Forward into Hell

by Vince Bramley

  Looking to one side of what had been a bunker, I saw an arm and a head sticking out. The bunker had collapsed on top of a young soldier. Black and dark-red blood lay thick on his mouth. He looked about sixteen or seventeen.

  Rick and I walked fully into the clearing. No other troops were about. The place looked as if a bomb had landed in the middle and killed everyone. I looked about me. It was more than obvious that this was where some of the hardest hand-to-hand fighting had taken place. Twisted bodies lay everywhere. Rick and I looked at each other open-mouthed. It was the most disgusting sight so far.

  Two bodies lay on top of a ledge. They were our blokes. DS lay on his back with his SLR on top of him. Both arms were bent at the elbow and pointing up, the fingers half – clenched. We knelt beside him, removed his weapon and took his map case. I didn’t want to look at his face but curiosity got the better of me. The face didn’t look like his. It was drained of all colour. His eyes were closed but his mouth was half-open. Looking at your own guys dead is harder than you’d think. It moved me. I pulled his beret from his smock pocket and placed it over his face. Rick and I tied his face veil over and around his head. We both felt that no one should see Scotty like this.

  Beside DS lay TG, ‘Fester’. He was flat on his back but his legs were raised up on a rock. He looked like he was asleep. We moved his legs, placing them gently on the ground as if he was still alive. Then we walked away.

  As we stood looking over the clearing, we couldn’t help but smell the area. The smell of the whole mountain was disgusting. It was like cheesy socks mixed with mustard, or like a shithouse or a blocked drain. The smell not only got into our clothes but also into our skin. It was many months before it left me and it’s another thing I’ll never forget.

  All around us was a looter’s paradise. Weapons lay everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. Clothing spilled out from enemy kitbags. Food lay discarded as if a shop had just been raided. Medical supplies of morphine lay in a heap, and bloody bandages had been left in a sodden pile. And everywhere lay Argie bodies. Soon we were not walking, but stepping over corpses. About ten lay in a small clearing of about ten by ten metres. The smell of rot and decay came into my every breath. I’ve seen many films and read many books describing war and its spoils but it is not what it seems. Others might feel differently but I thought it was a con. There is no glory in killing.

  Ricky went off to one side and shouted into a bunker to see if it was empty, as he hoped. The area had been silent, but, as we looked at each other across the clearing, ‘boom, boom’ came to our ears again. We looked at each other as if to say, Not again.

  All over the mountain guys shouted, ‘Incoming!’

  I dived into a crater left by an earlier shell. Ricky dived into the opening of a bunker. The shells came in, landing all over the place – not the usual rolling barrage, but pot-shots all over. The whole battalion was under bombardment at the same time. A shell came in with a deadly scream and I buried my face in the freshly turned dirt of my hole as the air was sucked from around me. The shell came crashing down about fifteen metres away, in the clearing. Shrapnel whacked and twanged into the ground, rocks fell all about, and earth rained over me. Showers like this kept landing on us for about half an hour or so. All this time, no one moved. The sound of shelling from Stanley told us it hadn’t finished.

  They eventually died out, with just the odd shell landing here or there. I stood up and stretched myself. My whole body ached. I felt damp and broken.

  Ricky came out grinning. ‘Thought you’d got it when the last one came in. Fucking bastards, aren’t they? You’d think they’d come and counter-attack.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, ‘they certainly know how to put HE on yer.’

  As I walked towards a bunker, I suddenly heard voices coming from it, speaking in Spanish. I pulled out my grenades and stepped to one side of the entrance. Bending over, I peeped inside. In each hand, I held a grenade, my forefingers on the pins. I knelt in the entrance, then crawled in a little way. To my surprise, I had found the communications bunker. This was enough for me to decide it wasn’t for me, but a heavy discovery for Intelligence. On one side of the bunker lay three or four stack radios about half a metre square, their red lights blinking on and off. Handsets lay on the ground, frantic Spanish voices coming from them. From a mountain of paperwork I picked up a few sheets. They were covered with figures and codes.

  As I crawled back into the open I looked to my right, to where I had last seen Ricky. I was about to call him over but came face to face with an enemy soldier peeping out of a bunker that I had not noticed. His eyes opened wide with fright, and so did mine. For a few vital seconds, we stared at each other. If he had had a pistol and had wanted to kill me, he could have, for he must have seen me first. I felt vulnerable. I jumped up with my rifle and ran at him screaming. My bayonet struck the entrance of his bunker as he quickly retreated inside. I pulled out a grenade, removed the pin and was about to throw it in when a pistol and rifle fell at my feet. I looked down at the weapons: surrender or ploy?

  Ricky and Sergeant Chris Howard came over the crest when they heard me scream. Seeing my grenade primed and ready, they immediately grasped my intentions. My rifle now lay against the side of the bunker. Ricky took up a position behind a rock, to cover me, and Chris pulled out his own grenade and removed the pin.

  As we stood on either side of the entrance ready to blow them out, a hand waving a bloody bandage appeared. Ricky shouted to us that the Argie was coming out. It was now too late to throw in our grenades. The young soldier looked up at us standing over him. Chris quickly replaced the pin and grabbed him by the collar. Pulling him out and throwing him to the ground, he screamed at him to stay where he lay and backed it up by booting him in the face. I replaced my pin and lowered my head, looking into the bunker. The Argentinean pointed at the bunker and screamed, ‘My friend, my friend.’

  I leaned into the entrance and shouted, ‘Out, out.’

  Common sense overcame the language problem. I heard a small scuffle inside and picked up the Argie’s discarded pistol to fire a shot into the bunker. He started yelling and this time a pair of legs appeared as a second soldier made his way out. Chris and I grabbed a leg each and ripped him from the bunker. He lay on his back looking and blinking wildly at the daylight. I kicked him in the ribs, motioning him to turn on to his front. He did this quickly. I put his arms and hands behind his head. Ricky joined us. He came up close to the first Argie’s head and the soldier covered it with his arms. Chris said that the prisoners were mine to deal with and that he would search the remaining bunkers.

  Ricky stood covering me while I pulled the first soldier to his feet. Now and again, we looked into each other’s face. Thankfully, I was the victor. I motioned to him to empty his pockets and he promptly obeyed. We were standing very close to each other. I stopped him and said, ‘Do you speak English?’

  He looked at me with uncertain eyes.

  ‘English?’ I repeated.

  He shook his head and then placed his thumb and forefinger together, miming ‘a little’.

  ‘Regiment, name?’ I asked.

  ‘Seven, I’m Costa.’

  ‘Well, I’m Vince.’ I pointed to myself.

  ‘Wince?’

  ‘Forget it,’ I said.

  I picked up his papers and ID. In a wallet, I found a picture of his family and two letters. I glanced at them. My wallet contained shots of my family too. Some Spanish money fell to the ground. He picked it up and handed it to me. I put it back in his wallet but he handed me his watch and pointed at the money, motioning for me to take it. I looked at him closely. His eyes were watering and he began to cry. ‘You take please; you take please,’ he insisted.

  I pushed his watch and wallet back into his top pocket. His rosary was hanging around his left hand; he had been praying. He looked about seventeen or eighteen. He was crying hard now and shaking. Did he think I still might kill him, or was he crying with relief that his war was now ov
er?

  His friend turned to look up at us. Ricky stamped on his head. The first soldier was sniffling but trying hard to control himself. I wanted to tell him that it was OK but I couldn’t, for it would have shown weakness on my part. I felt for him, but my exterior had to remain controlled. I looked down at his leg. There was a wound where a single bullet had gone straight through. It was roughly bandaged up. I pointed to the ground and he became subdued. Just then, Lieutenant Oliver came over to us from a ledge. The Argentinean looked up at him and, as soon as he saw his officer’s pips, began to shake and come towards me as if I was going to protect him.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked the PC.

  ‘Don’t know, sir. He’s been shaking and crying ever since we got him from his bunker.’

  The prisoner looked at us. His face showed curiosity. Ricky stepped forward and started to chat with the PC about the capture. The young Argentinean suddenly stepped back from me, pointed to his leg wound and then pointed at Lieutenant Oliver and his pips, then back to his leg.

  ‘Jesus Christ, I reckon his own officer shot him,’ said Ricky.

  Lieutenant Oliver regarded us seriously. ‘No, couldn’t be, could it?’

  The youngster began to tremble and cry again. I got annoyed and shouted at him to shut up, which he did. I pushed him towards Ricky and we swapped soldiers. The second prisoner was solid, older in his eyes and looked less frightened. I dominated him throughout the search. His only belongings were letters from home.

  Chris Howard reappeared with some guys from his platoon.

  ‘Have you searched them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah, nothing of value,’ I replied.

  He turned to tell a guy to take the two prisoners to battalion HQ, then walked away. The two Argentineans got up and were frog-marched below.

  The PC gave me a mixed look.

  ‘Don’t worry, sir. I know you wouldn’t shoot me,’ I said with a grin.

  ‘Bloody disgusting, if he was shot like that,’ he said.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I’ve found something. Perhaps Intelligence should come up and see this little beauty.’

  I showed him the radio bunker.

  ‘Fucking hell, the full works in there,’ he said. ‘Stay here. I’ll go and get Sig and Int [Signals and Intelligence].’

  He went off down and around the corner. I leaned against the side of the bunker with my rifle cradled in my arms, looking around me. I became aware now of more troops walking about and chatting as if on a Sunday stroll. At my feet lay a pile of letters. Flicking through them, I came across two photos of Argentinean troops posing by trucks in their own country. The letters and photos went into my pocket.

  I felt a sweat coming over me. I took off my helmet to let my scalp breathe. My hair was greasy and wet with sweat. I looked down at my uniform. It was nearly black with dirt. I felt knackered but my head was buzzing with the excitement of the night and morning.

  I glanced across the clearing at the twisted and mangled bodies. Flat on his back, by the bunker from which I had pulled the two Argentineans, lay the body of a third soldier. His head was completely missing. Bits of flesh and bone lay around him. Ricky stood looking down at the corpse. He covered the neck with a rag. I would have done the same, for it was a disgusting sight. Blood had soaked the soldier’s whole uniform. What had removed his head, God alone knows.

  Ricky came and sat down at my feet, leaning his head on his rifle. Neither of us spoke. We rested for a few brief moments, thinking our own thoughts. Then the OC and the CSM came back with the PC to examine the radio bunker. The OC peeked inside. Behind him was a signaller. The OC took a handset from him and spoke briefly on the net, asking for Intelligence to come up. He looked at me, grinned and said, ‘Have you nicked anything from this bunker yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good. Intelligence will have a field day in there.’

  Ten minutes later, they arrived. The young officer smiled as he came up to us. He had a quick chat with the OC, then crawled into the bunker. We all tried at once to see what he was doing. The Spanish-made radio was still working, buzzing away with all sorts of messages. The young officer laughed as he listened. He popped his head out and said, ‘They still think that this station is being held. They must think that perhaps the A Company position is still fighting. Anyway, leave this with me. We’ve already established that they had special forces up here last night. We reckon the snipers played in on that.’

  I left them chatting and joined up with Ricky.

  By now, the chain of command seemed disorganised. The CO had ordered the remains of B Company to battalion HQ at the base of the mountain. B Company had been so badly battered you could no longer call it a company. Its wounded accounted for 60 per cent of the total so far.

  Our support teams filtered into the centre of a hill and took up defensive positions. The counter-attack still hadn’t materialised, so we all now walked about looting bunkers and pulling out any Argie corpses that lay hidden. Wreckage covered the whole area: materials, weapons, military kit, spilled all over the hill. You couldn’t walk two feet without finding something of interest. I now had my own pistol and time-lapse grenade and an FN automatic rifle over my shoulder to act as a back-up to my own.

  I made my way to where we had run through the central bunker layout earlier that morning. The battle had ended some three hours before, but rifle fire could still be heard and prisoners were still being taken. Some Argies were still feebly fighting. No one could relax.

  I bumped into TP and Tommo. They grabbed me by the smock and started to run with me. I guessed that they had found something. We ran up a small slope and there, right in the middle of a clump of rocks, was a point-fifty-calibre machine-gun. It was still facing our route of entry on to the mountain. Beside it lay a mountain of ammo, while behind it, lying on his side, was a dead Argentinean. I turned him over. His stiff body flopped on its back, revealing a single bullet hole in the forehead. I pulled the body to the side of the slope and pushed. It rolled two or three times, then stopped.

  Tommo had loaded the machine-gun and TP had locked it on to Mount Tumbledown. The valley between us and Tumbledown, which was still held by the Argentineans, stretched for about two thousand metres.

  ‘Hang on,’ shouted TP, ‘let me see the buggers first.’ He scanned with his binos and started to giggle. ‘Oh, yes, lovely. Take a peek.’

  I looked through the binos, across the valley, and saw a bees’ nest of enemy soldiers walking about the hill. A mass of bunkers lay in our sights. After Tommo had had a giggle too, TP took up the firing position. Tommo and I continued to look at the position. TP fired the machine-gun, which burst into a good thumping beat. The tracer rounds flew towards the enemy bunkers. Through our binos, we watched little figures scattering everywhere.

  ‘Jesus, look at them go down,’ Tommo screamed.

  ‘Let me have a go,’ I shouted.

  We swapped places and I fired about one hundred rounds at their positions.

  Down the line of Mount Longdon, from A Company’s positions, another point-fifty calibre opened up at our targets. When we stopped firing, it was as if no one had ever been walking about the target area.

  ‘That’s given them something to talk about,’ grinned Tommo. The machine-gun at A Company’s position stopped minutes later. I stood up and walked away to find Ricky, so that he could see it all. A booming sound from Stanley erupted in the distance. From my position, I could now see the capital. We all jumped into a crag as the first shells began to fall in a rolling barrage.

  I decided to have a snack and got out some compo biscuits. The shells rolled past us and fell up at A Company’s position for about ten minutes before the shelling abruptly ended.

  ‘Looks like they’re saying “lay off”,’ shouted TP.

  He was right. We decided to leave the machine-gun for now. I carried on eating. Funny how, concerned with eating, I didn’t feel anything on that particular barrage. It was as if I didn’t hav
e a care in the world. I had got to the stage just then where I felt that if one had got me, so what?

  I walked back to the clearing, where some of the lads were still sitting. I had been gone about an hour. The OC sat relaxing in he sun.

  Captain Mason called me over. ‘Found anything yet?’ he asked.

  I grinned and dropped a bayonet covered in blood at his side. ‘Well, sir, that’s what it’s like all over this fucking hill.’

  I can remember him picking up the bayonet and wiping it, then he stuck it into the ground next to him. ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ he said.

  I sat down by our GPMG, still guarded by Bob. ‘Why don’t you have a scan, Bob?’ I said.

  ‘Not really interested, Vince. I’m OK here dodging the shells.’ He grinned.

  The lads had returned in small groups and were resting. A few shells came over now and then but only one or two at a time – a comparatively light shelling, ‘just to keep us on our toes’, to quote our OC.

  17

  PERSONAL LOSSES

  We had made a brew and Denzil Connick joined us. This Welsh nutter was one of the battalion characters who would laugh at anything, even the weather, which was the last thing on our minds.

  Below the cliff line, a party of our lads were burying the ‘battle-dead’ Argies who had been centralised for this purpose. I tried to see more but Captain Mason shouted for Johnny and me to come over.

  ‘Go to where you were last night: the ACC, Sergeant Pete Morrison [Mentioned in Dispatches], needs a hand with some body bags. Sorry, but you’re the first to cross my sight line.’

  Johnny and I made our way to where Ginge and Westy lay. I still hadn’t looked at either of them; I had refused to make myself the last time I came here. Now I stood and looked down at Westy. His small five-feet-three frame lay as if he was asleep on his back. I couldn’t see any marks to show how he died. Lying on his chest, just out of reach of his fingers, was a small greyish teddy bear with a little ribbon round its neck. Westy’s face was turned to one side. His left leg was bent slightly at the knee. Jimmy looked down at him with more seriousness in his face than I’d ever seen.