by Damien Lewis
He glanced across at the HQ Troop, positioned at the centre of the LUP and surrounded by a protective screen of vehicles. He almost choked at what he saw. There, perched in the rear of the OC’s wagon, was Sebastian. He had a floppy-type jungle hat perched atop his head, presumably to keep off the burning sun, and he had a pair of nail clippers in the one hand with which he appeared to be doing his toenails.
Parked alongside their wagon was that of the SAS 2iC. Neither vehicle carried any top guns, for they were weighed down with specialist communications kit and long-range aerials. They were relying on the rest of the Squadron to provide a ring of steel around them, as they coordinated ops on the ground and liaised with UKSF Headquarters.
Grey shovelled in the pasta, his eyes glued to Sebastian’s nail-clipping performance. No doubt about it – as entertainment went this was as good as it got. Sebastian glanced up from what he was doing and caught Grey’s eye. His face broke into a smile, and he reached behind him and pulled something out of the wagon. It was a pair of civvie-type hiking boots.
‘I’ve got them – my boots,’ Sebastian mouthed at him.
Grey gave him a thumbs-up in return. For the laughs he offered alone it was worth having Sebastian along, not to mention the practical need to have someone able to speak to a bunch of Iraqi generals. Grey watched as Sebastian finished his clipping, slipped his socks and boots back on and wandered over.
‘So what d’you think?’ he whispered, pointing proudly at his footwear. ‘I might go to ask the RSM if he minds – check I won’t get into any trouble!’
‘I reckon you’ll be okay,’ Grey reassured him. With the Squadron infil only two-thirds done, Gav Tinker was sure to have more on his mind than Sebastian’s choice of footwear.
‘Jolly good show, though, going to take the surrender of the Iraqi 5th Corps.’
Grey stared at him for a long second, thinking: You have absolutely no idea what that means, do you? But he kept his thoughts to himself. Instead, he gave a nod towards Sebastian’s boots. ‘Good you got them sorted. Crucial that, if you’ll be speaking to a few Iraqi generals.’
Sebastian positively glowed.
‘Best you get a warm feed down you,’ Grey added, as he dug deep to scrape out the last bits of pasta. ‘Might not get many more chances from now on in.’
‘Jolly good idea.’
‘How was the weapons training with Gunner?’ Grey asked.
‘A bit like the time I used my shotgun back in my London apartment,’ Sebastian answered. ‘Only rather more noisy, rigorous and exciting.’
‘What were you shooting at in your London apartment?’ Grey asked, incredulously.
‘There was a rat running around in the cellar. In my apartment, in Pimlico. So I shot it with my shotgun. Someone must have called the police. The police couldn’t work out who it was had shot what with what, though. What a wheeze.’
‘What d’you mean – you shot a rat with a shotgun in your Pimlico apartment?’
Sebastian put his hands up in front of his face and wiggled his fingers about, whisker-like. ‘You know, a rat. A rat. A ratty-rat. I shot a rat.’
Grey noticed the Squadron OC move off from his vehicle. In one hand he was clutching the unmistakable shape of a roll of bog paper.
‘Don’t look now, but the OC’s going for a dump,’ he remarked. Anything, to get Sebastian off his bizarre rat-killing story.
As the OC strolled towards them Grey raised his spoon in greeting. Reggie gave a nod in return. ‘Lancashire Hotpot? Hmmmm … lovely.’
‘Not me, boss. That’s the Dude’s favourite. I’m on the pasta.’
Reggie paused beside them. ‘How’s it been, being first in, and all that?’
‘No dramas,’ Grey replied. ‘It’d be nice to get on the move and away from the LZ, though. Been leaving a lot of tracks in the sand around here.’
Reggie shrugged. ‘We’re going as fast as we can, boy.’
A secondary tasking had just been radioed through to the Squadron, the OC explained. Once the force got under way they were to check out any locations en route where it might be possible to establish a TLZ (tactical landing zone) – a stretch of flat, deserted terrain where a C130 Hercules could land.
The Squadron was to mark any potential TLZs on their GPS systems, and radio back such coordinates to Headquarters, which would help establish some degree of ground truth as they went. Any one of those TLZs could then be used to airlift in an airmobile-capable force, like the men of the Parachute Regiment, so as to accelerate the occupation of northern Iraq.
If the 5th Corps’ surrender could be successfully taken, plus a series of TLZs secured as springboards for getting reinforcements flown in, the inability to launch a northern front via Turkey would become much less of a problem. M Squadron would have spear-headed the takedown of northern Iraq, in a mission of truly epic proportions.
Reggie raised the bog roll and waved it in the direction of a gully that ran off to one side of the wadi. ‘Just going for a spot of the obvious up there.’
‘Don’t worry, boss,’ Grey smiled. ‘I’ll warn the lads not to shoot you in the arse.’
‘Thanks.’ The OC paused. ‘Not a lot of point keeping on hard routine, is there, buddy? We’ll be sixty blokes and thirty wagons, and we’ll leave a motorway of tracks as we go. A few dried turds are hardly going to be a big giveaway.’
Grey shrugged. ‘Hadn’t given it much thought. But yeah, boss, now you mention it, it’s a fair point.’
‘In any case,’ the OC continued, ‘imagine the wagons after three weeks if we’re carrying all our crap with us.’
‘Yeah, not nice,’ Grey agreed.
‘Three weeks!’ Sebastian interjected, excitedly. ‘Are we really likely to be that long?’
Reggie paused. ‘A good week to do the infil overland and take the Corps’s surrender. Then two weeks to oversee that, as Coalition forces move up from the south of the country. I figure it’s likely to be three weeks at least before we get relieved.’
‘Guess we’d best ditch the bags of crap, then,’ said Grey. ‘I hid most of mine in Scruff’s Bergen. But don’t tell him, eh?’
The OC smiled. ‘Mum’s the word, boy. Mum’s the word.’
By the time Reggie had returned from answering nature’s call, Grey was taking over watch. He mounted his wagon, and prepared for one hundred and twenty minutes of mind-numbing boredom. The trouble with such operations was that one lapse of concentration could well prove fatal. They might have seen nothing for the last forty-eight hours, but that didn’t mean an Iraqi Army patrol wasn’t about to stumble across their hiding-place.
Forcing the mind to be totally vigilant when it craved rest only added to the exhaustion. Grey settled into his seat, and as his eyes wandered across the terrain his mind also wandered. Normally, Special Forces work was never this mind-bendingly monotonous. Invariably, there was something or someone specific to keep a watch on.
He thought back over a Northern Ireland gig that he’d been on several years back – yet another joint operation with the SAS. They’d been six blokes holed up in an OP (observation position). The OP was little more than a large grave-shaped hole scooped in the sodden earth, with the thick heather sliced through and rolled back over the top of them as cover. From there they’d had eyes on a run-down barn, originally built of dark stone and grey slate but which had been repeatedly patched with rusting galvanized iron. Typically for Northern Ireland, the rain had drizzled down from a grey sky that had all but merged into the grey of the earth. It was the kind of weather that never amounted to a downpour, but nor did it ever stop seeping damp into your bones.
The rain was miserable, but all of that had seemed somehow bearable on account of the prize. The barn housed an IRA weapons stash, and one of their more notorious ASUs (active service units) was scheduled to do a pick-up, so they could mount another murderous operation. Only this time, Grey and his fellow elite operators intended to meet them with a storm of bullets.
They�
��d been in the OP for a good forty-eight hours by the time the ASU had shown. They’d left it to the last moment to retrieve the arms – several shotguns and a couple of AK47 assault rifles – so as to give any watchers the least possible time in which to hit them. The rules of engagement were stacked so far on the bad guys’ side that they could only be engaged if they were holding a weapon, and were a ‘clear and present threat’.
The bad guys had exited the barn and gone to mount up their van, when the trap was sprung. The men in the OP had made the call, and a series of airborne and vehicle-mounted forces had gone in to seal off the entire area. Meanwhile, Grey and his fellow warriors had yelled out a challenge for the gunmen to throw down their weapons or face the consequences. They’d tried to hide the guns under hay bales and the like, but this time they’d been caught red-handed, and they were rolled up without a shot having been fired.
The point about that mission was that in spite of the God-awful weather and the terrain, it had been interesting. It had been two days during which anything could have happened, and the comings and goings at the farm had kept the guys on edge. Here in the Iraqi desert there was nothing of the sort.
For now at least, there was only an empty and burning sun-blasted stillness.
CHAPTER NINE
Grey cursed under his breath. Goatherds. Why was it always bastard goatherds?
For three days and as many nights they’d seen zero sign of life here, and the Squadron was now all but complete. A few more hours and they’d be moving out as one and heading north into the unknown. Or at least that had been the case before the eerie tinkling of the bells and the appearance of the bloody goats.
Grey gripped his weapon closer, his gloved fingers poised to flick off the safety and open fire. He held his aim rock-steady, his finger laid gently on the trigger. But first he needed to assess the threat, scan for human presence – was there anyone with the herd? – and check whether they had detected the Squadron’s presence. Only then would he unleash hell.
He felt his leaden fatigue evaporating, as bursts of adrenalin surged through his veins. What with the infil into Iraq, plus sentry duties and the to-ing and fro-ing from various LUPs to the LZ, he was approaching five nights with no proper sleep. He reckoned his team had had an average of three and a half hours’ kip every twenty-four hours, and a lot of that during the burning heat of the day – and sleep snatched here and there was never the same as a proper full night’s rest.
Bearing in mind how utterly filled-in they were, he was amazed at how his blokes were holding up. Only Scruff’s lot had been on the ground for as long as they had, and he felt as if his team had gelled well. It was good to be on the ground with them. He’d been looking forward to getting the wheels turning and the mission started for real.
And now this. A fucking goatherd.
Sure enough, he detected a stick-like figure – the herder – so there was at least one Iraqi sharing the desert terrain with his scraggy animals.
Grey reflected on how it had been a lone goat-herder that had pretty much done for the Bravo Two Zero patrol a decade or so earlier in Iraq. The B2Z boys – B2Z was how British soldiers tended to refer to that iconic mission – had seen the goat-herder approach the gully in which they were hiding. They’d clocked the fact that he was just a kid. They’d seen him catch sight of them, and they’d read the shock and recognition on his features. And the decision they’d made not to open fire and slot that goat boy had cost them the security of their patrol, not to mention good men’s lives. As soon as the goat boy had seen them he’d taken to his youthful heels and raised the alarm. Barely an hour later the B2Z boys had had half of the local population coming after them with guns, not to mention the Iraqi military. The patrol had been scattered, and men had died and been captured, and all because they’d let that Iraqi kid live.
Under the rules of engagement Grey knew the terms under which he had the right to shoot the goat boy. If the kid spotted the British force, then he was a clear and present threat, and Grey was within his rights to open fire. But like the B2Z boys, he doubted whether he had it in him to gun down a young kid in cold blood.
Grey fixed the billy-goat with his IR torch to blind it and drive it off. As it turned and stumbled away Goat Boy got spooked, and started yelling what sounded like Feringhi – ‘Foreigner!’. For once, Grey would have given anything to have had Sebastian with him on sentry. Their terp would have known exactly what the Iraqi kid was saying – whether it was a warning that a foreign military presence was in the area, or a warning to his goats to wind their necks in.
As the herd disappeared into the distance, bells clanging softly, Grey stole a glance at the HQ Troop. There was bloody Sebastian lying comatose on his fold-up camp bed. In a way it made sense that those blokes didn’t stand sentry. They needed to keep well rested and sharp so as to command and control the mission, plus they had their own duty rotations to manage, so they could keep a listening ear on comms from Headquarters.
But it grated that they’d brought with them small luxuries like camp beds, and all because they could afford to carry the extra weight on their wagons, which weren’t so laden down with machine-guns or ammo. Yet right now what grated most was that Grey hadn’t been able to call upon Sebastian’s Arabic skills, so as to check out what that kid goat-herder had meant.
It was too late to worry about it now. The moment had well and truly passed. Grey felt a silent tap on his shoulder. Moth appeared beside him like a wraith, to take over watch.
‘Anything?’ he queried, as he slid himself into the driver’s seat.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Grey hissed. ‘A herd of fucking goats. Plus a goat boy. Would you believe it? Wankers.’
Moth’s watery eyes were like saucers as he stared at Grey, the blue-grey of the moonlight lending them an added ghostliness. ‘He see us, boss?’
Grey shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. I couldn’t be sure. That’s why you didn’t hear the Gimpy roar as it smashed a load of goats apart.’
‘If he saw us he’ll raise the alarm.’ All traces of sleep had gone from Moth’s voice now. He was stating the obvious, but it was something that needed to be said.
Grey nodded. ‘He will. If he saw us. He was a kid. Maybe eleven or twelve years old. Not my style to slot him.’
‘Mine neither, boss,’ Moth confirmed. ‘That kind of shit would torture your head for the rest of your days.’
Grey eyed the young operator for a long second. The longer they spent in the field, the more he realized there were hidden depths to Moth.
A couple of years back a troop of SBS had been sent on Operation Barras, a Special Forces hostage rescue mission in the West African country of Sierra Leone. The rebels had taken captive a load of British troops on peacekeeping and training operations, and threatened to kill them unless a set of impossible demands were met. A combined SAS/SBS force had been sent in to rescue them, and lay waste to the rebels’ jungle base.
Trouble was, the rebels had recruited child soldiers by raiding villages, chopping off limbs indiscriminately, and forcing young boys to kill their own parents. The kids were fed a cocktail of powerful drugs, and their heads were filled with evil voodoo nonsense – they bathed in potions that supposedly made them ‘bullet-proof’.
When the SAS/SBS assault force had hit their jungle base the kid rebels had charged fearlessly onto their guns. Most of the blokes had done whatever it took to stop them and to rescue the British soldiers. Many had come away with dark memories, ones that would trouble them for a lifetime. One even spoke about a parade of ghostly figures – rebel kids – that would march through his sleepless nights for years to come.
Moth was right: that kind of shit would most definitely mess with your head.
Grey pointed towards the southeast. ‘He came from that direction.’ He moved his arm northwards. ‘He left in that. Keep your eyes peeled.’
‘Boss,’ Moth confirmed.
Grey flicked his eyes towards the east, where a faint halo of blue was
starting to lighten the flat, featureless horizon. ‘We’re moving out in an hour’s time. Keep alert for any Iraqi presence. Anything. I’m going to get my head down for a few minutes.’
As he burrowed into his sleeping-bag, Grey found that his mind was churning. In spite of the exhaustion, sleep just wouldn’t come. He couldn’t help but wonder whether they had just got compromised. It was first light on day three, and they were all but out of there – and now this shit had to happen. It was the uncertainty – had they or had they not been seen by Goat Boy? – that was really getting to him.
It stood to reason that the herder had appeared at this time of day. No one in his right mind would be out herding in the dead of night, or in the burning heat of the day. If only the goat-herder had made it to their wadi an hour or so later, the Squadron would have been out of there. As it was, Goat Boy only had to harbour a suspicion that some unknown but deadly force lurked in that wadi for him to be able to cause them real problems. If he went and reported it to the village elders they’d likely drive out to investigate. If they did, they were bound to pick up on the tracks left by close to thirty vehicles, leading into and out of the LUP. There was just no way to hide the passage of that many Pinkies and quads.
Not only that: if the Iraqis did find the LUP, they’d very likely be able to trace the Squadron’s move north, as the wagons would leave a motorway trail across the desert. No matter if they moved by day or by night, their tracks could still be followed.
Grey resolved there was nothing much he could do about it now. He’d raise it at the OC’s morning briefing, and they’d take it from there. He snuggled into his doss-bag, and drifted off to sleep with that thought foremost in his mind. As his breathing slowed to a regular rhythm, the fierce Iraqi sun edged towards the distant horizon – due east of their position, and in the direction of Bayji, the city stronghold of the diehard Iraqi Fedayeen.
He awoke some twenty minutes later with a driving sense of urgency to get the Squadron on the move. In spite of his intense fatigue, he felt an unshakeable sense of foreboding – as if some dark force was out there and preparing to come after them. He made his way across to the OC’s briefing, and gave a report of what he’d seen during his watch.
