I know what that means: up Pen-y-Fan in the rain.
‘We’ll leave the car in the car park and RV there if we get separated on the south side.’ He traces the route with the tip of a pencil. The plan is to head for the summit, walk down Cwm Llwch on the far side, follow a small road for a couple of miles around the base of the slope, then ascend again via a point called the Obelisk before heading down to the car. He points out an alternative rendezvous point for the north leg of the journey. RVs, backup RVs and emergency RVs are an obsession with the SAS, I’m learning.
Half an hour later we’re at our starting point. The weather’s not ideal. I last climbed Pen-y-Fan in shorts and a T-shirt several years ago, on a brilliant summer’s day. Now it’s cold and raining. Not heavily, but gusting in sheets, and there’s a distinct lack of ramblers. The slope above us disappears into a barricade of cloud. H offers to carry the Bergen, which holds our water, dry clothes and a heavy-duty orange plastic sheet for use as shelter in an emergency. I’m too proud to allow him to take it. We put on our waterproofs and H sees me grimace at the cold.
‘Better than being too hot,’ he says.
We trudge up and establish our pace. At least we’re walking. For selection to the SAS, we’d be running, says H when I ask him about his time in the Regiment. Despite being known for the gruelling tabs in the Beacons that every would-be trooper had to undergo, the Regiment’s selection process was designed to uncover mental resilience as much as physical grit. ‘You’d see a lot of muscle-bound guys packing it in,’ says H, recalling time spent as directing staff on selection. ‘Not because they weren’t fit enough, but because they got fed up the quickest. Too used to being tough, I suppose. It was the squinty-eyed little fellows who’d get through.’
Those who survived the gruelling Fan dance – up Pen-y-Fan and back three times – the night-time navigation to control points at memorised grid references, the heavily laden cross-country marches and mock interrogations, would end up on a month’s continuation training in the jungle. Brunei was the chosen location. H calls it ‘good jungle’. I don’t know what bad jungle is. He says it’s the jungle that really sorts people out, and where the real selection takes place.
‘Everything’s wet the whole time and there’s beasties all over the place. A lot of guys who did well on selection couldn’t handle the jungle,’ he says. I ask him how he’d fared on his own jungle training.
‘Me? Loved it,’ he says, beaming as the rain cascades over his eyebrows. ‘Happy as a pig in shit.’
We enter the cloud and feel its coldness. A purplish scar of track leads upwards. Beyond a dozen yards, every feature of the landscape is absorbed into the whiteness. H walks behind me and gives directions where the route looks uncertain. Higher up, a slippery outcrop of stone resembling a ruined wall marks the steepest portion of the ascent. The summit of Pen-y-Fan lies several hundred yards to the north-east. We reach it at the end of a narrow ridge where the flanks descend with spectacular steepness into deep glacial valleys on either side. But we can see nothing of the views.
It’s too cold to stop for more than a few moments. Using the corner of his compass, H points out our position on the map as the raindrops roll across its laminated surface, and we check our bearing for the long descent into Cwm Llwch. Beyond the valley at its base, we reach Cwm Gwdi, the remnants of the Parachute Regiment battle camp and the deserted road beyond. It loops west towards the shorter steeper ridge leading back up to the Obelisk.
Now I understand why H has chosen the route. It embraces a series of rewards and punishments – upward and downward gradients of varying degrees, from the painfully acute to the luxuriously gentle. You reap the pleasure of the gentle slopes to fight the steep ones. On a long tab there are strong arguments for stopping and others for going forward, and both spin out silently in your head. Bad weather magnifies the pleasures and the pains. The longer the route, the less seriously you take the clamour of these voices, which settle down into a kind of background grumble, while you drag your mind repeatedly back to something more concrete: the rhythm of your pace or breath.
On the final portion of the return climb, just before we re-emerge on the ridge by the Obelisk, I can feel my thigh muscles wobble in protest. The big blisters on my heels are now at the final stage of fattening up before bursting. But we’ve kept up a decent pace. Six hours later we’re back at the car. I’m freezing and tired. H asks how I’m feeling.
‘Never better.’
‘Good man.’
I throw the soaking Bergen into the back of the car, and H retrieves a Thermos of deliciously hot coffee. We drive back to his house, change into dry clothes, and H fries up a late lunch. I light a fire at his request from a neat pile of logs stacked by the fireplace. We eat as we warm our feet by the flames. As dusk falls, H pours two generous whiskies, and we talk over the scope of the operation ahead of us, wondering when we’ll get the go-ahead from London.
‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ says H. ‘We get sent to Afghanistan to train them how to use our kit, and then get sent back ten years later to tell them they can’t have it any more.’
‘Blowback,’ I say. ‘That’s what the CIA call it.’
‘Blow job, more like. Anyway. Best not to talk about any of this from now on.’ Then he leaves the room and returns a minute later with a boyish look of mischief on his face.
‘When was the last time you saw one of these?’
His right arm swings up, and with it the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle. This is an unaccustomed sight in rural England, and I splutter a reply through a mouthful of whisky.
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Know how to use it?’
‘Never really had to.’
‘Well, if you do ever have to, you might as well know how. Let’s sit on the floor.’
He takes two cloth bundles from the map pockets of his trousers and puts them on a small table. Then he sinks nimbly to the floor on his knees and rests the weapon like an offering across the open palms of his hands.
‘AK-47. Gas-operated assault rifle with selective fire, 7.62 calibre.’ He waves a hand up and down its length. The blueing on the metal glitters darkly in the light thrown from the fire. ‘Most successful assault rifle in the world. Any Soviet weapon with a K in its name means a variant of the Kalashnikov. There’s an AKM and an AKS, both modified versions of the AK-47, a PK light machine gun, and the smaller-calibre AK-74. The Soviets designed the rifle and its ammo so that, in theory, their invading army could use captured Western weapons, but not the other way round. Pretty simple weapon, really, and that’s its virtue. It’s an assault weapon, so you wouldn’t want to use it much over 300 metres, though it’ll send a round much further. If anyone’s firing at you with an AK from further than 300 metres, you shouldn’t be too bothered.’ A wry smile suggests he doesn’t mean this too literally.
He bounces it gently in his hands as if to weigh it. Perhaps he’s reminiscing. Then he squeezes the serrated edges of the rear sight and slides the range selector back and forth on its rail.
‘The sights are adjustable from 100 to 800 metres. Anything up to 300, just use the battle sights. Remember it fires high and right.’ He taps the muzzle. ‘Later models have a different-shaped muzzle to compensate. Looks like the tip of a Bowie knife.’ I’ve seen these in Afghanistan. ‘Some have a bayonet on a hinge under the barrel. You can stick this in the ground to stabilise the weapon if you want.’
His finger moves to the selector lever.
‘All the way up – safety on.’ He pulls on the silvery lug of the operating handle to show that the weapon can’t be cocked. ‘It inhibits the mechanism.’ Then there’s a loud metallic click as he slides the lever down. ‘One click down for automatic fire. When you’re in a hurry and you need it. Good for scaring crows.’