Crossfire

by Andy McNab

  'Run! They're going to lift us!'

  Pete and Terry were on their feet. I pushed them on through the stinking mud as the snipers tried to cover us.

  It was too late.

  An arm appeared from behind me. Then I felt hot breath on my neck and a head against my shoulders. He tightened the armlock, and the world was full of grunts and stale tobacco. His weight was dragging me down. The Velcro of my PRR ear pad ripped away and fell to the ground.

  Other bodies swarmed over Pete and Terry but they were going down fighting. There was nothing I could do for them until I was free.

  The screams, gunfire and Warrior engines receded into the background as I jerked left and right, pushing my head back to nut him, anything to get the fucker off me.

  My knees buckled. I fell to the ground and he collapsed on top of me. I kicked, pushed, punched, anything to get him off so Barney – anyone – could take a shot.

  I kicked out but this boy was massive and he kept hold. Wet with shit, his hair slapped against my face. We tumbled into a shallow ditch. I made a grab for his head and tried to butt him.

  We rolled over and over in the shit puddles. I saw the stars, and the next thing I knew my face was in the mud. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I had to breathe. It was like holding your mouth and nose as a kid after taking a deep breath, then carrying on until it becomes unbearable and keeping on going a few seconds past that.

  I felt a stabbing pain in my eyes and ears. I felt pressure in my chest and throat. I thrashed and bucked, but only succeeded in burrowing my head further into the slime.

  My body was telling me to breathe, but it wouldn't let me inhale water. I jerked and convulsed like a madman. After ten or fifteen seconds more I felt like I was in a vice that was being gradually tightened across my breastbone and spinal column. Water seeped into my lungs, my body was a mass of pain and I knew I was dying.

  I didn't even sense the other body appearing above us, or jumping down into the ditch, or the boot that must have come in fast and hard and smacked against the Iraqi's head. All I heard was a bone-crunching thud, then the man crushing me spasmed and relaxed. Next thing I knew, his weight was pulled off me. My lungs roared as I filled them with air.

  Another kick barrelled into my assailant as I gulped and coughed.

  The boot was Pete's. I could see him through the blur of mud and shit that covered my face. And then I heard the loud bang as he followed up with just one round from Terry's weapon into the Iraqi's head.

  'Staying down there all night, mate?'

  His free hand was outstretched. He hauled me to my feet.

  Sniper rounds whistled overhead, thudding into the warren. I fought for breath and spat shit from my mouth.

  A few metres away, Terry was kicking another dead body off him. He scrambled to his feet and stepped over the one Pete must have dropped.

  'Man on! Man on!' The screams came from the snipers.

  I spun round to see more bodies closing fast.

  Pete didn't miss a beat. Terry's SA80 went straight into the shoulder. 'Go, go!'

  I turned and ran, pushing the boy ahead of me. Pete put down a series of short sharp bursts that punctuated the stream of sniper fire above me.

  I stopped halfway and turned back, letting Terry go on. AK muzzle flashes strobed in the darkness as Pete kept firing.

  'Enough, Pete. Come on!'

  My body jerked as if somebody had swung a pickaxe handle into my chest. I was hurled back. My hands were flung into the air and I fell, pain searing my arm. The force spun me round and I crumpled, face down.

  I lay there, a bundle of pain, fear and disbelief. Like Dom with his invisible forcefield, I'd thought I'd never get shot again.

  I didn't have as much as a nanosecond to start crawling before Pete caught up with me. He managed one short burst before he ran out of rounds.

  He dropped the SA80 into the shit next to me and his bony hands grabbed my good arm and pulled. His grunts sounded louder than the gunfire.

  Bodies surged from the warren; the patrol was taking on the insurgents as they moved back towards the alley.

  The Manc lad stood his ground in the middle of the wasteground, his shoulder rocking back with the recoil from his weapon. The moment we were in the alley, Terry helped get me over Pete's shoulder in a fireman's lift.

  'You're all right, Nick. Sonia'll sort you. See you later, Tel.'

  He turned towards the Bulldogs and legged it.

  My forearm jolted with pain each time his feet hit the ground. I looked down. The skin was punctured big-time, but it wasn't flapping about. Maybe the round that had hit me hadn't smashed the bone. I couldn't tell.

  Sonia had the back of the wagon open and ready. Pete threw rather than loaded me in. Rounds from both sides of the street smashed against the armour. The GPMGs returned fire. The gunner above me gave it max.

  Sonia jabbed an autojet of morphine into my arse and tore at my T-shirt with scissors. She pulled a face. 'I might let off the odd fart, but I don't bloody shit myself!'

  I could hear Pete laughing with sheer relief as he and Dom jumped in for cover. 'Fuck me, mate. You're supposed to be looking after us!'

  Another burst slammed against the armour plating of the wagon and I heard two Warriors scream up alongside us.

  18

  Somebody leant over me, high collar and batwings silhouetted against the red light. His hand was in the air. His fingers were gripped round a plastic bottle. A tube ran down from it and into my good arm.

  A cannon kicked off a few rounds. Everything jerked as we moved off again. The guy holding the saline cursed as he tried to keep his balance.

  I could see Warrior seats. I must be on the floor, between the two benches.

  We lurched off again and my head rolled to the right.

  Dom and Pete looked down at me. Pete was filming.

  'You'll thank me for this later, mate. One for the family get-together . . .'

  I sort of saw a smile behind the lens.

  My head bumped on the steel floor and I realized I didn't have my helmet on. I couldn't remember it being taken off. Not that it mattered. My head didn't hurt. Morphine rules.

  One minute, two minutes, five minutes, an hour later, for all I knew, the wagon stopped and the door was pulled open. Scouse voices echoed in the darkness.

  'Get them out of there! I'm not fucking waiting out here all day, you cunts – get them out!'

  The guy with the saline shouted back, 'This one first!'

  Hands gripped me and floated me on to a stretcher. Red night-lights and dark shadows had been replaced by shot-to-fuck HESCOs and a sky speckled with stars.

  My new best friend with the drip stayed alongside the stretcher as I jerked up and down. Dom and Pete were nowhere to be seen. Boots crunched over a stretch of rubble-strewn ground. Seconds later I was blinking under blindingly white light.

  White tiles, white floors. Maybe six or seven others lying on stretchers, bound up with awesomely white dressings over filthy combats and body armour.

  A medic with rubber gloves on swam across my vision. He was Ospreyed up and helmeted. Wherever I was, they must be taking incoming as well.

  It had to be OSB. The place was permanently under siege from indirect fire, small arms and RPGs. One of their sangars held the record for having the most contacts in the whole of Iraq. The Chindits had even built earth ramps up to the HESCO walls so their Warriors' 30mm cannon could join in the firefights.

  My stretcher was lowered on to a table. Within seconds somebody was cutting off Sonia's field dressing.

  'It's OK, mate. It didn't hit a bone. Just a meaty hole, that's all.'

  A mortar landed close by and I must have flinched. The guy doing the cutting was a Jock. 'It's OK. They'll get bored in a minute.'

  Automatic fire kicked off from somewhere above me. Maybe it was that record-breaking sangar.

  Through the blur, I could see Dom and Pete in the room.

  The Jock was cleaning my left hand
now. The liquid stank.

  'Pete!'

  They were busy talking to the guys, pointing at me.

  'Pete!'

  A burst of Scouse came from behind me. 'You'll be OK, la'!'

  Rhett came into vision. He inspected the wound as Dom and Pete stepped up beside him.

  Pete pointed at my Osprey. 'You copped this, mate.'

  I looked down like a drunk to see a blurred couple of strike marks, almost indents in the front plate. I couldn't see the ripped material because it was covered with shit and mud.

  Pete brought his camera up as Dom eased off my body armour and one of the medics cut along the inseam of my cargoes with a pair of scissors.

  'Nick, they're going to clean you up here. As soon as the attack stops Rhett's taking you back to the COB with the other casualties. We'll see you there after they've sorted you out.'

  'You'll soon be sound as a fuck'n' pound.' Pete's bad Scouse echoed off the tiles.

  I tried to reach out to him with my good hand and was told to stay exactly where I was. 'Pete . . . thanks, mate . . .'

  'Oh, fuck off.' He laughed. 'It's only 'cos I need you.'

  I must have frowned.

  'You're a witness in the case of the floating turd!'

  I heard him laugh again, loud and long, and then the world grew gradually calmer.

  The morphine took effect.

  I felt myself floating.

  My world became a drowsy haze of dim red light.

  19

  I felt numb and dumb, like a drunk bouncing off the furniture in some badly lit nightclub.

  It was Dom, I was sure of it, shaking me, talking close to my ear. He was panicky, out of breath. Scared.

  'Pete's gone . . .' He said it over and over. 'Pete's gone . . . It's all my fault . . . I'm so sorry, Nick. I've got to go . . . I've got to go . . .'

  Was he crying? 'What the fuck you on about?'

  'I've got to go . . .'

  He was a blur, but it was definitely Dom. He sobbed something I couldn't quite hear. 'What you on about, mate?' I tried to push myself up but he stuck out an arm, told me to rest.

  His head moved closer to mine. 'Nick, no matter what you're told, it wasn't me, OK? It – was – not – me . . .'

  I felt him grip my hand. I tried to make sense of what the fuck he was on about. My head was still full of whatever shit had been mixed with the morphine.

  'Wasn't what? Wasn't you who what?'

  He squeezed my hand. 'You'll know soon, when the drugs have worn off. They'll tell you. Remember – it wasn't me. Say it, Nick.'

  'It wasn't me . . .'

  He let go of my hand and I tried to stay awake.

  20

  Friday, 2 March

  1126 hrs

  'Nick, it's me. Wake up, lad.'

  'Dom?' I turned over in a semi-daze. 'What you on about? Pete's done what?' My arm was throbbing. I eased open one eye. My arm was covered with a clean dressing. It felt newly sewn up.

  'You're going to be right as rain, lad. The doctor said you'll be up and walking today.' The Scouse was thick as soup.

  'Rhett?' I tried to open both eyes.

  'Course it is, you soft twat.'

  He was sitting on a plastic chair beside me. He had fresh combats and body armour on, and sweat ran down his shiny clean-shaven face. He cradled his helmet under his arm.

  We were in a huge marquee. The plastic roof was twenty metres above me, stretched over an aluminium frame. The area had been partitioned into cubicles with 3x3-metre plywood. My head hurt, and I smelt of Dettol, or whatever had been thrown over me when I'd been washed and sorted out. It was hot and muggy. Shouldn't a hospital or whatever this was have airconditioning?

  'I feel like shit. Where am I?'

  He tried to laugh, but couldn't manage it. 'COB.'

  My eyelids drooped. They wanted to stay glued together. I was thirsty, but my mouth felt too furred-up ever to let anything through again. As I lay on my back and tried to get my fingers working, I heard Land Rovers speed past. I'd have recognized that engine note anywhere. The odd Brit shout penetrated the marquee walls. I eventually opened my eyes again. It was still a bit blurry but that felt like tiredness rather than drugs.

  All my kit from the palace was on a bench in the corner. There wasn't much of it, but I didn't care. Out here, whatever you had would be in shit state within seconds.

  I took a breath and forced myself to sit up.

  'I got bad news, Nick. It's Pete . . .' Rhett was grim-faced. 'He's dead, mate.'

  I couldn't have heard him right.

  'He got shot about four hours ago. Sorry, mate, he was a good lad.'

  Pete's gone . . . I've got to go . . . I've got to go . . .

  'Where's Dom?'

  'Dunno. Probably well shook up. He saw it happen. Media Ops asked me to break the news. It's a fucker.'

  I pointed over to my kit. 'Can you pass my mobile? It's in one of the side pouches.'

  I was fully awake now. I was thinking about Tallulah, Ruby and those birthdays he was determined not to miss.

  I sparked up the phone. Iraqna had treated me to a three-bar signal.

  I called Dom. The default Vodafone Ireland message kicked in immediately.

  'It's Nick. Rhett's just told me. Call me back soon as, mate. I need to know you're OK.'

  I sat cradling the phone in my lap. 'What the fuck happened?'

  He placed his helmet carefully on the plywood floor. 'Fucking nightmare.' He shook his head. 'We brought both of them back here from OSB. You were out of it, so Dom said they'd decided to go outside the wire to film the Merlins flying low into the city. Some fucker must have been waiting. Pete took two rounds. There's always some of those shites hanging around looking for a target. Dom ran and got help, but it was useless. He'd have died instantly. What can I say? Fucking crying shame . . .'

  'What about the shooters?'

  'The QRF [quick reaction force] were out like a bunch of fucking whippets, but they'd legged it.'

  'Where's Dom?'

  'His kit's gone. He's fucked off.'

  I willed the phone to ring. A cameraman had died on my watch, and now the reporter was missing.

  I looked up. 'Help me get dressed, mate.'

  21

  I did it as fast as I could, one-handed and with a bit of help from Rhett. My jeans and T-shirt were on my Bergen, but my boots had probably been burnt along with the rest of last night's shit-covered, infected gear. I dug out my trainers.

  'You know where they keep the bodies?'

  Rhett was in awkward mode. 'No, it's not the sort of place we want to go near.'