ACTION WOMEN

Petronella Wyatt paid a visit to the recruiting

office and got a nasty shock when they talked about death and asked her to do decimals

I AM sitting in the Army Recruiting Office in London's Strand. Opposite me is my recruiting officer, Sgt Sandra Borrowdale. who is built like the Temple at Ephesus. She has a kindly if stern expression. After a pause, she asks me, 'So, Miss Wyatt. Why do you want to join the army?'

Actually, I don't. But it is no good saying so. I am undertaking something I would call an uncontrolled experiment. Received wisdom has it that the youth of Britain — of which I am a part, just — has gone soft; that, consequently, a large percentage of aspirant army recruits fail at the first hurdle.

I am here to prove received wisdom wrong. There is an old Irving Berlin song that goes:

This is the army, Mr Jones.

No private rooms or telephones — You had your breakfast in bed before, But you won't have it there any more.

Sounds tough. Still, last year 1,126 women were successfully recruited and enlisted into the army. (This compares with some 12,000 men.) If these gels can do it, why can't I?

With the assurance of the ignorant, I am convinced that all recruits must be peabrained. So I try hard to think of a convincing reason why I want to join the army, but I can't. Instead, I ask Sgt Borrowdale why members of my sex generally come to see her. She assumes a pat face. 'British women want a more challenging job that isn't nine to five. They want to do sport and activities and travel.'

I am a bit disappointed. I say, 'What about serving Queen and Country?' A middle-aged man called Colonel Harber, one of the army's recruiting bigwigs, puts his head around the door. 'Today it's not the same simple slavery to King and Country, but you still have to be prepared for death.'

Death? This throws a bit of a damper on things. I thought that these days no one died in wars. Public opinion wouldn't allow it. Col Harber looks grim. 'People who enlist

are just as prepared to die as they were 100 years ago. In the Gulf, soldiers were writing letters home saying goodbye.'

Sgt Borrowdale says breezily that a lot of people are 'out the door' when they hear the word 'death'. She looks at me like a basilisk, Womanfully, I sit my ground. 'How old are you?' she goes on. 'The age limit is 27."I'm afraid I'm a teensy bit over,' I say. 'Never mind, if someone is good we can apply for a dispensation.'

There are questions about my medical history. Do I have asthma, a heart murmur or a skin disease? Apparently, quite a few recruits keep quiet about their heart murmurs, which causes problems later on. 'We don't want you having a heart attack in the jungle.' Quite.

Is it one of modern life's verities, then, that young people have become torpid and sedentary? 'Yes. They are finding training very difficult. One of the basic tests is having to run a mile and a half."Oh, I think I can do that,' I boast. 'You have to do it in under 14 minutes,' Sgt Borrowdale snorts. She admits that the army has been forced to lower its fitness requirements to make allowances. Doesn't that make it a less effective fighting force? `No, because we then train them up to our proper standards. We have to remain elite, We start them off with a 10 lb pack over one mile, and then work up to 30 lbs over eight miles.'

The army has a Recruit Selection Centre at Pirbright. The tests take 36 hours. There is a medical screening and an embarrassing

examination to see if your body-mass index is acceptable; in other words that you are not fat. They strip you down to make sure there are no offensive tattoos. 'I thought the army liked tattoos,' I pun, rather cleverly I think. 'Not these,' says Sgt Borrowdale.

After the body search, the physical tests begin. Finally, a personnel selections officer interview informs hopeful recruits whether they are in or not.

Sgt Borrowdale asks me what sort of job I am after. Women are not allowed to join the infantry yet, but there are a confusing number of other careers available. She looks at me. 'Your upper body is not up to being in the artillery.' I gaze down at my chest. What does she mean? 'But you can become a driver, or join the engineers.'

Then I remember all that puffery about travelling. It is apparently the case that if I wish to travel and am prepared to learn languages, I might join the Intelligence Corps. 'Right ho, then.'

Before I can do any of the physical tests, I have to pass something called the Barb tests (British Army Recruit Battery). There are seven tests, each with.a different theme. These are done on a computer, with the examinee pressing the screen when he or she thinks they know the correct answer.

When the first few appear on the screen, it seems that I have been right to scoff at the army's intellectual powers. One example; 'Tom is heavier than Fred. Who is heavier?' Another shows pairs of letters, some lower case and some upper ease. I must identify which letters are the same.

What this does, of course, is lower my guard and worsen the humiliation to come. Do I really imagine that admittance to the world's most elite fighting force is dependent on knowing whether Tom is heavier than Fred? Something called Symbol Rotation comes next, based around a shape similar to the letter 'F'. You have to do things with it in your mind. I was hopeless. I imagine that this test has something to do with the movement of troops; in which case, mine would be advancing backwards. The numeracy test is even worse. What is 0.8 x 1.1 equal to? Sorry, without a calculator I haven't a clue.

My final score is 55, which Sgt Borrowdale says is above average. I am shocked. 'Only above average,' I mutter in a febrile state. 'Well,' she replies consolingly, 'being a journalist is probably very easy.' What about the mile-and-a-half run?' she continues. I suggest, cunningly, that I run half a mile in under seven minutes and then double the time. Would that be the same? It wouldn't, I am instructed to go home and train. On the way I calculate that I could work up to one and a half miles in under 14 minutes in approximately a year and three months. Perhaps I had better defer the assessment at Pirbright. Never in my life has defeat been snatched so completely from the jaws of complacency. The army had me licked.