Forward into Hell

by Vince Bramley

  I didn’t mind admitting that Steve had helped me mentally and physically.

  Tommo came over and we were all pleased to see each other, our platoon having been split up since cross-decking from the Canberra. We were all anxious to see each other. I told the others about Taff dropping out early on in the tab. I was worried about him and told the lads so. Tommo told me that those who had dropped out were being airlifted up to Teal after we had left. Feeling happy about that, I returned to Steve Ratchford and told him that all was OK with the lads left behind. Now I could moan about Taff, knowing he was safe.

  Lying on the damp ground, I looked at my poor feet again. The blisters were red-raw and bleeding and my other big toenail was going the same way as the first. Please don’t fall off, I thought. The agony of having two big toenails missing would surely kill me off.

  Steve and Tommo looked at my feet, wondering if I would be able to carry on. I found a bandage hidden in my webbing and cut it up to make small dressings for my blisters and toes. I thought that fresh air would help. Leaving my boots off that night was to be my worst mistake so far. After a freezing-cold and sleepless night, the morning light showed me two swollen feet and the hardest-frozen pair of boots imaginable. I cursed myself for being such a dickhead. Putting those boots back on was agony.

  After brewing up and eating the last of our compo, we lay there in the showers of rain and snow, waiting for orders. How we wanted our sleeping bags for warmth. My faithful black poly bag was now just about ruined. I went for a crap but it wasn’t worth it because of the agony of constipation and the cold wind whipping around my backside. Kev Connery thought I was pulling faces at him.

  We waited there until 1600 hours before moving off slowly, tabbing across small streams and countless small hills. We could just see Estancia in the distance but it never seemed to get nearer as we plodded towards our next goal. We marched for about four hours until the whole battalion had rendezvoused. By the time we reached this point, I was nearly crying with pain. My hips had bad webbing burns and my feet were two raw blobs. As I slumped against a peat bank, Jimmy Morham murmured that I looked like death warmed up. I felt like it, too.

  An officer walked down the line informing us of developments at Estancia. Were the enemy waiting this time?

  ‘They’ve buggered off again, lads. We’ll be moving in and around the houses come early morning but we’ll be marching the last kilometre and a half and securing a defensive area around it.’ He walked off.

  I was glad that the Argies had run again but I wondered if I could tab that last bit. Perhaps it was knowing that I had only a kilometre and a half to go that enabled me to succeed. All the same, it felt ten times as far.

  Tommo, Skip, Steve and I put up a poncho in the middle of some open ground about a hundred metres from a building. We could just see its outline. We drew straws to see who would be on stag duty first and who would sleep in the middle. I slept on the short straw and the wind rushed through the side of our pathetic basher.

  First light brought with it the misery of the rain lashing down on us. Soaked to the skin, we slowly dismantled the basher.

  ‘Grenade!’ shouted Steve.

  We all looked at him in dismay, as if he had flipped. He lay on the ground, covering his head. I wasn’t sure if it was for real, or a sick joke. Others half-crouched on the ground and some looked at them as if they were pricks. The seconds ticked away. Nothing. Tommo got up and picked up the webbing. He put his hand into the pouch and pulled out the grenade in two parts. The primer and grenade had come apart. Feeling stupid, Steve reprimed the grenade as we slagged him off.

  The rain belted down as the company advanced into Estancia from all angles. Many troops had been there all night and had picked the best places for bashing up already. The CSM ordered us into a large, new-looking shed. We clamoured for a good spot and brewed up, scoffing the last of our rations. Ian McKay dished out a bread roll to every man – our first bread in two weeks. It is impossible to explain how it feels to eat fresh solid food after eating watered-down Arctic rations for a long time.

  We dried off as best as we could, and then came a foot inspection by the company medic. My feet being bad, I was ordered to the main house to see the battalion doctor. I joined a long queue in the rain that eventually led me into a back room where the doctor was treating five guys at a time. As we entered, we were told not to touch the wallpaper as they had waited nearly a year for it to be delivered. I couldn’t help but think what a stupid request it was, seeing the lads around me and their condition. After my inspection, I was given an aspirin and fresh plasters for my toes. I was told I was in a bad way with trench foot, but to carry on. I wasn’t bothered about this, because I wasn’t going to go sick even if ordered. I hobbled back to the shed and waited around with the rest for new orders.

  10

  A WAITING GAME

  Estancia House, which we had just liberated, consisted of the main house, a small barn, a large shed and a small shed at the back of the house. Troops milled around the place as the rain stopped. Within hours, our bergens arrived by chopper and I was able to put fresh socks on my sore feet. I had now used up all my socks. The old ones were stinking and damp. I put my old socks over my hands, like gloves, to try to dry them over an oil-drum fire. Many others did the same.

  As I chatted to the lads around me, I became aware of our physical state. On the Canberra, we had laughed at the stories of Argies being reduced to eating anything and looking like tramps, but within two weeks we looked like a rag-and-bone army. Our faces were drawn with the loss of weight, our uniforms matted and soaked, our boots were damaged and we were hungry for solid food. Despite all this, morale was very high, in the reassuring knowledge that we had marched and taken most of the island without a battle or loss of life so far.

  Late that afternoon, we were ordered up the hills surrounding Estancia to secure it defensively. All the companies were dispatched from the house, leaving Company HQ as a base. We now had a few civvies to drive their Landrovers for us but no choppers for 3 Para at all. It was a foot-slog and ‘rover march up the side of Estancia Mountain. It was last light when we piled off the ‘rovers and sorted out our defence positions. We dug shell scraps but, yet again, we had no bergens. We were told they had been dropped off, and spent the next two hours stumbling around in the dark trying to find them. Many lads jacked in the search and slept in their clothing until first light. However, we located our bergens and, armed with our kit, settled down into a stag system with Skiddy’s team.

  Dawn came amid a storm of rain and sleet. Not wishing to crawl from our sleeping bags, Ratch and I lay under our poncho listening to the rain. We were enjoying the rest too much to move.

  ‘Corporal B, Corporal B.’

  ‘Fuck, I’ve heard that before,’ I said to Ratch.

  I peered through the side of our poncho and came face to face with 4 Platoon’s PC again.

  ‘Don’t tell me we’re moving again, sir, I’ll crack,’ I said.

  ‘You are, we’re not,’ he smiled. ‘Skiddy’s gun team stays here. All machine-gun teams are to be down at Estancia a.s.a.p. for new orders.’

  I flopped back and faced Ratch, who had covered his eyes with his hands.

  ‘Don’t say fuck all, Vince, please – just leave me to think who I can kill now.’

  The rain lashed down on us as we packed our kit. Skiddy, Kev and Johnny grinned as they watched from their position. We hobbled off, leaving the other half of our team on the hill. The walk downhill to the settlement was a pain. Last night, we had been told to go up the hill. ‘Up, down, on the bus, off the bus’ – that’s the Army.

  When we reached the settlement, we found the rest of the gun teams all together, gathered around our PC, who had been getting sly chopper lifts across the island. As he greeted us, I told him I now had a new name for him: ‘Taxi Mike’. As usual, he bit. Our platoon sergeant, GD, was with him, whom we called ‘Duff Gen’. GD was good at barrack-room soldiering, but would he ri
se to the challenge of the real thing? We would take Mike Oliver, lieutenant, rather than Sergeant GD any day, because he was visible throughout the conflict. We all liked the PC because he didn’t hassle us as if we were army cadets. This may seem petty, but the ability to work together is paramount in a platoon.

  We shuffled together and were informed that we would be marching straight on to Mount Longdon that night. The battle was about to begin. We had no time for last letters or anything else. We packed our kit and were briefed and ready to go within two hours. The battalion formed up and marched uphill again, spilling out of the settlement towards the summit of Estancia.

  The route we took was atrocious. We crossed a rock field of some sort. The rocks were sharp and jagged. In four hours, we covered only three kilometres. Sweat ran down us like water. I stopped at one stage to tear off my soaking longjohns. Eventually, we reached the summit and at last light the battalion was gathered in their own areas, ready to march over the hill towards Longdon. B and C Companies were going over the hill as we reached it. We set off within fifteen minutes of reaching the summit. We had gone only a few metres when we heard a chopper banking away from our lead elements.

  We came to a halt as the order ‘Turn back, turn back’ hit our ears.

  ‘What’s the fucking matter, now?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Just turn back and do as you’re told,’ screamed an officer. Just on the other side of the hill, out of view of Stanley, the lads had been ordered back. Why?

  Shortly after, we learned that the Cabbageheads running the show hadn’t agreed to our advance. They didn’t think that we should take the risk of going into battle on our own. The chopper, reputedly with Brigadier Thompson on board, had stopped our CO’s advance to contact. This left the battalion fuming. We had been pushed hard by our CO, but we were ready and eager, longing to push in first. At our rank, we have no say in the running of battles; we just respond to orders. But, it should be known, at that point we had a far better mental outlook in warfare than the Craphats – that is, any soldier who is not a Para – who couldn’t, and didn’t try to, understand our regiment’s history. The Paras should never be led by Craphats. We had to suffer the humiliation of being told that we couldn’t do what we knew we could do. We all felt bad for the CO, who was hard and strong and would always talk to the lads. He was perhaps the best CO I’ve served under.

  We heard later that the Marine brigadier had wanted a joint assault on the Stanley mountain ranges, a brigade attack, and that his troops had not been ready. He told our CO that we had out-marched his men and were showing him up with our ability in warfare.

  The lads gathered about, waiting for new orders. The unexpected withdrawal hadn’t been good news for us. We sat around waiting, yet again, for something to happen. Suddenly, the air around us disappeared and an explosion hit the area. Three or four Argie shells crashed within a hundred metres of where we were sitting. Molten shrapnel lit up the dark night.

  ‘Get on to the Scorpions and head back to the settlement, lads,’ shouted the PC.

  Without waiting for another word, the gun teams clambered on to the vehicles. My feet were near the exhaust during the thirty-minute drive back down the hill and this dried out my boots – the only good thing to happen that whole day.

  When we reached Estancia again, the place was half-empty of troops. We fought like cat and dog to get a good bash-up place. Earlier, I had seen 9 Squadron using some oil drums. I headed for these, and Ratch, Chris Dexter and I had a comfy place to sleep that night.

  The following morning was foggy. There was no movement around the base, just a few lads chatting here and there. I clambered out from what we had christened our ‘hotel’. We had the best basher there: oil drums and an old car bonnet with a poncho draped over the top. It provided near-perfect protection from the weather.

  I needed a shit badly. Armed with my SLR, I wandered away from the lads, into the fog. I dug a small hole and crouched down, relaxing away from the tourists’ eyes. Suddenly, I heard, ‘Yep, yep, yep, yep, here, here,’ and out of the fog came a herd of sheep. They came right up to me as I pulled up my denims. A sheepdog growled at me, then a settlement farmer walked into view.

  ‘Hi, looks like you needed that,’ he said, nodding towards my hole.

  ‘Yeah. Sorry about the place, but you can see there’s no public loos around.’ All the time I was thinking, This is stupid. Here, right in the middle of what is going to be a battlefield, I’m chatting to a farmer and his sheep.

  ‘You hungry, mate?’ he asked in what sounded like a South African accent.

  ‘Yes,’ I smiled, as I finished dressing.

  Suddenly, he grabbed a sheep by the neck, cut its throat and within a minute had skinned it. He hacked off one of its rear legs and handed it to me. He picked up the rest of the carcass and walked off singing. I stood there holding a warm sheep’s leg, in the middle of a field, in the fog. It felt weird.

  When I reached the basher, the lads were up and about. ‘What the fuck have you done now, Vince?’ laughed Johnny.

  ‘A farmer gave us some fresh meat.’

  ‘Liar, you killed it,’ said Ratch.

  ‘No, honest, it was given to me.’

  Nobody would believe me, then or now. We chopped up the leg equally among us and had fried lamb for breakfast.

  The next few days passed with no real news about anything. Johnny and Rawley managed somehow to find a tent, and we lived and looked like campers on holiday. Johnny took my place on a recce on Longdon one night, as my feet were still in a shit state. Further inspection of my feet by a doctor confirmed my trench foot and the toenail of my other big toe had to be removed. I now had no big toenails, trench foot and drying blisters. I didn’t report sick again for fear of missing the last push into Stanley if I were casualty-evacuated out. The PC and I got together and I explained that I’d have to be dragged to the chopper before I’d be left out. The PC had a quiet word with the doctor, who answered to the effect that it was my neck and washed his hands of me. I spent the last days before the battle caring for my feet as though they were a baby, giving them as much air as possible to dry the wounds. I succeeded in adequately restoring them.

  One night after stand-down, Johnny and Tommo crawled into my basher to tell me, ‘The farmer has hung up a cow and some sheep round the back.’

  By now, we’d had orders not to loot the meat, but the temptation was too great. Tony Peers and I, armed with knives, sneaked into the yard to be greeted by the sight of 9 Squadron and other 3 Para lads hacking at the corpses of the sheep. We split the meat up and hid it. Next morning, the shit really hit the fan. Only skeletons were left hanging on the meat hooks. Searches were made among 9 Squadron and around the general area. It was pathetic to watch those lads being searched for meat. We hid their meat for them until their sergeant cooled down.

  The meals we had that night tasted better than Mum’s Sunday dinner. The engineers of 9 Squadron were a good bunch of lads. As they were always attached to the Paras, we knew many of them as well as we did our own. Sadly for them, they had what we thought was the hardest platoon sergeant ever. His attitude was unremitting. All 9 Squadron hated him and so did we. What a pity he survived.

  The next day, our platoon sergeant borrowed a farmer’s motorbike to go and look for two missing barrels belonging to one of our gun teams, which had been reported missing but were later found by Dave Hughes of the Mortar Platoon. He wasn’t seen again for the rest of the day. Early that night, he came back, limping and pushing the bike. He reckoned he’d had a fall from the bike, somehow. Tommo and Johnny heard the OC politely telling him to fuck off after he told the doctor he couldn’t walk. The platoon was embarrassed by his actions and tried to avoid him.

  ‘Sergeant D, get a shave,’ the RSM shouted at him.

  He limped off and as he passed us he shouted at us, in turn, to shave. He managed to get out of being our platoon sergeant in the coming battle and got the job of ammo resupply. As a platoon, we were happ
y with that outcome.

  Dicky Absolon (later killed and posthumously awarded the Military Medal) and Gerry Phillips were having a brew with us one morning after a hard night recceing the objective.

  ‘It’s like an ants’ nest up there, Vince,’ they said. ‘Argies everywhere.’

  Being part of D Company, led by Sergeant John Pettinger, they had spent many hair-raising hours crawling among the positions on Longdon for Intelligence reports. Nobody wanted their job. Extremely successful and professional, they and many like them had helped to build a model showing the Argie bunkers and possible minefields. During the week we waited, the model showed that Argie strength on Longdon was growing by the day. It was thought the enemy had between three and five hundred troops with anti-personnel mines, radar, mortars, one-hundred-and-six-millimetre rifles, point-fifty-calibre machine-guns and enough ammo and supplies to last for a long siege. Hearing this first-hand made our stomachs churn.

  That night, as I lay in my sleeping bag chatting to Ratch and Chris, the ground suddenly shook and rumbled like an earthquake. The area lit up in a flash accompanied by the loudest bangs we’d heard so far.

  ‘What the fucking hell was that?’ shouted Chris.

  ‘Don’t know, but we’re not going out there to see,’ I replied. Outside we could hear some guys shouting and running about but generally everybody stayed put. Next morning, Intelligence told us that Argie Canberra-bombers had dropped their load not three hundred metres from us. If they had hit us, the battalion would not be around today. We spent the day digging full-scale trenches. Better late than never.

  As we were milling around a peat fire with 9 Squadron, a chopper came down from one of the mountains. Some nosy lads ran towards it and quickly brought back the report that some of the Marines had had a blue-on-blue contact that night. A returning patrol had stumbled on a mortar-based team asleep and had shot them as they lay in their sleeping bags. There were three to four dead. Whatever we felt about the Marines, we were sorry for them that day.