An Officer and a Gentlewoman (29 page)

It was miserable.

Wet, cold, frozen-solid misery. Ten unadulterated days of it. Ten days of eating rations and sleeping at the bottom of a muddy hole. No showers, no running water. No chance of warmth or thawing out. With exercise Broadsword, I thought we had turned a corner and left all that behind us. I thought that we had now grown up and graduated on to the important stuff, but as we received orders for the final exercise I was proved wrong. We were back at square one. Back in the Hundred Acre Wood, sleeping in waterlogged shell-scrapes, shivering in ambush hides and firing at waving Gurkhas all over again. It was as though Sandhurst was fondly
musing over all the bad experiences from the last eleven months and rolling them up into one final hurrah, sending us out into the wider army on a climax of most-hated moments. The only thing missing was my gas mask.

My heart sank as we turned off the main A36 trunk road into Knook Camp. Peering through the rain-splashed window, I stared at the rows of neglected Nissen huts, their sorry state setting the tone for the exercise; they were sad and dejected, with curls of peeling paint, rusted metal window frames and drab prefabricated grey roofs. Still sitting in the warmth and comfort of the coach, I could tell that no fun was going to be had from this point forth. And I was right. Inside the mesh fence that surrounded the camp there was an absence of life. Not a flicker or sound. The mood hung, depressed and gloomy. As the coaches drew to a halt on an empty parade square a stray Coke can scuttled past, clattering its way in the gusting winds, bouncing off the potholes and cracks in the concrete. Stepping off the coach, I fought off sombre thoughts. I looked at the palette of grey around me as I gathered my bergen and webbing. Here the grey earth met with a grey sky, broken only by the grey roofs and my grey mood.

The exercise began with the worst thing I did during my entire time at the Academy. Number one of my top five horrendous moments. The whole ordeal lasted for four hours and eight miles, bringing tears to my eyes and nearly breaking me.

From our arrival point at Knook Camp, we walked through the night to Imber, a ghostly village in the centre of Salisbury Plain where we would be spending our first few days. Imber village was forcibly requisitioned by the War Office in 1943, evicting the villagers and leaving the buildings now spookily empty. It is a dead town. On the main street, the church and Bell Inn pub lie dormant. Cottages, a schoolroom and Imber Court manor house all sit vacated, their doors unlocked, opening into empty brick shells. As we arrived in the eerie darkness of early morning, mist hung hauntingly over the graveyard and a chill ran down my spine.

The walk there from Knook Camp was tactical, routing the whole of Imjin Company across country fields and track. Light rain was falling. We departed Knook at midnight, starting up the steep path that exited at the rear of the camp, loaded heavy with packed kit for the ten days ahead. Like pit ponies we carried everything, our bergens bulging with rations, ammunition, clothing, water, equipment, spades, a sleeping bag and the radio. With rifle and webbing, I carried over sixty kilograms that night, for eight miles across country. Four hours carrying more than my own body weight. It was crippling. I shudder still when I think of that long slow torturous march. The agony. It is a miracle that I made it to the end. Most didn’t. Only nine girls in Eleven Platoon completed the entire march with their bergens like this.

I stumbled close to tears for the duration of the journey. The pain in my back was excruciating, stabbing along my spine with each laboured step. Each time we stopped for the leading person to check their map at the front, I would carefully lower myself to the ground. I lay in the grass beside a fence post or tree stump, which I would then have to rely on as a crutch to pull myself back to my feet once more as we continued on, because with sixty kilos on my back I couldn’t stand up unaided. Vertebrae were crushed and discs slipped on that march. But it was realistic. This is how the Parachute Regiment got from Goose Green to Port Stanley in the Falklands conflict. Chasing the Argentinians for fifty miles over mountains with all their kit. But Parachute Regiment soldiers were not eightstone girls.

I would sooner leave the army than anyone require me to make that walk from Knook to Imber again.

Once in Imber village, life didn’t improve either.

Moving into one of the deserted houses, I made my home on the ground floor, in what had once been someone’s kitchen. Slumping my bergen in a dank corner, happy to never lift it ever again, I wandered through the courtyard outside to the row of blue Portaloos. There were five of them lined up beside a wooden fence,
a succession of blue Tardises standing in the countryside. Walking towards them I wished they were capable of time travel. I came to the first one and pulled at the black plastic door handle on the front, but it was locked. Moving along I tried the next one, but that too was firmly shut. Strange. Peering at it with my head-torch I could see that the occupancy window was green; it shouldn’t be locked. Maybe we weren’t supposed to use them. I carried on and tried the next in line. That too wouldn’t open despite showing it was vacant. I tugged at the door handle again, a little harder and this time the door broke free with a cracking sound, and then I realized why none of the doors would open – they were frozen shut.

Lit by the light of the moon I stood there outside the row of Portaloos close to tears. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, trying not to scream with frustration.

What on earth was I doing here?

It was four o’clock in the morning; I was exhausted and famished. My back was in tatters, my feet were bloodied, I was cold and empty, and ten days of this misery lay ahead of me. Right now the rest of Wiltshire were tucked up in bed yet I was going on sentry. Why was I doing this? After eleven months I was still in Eeyore’s gloomy place, which was still rather boggy and sad. Sandhurst hadn’t improved. I’d made friends, I’d learned the rules, I’d even found my future army home, but I was still cold, tired, wet and hungry. I would still be shivering in my sleep tonight, still digging and crawling for the next ten days. And I couldn’t even get into the toilet. I collected my thoughts and sighed. I couldn’t stand a career’s lifetime of this and so far every time I thought the hardship was over it came back with a vengeance.

In the field behind the Portaloos I spotted a cow, watching me. Standing still at the field’s edge, her eyes fixed on my misfortune. The scene had all the surrealism of a Dali painting, an incongruous gathering of a cow, a soldier and a Tardis at the edge of a field. I looked at the cow, watching her big dark eyes fixing on me, taking
me in, and then I realized that it was me who was the silly cow here.

The frozen theme continued too as a few days later I was out patrolling along a ridgeline to the north of Imber village. Looking across Salisbury Plain to the north, I could see the city lights of Swindon sparkling in the night sky, its bars and clubs in full throng. It was a Saturday night and on the travelling wind I was sure I could hear the voices of drunken revellers spilling out of pubs, warmed by the festive spirit of Christmas work parties. I envied them. It was the weekend. A free time in the week that they probably took for granted. As I walked I could hear an odd rattling sound coming from my webbing. We weren’t meant to make any noise as we patrolled as it might alert the enemy, and right from the start we had been taught how to pack our webbing and kit to ensure nothing rattled or shook. I couldn’t work out what the rattling noise was. In my mind I was running through everything that was in there, I had packed it all as I should have, but with each step, there it was, an unwanted chinking sound. Eventually we stopped at a copse to check the map and drink some water. I reached into my webbing pouch and took out the black plastic water bottle that had accompanied me through so much of the last eleven months. Unscrewing the cap I put the bottle’s rim to my lips and tilted my head backwards, but nothing came out. I shook the bottle in my hand and heard the now familiar rattle. And then I realized that even the water inside my water bottle had frozen solid, leaving me with a block of ice that was now rattling inside the bottle and nothing to drink.

Could this get any worse?

As it happened, yes it could.

I returned from the foot patrol with One Section and entered the once-kitchen of our occupied home. Living in Imber village, we were becoming quite spooked at night by CSM Mockridge’s haunting stories about ghosts and headless horsemen among the
gravestones in the abandoned churchyard outside. Now back from the patrol I had no idea what time of day it was. We were operating at all times of night and day, snatching sleep when we could, and the hours and days had begun to roll into each other. I stripped off my body armour and helmet, dropped my webbing to the floor and propped my rifle against it. I dug into one of the webbing pouches and pulled out a mess tin and stove. In my breast pocket I found a lighter and began to light a hexamine fire to heat up my boil-in-the-bag dinner. As I waited for the water to boil I decided to take my rifle apart and clean it.

Although strictly not allowed, we all used baby-wipes to clean our rifles and ourselves when on exercise. So I reached into my bergen and pulled out a packet of baby-wipes. I opened the plastic lid with a click, and realized that even my baby-wipes had frozen solid in Salisbury Plain’s plummeting temperatures. Reverting to the fail-safe official army-issue weapon-cleaning kit, I cleaned my rifle with wire brushes as my dinner heated up. After a while I fished the foil bag out of the boiling water and placed it against my thighs, letting it warm them up and steam the moisture from my damp clothing. I tore the top off the foil bag and spooned mouthfuls of hot casserole into my mouth as I put the rifle back together: gas plug, cylinder, piston, the block, cocking handle, return spring, weapon housing and then I returned the magazine back into its slot. I pulled back the working parts and started to oil the inside, dabbing with a sponge swab inside the stock and entrance to the barrel. I felt the satisfying warmth as the hot food reached my stomach, taking away my hunger.

Things felt as though they were starting to improve on Final Ex. The extreme insertion march was becoming just a distant memory, the Portaloo doors had defrosted, I was settling into the patrol routine and was about to snatch a few hours’ rest. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. I sat on the floor with my rifle rested against my legs, and smiled contentedly for the first time in days. I
finished oiling my rifle and released the working parts forwards, closed the dust cover and then pulled the trigger to fire off the action.

And that is when it happened. A loud unwanted BANG, which resonated around the bare brick room. It was like farting in bed with a new lover. Everyone heard it and it was completely unwelcome. I was struck by abject horror and shame. My heart leapt into my throat, and I sat rigid. Everyone in the room froze too, looking up, their eyes fixed on me. It was as if the world around me had suddenly stopped dead.

In pulling the rifle trigger, I had accidentally fired off a blank round, a ‘negligent discharge’ (ND) as it is known. I had thought the rifle chamber was empty, but my drills had been wrong, I had refitted the magazine and had now committed one of the most serious offences in the army. I was mortified. I couldn’t believe it had just happened. For what felt like eternity I just sat and stared at the rifle in my lap, going over each of my actions in my mind. How had that happened?

Merv came through from the adjoining room with a look of concern on her face. ‘Don’t tell me that was what I think it was,’ she said as she walked through the doorway.

‘Yes it was,’ Wheeler confirmed. ‘Héloïse has just ND’d.’

‘Oh shit. Are you all right?’ Merv asked, knowing the grave consequences of what I had just done.

‘Yes. Yes I’m fine,’ I said, getting to my feet with the rifle still in my hands. ‘I’d better go and tell someone.’ I had to report it.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ Merv offered, looking at the downcast droop of my shoulders.

So with Merv accompanying me, I went to the command post to confess, sending a message over the radio to tell the Academy staff, none of whom were present, what I had done.

NDs are a big deal in the army. With a live round or anything bigger, it could have had unimaginable consequences. Since I was still in training my fine would be lenient, but if this had happened
at war, in Iraq or Afghanistan I would have lost my entire operational bonus (currently around £5,000 for a six-month tour) and with it my reputation. I was the fourth girl in Eleven Platoon to ND during our year at Sandhurst, and one of eight cadets in CC071 to do so during the final exercise. As I stood in front of the New College Commander back at Sandhurst along with the other seven, and graciously accepted my £200 fine, I thought back to those initial skill-at-arms lessons in weeks one to five. I thought about how tired I was when I was being taught such important skills. I remembered my head lolling with fatigue, as I hopelessly fought to keep my eyes open and mind focused in the warmth and comfort of the classroom, zoning out as sleep deprivation won over. And I thought how tired I had been on that day in Imber village on the final exercise when I pulled the trigger. Tiredness was not an excuse, but complacency was the cause.

It was the most important lesson I learned during my time at the Academy.

The final exercise dragged on for ten frozen solid days before eventually culminating with an assault on Cope Hill Down village in the centre of Salisbury Plain by the entire CC071 intake. Two hundred and forty cadets stormed the houses, diving through windows and kicking down doors, in an incredible full-scale military operation. But by now I just wanted it to end. I was only thinking about the shower at the finishing line, and a decent cooked breakfast, about pulling on fresh clean clothes and finally relaxing with a chilled glass of champagne. The armoured Warrior vehicles we rode in and the Apache helicopters that came and hovered over our heads for the final crescendo went completely unappreciated, as all we wanted to do now was fire our last rounds and hear the magic words: ‘END EX.’