But before that there is a 30-kilometre speed march to be done away with. And this scary thing they call Ledo jump. It implies diving into a water tank in combat dress, swimming across to a ladder, ascending 16.5 metres with your clothes and water-logged boots dragging you down, and then walking across a none-too-wide platform. That's the cool part.

At the other end, you will have to climb on to a rope, monkey crawl till you reach the red ribbon that hangs halfway through and then hang by your hands, waiting for the instructor's signal. And then you let go, just like that, into the pool.

If you have real guts you will be to able keep your body straight and streamlined, with your hands closed and head steady -- if so, you will go in like a dream with hardly a ripple.

But if you are jittery and your body is not absolutely straight, if your legs are even a little spread, you will hit the water with the most terrible splash. And it hurts like hell when you splash into it at 40 to 50 kilometres per hour. As many found out today.

Up on the platform, Commando A was finding it difficult. It was pretty windy and the platform was swinging a bit. And though he claimed otherwise, A had a very poor head for heights. He had somehow managed to come halfway and climb onto the small platform there. Then he had made the cardinal mistake of looking down... God, the tank looked so small. If he fell off, would he really land in water or would he break his neck on the sides? A stood shivering.

"Commando, look straight," the instructor shouted from down, "Take a deep breath..."

A went on shivering. There was more wind now and the platform was moving noticeably.

"Commando!" the instructor called from down.

"Y-yes sir!"

"Take a deep breath... Now take a left turn."

"Which way, sir?"

"A full left, commando!"

A started on a shaky right turn while his colleagues shouted. He checked the motion in between and stood there shaking.

"Don't make a fool of yourself, commando," the instructor shouted, "Take a deep breath and do a left turn. A full left turn."

A couple of minutes of deep breathing saw A in a stabler frame of mind. He started on the left turn, tried to make do with half of it, was shouted at ("a full turn, commando!") and, finally, managed it.

"Now commando, take a deep breath... " the instructor said, "Okay, now walk over."

Commando A obeyed and, though he was as shaky as before, managed to complete the exercise without calamity. His progress along the rope was unremarkable, but his jump was something else. He produced a strange whistling sound, something out of a science-fiction movie, and, in the 2-3 seconds it took to hit the water, committed his second cardinal mistake. He looked down, with the result that he splashed into the tank on his face.

"That must have been very painful," remarked the instructor as A came up gasping, "See, he is hurt himself. Not only did he look down, he spread his legs -- he will have bruised his genitals. When you jump your head is your radar. If you look down you will land on your face. And if you tilt it backwards, you will fall on your back. Both are extremely painful."

The jump, he went on, was the most important among the confidence-building exercises. Everyone was scared the first time they attempted it and it took a tremendous amount of will power to let go off the rope.

"Even now when I go up there I am apprehensive. The 16.5 metres looks more like 60 metres... the height is accentuated as the rope is there in the middle of such a huge open space," he said, "But it teaches you to overcome fear. You are letting yourself go into a void. Once you do it then you know you are capable of overcoming anything."

Commando A, it would appear, was one of the 'moderate' cases. There are quite a few who walk the plank smartly, monkey-crawl to the ribbon and then stay stuck there. They would just not be able to let go. A couple of year ago, for instance, a commando had hung there for half an hour before finally crawling back and down the ladder.

"He kept on saying 'commando so-and-so ready, sir,' but just couldn't get himself to let go," the instructor said, "He had to come back the next year and finish the course -- without doing the jump you can't pass, you know."

The commandos, meanwhile, had all finished their jumps. Now all that stood between them and the Adam day was a couple of lectures, and -- hell -- that 30-kilometre run.