by Shaun Clarke
What happened tomorrow would depend entirely on what they found when they could see the terrain. Right now, cold and damp, with the wind howling eerily, Ricketts, thinking of Hailsham’s departure, was suffering an unaccustomed feeling of isolation.
That disquiet was increased when, shortly after the completion of the OP, he received another radio message, this time from the commander of Road Watch Centre, stating that his LZ was on flat, moon-like terrain where concealment was virtually impossible.
‘We’re bugging out,’ he said. ‘Making a tactical withdrawal. As a parting shot, however, I’m going to call down an A-10 air strike on the two enemy mobile radar systems I can see from right here. I’ll keep you informed of events right up to the moment we actually leave. Over and out.’
The A-10s duly arrived and were lined up on the target when the commander of Road Watch Centre realized that his LZ was being mistaken for the target. Immediately, he sent a radio signal to tactical HQ but the signal was not received. According to the next message received by Ricketts, the air attack destroyed the Iraqi radar and only narrowly missed the troopers who had called it up.
Ricketts and his men witnessed the air strike from ten miles away: another spectacular light show of crimson tracers, silvery explosions and fire-spewing missiles illuminating the night sky, accompanied by the distant thunder of explosions. When it ended, Ricketts received another message from the commander, saying they had nearly been bombed by their own planes, but at least the Iraqi positions had been destroyed. The commander then confirmed that his team was bugging out, making a hasty, controlled exit from the LZ by foot.
Ricketts wished him well, then cut communications, realizing with foreboding that his group, Road Watch North, was now completely on its own, 187 miles from friendly territory.
That thought chilled him as much as did the biting wind and the dark, damp earth around him.
Huddled up in their OP, the patrol spent a miserable first night, supposedly watching for the movement of Scud launchers along the nearby MSR, but in fact unable to see anything beyond a hundred yards or so. The weather remained bitterly cold, with temperatures well below freezing throughout the night, accompanied by gusts of driving wind, rain, sleet and snow. Ricketts was only too aware that it was weather similar to that which had often killed soldiers and civilians on the SAS training ground of Brecon Beacons.
Raising his head again, just before the break of dawn, he checked that the desert immediately around them was indeed flat rock, rising gently to a ridge about two hundred yards to the north. It was. In the fading darkness he could see the ridge more clearly, outlined against a sky now showing patches of stars, with what appeared to be an angular rock formation on its low summit. The OP itself was located in a wadi running along the crest of a hill that fell away behind them and to the side. The terrain in front of them was flat for about four hundred yards, and then it, too, started falling away to the plain below. That plain was criss-crossed by the parallel lines of the MSRs about five miles away. All in all, it was a mountainous, rocky area, splashed here and there with white patches of snow, ice and frost. The wind blew all the time.
Eventually, to his despair, even before the dawn broke properly, Ricketts realized that what had appeared to be a rock formation was actually two Iraqi S60 anti-aircraft gun positions on top of the ridge overlooking his OP.
‘Shit!’ he hissed involuntarily.
‘What’s that, boss?’ Andrew asked, removing the binoculars from his eyes after scanning the MSRs on the low desert plain to the west.
Ricketts said nothing. He merely pointed at the nearby ridge with his index finger.
‘Oh, man!’ Andrew sighed when he saw the Iraqi gun positions. ‘We is in bad trouble, man!’
One by one the other men in the OP, some of whom had been sleeping, turned their heads to look up at the ridge and murmur their own version of despair.
There was no way to get out of the OP without being seen.
‘We’re trapped here,’ Ricketts said.
‘Christ!’ Taff burst out, gazing up at the ridge with disbelief in his sleepless, bloodshot eyes. ‘What the hell do we do?’
Ricketts wasn’t sure, but he had to say something. ‘We’ll just have to sit tight and hope to hell something turns up.’
‘What might that be, boss?’
As Danny rarely spoke, the question was well worth considering. But no immediate answer came to Ricketts. ‘I don’t know. I only know we can’t move. Let’s just do as much as we can while we’re here. For a start, take notes on those anti-aircraft gun emplacements, then the movements of enemy aircraft or any activity on the ground, including those distant MSRs. What’s happening there, Andrew?’
‘Whoever picked this location for an OP,’ Andrew replied, speaking with his binoculars to his eyes, ‘ought to be hung, drawn and quartered – the slower the better. Those MSRs are a good five miles away and covered in fog. I can’t see shit, boss.’
‘The fog will disappear as the sun rises. Keep looking, Sergeant.’
A grey dawn led into an interminable day whose monotony was only broken for the individual men by a period on watch, a turn at domestic chores, sleep, then another period of watch. Even with the sunlight, the temperature scarcely rose above freezing point. Added to this torture was the boredom, relieved only by the military traffic passing along the distant MSR or the passage of aircraft, both Coalition and Iraqi, on their way to and from Baghdad or Basra. Notes on all these movements were duly recorded, but the men still felt trapped.
To make matters worse, radio transmissions to HQ were less than perfect. ‘On HF,’ Geordie informed Ricketts, ‘I’m losing words and sometimes whole sentences. It’s not helpful, boss.’ Nevertheless, by the end of the first day Geordie had heard enough on high-frequency transmissions to be able to inform Ricketts that there was no news of the missing members of Road Watch Centre, who had bugged out of their LZ on foot. By now, Ricketts thought, they were either dead, wounded, captured or committing daring acts of espionage. It was best not to dwell on it.
Occasionally they heard sounds of human activity – a dog barking, goatherds calling to each other only a hundred yards away – sounds telling them that neither they nor the Iraqi soldiers on the ridge were completely alone in this vast, inhospitable wilderness.
Ricketts was still racking his brains over how to get out of this trap when, at sunset, with the mist again creeping over the flat, gravelly earth in front of the OP, the goatherds materialized over the crest of the slope 300 yards away. They were wearing the customary headcloth, the keffia, draped over their head and shoulders, and the dish-disha, a plain, one-piece shirt reaching from the throat to the feet. Their feet were in leather thongs. Urging the goats ahead of them with the aid of gnarled sticks and a couple of undernourished dogs, they were coming directly towards the OP. Ricketts counted four men.
Immediately, without a word, the SAS troopers placed themselves in firing positions along the OP, some of them aiming at the goatherds, others preparing to fire on the ridge should their position be given away to the gun crews. Luckily the dogs cut alongside the advancing goats, raced around in front of them and turned them back the way they had come.
‘Thank Christ for that,’ Taff whispered.
Ricketts, however, was certain that one of the goatherds, who had turned away with the goats but then turned back to stare quizzically at the raised earth around the OP, had actually seen it.
Whether or not he would tell someone later on remained to be seen. For the moment, he simply turned away and, as the evening descended, followed his animals and fellow goatherds down the far slope.
Ricketts heaved a sigh of relief.
‘Close one,’ Andrew said.
Another interminable evening and a hellishly cold, damp night had to be endured. The men could neither leave the OP to relieve themselves nor take a chance on leaving the OP altogether, in case the goatherd, who had possibly seen them, informed on them, in which case the I
raqi soldiers on the ridge would be waiting to ambush them.
When no movement on the part of the Iraqis was made by noon the second day, Ricketts resolved to try to bluff his way out. He was confirmed in this decision when the Arabs returned with their animals and the goatherd he suspected of having seen the OP looked only briefly in its direction. If the man had seen the OP – and Ricketts thought he had – he might be friendly to the Coalition forces. Either that, or he was wrongly assuming that the OP was part of the military operation being conducted by the Iraqi soldiers on the ridge. As either way the goats were going to reach the OP, thus exposing the position, Ricketts decided to try his bluff.
‘Put on your shemaghs,’ he instructed his men, ‘and keep your mouths shut. I can speak a little Arabic, so let me do the talking.’
When he and the other men had put on their veils to hide their faces, Ricketts stood up in full view and tried waving in a friendly way at the Iraqi goatherds. Even if they turned out to be unfriendly, it was possible that with the shemaghs covering the berets and faces of the SAS troopers, the goatherds would mistake them for Iraqi troops and either ignore their presence or let them march off.
However, even as Ricketts was waving, the goatherds, looking uneasy, went off to the side again, disappearing down the rocky, frost-covered slope. At that moment a self-sustaining Iraqi unit with its command vehicle and tracked carriers arrived, braking to a halt about three hundred yards away.
As Ricketts ducked low, hardly believing what was happening, the canvas covers were whipped off the trucks and a battery of low-level antiaircraft guns was revealed. The men in the trucks jumped out. Some of them made a camp-fire and started boiling soup or tea. Others made their way up to the ridge, to talk to the men in the gun emplacements.
Obviously the site chosen for the SAS OP was one that had also been chosen by the Iraqis as part of their rapidly growing air-defence network.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Andrew whispered, ‘I think I’m having a bad dream!’
‘I wish you were,’ Ricketts replied. Determined to keep his wits together, he immediately sent a short-burst message over the SATCOM system, stating that an enemy triple-A gun was in position immediately north of the LZ. The terse reply was that the close proximity of the Iraqis made relief, resupply or rescue by air impossible, for to call down fire on the enemy would be to virtually attract the same to their own position. Unfortunately, they would have to sit tight and hope that the Iraqis would disappear, sooner or later.
‘Fucking terrific,’ Geordie said, replacing the microphone. ‘We could be here for ever.’
‘Even if we get out,’ Taff asked, ‘where the hell could we go?’
‘Let’s try taking them out,’ Danny urged, itching for action. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’
‘Only our lives,’ Ricketts replied, ‘I say we sit tight, wait for that mobile unit to leave, then take our chances on getting out under cover of darkness, when the men on the ridge may not see us.’
‘They may not leave for days,’ Andrew said. ‘They’re settling in over there.’
‘Let’s wait, Andrew. Let’s see.’
Unable to leave, they had to piss and shit in the OP, favouring the far end of the wadi, which eased neither the humiliation nor the stench. They were also running short of food and water. After another night huddled up in the cold, damp, narrow OP, fearful of sleeping in case the Iraqis came their way, they were not only close to serious exhaustion, but also in danger of contracting hypothermia.
‘I say we get up and run,’ Andrew suggested. ‘Take our chances out there. We can’t stay here much longer, boss.’
‘Right,’ Danny agreed, his finger itchy on the trigger. ‘Even if we don’t have a chance, we can take some of them out with us.’
‘No,’ Ricketts replied. ‘The men in that mobile unit packed up their plates and saucers this morning, so I think they’ll leave soon. If they do, we’ll stay here until this evening, then move out under cover of darkness.’
‘Fucking right,’ Geordie said.
Unfortunately their luck ran out. About noon that day, the third day, they saw the goatherd being driven in a jeep to the mobile unit and being deposited in front of an Iraqi officer. After words were exchanged, the Iraqi officer slapped the goatherd’s face, threw him to the ground, kicked him viciously and then stared in the direction of the OP.
‘Shit!’ Ricketts exclaimed. ‘The goatherd’s told them about us.’
The OP was filled with the metallic clatter of weapons being brought into position as the Iraqi officer and some soldiers from the mobile group clambered hurriedly into a jeep and drove towards the OP.
Andrew opened fire with his GPMG, firing a sustained burst that peppered the jeep with noisily ricocheting 7.62mm bullets, bursting its front tyres and hitting the driver, who shook like a rag doll and released the steering wheel as his grey tunic was splashed with red. The men on either side of Andrew also opened fire as the jeep skidded sideways, exposing the men in the rear to a hail of bullets from the M16s and SLRs. The Iraqis were throwing their hands up and crying out with pain even as the rear tyres burst and the jeep rolled onto its side. When Andrew fired a burst into its petrol tank, it burst into flames. The men still alive, or simply wounded by the hail of bullets, screamed hideously as they were incinerated in the pyre of the blazing jeep.
At that moment a mortar shell exploded just in front of the OP, creating a thunderous din and a fountain of spewing earth that rained back down on Ricketts and his men.
‘They’re shooting at us from the gun emplacements on the ridge!’ Danny shouted as another mortar shell exploded, filling the air with smoke and flying gravel, followed immediately by the stitching effects of machine-gun fire from the mobile unit 300 yards away.
‘Get in touch with HQ!’ Ricketts bawled to Geordie. ‘Tell them we’re bugging out and need covering fire!’
‘I’m trying,’ Geordie called back, ‘but I’m not getting through! The reception keeps fading in and out! We’ve got faulty transmission!’
Ricketts glanced out of the OP as the smoke from the mortar explosions drifted away and gave him a clear view once more. The exploded jeep was still blazing, but the men inside it were now silent, blackened, smouldering corpses. Beyond them, the remaining Iraqis of the mobile unit were passing weapons to one another in preparation for an assault on the OP. Another mortar shell exploded, fired from the distant ridge. This one landed even closer to the OP, making the ground shake, practically deafening the men, filling the air with acrid smoke and obscuring the view again.
‘Stow your survival gear in your bergens,’ Ricketts instructed his men, ‘and let’s get the hell out of here. We’re in for a very long march, so don’t take anything heavy.’
‘I’m taking my GPMG,’ Andrew insisted.
‘You’re a big boy,’ Ricketts said with a grin, ‘and you’re the one who’ll be carrying it. OK, let’s bug out!’
The men clambered, heavily laden, out of the OP and made their way downhill as the first fusillade of fire came from the remaining Iraqi soldiers. Using any fold in the ground available, Ricketts’s men fired back as they moved off.
Surprised, the Iraqis paused, then started shooting with renewed vigour with their small arms. As they did so, the soldiers behind them, on the trailer-truck, used the triple-A anti-aircraft guns on a low trajectory, thus converting the heavy-calibre guns into deadly infantry-support weapons.
Mere seconds after the last SAS trooper, Danny Porter, had clambered out of the OP and raced to catch up with the others, the gun crews on the ridge finally got an accurate calibration and two mortar shells blew the empty OP apart.
As the Iraqi troops advanced through the swirling smoke and raining gravel, bullets from their small arms stitched the ground around the SAS men, noisily ricocheting off rocks and sending stones flying in all directions. At the same time, shells from the triple-A anti-aircraft guns, as well as the mortars on the ridge, made the ground behind them erupt in a s
eries of deafening explosions that spewed earth, gravel, sand and pieces of razor-sharp, burning shrapnel.
Ricketts felt himself being picked up in a roaring maelstrom, his breath sucked from scorched lungs, before he was whipped over once or twice and smashed back down to earth. His head was filled with a whistling sound and white light seared the darkness, but he managed to spit sand from his mouth and open his eyes again. He was flat on his back with smoke drifting above him. When he rolled over and pushed himself up on hands and knees, most of the contents of his bergen fell out, clattering noisily on the frosted gravel beneath him.
‘A piece of shrapnel slashed your bergen,’ Danny explained, grabbing Ricketts under the shoulder and helping him back to his feet, ‘but you look OK, Sarge.’
‘That shrapnel also damaged my radio,’ Geordie said. ‘Now it’s completely fucking useless. You ask me, boss, I think we should ditch the bergens anyway. We’ve got a long walk ahead and the bergens are too heavy to carry.’
His ears still ringing, Ricketts glanced back the way he had come. Having reached the smouldering OP on the crest of the hill, the Iraqi troops were advancing around it and coming on down, firing their small arms on the march. The triple-A anti-aircraft guns had finally stopped firing, but the mortar on the ridge was still in action, its shells coming closer.
‘OK,’ Ricketts said. ‘We’re outnumbered and outgunned. We’ll have to leg it out of here. Ditch the bergens, radio and everything else except your weapons, water bottles and spare ammo. Keep what food you have left and your personal rescue beacons. Let’s be quick about it. Andrew, keep those bastards away from us until we bug out.’
‘Right, boss. Will do.’ An impressively big man, Andrew handled the GPMG as if it was a lightweight toy. Instead of fixing it to the tripod – he didn’t have the time anyway – he spread his strong legs, crooked the heavy weapon in one arm, and fired from the hip, his whole body shaking with the recoil as he moved the barrel left and right to spray in a broad arc. The noise was atrocious, but the burst of fire was deadly, bowling over many of the Iraqis and making the others scatter, throw themselves to the ground or race back up the hill to take cover in the still smouldering OP.
