The journey

Port Stanley. June 1982.

He has stopped because there is nowhere left to walk.

Image: IWM (FKD 157)

An exhausted Royal Marine of 45 Commando sits in the mud at Port Stanley with his SLR in his hands and about 140lb of kit stacked behind him.

Bergen. Sleeping bag. Ammo. Radio. The lot.

The bergen is still wet. It's been wet for days.

Wool gloves darkened with peat and sweat. Scarf stiff with salt and breath. Boots sucking in the puddle under him when he walks.

The air is cold and thin and smells of wet earth, diesel, unwashed kit and wood smoke.

Somewhere a generator coughs. Radio chatter. A vehicle engine turning over on the track. Men talking too quietly, or not at all.

Behind him the rest of the troop are doing the same thing. They're dumping their kit that hits the ground with a dead, heavy thud.

The shoulders feel the relief. It doesn't matter how fit you are, the shoulders always feel it when you yomp.

They stand in black water with steam coming off their upper body.

The metallic taste of exhaustion lines their mouth.

Blisters that have stopped being pain and become just part of the foot.

The SLR is oily and familiar in his hands. He has not put it down.

They did not fly here.

When Atlantic Conveyor went down on 25 May she took most of the heavy-lift helicopters with her. The plan to lift 3 Commando Brigade across East Falkland died with the ship.

So 45 Commando yomped.

West coast to east. San Carlos and Ajax Bay, through Teal, onto Two Sisters, then down into Stanley.

Peat that swallowed boots to the knee. Stone runs that twisted ankles in the dark. Marshes. Mountains. Minefields. Wind that never shut up and had blokes flashing. Sleet then rain then a hard bright cold that cut the face.

It was brutal.

It was night movement with full fighting order. Every step a negotiation with the ground.

At the time it was called the longest march in full kit in the history of the Commando force.

Call it 40 miles or 60 — depends who you ask and which legs you count. The ground made every mile longer.

Then they fought at the end of it. That's the elite level of Bootnecks.

Cracking that and then fighting at the end is next level, but then that's what we train to do.

Two Sisters in the dark on 11–12 June.

Muzzle flashes and fire control orders fill the air.

The smell of cordite on the wind. Then the last miles into town as the white flags went up on the 14th.

A symbol of the forces that did such a great job down south.

A man sitting in a puddle with a rifle he has carried across an island, and still not putting the weapon down.

The 45 Commando Embroidered Polo Shirt is a subtle nod to those who have come before us and been part of the Mighty Fighting Forty Fifth.