Operation Mayhem

by Steve Heaney MC

  I sent my GPMG gunners east of the clearing to cover our onward movement. We formed up as a patrol and edged into the thick jungle again. As we went, I could hear the last of the cries from Wag’s clearance operation filtering through the trees, as his team mirrored the actions of my own.

  We exited the far end of the clearing, finding more blood and gore, plus piles of ammo, including bandoliers of AK47 rounds. There was a lot of freshly-crushed vegetation here, showing where a large body of men had moved through and very recently. Via the damage to the foliage it was easy to trace the onward route they’d taken as they headed away from the village.

  Having traced a wide arc north and east through the jungle, we were now around 1.5 kilometres north of Lungi Lol. This was further than we’d told Grant we were going to push. I spoke to Wag on the radio. He’d found similar signs of movement to us, and it was clear there had been wounded and dying rebels holed up in the larger buildings too.

  So where the hell was everyone now?

  We agreed to push east a further 1.2 kilometres, putting us a good 2.5 klicks or more out from the village. Hopefully, it would be far enough to catch the bad guys.

  I informed Tricky over the radio. We crept ahead, hitting the densest terrain we’d yet encountered. It was approaching midday by now, so it had taken the twelve of us fit and very able blokes a good hour to reach this point. By the looks of what we’d discovered the rebels were laden down with scores of injured. They’d be moving at a fraction of our speed.

  We should be right on top of them.

  The terrain all around us was unerringly quiet. It was as if the very jungle itself was holding its breath, bracing itself for the next round of mayhem and carnage. I caught the odd animal and bird cry, but this time I was certain it was genuine jungle life, as opposed to rebel war cries. Occasionally, a fleck of sunlight filtered through the umbrella of leaves high above us, catching on a falling leaf or a speck of dust, but otherwise it was a network of shadow.

  We moved silently across the jungle floor, pushing into a forest clearing. A giant tree had crashed to the ground sometime recently, bringing down a swathe of vegetation with it. After the musky dank of the forest interior the light in the open was blinding. I saw the glint of sun on something man-made. I bent to investigate. A crumpled cigarette packet had been dropped here. I retrieved it. It was smeared on the underside with dried blood. Rebel wounded had been through this way, but how the hell were they managing to move so quickly?

  We crept across the clearing, weapons in the aim, fingers on the trigger and safety catches very much in the ‘off’ position, scanning our arcs as we went. Every one of us was alert to the slightest movement or noise. The rebel dying and their wounded couldn’t have gone much further.

  Soon now.

  23

  I moved through the wall of vegetation on the far side, stepping back into darkness. Visibility fell to ten yards max with this level of light and the density of the surrounding greenery. This was close quarter battle (CQB) terrain par excellence, and we’d be on top of the enemy almost before we saw them.

  When training for CQB in jungle as close as this you do so on a specially-designed Patrol Lane, and with your weapon held at the hip. Targets pop up from the undergrowth to either side, and the key is to hit them before they hit you. It’s a given that you won’t have the time in which to aim properly at such close quarters. Instead, you open fire from the hip instantly, working on instinct. The aim is to get the rounds down before the enemy has the chance to do so, in the hope of wounding them or at least putting them to ground – so giving you and your team the chance to pull back from the ambush.

  That was exactly how we were patrolling now. Our aim was to move utterly silently and take the rebels by total surprise. By moving into the jungle to hunt them down, we were doing the completely unexpected. We were showing we had the battle skills to take them on in their own terrain, where they felt safest.

  If we could smash them here from out of the blue – at a time and place very much not of their choosing – it would seriously deter them from launching a further attack on the village. Not only would they have got a bloody nose at Lungi Lol, they’d have got one when moving through the jungle – which they believed was their sanctuary.

  We would instil total fear in their heads. Operation Kill British would start to look a lot less attractive. If that’s what twenty-odd British soldiers can do, what’ll happen if we go up against 800 at Lungi Airport?

  As we moved ahead we kept picking up signs of the rebels’ passing, but we reached the 2.5 kilometre mark still not having caught up with any. It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. Somehow, dead and injured rebels seemed able to keep moving through thick jungle … Maybe the voodoo medicine was working its dark magic, after all?

  We went firm. I radioed Wag that we were there, no rebels seen.

  ‘Roger, figures five,’ Wag replied.

  His patrol was five minutes behind us.

  They arrived in the tree line on the opposite side of the dirt track. Wag and me linked up in one of the side ditches that lined the track and knelt for cover.

  ‘Mate, lots of fucking blood in that village we cleared,’ I whispered. ‘Looks like they’ve been seriously shot up.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe, but not so much on our side. We just patrolled up through, not really following anything much.’

  ‘So, looks like they moved through my side after getting whacked at Dolly’s position. But where the fuck are their wounded and their dead?’

  Wag shrugged. ‘Fucking search me.’

  ‘Dead men walking?’

  ‘Looks like.’

  ‘Right, well, we’ve cleared to our front, mate. We’ve got to make the move back to complete a 360. Let’s clear either side of the railroad as we go back through.’

  By a ‘360’ I meant a 360-degree clearance all around Lungi Lol – which was the ultimate aim of what we were doing now.

  We crossed the highway, and with Wag’s patrol on the far side of the railroad we started to move back towards the village, handrailing the metal tracks. Our pace quickened as we moved through more open terrain. We approached Taff’s battle trenches, Wag’s lot stumbling upon more signs of rebel presence: a pile of hastily discarded weaponry and ammo.

  We gathered up the hardware. There was enough here to start a small war, so it looked as if a serious number of rebels had tried to outflank us via the railway line. Following the tracks due west, we skirted by Taff’s trenches, turned north to loop around the positions now manned by Mojo and his men, and finished off back at Dolly’s position. That was it: 360-degree clearance patrol completed.

  It had taken us two-and-a-half hours, and we’d collected up enough ammo and weaponry to arm a small insurgency. We’d also seen enough blood to sink a battleship, but the big mystery was – where on earth were the rebel dead and injured?

  We made the village square and the guys filtered back into their patrol positions. Wag and me briefed Grant and Bob on what we’d found. That done we placed the captured weaponry in a pile on the main track, next to the growing heap of rebel corpses.

  At 1430 hours – in an hour or so’s time – we were scheduled to get a visit from Colonel Gibson. In the meantime, we noticed groups of villagers moving along the main highway into Lungi Lol. The expressions on their faces spoke volumes. They stopped and stared at the rebel bodies with these looks of sheer, unadulterated joy. Finally, the rebels were getting their comeuppance.

  Mojo turned up looking inscrutable in his trademark immaculate dress. It was as if nothing much of any note had happened in the last few hours. How could he have been in his battle trenches alongside his men and have remained parade-ground smart? And how many bloody uniforms did the guy possess? Bob Bryant had no idea who Mojo was, of course, and I could see him staring at the Nigerian lieutenant suspiciously.

  ‘Lots of people are now coming into Lungi Lol,’ Mojo announced, speaking to Grant. ‘They have come from outlying villages
and they are going straight to the village chief. They have seen the rebels moving through, and they have come here in fear and seeking protection. Many villagers have been rounded up as work gangs and forced to carry the rebel wounded. And they are being forced to fetch them water and food.’

  Right, so now we knew. That was how the rebels had managed to move their dead and their injured: they’d rounded up villagers to use as forced labour and stretcher-bearers. The riddle of their miraculous disappearance – the voodoo-dead-men-walking – had just been solved.

  The new arrivals described how villagers had been forced to bury fourteen rebel dead here, ten there. They spoke of seeing strange wounds on the rebel bodies as if they had been speared. It looked as if the punji fields had done their work. Many villagers were still being held prisoner, and the fate of those so taken was an unknown. But at least we’d given the rebels a good pasting, and shattered the myth of their invincibility. And if this was the beginning of the end of their brutal rule here, then it had been something well worth fighting for.

  Mojo gestured at the pile of rebel corpses out on the road. ‘Those – I can take them? The dead? Take them to bury?’

  Grant nodded. ‘Yeah, get them in the ground, mate.’

  Mojo scuttled away to his grisly task. It was a good idea to get the corpses buried, for they were attracting swarms of flies. I presumed Mojo would order his men to do it, for I couldn’t imagine the man himself getting his hands – not to mention his uniform – dirty.

  We used the opportunity of having the 1 PARA blokes on the ground to take a proper break. It felt fantastic not to have to be 100 per cent alert the entire time. Tricky was the brewmaster and since the girls had started their early morning water deliveries he’d been on permanent send on the brew front.

  We’d ended up giving him all our brew kits so he could manage the catering. The Water Girls had got into the habit of collecting the empty containers at last light, and turning up just after first light with full ones. They’d deliver the water in silence, eyes downcast, as if they didn’t want to be seen getting too familiar with the white men.

  ‘Great, the Water Girls are here,’ someone would announce. ‘Thank you, girls. Biscuits? Sweets? Lancashire hotpot?’

  The Water Girls had never taken a thing off us. They’d just smiled coyly and scurried away, delivery done. With a regular supply on hand we’d adopted a new water discipline. Tricky kept the brews coming from the Water Girls’ supply, while each man kept one and a half litres of drinking water in his grab bag, plus two one-litre bottles in his belt kit. That was our E & E water, and we never made inroads into it.

  But this morning after the battle there had been no sign of the Water Girls, so Tricky was forced to make the brews from our E & E supplies. He’d just got one going, when from out of the cloudless blue sky to the west of us a Chinook came thwooping in towards Lungi Lol.

  We presumed it had to be Colonel Gibson, but it was taking a very odd approach route. It wasn’t heading for the standard LZ. Instead, it hugged the length of the main track, swooping over the village square and going right over the top of us. By the time it reached the pile of rebel weaponry it was down to twenty feet, and spent bullet cases were getting blown all over the place in the downdraught.

  The helo did a 180-degree about turn and put down on the track, practically on top of our forward trench position. The 1 PARA lads had to hold onto their helmets, as the downwash of the twin rotors practically tore them off their heads. The Chinook had come in with no warning, no one guiding it, no markers and no security. None of us could believe it. What the hell was going on?

  Bob Bryant jumped up and hurried down the track, followed by his radio operator and sergeant major. I watched as the ramp went down, fully expecting Colonel Gibson and his retinue to be disgorged. Instead, out came the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. Two gentlemen from the Royal Military Police (RMP) appeared, complete with spotless uniforms with knife-edge creases, gleaming pistols in their side holsters, and RMP berets clutched in their right hands.

  As soon as they were off the helo took to the air again, banking south over Taff’s position. The RMPs paused, put on their tomato-red berets and started marching up the track into the village. There is no other beret in the world like that worn by RMPs. You see one of those, you know immediately exactly who you’re dealing with.

  I turned to Wag. ‘Fucking monkeys? What the fuck are two monkeys doing here in Lungi Lol?’

  Wag was speechless. He shook his head in silent disbelief.

  It is a simple inalienable truth that all soldiers hate RMPs, and none more so than PARAs or ex-PARAs – hence the ‘monkeys’ nickname. Bob Bryant had got about halfway to the helo dropoff point, fully expecting it to be carrying Colonel Gibson. Now he was stopped dead in his tracks, staring in disbelief at the two RMPs.

  They came to a halt beside the pile of rebel bodies – the ones that Mojo and his men were about to go and bury. The corpses had been blown half into the ditch at the side of the road by the Chinook’s downdraught. The RMPs stood side by side, turning heads, nodding and pointing at the bodies, plus the ammo and the weaponry piled up beside them. Any second now I expected them to get out pens and notebooks.

  Sure enough, one undid his shirt button, pulled out a pencil and paper and began making a note of the weaponry. Grant, Wag, Tricky and me exchanged these incredulous glances. If someone had asked me what had surprised me more – a newspaper reporter pitching up in a white Lada taxi, or these two muppets dropping in – well, there was no contest. The monkeys had it, every time.

  After five minutes’ comparing notes over the flyblown corpses, they pushed on towards us. I could see by their shoulder flashes they were sergeants. They passed by the young PARA lads they’d just flattened with their rotor wash without the barest flicker of an acknowledgement. As they neared Bob Bryant, they ‘bent and drove’ in perfect unison – ramming feet down into the ground and sawing the right arm up in a parade-ground perfect salute.

  Bob managed a fly swat towards his helmet in response. I couldn’t hear what was said, but by the gestures Bob was making it was obvious: Yeah, I’m the senior commander on the ground, but we didn’t do this – they did.

  As Major Bryant handed the monkeys over to Grant – he was still the ground commander, after all – Tricky, Wag and me moved well out of the way. The RMPs came to a halt before Sunray, looking seriously nonplussed. They were staring at him with his long black hair, thick growth of straggly beard and unwashed, grungy combats, searching desperately for some indication of rank.

  ‘Sergeant Blick and Sergeant Block, from 160 Provost Company,’ one of them announced. ‘We’ve been sent out here to investigate the incident … sir?’

  We left Grant to brief them: the joys of command.

  If anything could encapsulate the ludicrous, misguided priorities of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces this was it. We were twenty-six blokes who’d been denied a QRF when we most needed it, and were yet to have a proper ammo resupply. We were here with no body armour, no grenades, no HE mortar rounds, not enough ammo in the first place, not enough water until the Water Girls had taken charge, dodgy rifles, dodgy night sights, dodgy rations – the list went on and on …

  Yet at the same time someone, somewhere believed it was a good and proper use of Army time, money and resources to fly these two idiots out to Lungi Lol. It was beyond comprehension. It was mind-numbingly messed-up. But most of all, after what we had just fought through and survived, it made my blood boil.

  It was a combination of luck, plus sheer bloody-minded good soldiering that we hadn’t lost a lot of lads when their SA8os jammed, or the GPMG ammo started to run dry during the long night’s battle. Yet the fuel costs alone of flying those two wankers in would have covered the cost of each and every one of us getting M16s, with oodles of ammo to spare.

  I could hear the CH-47 that had dropped the RMPs flying an orbit to the west of us. Presumably it was waiting for them to be done with whatever
crap they were here for. It was scandalous. Lives were being put at risk due to the age-old excuse – ‘lack of resources’ – yet we could still fly two RMPs into Lungi Lol for a nice little jolly.

  The RMPs had been on the ground for no more than fifteen minutes when they decided they were done. They saluted Major Bryant as smartly as before: ‘Provost Company investigation complete, sir!’ I had one thought going through my head: as if anyone gives a damn, you self-important tossers.

  For a whole minute after their helo took off we just stared at it in stunned disbelief.

  The silence was broken by Wag. ‘Does anyone have the slightest fucking clue what just happened? Tell me I’ve been dreaming …’

  ‘No, mate,’ I told him, ‘I saw them too. Two monkeys just rocked up, did whatever the fuck they do and now they’re gone.’

  Wag turned to Grant. ‘So, are you going to jail or what?’

  Grant rolled his eyes. ‘No, mate, I think I’m all right on this one.’

  I told Wag the obvious: it was time to get a feed and a brew on, plus clean our wanky SA8os.

  The RMPs gone, Mojo came pottering down the track driving the same blue pick-up that had earlier carried the dead rebel into the village. He parked up by the corpses, and his men jumped down from the rear. Under Mojo’s instructions they took hold of the rebel bodies, threw them into the back, and headed out west to bury them. Top news. At least now there were a few less rebel lunatics around to slice up Ibrahim, the Water Girls, Mojo, or Nathe’s trench-digging boys.

  Thirty minutes after the RMPs had left we heard another Chinook heading in. This one put down on the regular resupply LZ, and we had to presume it was Colonel Gibson. Bob Bryant and his head-shed went down to receive them. A few minutes later he was back at the HQ ATAP with the colonel, The White Rabbit, Jacko and a bevy of others in tow.

  We got to our feet to welcome them. The tradition is that you do not salute a commanding officer if you’re not wearing any form of headdress – a helmet, jungle hat or beret. We were all of us bareheaded, so Grant greeted the CO with a handshake.