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.I was sent on a long journey across the bleak landscape to join up with my new unit.I was at last moving across the notorious southern continent, the theatre of the land war, but throughout the three days of my cold and exhausting journey by train and truck I saw signs of neither battles nor their aftermath.The terrain I passed through had clearly never been lived in – I saw a seemingly endless prospect of treeless plains, rocky hills, frozen rivers.I received orders every day: my torment was a lonely one but my route was known and monitored, arrangements had been made.Other troops travelled with me, none of them for long.We all had different destinations, different orders.Whenever the train halted it was met by trucks that either were standing by the side of the rails where we stopped, or which appeared from somewhere after we had waited an hour or two.Fuel and food were taken on at these stops and my brief companions came and went.Eventually it was my own turn to leave the train at one of these halts.I travelled under a tarpaulin in the back of a truck for another day, cold and hungry, bruised by the constant lurching of the vehicle and at last terrified by the closeness of the landscape around me.I was now so much a part of it.The winds that scoured the bleak grasses and thorny, leafless bushes also scoured me, the rocks and boulders that littered the ground were the immediate cause of the truck’s violent movements, the cold that seeped everywhere sapped my strength and will.I passed the journey in a state of mental and physical suspension, waiting for the interminable journey to end.I stared in dismay at the terrain.I found the dark landscape oppressive, the gradual contours discouraging.I loathed the sight of the grey, flinty soil, the waterless plains, the neutral sky, the broken ground with its scattered rocks and shards of quartz, the complete absence of signs of human occupation or of agriculture or animals or buildings – above all I hated the endless blast of freezing winds and the shrouds of sleet, the blizzard gales.I could only huddle in my freezing, exposed corner of the truck’s compartment, waiting for this deadly journey to end.Finally we arrived somewhere, at a unit which was occupying a strategic position at the base of a steep, broken rockface.As soon as I arrived I noticed the grenade launcher positions, each constructed exactly as I had myself been trained to construct them, each concealed position manned to the right strength.After the torment and discomforts of the long journey I felt a sudden sense of completeness, an unexpected satisfaction that at last the disagreeable job I had been forced to take on was about to start.However, fighting the war itself was not yet my destiny.After I joined the grenade unit and shared duties with the other soldiers for a day or two, the first frightening reality of the army was borne in on me.Grenade launchers we had, but as yet no grenades.This did not appear to alarm the others so I did not allow it to alarm me.I had been in the army long enough to have developed the foot soldier’s unquestioning frame of mind when it came to direct orders about fighting, or preparation for fighting.We were told that we were going to retreat from this position, re-equip ourselves with matériel, then occupy a new position from which we could confront the enemy directly.We dismantled our weapons, we abandoned our position in the dead of night, we travelled a long distance to the east.Here we finally rendezvoused with a column of trucks.We were driven in convoy for two nights and a day to a large stores depot.Here we learned that the grenade launchers with which we were armed were now obsolescent.We were to be issued with the latest version, but the entire escadron would need to be retrained.So we marched cross-country to another camp.So we retrained.So, finally, we were issued with the latest armament and the ammunition for it and now at last fully prepared we marched off once again to fight the war.We never reached our reallocated position, from where the enemy was to be confronted.We were diverted instead to relieve another column of troops, five days away across some of the harshest countryside I had yet encountered: it was a broken, frozen landscape of flints and glinting pebbles, devoid of plants, of colour, even of shape.It didn’t sink in straight away, but already the pattern had become established in those first few days and weeks of aimless activity.This purposeless and constant movement was to be my experience of war.I never lost count of the days or the years.The three-thousandth anniversary loomed ahead of me like an unstated threat.We marched at intervals from one place to the next; we slept rough; we marched again or were transported by trucks; we were billeted in wooden huts that were uninsulated and infested with rats and which leaked under the incessant rains.At intervals we were withdrawn to be retrained.An issue of new or upgraded weapons invariably followed, making more training essential.We were always in transit, making camp, taking up new positions, digging trenches, heading south or north or east or anywhere to reinforce our allies – we were put on trains, removed from trains, flown here and there, sometimes without food or water, often without warning, always without explanation.Once when we were hiding in trenches close to the snowline a dozen fighter planes screamed overhead and we stood and cheered unheard after them; at another time there were other aircraft, from which we were ordered to take cover.No one attacked us, then or ever, but we were always on our guard.In some of the coastal areas of the continent, to which we were sent from time to time, and depending on the season, I was in turn baked by the heat of the sun, immobilized by thigh-deep mud, bitten by thousands of flying insects, swept away by flooding snow-melt – I suffered sores, sunburn, bruises, boredom, ulcerated legs, exhaustion, constipation, frostbite and unceasing humiliation.Sometimes we were told to stand our ground with our grenade launchers loaded and primed, waiting for action
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