by Damien Lewis
He turned to Moth. ‘Ignore all those twats crapping on about splitting up. Head three fingers to the left of the Southern Cross. Forty kilometres south is the first ERV. Get up as much speed as you can, ’cause that’s where we’re bloody going.’
Moth swung the wagon round to the new bearing, the other vehicles moving into line behind him. For now at least, they were holding together as a unit. As they probed ahead into the hostile night Grey had an image in his mind of a lone quad haring across the desert. Gunner would have to box around the Iraqi forces, which meant it would probably be a good two-hundred-kilometre round trip across rough terrain before he hit the Syrian border.
Luckily, he’d have his silk escape map threaded into the waistband of his trousers, so he’d have the means to navigate his way towards the Combat RV. The map was 1:200,000 scale and covered the whole of Iraq, so it was like a massive parachute when unrolled, but it was more than good enough to plan a route to hit an unmissable feature like the Syrian border. He’d also have the half-dozen gold sovereigns provided to all SF operators sewn into his clothing somewhere crafty. If it came to it, he could use those to bribe whatever Syrian forces he came across to allow him and his passenger through.
Most of Gunner’s spare fuel would be on one of the Pinkies, so he’d only have whatever was in the bike’s tank, plus maybe a small can of extra fuel strapped to his quad. But presumably he had enough to make it to the border, or he wouldn’t have made a break for it alone – he’d have stuck with one of the wagons. Gunner was a slick operator and a smart navigator, and he’d not have set off for the Combat RV without the juice to get there.
It was the officer clinging onto the rear of the quad that Grey really felt for. Perched back there on the metal rack, he’d hardly have been privy to Gunner’s decision to split. After a ride like the one that lay ahead of them, his backside was going to be so sore he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week. As Grey played the image through his mind, he couldn’t help but crack up laughing.
He didn’t keep smiling for long, though. The alternative scenario was that the two of them wouldn’t make it. There were any number of reasons why they might fail. They might run out of fuel. They might shoot over a ravine in the dark, and roll the quad. They might go into a hide during the day, and the enemy might find them.
Worst of all, if Gunner tried to box around south they might blunder into the Fedayeen and get taken captive. Grey shuddered to think what would happen to them if they did. If there was one thing that Grey was determined to avoid above all else, it was falling into their bastard hands alive.
Grey took a quick glance behind him. The three wagons were well spaced apart and showing no lights, and the sky above them remained blissfully dark. They no longer had Gunner probing the way ahead, but even so he figured they had a half-decent chance of making it through the screen of enemy forces unseen. If they did, they’d loop around southeast and make direct for their ERV.
But all of that was predicated upon the Fedayeen remaining stationary in their positions, and unfortunately that was something they just couldn’t count on. The Fedayeen had been constituted as a fast guerrilla-type force able to rove around in their highly manoeuvrable vehicles doing hit-and-run style operations. They had an organic, flexible command structure, and staying put really wasn’t their style.
The three wagons pushed onwards for twenty minutes or so in a tense and brittle silence. Instinctively, all the blokes knew this was their last-gasp effort. It seemed to Grey like the silent desert was holding its breath, as it waited to see if they’d make it through the wall of steel all around them.
It was then that a crescent of headlights emerged from the desert to their front, stretching across their path. As Grey stared into that swathe of illumination, he was forced to accept that the enemy had comprehensively outmanoeuvred and outsmarted the British force. They had double-guessed their intended line of escape and cut them off in every direction so as to cover all points southeast through to southwest.
Grey took one last look at the map nestled in his lap, but he knew they were out of options. If they kept running in any direction southeast to southwest they’d blunder into that screen of waiting Fedayeen, which outnumbered them four to one and outgunned them even more comprehensively.
It was twelve o’clock midnight by now, and they’d been running and fighting for six hours. The Squadron had been brassed up, smashed up, bogged in and forced to blow its vehicles, plus they’d lost half the guys and were split into at least four separate units. Now their force of three Pinkies and twenty-six blokes had been boxed in by a vastly superior enemy force, and with no way to use their heavy machine-guns, due to all the bodies clinging to the wagons.
There wasn’t a man amongst them who gave a shit any more as to who exactly the Iraqi forces they were up against might be. The Fedayeen were a known quantity – these had to be the Boys from Bayji. But very likely the regular infantry and armour were units hailing from their mission objective, the Iraqi 5th Corps. Not for the first time the intel they’d been given had proved a total crock of shit. It would be hard to imagine a force less likely to surrender than the men who were coming after them now.
Every which way Grey looked at it, from the get-go theirs had been a true mission impossible. They had driven into what amounted to an ambush, one very likely planned and conceived over several days. Just as he had feared from the start, they were sixty blokes up against a force of a hundred thousand – that’s if the entire 5th Corps had decided to join in the hunt for the Squadron.
Right now he couldn’t see any way out of the trap that had been set for them. In fact, the force whose surrender the Squadron had been sent in to take looked poised to annihilate them, for there was no way that Grey and his ilk were likely to surrender. It was the ultimate irony, in a mission defined by such travesties.
Grey figured it was time to face the music. He turned to Moth. ‘Mate, there’s no way through. There’s nowhere left to run. Best you slow the wagon.’
Without making a comment or giving any visible reaction, Moth eased off on the gas. As he did so, there was no denying the young operator’s icy cool.
Grey scanned the terrain all around them. ‘Let’s try to find some decent cover, eh?’
Moth indicated a patch of darker shadow lying just to their left front. He drove the wagon into it, and it proved to be a miniature lake bed set just below the level of the surrounding terrain. The bed of the depression was solid as a rock, so this was no wadi of death – or at least, not in the way the last had been. It would provide some cover from being seen, plus minimal cover from fire, which was far better than none at all.
Moth got them into position, and cut the engine. The other wagons pulled in close. Grey leaned across to Ed so he could have words.
‘We’re boxed in,’ he whispered, as the quiet closed all around them. ‘The enemy’s to the west and the north of us, and we’ll hit Fedayeen if we continue south. If we cut east we’ll hit the N252, and a load of other roads and built-up shit. So, the question is – where’s left to fucking run?’
Ed didn’t answer. It was hardly surprising. In truth, there was zero room for manoeuvre.
‘Okay, this is my suggestion,’ Grey continued. ‘We stop running. We go firm. We get the extra lads off the wagons and into all-round defence. At least that way we can use the heavy machine-guns. The night’s dark and they’ll take a while to find us. In the meantime, Moth can dial up some fast air.’
Ed nodded. The relief was clear on his features. ‘Let’s do it. There’s no way out of this shit without some air cover. Get the lads into position, and I’ll dial up Headquarters.’
Now that every man had a role to play and was no longer just a useless passenger, they started sparking. Any ideas about splitting up were instantly forgotten. The blokes piled off the wagons and unlashed the M72 LAWs from the Land Rovers’ bonnets, plus Scruff grabbed the SLAR 85mm rocket launcher together with its thermobaric warheads. They moved int
o defensive positions all around the wadi rim, concentrating on the areas of greatest threat.
The M72 LAW is a single-use weapon, so once those three rocket-launchers had been fired they were done. By contrast, the SLAR offered the blokes some repeat-use firepower, of untested potency. Back at their forward mounting base they’d dry-rehearsed using the SLAR, but with no warheads to spare no one had yet managed to fire the thing, to assess the potency of one of those thermobaric rockets.
For the first time in what felt like an age, the gunners on the three wagons were able to take possession of their two .50-cal machine-guns, the one grenade launcher, plus the three GPMGs. As they swung the weapons round to cover the oncoming Fedayeen and bunched their shoulders in preparation for the coming firefight, they felt strangely calm and empowered.
While they had bullets left and could use the heavy weapons, they were still a force of elite operators to be reckoned with. Every man amongst them knew to hold his fire until the very last moment, and then to unleash hell – for once they opened up, the enemy was sure get an illume round bang over their position, which would make them sitting targets.
With the defences set, Grey, Moth and Ed got sparking. Ed cranked up the radio, to check in to SF Headquarters. Grey began working out the exact grid of the patrol’s position to pass to Headquarters. Meanwhile, Moth got on the satcom, dialling up any warplanes he could beg, borrow or steal from the racetrack system they’d be flying over central Iraq.
‘This is Zero Six Bravo making an any-stations call,’ Moth intoned into the satcom. ‘This is our situation: we’re a British Special Forces patrol eighty kilometres to the southeast of Salah. This is our grid: 15839501. Repeat: 15839501. We’re surrounded by the enemy and in need of fast air. Do any call-signs copy?’
All he got in reply was an echoing void of static.
‘Repeat: Zero Six Bravo requesting fast air, at grid 15839501. This is the codeword: battleaxe. Repeat battleaxe.’
‘Battleaxe’ was the codeword for a Special Forces patrol in need of air support. The codeword was changed every twenty-four hours, and passed down from SFHQ to the various patrols. Fortunately, Moth had had the foresight to get the present codeword from the HQ Troop, just before stand-to at the LUP where the enemy had first hit them.
There was silence for a long second. Then: ‘Roger that, Zero Six Bravo, this is Viper Five Three. I’m hearing you loud and clear. We’re a pair of F16s, three hundred klicks south of your position. We’ve got full payloads and four-zero, repeat four-zero minutes’ play time. What can I do for ya?’
The pilot’s voice was badly distorted by the range of the call and the interference, plus it was filtered through the alien suck-and-blow of his oxygen mask. But he had an unmistakably broad American drawl, and that voice was one of the most welcome sounds that the men had ever heard.
‘Viper Five Three, Zero Six Bravo. We’re under attack from Iraqi main battle tanks and infantry trucks to the north and west of our grid, plus Fedayeen in SUVs to the south. I need you overhead to smash them. Our grid is 15839501. Repeat: 15839501. Read back.’
‘Roger that, Zero Six Bravo, your grid is 15839501. Repeat: 15839501. We’ll be in your overhead in approximately ten, repeat one-zero minutes. Out.’
The radio traffic had been short and sweet, not to mention decisive. Moth replaced the satcom handset and his ice-blue eyes met those of Grey. ‘We’ll have a pair of F16s overhead in ten minutes. They’ve got full loads of ordnance and forty minutes’ play time. Fucking result.’
Grey broke into a smile. ‘You hear that, Dude, Uncle Sam’s coming to the fucking rescue? That’s why we love you Yanks, Dude. Let’s get the fucking bombs in and smash them.’
The General Dynamics F16 Fighting Falcon flies at almost twice the speed of sound, or 2,410 kph. It comes equipped with a 21mm seven-barrelled M61 Vulcan Gatling gun, plus 7,300 kilograms of ordnance. The pair of jets in-bound had full payloads, which meant they’d be fully bombed up. The F16 could carry four massive 2,000-pound JDAMs – joint direct attack munition guided smart bombs – or as many as eight smaller CBU87s (combined-effects munition bombs), or similar.
The M61 Gatling gun would be armed with 511 cannon rounds. A couple of strafes with that, and the warplanes’ armoured-piercing bullets would rip the guts out of the Iraqi T-72s, not to mention the infantry trucks and Fedayeen wagons. In theory, all the blokes had to do was stay hidden for ten minutes, and they’d have a pair of F16s overhead tearing up the bad guys.
Grey passed the word around the patrol. It was the first piece of positive news that the men had had since battle had been joined, and it lifted their spirits immensely. It felt good not to be running any more. It felt good to have made the decision to stand and fight, and especially with those fast jets in-bound.
A few short moments later Ed succeeded in raising Headquarters. He came off the air and glanced across at Grey. ‘They’re going to try to pull us out by Chinook. They’ve got helos on standby on thirty minutes’ notice. They’ll need to give us coordinates for an LZ to do the hot extraction, and they’ll need time to de-conflict and clear an air corridor with the Yanks.’
‘What’s wrong with doing the hot extraction from right here?’ Grey queried. ‘We’ve drawn the bulk of the enemy onto us, so why delay? Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
Like every man in the Squadron, Grey had total confidence in the Chinook pilots. This was like calling for the fire brigade with the house burning down around you, and you and your kids trapped on the top floor. It might seem impossible, but somehow they’d chop their way in with axes, or put ladders against the burning walls and pluck you out of there. Likewise, the Chinook aircrew would know they were flying into a shit-fight pretty much blind, but that’s what those Special Forces pilots did best.
Once they’d split from the main force and gone on the run, Gunner and his rupert passenger had become a CSAR (combat search-and-rescue) case, which was one step more serious than a hot extraction. They were on the run, position unknown, and with no way of making comms with Headquarters. The only way to find them and pull them out was to launch a CSAR flight, and scour the Iraqi terrain for a lone quad heading for the Syrian border.
But right now the remnants of Six Troop were in a known static location, and they’d passed their grid to Headquarters. The enemy forces were close, but when had that ever stopped the Chinooks flying a hot-extraction mission? If the blokes had to choose between getting plucked out by a pair of helos, or staying to fight the kind of forces that had them surrounded, they’d choose the hot extraction every time – and even with a couple of F16s in-bound.
‘Headquarters has just managed to make contact with the OC,’ Ed explained. ‘He’s come up on comms, which is fucking great news. There’s a load of blokes with the OC, and only enough Chinooks to pull one lot out at a time, so they’re going to try to get that lot out first. They’re trying to establish exact casualties, but they’ve prioritized getting the OC out first. We’ve got to buy ourselves some time, get a grid sorted with Headquarters, so they can pull us out when they can.’
According to the word from Headquarters, the OC of M Squadron had gone into a hide somewhere to the northeast of the wadi of death. His small force was totally unsighted, but they could still hear tank fire rumbling across the darkness and see the light of flare rounds being fired, plus the occasional burst of tracer arcing across the heavens.
This pretty much confirmed what Grey already suspected, that it was their force – the remnants of Six Troop – that had drawn the bulk of the enemy fire. The enemy had opted to follow their line of march from the wadi of death – that much was pretty obvious from their present place of hiding. Seemingly from all around them they could hear the grunt of powerful diesel engines, as the enemy continued to scour the desert terrain.
‘What about the third force?’ Grey asked. ‘The wagon and the quads that went north from the wadi?’
Ed shrugged. ‘Nothing’s been heard of them at all. They’re a
CSAR job, unless they come up on air. HQ’s suggested a grid for us to head for, where they’ll try to get the helos in for a hot extraction: 64732857. Take a look at the maps, mate.’
Grey plotted the grid. Headquarters would be choosing an extraction point from what they could see on the maps and sat-photos, plus what they could tell from Blue Force Tracker. They weren’t able to take account of enemy forces on the ground, especially without any air cover to give them eyes on the battlefield.
‘It’s no good,’ Grey told Ed. ‘It’s smack bang on the far side of that Fedayeen hunter force. There are masses of enemy that way. Get another.’
Ed radioed Headquarters, and came back with a second grid. It was further to the southwest and Grey figured it was just about doable. But Moth took one look at the map and he wasn’t happy. From a JTAC’s perspective the grid was bad news.
‘It’s no good. It puts us twenty klicks short of the Syrian border. That’s a no-no for any fast air. Those F16s won’t operate that close to the Syrian border.’
Moth’s words were drowned out by a long burst of 12.7mm that went flaring past overhead. It didn’t mean that they’d been spotted, necessarily, but it was a sharp reminder of what was out there just beyond the rim of the wadi.
‘Like how’s it no good?’ Ed demanded.
‘Fast air’s all we can get over us quickly this far north of Baghdad,’ Moth explained. ‘Fast air won’t operate that close to the Syrian border ’cause at the speed they fly they’ll risk straying into Syrian airspace. We’d have to wait on that grid for extraction with no air cover over us, which is a fucking nightmare.’
‘So where are those F16s, anyway?’ Ed asked.
Moth grabbed his satcom. ‘Viper Five Three, Zero Six Bravo: what’s your locstat?’
