by Andy McNab
At the other end, Vince was up with Legs and still going forward. They were shouting to psych each other up. The rest of us put down covering fire.
Mark and Dinger stood up and ran forwards. They were concentrating on the APC ahead of them that they had hit with their 66s. They'd scored a "mobility kill"-its tracks couldn't move, though it could still use its gun. They were putting in rounds hoping to shatter the gunner's prism.
If I'd been in his boots, I would have got out of the wagon and legged it, but then, he didn't know who he had pursuing him. They got up to the APC and found the rear doors still open. The jundies hadn't battened themselves down. An L2 grenade was lobbed in and exploded with its characteristic dull thud. The occupants were killed instantly.
We kept going forwards into the area of the trucks in four groups of two, each involved in its own little drama. Everybody was bobbing and moving with Sebastian Coe legs on. We'd fire a couple of rounds, then dash and get out of the way, then start again. We tried to fire aimed shots. You pick on one body and fire until he drops. Sometimes it can take as many as ten rounds.
There is a set of sights on the 203, but you don't always have time to set it up and fire. It was a case of just take a quick aim and get it off. The weapon "pops" as it fires. I watched the bomb going through the air. There was a loud bang and showers of dirt. I heard screaming.
Good. It meant they were bleeding, not shooting-and they'd become casualties that others now had to attend to.
We found ourselves on top of the position. Everybody who could do so had run away. A truck was blazing furiously ahead of us. A burnt-out APC smoked at the far-left extreme. Bodies were scattered over a wide area. Fifteen dead maybe, many more wounded. We disregarded them and carried on through. I felt an enormous sense of relief at getting the contact over with, but was still scared. There would be more to come.
Anybody who says he's not scared is either a liar or mentally deficient.
"This is fucking outrageous!" Dinger screamed.
I smelled petrol and smoke, and pork-the smell of burning bodies. One Iraqi lolled out of the passenger seat of the truck, his face black and peeling. Bodies writhed on the ground. I could tell the 203s had done their job by the number of fearsome leg injuries. When they go off, slivers of metal are blown in all directions.
All we wanted to do now was get away. We didn't know what might be in the next wave. As we started moving back to the berg ens rounds kicked into the ground behind us. The surviving APC, a half mile away and surrounded by bodies, was still firing, but ineffectively. There was no time to hang around.
7
Night would be our cover, and it would be dark soon. The APC had backed off but was moving forwards again. Infantry followed in its tracks, firing wildly. We heaved the berg ens onto our shoulders. There was no point going south because they would have guessed that was our direction of travel. The object of the exercise was to put as much distance between them and us as we could. The only way to go was west, which meant running the risk of coming into line of sight with the S60s.
We wouldn't be patrolling now. We would be moving as fast as we physically could with berg ens on to get out of the contact area. It was an infantry maneuver known as getting the fuck out.
Two trucks with infantry turned up from our east, came over the brow, and spotted us. They braked, and soldiers spilled out of the back and started firing. There were maybe forty of them, which was a colossal amount of fire bearing down on us.
They started coming forward. We turned to the east, got rounds down at them, and moved backwards to the west, firing like maniacs. Fire and maneuver, fire and maneuver, but this time away from them: two men turned round and ran, then turned to give covering fire for the other two.
We were going up a gradual slope. As we hit the brow we came into line of sight of the AA guns on the northwest position. They started firing with a deep, booming bass sound. The 57mm rounds screamed past us, all of them trace red The shells thundered into the ground, blasting rubble all around us.
Chris and I turned round together to fall back. He was running 6 to 10 feet to my right when I heard what sounded like a massive punch. I looked across just as Chris went down. He'd been hit by an antiaircraft shell. I ran over to his body, ready to jab a Syrette of morphine into what was left of him-if he wasn't already dead.
He was wriggling, and for a split second I thought it was death throes.
But he was very much alive and struggling with his bergen straps. He released himself and staggered to his feet.
"Fuck that!" he said. His bergen smoldered where the round had smashed into it.
We ran on a few strides and he stopped. "Forgot something," he said.
He ran back to the shattered bergen and rummaged in the top. He came back with a silver hip flask in his hand.
"Christmas present from the wife," he grinned as he caught up. "Couldn't leave it behind: she'd kill me."
The rest of the blokes were also binning their berg ens I hoped that Legs had managed to retrieve the patrol radio from his.
The APC was moving up quite aggressively, firing sustained and accurate bursts. Two Land Cruisers full of infantry had also joined the fray.
We stopped and got some fire down with the 203s. The vehicles braked sharply as the 40mm bombs exploded in front of them. Jundies spilled out, firing in a frenzy.
Mark and Dinger got severely pinned down by the S60s. They threw out their white phos and thick dirty white smoke billowed around them. The trouble with isolated smokescreens is that they immediately draw the enemy fire, but there was nothing else they could do. The Iraqis knew the blokes were covering their withdrawal, and they emptied their magazines into the cloud. A couple of 203 rounds into the Iraqi positions slowed their rate of fire. Mark and Dinger jumped to their feet and ran.
"Cor, good here, ain't it?" Dinger said in a pissed off tone of voice as he rushed past me.
We kept moving back and back. It was getting to last light, and they finally lost contact with us in the gloom. We were well spread out, and as darkness fell there was a danger of the patrol getting split. As we ran, we scanned the ground for a suitable rally point. Anybody in the patrol could make the choice.
There was a loud shout 150 feet to my half-right. "Rally, rally, rally!"
Whoever it was, he'd found some cover where we could get down and consolidate ourselves. This was good news, because at the moment we were fragmented, all fighting our own little dramas to get back. A rally point is much the same as an ERV except that it's given there and then and not prearranged. Its purpose is to get everybody together as quickly as possible before moving off. If anybody didn't make it, we would have to confirm that he was dead, if we hadn't done so already.
Otherwise we would have to get back the "man down."
I ran over and found Chris and Bob waiting in a dip in the ground. I immediately put on a fresh mag and prepared my weapon to carry on firing. The three of us waited in all-round defense, covering all the arcs, waiting for the others to come in on us.
I counted heads as they rushed past and took up a firing position. It was five or six minutes before the last man appeared. If anybody had been missing, I'd have had to ask: Who was the last one to see him?
Where did you see him? Was he just down or dead? If not, we'd have had to go forward and try to find him.
The headlights of tracked vehicles were frantically crisscrossing in front of us, no more than 1000 feet away. Now and then in the distance there was a burst of gunfire and shouting. They must have been firing at rocks, and probably at themselves. There was total confusion, which chuffed us no end.
The eight of us were closed up in a small area of a couple of square feet. People quickly sorted themselves out, taking off their sweaters and tucking them into their belt kit or inside their smocks. Nobody had to be told what was required. They knew we were either going for the helicopter or we were going for Syria. Either way, we would be doing a fearsome amount of tabbing.
> "Got the radio?" I asked Legs.
"There was no way I could get to it," he said. "The fire coming in was outrageous. I think it was wrecked anyway because my bergen got shot to fuck."
I knew he would have got it if he could. But it didn't really matter anyway. We had four TACBEs between us and could get in touch with AWACS within fifteen seconds.
I was still out of breath and thirsty, and took a few gulps of water from my bottle. I dug a couple of boiled sweets out of my pocket and shoved them in my mouth.
"I'd only just lit that fag," Dinger said ruefully. "If one of them bastards has picked it up, I hope he chokes."
Bob giggled, and suddenly we were all laughing like drains. It wasn't particularly what Dinger had said. We were all just so relieved to be unscathed and back together after such a major drama. We couldn't give a damn about anything else at this stage. It was great to be all in one piece.
We had used a quarter of our ammunition. We amalgamated it and put fresh mags on. I still had my 66-the only one left, because like a dickhead I had left it with my bergen.
I adjusted my clothes, pulling my trousers right up to prevent leg sores and doing up my belt again to make sure I was comfortable. It was starting to get cold. I'd been doing a fearsome amount of sweating and started to shiver in my wet shirt. We had to get moving.
"Let's get on the net now," Legs said. "They know we're here. We might as well use the TACBE."
"Yeah," said Vince, "let's get some fucking shit down."
He was right. I got out my TACBE, pulled the tab, and heard the hish. I pressed the transmit button and talked.
"Hello AWACS, this is Bravo Two Zero: we are a ground call sign and we're in the shit, over."
There was no reply.
I repeated the message.
Nothing.
"Hello any call sign," I said, "this is Bravo Two Zero."
Nothing.
I kept trying for thirty seconds without success.
Our only hope now was to get a fast jet overfly so we could contact them by TACBE on the emergency frequency. It was very unlikely, however, that jets would be going over, unless one of Legs's signals had got through during the compromise phase and the FOB had scrambled some support aircraft. There certainly hadn't been an auto acknowledgment Maybe they knew we were in the shit, maybe they didn't. There wasn't a lot we could do about it.
I did a quick appreciation. We could either tab 200 miles south to Saudi, head north towards Turkey, which meant crossing the Euphrates, or go just 100 miles west to Syria. There were infantry and armor in the immediate area. We were compromised and they were looking for us. They would naturally think that we were heading south towards Saudi. Even if we could make the heli RV, there was a chance of us being followed-and that could mean enemy activity in the area while the Chinook came in.
I decided that we had no choice but to head for Syria. We would initially move south as part of the deception plan, because that was the presumed way to go; then we'd head west to box around the area, and finally turn generally northwest. We would try to be on the other side of the MSR before first light because this would probably be the psychological perimeter of their search south. Then we could start heading for the border.
"Is everybody ready?" I said.
We started south in a single file. Vehicles were zooming backwards and forwards around us about a quarter of a mile away. We'd only gone a few hundred meters when one of them, a Land Cruiser, headed straight at us, its headlights blazing. We hit the ground, but we were out in the open.
We turned our faces away to prevent the reflection and to save our night vision. The vehicle was 650 feet away and closing. If it came any nearer, we would be seen. I braced myself for another major drama.
There was a shout. I flicked my head up and saw another vehicle flashing its lights about 1000 feet to our left. The Land Cruiser changed direction and sped off towards it.
We carried on at a brisk pace. Several times we had to stop and get down as vehicles came near. It was annoying: not only did we want to get out of the area quickly, but we also needed to keep going to keep warm. We only had smocks on over our shirts because we didn't want to sweat too much, and the temperature seemed to be dropping all the time now.
I was severely pissed off about AWACS not responding to our signal, and the thought of having to cover more than 100 miles to get to Syria didn't do much to lift my spirits.
After what seemed like a lifetime of tabbing, we looked back and saw that the headlight activity was focused in the distance. We were out of the immediate danger area, with a bit of cover from a dip in the ground.
If we wanted to try TACBE again, it would have to be on this southern leg. Bob and Dinger immediately moved back onto the lip of the depression with their Minimis to cover the rear in case we had been followed. Everybody else was down in all-round defense. I got on my TACBE again, to no avail.
Everybody with a TACBE had a go. It was unbelievable that all four radios were playing up, but that seemed to be what was happening.
Mark made a nav check with the Magellan and worked out that we'd tabbed 15 miles. We'd covered it so quickly that with luck the Iraqis wouldn't believe it possible and would have been thrown off the scent.
"We'll head west now to get well clear of the area," I said. "Then we'll start heading north to get over the MSR before first light."
All I heard was abuse directed at the manufacturers of TACBE. We would not use it again now unless we got a fast jet flying over. We didn't know whether the Iraqis had aircraft up or not, but we'd just have to take the chance. We were in the shit, and freezing cold shit it was, too.
We got Dinger and Bob back in, gave them the good news, and off we tabbed. We'd only stopped for a minute or two, but it was good to get moving again. It was bitterly cold, and a strong wind blasted the chill deep into our bones. There was dense cloud cover, and we were in pitch darkness. We couldn't see our footing correctly. The only plus was that at least it made it a lot harder for them to find us. There was still the odd vehicle, but in the far distance. We had left them well behind. I was almost feeling confident.
We pushed west for 10 miles, moving fast on a bearing. The ground was so flat that we'd be warned well in advance of any Iraqi presence. It was a balance between speed and observation.
We stopped every hour to rest for five minutes, which is the patrolling SOP. If you go on and on, all you do is run yourself down, and you'll end up not being able to achieve what you set out to do. So you stop, get down, get some rest, drink some water, sort yourself out, get yourself comfy again, and off you go. It was freezing cold, and I shivered uncontrollably when we stopped.
We had one of our five-minute rests at the 10 miles mark and did a Magellan check. I made the decision that because of the time factor, we'd have to turn north now to get over the MSR before first light.
"Let's just get over that road," I said, "then we can go northwest to Syria."
We'd gone about another 6 miles when I noticed gaps appearing in the line. We were definitely moving more slowly than we had in the beginning. There was a problem. I stopped the patrol, and everybody closed up.
Vince was limping.
"You all right, mate?" I said.
"Yeah, I hurt my leg on the way out in that contact, and it's really fucking starting to give me gyp."
The whole aim of the game was to get everybody over the border. Vince clearly had an injury. We'd have to do all our planning and considerations around the fact that he was in trouble. None of this "No, it's Okay, skipper, I can go on" bollocks, because if you try to play the he-man and don't inform people of your injuries, you're endangering the whole patrol. If they're not aware of your problem, they can't adjust the plan or cater for future eventualities. If you make sure people know that you're injured, they can plan around it.
"What's the injury like?" Dinger said.
"It just fucking hurts. I don't think it's fractured. It's not bleeding or anything, but it's swolle
n. It's going to slow me down."
"Right, we'll stop here and sort ourselves out," I said.
I pulled my woolen bobble hat from my smock and put it on my head. I watched Vince massage his leg. He was clearly annoyed with himself for sustaining an injury.
"Stan's in shit state," Bob said to me.
Dinger and Mark had been helping him along. They laid him down on the ground. He was in a bad way. He knew it, and he was pissed off about it.
"What the hell's the matter?" I said, sticking my hat on his head.
"I'm on my chin strap mate. I'm just dying here."
Chris was the most experienced medic on the patrol. He examined Stan, and it was obvious to him that he was dangerously dehydrated.
"We've got to get some rehydrate down him, and quick."
Chris ripped open two sachets of electrolyte from Stan's belt kit and tipped them into his water bottle. Stan took several big gulps.
"Look, Stan," I said, "you realize that we've got to go on?"
"Yeah, I know that. Just give us a minute. Let's get some more of this shit down my neck, and I'll sort myself out. It's this fucking Helly Hansen underwear. I was sleeping with it on when we got compromised."
Dehydration is no respecter of climates. You can become dehydrated in the depths of an Arctic winter just the same as in the middle of the day in the Sahara.
Physical exertion produces sweat, even in the cold. And the vapor clouds we see when we exhale are yet more precious moisture leaking from our bodies. Thirst is an unreliable indicator of dehydration. The problem is that just a few sips of liquid might quench your thirst without improving your internal water deficit. Or you might not even notice your thirst because there is too much else going on that needs your attention. After losing 5 percent of your body weight through dehydration, you will be struck by waves of nausea. If you vomit, you'll lose even more precious fluid. Your movements will slow down dramatically, your speech will slur, and you'll become unable to walk.
