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

severely. It didn't seem to matter what amount of mozzie rep I put on, I
still got bitten. And I was covered in painful webbing sores. And all the
time, the DS were watching. They seemed so calm and casual about it; there
seemed to be nothing embuggering them.
Nothing seemed to fuss them, and we were standing there like a bunch of
rain-drenched refugees.
We would be soaking wet, all bogged down, and we'd have to go on ye .
it another navigation patrol.
I asked myself, "How do you survive here? How do you get comfy?"
The only enjoyable experience about the place was sitting and having a
communal brew and scoff at the end of the day-if it wasn't raining.
Then I loved getting into my A-frame, revising by candlelight and
listening to the rain on the poncho.
I was really missing Debbie. I felt vulnerable in the jungle; there was
no one to vent out to my personal -anxieties and fears of failing, and I
wanted to feel attached to something beyond my immediate environment. I
wrote to her regularly, trying to tell herv'what was happening. "I really
hope I pass, because it will be great. We'll get to Hereford, we'll be able
to afford a house, and everything will be fine."
I found the jungle harder than Test Week-much harder. All we had to do
in Selection was switch off and get over those hills. Here it was just as
physical, but we had the mental pressure as well, of learning, of having to
perform and take in all this information.
We were tested to the extremes, mentally as well as physically.
They took us right up to the edge, and then they brought us back.
Then they took us up there again.
' We got better and better, but always at the back of my mind was the
thought that the DS were looking at everything-not just tactical skills or
practical skills but my personality, whether I would blend in with a closed
environment like ungle, whether I'd blend in within the squadron. I could
see it in their eyes; I could see their minds ticking over. Does he take
criticism well? Does he want to learn, does he ask relevant questions or
does he ask questions just for the sake of asking questions, to look good?
The jungle, Peter, the chief instructor, said, was absolutely full of
food-from beetles and spiders down to the bark on a tree.
"If you've got something' but you're not too sure whether you can eat
it, you rub it on your skin and see if there is a reaction. Then you wait,
and a couple of hours later rub it on your lips and see if there's a
reaction, then on the tip of your tongue, then around your gums. Then you
just taste a little bit, then eat a little bit, and ' if there's no
reaction, you take the chance and eat it."
We were sitting by the Than huts down near the river, quite a pleasant,
flat area. The helipad was on the spur on the other side of the stream, and
I could see shafts of sunlight streaming down.
Fish under four inches long didn't have to be gutted, the instructor
said; you just cooked them. There was a plant called the jungle cabbage that
was like a small tree.
You split the bark, and inside was a pulp that was absolutely
beautiful. It tasted like a soft cabbage. You could also make tea with the
bark.