Free Warrior Brothers by Keith Fennell Page B

everything such hard work. I was nearing the end of my slop when my spoon caught on the side of the green bag and fell from my fingers. Everything happened in slow-motion. With eyes wide open I saw the spoon plummeting towards my rifle with the precision of a skydiver before making the loudest clunk I have ever heard.
    I slowly picked up the spoon before looking at my assessor, who was just shaking his head. His scowl clearly told me that if I did something like that again then I might as well pack my bags and head back to the Battalion. I didn’t enjoy the last part of my meal and, with my confidence blown to pieces, there was no way I was going to attempt to make a brew. I just sat in silence and hoped that someone else would fuck up – but no-one did.
    For these practical reasons, all the bits and pieces of the bush soldier’s life are selected with great care. Metal spoons are a no-no. Velcro, which might be great on a set of board shorts, has no place in an SAS bush patrol. Some men persisted with velcro seals for their map covers, but a piece of duct tape provides a far better seal and can be removed and reapplied numerous times in complete silence. Camelback water bladders are a great invention for the disciplined soldier, as they allow him to take a couple of sips of water without the noisy rigmarole of removing a water bottle from his pack. There is a downside, of course: because the fluid is so easy to access, you can easily drink far more than you otherwise would. Water is a scarce resource on a patrol, so not a drop can be wasted.
    Applying camouflage-cream was another prime example of the army’s tortuous routine. A soldier usually signals to a mate that he is going to reapply cam-cream by dragging his open fingers down the front of his face. The acknowledgement comes in the form of a single controlled nod or a wink, meaning that you’ll be covered while you do it. There is no excessive movement. You reach into your breast pocket to retrieve the little box of dark colours. With great care to prevent any clicking noise, you open the cover, keeping the lid over the top of your fingers as you insert them into the neapolitan contents below. Sadly there is no chocolate, strawberry or vanilla here – just brown, light-green and dark-green.
    You then apply the ‘hide-me cream’ in stripes, checking the coverage in the mirror, which you cradle in your hand to prevent any glare escaping. At regular intervals your eyes should shift to the foliage in front of you. No bare skin is left unattended – not the backs of your hands, the sides of your neck, inside your ears, even on your eyelids. The cream tastes like clay, but if they ever manage to make it a little more pleasant then you’d probably see some over-exuberant soldiers applying it to their teeth. Most men just content themselves with never smiling. When a soldier finally finishes, he lets the man who was helping to cover his arc of responsibility know that he can go back to his primary area ofconcern. In other words, he can go back to staring at the bush while dreaming about food or sex.
    I don’t really want to go into the process for taking a shit, but whether it is the first or fiftieth time, there is always something very personal about it. I do recall one particularly embarrassing moment during the early stages of the deployment, before our patrol had separated from the rest of the squadron. At the helipad, the toilet was a tent that housed a tree branch which sat over a large ditch. Unfortunately, this branch was able to accommodate two bums at once. One morning I was adopting the position when the unit doctor – a woman – strolled in. She made herself ready and planted her arse on the log beside mine. ‘What the …’ I was so taken aback that I thought I’d fall into the contents below. There was no way I was letting anything go with her sitting there.
    Apparently, however, I was alone in my