left to rig ' lit. If that was happening a couple
of times an hour, people were getting hot, pissed off, knackered, and
frustrated. It started to grate. I calmed myself by thinking: Take it slowly
and send out your navigation patrols; you'll do it; there's no problem.
The physical exertion of being on the range or patrolling on two or
three-day exercises was very debilitating.
Then we had written tests or had to plan and prepare for a scenario. We
were under constant pressure. There was never enough time. The DS would
always be behind us saying, "We've got five more minutes. Let's get this
done."
At the debriefings they would dish out fearsome criticism. "You fucked
up! You didn't see the target! Why didn't you look right? As lead scout,
that's your job."
I was on my chinstrap one day. We'd probably covered twice the distance
we should have done because of the amount of recces we were doing, going up
and down; we were all over the fucking place.
It was my turn to map-read, and as I started to go down from what I
thought was the highest ground, to the right of me I saw higher ground. That
was wrong; I'd cocked up. We stopped; Raymond and Mal were the next two to
go on a recce patrol, and I could see in their eyes that they were not
impressed. I said, "At the bottom of this spur there should be water running
left to right. If not, I've severely fucked up."
They were gone for about an hour and a half. When we got back that
night, I said, "Fuck, that was a long recce you guys did."
Raymond said, "Yeah, well, we just got to the bottom, had a drink, and
sat in the river for half an hour to cool down and get all the shit off."
I was hot and sweaty all the time, stinking and out of breath. As I
'sweated, the mozzie rep I'd put on my face would run into my eyes and sting