by Geoff Wolak
‘Not really? Either you stuck you smelly end in another woman or not…’
‘I had a back injury, and the massage lady had … well, a nice pair, and one thing led to another.’
‘I had a very similar experience, so I can’t condemn you. But I wasn’t married at the time.’
When the helos made their presence felt we all peered up and around, a line of Seahawks coming in followed by the Hueys, and if stealth was their aim they were failing, Max filming the odd sight of a sky full of loud helos.
The Seahawks touched down first, medics clambering out with more Marines, heavy bags lugged, and tents it seemed, the Colonel stepping down and running over with his head down, M16 in his left hand, hat held down. Men saluted.
I saluted. ‘Not wise for you to be here, sir.’
He lost his smile. ‘My men are here, so I’m damn well here.’
‘If a mortar gets you, they get a propaganda victory. This is not about the size of your balls. That’s why we don’t have the Joint Chiefs in a trench.’
He stopped to consider that. ‘I’ll have to avoid that mortar.’
I saw Doc Willy load the wounded lady and return, the Seahawks departing, kit dumped on the runway. Men ran forwards and grabbed it, a large supply of water cans and ration packs.
The Hueys came in and loudly disturbed the peace, Rocko stepping down with Robby and Billy, and it was odd to see Billy in the field. Sasha appeared with his team, all sun–tanned, 14 Intel followed, their captains, all lugging supplies, large green sacks full of sandbags.
With the Hueys departing, the peace reclaimed, I told Robby, ‘On the west side are trenches abandoned by Echo and the SAS, grab them for now and wait. Go quickly.’
He led 14 Intel across.
‘Rocko, Billy, my command area.’ I pointed. ‘Kit down, start digging. Colonel, if we get incoming, grab some dirt with Major Morgen. Any spare men, they dig.’
I greeted Sasha with a hug as Marines glanced at us, soon chatting in Russian to the gang. I allocated them ground south of me and they got to work on a trench.
I walked along to the medics as they stood looking lost. These were new faces, not the same bunch that had been at La Ninga. ‘I’m Major Wilco, and … welcome to The Nam. Now listen up! You may get a mortar on your heads in five minutes, or tomorrow. There are some empty trenches around here you can use, or you just lay down and hope if we get some incoming.’
They did not look hopeful.
‘You have tents?’
‘Yes, a few.’
‘First, you move north two hundred yards, safer, then you dig a square the size of the tent, down two feet or so. Tent inside, walls made, sandbags filled. I’ll have spare men assist you.’
I led them north, and called in some of the American Wolf recruits. ‘Help the medics dig, and quickly! Some of you, run around and get spare pickaxes and shovels.’ I turned to the medics as they picked out flat areas. ‘Medics, your tent flaps face inwards, tall wall of mud behind you. Not too close to the runway.’
The medics had twenty warm bodies and another thirty Wolves helping them, the officers organising things, so it would not take long.
‘What about toilets?’ a lady captain asked.
I stared at her.
She exchanged a look with her colleagues. ‘We make do then.’
‘You go down the slope, but not if mortars are coming in. Dig a latrine.’
She did not look happy.
‘Who’s in charge here?’ I asked.
‘I am,’ came from a grey haired major.
‘You want a call from Pentagon, a very loud call?’
‘No, we’re perfectly adept in these conditions.’ He loudly added, ‘Aren’t we?’
‘Yessir,’ came back.
I took ten Wolf recruits back with me and had them fill sandbags or dig trenches for Morgen and the Colonel.
The Colonel asked, his M16 slung, ‘We waiting for them to come to us?’
‘No, sir, I just need the teams here and settled and dug in. First long-range patrols went out this morning. Besides, this will make for a nice tempting target, lots of radio chatter.’
‘Who’s listening in?’
I led him to one side and we stood in a stiff breeze. ‘I can answer some of your questions, sir, but it might harm your career.’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘More spy shits.’
‘Yes, sir, your ... spy shits.’
‘Ours?’
‘I kept it quiet, but we found the body of an ex-CIA man amongst dead FARC rebels.’
‘Jesus. FBI, CIA, all selling out.’
‘When drugs are involved, there’s money to be made, lots of money for a man not yet ready to retire – or keen to retire with more than a DOD pension. Keep it to yourself, sir, not even Langley knows yet.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘I set a trap, and someone in the Pentagon tripped it.’
His face fell. ‘One of ours is talking to the cartels?’
‘Talking to the FARC.’
He stared south, and shook his head. ‘You live in a very strange world, Major, now my world. Hard to know who to trust.’
‘Trust the grunts, don’t trust the spies.’
He blew out. ‘So just what should I be doing here, other than avoiding a fucking mortar?’
‘Designing a command centre and directing your Marines, sir.’ I led him back and he had a look at the existing trenches. He would join them together, and use more sandbags.
‘And don’t forget, sir, when people ask – this is not another Vietnam,’ I said with a smile, Morgen laughing.
Morgen noted, ‘These muddy hillside trenches in a tropical country don’t look anything like Vietnam.’
Swifty came in for a chat, and we sat with Sasha for a cuppa.
An hour later my phone trilled. ‘It’s Mitch, and we just shot two guys with a clever radio scanner.’
‘Where?’
‘In the chest.’
I sighed. Loudly. ‘Where are you, idiot?’
He laughed. ‘Up on the second hill. Can see you from here I think.’
‘I want that scanner. Send back two men, same way they walked out. Greenie plus one other.’
‘I’ll dispatch them now.’
I stepped to the west side. ‘Listen up!’ I shouted, 14 Intel faces turning up from trenches, including butch Maggie. ‘There are patrols coming in and moving out, don’t shoot unless you are sure, very sure.
‘Dump your kit, get pickaxes and shovels, and start to make additional deep two-man trenches, southwest side.’ I pointed. ‘Or extend the ones you see, make them longer.’
Robby started to get them organised.
‘Robby, what supplies you got?’
‘All have 24hr rations, and water. More stacked up at that airfield.’
‘Remind me to fetch in more if I forget. Echo all have tins. Pears, custard, mince meat…’
‘Lucky buggers.’
‘Sergeant Major, you could be in Benidorm right now,’ I teased.
‘I’ll take the trench.’
Back at my command area, I addressed Rocko and Billy. ‘When we’re dug in here, you two are running this hilltop with the Marines colonel. He’s a good man, you won’t have any issues. Major Morgen there, Marines, also a good man.
‘We need daily supplies totalled, and water, we have about three hundred men here plus Marines on the next hills. Rocko, take a walk around, introduce yourself, explain that you’re my sergeant major.’
‘Where’s that fuckwit, Tomo?’
‘Out on patrol, shout at him when he gets back.’
He headed off. I sat on sandbags next to Billy. ‘So, some time out the office, Old Man?’
‘Less of the old man.’
‘Compared to most, you’re ancient.’
‘I’m still fit.’
‘Don’t get killed here, I need you running GL4.’
‘I was on a hilltop like this when you were in school,’ he remin
ded me.
‘I heard you were in the Second World War, yes.’
‘Fuck off.’
Stepping to Major Morgen’s area, I could see a man with a large radio, in fact two men with radios, kit stacked up, ammo and rations as well. The soil here was loose, so the trenches were quick work, even Salome pitching in.
Down at the medics area the Wolf recruits were making light work of the depressions for the tents, three areas dug out and quickly getting deeper, the soil being used for walls, Doc Willy chatting to the head medic.
Twenty minutes later Greenie came running with one of my spies, both sweating profusely.
‘Good run?’ I asked.
‘Keeps us fit.’ He handed over the device, ID cards and a sat phone before jogging off.
I carried the booty to Major Morgen. ‘You have a radio expert?’
‘Two.’ He waved one over.
‘What’s this?’ I handed over the device.
‘Standard scanner, sir, our Army issue, but this is an older model.’
‘Range?’
‘A few miles, unless you’re up high, sir. It’s a bit like a CB radio scanner; it looks for a signal across a wide range of frequencies and then locks on and you listen in. You get direction but not really distance.’
‘Thanks. As you were.’ I handed it to Morgen. ‘Have them make sure it’s off, and not booby-trapped, no bomb inside. Oh, we should probably get a Navy forwards air controller.’
He pointed. ‘Tech sergeant is Marines, qualified as one and the same with the Navy. How’d they do it in the UK?’
‘We have RAF Regiment forward air controllers, not seen any Army ones, and we have Navy FACs, and we have naval officers who do the Marines course and then qualify to go ashore and call in artillery. My boys are supposed to know RT code.
‘But my first flying lesson, a gift, was in a Cessna, a civilian club close to the air base I was stationed at. My pilot, fat old fucker, has a stroke, so I had to try and land the damn thing, so I flew to my air base and got a sex lady officer on the radio.
‘Later, I went out with her, which in the UK is breaking the law, and she could have got court martialled. Years later, I met her sister, Yemen, also and air traffic controller, but … the job gets in the way.’
‘It does when you’re in a place like this during your anniversary.’
‘Married?’
‘Twenty years. And when I get back she’ll have a long list of excuses why I have to spend money on taking her out.’
I smiled widely. ‘See me before you go, I have dollars to be used on local snitches and supplies. No one will miss them.’
‘Already had the contraband R&R, questions being asked.’
‘Blame me.’
‘That’s the one good thing, and your name shuts them up real quick.’
‘I should have made some money from that damn film, but they didn’t even consult with me.’
‘And after this campaign..?’
‘Yes, a mini movie, so make sure they get Brad Pitt to play you.’
Sat on a sandbag wall, I checked the sat phone and called London to trace it, noting the last called numbers, just three, and I read out the ID cards and numbers.
When my phone trilled it Colonel Mathews. ‘Wilco, who’s down?’
I glanced down the windy strip at the busy teams. ‘Medics just arrived, my additional British teams, and now Colonel DeHavilland.’
‘No contact yet?’
‘We just caught men spying on us with clever radio kit, your army-issue kit.’
‘Ours? That’s cheeky.’
‘We expecting more Marines here?’
‘There are more Marines on standby, and at the airfield. The Greenies were recalled but the Deltas will join you today, temporary assignment to Admiral Mulloy’s strike group.’
I returned to Major Morgen. ‘Your men ready for a leg stretch?’
‘Sure.’
I pointed at the hill south, opposite LZ2-east. Ten man patrol, they walk around the top of it and back twice every day. They look for people spying on us.’
We heard the dull blast and looked south, everyone standing, a puff of smoke on the hill opposite, the other side of the bombed valley carnage. A second blast registered.
‘Mortars,’ I noted.
‘We don’t have people over there,’ Morgen puzzled.
‘The mortar team got the wrong coordinates. Warn all your people about the mortars, but send that patrol quickly.’ He got on the radio as I shouted, ‘Standby trenches, standby for mortars but keep digging!’
I walked along to the medics. ‘Keep digging, but standby to hit the deck, mortars coming in to nearby hills.’
The Major in charge asked, ‘What name will this place have?’
‘Your navy calls it LZ2.’
‘I mean, like Camel Toe Base.’
‘Ah. Think of one, let me know.’
‘Camp Nada,’ the lady medic suggested, her team laughing.
I smiled. ‘Camp Nada it is. Put up a sign. And the distance to Kansas.’
The square depressions were now deep, one tent being set up, the mud walls already two feet high, higher in some places with the sandbags. We just needed a few hours more.
At the north side I called in eight veteran American Wolves and they got ready for a patrol out. I dispatched them northwest, to be back in the morning, a warning about the patrol route of the SAS, and the 2 Squadron patrol.
Back at the command area, Rocko asked, ‘Why ain’t we using radios?’
‘They can listen in.’
‘Fuck all they can do.’
‘They could mimic you,’ I teased.
‘Ha. I think I should be on the channel with Haines.’
‘Yes, go around and get senior men on it, I’ll listen in, but warn them all about lose chat.’
‘I’ll do better, I’ll have them chat about the Sierra Leone Army based on that hill behind us, all five thousand of them.’
I laughed. ‘That should screw with their intel reports, yes.’
The mortars kept landing on the hill opposite, a reminder to people to dig quickly. I added extra sandbags to my roof, certain that a direct hit would kill us all inside, and that the damn roof would come down.
Walking to the edge of the hill I looked back at my creation, and apart from the obvious roof the position was hidden. Inside my den, I booted out Billy and hacked down another six inches, Billy shovelling it out and making a wall with it, whacking it with a spade to make it hard.
‘When it rains here, does it rain hard?’ he asked.
‘It’s tropical.’
‘This place will be lovely then.’
‘But at least the rain will be warm.’
‘I’m going to dig a run-off down the slope.’
‘Seems like you’ve done this before,’ I teased.
‘All soldiers learn to dig trenches on hillsides,’ he reflected. ‘My first one was in the Paras. 1972.’
‘My god, flared trousers and Elvis.’
I checked in on Crab and Duffy as they organised a trench for themselves.
Crab looked up, squinting in the bright sunlight, and asked, ‘What you go planned for this lot?’
‘Some hardships, some patrols, then a step-up, see who cracks.’
‘They asked them to volunteer, and four didn’t, so them four wuz kicked out.’
‘Chat to all of them, see who wants to kill for fun.’
He nodded. ‘Seem similar to the last lot, but these boys had a shit load of desert drops in Arizona.’
‘They were waiting for me, but I was tied up.’
‘Pity about Pete, I went fishing with him sometimes.’
‘Lots of people went fishing, but I never got invited.’
‘Since when have you like fishing?’
‘Well, last time I was … ten years old. But come spring I’ll give it a go.’
‘Relaxing it is.’
The 2 Squadron patrol was back at sun down, and they
keenly reported a picturesque stream and a waterfall, and I remembered it.
I stepped to Crab. ‘Tomorrow, you take about a third of the new Wolves, north two miles, there’s a waterfall. You set-up ambush points, teach them, rotate it, use it as a training ground, then back a day later and swap teams. Ask the 2 Squadron lads where it is.’
Back at the command bunker we could still hear the distant mortars as we lost the light. We now had simple wooden benches around the sides, and were snug in it, a battery lamp giving us some illumination.
Sasha handed me a brew, his five-man trench finished already. ‘Like basic training, I dig a trench, no.’
The Colonel asked, ‘Where are you from?’
‘Novograd, sir.’
‘And how did you end up with Echo?’
‘Ah, long story, classified as well. But I was bad boy mercenary, Africa then here, and Wilco and me, we work here. One day we are on a Huey, flying near the coast east of here, and a heat-seeking missile comes up at us.
‘We are flying fast, but we cross over trees close below, and Wilco, he grabs my arm and we go flying without the wings. We hit the trees and they slow us, and we land in the mud.’
He lifted his shirt. ‘A tree went right through me, but Wilco found me in the mud, patched me up, carried me ten miles to the coast for helicopter rescue.’
The Colonel turned to me. ‘You jumped from a fucking Huey?’
‘Yes, sir, it seemed better than staying aboard, and those left aboard all died.’
‘How did you survive the impact?’
‘The trees, sir, I fell from one branch to the next.’
‘He was cut up the fuck,’ Sasha put in.
The Colonel noted, ‘But you still carried this man on your back ten miles...’
‘Yeah, and he’s a heavy fat bastard as well. I got a call out, then passed out.’
Sasha added, ‘I woke on British ship, the enemy, and Wilco says who he really is, and do I want a job with him. Rest is just boring desk work for me.’
‘Ha,’ Rocko let out.
I told the Americans, ‘He has a girl back in the UK that doesn’t know what he does for a living.’
‘Would be hard to explain,’ Sasha said.
‘Would be fucking impossible,’ the Colonel noted. ‘And these French soldiers?’
‘One is 1st Battalion, one was Foreign Legion – the big black guy, Sambo.’
