Page 281 - Demo

277just walk or run about with it in his mouth. Unfortunately, the rabbit would then struggle, and he would get a better grip, usually breaking its ribs and killing it. These ones all went to the students who had to skin and gut them before cooking them. If they had found a pot, they could stew them but usually they just roasted them. The strangest things they ever got was a Salmon that they caught in a pool by wading in and grabbing it, and a roadkill badger. In Mandy Hitchins book %u201can officer not a gentleman%u201d she describes how they were taught to snare a fence line and drive rabbits through it. I taught them that and they usually got one or two. She also says that the last night of her exercise they were chased out from where they were camping. We never did that as we would all be in a pub each evening. I think that she merged our LSE with one they did later at Valley. I think that we used to do a night navigation exercise on the second night. No problem in the winter but a bit of a pain in the summer. Again, a member of staff went with each group. He would have a radio and flares in case anything went wrong. I would go out with a team for this exercise. The ground was always a bit difficult as it was rough. We would come across patrols of soldiers sometimes and once we had some of them camping in another part of our wood. We told them not to feed our students. I think we left a QFI %u201cvolunteer%u201d with them the second night. He would usually come back to Mary%u2019s for breakfast. It was probably about a thirty-minute drive. The third day we would show them how to fire various flares and get them to build beacon fires for the next day. They also had to take down their single man shelters and build two-man ones. The idea was that they had now teamed up with someone. That night they would do a night exercise in their groups but without a member of staff. We left them alone for quite long periods of time. This enabled them to go fishing and improve their shelters plus making sleeping bags from pieces of