We watched in fascination as the I-man proceeded to scoop out four narrow holes with his machete, each about twelve inches deep, so it swallowed the entire blade. Ibrahim was 100 per cent focused on his task, and we in turn were glued to whatever he was doing.
Next he took one of the long branches, stood it vertical and chopped it into four pieces, each two feet long. He slotted those pieces into the four holes he’d dug in the ground, then he took the soil he’d scooped out and tamped it around them, until he had four rock-solid posts arranged in a rectangle. He cut more lengths of wood, to make crosspieces at either end of the rectangle. Then he bent the rattan vine over the machete blade, sliced off a length, and lashed the two crosspieces to the uprights.
‘Maybe it’s some kind of evil trap to ensnare the rebels,’ I suggested. ‘One we haven’t thought of.’
‘Bollocks,’ Wag snorted. ‘But whatever it is, it sure beats going to Ikea.’
Next, the I-man took a long length of wood, stood it upright, marked where his shoulder came to with his fingers, and lopped off the excess. He then repeated the performance with another pole. That done, he knelt down and lashed the poles to the long side of the uprights, using the rattan to do so.
He now had about twenty feet of the vine remaining. After tying one end to the corner of the rectangular frame, he started to thread the rattan back and forth, looping it around the wood twice as he went. He worked his way from one end to the other. Once he was done he threw his machete down, point into the soil. The whole process had taken about forty minutes, during which he’d never said a word to us – not even cracking a joke about what he might be up to.
With his back to us he sat on the rattan latticework, and took a bounce or two, clearly testing its strength. Maybe it was some kind of a garden bench? Then he swung his legs up and laid his whole body flat on the construction. He bounced and wriggled and shuffled about a bit and went: ‘Hmmmmm … Hmmmmm … Hmmmmm …’
With a seriously happy expression on his face he sat up and turned to us. ‘Try! Try!’ He made the snoring noises again. ‘This very good here.’
Ah, so that’s what it was – a bed.
I glanced at Wag. ‘You’re the heaviest – get on.’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah. Fuck it. Why not?’
Wag got up, removed his belt kit and climbed on. He did a repeat of the I-man’s performance. He rolled to the left and went: ‘Hmmm …’ Rolled to the right: ‘Hmmm …’ Rolled back again: ‘Hmmm.’ I was half expecting him to go crashing through, but the I-bed didn’t shift an inch. Wag climbed off with a big smile and Ibrahim picked up his machete and started the whole process all over – making us bed number two.
Forty minutes later it was done, and there was a three-foot gap between the two of them. Ibrahim had never taken one proper measurement the entire time. No tape measure for the I-man. As Wag had said, it sure beat going to Ikea, where you’d spend an hour reading the instructions and then build it almost to completion before realising that some bits were missing and you’d fixed half of the others the wrong way round.
Ibrahim pointed at a clear patch of ground adjacent to the two I-beds: ‘There? Another?’
Wag shook his head. ‘No, no, no, mate, two is more than okay.’
Ibrahim, pointing at the four of us: ‘No, no, no – four.’
Wag, pointing at the two beds already built: ‘No, no, no – two Ibrahim is fine.’
There was a bit more toing and froing before Ibrahim finally seemed to get it that as two of us would be on stag, we didn’t need any more I-beds. That understood, he collected his things and wandered off happily. It was early evening by now and we were all curious to have a proper go on the new furniture.
I tried one of them. ‘Hmmmm … Bit stringy on the back. I tell you what. We’ll cut up the ration boxes, flatten them out and lay the cardboard … Look, I’ll show you …’
The beaten flat ration boxes provided enough of a cardboard layer to cover the torso area of both beds, and the legs were fine anyway.
‘Perfick,’ I announced. ‘The dog’s nads mate.’
Wag’s eyes glittered. ‘Fucking ’ell, we’ve got two peachy beds. Wait ’til the blokes come for prayers and see ’em.’
The patrol commanders filtered in one by one. We gathered in a circle around the rim of the depression. We were waiting to see their reaction over the I-beds, but although Nathe, Dolly, Ginge and Taff were now all present not one of them had said even a word.
‘They’re just trying to ignore it I mouthed at Wag. ‘Fucking blokes.’
Wag decided to make a pre-emptive announcement. ‘Look, before anyone says anything, yes we do have two very fucking nice beds, thank you.’
We were expecting a massive chorus of: You wankers!
Instead, Nathe just shrugged. ‘So what? They’re just like ours.’
‘What, you’ve got beds as well?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘What, like those?’
‘Yep. The same.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
I turned to Dolly. ‘Have you got two ’n all?’
‘Yeah, two.’
‘Ginge?’
‘Yeah. Two as well.’
‘Taff?’
‘Two, bud.’
‘How the fuck did you get beds? Ibrahim can’t have been in five places all at once.’
‘Nah, it was the kids,’ said Nathe. ‘We told ’em to build ’em set back from the trenches, in the shade of the canopy. Ibrahim turned up rattling his sabre and cracking a few heads and did an inspection. He found the beds fit for muster and left happy.’
Dolly nodded. ‘Yeah, he turned up and did the same with us and all.’
Ginge and Taff had a similar tale.
The beds issue pretty much dominated that evening’s prayers. Other than that, the patrol commanders reported that all the defences we’d asked for were present and correct – punji fields included. Now, it had become a waiting game to see who would be the first to blink and take a bullet: us or the rebels.
It was around seven that evening, so just getting properly dark, when Mojo pitched up unannounced. He was sporting shiny boots and a beret, and amazingly his Foster Grant shades were still in place. Balanced on his shoulder was a large cardboard box, like a fruit tray. He proceeded to deposit the box on the lip of our depression.
Inside it was a heap of fresh bread rolls. I could smell them from where I was sitting, and after a week of British Army rations the aroma was mouth-watering. I glanced at the others. This was way out left-field kind of shit. I mean Mojo wasn’t exactly the Hovis boy on his bicycle, and this wasn’t quite the cobbled streets of Shaftesbury’s Gold Hill, in Dorset, where the Hovis ads were filmed.
‘A gift from the chief,’ Mojo announced. ‘You will get one bread delivery every evening.’
For a moment we were speechless.
Then Wag posed the obvious question. ‘Mojo, where the fuck did you get fresh bread?’
‘They made it for you. The villagers. And also from tomorrow the ladies will fetch your water, as well.’
‘What d’you mean – the ladies will fetch us water?’
‘Every morning they will go to the water source and bring you drinking water.’
‘Really?’
Mojo nodded. ‘Yes. This also is from the chief.’
With that he about-turned and drifted into the shadows. We counted the bread rolls. There were twenty-six, one per man. We were flabbergasted. How the hell had they managed that? We removed our four, then Wag and me did a walkabout of the positions, starting with Dolly’s.
‘Here you go,’ Wag announced, as he counted out six bread rolls from the tray under his arm. ‘One, two, three … that’s six. One each.’
Dolly stared at the rolls in disbelief. ‘What – the fuck – are those?’
‘Bread rolls.’
Wag was being mega-straight-faced, which made it all the funnier. I was having to tighten my belt to stop
myself from laughing. If I so much as sniggered the wind-up would be over.
‘Where in God’s name did you get those?’ Dolly demanded.
‘The shop,’ said Wag.
Dolly stared at him. ‘What shop?’ The rest of his blokes were staring now too.
Wag jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘On the corner. The baker’s.’
Dolly had the hook deep in his mouth now. ‘What baker’s? I’ve been here seven days and …’
‘The corner shop at the end of the road,’ Wag cut in.
Dolly shook his head. ‘I haven’t seen no baker’s.’
Wag shook his head, in mock exasperation. ‘Look, stop asking so many fucking questions. D’you want ’em or not?’
Wag was the past master at these kind of wind-ups. He was brilliant at acting as if all was completely normal. I was stood behind him desperately trying not to laugh.
‘And if you’re good lads you’ll get the same again tomorrow,’ Wag added. ‘Plus I’ll be sending someone in the morning to fill your water bottles.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Dolly.
But he still grabbed his ration of bread rolls.
The joke got repeated all down the line. It didn’t get any less funny with each rendition. It took Wag and me an hour to get it done, for no one could quite get their heads around the bread delivery.
Like everything else we do, we also eat in pairs. Most blokes were having one major meal in the evening and making it an ‘all-in’. You’d save up your boil-in-the-bag meals and mix in your hard tack biscuits, making one big gloppy stew. A little bit of fresh like those bread rolls provided a massive boost to morale. They were a little taste of home, of family, of the familiar – and maybe even of safety.
By the time we got back to the HQ position it was fully dark. Tricky had just got an Intel update via the Thuraya satphone, for the 319 radio was still kaput after the rainstorm. He’d taken the radio set to pieces, removed the batteries and left it all to dry in the sun, but still it wasn’t playing ball.
The Intel update was as follows: ‘Be aware the rebels are coming. All Intel suggests two thousand plus. All comms intercepts suggest they will come through your position. Repeat: they will be coming through your position.’
That night was one of sleeplessness and high tension, in spite of the luxury of having the I-beds. Something was different about the jungle. The noises had changed, and we were becoming increasingly convinced it wasn’t animals making most of them any more. We figured the rebels were using the hours of darkness to do their close-target recces – so scoping out our defences and the best potential routes of attack – and were signalling to each other via their spooky ‘animal’ cries.
Just after stand-to the following morning two women appeared at our position. They wore bright scarves tied around their heads, and multicoloured wrap-around sarongs knotted over one shoulder. Each had a five-gallon cooking-oil container perched on her head – the clear plastic ones. They were using them to carry water. Each must have weighed a good forty pounds and God only knows where they’d had to go to fill them – most likely the wetland area from where they’d cut the best of the bamboo.
They plonked their burdens down on the lip of the depression, gave a shy kind of a smile, then turned and wandered off. As promised, this was our early morning water delivery.
Amazing.
I didn’t doubt that all the patrols were getting their water delivery – and so it proved. Once it was put through the Millbank bags to rid it of any sediment, and treated with Steritabs – a sterilising tablet that kills most nasties – it would be good enough to drink. Until now we’d been on seriously tight water discipline. We’d been rationed to seventeen one-litre bottles per six-man patrol, to last three days – so slightly less than one litre per man per day.
It was nowhere near enough in the gruelling heat and with guys on stag or out doing their foot patrols. We were getting seriously dehydrated – suffering lethargy, exhaustion and pounding headaches. This early morning water delivery was going to be a lifesaver. With two jerry cans per patrol, we now had an extra sixteen litres a day – or four litres each, which was more like the kind of amount we needed to be drinking.
But equally importantly, this was classic hearts and minds stuff. Somehow, we’d really started to win the battle on that front, and there were few militaries in the world that could have done this. The villagers had taken us into their hearts, built the defences we needed, started a regular water and bread delivery and shown us how to harvest and cook the local fauna. They had their eyes and ears out scanning for the enemy, and the best Intel you can ever get is good local humint.
Nathe’s snail baltis were part and parcel of the whole hearts and minds process. The most insulting thing you can ever do is refuse to eat the locals’ food, or turn your nose up at it. We’d achieved all of this while looking and smelling ever more like a bunch of street hobos. In spite of our rain-shower, we were grimy as hell. During the heat of the day we were attracting swarms of flies. They’d settle on our sweat-soaked shirts in voracious clouds, eating us alive.
It would have been impossible for us to dig the battle trenches, clear the vegetation, and make and plant the punji fields on one litre of water per man per day. We’d managed to make the villagers feel as if we were here to protect them, and that if we worked as a united team we could win this thing – because if we didn’t we were all getting slaughtered anyway. If we had for one moment appeared like a force of occupation, we’d have lost the battle before we even got started.
More rain fell that morning, and this time it just kept coming. Pathways turned to raging torrents, and within seconds just about every piece of kit we possessed was soaked. In addition to the dodgy Clansman 319 HF radio, we also had Clansman 349 VHF radios for short-range communications between patrols. The 349s consisted of an earpiece, plus a throat-mic to speak into and send. But they were almost as vulnerable to moisture as was the 319. Much more of this kind of rain and it’d put an end to them as well. This was a real issue, for we had decided upon a single code-word to be given over the radios if the rebels were spotted: maximise.
If maximise was given, all would know we were about to be hit and to stand-to in our fighting positions.
13
The formal role of the Pathfinders is to ‘cue the deep battle’. In theory, we go forward into enemy territory to guide in the main force, and bring in battle assets: fixed-wing warplanes, helicopters, mortars, artillery, rocket fire. We also act to sabotage and divert enemy forces, by hitting their command nodes and key personnel – using sniper rifles and other precision weaponry.
Accordingly, Pathfinders have to be mentally and physically tough enough to operate as small teams in isolation over protracted periods of time. The twenty-six of us positioned in Lungi Lol were capable of doing all of this and more – if only we had the kit to enable us to do so. But right now, with our main radio kaput and our personal radios on the blink, that was looking decidedly doubtful. The call to maximise might well never be heard.
With only the one set of clothes we sat there soaked to the skin after the cloudburst, and set about stripping down and cleaning our SA80 rifles. We did so two on and two off, so those on sentry were always ready to fight should the rebels appear. As the sun dried the clothes to our bodies, so the danger of ‘prickly heat’ intensified – whereby dirt and shit blocks up the pores, causing unbearable rashes and itching. With the lack of hygiene, boils were starting to form on our skin, and our feet were rotting in our warm and damp socks.
A week in by now, part of the danger had become the routine: sentry, sleep, eat; sentry, sleep, eat. Routine leads to boredom and in a situation like this boredom can prove lethal. Now we had a reliable supply of drinking water I figured we could do more. I decided to push out the foot patrols beyond the village clearing. They’d search for signs of the enemy that we figured were out there in the forest fringes, scoping our positions.
I told the patrol commanders to ta
ke time to sit at the edge of the jungle looking back into the village, assessing where and how they would launch an attack.
‘You’ve got to think like the enemy,’ I told them. ‘Think like the enemy and pay them the respect they deserve.’
H came in from one such patrol having spotted a route through the punji fields. New bamboo stakes were planted to block it. Taff came in from another patrol suggesting we thread a running track around the village perimeter, so we could start ‘running the fence’ again. It was partly in jest, but the point was well made. With all the lack of physical exercise blokes were losing their edge – and so was planted the idea of building some makeshift gyms.
That morning Wag made the announcement: ‘Right, I’m gonna see if I can make some weights.’
He vanished into the small patch of woodland that lay adjacent to our position, and I could hear him chopping away with his machete. After five minutes or so curiosity got the better of me. I found him hacking up various lengths of wood, trying to fashion some makeshift dumbbells.
Halfway through the chopping he paused: ‘Fuck it – I need a weights bench.’
In a brazen attempt to copy the I-beds, Wag started to try to build an exact reproduction – but one set within the shade of the woods. He began by planting a couple of uprights, each branching into a V-shape at the high end, forming the rest to lay the weight bars on. Then he started work on the weight bench itself. He got about halfway when he realised he had a problem.
‘Fuck it – I’ve run out of rattan!’
By now Wag was a man on a mission. He went and fetched a length of paracord, one that was rolled up into a dog’s-bone shape, like you buy washing line in a hardware store. He switched to using that to lash the framework together. I was assisting as best I could, cutting down branches here and there, and two hours in the bench was done.
Next, Wag set about hacking out some massive blocks of wood, to make the weights on the end of the bar. But now he faced a problem. He rubbed his hand across his shaven head, glancing from the bar to the weights and back again. The problem was how to attach one to the other.
Operation Mayhem Page 16
