Chindit
Camp
2008
by Henrietta
ThomsonA
s the bus trundled down the
track leading to Clogg's
Farm, torrential rain
obscuring the beautiful view,
we all reminded ourselves
how lucky we were to be
there, as Chindit Camp was oversubscribed, and
some people hadn't managed to get spaces.
After a long day of unpacking lorries, setting up
tents and organising everything in our sections,
we cooked our first of many meals, and
entertained our first NCO to supper. The food
was good, although I am sure that the pudding
wasn't meant to be frozen, and the jokes were
terrible, but we were all in good spirits despite
the weather!
We woke up to the dulcet tones of Mr Cole,
who, understandably, was not too happy with
the lack of sleep the night before, due to one of
the girls' tents being inexplicably noisy at four in
the morning! After a full English breakfast we
split into small groups within our section and did
the Blindfold Drop. As its name might suggest,
this exercise consisted of helpless Chindits being
shoved into minibuses with blindfolds on, and
being left in the middle of nowhere (or so it
seemed), with instructions to get to various NCO
bases, before finding our way back to Base
camp.we did eventually do this, only falling at
the last hurdle, and arriving back at camp when
everybody had just finished a lunch of bread,
cheese, ham and salad. This was followed by a
field craft demonstration, after which we put
new-found skills into practice by stealing enough
information to find some treasure on the moor;
happily, Yellow section won this exercise! After
a briefing on the 24-hour exercise, a good meal
and similar jokes, we crawled into bed.
Surprisingly it rained on the day of the 24-hour
exercise! After getting hopelessly lost and
weighed down by unbelievably heavy packs,
Yellow section found their campsite and set up
tents in the pouring rain. After lunch, we
ambushed some NCOs to get information out of
them, which led us into the next exercise
involving sneaking up on and getting codes
from gates. Soaking wet, and starving hungry,
we found our way back to camp, and ate a
delicious stew from a ration pack before
defending our campsite from the NCOs intent
on attacking us at dusk.
Next morning, we woke to the sound of Mr
Griffiths getting stuck crossing the river, and
drowsily opened our tent doors to see an
overflowing river and yet more rain. We got the
Aluredian
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