Sniper one

by Dan Mills

  'Really? Gleaming.'

  'Yeah, isn't it. Don't you love it when a plan comes together?'

  Four things came together in beautiful synchronicity to make the night work like clockwork: enormous firepower, slick timing, smart tactics and a decent dose of luck. As we came to learn, luck was the most important of the four.

  Only then did it dawn on me what a fantastic triumph the battle group had just pulled off.

  The siege of Cimic House had been relieved. Fresh fighting troops were in there now, with enough supplies and ammunition for them to fight alone for a month. The physical blow this was to our enemy was bad enough, after all the losses they'd suffered trying to wear us down. But the psychological one was far more devastating. The battle group had proved it could go in and out of the town when it needed to. We were still the true masters of Al Amarah, and Cimic would never be taken. The OMS and Abu Hatim could all go fly.

  29

  We finally pulled into Abu Naji at 4.30 a.m., just as the sun was rising again. It was a nice feeling to step under a shower and get some fresh clothes on. I hadn't done that since I'd last left Abu Naji almost four weeks ago. Then we had breakfast, and got our heads down. Most of the platoon slept until after sunset. Chris didn't wake up until the next morning. That was OK though. We'd earned a lie-in.

  For the next few days, the OMS alliance kept up a steady flow of mortar and sniper fire on Cimic. It meant the Royal Welch Fusiliers got the chance to get some scrapping under their belts. But after what we'd been through, it was hard to see it as anything more than keeping up appearances for Moqtada.

  The enemy never attempted another proper assault on the compound. They either no longer had the men for it or no longer had the will; or both. Our all-out defence coupled with the resupply had broken the back of the insurgency in Al Amarah. They knew it, and we knew it. It gave everyone who'd been in Cimic House in August a tremendous sense of pride. We had stood up and been counted, we were tested to the extreme, and we had won.

  When the ceasefire finally came a few days later, it must have been far more of a relief to them than it was to us.

  Again, just as events in Najaf had started it, it took the final play of the game in the holy city to bring the August uprising to a final close.

  Where the interim Iraqi government had failed after weeks of fruitless negotiations, the most influential cleric in Iraq succeeded. As the Shia's equivalent of the Pope, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was a very powerful man indeed in the south; probably the most powerful. Luckily for the Yanks, the 73-year-old preacher with a long white beard was still a moderate who generally gave the coalition his support. The Americans' masterstroke was to coax him into the fray on their side.

  On 25 August, he was flown to Basra on an RAF C17 jet from London, where he had been undergoing heart surgery. A hospital bed abroad for three weeks had conveniently left Sistani without having to choose sides. From Basra, he set off to Najaf by road in a heralded 'peace convoy' to call a halt to the uprising.

  Faced with having to defy the great man's word and take him on too, Moqtada blinked. Tactically, though, he was already in deep trouble. According to CNN, the Marines had finally come up with a way of taking the Imam Ali mosque without exploding Muslim sensitivities. Elite Iraqi Army troops had been trained to storm it with the help of US special forces disguised as Arabs. The operation to capture or kill Moqtada was just hours away from being launched.

  After twenty-four hours of frenzied talks, Sistani brokered a new deal. If the Mehdi Army would disarm and leave Najaf, the US Marines promised to do the same. Again, there'd be no recriminations on either side. It was a compromise that suited everyone by that stage.

  Moqtada sent out a proclamation asking all loyal fighters to put down their weapons. He even agreed to rejoin the political process and take part in the elections in five months' time. His loyal defenders in the mosque were escorted out of it by jubilant worshippers. The home of their belief system had been saved.

  On 28 August, the Al Amarah OMS also declared a ceasefire, pending, of course, the outcome of their negotiations with the town's security forces, which really meant our CO. In other words, their murdering swine wanted immunity too. With orders from above, Colonel Maer reluctantly accepted the deal, which came into effect at midday.

  With the quiet, the company finally got a chance to add up the statistics. They made terrific reading. During that 23-day period of concerted attack, we'd taken a total of 595 incoming mortar rounds on the compound during 230 different bombardments, 57 separate RPG attacks and 5 barrages from 107mm rockets. We'd fought 25 different firefights out in the town, and repelled 86 enemy ground assaults on Cimic itself.

  In return, we fired back 33,000 rounds, countless Challenger, Warrior and mortar HE shells, and even managed to persuade the US Air Force to drop a 500lb bomb right into the middle of a built-up city.

  We'd never had the time – or the opportunity – to properly count up all the enemy dead. During the siege alone, it must have been somewhere in the mid-hundreds. Thanks to a rough Ops Room estimation, Sniper Platoon alone accounted for 40 per cent of all of Y Company's kills.

  The siege's fighting had certainly taken our platoon tally for the whole tour to over 200 confirmed kills; double that unconfirmed. We all knew how many of them we'd hit, but you don't often get the chance to take the pulse of some fucker you've just slotted when you're in the middle of the shit.

  As for the company's casualties, we suffered one dead and six seriously wounded. How we didn't lose dozens rather than just Ray will remain the world's greatest mystery to all of us.

  The locals in the houses surrounding Cimic had not been quite so lucky. A total of twenty-two had been killed by mortars intended for us dropping short or long.

  The next day, I radioed Ads from Abu Naji to ask him to check up on the people in the corner house. They'd been playing on my mind. If any of them were still alive, I still wanted us to apologize for zeroing on their wall. Miraculously, they were all still there, albeit in little more than a pile of rubble now. They had all survived, and they had nothing but thanks for us for defeating the OMS. Amazing. Our presence next door had fucked their lives, and they still said thank you.

  This time, the ceasefire held firm all over Iraq. Moqtada was well and truly a spent force now; for the rest of that year anyway.

  The CO shared an anecdote with Captain Curry in the back of a Warrior on the way back to Abu Naji after the ceasefire signing ceremony in the Pink Palace.

  'Well, Charlie, I take my hat off to you and Major Featherstone. The OMS told me they thought Cimic was being defended by an entire SAS squadron. Of course, it was a misapprehension I was comfortable to leave them with.'

  The greatest irony of all had come a week into the peace. Chris heard the news first and couldn't wait to tell me.

  'Guess what, Danny.'

  'What, mate?'

  He grinned. 'You'll love this. We're handing Cimic House back over to the Iraqis tomorrow. All UK forces are moving out for good.'

  It had been all part of the long-term strategy to give the place back to local government control as soon as it was feasible. It was about the Iraqi security forces taking on an ever greater lead. After all, we weren't going to stay in Maysan for ever. The handover had originally been planned for midsummer. Then the uprising had begun again and everything was canned.

  In peacetime, our priorities had changed again. We could hand it over now while looking all magnanimous – most importantly, at a time of our choosing, not theirs. A final fuck you to the OMS.

  We knew the logic behind the decision full well. Yet Chris and I couldn't resist a wry smile about it all the same. It was hard for us, the grunts, to not feel a little bit of Hamburger Hill syndrome after everything we'd been through there. One of our men had even died for the right to call that place British. Two weeks later, the Grand Old Duke of York had decided the hill wasn't needed any more so we marched all the way back down it again.

 
; In the end, nobody was really that massively bothered. We didn't actually give a fuck about the place. A poxy few lumps of concrete in the middle of Al Amarah; they can shove it up their arses for all we cared.

  The only thing that mattered was we'd done our jobs when we were really needed. That would never be taken away from us.

  With nowhere else to go now but Abu Naji, the platoon spent the rest of the tour chasing camel spiders up and down the corridors of its giant tents. There was the normal dull routine to keep us occupied: guard duties, Land Rover patrols, escort trips and admin days.

  The only violence we ever witnessed was the odd mortar attack. In the Abu Naji cookhouse, you could spot the people who'd been at Cimic House in a flash. At the first sound of incoming, we were the only ones to stay at the tables calmly finishing our food. The rest of the battle group scrambled under the tables and lurched for their body armour.

  At the end of September, I got posted. It had come sooner than I'd expected. I was being promoted to Colour Sergeant, and sent to the Infantry Battle School in Brecon as an instructor. My leaving date was in just one week's time, three weeks ahead of everyone else.

  Truth be told, I was happy to get out of Iraq by then. The ceasefire bored us all to tears just like it had in July. Life also moves on. My priorities began to change; I was looking forward to my new job, seeing my kids again. By then, I'd done my bit for the place and the battalion. I'd also proved myself to everyone I'd needed to – most importantly, me.

  Despite all that, leaving the platoon was always going to be hard. Having fought with them so hard for so long, we'd developed a bond the likes of which I'd never experienced before. Half of them had become men on the tour, and all of us had become soldiers. We'd also had the time of our lives.

  On the afternoon before I left, I handed over command of the platoon to Daz.

  'It's all yours now, mate. Take good care of it.'

  'Roger that, Dan. We might, but somehow I don't think the QM will miss you.'

  That night, Major Featherstone got special dispensation to throw a small party for a handful of us who were leaving the company the next day for good. It meant a barbecue, and a couple of beers each.

  The OC gave a small speech, followed by an even smaller one from me. But I meant every word of it.

  'I just want to say cheers, guys. The last six months have been the pinnacle of my career. It's been a privilege to serve in Y Company, and an ever greater one to command Sniper Platoon. Even on a boring peacekeeping tour like this. I never thought I'd have the chance to do even a tenth of what we've done. You're the best soldiers I've ever met, so here's to you.'

  The OC was straight back on his feet.

  'Before you sit down, Dan, the snipers have got something for you.'

  A couple of the boys came forward and presented me with the Iraqi flag that had hung from Cimic and defied everything the OMS had thrown at it.

  'This is for you, Danny. We thought it would make a fitting souvenir after all your close shaves.'

  Every one of them had written a little good luck message on it. It was a very touching moment.

  It's amazing how long you can make two beers last when that's all you've got, and we gassed the rest of the night away as a full platoon for the last time. Each of us retold the full stories of our own individual escapades. Then we relived all the fantastic stitch-ups. Smudge even admitted he was finally over Natalie.

  Late on, Ads came up with an idea.

  'Hey, why don't we all meet up on April the eighteenth next year? It could be our soldier's anniversary reunion? It would work if we all made the effort.'

  April the eighteenth was the date of our first contact in Al Amarah when Daz got blown up. It was a nice thought, and everyone agreed to it. But we all knew it was very unlikely to happen. The battalion was moving from Tidworth to Germany, so half of us would be living in different countries by then.

  A Hercules from Sparrowhawk took me down to Basra the next day. After an overnight in the air station's soulless camp, I flew out of Iraq on a Tristar back to Brize Norton on 7 October, exactly six months and a day after I'd first arrived.

  It wasn't until I got to Kings Cross the following afternoon and changed into my civvies that I had a chance to sample my very first pint of the black stuff. To my parched lips, it tasted like darkened honey. I had an hour and a half to kill before my train left for Catterick, so I made it three.

  I sat down alone to prop up the station's bar, and idly glanced up from time to time at its flatscreen TV. It was showing Sky News. Halfway through Guinness Number Two, a report came on from some grave-looking reporter who'd finally talked his way up to Al Amarah. Word of what had happened there must have begun to leak out. You're a bit late for that, I'm afraid, laddie.

  Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, he wasn't though. All of a sudden, Sky started running clips from a couple of the battle group's contacts. One had even been filmed on Cimic's roof.

  'Hah!' I blurted out loud.

  It could only have been a matter of time before those home movies got on TV. They were simply too good to stay in PWRR hands.

  Then to top it all, there was me. Crouching, helmet on, with the 51mm mortar tube clasped in my hand. That nailed it down to the day of the OMS's all-out assault.

  'Yeeesss!' I leapt to my feet and toasted the screen with the remainder of my pint. It got me a whole load of funny looks. Just another drunkard in a train station with mental problems, the rest of the drinkers must have thought. I didn't give a stuff.

  The camera shot panned down to my feet as I tugged on the lanyard to launch another round.

  'Look at that silly fella on the telly,' said the barman to nobody in particular, as he polished a glass. 'He's fighting a war in his bleedin' flipflops.'

  Epilogue

  I was wrong about Ads's suggestion on my last night in Abu Naji. Most of us did end up meeting for a night out in London the next April the eighteenth. The few that couldn't make it sent texts instead, reading 'Happy April 18'. The year after that, we all went up to Leeds on Chris's invitation. A load of mates, just sitting in the pub, with a few beers and a lot of old stories. Old soldiers just talking about their war.

  Most of all though, at our reunions, we talk about the fun.

  Our QM had done something good for morale before we left. He'd managed to work out that the battle group had fired more rounds on the tour than the entire British invasion force had fired during the Iraq war.

  The battalion handed over Maysan province to the Welsh Guards on 22 October. The first thing they did was to give the camp a thoroughly good tidy-up. Typical guardsmen, everything spick and span. I wouldn't deny it needed it though, after what we'd put the place through.

  The regimental historians also got stuck into the record books. It turned out that the Siege of Cimic House proved to be not only the longest continuous action fought by the British Army anywhere since the Korean War, but also the lengthiest defensive stand since World War Two. In total, the battle group had also clocked up 963 different contacts, and suffered two dead and 48 seriously wounded.

  Much of the bravery shown by everyone across the ranks was justly rewarded in the Operational Honours and Awards List published in March 2005.

  Private Beharry was given the Victoria Cross; and became the first living recipient of the nation's highest award for bravery in thirty-six years. He's recovered enough now to leave hospital and wear a uniform, but he'll never see active service again. There were also two rare Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses (now the second highest medal after the VC), ten Military Crosses and seventeen Mentions in Dispatches.

  Colonel Matt Maer got a Distinguished Service Order, the highest military honour for leadership in battle, along with the OC of C Company.

  From Y Company, Dale got a battlefield MBE, Justin Featherstone got one of the MCs, and I got one of the MiDs.

  With the usual smattering of 'well done' lower medals to boot, it made a grand total of thirty-seven differen
t medals and awards. The list made us the most highly decorated serving battalion in the army. Even then, it could easily have been double that. All in all though, it's fair to say we put the regiment's proud name back on the military map.

  The more time elapses, the more Cimic House and what happened there seems to grow in army folklore. It's funny, because none of it felt particularly legendary to us at the time.

  Three years on now, I keep hearing the odd bloke in the mess coming out with the 'I was in Cimic House during the siege, you know' stories. I've never seen most of them before in my life. I don't bother embarrassing them, because it's just a compliment really.

  After August 2004, the OMS of Al Amarah – or any other insurgents – never took the British Army on again in face to face combat. Since then, the city's streets have been by and large quiet and peaceful.

  Moqtada al-Sadr may still be riding strong, but the local OMS's fortunes have flagged. They don't enjoy anywhere near the same level of popular support in Al Amarah as they did during the summer of 2004. A lot of Maysanis never forgave them for starting a fight they couldn't win. Not only had they smashed up large chunks of the city with us, but a lot of poor or stupid young men had gone to their deaths pointlessly.

  However, that's not to say the violence against the coalition stopped in Maysan. Terrorism continued, but the killers just stopped showing their faces. Without the support of the general population, their activities were pushed underground. Arguably, that just made them ever more deadly.

  At the time of writing, a further eight British soldiers have lost their lives in Al Amarah from enemy action – seven of them from a new type of roadside bomb supplied by Iran's Revolutionary Guards. The battalion's C Company ended up going back there for a second tour over the summer of 2006, picking up another Conspicuous Gallantry Cross and three more MCs for their efforts.