Free Bravo two zero by Andy McNab Page B

major drama, or by field telephone, a small handset attached to a piece of two flex D10 wire running along to the next position. In case we decided to go ahead with the landline, we practiced running the D10 out and how we were actually going to speak.
        Legs went off and came back with a pair of electronic field telephones that even he wasn't familiar with. They had been running from one office to another between Portakabins before he nicked them. We sat with them like children with a new Fisher-Price toy, pressing this, pushing that. "What's this do then? What if I push this?"
        The priority when filling a bergen is "equipment to task"-in our case, ordnance and equipment that could help us to place or deliver that ordnance. Next came the essentials to enable you to survive-water and food, trauma-management equipment, and, for this op, NBC protection.
        The equipment in our berg ens was what we would need on the ground to operate. However, radio batteries run down and, along with many other things, would have to be replaced during our two weeks of being self-sufficient. Therefore more equipment had to be taken along and cached, simply to resupply the berg ens This was what was in the jerricans and two sandbags, one containing more NEC kit, the other more food plus any batteries and odds and sods.
        It added up to an awesome weight of kit. Vince was in charge of distribution. Different types of equipment have to be evenly placed in the patrol. If all the explosives were placed in one bergen and that was lost, for whatever reason, we would then lose our attack capability using explosives. In the Falklands, the task force's entire supply of Mars bars was sent on one ship, and everybody was flapping in case it sank. They should have got Vince to organize it. Besides the tactical considerations behind equal distribution, people want and expect equal loads, whether they're 5'2" or 6'3". We have a scale that weighs up to 200 Lb, and it showed that we were carrying 154 Lb per man in our berg ens and belt kit. On top of that we had a 5gallon jerrican of water each-another 40 Lb. We carried our NEC kit and cache rations, which weighed yet another 15 Lb, in two sandbags that had been tied together to form saddlebags that could go around our necks or over our shoulders.
        The total weight per man was therefore 209 Lb, the weight of a 15-stone man. Everybody packed their equipment the way they wanted. There's no set way of doing this, as long as you've got it and can use it. The only "must" was the patrol radio, which always goes on top of the signaler's bergen so that it can be retrieved by anybody in a contact.
        Belt kit consists of ammunition and basic survival requisites-water, food, and trauma-care equipment, plus personal goodies. For this op we would also take TACBEs in our belt kit, plus cam netting to provide cover if we couldn't find any natural, and digging tools to unearth the cables if necessary. Your belt kit should never come off you, but if it does it must never be more than an arm's length away. At night you must always have physical contact with it. If it's off, you sleep on top of it. The same goes for your weapon.
        The best method of moving the equipment proved to be a shuttle service in two groups of four, with four giving the protection, four doing the humping, and then changing around. It was hard work, and I didn't look forward to the 12 mile tab that first night-or maybe two-from the heli drop-off to the MSR. We certainly wouldn't practice carrying it now: that would be a bit like practicing being wet, cold, and hungry, which wouldn't achieve anything.
        We did practice getting off the aircraft, and the actions we would carry out if there was a compromise as it was happening or the heli was leaving.
        Everything now was task-oriented. If you weren't physically doing something to prepare for it, you were thinking about it. As we "walked through,