by Geoff Wolak
After a moment of indecision, Tabby nodded, and I set off at the double. I returned to the boy scouts, and they were still there, still making a hell of a racket, and not advancing on us. Doubling back, I reported over the radio, ‘Boy scouts are not moving, they’re sat around the camp fire, thumbs up arses.’
‘Roger that,’ came from Tabby.
‘Moving east.’
I headed again down the dark track, this time even more alert, but if there had been someone waiting they would have got me. This was a risk, I realised, and I stopped halfway down it. I was visible, someone in the dense woods would not be.
I adopted the side of the track, and moved slowly. At the tunnel entrance I could hear car doors slamming, trucks revving in the distance. And again I could hear dogs on the breeze. I turned and ran up the track, no time to piss about.
Back near the patrol den I slowed down, catching my breath, but I moved straight past and to the slope down on the west side. The mist was preventing me from seeing anything, but I could again here trucks and car doors, and dogs. ‘Shit...’
I diligently checked where I had last seen the Special Forces, finding no one moving around, but spotting a few long barrels peeking out of bushes. Back at the patrol den I was panting, the guys now very keen for an update.
I knelt down, staring at Tyler and remembering the promise I had made to Major Bradley. I told Tyler, ‘I promised Major Bradley that I would watch your back if there was any trouble.’ They waited. ‘Now we’re going to have to put that to test.’
‘What is it?’ Tyler asked. ‘More men?’
‘I’d say that the open ground to the east has company size detail, and they have search dogs.’
‘Company strength?’ Tabby queried.
I nodded at him. ‘Same to the west, company strength, and search dogs.’
‘Then they do know we’re here!’ Taffy protested in a strong whisper. ‘Theys want ta capture us!’
‘If they want to capture us, why are the boy scouts south of us?’ I puzzled, and they considered that. ‘Why the Special Forces dug in, waiting? What are they waiting for, other than to shoot someone?’
‘Could those men,’ Tabby began, ‘be guerrillas?’
‘Maybe,’ I offered. ‘But I don’t think so, they look like Serbs. Besides, I’m not going up to them to pigging ask.’
‘Maybe they are guerrillas,’ Tyler added. ‘And maybe ... those two companies and their dogs are not for us.’
‘That might make some sense,’ I stated. ‘But I still don’t understand the boy scouts south of us. Unless ... yeah ... unless the boy scouts are a trap, and a distraction.’
‘What’d you mean?’ Tabby pressed as we knelt huddled.
‘Think about it. Bunch of new recruits set-up as bait, to get the guerrillas to attack them, then the professionals surround the guerrilla fighters. Bit cheeky though, because those boy scouts would be shot the fuck up.’
‘Maybe that’s it,’ Tyler pressed. ‘And we’re just caught in the middle of it. They can’t know we’re here.’
‘They don’t,’ I stated.
‘How’d you know that for sure?’ Tabby snarled.
I faced Tyler. ‘Sir, how much time and planning would it take to move two companies of men and their supplies into the field?’
‘If all went well, three or four days minimum,’ Tyler responded.
‘And we got yer yesterday,’ Taffy put in.
‘So no way they are here for us,’ I told Tabby, and he seemed to accept that.
‘So how do we slip past them?’ Tyler asked me.
‘We don’t, we’re boxed in tight; they’ve done their homework,’ I responded, and the lads looked worried.
‘Must be a way out, Wilco,’ Taffy implored, ‘You could find one, no fucker can find you in a forest.’
‘This forest is three hundred yards across, outside it open ground, and they have dogs,’ I began. ‘Best bet would be north.’
‘Right into a line of snipers,’ Tabby hissed.
‘Wilco,’ Tyler firmly called. ‘Could you keep those snipers busy while we slip through?’
All eyes were now on me. ‘If I can flank them, sir, then yes, I can thin them out and cut a hole for you, but they may get one or two of us. Best bet is to do that when it gets dark.’
‘If we can wait that long,’ Bob complained.
‘Right now we have time, they’re not coming in,’ I said. ‘And if they did it would be a fur ball in here.’ I pointed. ‘If those snipers fired at us here, and missed, they could hit the boy scouts; they’re only four hundred yards apart. If a patrol comes up that slope and fires into this forest, some of the rounds may hit the snipers or the boy scouts.’
‘So they won’t come in,’ Tabby realised.
‘Not at first, but they won’t wait very long if they know we are here. And what if they have mortars, smoke or CS gas. We didn’t bring our respirators, lads.’
‘Fuck it,’ Tabby let out. ‘We can’t just sit here.’
I faced him. ‘I’d like to do another sweep.’
He studied me for a moment, angered, then nodded. I faced Tyler. ‘Best use that sat phone, sir, give the Major an update on our situation just ... just in case.’
I left Tyler looking nervous, the lads whispering to each other, and I worried for Tyler. I also worried that Tyler and Tabby might clash and come to blows about our plan of escape, when we had a plan that was. From somewhere, Tyler was finding some courage and some leadership, and maybe that was because I was here to back him up.
‘Hello?’ Major Bradley said into the phone, then checked the buttons. ‘Is this damn thing working?’
‘Can you hear me, sir?’ Tyler asked.
‘Tyler? Is there a problem?’
‘Yes, sir, a big problem. We established an OP and a base, found a road with artillery being moved, all went well. But last night, or early this morning, several companies of Serbs moved into position around us.’
‘Several companies?’
‘Wilco says there are more than two or three companies around us.’
‘That’s five hundred men!’
‘Yes, sir. We’re boxed in and surrounded.’
‘How the hell did they sneak up on you? How did they sneak up on Wilco?’
‘They moved in before dawn, to positions some six hundred yards away. Wilco spotted them at distance, but they are all around us, sir.’
‘Sneak out, quietly. Survive, escape and evade, Captain.’
‘We’re going to try. Sir, can you check the intel reports for this area; that may shed some light on their movements, and then maybe ask why Intel never warned us of such a large movement.’
‘I’m going to kick some arse. Hang on, I’ll get back to you.’ Bradley stood, and opened the sliding panel. ‘What the fuck is going on!’ he roared at the Intel Section. ‘Wilco’s patrol are surrounded by five hundred men and cut off. Where the fuck did those men come from, and why the fuck did we not know about it?’
An Intel sergeant held up a pile of paper slips. ‘Just got the overnight intel now, sir.’
‘Why didn’t we get it during the night?’
‘They ... didn’t send it, sir.’
‘What does that pile say?’
The sergeant flicked through the pile, stopping at the fourth. ‘Unusually large movements in northern sector 4B. Several companies moving into that sector, reason unknown.’
‘What time is stamped with?’
‘Eh ... 2a.m, sir.’
‘And what times does your fucking watch say?’
‘7a.m, sir.’
Deadly serious, Bradley stated, ‘Find out who got that intel and failed to pass it on, I want them court martialled.’
Bradley checked his watch and dialled Hereford.
‘Duty officer.’
‘It’s Major Bradley, C.O. about?’
‘Bit early, sir. Don’t forget the time difference,’
‘Put me through to his home. Now.’
After a minute, the Colonel croaked out, ‘Hello. Major Bradley?’
‘Yes, sir, we’ve got a situation.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Fucking Intel boys screwed up. Yesterday we inserted a team, all regular and normal. At 2am the Intel boys reported, but not to us, that half the Serb army was moving towards our lads. We just got it a minute ago.’
‘And our lads?’
‘Cut off and surrounded, five hundred men around them.’
‘Jesus. Who is it?’
Bradley took a moment. ‘Tabby led the patrol, but I made the 2ic Wilco.’
‘Wilco’s there? Well, if anyone can get them out without a scrape it’s him.’
‘And Captain Tyler.’
‘Tyler. What’s he doing on an op’ like that?’
‘It was supposed to be a simple four day op’, in and out, no danger, and he nagged to go along for the experience, so I sent Wilco to keep an eye on him.’
‘That will teach Tyler a lesson about bravado.’
‘I’ll get back to you when I know more, but we need to rattle the cages of Intel down here, sir.’
‘I will as well. Keep me posted.’
At the previous OP I halted, and looked back towards the patrol den. Tyler was here, and we were about to enter a firefight, surrounded on all sides. I was worried for my own safety, but not half as much as I worried for Tyler.
Sue’s face came to the fore, as well as my involvement in getting them together. A chill ran through me, and not just from the cool morning air; I wanted to stuff Tyler into my Bergen and hike out of here.
Facing down the slope, I knelt and waited, the mist lifting bit by bit, and as it did my stare hardened, and my resolve with it; I was even starting to get angry with the Serbs for being a threat to Tyler and the lads, an odd skew on things given that we were in their country.
The first line of men came into view, and I swore quietly. There had to be fifty men in a line, six men ahead of them with Alsatian dogs. I panned left, and as the mist lifted I could see similar groups. At first I thought they’d have to be mad to be in such an open formation, at least they would be if they knew that someone like me was sat here, but then again, who in their right mind would sit here with that many men approaching.
‘Wilco for Tabby.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Visibility clearing to the west, three hundred plus men approaching in lines abreast, twenty or thirty dogs at the front.’
There was no response, and what could he say anyhow. I turned and headed back. Kneeling, Tyler just finished a call on the sat phone.
‘Three hundred?’ Mickey called, clearly terrified.
‘At least ... three hundred, same number against east of us,’ I coldly stated. ‘They’ll be to the edge of the forest in thirty minutes, and they’ll be on us five minutes later.’
‘We have little choice but to surrender,’ Tyler let out, and no one commented; they were all thinking the same.
‘I’m not surrendering, sir,’ I told Tyler.
‘Something to prove?’ he asked, and his words stung a little; I would never have credited him with such an attitude. Maybe it was the stress of the situation.
‘This is not the Second World War, sir, and they don’t take prisoners or abide by the Geneva Convention. They castrate their prisoners, slice them up and drag them behind cars down the road.’
The lads looked horrified, and so did Tyler now.
‘At best, if you were very lucky, they’d hand us over – eventually – to the Serbs for a show trial, a year or two in some hell-hole prison, being force feed cockroaches and your own shit, beaten up every week. They’re a militia, not an army, and they have no seat at the UN, no charter, no deal on prisoners. They, sir, can do whatever they like, and our bodies would never be found.
‘My desire not to surrender, sir, is not from bravado, and I have nothing to prove, it comes from fear, the fear of having a red-hot bayonet shoved up my arse, my tongue cut out, my eyes gouged out and fed to the dogs.’
‘They ain’ taking me,’ Tabby firmly stated. ‘We go out fighting, not like sheep.’
I forced a breath. ‘I have a plan, at least an idea.’
‘What’s that?’ Tyler keenly enquired.
‘We engage the boy scouts to the south, we start fires, we hold off the main force and play for time, we grab the uniforms off the dead, we stick blood on our faces, some bandages, and we limp south out the woods towards the river in the confusion.’
Tyler took in the faces of the patrol, and they seemed keen.
‘Might work,’ Tabby agreed. ‘Slip out in the confusion.’
‘I’d remain behind till dark,’ I pointed out, ‘to keep the confusion going.’
‘And after that?’ Tyler asked.
‘After that I’ll wing it, sir. First, we need to slow them up; can’t just let them walk in here like they own the place.’
‘How’d we slow them up?’ Tyler asked.
‘Wilco can snipe at them,’ Tabby answered.
I nodded. ‘They won’t advance over open ground if they think there’s a cheeky sniper sat atop them.’
‘And then we hit the fucking boy scouts,’ Tabby said.
‘Sir, you’re not the patrol leader, but you are senior,’ I began. ‘What are your orders?’
Tyler took a moment, and I was surprised that Tabby did not shout a bit. Maybe he wanted blame to lie elsewhere. ‘Snipe at them for a while, and then we see what happens. I’ll call it in as well.’
I lifted up and ran up to the track, across and twenty yards to the edge of the woods. Sitting behind a fallen tree, I tapped my magazine vest, took aim, and then froze. Was this the best strategy, I asked myself.
A minute of thought offered no other strategy, and I needed to stop the advance up the hill. I took aim again, and hit the first dog handler, quickly hitting the second before they realised what was happening. Men started to hit the grass.
Selecting automatic, I altered my approach, and emptied the magazine whilst carefully panning left across the line of men, brass rounds flying high and right, certain I was hitting a few men. Changing the magazine, I puzzled the lack of return fire as I swung hard left; the line had not broken and they were still advancing, so I fired from right to left as best I could, seeing a dozen men fall out of line, the rest soon hitting the damp grass.
Rounds started to crack overhead, hitting the trees, but no rounds were landing near me. The firing increased second by second, the sounds of the bark splitting increased, the individual cracks soon buried in a roar that sounded like waves crashing loudly on a beech of pebbles.
I ducked as leaves started to fall onto me, bits of bark impacting me, small branches tumbling down as the roar increased, and it seemed like each of three hundred men had emptied his magazine, some nine thousand rounds. When the roar suddenly eased, I lifted my left wrist.
‘Wilco to Tyler: I think they know were here, sir,’ I shouted.
‘No fucking shit!’ came back from Tabby.
I looked about me as a snow storm of leaves drifted down, my legs and arms covered in leaves and bits of twig; it was quite surreal, and the strangest thing I had ever seen. And so much for not firing at their own men; maybe these idiots didn’t know about the snipers and the boy scouts.
I peered down the slope, still many rounds pinging overhead, then the tree above me cracked and I felt a sharp pain in the top of my head. Getting my gloved hand to my head, I pulled out a long splinter, blood on the end. Tossing it away, I again peered down the slope; a fresh magazine selected, single shot selected, and I got comfortable. At least now I had some extra camouflage to aid me.
Picking out a dog handler knelt down at five hundred yards, I hit him right between the eyes, his dog running off. Lifting my aim, I could see men kneeling, and believing that they were beyond my range. I fired at six quickly, hitting many in the arse and the legs.
Everywhere I aimed I found a target, the militia men
not quite understanding what a sniper could do with a telescopic sight. They died in ignorance, and I soon emptied the magazine, amazed that I had wounded or killed at least thirty men so far. They would have some questions for their C.O. later on, and he would have some harsh questions for the sergeants in charge.
A magazine change brought a fresh onslaught of incoming rounds, but they had no idea where I was. I aimed at the middle group, and found an officer behind a wall, directing men, and I caught him in the eye, blowing the back of his head off. A slight movement left, and I caught the man knelt over the dead officer and, seeing a man at the wheel of a car, I hit the windscreen and killed him.
Now they were getting the message, and genuinely hiding from incoming rounds, but still they made the mistake of moving around at six hundred yards. I aimed high, top of the head, and hit three men in the chest, and when I noticed a jeep with tall aerials I hit the driver and punctured the rear with several shots, a man tumbling out of the tailgate and collapsing in a heap.
At seven hundred and fifty yards I could see a huddled group, a man with a radio. I aimed even higher, and let off five rounds, seeing three men now prone, including the guy with the radio.
Lifting up, I could see them pulling back, realising their stupidity. The dawn had been coming up, and the mist was lifting, but if they had been half an hour earlier they would have been invisible to me. Maybe someone made a mistake, and that officer would have some tough questions to answer. A British officer would have been court martialled.
‘Wilco for Tabby.’
‘Go ahead.’
‘They’re pulling back.’
‘How many did you get?’
‘Sixty, eighty. I’m moving to the east, don’t shoot at any movement unless you’re sure.’
Lifting up, the dust and the leaves dropped off me, and I ran back to the track, checking the track as I progressed. Then I stopped and considered the snipers; if they moved position it would be a problem, they could flank us.
I headed down the track to where I first spotted the snipers, now walking on a carpet of leaves and twigs, still a few rounds cracking overhead. Stopping and kneeling beside the stump I had used before, I could not see anyone, nor any barrels.
