by "The War Reporter"

On the evening of Friday, 29th May, The London Scottish was tasked to deploy into Kent to quash a rebellion by Kentish Separatist terrorists. The real aim of the exercise was to test teams from the platoons in various military skills and for them to compete for The Woodall Trophy by a series of forced marches round various stands on Saturday morning, a navigation exercise on Saturday afternoon and evening, and a speed march with a river crossing, assault course and a live range firing on Sunday. The OC, Major Ludlow, had kindly asked the war reporter to accompany them to write about and take photographs of the events.

After loading kit and stores, the Company set off, the war reporter with Capt 'Mad Doe' N4cArthur and SPSI Sgt Major Barclay, in the ambulance. On arrival at the harbour area the platoon teams set off on foot to their first positions where they bivvied up and got what little sleep they could.

The DS moved to another area and likewise got some sleep. Early in the morning, which thankfully was dry after a somewhat wet night, the DS moved to their various positions to set up their stands and await the arrival of the first teams.

The war reporter went off with Lt Norman, Sgt Martin and Pte Hall, a recruit, to the place where Lt Norman had decided to set up his section attack stand. After a good and entertaining breakfast during which Sgt Martin attempted, unsuccessfully as it turned out, to set fire to his bergen, Lt Norman positioned Pte Hall and the war reporter, who changed sides at this point, in some cover to act as enemy. Lt Norman nearly stepped on an adder, but it made good its escape.

After an enormously long wait, the first section appeared and were fired upon. They appeared to get into a bit of a muddle and were clearly unsure as to where the enemy were positioned. The enemy meanwhile happily blazed away. After a time Lt Norman stopped the action and debriefed the team. It was generally agreed that the enemy were one-nil up, much to their delight. Another long wait ensued until the second team, led by Cpl Keal, appeared. Once again they were fired upon. It immediately became clear that this team were a different kettle of fish and knew what they were doing. A tremendous fire fight now broke out while the team worked their way forward until they were finally able to assault the enemy positions and successfully subdue them. Result: one all, and that is how it remained because time had run out and everyone now had to gather at the RV point to prepare themselves for the Navex phase of the operation. This consisted of splitting the section teanis into fire teams and sending them off to navigate their way round the countryside to various points, from where they had to radio in vital information, such as pub names and the like.

Eventually the DS moved to the final point of the Navex to await the arrival of the team. They were then going to be told that they were to be moved by lorry to a new location. What they were not told was that they were going to be ambushed. Lt Norman led the ambushers who included Colour Kessack, Sgt Martin and Cpl Mac and that great ambush stalwart 'Mad Doe' McArthur. The war reporter went too. While Colour Kessack set up what turned out to be some truly awesome bangs, gleefully assisted by Mad Doe, who by now was wearing what looked suspiciously like a ladies' black stocking on his head, Lt Norman briefed the rest of the ambushers, who included some recruits, pointing out that this was a DS ambush and that a proper one would be set up differently. Soon all was ready and shortly afterwards the first four tonner appeared and was greeted with suitably loud explosions, bags of smoke and gunfire. The team returned fire and then disappeared silently into the undergrowth. Lt Norman brought them back, debriefed them, removed their remaining ammunition to resupply the ambush and sent them on their way. The next three lorries appeared and much the same thing happened each time - except for the last team led by LCpl Hallett who made a spirited counter attack and fought their way through all the ambush positions - a good effort at the end of a very long day..

DS and teams eventually gathered at a harbour area and settled down for the night. There had been one or two casualties, mainly due to the heat, but they were all dealt with by the Doe and none was serious. There was one team missing still on the Navex phase, but it was now pitch dark and futile to search for them until the morning. If they had had any sense they would have bivvied up by now anyway.

Another glorious day dawned on Sunday and things started early. The DS went to their various positions on the range and in the country while some went off to wait for the missing team at the RV point.

The war reporter went with Colour Kessack, Cpl Ward and Cpl Mac to the water obstacle and watched while they assembled the boats and he managed to fall in during one of his feeble attempts to help, much to general amusement!

Capt Clements and Lt Norman organised the live firing phase on the IBSR, ably assisted by Colour Small and a host of others. The. teams started appearing and were briefed and then each team moved along the firing point from position to position behind bits of cover, shooting at pop-up targets which fell over satisfactorily when they were hit. The recruits were then allowed to shoot and then it was time to add up all the scores while the Jocks cleaned their weapons. Cpl Ward produced his pipes and played for a while, but received such abuse because he had forgotten all the military tunes, that he quickly gave up -poor chap.

The teams were formed up and were addressed by the OC who congratulated them all for turning up and putting in such a good effort over what had been a very tough weekend. 5 Platoon had won but it had been a close-run thing with 4 Platoon only a few points behind. They were given their trophy, medals and a case of beer. The runners up also received a case of beer. The OC then singled out L/Cpl Devonport who had given up his personal leave from the regular army over the weekend and had done a terrific job manning the CP radio. He was presented with a cap badge to general applause.

Everyone was then loaded onto the 4 tonner for the journey home while the Land Rovers and ambulance set off to look for the team that was still missing. They were found quite quickly in the end, much to everyone's relief and as it turned out the whole Company arrived at 95 Horseferry Road at more or less the same time.

- as seen by Pte Aitken

Near the start of the Second World War, Churchill is quoted as saying to the House of Commons, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat". This was the essence of what Cpl "Mac" Magican was telling

his disheartened 5 Platoon tearn as we were heading out of Horseferry Road on the Friday night at the start of Exercise "Long Slog", the annual inter-sectional company competition.

Why were we disheartened? We were disheartened because we had just endured a kit inspection by Mr Sellars and were now well behind 4 (Mr Sellar's) platoon in the scoring. It is often said that people from Inverness are a bit mean.

So there we were in the back of the truck listening to Mac telling us to sort our lives out and wondering why we had come on this weekend. We knew it was going to be tough or why else would they have called it Exercise Long Slog.

The reasons for coming were obvious. We were proud to be in 5 Platoon, we were determined to win the Graham Woodall trophy and prove to the rest of the company that we were the best platoon, and because Mr Norman had made us.

We arrived at the training area to experience an electrical storm which Rob Goldsmith tells me was like the Blitz. Te Paa was then entrusted with the map reading and to get us to our harbour area, which he did, although someone forgot to tell him that all those thick lines on the map were roads and tracks and we ended up climbing a steep hill in full CEMO.

As the sun rose after a sleepless night it was becoming obvious that it was going to be a very hot day, although by looking at Stokesy you would have thought that it already was. We all felt knackered.

On reaching the next stage and sitting our individual map reading tests, we learn that the helicopter would not now be coming due to the electrical storms of the previous night. More Tabbing was required and Mac had to start motivating his troops.

Te Paa still has problems with the Ordnance Survey signs for roads and tracks and we end up having to admit that we are lost, that is until we stop the local country postman who puts us right. Then 1 get myself tangled in an electric wire in a field and suffer four shocks before 1 can get myself free to the great amusement of Stokesy, before we eventually reach the objective, an hour behind schedule to find that we are in fact the second team in, the first team being 4 Platoon.

Without a break we go straight into the next phase of the competition, the circuit of NBC, 94, Signals, First Aid and Section Attack tests, although for the first time we can drop our Bergens. We only have four hours to complete it so we have to move fast.

NBC first and Oliver surprises us all by showing that he is pretty well informed about the subject, well, compared to the rest of us anyway. Even so, Capt Clements, doing a pretty useful impression of the swamp man in his NBC suit, is not impressed with our efforts and marks us accordingly.

We pass through the 94 and signals stands without much difficulty and then through the First Aid stand where we rely on Higgy's past medical experience in the KOSBies to get us through. We have to miss the last stand due to the lack of time and finish to find 4 Platoon pretty happy with themselves.

Once again there is no time for a rest before we begin the next phase of the competition, navigation and signals. We are split into our two fire teams and are each required to march to five points on the map in sequence, answering a question on the location and radioing the answer back to HQ. Charlie fire team under Mac completed the course collecting four correct answers although they managed to get all five locations even with ice cream stops for Te Paa and Gadd.

Delta under Stokesy included Higgy, Rob and myself. After the morning's experience I insisted on taking control of the map. I'm not going to get lost because of someone else. We get to the first point, "How many bells has the church?" is the question. Higgy spots a pub called "The Three Bells" and is in there ordering four pints (of Coke) before we know it.

After a serious amount of graft and sweat we arrive at the second point, answer the question and are swiftly marching off to the third point. This doesn't last long, however, and we have to stop because Stokesy is beginning to suffer from the heat.

Stokesy begins to look very ill. He drifts in and out of sleep, and claims to be nauseous. But Stokesy is in 5 Platoon and insists on carrying on. We do and eventually make it to the third check-point with just 20 minutes left after a seemingly never ending journey. We then TAB in to the finish point, one minute over time. The rest of the section are there and so are 4 Platoon who seem to have done well again.

Stokesy does what he has been threatening to do for a long time and throws his dinner up over the edge of the 4 tonner and is pulled out of the rest of the competition.

The next morning on a rather round about route to the vehicles, Rob produced a dramatic fall over a fence and landed awkwardly on his ankle. At first I thought it was an excellent attempt to avoid the morning's activities, however it became clear that the fall was just too good to have been acted and we had a casualty on our hands. Being in 5 Platoon Rob insisted on carrying on.

At the start point for the next and final phase, we looked a sorry sight with Rob's foot swollen badly and everyone except Te Paa, who is used to running in bare feet, sporting blisters, which Higgy takes pleasure in syringing. We know we are not far behind 4 Platoon in the scoring and need to do well here to have a chance of winning.

We run off, or in Rob's case, hobble, to the river crossing. Obviously Higgy has never been on water before and Rob, having spent some time in the Navy, is not much use either. We eventually make it to the other side and watch Mac, Te Paa and Gadd show us how it should be done.

We then carry on running to the assault course with Rob out in front, the big man showing excellent spirit and determination. The team are fading fast and it is obvious that we won't be able to make it much further, but we have to get over the assault course. We do, and complete the circuit with no time to spare.

Next it is on to the FISBR range. My weapon fails to automatically recoil and the ejected round stays within the breach meaning that I have to clear it after every round. I only manage to fire eight rounds and feel like I've let the team down. Rob achieves a superb 29, Higgy 16 and 1 get 8. Mac, Gadd and Te Paa all achieve good scores and we begin to realise that the result is going to be very close between ourselves and 4 Platoon.

Higgy, showing the benefits of a Scottish education, calculated that 4 Platoon had won the competition by 60 points one minute then by 6 the next?

Our victory is now history, but why was it that we won. Was it team work, determination, pride in our platoon, was it that the opposition were worse than we were? No, it was as Vegetius said in 378AD; "Victory does not depend entirely upon numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will ensure it." Ross Keal take note.

Last updated 5/3/01