To catch a thief on the foreshore

“Good fieldcraft is good fieldcraft wherever you are”

In 1999 and 2000, I was fortunate to spend many months in the jungles of Brunei and Belize as part of my Royal Marine training. Both were wonderful environments in which to soldier. For the previous two years, I’d spent most of my time wet and cold — on Dartmoor, the Brecon Beacons and in Scotland.

Now, at least, I was only wet; it’s rarely cold in a tropical rainforest and I was never thirsty. With movement beneath the canopy very limited, it was also a welcome opportunity to catch up on sleep and I found a hammock to be a comfortable place to recoup after the rigours of the commando course.

It was during these times that fellow trainees and I were taught the skills of tracking by some inspiring Gurkha instructors. We knew that our unfamiliarity