“You prat!”
I packed up my kit, sorted out my next bearing, took a sip of water and prepared to move.
Joe was standing ready to go, rifle in hand.
“Well! Come on then, Bollock Chops; let’s get a fucking move on then! You’ve been moaning for the last two hours. Come on then, you big girl’s blouse!” I burst out laughing, kicking dust up at him from my boot.
The moon was shadowed by clouds that night, not a star in sight, it was pitch black. The ground was bloody hard too – rock solid in fact. We carefully monitored each footstep, as we got closer and closer to the border; we only had five kilometres to go before we looked down into Afghanistan. It was a great idea to hit the hills, tough going, but the right decision none the less – there was not a living soul within a five-mile radius, and even if there, was, who would have paid any attention to two goat-herding motherfuckers on a hill top. It was the norm around here. I dropped down on one knee, excavating a crack in the rocks. What a sight! I could see straight down inside it. A tremendous experience: a first for me. From my location, I could see for miles: a sandstorm of dust, grit and smoke covered the valleys below; a blanket of rocks, gravel, and death lay just in front.
After looking at our next bearing, it seemed things were going to get a lot harder for us. We would have to dump our kit, or it would be impossible to cross. “One piece of warm kit,” I told Joe quietly, “Water, food and ammunition, and dump the rest in here.”
After dumping everything not needed, I found a small crack beneath me, about six feet from my location. I felt a bit lost without my bits, but they would have cost us too much time.
“Let’s go!”
I strapped my M24 to my back and used my hands to grab hold of rocks, winching myself further up the mountain, Joe followed carefully behind me. My hands were red-raw, and I slipped slightly, pulling myself back up, moaning and cursing as I did so.
Just in front was a hole in the rocks, about one metre wide and about one and a half straight. Below that, a four hundred foot drop. My nerves were still jangling as I balanced out my footing: there was no way round, only forwards. I tried not to look down but it was bloody hard not to. I closed my eyes, grabbed hold of a jagged piece of rock and jumped over. I stumbled on the other side, narrowly missing the hole, and feeling thrilled to bits that I had achieved such a feat – like Sly Stallone in cliff-hanger!
I looked up at the cliff face. Jesus Bloody Christ, what a sight! Look at that! Holy Hell! I went on talking to myself as I worked out a plan. We climbed to the top, where I had a sickening feeling that I may have made a cock up, that maybe we should have taken the easy route, that maybe I had just gone and screwed up the mission!
“Stop kicking dust in my fucking eyes, you tosser! Come on – get a move on, Michael! I’m dying for a number two down here, and it isn’t helping you sat up there talking to yourself. Now get a move on, you twat!”
I reached out for a rock to hold onto, using my last vestige of strength to haul myself upwards. Finally reaching the top, I turned round and held out my hand for Joe. He grabbed hold and yanked himself upwards. We both momentarily staggered about like exhausted chickens, catching our breath as we contemplated our next plan. I used my binos to scan the area, “The border is just over there, it’s just over there!” I raised my fist in glory: Joe laughed at me.
We switched on. There could be border patrols, and we needed to check for vehicle movements. Also, check if there were any buildings in the area. If so, how many folk lived there? Did they own dogs? Was there any cover below? So many questions to consider, so many different options. I pulled out my M24 and brought her to attention. I pulled out her legs, resting her gently on the deck; I felt her body as I wrapped my sweaty finger around the trigger. I undid the sight guard, and slipped my eye to the lens, scanning the area for movement, buildings, people, cars, objects, roads, tracks. Joe lay down next to me, resting up until I needed him. There was a small dirt track used as a road, and a small derelict building the size of a large garden shed just east of the track by 300 metres. I could see a small plantation about four clicks west of where we were, followed by a larger plantation further on, but there was no sign of life. I left the M24 where it was. It was 11:20 hrs, and we would be resting there for the day. It had been good idea to monitor any movement before we moved on later that night, (depending on the traffic down below).
Later, I looked at my watch: it was twenty past twelve in the morning. The old sun was getting too hot for my liking and was starting to bring me out in a rash, the damn thing. I looked up and cursed the sun: pathetic really, but it gave me something to moan about, something to focus on. I scanned the area, jotting down notes mentally. A beat up old van was approaching – I could see it clearly about one kilometre away. It was no threat to us, and even if it was, there was sod all we could do about it up where we were. They didn’t even know we were here; we were a blended-in part of the landscape. After all, I had been doing this for nearly 20 years now, since the age of eighteen. I let Joe rest, as we had a long slog ahead, took a few mental notes, adjusted my action plans, rerouted on the map, and set out to plan my attack.
The village was not that far from the dirt road below us, and to the south of that were our little foreign friends. Joe took his turn on stag. I looked up at the sky as I lay on my back, feeling quite peaceful really.
Our evasion was going to have to be textbook, or we would be captured and fed to the pigs by teatime. It was not long before the weather changed and the rain came: my wishes had actually come true, and bugger me, did it rain! We had to sit down and bear it until the sun popped back out to dry us off. My dear God, did it come down!
“Come on, bruv, let’s make a move, yeah! It’s stinking down here, and my legs are soaked to the bone. Let’s just go for it, yeah!”
“What time is it, buds?”
“It’s midnight, mate. Come on, let’s go!” Joe went away and did his thing whilst I sat down and plotted a course.
Joe was on the radio trying to send a transmission.
He was moaning that he couldn’t get a green light on the radio. “I am going to have to move position to get a greens, we have no signal here. The mountain is blocking our signal.” Joe moved up the hill looking at the radio set until the little LED went green. He dropped it to the ground and recorded our grid into the microphone on the radio. He then pressed the transmit button and a split second burst of information was sent into the stratosphere. Our location was now in the airwaves and should be received by the JFK building. There was no happy chatting on the radio; we did not want our position picked up by any other intelligence agency that might be monitoring the airwaves on this border.
“We’ll bugger off in a bit, mate; we need to clear those roads, buds. It’s about 10ks until we reach our final rendezvous point – you got all your kit ready to go?”
“Yeah, all good, sexy, all good. Come on then, let’s do this bloody thing!”
I took a gulp of water from my canteen, placed it back inside my webbing, picked up my M24 and then moved off, our Joe following behind.
We started descending, clearing our final thousand feet of mountain. We looked like a couple of Afghan villagers, brown drapes around our shoulders, brown khaki trousers, brown desert boots and a traditional shemagh wrapped around the face and head. Our webbing was plugged under our garments along with my M24: just a couple of average Afghanis going about our daily business. An hour later we reached the bottom. Using the information I’d collected in my head earlier, we set a bearing and planned our route. I decided we should head straight across the dirt track, passing south of the demolished hut and into the plantation. My only real concern for the present was the fact that as the plantation was very open, it could be a local haunt!
I bit my tongue, crossed my fingers and went for it. When we arrived at the dirt track, there wasn’t a soul in sight, nor a car for miles, only the deafening screams of the wind.
I leant down and picked up
a handful of sand, letting it fall through my fingers like an egg timer. We sprinted alongside the track and into a ditch on the opposite side, I checked my watch. It was 03:52hrs.
“Get down dick head, for Christ sake! This area should be cleared – just our luck!”
A truck, dented and trashed, a Coca-Cola sticker on its side passed by our location – hopefully without seeing us down there in the boggy trench, soaked in stagnant water.
“Let’s go! Come on, move it! We need to get to that plantation A.S.A.P. lover. Come on Joe, move it!”
We jogged fiercely over the rough ground. I could see the plantation about two hundred metres up front and again urged Joe to move it. We went down once we arrived at the tree line. It was bigger than I thought, and I was shocked. The trees were beautiful, bright and green.
“What are we going to do then? Shall we just go for it? How far is it until we reach Melba Valley?” Melba Valley was our final RV before we headed upwards into the hills once more.
I sat on my arse for a while thinking about the outcome. Could we make it to the bridge or not before it got light?
“Come on, Joe, we can make it! If we dig deep, we’ll make it to the hills easily. What do you think?” He sat there calmly for five minutes weighing up his options.
“Hold on, wait for me then, Joe! Jesus, mate, we’ve got buckets of time. You’ll burn yourself out if we keep up this pace. Buddy – slow down!”
I could only pray that we were not spotted as we dashed across no-man’s land towards the hills. We reached another plantation, where it was rather surprising to see so many dead trees, rotten from their insides. Joe walked up to one and pulled its bark clean off. Amazing really, they did not even look that old. Who knows, maybe it was due to a lot of chemicals in the ground. I assessed our current situation. It was impossible to judge how long it would have taken us to cross the valley; there was too much dead ground in front of us to make a decision.
I jumped over the fence and entered the plantation. It felt very peaceful inside once we got deep into the middle. I decided to stay put for the day until last light. I could not promise that it was the correct idea, but it felt right at that moment in time. We found a fallen tree with a rotten trunk, carved hollow inside. The ground was covered in grass, dirt and rotten bark and I decided the safest thing was to lie up there for the day. That seemed our best option; other areas I’d checked out were far too open.
I took first watch whilst Joe sorted his feet out and munched his way through a packet of dry biscuit browns. Once he had changed his socks and powdered his feet we swapped over, so I could repeat the sequence. We were both knackered and in a shit state. We had overdone everything already and we had not even started yet; the hardest parts were coming up. If I was correct we should be on location by tomorrow evening. Our day did not go without incident. We had a few surprises; it was all very eventful. One mishap in particular I will try to forget.
I woke at about half two in the afternoon, swatting a settlement of ants that had crawled over my face. I killed at least three hundred of the sods before I pulled my arse off the floor and into the stag on position. Joe cleared his bed space up, rested his rifle by himself and slept without a care in the world, the lucky bugger.
I slid my M24 from its carrying pouch, into my arms and set her up ready to fire. I had a good clear line of fire, so unless we were out flanked we should be relatively safe.
I dusted off the tripod legs, giving her body a good sweep over; she looked so sexy lying there. She was my baby girl, and if I didn’t look after her, she’d let me down when I needed her most!
Joe was snoring, so I gave him a good old boot in the arse. There was a slight breeze coming in from the south chilling my neck, and I shivered as it did so. I sat there thinking of all the creature comforts that I took for granted in life. I reminisced about holding Frances in my arms, hugging her, every cuddle. I thought of those special moments with Hannah, and pictured Fran and Griffer playing in the garden.
It was soon my turn to rest up, and it would not be long until we made the move to our next RV. Joe sent another site report to base.
“Oi, dick head, wake up!” Joe put his hand over my mouth and raised his finger to his lips, telling me to shut up, to stay calm. I rubbed my eyes once over and crawled forwards to Joe.
“What’s wrong Joe? You seem frustrated, mate!” He pointed ahead of him, keeping his head down; he grabbed hold of my arm.
“There are two adult males about 120 metres in front of us. They are not carrying firearms from what I can see,” he whispered in my ear, and then stealthily lowered himself to the ground.
I put my hand carefully through the rotten wood, pulling it out piece by piece: I had a clear view of our subjects, two regular adult males, one carrying a wooden pole. They trotted about inspecting the ground, the ground where we came in earlier that morning. There was no way on this earth that they knew we were there, or they would not have been standing where they were! They were not carrying weapons. They were just local farm hands. The Afghanis fucking hate us Westerners; same as we would if they had invaded our country and were telling us how bears shit in the woods.
“Get down, Joe!” I dropped down; we crawled into the trunk of the rotten tree, making sure our kit was with us. Nothing was left in the open.
“Sssh! They are walking this way. Keep deadly silent, Joe!” Joe slowly loaded a round into his chamber. His safety catch off, he was ready to fire.
The two Afghani men stood five feet from our hideout. I couldn’t believe our luck; one of them even spat a ball of snot landing just beside Joe’s foot. I was thoroughly amazed that they had not seen us yet, but they continued chatting away in either Pashto or Dari, (I assumed: I’m not well versed in the native tongues of the Afghans). They sounded like a right bunch of cunts. I held my hand over my mouth trying not to breathe; one sneeze, one cough, one anything and the game was over and we’d be strung up by the neck.
After a blissful chat amongst one another, and luckily for us, one of the farm hands walked off leaving the smaller one by himself. Joe and I looked at one another eye to eye. Our new pal shouted loudly to his missing mate, which gave us a bit of scope to think clearly. We needed to act fast: he might have been seeking help from others. For all we knew, there could have been ten or twenty men standing next to us.
Joe extracted his knife from his smock pocket: it was a big old boy. Joe tapped me on the shoulder, and leaned up, peaking his head just enough so he could see outside the shelter. He made a few indecisive movements and then prepared himself for battle. He sneaked forwards, giving himself space to manoeuvre in the event of an attack. Then he crept out, grabbing the victim by the neck, pulling him down to the floor, and slicing his throat. The blood squirted from his arteries straight into my face: I was soaked in claret.
I was in shock for a split moment until I ripped into Joe for what he had just done.
“You idiot, now what! What happens when he comes back for his mate, Joe, huh?”
“Oh shut up, you slag! We’ll wait for him too. I’ll do them both.”
So we waited! Twenty minutes later his friend turned up, shouting out for his colleague to recognize his voice; he grew suspicious. Joe could see him manoeuvring to his front, his voice quietening down. The Afghani looked startled when Joe pounced out of his pit and into his face. They spent a couple of minutes rolling round on the floor and Joe dropped his knife at one point. I tried to intervene: Joe told me to back away, and he was breathing out of his arse. The farmhand was crying; he grew weak and knelt down for Joe. He crossed his hands and pleaded for life. Joe looked him in the eyes, brushed his face and told the rag-head to lie down on his back. He did so, still pleading with Joe for life.
Joe put his foot on his head, grabbed hold of his hair and sliced his throat. The body went into spasm and I could hear his lungs gasping for air. It was a disturbing, cruel sound, but sadly it had to be done. Joe dragged away the bodies, covered them up and nothing was said
about it again. It was time to move on; Joe cleaned his knife by rubbing it across his trousers. He was rather quiet, which was a surprise after what he had just done: murder in the first degree, but on the other hand, survival of the fittest. This was our job, our life.
“Got all your shit together?” Joe winked at me.
It was dark outside. The bodies were covered up again, and then dumped inside the rotten tree, hopefully not to be found for a very long time: this was a dangerous place.
We pegged it across the rocky plains, stumbling only once. Within two hours we could see the hills up front, looking dark – even wicked, in their way.
When we finally arrived, we were so fucked that we collapsed down a bank almost head first into a small dirty stream. I was surrounded by night flies. I had no idea as to what kind, but whatever they were, they were pissing me right off. I looked up the cliff face and turned to Joe. We shrugged our shoulders, stood up and took our first steps. We knew that if we didn’t make a move, then someone would be out looking for us shortly; they had two missing men and it wouldn’t take them long to find them.
Taking the first step, I pulled myself up and smacked my head on a tree branch. It really hurt. We had a further 800-metre climb until we reached the first ledge and a further 1400 metres after that. On the other side of this hill was our Final Rendezvous Point. We continued to climb with speed. I had just found a small divot for my luck, but as I thrust my fingers inside I had rattled the shit out of a snake. He was not impressed. I soon removed my fingers and took a different route. We had made our first 800-metre climb! Joe got on the net and gave location to HQ; they knew we were getting close to our kill zone. The command word was given to HQ by three quick blasts on the radio. Joe would connect with HQ once we were in position. We could now see down into the valley. We had quite a bit of cover, so it would have been very hard to track us, and we covered everything up as we went, so it would have been impossible unless you were a professional tracker. We continued to climb. The night was bitter and the moon was rather bright, much lighter than the past few nights. I took a gulp of water, and carried on up until, after an uneventful climb, we arrived safely on top. I plotted our next course; we had a 3km trek to our Final LUP and once I had checked my bearings on the compass, I briefed Joe.
Sabre Six : File 51 Page 13
