by Damien Lewis
‘We’ll be in your overhead in five, repeat five minutes,’ came the pilot’s instant reply.
A second and a third burst of 12.7mm went thundering over their position. It felt as if the fire was getting closer. Leaving Ed and Moth to sort another grid for the helo pick-up, Grey went to check on the enemy. He scuttled over to the wadi rim, coming up on Scruff’s shoulder.
Scruff stretched an arm towards the north. ‘Tanks.’ He swung the arm south. ‘Iraqi infantry.’ He swung it further south, then west. ‘Fedayeen. Take your pick, mate, but sooner or later we’re going to have to start smashing ’em.’
Having moved to block the route south, the Fedayeen had swung east and west to almost encircle them. Grey couldn’t believe how quickly the Iraqis had got them surrounded. Plus it looked as if they’d worked out that the British force had gone to ground. They were moving methodically across the desert, lights on full beam, searching as they went, and bit by bit they were converging on their hidden position.
To the north the squat forms of the T-72s were crawling forwards, their blazing searchlights sweeping the desert to either side of them. And Grey didn’t doubt that to the west the truck-mounted infantry were closing in, lights on full beam. The Fedayeen wagons were the nearest threat – no more than five hundred yards away – the tanks maybe double that distance, but creeping ever nearer.
Grey glanced at Scruff. ‘Hold your fire until the last possible moment. Let’s get the jets in.’
He ducked down and scuttled back towards the vehicles. As he did so, he fancied he could hear the faint rumble of jet engines at high altitude and far to the south of their position.
Fucking great, he told himself. Let’s get the bombs in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
‘Same old same old – we’ve got enemy on all sides,’ Grey reported, once he was back at the wagons. ‘Moth, get the jets in to mallet the Fedayeen, ’cause they’re right on top of us.’
Moth gave a thumbs-up. He got on the air and began to talk the F16 pilots around the battlefield. As the jets bore down on them, he gave the pilots a detailed sketch of their own and the enemy positions. That done, he asked the lead pilot to smash the Fedayeen vehicles that were nearest to their place of hiding, and just as soon as they were ready to engage.
‘Am in your overhead carrying out my air recces,’ came back the lead pilot’s reply. ‘Stand by.’
‘They’re preparing to smash the Fedayeen,’ Moth reported to Grey and Ed. ‘Any moment now.’
‘Zero Six Bravo, Viper Five Three,’ the pilot came up on the air again. ‘No can do. There are vehicles everywhere that I’m looking. They are too numerous to ID friend from foe, and I can’t de-conflict with your position. Zero Six Bravo, I can’t do the drop.’
Moth spat out a string of curses. He turned to Ed and Grey. ‘He can’t do the drop! The Fedayeen are too close to us.’
‘Fuck that!’ snarled Grey. ‘Get him to smash the tanks. We’ll get the guns working on the Fedayeen.’
‘Viper Five Three, Zero Six Bravo: can you see those Iraqi main battle tanks, a thousand yards due north of us? If you can, get in and smash them.’
‘Affirmative, we see them. Trouble is, you’ve got remnants of your Squadron in unidentified locations all around the battlefield. We understand you’ve been split into four units, and command has asked us not to execute drops until all units are accounted for. There’s too much risk of a blue-on-blue.’
‘But what about those battle tanks? Surely it’s obvious they’re not bloody friendlies?’
‘Negative. From where we’re sitting I can see vehicles to every cardinal all around your position, many danger-close. There’s so many we can’t differentiate friend from foe, so as to ID enemy targets. There’s too much risk of friendly fire to make any drops.’
Moth paused over the satcom. He was racking his brains to think of a way to direct the pilots onto the enemy, and to give them the confidence to make the drops. Maybe he could use his laser to paint the vehicles he wanted hit. But the one thing he couldn’t do was find and identify all friendly forces, and especially not when some of them were scattered across the field of battle, in unknown locations and with no way of coming up on comms.
He fixed Grey and Ed with a look of utter desolation. ‘Pilot says there’s so many vehicles in the vicinity they can’t differentiate targets. There’s too great a risk of friendly fire.’
There was a moment of crushing silence as the three men stared at each other in disbelief. The word from the pilots just didn’t make any sense. They were surrounded and about to get torn to pieces, and they had a pair of warplanes smack bang above them – but they couldn’t do any drops. How the hell did that compute?
The whole point of going into a hide had been so they could call in some air power. That they had done, only to be told that the pilots were unable to hit the enemy. They were boiling up with frustration. What the fuck were they supposed to do now? Bug out of the lake bed and get the wagons on the move again? And if so, where to? As the F16 pilots had so eloquently told them, they had enemy forces surrounding them to every point of the compass.
‘Zero Six Bravo, Viper Five Three,’ came the lead F16 pilot’s voice again. ‘There is one thing we can do for ya. We can come in lower than a snake’s belly doing low level passes with sonic boom. That’ll scare the crap out of those Iraqi sons-of-bitches.’
‘Stand by.’ Moth turned to the others. ‘Pilot’s offering to fly low-level shows of force.’
‘We’re about to get overrun, and that’s all he can do,’ Grey snorted. ‘Still, it’s better than fucking nothing.’
‘Get the jets in,’ Ed confirmed. ‘Maybe it’ll buy us some time.’
Moth radioed the pilots. ‘Bring your jets in right over our position, on a north–south bearing, and as low as you can get them.’
‘Affirmative. Preparing to fly show of force, coming in from a northerly bearing bang on top of you guys. We’re three minutes out and closing.’
Grey felt his head sink into his hands, exhaustedly. How long could they hope to hold the enemy off like this? The Iraqi infantry might opt to stay hidden, for the F16s could easily tear their trucks to pieces. Likewise the armour, for they’d be reluctant to lose a squadron of main battle tanks to air strikes. But Grey felt certain there was only one way to stop a force as brainwashed and fanatical as the Fedayeen – and that was to kill them.
With the jets unable to mount any attacking runs, he figured they’d have to try to break out, which would likely mean a stand-up fight in the open desert. And all things considered, he’d prefer to take on the Iraqi infantry rather than the diehard lunatic Boys from Bayji, or a fleet of Iraqi T-72s.
He’d once been on a mission to a certain African country where the rebels had been fighting a war for decades. They’d learned to defeat main battle tanks by digging a hole in the likely path of attack, and hiding in it. As soon as the tank had driven over them they’d climb aboard its rear, and kill the crew with small-arms fire. They’d captured scores of enemy tanks that way, and had even learned to operate them, before turning them against the government forces.
But to do that took days of careful planning, and a serious fighting force to back you up. The tanks had to be channelled along specific routes, where the tank-trappers were hiding. And with the best will in the world – not to mention a good dose of suicidal bravery – no one from the remnant force of Six Troop was going to pull off a trick like that. If nothing else the desert was far too open, offering the tanks any number of avenues of attack.
He didn’t rate their chances very highly against the Iraqi infantry, either, but if they could catch them in their trucks, the Kraz 225s made for big, bulky targets. They could slam the LAWs – plus some SLAR warheads – into those, and maybe incinerate the lot of them in their vehicles. Then they could head west for the raging inferno that marked their position, and try and pass right through them. They’d have the Iraqi tanks to their north and the Fedayeen to their
south, but assuming the infantry had been incinerated, they might just make it through. And with the F16s flying shows of force, maybe they could sneak away and lose them all.
There was a rushed heads-up amongst the blokes, and they agreed on Grey’s idea as a plan of attack. Assuming the F16s’ low-level passes had the desired effect, they’d bug out under the cover of their fly-pasts, then head west, stopping only when they had to fight. They’d mallet the Iraqi infantry, and force a path through. It was a plan born out of sheer desperation, but what other options did they have right now?
Ed got back on the radio, trying to get another set of coordinates agreed with Headquarters, and a hot-extraction grid set to the west of their position. As he did so, Grey issued a set of combat orders: the blokes were only to engage the Fedayeen if they opened fire or started advancing on the British position. Once the route west was declared on, they were to move out pronto.
A few seconds later there was a faint rumble from the skies to their north. It grew rapidly to a throaty roar, like an avalanche was sweeping across the open desert. For an instant this dark, shadowed arrow loomed out of the pitch black like some monster alien spacecraft, a thunderous snarl tearing apart the night with ear-shattering violence.
The warplane flashed overhead so close that you could have thrown a rock at it. The howl of its jet engines was powerful enough to rattle the Pinkies, as if a giant hand had grabbed hold and was shaking them about. The blokes atop the heavy machine-guns ducked involuntarily, as if the jet was about to rip their heads off. They’d known it was coming, but still the sheer force and ferocity of the thing was awe-inspiring and fearsome.
It was dead-hard to achieve a sonic boom on demand, and only the best of the best could manage it. The F16 pilot would have to pull up violently right over the Fedayeen’s heads, the jet engines’ thrust colliding with the air to create a massive boom.
The lead F16 bottomed out into a screaming turn above the enemy, the air in its tortured wake glowing like a ghostly steam cloud. Moments later the jet’s afterburners cut in, trailing a comet of fire as the F16s climbed almost vertically.
Then: KABOOOOOM!
The ear-splitting sound rolled across the open terrain, thundering over the British position like a tidal wave. As the jet climbed, the pilot fired off a blinding burst of flares in his wake, like a salvo of missiles pummelling the earth all around the Fedayeen’s positions. Barely thirty seconds later the second F16 came screaming in and did a repeat performance, the sonic boom of its afterburners echoing like an atomic explosion across the battlefield.
All around the desert to the south and west of their position, vehicle lights had gone out. The Fedayeen had doused their head-lamps in an effort to hide themselves from the warplanes.
‘Zero Six Bravo, Viper Five Three,’ came the voice of the lead pilot, ‘they’ve gone static and dark, so that’s shut ’em down for a while. We’ve got twenty minutes’ play time, but doing those low-level passes sure burns up the fuel real fast.’
‘Roger, keep watching ’em,’ Moth replied. ‘They start moving or showing any lights, smash in another low pass. We’re going to bug out west, and when we do I’ll give you a warning. Do not engage three wagons moving due west on black light. Repeat: do not engage us.’
‘Well copied.’
It was 0045 hours by now. The men had been in constant combat or on the run for approaching seven hours. After a week spent operating deep behind enemy lines, they had been on their chinstraps even before they’d got hit. It was only the adrenaline, plus the fear of being overrun, that was keeping them going.
The force prepared to move out, pulling blokes back from the rim of the wadi and loading up the vehicles. Using the cover of the F16s screaming in for a second low-level pass, the wagons crawled towards the lip of the lake bed, in preparation for turning west. But as the pair of warplanes roared overhead at tree-top level, the Fedayeen opened up on them, spurts of 12.7mm tracer chasing the jets through the dark skies.
The militia fighters must have woken up to the fact that the F16s weren’t dropping ordnance, which wasn’t good news. The Dushka was designed first and foremost as an anti-aircraft weapon, although it stood little chance of bringing down an F16. But it just went to show how quickly the Fedayeen learned from the realities of the battlefield, and adapted their actions accordingly.
The lead Pinkie was creeping up over the western edge of the wadi when the nearest of the Fedayeen vehicles swung their guns round. Within seconds, 12.7mm Duskha rounds went tearing past the blokes in the wagon, as the enemy hosed down the wadi.
With all the passengers blocking their arcs, the gunners on the Pinkies still couldn’t return fire. Figures dived off to either side, sprinting for their defensive positions and to find some cover. At the same moment the .50-cals and GPMGs sparked up, smashing rounds back into the enemy, targeting the long tongues of yellow flame spitting out of the darkness.
For a few instants they traded fire with bloody fire, then the wagons reversed course back into the cover of the lake bed. It was impossible to exit from their position in the face of such a murderous assault, for there was no way they could fight when the crowded wagons were on the move.
Whether or not those low-level passes by the F16s had led the enemy onto their position Grey didn’t know. But he was burning up with frustration, and the enemy sure as hell seemed to know where they were now.
The F16 pilot was on to Moth almost immediately. The warplanes were approaching zero fuel, and they’d clocked that they were under fire. It was clear that with each pass the Fedayeen were getting wise to the fact that the jets weren’t killing them, which made each less effective than the last. The lead pilot warned Moth they could manage two more shows of force, by which time they’d be sipping on fumes. The British force had to break out west in the limited time that the warplanes could buy them, or they’d be overrun.
It was then that Grey had a flash of pure inspiration. He dived out of the wagon and sprinted over to Scruff, who was lying prone on the rim of the lake bed. He dropped down beside him, so both men were gazing out into the open desert due west.
‘When the jets come in, unleash with the SLAR on whatever targets you can hit,’ Grey told him. ‘We’ve never seen a thermobaric warhead in action and neither will the fucking enemy. Fire off as many as you can as the jets do their stuff, and hopefully the bastard Fedayeen will think the F16s have switched to dropping bombs.’
‘Fucking nice one,’ Scruff growled.
‘Get one of the blokes to be your loader,’ Grey added, ‘and smash the warheads into them fast as you can.’
‘Got it.’
Spurts of 12.7mm fire went burning across the skies above him, as Grey scuttled back to the wagons. He gave Ed the sketch and they put it out on the radios, so all would know what was happening.
‘Right, here’s the plan: we’ll smash the Fedayeen with the SLAR, and maybe the Iraqi infantry too. Presumably, the enemy’ll think it’s the F16s in action, and they’ll run for the fucking hills. They do that, we break contact and head due west. We’ll break through their lines, and either we’ll hit the Syrian border or get a helo in to a grid to lift us out.’
That done, Grey slid into the seat of his Pinkie and grabbed the GPMG. He swung it round, centring the metal sights on a pair of Fedayeen headlights. He paused for an instant to draw breath, and waited for the roar of the warplanes as they headed in for their third low-level pass.
As the rumble of the incoming warplanes grew in volume, a monster round from one of the T-72s came tearing across the British position and slammed into the open desert a hundred yards beyond. There was a momentary delay, and a second tank shell ploughed into the ground just short of their position. Now the gunners had them bracketed.
Grey tensed for a third shell to smash right into them, the scream of the jet engines drowning out the roar of battle. As the lead F16 streaked earthwards in a shallow dive, Scruff unleashed the first thermobaric rocket from the SLAR. There w
as a violent flash of flame from the weapon’s gaping muzzle, and the rocket went tearing towards the nearest Iraqi vehicle.
The compact warhead slammed into the target, impacting with a dull thud. A small scatter charge threw out a fine mist of fuel-air explosive, which enveloped and saturated the vehicle. A split second later the secondary, igniter charge detonated, instantly transforming the fuel-air mixture into a white-hot seething fireball.
As the flame front accelerated from the epicentre of the blast, the burning vehicle careered onwards, the firestorm flaring and seething as it sucked in oxygen like a dragon devouring its prey. The blast wave flashed outwards from the heart of the conflagration, tearing into the vehicles to either side, before collapsing in on itself to form a crushing vacuum.
Moments later the incinerated vehicle shuddered to a halt, a gutted ruin. A black mushroom cloud of smoke belched skywards, right in the wake of the F16. Scruff reloaded, aimed and fired again. The entire horizon under attack from the SLAR seemed to dissolve into a sea of raging fire, as a second vehicle was engulfed in a white-hot blast.
With the F16s ramping up the afterburners Scruff hammered in the thermobaric rockets, and the headlights all around them went out. Even the searchlights atop the T-72s had been doused, as the enemy forces killed their movement and their lights, and went static.
For several tense moments the men of the tiny British force gazed out into a dark and apparently empty desert. The seconds ticked by. Seconds became a full minute, and still there was no sign of movement or light from the enemy. It looked as if the plan was working. Now was as good a time as any to make a run for it.
For a second time, they pulled the blokes back from the rim of the lake bed and loaded up the wagons. Then Moth got the lead vehicle nosing out of cover and into the open desert. As he did so, the F16s came in for their fourth and final pass. They screamed across the British vehicles, and then they were powering south away from the battlefield.
The lead pilot came up on the air. ‘Zero Six Bravo, Viper Five Three. We’re bingo fuel and we’re out of here. Stay safe down there.’
