A
s we stepped off the bus at King's,
I couldn't believe we had been
away for just a week, as we carried
with us memories to last a lifetime.
It was as if the elements knew that it was
Mr Cole's 30th year running Chindit Camp,
and to celebrate, the sun shone and we
were blessed with a heavenly heatwave.
When we arrived at Cloggs Farm, after
unloading the lorry, setting up our tents
and unpacking our bags, we prepared our
first of many meals in our designated
sections: Red, Green or Blue. After much
chopping, boiling and a bit of burning, we
all sat around our dining table in our
mess tent to eat. The bolognese was
good, however I'm sure the pudding
wasn't supposed to be still frozen.
Entertaining our designated NCO to
supper, the jokes were terrible, but it was
a surprisingly enjoyable evening.
Now that we were in our sections we were
ready to get competitive. This brought us
to our first challenge - Ditch Delight. As
its name might suggest it consisted of half
our section hiding in ditches in an attempt
to avoid the eyes of an opposing section.
As we hid, we fought off the wild animals
(mainly tiny insects) we were being
pestered by. This was a lot of fun as, after
swapping roles, we had to silently (harder
for some than others) patrol down the
path spotting people; this certainly
separated the hawk eyes from the rest.
This challenge proved to be much fun,
falling in ditches and suppressing the ever
growing need to sneeze.
After a good night's sleep we were set up
for a full day of activities. Cooking our first
breakfast proved to be an interesting task;
I never knew charcoal black sausages
could taste so good! We spent the day
learning how not to get lost on schemes
like Hidden Danger and watching the
NCOs demonstrating field craft skills.
After supper and a cup of Mrs Cole's hot
chocolate, we sat down for our briefing
for the 24-hour expedition - our next
challenge. Sure enough the next day we
set off, our rucksacks full to the brim with
our rations, cooking gear, sleeping bags
and tents. Our inter-section
competitiveness was at an all-time high.
After an hour of walking through a sheep
field in the wrong direction, a kind local
pointed us in the right direction and we
retraced our steps. After another 20
minutes we soon found the tiny red dot
on the map that was our campsite for the
night. We then received our first radio
call telling us we were to secretly watch
and listen as a group of enemy officers
and NCOs (or should I say FATCATS -
their code name) walked by. We then
ambushed the NCOs who were topically
talking about buying up land on Exmoor
for fracking. Our job was to defend the
local environment from this threat and
this included defending our campsite from
attack at dusk.
Excitement was rising for the midweek
trip to Butlins where we all had a shower
which may not have been as refreshing as
the river but it certainly was warmer!
After we had all had a Big Mac we
thought things couldn't get any better,
but they did. A spooky wood, patrolling
NCOs and a pitch black night - this was
the Night Fright challenge. Each person
had two pegs to try and get into two
boxes which were being closely guarded
by the NCOs. Many attempts were
made, only a few successful. Many of us
sneaked close to within a few metres, but
when we stepped on dead branches of
wood, which let out a huge crack echoing
around the wood, within a blink of an eye
we were surrounded by NCOs.
Bomb Defusal proved a real challenge.
Each section was given a map of Exmoor
which showed where the bombs (well …
bottles) were located. To gain points you
had to navigate to the bottle, in order to
defuse the bomb by removing the cap
and keeping it for the end count-up.
Back at base it soon became clear who
had volunteered themselves for the long
run, with their red faces a mixture of
sunburn and exhaustion. Ed Himbury put
us all to shame bringing back 80 points.
After another 24-hour exercise, the week
soon ended and we were looking forward
to the final barbecue. After consuming
burgers and sausages, we had a camp
quiz, followed by watching a sketch from
each of the sections, reflecting everyone's
views of the past week. Then each
section sang a song, including the NCOs,
which had everyone in stitches. Mr
Cole's award ceremony revealed the
winners of Chindit Camp 2013 were the
Green section. The evening finished with
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