After ten days in Castel the other fraction had arrived and we were ready to go. We were all issued with our FAMAS and packed up the kit we needed for one month on the infamous farm (hot tip: even if you a going in the middle of Summer, take your olive green fleece, it gets fucking cold at night on guard duty. I didn't take mine and my god did I regret it).
We loaded up on the bus for the thirty minute drive to the farm of 3eme Compagnie with FAMAS and musette (I triumph of French design, I can't comprehend how much thought must of gone into the design and manufacture of such an inefficient backpack that could cause so much pain and discomfort). We were dropped off in what seemed to be the middle of rural France, at the end of a long drive. We formed up and double timed it the kilometre from the road to the actual farm building, sweating like paedophiles in a playground due to the Summer heat. We checked our rifles into the armoury and were lined up on the small field next to the orchard while the caporaux assessed our ability for perform demi-tour, droite and à droite, droite! etc. We then had to get all the equipment and food we needed for the next month off the lorries and stored away correctly. Food, camp beds, ammunition, targets, tents (for the cadre) etc all of which must of taken at least a couple of hours. It gave me a bit of a chance to look around and get my bearings, I couldn't help but think Fucking hell, I'm actually here. I've seen the documentaries, read the stories but now I'm actually at the fucking farm, **** you lot who didn't believe I'd do it! The farm for the 3eme Compagnie, called Raissec, is in its own little valley surrounded by pitons, most of which had well worn dust tracks running up their steep sides and I thought Yup, we'll be getting to know them pretty well.
Next thing we were assigned our binome and put into groups with our SGT and CPX and set up our beds in one of the three Spartan (ie empty except for the shelves) rooms that made up the EV accommodation. One of the caporaux had an iPod dock that he used to blast out The Prodigy while we got our kit laid out just as the powers that be required it. I don't know if it was because it was the first English music I'd heard in a while or what, but I remember feeling pretty excited at the prospect of what was to come.
When we were finished we were taken outside and guess what? We were introduced to the pitons by the Spanish sgt (who was sous-officier adjunct), who spoke such heavily accented French that I honestly thought he was speaking Spanish for the first week. First off it was Anne-Marie, the steepest and closest to the main building which had a big flaming grenade emblem on the side made of stones and broken glass. This was of course not done fast enough and because we failed to actually say hello to Anne-Marie, we were off again. Next it was Eliane...
The day to day routine of the farm doesn't really change throughout the whole month. Your watches are taken off you on day one so you have no real idea what time it is. You get up early and shave in cold water, blearily staring at yourself in the mirror and wondering what the **** you are doing there. Breakfast (a small bread roll and coffee). Corvée. Rassemblement. Singing or some shit, lessons of some sort. Corvée. Lunch. Corvée. More shit. Dinner. Corvée. More shit. If you're really unlucky it might be your turn to wait on the table for the sous-officiers, running in to take them the next course whenever the belligerent bastards ring the bell. You do this in whatever kit you were wearing when you get called, I was fingered for the job and had to serve lunch in full camo paint with gilet and and assault rifle slung on my back. Once again, weird.
I heard a few different versions of what the farm was like from other recruits in the week we spent in Castel. Some said the biggest problem was the lack of food, others it was daily punishing runs or the freezing cold if they had been there in winter. Our Chef obviously had a penchant for sleep deprivation. Don't get me wrong, the food was low protein crap in short supply and we all lost a shit load of weight, but the lack of sleep was, in the long term, absolutely crippling. Not having watches we never knew when we went to bed or got up but there were nights when the moon barely moved between sleep and waking. One night we were woken after what I reckon must have been no more than thirty minutes of sleep to grab our sacs-a-dos and go charging off on a night march. Before a week was through we were like the walking dead. Whenever we had a lesson in the salle de cours there was a bucket of cold water brought in for us to dunk our heads in to wake ourselves up. It took barely an instant after sitting before we all had to stand up to stop us falling asleep in the lesson, and even then I'd catch myself slipping off, knees buckling beneath me. Due to the lack of sleep and the constant standing our legs were knackered through the constant effort. It's not worth getting caught having a cheeky sit down or it'd be tours of the farm with a backpack full of rocks. There is an expression used about crap street fighters in the UK - “He couldn't fight sleep†Anyone that says that has never been as tired as I was at the farm, I even fell asleep while marching along singing and one night on guard was convinced that a Mitsubishi evo 8 with a massive spoiler was parked near the armoury. It turned out to be a bridge. Not hallucinated like that since I was a student.
I remember one night very early one where they kept us going late into the night with a surreal mind-****. We made camp down in the orchard and they drove in a lorry with a load of lights on to illuminate the scene, it was all a bit clockwork orange. We were running about and doing press-ups for ages, unable to perform any task fast enough or well enough, then we were lined up and shown how to use a fire extinguisher (no explanation given), up to the gare, “demontage FAMASâ€, “remontage FAMASâ€, sing, back to the FAMAS, break camp, up the piton, make camp, break camp, down the piton, make camp, at least eighteen seconds sleep and then off we go again. A real mind ****.
On the physical side I found it a bit disappointing. Apart from the constant beastings and apperatifs (en position, tout le monde!) we didn't work on our fitness at all. Proper runs were only done once a week, as were marches. The marches were horrible. Whatever farm you might go to pray that you don't get a lunatic 2eme REP man as your SGT. The pace he set was more than a little punishing, I don't think there was a march were my group didn't finish at least twenty minutes before the next one despite never leaving first. Apart from the pace he set he obviously didn't believe we needed water or rest throughout the course of the night and drinking on the march was forbidden. While another group got a SGT from 2eme REI with a bit of pace on him (but were allowed to drink, however) I definitely think we had it the hardest. The marches themselves were all done at night except the first one. Some of them were hellish. When you start you're already tired, you don't know what time it is, how long you've been going, how far there is to go or where you are. Some nights it was so dark you couldn't see more than a few yards in front of you. The disorientation along with the flaming agony in my legs (more on that in a second) sent my mind into some very dark and introspective thoughts. I did however gain a real respect for my sergeant, he struck me as a proper hard case soldier. I'm under no impression he liked any of us, and if he did he'd never show it, but I couldn't help but think that if I could clone him and create an army I'd take over the world no problem. I later found out he'd just got out of prison for hospitalising a recruit from the previous section.
A word on Rangers: The issue boot for the Legion is, in my opinion, absolute complete and utter shit with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. There were times on the farm that my feet looked like they had a flesh eating virus, I got blisters that covered half my foot and after a couple of weeks part of my right heel started to come off. I developed a shin splint and lost most of my toenails, I also had a very weird sort of blood blister on one foot that was invisible until you crinkled the skin up so I was able to hide it from the SGT (probably very stupidly) and avoid going to the infirmary back in Castel, like some guys did. By the end of training I found that by mummifying my feet in elastoplast, wearing two pairs of socks, doing my laces up so tight that it crushed my calves and buying some new insoles from the foyer, I could survive relatively blister free (at the cost of other problems) if still sore. I developed tendinitis up both my Achilles heels which made it painful just to put my boots on, let alone march anywhere. Some guys had no problems (bastards), others had equal or even worse than me. Some of it was probably due to the crap socks we had, some a lack of conditioning, but either way they were fucking shite as far as I was concerned. The training staff all wore boots they'd bought themselves for the march, lucky buggers.