Digging In

One of the exercises during Phase 2 training was designed to teach us about defensive warfare - i.e living in a trench. Of course before you can live in it you have to dig it.

You might think that there is nothing complicated about digging a trench. You'd be sadly mistaken.

First of all you have to pick a site that has the hardest, stoniest, god-forsaken earth in the immediate vicinity.

Secondly you carefully remove the turf from the area of your planned trench and the area in front it. Unfortunately unlike gardening programmes on the telly turf rarely comes away in nice neat rolls. Ground Farce more than Ground Force.

This is when the digging begins. You might think it wouldn't take very long to dig a trench large enough to take four men (specifications carefully laid out to the inch in the army manual). Again you'd be sadly mistaken.

Peoples inclination to dig seems to follow some bizarre mathematical formula that might look something like this (although I'm no mathematician):


This is just the first stage of making a trench to live in...............