Wilco- Lone Wolf 7

by Geoff Wolak

I took in their faces. ‘Hands up those willing to risk a shoot-out as part of this course?’

  They all raised hands, many looking very proud that they did so, chins out.

  Crab said, ‘I trained them well, they’s tougher than they look.’

  I slowly nodded, some of the young faces appearing like school kids. I lifted my head towards the upper level. ‘Captain Moran, Swifty, Mahoney, front and centre.’

  They appeared a few seconds later, all suitable kitted out, standard kit.

  ‘Let’s get some extra ammo, rations, and then we’ll take these gentlemen for a walk, maybe stay out overnight.’

  Inside, I found the RCT captain, ammo issued to us, and now he mentioned there were grenades, enough for each young officer to have two, fuses out as they were tucked into webbing.

  Pistols were issued and checked, magazines loaded with 9mm, spare rounds carried, water topped up, rations topped up. The only thing the young officers lacked were radios. I found green cloth and issued it, but we did not have enough to camouflage all rifles. Some dark green tape was employed on a few weapons and magazines.

  I drew a map in the dirt as they gathered around; the FOB, the river, the druggy village, the border bridge, the base in Liberia. ‘Right, I want two teams of eight and one of nine.’

  They split into teams.

  ‘Sergeant Crab with Team Two. Captain Moran, Lieutenant Mahoney, Team Three. One at the front, one at the rear. Myself and Swifty with Team One.’ I lifted my head to the roof. ‘Slider, get your kit and come down.’

  When he appeared I put him with Crab. I faced Whisky. ‘You got webbing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go get it, top up, you’re coming along. And get a pistol and rifle, borrow one if you have to.’

  As Whisky was inside getting ready I checked webbing and kit, but Crab and others had done a good job, the officers even had a few flysheets, puri-tabs, small first aid kits, anti-septic cream, tourniquets sticking out of shirt pockets. I had extra plastic water bottles stuffed into kit.

  Whisky appeared with his custom kit, webbing and backpack, an AKM from the crates, loaded and checked.

  ‘OK, does anyone need a monster shit before we depart?’

  The exchanged looks, smiling.

  The RCT captain came out.

  I told him, ‘We’ll be gone a day or so, hold the fort, and stay sharp. We’ll be following the northeast track, up to the border.’ I faced the teams. ‘OK, one foot in front of the other.’

  I turned, and with the Welsh Guard observing I led off my team. Halfway across the strip I halted them.

  ‘OK, in pairs, never more than arms distant apart, two teams of four. Teams are two strides apart.’ They shuffled into position. ‘Always in your team, always next to your buddy, even for a piss. In a shoot-out, stay together, and after a shootout alert us if your buddy or your team is not together. Simple.

  ‘Sleeves rolled down, shirt done up. That way nothing will bite you – and you won’t die.’ I led them on.

  At the northeast track I got the Salties on the radio, finding them well hidden. They watched us pass. I called Sasha to let him know we were coming, then stopped and knelt. Facemask on, gloves on, they all copied, all now well camouflaged.

  I moved on down the track for ten minutes, but then halted again. ‘OK, who’s walking with their finger on the trigger?’

  A few adjusted their grip.

  ‘If you sneeze, you shoot your mate, so fingers off triggers till you want to kill someone. Man in front watches where you walk, man behind watches the trees, and always sniff the air for cigarette smoke. Enemy soldiers always smoke.’

  I led them on, the afternoon sun cutting through the high canopy – a beautiful green wonderland to explore, and I was always at home here in the jungle, and now loving this. I had to remind myself of the dangers as a million brilliant shades of green were painted onto the scene for me, birds calling out, small monkeys shrieking.

  An hour along the track I stopped at a stream, each pair of men allowed to take facemask and gloves off and cool down whilst being covered, and I allowed them to sip their water – which I had told them to ration.

  Reaching Sasha an hour later, I had the teams spread out and put up flysheets, just in time for a typical later afternoon storm. I sat with Sasha and his team for ten minutes, chatting away, and had told everyone to get a brew on as the temperature dropped suddenly.

  Losing the light, we took down the flysheets as it stopped raining. Packed up, Sasha bid farewell, we moved down to the road, the bushes and grass soaked, and soaking us as we passed through them.

  Across the road I pushed on north in the dark, the river to the east of us. After it was fully dark, I halted them and had my team close up. ‘At night, the trees are black and everything else is dark grey. There is light to see by, and you can walk OK without stumbling. Oddly enough, the moon coming out fucks that up a bit, but a full moon helps visibility. And don’t forget ... fingers off triggers.’

  Reaching a suitable campsite, the river glimpsed in the distance, we made camp on a flat plateau with a stream running through it, many young trees to fix flysheets to.

  With flysheets up, ponchos down, I had four men with me, four with Swifty nearby, cookers being lit. I put Slider on stag back down the track twenty yards, Crab on stag north twenty yards, one hour rotations.

  As I cooked I debated legal matters with my team, and I could hear Whisky telling tales of jungles and deserts, Swifty issuing handy tips on cooking.

  At 11pm I told most to sleep, the experienced men on stag rotations. But I did have weapons made safe first. All of this lot would have, many times in their training or on exercise, slept rough.

  At 5am I was awake and alert, a pee taken. I nudged the feet of slumbering men before I got a brew on, dried biscuits nibbled. The camp was soon full of men sat cross-legged and cooking, quiet conversations overlapping as I took in the river, a few local people seen on the far bank.

  Tins away, flysheets down, I had Whisky give a lecture on tracking, and how to analyse the telltale remnants of a camp like ours, the imprints and tracks. He showed the teams our prints from yesterday, now containing water, and moving off north he found animal tracks as well as old human tracks.

  Formed up in teams, I led them on, facemasks and gloves back on, weapons ready, the men all suitably quiet and alert, eyes everywhere. Coming across an old abandoned mine, I tasked the four-man teams with a close observation, sketches to be made, a hostage rescue to be planned – assuming hostages being house in a given building.

  I had detailed eight men in their imaginary rescue team, twelve hostage guards, no dogs seen, two jeeps seen coming and going, six hostages, teams now sent in different directions to get eyes-on for thirty minutes.

  Back at our make-do camp, the teams sat in their groups and discussed how they would rescue the theoretical hostages, Crab and Whisky giving pointers, and I wandered around the teams to discuss the aspects of a rescue.

  After an hour, a brew made, they sat around a central fallen tree, plans detailed in turn, questions asked by me to a back-drop of lush green foliage, a primeval setting.

  I finally began, ‘OK, you have an eight man team, there are twelve guards, six hostages, jeeps seen. First, eyes on, because the intel is always wrong. You move in before dawn and observe till dawn the next day. That way you see all the movements, the day movements and the night movements.

  ‘Maybe they go get supplies at noon, maybe they all go to sleep at midnight, maybe men who sleep here have a day job and return at 6pm, and maybe you see a family living in there as well as the hostages.

  ‘What you’re looking for with your observation ... is a lucky break. Maybe they reduce numbers during the day, all having a kip at 3pm. In this part of the world, they’ll all be smoking weed at night, and stoned past midnight – so a good time to move in. And how will you move in?

  ‘I’d want two men covering the road in case a vehicle turns up. In an ideal world, I�
��d want two men on the ridge, up a tree, covering all the angles. And, in an ideal world, I want to trick them. Whilst they’re having their evening meal, sneak up, knock the handbrake off a jeep, push it back over a ravine. They come running, you shoot them when they’re outside.

  ‘Or, if there’s an outbuilding, set fire to it, let them run around putting the fire out, weapons down. Then you move. Don’t just think about a frontal assault, be sneaky. We use tricks all the time, and they save lives.

  ‘To get the hostages out ... you need live hostages, so you need to get very close to the hostage room before that first shot is fired - to stop them shooting the hostages. The risky part ... is the part for the men who sneak up to get close. A dog may bark, or a gunman is out for a piss and spots you and opens up.

  ‘So, having got close to the hostage room, you need to suppress the gunmen – not killing the family, and get the hostages away without them being shot, covering fire as you do but not wild firing – remember that family in there. No point in rescuing six civilians if you butcher six kids in the process.

  ‘OK, Swifty, take four men into the bush north, have them moving as you want them moving. Captain Moran, east, Slider south, same deal, twenty minutes and back, rest of you with Whisky, making a natural shelter.’

  Teams moved off, the final teams following Whisky as he led them aside, Whisky soon making a hide from thin branches tied with vines, large leaves woven into a roof.

  On the hour I again led them off north, passing through areas of isolated farming hamlets but avoiding people, and debating with myself about crossing the border. I decided to move west a little, further into Sierra Leone.

  Finding a small waterfall, men were allowed to cool off, guards posted and rotated, each of the young officers having a cool wash with tops taken off.

  Back on the trail, we inspected a rusted old car with a skeleton at the wheel, wondering how it got into the jungle – and who the driver had been. He seemed to have met a grisly end.

  Cresting a ridge, we came across a village, a vantage point some thirty yards higher than the village. Gunmen were spotted below, so I had the teams spread out and take positions at the edge of the ridge, to observe the gunmen whilst going unseen.

  For the first half hour the gunmen walked around, seen shouting at villagers on occasion, in a heated debate with others at times, but finally we got something interesting to observe, a man dragged out and knelt down, the man’s family held at gunpoint. It seemed that the gunmen were asking for money – or the family would be hurt.

  A young officer turned to me as I stood behind the teams. ‘We not intervening, sir?’

  ‘How many villages are there in Sierra Leone?’ I asked.

  ‘Er ... probably a great many, sir.’

  ‘And how many are you planning on policing, given that you have no authority to police here. Have you been tasked with interventions here? Does the British commander of ground forces know about you? Have you been read the rules of engagement?’

  ‘Can’t just ignore it, sir,’ he said, other heads turning.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re here, sir, and we’re observing it.’

  ‘Is that a moral judgement, or a legal one?’

  ‘Well ... to start it’s a moral judgement, but morality and law are very closely linked. Laws are based on morality.’

  ‘And what is it that you would like to do?’

  ‘Well ... fire a warning shot, scare them off.’

  ‘And they come back an hour later, after we’ve gone, and take their anger out on the villagers.’

  Heads turned, looks exchanged.

  The gunmen fired warning shots into the air and into the ground, a few heads glancing my way for leadership. I could see Swifty, Moran and Mahoney take aim.

  ‘Sir..?’ the same young man called.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re going to kill those people, sir,’ came with a little more urgency to it.

  ‘And in how many villages will this be played out today? How many others will die today?’

  ‘Nothing I can do about them, sir, but we’re here now,’ the same man argued, sounding frustrated, which was what I wanted.

  A gunman shot a woman in the arm, shrieks heard from the village – and from the woman in question, heads again turning towards me.

  The young officer had seen enough. He took aim as I observed him, and shot two gunmen in the legs. Quiet cracks sounded out, my lads, the gunmen all killed. Villagers ran in, grabbed weapons and stole them away, the husband of the wounded lady venting his anger on the four dead gunmen.

  ‘OK, gather around,’ I called. They moved back. ‘And fingers off triggers.’ I took off my facemask, and ordered the rest to do so. Calmly, I began, ‘OK, hands up those who think he was right to wound those men?’

  Most raised hands.

  ‘What happened, from a legal standpoint, between the first shot being fired ... and my men firing?’

  ‘We gave away our position, so we were in danger, and therefore it was legal to shoot to protect ourselves.’

  ‘Correct. After the first shot was fired we were in danger, therefore the law changes. It could be argued that we were in danger the moment we stepped off the plane, and we were, but being out here we’re in even more danger.

  ‘What the man who fired could have done was to walk forwards and shout abuse. If the gunmen had pointed weapons at us we could have fired within the law. But he would have risked getting shot.’

  ‘What would you have done, sir, if we weren’t here?’ a second man asked.

  ‘Oh, we would have killed those men without pausing for a breath.’

  ‘So what’s different, sir?’

  ‘The difference ... is that I don’t fill in reports, my men don’t blab about those we kill, and if questions were asked I have some powerful friends high up. You lot are there to set the standards, not bend the rules.

  ‘We know what we’re fighting for, and my men have all seen villagers killed, and we’ve killed many men in legal grey areas. Here, and in Northern Ireland, every time you shoot at someone there would be in inquiry. If the law was black and white ... there would be no inquiries. We have inquires ... because the law is a grey area every time you fire a gun in anger.

  ‘In a war, such as the Falklands, there were no inquiries about the conduct of individual men; that would have been dealt with within the Army. An insurgency or a peacekeeping mission is different. This is, technically, a peacekeeping mission, and you would have to justify why you shot someone.’

  ‘Will this be reported?’ asked the man who had fired.

  ‘Not by my men, no. If some of your colleagues wish to blab about it ... then yes, an enquiry. But my statement to that inquiry will say that I ordered you to open fire, so don’t worry. And you did the people here a favour, unlike that prick of a colonel at the airport.’

  A fresh-faced second lieutenant raised his hand. ‘Sir, that prick of a colonel ... is my uncle,’ he informed me, but without sounding like he was mad at me.

  ‘Then let’s hope you turn out to be a better officer. When I got here he told me he wanted no shooting, a quiet life. Take a look at that village below. How many British soldiers do you see? If I was the commander on the ground here with six hundred men I’d have shot every gunman and brought peace here.

  ‘Instead, that prick of a colonel is playing golf and going to cocktail parties whilst locals are butchered and killed, the girls raped and killed. I don’t call a few patrols around Freetown to be peacekeeping.’

  ‘I said he was my uncle, sir, I never said I liked him.’

  Smiles broke out.

  ‘You’ve learnt a valuable lesson about the real world, and the real job of soldiers: you save as many lives as you can, and fuck the rules where you can. Form up in teams, ready to move off.’

  A young lad stood, a round discharged into the dirt, scaring his buddy. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said as Crab rushed in.

  ‘You useless lit
tle fuck!’ Crab shouted at him. ‘Make safe that weapon!’

  I told the young man, ‘From now on, weapon not cocked, safety on. And, if Sergeant Crab trained you well, you should be able to knock the safety off and cock the weapon in one second.’

  ‘They can do that,’ Crab insisted.

  ‘Will I be charged, sir?’

  ‘No, you learnt your lesson, as did the man you nearly killed. Rest of you ... fingers off triggers till you’re ready to fire.’

  I led them on, weaving around areas of irrigation and farming, a few fly-pestered cows staring back at us as we passed, and we had not walked for more than half an hour when we tripped across an open-cast mining operation, a red scar on the earth.

  I had the teams move up and observe, but to stay hidden, half-naked men below soaked in sweat and caked in mud, all digging for diamonds, the gang-masters keeping order.

  Sat in the middle of the mine were two jeeps, unoccupied. I took a minute to think things through, then over the radio ordered the teams to get ready to shoot the vehicles – and only the vehicles. I gave time for the message to be passed around, and issued an ‘Open Fire!’

  A hell of a cackle of fire sounded out, none of the officers having silencers, the vehicles shredded, and starting to smoke. The dirty wet miners all ran off, their gang-masters running even faster.

  I called everyone in. ‘OK, what are the legal issues with what we just did?’

  ‘Unwarranted damage of civilian property?’

  ‘Somewhere other than here, maybe. But here ... the criminals make money from blood diamonds, illegal under the UN, and all persons engaging in such activities are subject to prosecution – their property seized, such as jeeps.

  ‘So, we just seized their property and disposed of it, all right and proper within the rules.’ I took in their faces. ‘OK, how many people are stood there with fingers on triggers. I can see four.’

  Fingers were removed from triggers, looks exchanged, Swifty shaking his head at them.

  ‘OK, form up teams ready to move off, my fearless warriors,’ I loudly stated.

  Trekking north again, I turned east towards the border, not least because that area seemed to offer more trees and less farming, more cows staring at us as we passed, a small boy waving.