They called it “going up the Congo”. This was Afghanistan, not Africa, but it didn’t matter – the object was the same. The special forces soldiers put on their body armour, blackened their faces, checked their weapons by firing into sand pits and went out on patrol. New members were given a test – the “blooding”, they called it – where they had to shoot an unarmed prisoner. His comrades then covered it up with a “throwdown”, a weapon not issued to the army, so they could claim that the alleged insurgent was armed when he was killed. Others would cut off a hand as a souvenir.