Natural Selection (A Free Spider Shepherd Short Story) Read online

ignoring the others. He walked on, found a space away from everyone else and, without cutting any foliage, put up a very spartan basha: a waterproof sheet and a hammock. Ignoring everyone, he then spent the remaining hours of daylight studying his maps. He was alone, self contained and apparently completely at home in the jungle environment.

  As night was falling, Shepherd went across to Lofty’s basha. ‘Who is that guy?’ he said., gesturing towards the new arrival.

  Lofty smiled. ‘His nickname’s Pilgrim.’

  ‘Pilgrim? That doesn’t sound like a typical regimental nickname.’

  ‘It isn’t. It’s more of a mark of respect. The very last thing you’ll have to do before you complete the final stage of Selection is to memorise part of a James Elroy Flecker poem called “The Golden Journey to Samarkand”. It’s our creed, if you like:

  “But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes,

  You dirty bearded, blocking up the way?”

  “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go

  Always a little further: it may be

  Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow,

  Across that angry or that glimmering sea.”

  ‘There’s more of it, but you get the drift: we are the Pilgrims. There are only two ways to get the experience you need in the Regiment: one is to serve long enough to do everything, and the other is to learn at the feet of a master. Most of the highly skilled guys in the Regiment learned their tradecraft from a senior mentor.’

  ‘Got you,’ Shepherd said. ‘So Pilgrim’s a mentor - one of the “old and bold” - but what’s he doing here?’

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow,’ Lofty said. ‘Meanwhile get some shut-eye, you’ll need it.’

  The following morning, as Shepherd, Liam, Geordie and Jimbo were sorting their kit, ready to join the others on the march back to the road-head for the transport back to base, Pilgrim walked over to them. He didn’t introduce himself, just said, ‘You four are not going back with the others. You’ve been picked out for further testing, so I’m going to take you on a patrol to evaluate you and see how good you actually are.’

  Shepherd looked across at Liam and couldn’t help but smile. This was the sort of training that he wanted.

  ‘The criteria I will be applying is whether you’re good enough to be accepted into a Sabre Squadron Troop or a patrol led by me on active service,’ Pilgrim continued. ‘You won’t find it a picnic; one of the things that makes the SAS unique is that the physical and mental effort required of you is greater in an operational squadron than in any and all of the various tests you have undergone during Selection.’

  He paused, holding the gaze of each of them in turn. ‘You’ve been issued with maps of this area. I suggest you devote some time to studying them. When we first came here, the only maps of Belize dated from before the Second World War and we had to update them as we went along. The bedrock’s limestone, so the topography is always changing. There was one big river marked on the old map that had gone underground years before. The jungle had reclaimed the riverbed and we spent days searching for a river that no longer existed. You won’t have that problem to deal with but, as you’ll already have noticed, you can’t use the sun, the stars or the topography to navigate in the jungle, because you can’t see any of them, so you have to be able to navigate with map and compass alone.’

  A mosquito landed on his neck and he smacked his hand against it as he continued.

  ‘In the jungle noise and smell are always more of a giveaway than movement. Even the absence of noise can be significant; if the constant background noise of bird and animal calls is interrupted, it can only indicate that something’s alarmed the wildlife. You can hear much further than you can see, so to survive, you spend much of your time just listening. Animals do not break twigs; if you hear a twig breaking it has been done by a human. You also use your sense of smell because anything from the smell of food to a whiff of sweat or aftershave can be enough either to give you away, or enable you to detect an enemy. You’ve probably already been told that we never drink coffee in the jungle because the smell of coffee travels a long way. Your eyes are pretty much your least valuable sense in the jungle because most of the time you can’t see more than a few yards in front of you.’

  As Pilgrim paused, Shepherd glanced at his companions. They were all hanging on the veteran SAS man’s every word. ‘And no matter how good your eyesight,‘ Pilgrim said, ‘you can’t travel after dark in the jungle, so there’s a lot of downtime which you can use in one of two ways. You can either piss the time away reading James Bond or Harold Robbins, or you can take a course of study. In my experience, the easiest and best time to learn a language is when you’ve got nothing else to do in the jungle at night. Most languages have a core vocabulary of about six hundred words. If you learn twenty a night, then in a month you’ll know enough words to speak a pidgin version of the language, and if you can conjugate a few verbs you’ll be able to have an educated conversation.’ He shrugged. ‘Just a suggestion. What you do with your down time is your own business.’

  ‘I was thinking of learning the piano,’ joked Jimbo, but Pilgrim silenced him with a dark look.

  ‘Right,’ he continued, ‘let’s talk about uniform. The Army-issue camouflage uniform you’re wearing is useless in the jungle because of the high humidity. It’s much better to use an older jungle green uniform which dries out much quicker.’ He tugged at his sleeve and rubbed the material with his fingers. ‘Get one. You’ll really notice the difference. Now rations: to survive when patrolling in the jungle you must eat at least seven thousand calories a day but it’s almost impossible to carry that amount of rations on a long patrol, so we rely mainly on lots of sugar, sweets, dark chocolate, biscuits, nuts and raisins. The good news for those of you carrying an extra pound or two,’ he gave Jimbo a meaningful look, ‘is that you’ll be coming back from patrol a lot lighter than when you set out.

  Shepherd grinned – Jimbo was carrying a few extra pounds around the waist.

  ‘You carry your weapon at all times, you don’t have it slung over your shoulder, because it’s always got to be ready for use,’ continued Pilgrim. There are no long-range views, no early warnings in the jungle. The lead scout has a split second to respond to danger. Any slower than that and we’ll be looking for a new lead scout.’

  He took out a tube of insect repellent and rubbed some on his neck. ‘Watch out for the mosquitoes,’ he said. ‘If you catch malaria it’s game over, you’re Returned To Unit, no ifs or buts. Malaria is totally preventable.’ He put away his mosquito repellant and pointed at Liam’s shirtsleeves which were rolled up to the elbow. ‘That’s an amateur mistake right there,’ he said, and Liam’s cheeks flushed red. ‘You’ll never see anyone from a Sabre squadron with his sleeves rolled up. Out in the field, it’s long sleeves, end of. It become such a habit that we tend to keep it that way back in Hereford. So, keep your cuffs buttoned, wear long trousers, never shorts, and use insect repellent on all exposed skin. Use it on your clothing and on your boots as well. Keeps the mossies away but leeches and anything else that might want to sink its teeth into you will also be put off. But that’s no reason to forget your anti-malarials – paludrine and chloroquine. Don’t get RTU’d because of forgetfulness, got that?’

  The four men nodded and Liam rolled down his sleeves. ‘Any questions?’ asked Pilgrim. He was faced with a wall of shaking heads. ‘Okay, we’ll move out at first light and we’re doing this as if it’s a real operational patrol, so from now on, you’re going to be more silent than Trappist monks. If we need to communicate, it’ll be done by signs or whispers.’ He turned and walked back to his basha.

  ‘Impressive,’ Shepherd said to Liam as Jimbo and Geordie ambled away. ‘Walks the walk and talks the talk.’

  Liam nodded. ‘Looks like you got your wish, that’s for sure.’

  The next morning they woke before first light, as soon as the insect dawn chorus began. Following Pilgrim’s example, Shepher
d and the others broke down their bashas, packed their bergens and then sat motionless, listening and scenting the air. As soon as it was light enough to move, Pilgrim led them out of the clearing and into the jungle. As they moved on, the undergrowth grew dense and almost impenetrable. Thickets of understory palm formed fearsome barriers, spines bristling at all angles from the trunks. Above them, the succeeding layers of trees were bound together in the stifling embrace of lianas. However, Pilgrim led the way, following animal tracks so faint that at first Shepherd and the others could barely detect them at all. They continued their painstaking progress through the jungle for about fifty minutes, then stopped, sat and listened again. They brewed up a mug of tea, ate some hard tack biscuits and moved off again for another fifty minutes, then stopped for another ten.

  As they went along, Pilgrim would occasionally stop and ask one of them where they thought they were, making them use the fine point of a leaf to indicate the exact place on the map. Liam, Jimbo and Geordie were generally wrong but Shepherd was more often than not correct to a few dozen metres. Whenever Shepherd did correctly pinpoint their location, Pilgrim would reward him with a grunt of acknowledgement which he took to be the highest praise any of them was ever likely to receive