by Damien Lewis
There were others on sentry who’d also seen the herd of goats, but it didn’t much alter the Squadron’s intentions. Until they had absolute confirmation that they’d been compromised, the mission would continue as planned. Yet there was definitely an added sense of urgency now to get the Squadron on the move, and to be primed to deal with any threat with instant, lethal force.
From now on every vehicle or Iraqi seen would be treated as hostile, unless proved otherwise. If the life of any Squadron member was in danger in any way, the threat would be engaged and taken out. But none of that meant that they’d start mowing down any Iraqi kids that might wander past their position. No one blamed Grey for not opening fire. In his place, the rest of the blokes would have done exactly the same.
*
Just after first light on day three of their mission, M Squadron prepared to depart the LUP. Apart from the added urgency of getting out of there, it was crucial to make at least the first day’s move in daylight. They needed good visibility to achieve the secondary tasking of their mission – to search for and waymark any TLZs.
The Pinkies assembled in an arrowhead formation, with the quad bikes making an outrider force scouting to the front and the flanks. It was the role of the quads to be the eyes and ears of the Squadron, and to help scope out the route.
The larger Squadron arrowhead was made up of three smaller V-shapes, each of which corresponded to one Troop, with HQ Troop sandwiched in the middle of them. Within each V-shape every vehicle had its set position – so that if the Squadron came under heavy attack, each of the Troops could peel off and fight as independent units.
It was this type of complicated fire-and-manoeuvre operation that the Squadron had been rehearsing during their weeks spent training in Kenya. It was complex and difficult work when coordinating thirty-odd vehicles, and in the SAS and Delta Force it took months, if not years, to perfect. M Squadron had had barely a fraction of that time to learn their craft, and right now they were about to be tested to the limits and beyond.
As the Squadron moved out, Grey spared a fleeting thought for Sebastian. He searched for the HQ Troop, and found it at the centre of the arrowhead. Sebastian was in the back of the OC’s wagon perched on the rear gunner’s seat, but with no machine-gun to man. His skin was lily-white, and his nose appeared to be smeared in a thick white slick of sunblock. His jungle hat was brand-new, and looked as if it had a seriously starched rim.
The ride in the wagon’s rear was rough as hell, and without the big .50-cal or a grenade launcher to keep a hold of it would be doubly uncomfortable. The blokes manning those big weapons would be continually scanning their arcs, keeping on the balls of their feet ready to ramp the weapon to left or right whenever a threat presented itself.
Sebastian was sitting there like a sore thumb, glancing all around him and using his free hand to shade his eyes. It made him look distinctly lost. Grey figured their terp might finally have realized that things were starting to get serious. Operation No Return was under way, and they had many miles of hostile terrain to cover, plus an army of a hundred thousand to find and talk into surrendering. Who knew what might lie ahead, or what each man on the Squadron – Sebastian included – might be called upon to do?
Already, hundreds of miles of hostile territory separated the Squadron from the nearest friendly forces. Essentially, they had no back-up and no rescue force to call upon. If the shit hit the fan, they were on their own out there – and more so than any other elite unit in the entire Iraq theatre. And if and when it did all go noisy, Sebastian, their newbie terp, was just as vulnerable as the rest of them.
As the wagons gathered speed, Grey glanced further behind him: the base of M Squadron’s arrowhead was some four hundred metres across, with quad outriders to either side. As the Squadron thundered forward it threw up a massive dust cloud half blocking out the sun. To his eyes it looked seriously imposing, and it gave the impression that M Squadron was a force to be reckoned with.
He turned to face the way ahead, his eyes down the barrel of his weapon. Behind him he had his body armour slung over his seat. No one in their right mind would choose to wear the stuff, unless they were forced to engage in a firefight from the wagons. Hours spent bouncing through rough terrain in body armour would likely break the wearer’s back, not to mention roasting him alive under the beating sun. Hung over the seat as it was, it at least provided a modicum of protection against fire from the rear.
In any case, the terrain here was billiard-table flat, apart from where the odd wadi running into the Euphrates sliced through the earth. No one was about to leopard-crawl up to the Squadron and launch a surprise attack. If the men of M Squadron did spot trouble ahead, they could clamber into their body armour before the bullets started to fly.
As the wagons forged ahead Grey and Dude were scanning their arcs to the left, right and front. Raised up on a rear turret mount, the big .50-cal was able to put down all-round fire in 360-degree defence. Grey’s GPMG could unleash rounds from the driver’s side across to the wagon’s right rear. Pushing ahead at Squadron strength as they were, the real threat was most likely to come from the front, where the tip of the arrowhead thrust into uncharted territory.
They headed past the landing zone where the Chinooks had repeatedly put down, and Grey was more than happy to leave that patch of churned-up terrain behind them. Gradually, the landscape changed. They moved into an area consisting of vast patches of hard-crusted sand dunes, like a frozen yellow ocean. These were best avoided. Interspersed with the sand dune seas were flat and featureless gravel plains that offered zero cover in which to hide, but perfect driving conditions.
For two hours the Squadron wove its way through such terrain. The wagons were making little more than 30 kph, which was about the maximum they could manage across such ground, heavily laden as they were.
As far as Grey could tell from his position near the apex of Six Troop’s arrowhead, there were no vehicles tailing them, or watching from afar. Maybe they had succeeded in moving out without any alarm being raised. On the one hand it was a wonderful feeling to have got away and be on the move, and with no visible force after them. But still Grey felt a dark sense of foreboding lying over him like a heavy cloud.
Travelling by daylight in a V-shaped formation lent the Squadron more speed. Moving at night with dozens of vehicles strung out in linear fashion made for very slow going. Yet with each set of tyres throwing up its own dust cloud, every man was forced to wrap up in shemagh and dust goggles. Even so, the fine sand would still get into everything and play havoc with their kit. Moving at night might be slow and cold, but at least the moisture in the air would keep the dust down.
Every few kilometres the entire formation had to halt for a navigation check. They were moving on radio silence, and commands could only be passed verbally around the vehicles. Pretty quickly, it became clear that this system was unworkable. The SSM had to keep driving up to the wagon leading the spearhead so as to pass across another set of verbal instructions. It was all very well trying to keep below the Iraqis’ radar, but it was slowing things down intolerably.
It was around mid-morning when the OC made the call that radio silence would be abandoned. The driving priority was to head north as fast as practically possible, to find the Iraqi 5th Corps. The Squadron was under serious time pressure to do so. The opening thrust by Coalition ground forces into southern Iraq was scheduled to start within five days. Ideally M Squadron would be opening negotiations for the 5th Corps surrender as the Coalition offensive began. Otherwise, the men of the 5th Corps would doubtless see reports of their fellow soldiers getting smashed by British and American forces, and their resistance to any form of surrender would likely harden.
Every effort had to be made to get to speak to the 5th Corps generals as quickly as possible, yet the Squadron could drive itself only so hard. It was the burning heat of midday by the time they had found the first usable TLZ. They’d pushed some twenty kilometres north of the Chinooks’ land
ing zone, although they’d driven almost twice that distance to navigate a way through the rugged terrain.
Once they’d radioed through a visual description and coordinates of the TLZ, they got under way once more, with Grey’s wagon in the lead. It was Grey’s role to keep a check on maps and navigation, and Moth’s to pick the path ahead. Both men were acutely aware that one wrong move could spell disaster for them and the wagons following their lead.
With the sun almost directly overhead they faced the most difficult of driving conditions. At any other time of day any dip or rise in the terrain would cast a shadow, which would help alert them to the dangers ahead. But the harsh light of midday rendered the landscape a flat and burning whiteness.
It was hard to spot smaller undulations when scanning ahead for the bigger drops, and a few seconds’ lapse of concentration meant that even a wadi might be missed. If Moth drove over the edge of one of those, he could bring the rest of the Squadron in on top of him, as all vehicles were following his lead. They were driving tactically, so keeping a good hundred metres apart, but even so the danger was very real. Loaded down with ammo and the vehicle-mounted machine-guns, the wagons were top-heavy. If they blundered over the edge of a wadi, any number of the Pinkies might roll, with devastating consequences for those riding in them.
They were twenty minutes out from the TLZ that they’d marked, when wham! – Moth drove over a patch of rock, and hit the drop on the far side. It was only a couple of feet to the hard-packed gravel below, and in the flat light the drop-off had been all but invisible. As the front wheels left the rock the wagon’s nose slammed down, and its underside caught on the jagged surface. The Pinkie was only doing 20 kph, but still the noise was deafening. From the harsh tearing of steel on rock, it sounded as if the wagon’s guts had been ripped out.
For an instant the vehicle stuck fast, as both sets of wheels spun and the engine whined and howled. With the acrid smell of burning rubber filling their nostrils, Moth eased off the power and slipped the gearbox smoothly into low ratio.
In high ratio, the Pinkie would drive at the standard speed of a Land Rover in four-wheel drive. Low ratio doubled the gearing, so halving the speed of the wagon but boosting the torque and power transferred to the four wheels. And in low ratio Moth found he was finally able to haul the wagon off the rocky snag, and onto the flat gravel on the far side.
The Pinkie pulled to a halt in a cloud of dust. The smell of burned rubber and diesel fumes was thick on the air. For a second Grey and Moth stared at each other. They carried few if any heavy spares. They just hadn’t got the capacity to do so.
It was day one of the land move north, and already they had visions of a smashed sump pissing oil into the sands, and having to abandon their vehicle.
CHAPTER TEN
Moth slipped out of the driver’s seat and under the wagon. After a few seconds he emerged with an expression of massive relief on his features. He raised his fine blond eyebrows in amazement. ‘Seems to be okay. No harm done. Bloody incredible.’
Thankfully, each of the Pinkies had a sump-guard – a sheet of solid steel that ran beneath the engine – and it was that which had taken the brunt of the impact.
Grey smiled. ‘Short of rolling the thing, a Pinkie’s pretty much bullet-proof.’ He glanced at the Dude. ‘Bet you couldn’t do that in a Hummer, eh?’
‘Gee, I dunno – Iraqi rock versus American Humvee. It’d sure be a clash of the Titans. My pop and me were once out in our Hummer …’
As the Dude launched into another of his life-on-the-ranch-back-home stories, Moth got the wagon under way.
‘Bit of vital tradecraft, lads,’ Grey announced, once they were pushing ahead at a decent speed. ‘If you can’t free the wagon in low ratio what d’you do?’
Moth and Dude shook their heads.
‘You unload all the heavy gear, get twelve of your biggest blokes around her and you lift her free. Bet you couldn’t do that with a Humvee, either.’
The Dude laughed, good-naturedly. ‘Dude, you’d need a dozen Godzillas to lift a freakin’ Humvee free!’
‘And here’s another for you,’ Grey continued. He reached forward and pulled aside an old rag, to reveal a travel kettle that he’d bolted into the footwell of the wagon. He plugged the gizmo into the Pinkie’s cigarette lighter, switched it on, and the kettle started to whine as it brought the water to the boil. He delved into his bag and pulled out some boil-in-the-bag meals.
‘What d’you fancy? I got pasta, beef stew, or the Dude’s favourite – Lancashire Hotpot.’
He threw the chosen meals into the kettle, then settled back to let them cook. The best time – sometimes the only time – to eat a hot meal when on a mission deep behind enemy lines was on the move. Any time parked up was best spent cleaning weapons, maintaining the wagon, doing map and navigation checks, standing sentry or catching some precious moments of sleep.
In such open terrain as this, you didn’t need to be finger-on-the-trigger every second, for you could see far ahead. That left time free to spoon out the hot contents of a boil-in-the-bag meal and get it down you, but only if you had the means to heat it on the go – hence the travel kettle.
‘An old trick I learned with the Regiment,’ Grey continued, as he handed Dude his steaming bag of Lancashire Hotpot. For some inexplicable reason the young Yank operator still seemed partial to the stuff. ‘Enjoy.’
Grey indicated the kettle, which he’d covered in dull gaffer tape to camouflage its shininess. ‘A few of the other OABs have got one, but try and keep it quiet. Those that haven’t will be jealous as fuck once they see us lot getting a good hot feed down us. They’ll have to cook up when they reach the LUP, and more ’n’ likely they won’t have the energy or the time.’
Grey had his bag of hot pasta jammed between his knees, so he could feed himself with one hand and keep the other on his weapon. He kept his eyes front to scan the landscape, with the map stuffed to one side of him and folded to show the patch of territory they were moving through. It showed a series of gentle contours up ahead, which meant they were approaching more undulating terrain.
He pressed the Send switch on his radio and spoke into the mouthpiece taped to his webbing. ‘Zero, this is Zero Six Bravo. Get the quads up front to scout the higher ground to the east of us.’
‘Affirm,’ came back the OC’s reply – call-sign Zero.
A few seconds later Grey saw the quad force doing what they did best. Gunner shot past in the lead, with the unmistakable figure of Mucker on his shoulder. The quads roared up and over the rocky high ground to their right, leaving Moth clear to take the even ground that bypassed it. If there was trouble up ahead – be it enemy forces or impassable ground – the quad drivers should spot it from their vantage point, and help steer the rest of the Squadron past.
During the Iraqi winter months the sun set early, and as they crawled past the high ground Grey was conscious of the pressing need to find an LUP. To their east they’d left the well and oasis of Bu Jishah well behind them, and to their northeast lay the seasonal lake bed of Muwallah. A good seventy kilometres separated the two points, and between them was a featureless expanse of wilderness. It was marked simply on the map as ‘Al Jazirah – desert’.
Somewhere within this vast empty quarter Grey had to find a place to hide an entire Special Forces squadron. As he scanned the terrain to either side of him, he felt the sweat from the fierce afternoon sun trickling down his back in rivulets. It was pooling at the base of his spine where his back met the dull plastic of the seat, and spreading out in a soaking-wet patch like he’d pissed himself.
With his skin permanently wet from the sweat, the dust thrown up by the wagons stuck to it, forming a greasy brown slick. He was drinking so heavily that he dreaded to think how much water they were all consuming. He made a mental note to check on their supplies, once he’d found an LUP for the night. He had a nasty feeling they’d under-provisioned and would need to get a resupply of water flown in or air-dropped t
o them.
Likewise, he reckoned they might well need more fuel. He figured they’d covered seventy-five kilometres as the crow flies, but approaching double that distance as they’d sought a path through the rugged terrain. If the conditions continued like this – and there was every reason to suspect they might worsen – it was unlikely they had the fuel to make it.
As he searched all around him for a usable LUP, Grey worried about the massive dust cloud they were throwing up. It rose behind them like a storm front, the finer particles back-lit by the sun as it sank towards the horizon. Grey figured it had to be visible from a good seven kilometres away, which made the urgency of finding a usable LUP all the more pressing.
He studied the map spread across his knees. They were using the 1:50,000 scale, which meant he had a folder with thirty individual map sheets in it, so as to cover the entire mission. Each sheet lasted for no more than 45 kilometres, after which he needed to shift to the next. He noticed a feature marked on the map, to the left front of their position. It looked as if it might be a shallow wadi – and was about all there was in terms of cover.
‘Moth, head north-north-west,’ Grey announced. ‘After five klicks we should come upon a wadi running southwest-to-northeast.’
‘Boss,’ Moth confirmed, spinning the steering wheel counterclockwise to bring them round onto the correct bearing.
Fifteen minutes’ driving took them to the lip of the wadi. Moth edged along it for a good few minutes more before he found what he was looking for. At one point the steep banks of the riverbed dropped away almost to nothing, forming a natural crossing-point. Moth drove into the wadi, accompanied by Gunner and Mucker on their quads. The rest of the Squadron halted in the open, waiting for the word on the LUP.
