by Geoff Wolak
I unbuttoned and eased off my shirt, all eyes now on me.
‘God ... damn, sir.’
‘Pass this course and you’ll get a body just like mine.’
‘What? Fuck, I hope not. Sir.’
I laughed.
‘How many times you been shot, sir?’
‘I lost count,’ I told him as I eased my shirt back on. Back in our hut I caught two hours sleep, then I was awake, so I wandered into another hut and chatted to some of the young lads.
I kicked the guys awake at 8pm, and after a shower I led the bleary-eyed bunch down a long straight road and towards the gate, where a large MacDonalds-like cafe served food outdoors under a large awning.
A few NCOs sat around, none of the candidates visible here, and we got odd looks as we ordered burgers and fries and soft drinks. I had dollars.
Sat eating, an NCO just arriving stopped to mention, ‘Sir, officers don’t come here.’
‘Tough shit, now fuck off.’
He sat with others, staring our way, Rizzo with ketchup over his cheeks and his moustache. It was like eating with a six year old.
One of the sergeants from the lecture room walked by, got his order and sat next to us. ‘There is an officers mess, sir.’
‘Is there an officers mess in the jungle?’
He took a moment. ‘No, sir, there isn’t.’
‘When men are wounded in the deserts, do officers get picked up first?’
‘No, sir.’
‘And when Desert Sands were shot down, did the missile know who was who, and what rank?’
‘No, sir, it sure as hell didn’t.’
‘Us British special forces are more relaxed than you guys,’ I told him, and I munched my burger.
‘How many live ops have you guys been on together, sir?’
Rizzo turned his head, ketchup all over him. ‘One or two a month, every month, going back years.’
‘And you volunteer for that..?’
‘What else would we be doing?’ Swifty posed. ‘Marching up and down, shooting at paper targets. We joined to fight, not read about it.’
‘You’ve had men killed?’
‘Many,’ Swifty answered. ‘And many wounded. Goes with the job, but we could die in a car accident, certainly with the way Tomo drives.’
The lads laughed.
I pointed out Tomo. ‘He’s the naughty boy of our outfit, and he’s junior to most of us, but I’ll give you five grand if you can beat him in a pistol contest, a rifle contest, or a foot race.’
The sergeant stared back. He finally said, ‘How about a friendly contest, sir?’
‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘Tomo loves to show off.’
‘Damn good food here,’ Rizzo noted.
I pointed at the food counter. ‘This normal for US military bases?’
‘Yes, sir. You don’t have a burger bar or pizza place?’
‘Fuck no,’ Rizzo told him. ‘Might have a base bar, packet of crisps.’
I told the sergeant. ‘On my base the canteen closes at 7pm normally, so if the guys are hungry late at night they have no place like this. But they eat well, and for free.’
‘Free, sir?’
‘My lot don’t pay for canteen food.’
‘We get meals, sir, but it comes from our pay,’ the sergeant pointed out.
Swifty told him, ‘Same for most British soldiers. We got a better deal, rent free huts and houses as well.’
‘Makes up for getting wounded,’ Rizzo said with his mouth full.
We all had extras, and we were still sat there till 11pm, the official closing time, so we ambled slowly back, the base now quiet, MP jeeps patrolling in the dark. They stopped alongside us twice before pulling off.
I told the lads, ‘You sleep midnight to 6am, then up, or else! You’ve had a kip, and I don’t need you sluggish in front of the Yanks.’
When my phoned trilled it was Paul MacManners. ‘We’re worried about the Sarin gas.’
‘It’s a dud.’
‘Doesn’t matter if it is. The terrorists issue a threat to the media, next day a bad smell and sore eyes on the Tube and it’s mass panic. It doesn’t need to be real, it just needs to be believed to be real. Does your source know anything more?’
‘No, and he can’t push, he has to be careful.’
‘We have a list of ships, and we think we have a candidate, French will intercept it. None of the ships listed are heading to Britain, so we have that at least.’
‘Came from Asia.’
‘Ah, well in that case we have a lead on a factory in Jakarta that makes fake Sarin, came across my desk last month; Islamists.’
‘Have the French closed Paris yet?’ I teased.
‘Not yet, but they are at alert, more so than us, but coming after the poison scare they are cautious.’
‘Cautiously seeking extra votes.’
‘You are a bit of a cynic, but I couldn’t argue the case against you on that one. How’s it going out there?’
‘Early days, done little. But we’re flying the flag for Britain, playing the British poodle.’
‘It’s British bulldog, I believe, but when it comes to Washington – yes, a poodle.’
At 6am I kicked them awake, Rizzo less than with it. Warm showers and cold showers, and they all felt better, and I led them towards the mess halls, groups of men in neat blocks being shouted at by their NCOS as they passed us.
I took my rank off and led the lads inside, trays grabbed, food grabbed as people puzzled us, and we sat away from the neat rows of recruits as those recruits also puzzled us. Figuring that 8am was a respectable time, I led them to the HQ building and asked for a map of facilities – and where I might find the captain that had been tasked with getting this course started.
The maps were handed over, the captain – “Kit Yoblonski” - appearing at 8.30am, as we sat with coffee. He led us with his sergeant to a side room, files in his hand. He would use my Wolves standard range test, three times a day to start, and they would run between stages or walk with heavy backpacks.
I told him, ‘There’ll be times when they’re not shooting or running, and we’ll arrange lectures and demonstrations, hour or so for each, say twenty men at a time. We have our specialist weapons with us, and ammo. To start with, grab the spare NCOs and find us a range to use and we’ll go through the weapons.’
The lads waited as I detailed the stages, and we agreed an increase day by day. There was an assault course here, a long one, so the recruits would be put over that as well. And, after the two week initial trial period, it was planned that technical training would be added.
An hour later we drove with nine NCOs to a range that was a mile away outside the base, not used by the recruits. It backed away towards low hills, and was just a pile of sand with firing points.
A jeep drove down to the butts and men raised a target as we got ready, crates opened. I grabbed my bandolier and a Valmet, the NCOs forming a half circle. ‘This was designed by Valmet in Finland ... after I told them what I wanted. It’s based on a long-barrel AK47 derivative, still 7.62mm Russian short-standard ammo.
‘We started off using the AKML because it was reliable, and because we like to take ammo off those we kill, that way we carry less ammo. Now, take a look at my bandolier, and the magazines. How much surface area of my upper body is covered from an incoming round?’
‘At least 50%,’ a man offered.
‘Gentlemen, I’m alive because some of the rounds fired at me hit magazines, same for my men. We use these to carry plenty of ammo, but they also act like body armour.
‘OK, features of a Valmet. Long barrel, heavy barrel, heavy rifle. Heavier the rifle, the more power passed to the round fired – kinetic energy not lost through recoil. Also, the more stable it is. These we designed to have a straight shoulder butt, less muzzle rise, a sight similar to your M16s.’
I placed on a pipe sight and handed the rifle to the first man. ‘Look through the pipe sight. If the circle is unifor
m, aim at a man inside two hundred yards and fire as soon as you see him. At 400 ... look for the vertical line and aim at his chest.
‘Now, stand side on to the target. Point the weapon down, but ready, learn forwards, aim down the pipe sight, lift to the target and pretend to fire.’ He did as asked. ‘When you’re in a hurry, in the jungle, the pipe sight is great, especially at night.
‘If the man can be seen through the pipe – just fire quickly, and most times you’ll hit him. We do.’
‘Heavy rifle,’ the man noted.
‘With a Valmet you don’t need a separate sniper rifle in the platoon, no fifty cal,’ I told them. ‘We hit men at 1200yards. It has a punch to it.’
Under my direction the man lay down and fired four rounds, knelt and fired four rounds, and we were at the 400yard firing point.
I waved Nicholson over. ‘This is a Valmet Elephant Gun.’ I released the magazine and clicked out a round. ‘It’s 7.62mm, but with an extra long casing, and we carry tungsten rounds.’
‘Tungsten?’
‘They’ll punch a hole in a wall, go through a car or truck, damage a vehicle engine, and they’ll kill at man out at 2,000yards – if you hit him.’
A nod at Nicholson, he knelt and fired.
‘Quite a blast compared to your M16s.’
I had Nicholson hand it over, and a different NCO lay down and tried it.
A wave of my fingers, and Rizzo stepped forwards with a box fed.
I began, ‘This is a Valmet box-fed. Same rifle, small changes. It has a heavy barrel, air cooled, 5.56mm NATO standard, fast rate of fire, and will operate with a telescopic sight.’ A nod, and Rizzo blasted at the sand before handing it over. The first NCO fired a few controlled bursts.
‘The box-fed replaces a platoon machinegun,’ I informed them, a few having a go. ‘So in a platoon we have one Elephant Gun, one box-fed, the rest basic Valmets. And we never get a jam.’
Nicholson placed on his large sights, offered the Elephant Gun to an NCO, and we spotted a road sign out at 1200yards, off in the 2 o’clock position. The man fired, a blast issued, the sign falling over.
I told them, ‘See a jeep that far out, hit the engine grill and stop it dead. See a patrol of men, hit the front man and kill the next four men – if they’re in a line.’
Rizzo said, ‘I shot a black in Liberia, wounded two men behind him.’
A sniper instructor fired ten rounds on a Valmet, the grouping relayed to us by the men in the butts, three targets soon raised, and Tomo and Nicholson lay down, each firing ten rounds. The scores came back by radio, our guest shooter a few points behind my lads, who were ten for ten in the bull.
A few NCO’s had a go, a mini contest between them, before we moved to an abandoned old building. We let the NCOs keenly blast at the walls with the Elephant Gun and then view the damage inside. The rounds fired were passing through the first wall, a small hole on this side and a large funnel shape the other side, getting stuck on the second wall, but the reverse side of that second wall was shattered.
‘Gentlemen,’ I called. ‘If someone is hiding inside, hitting the wall is like setting off a grenade; everyone in the room gets a piece.’
With another signpost spotted, and judged to be 1600yards out, a keen NCO fired. Mounted up, we drove to it, a fresh hole through it, numerous old rusted holes found.
We drove around till we found a rusted old car, and from 100yards they punctured it with tungsten rounds, judging the damage done. And our NCOs had gone from reserved and sour-faced to friendly.
I spent an hour observing the recruits on the range, the various groups jogging off after their session, and at 8pm I had most everyone who might attend meet us in the lecture room, the shrinks not required. The Lt Col turned up with a visiting colonel, we shook, and they sat, my lads off to one side.
For an hour I detailed the Angola operation. I finally said, ‘Gentlemen, you learn how to run such operations by studying those that went before you, you learn by other people’s mistakes. French Echo got a detailed briefing on all of my operations before they tried their own, and they benefitted greatly from that process.’
The colonel put in, ‘It was very complicated, you did well, but do you see it as a good mission?’
‘Rest assured, sir, that every mission you launch is a controlled fuck-up. How much of a fuck-up determines the level of success. We were lucky in Angola, it could have been a disaster, so I guess ... that a perfect mission is one where you covered all the angles and everything happened as you planned it.’
‘In the history of mankind ... there’s never been one of those,’ he quipped.
‘No, sir, so some flexibility ... and a large dose of luck, are important.’
The Lt Col put in, ‘You made two snap decisions, and they worked well. Not sure I would have made those calls in the same situation. They let you plan the whole show?’
‘Yes, sir. The show ... was my insert into the prison, the rest was just transport and support.’ I pointed. ‘Swifty took a round to the head, but a glancing blow or he’d not be here. Rizzo was on the roof, trying to get grenades through the windows of the police station opposite. And Tomo here, he’s a great sniper, or he would be if he could he remember to hit them in the chest.
‘On several jobs, he hit the enemy’s commanding officer in the balls deliberately.’ The NCOs laughed. ‘Nicholson is slightly better, but he goes for the chest shot or the head shot, as a good sniper should.’
‘And were the recent operations in Somalia a failure?’ the colonel asked.
I gave them a run-down of both missions over thirty minutes.
The colonel finally said, ‘If the job is to reduce the capacity of the fighters, and to cost them a buck, then they were successes – Arab fighters killed, their sponsors and hosts killed.’
‘War of attrition,’ the Lt Col noted.
‘It’s not enough, sir, and we’re losing ground. A lone idiot with an AK47 can shoot-up a bus load of American tourists someplace and he gets the headlines. One a month of those kinds of attacks and the people think we’re losing, and the people get scared. The battle is not in the deserts, it’s in the newspapers and in the perceptions of the voters, and in the mind of the guy in the White House.
‘You had a carrier battle group off the coast of Somalia and your president was not sure which way to turn. I had thirty men and we did the job for you.’
The colonel stood. ‘Plenty of good men back here that would like to assist you, but you know how we work, and we’re a large machine with many cogs, and the White House don’t know jack shit about anything.’
With the senior officers gone, the NCOs asked about Angola and Somalia, coffee made as we stood in groups talking, and we finally ambled as a group to the burger bar, the burgers enjoyed – but there was no beer to be had.
In the morning I had a look at the graphs with Samantha, and there were a lot of graphs, 198 candidates here. One had broken an ankle and was gone, one just quit after a day.
She pointed at a pile of 12 graphs, and each man was shooting like Billy the Kid and Daniel Boon all rolled into one. They were the favourites so far.
That evening I detailed operations in Sierra Leone for a keen crowd, many practical questions asked.
The following day the recruits had a lengthy jog through the desert between two stages, so I grabbed the NCOs and informed them of the game I would play. I took an Airman who was doing northing and we dressed him up like a recruit, webbing and backpack and rifle.
Each recruit was told that their times were critical today and that they could be kicked off the course for a bad time. Three miles out, and Rizzo and Swifty were hidden under ponchos – tasked with noting candidate vest numbers, I was hidden on a ridge with two NCOs, and our Airman was hidden in a ditch.
We let the first two men pass, our Airman easing out, then pretending to have broken an ankle.
The first recruit passed. ‘I can’t stop, buddy, but I’ll send help back.’ And off he we
nt, his number – displayed on his t-shirt - noted.
Two others passed, similar offers of help. The next lad stopped, kit down, and dressed the ankle as best he could as I walked down. With the Airman lifted onto the recruit’s webbing, the recruit spotted me.
‘What are you doing, soldier, you have a race to run?’ I shouted.
‘This man broke an ankle, sir.’
‘Leave him, or we fail you.’
The recruit stared back, his face soaked in sweat. ‘Leave him, sir?’
‘Jeep will be along in an hour, he’ll live.’
‘He’s in a lot of pain, sir. Are you ordering me to leave the soldier, sir?’
‘No, but if you want a good score you should dump him and run.’
‘Rather take him to the next marshalling point, sir, first aiders there.’
I smiled. ‘Good man. Put him down, he’s not hurt.’
‘It was a trick,’ the Airman informed our recruit.
‘Run on, say nothing. And soldier ... well done.’
A puzzled recruit ran off at the sprint, I ran up the ridge, and our Airman dived into the dirt ready for the next recruit.
That man offered water and first aid but explained that he could not stop. The next three ran past, one offering his apologies. The next man ran in, and straight for the Airman, ankle bound up, the Airman lifted.
‘What are you doing?’ I shouted.
He turned. ‘Soldier broke his ankle, sir.’
‘Leave him, there’ll be a jeep come by eventually, go get a good score.’
‘Fuck you, sir,’ he told me and ran off as best he could with our Airman on his back.
I ran after him, our Airman explaining that it was a test and getting himself down.
‘It was a god damn trick!’ the recruit protested, looking like he wanted to hit me.
‘Yes, now run. And if you tell me to fuck off like that again ... you get a cold beer. Now go!’
By the end of the stage we had a list of men who stopped and gave first aid, those that never even paused, and those that carried our Airman - plus six that had told me firmly to fuck off.
Back with Samantha I detailed what we had done, and she pulled out the graphs, the graphs annotated to reflect what the recruit had done with our moral test. The six that had told me to fuck off were in the top twelve, that was good, but three of the top twelve had not even bothered to stop. Several of those that had given first aid were at the bottom of the graphs, something for the shrinks to debate that evening.
