Natural Selection (A Free Spider Shepherd short story) by Stephen Leather Page B

pointedly ignoring the others. He walked on, found a space away from everyone else and, without cutting any foliage, put up a very spartan basha: a waterproof sheet and a hammock. Ignoring everyone, he then spent the remaining hours of daylight studying his maps. He was alone, self contained and apparently completely at home in the jungle environment.
    As night was falling, Shepherd went across to Lofty’s basha. ‘Who is that guy?’ he said., gesturing towards the new arrival.
    Lofty smiled. ‘His nickname’s Pilgrim.’
    ‘Pilgrim? That doesn’t sound like a typical regimental nickname.’
    ‘It isn’t. It’s more of a mark of respect. The very last thing you’ll have to do before you complete the final stage of Selection is to memorise part of a James Elroy Flecker poem called “The Golden Journey to Samarkand”. It’s our creed, if you like:
    “But who are ye in rags and rotten shoes,
    You dirty bearded, blocking up the way?”
    “We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go
    Always a little further: it may be
    Beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow,
    Across that angry or that glimmering sea.”
    ‘There’s more of it, but you get the drift: we are the Pilgrims. There are only two ways to get the experience you need in the Regiment: one is to serve long enough to do everything, and the other is to learn at the feet of a master. Most of the highly skilled guys in the Regiment learned their tradecraft from a senior mentor.’
    ‘Got you,’ Shepherd said. ‘So Pilgrim’s a mentor - one of the “old and bold” - but what’s he doing here?’
    ‘You’ll find out tomorrow,’ Lofty said. ‘Meanwhile get some shut-eye, you’ll need it.’
    The following morning, as Shepherd, Liam, Geordie and Jimbo were sorting their kit, ready to join the others on the march back to the road-head for the transport back to base, Pilgrim walked over to them. He didn’t introduce himself, just said, ‘You four are not going back with the others. You’ve been picked out for further testing, so I’m going to take you on a patrol to evaluate you and see how good you actually are.’
    Shepherd looked across at Liam and couldn’t help but smile. This was the sort of training that he wanted.
    ‘The criteria I will be applying is whether you’re good enough to be accepted into a Sabre Squadron Troop or a patrol led by me on active service,’ Pilgrim continued. ‘You won’t find it a picnic; one of the things that makes the SAS unique is that the physical and mental effort required of you is greater in an operational squadron than in any and all of the various tests you have undergone during Selection.’
    He paused, holding the gaze of each of them in turn. ‘You’ve been issued with maps of this area. I suggest you devote some time to studying them. When we first came here, the only maps of Belize dated from before the Second World War and we had to update them as we went along. The bedrock’s limestone, so the topography is always changing. There was one big river marked on the old map that had gone underground years before. The jungle had reclaimed the riverbed and we spent days searching for a river that no longer existed. You won’t have that problem to deal with but, as you’ll already have noticed, you can’t use the sun, the stars or the topography to navigate in the jungle, because you can’t see any of them, so you have to be able to navigate with map and compass alone.’
    A mosquito landed on his neck and he smacked his hand against it as he continued.
    ‘In the jungle noise and smell are always more of a giveaway than movement. Even the absence of noise can be significant; if the constant background noise of bird and animal calls is interrupted, it can only indicate that something’s alarmed the wildlife. You can hear much further than you can see, so to survive, you spend much of your time just listening.  Animals do not break twigs; if you hear a twig breaking it has been done by a human.