by Geoff Wolak
‘Then we should move position.’
‘Pick a direction and tell me it has no fighters waiting...’
Their dark outlines exchanged looks.
‘We’re surrounded?’ the pilot asked.
‘We have no intel on where they are - other than the valley west of us, but they could be anywhere. At night, best to set ambushes and let them come to you. They’re moving and making a noise, we’re not.’ I turned my head left. ‘Fuck, that smells good.’
‘Rizzo’s special ravioli,’ Stretch keenly told us.
Three dull blasts registered, echoing.
I clicked on my radio. ‘Henri, report.’
‘They climb up, but we get many. I think they find another way to come up.’
‘Yes, so stay sharp and look around you. Send Sambo back her for rations and water.’
‘OK.’
‘Sambo?’ the pilot queried.
‘Big black guy,’ Swifty told him.
‘And you call him Sambo to his face?’
‘It’s his name,’ I explained as the lads laughed. ‘Sambonville, shortened to Sambo.’
The pilot began, ‘Sambo was the name for African slaves that inter-bred with native Indians back in the plantation days. A bit like Nigger.’
‘In the UK it’s a derogatory term,’ I told them as they ate from the tins, a few burners going, some illumination of the dark shadows sat around. ‘But he’s not someone you’d want to mess with; French Foreign Legion, and all muscle.’
‘Big fucking lad to be arguing with,’ Stretch put in.
A few minutes later Sambo’s large outline appeared. ‘You there, Boss?’
‘Rizzo, hand him some tins, bottle of water, more grenades.’
Sambo stocked up, his torch on. ‘Ah ... pears and pineapple. Very good.’
‘You’re French?’ the pilot idly enquired.
‘Yes, sir, but I was born in Gambia.’
I put in, ‘He walked across the deserts to Europe, got an education, learnt French, joined the Legion. We came across him in Mauritania, and pinched him away to work with us. He likes blowing things up.’
The lads laughed, Sambo trekking off with his supplies.
‘Colourful unit you have here,’ the pilot noted as he ate.
‘I get to pick and choose who works with us,’ I responded. ‘And if they dick about I get rid of them. No politics or bullshit in my outfit, no bitching at each other – apart from when the lads complain about Rizzo snoring.’
‘Have a look at my head,’ Rizzo asked. ‘It’s throbbing.’
Torch on, I knelt over him.
‘That’s a damn nasty wound,’ the co-pilot noted.
‘He’ll be OK,’ I assured them. First aid kit out, I gave Rizzo a half-dose of antibiotic, followed by a local anaesthetic, a small dose, antibiotic cream on the wound. ‘Rizzo, you and Stretch stay here and take it easy, watch the pilots.’
Food down us, I led Swifty and Sasha west to Henri. ‘Henri, we’re approaching you. Where the fuck are you?’
A torch flashed, so we changed course, my knee hitting a rock, a curse issued. Feeling our way, we ducked when rounds cracked overhead.
Henri moved back from the edge and greeted us. ‘They move left a little, but I don’t think they can get up that way, it is rocks. Some of these men ... they fall when they climb.’
‘You stay here, we’ll go left a hundred yards. Stay down, no injuries, going to be a long night.’
I moved slowly south, around a large outcrop and to a good vantage point. And despite my words about it being a long night, the shooting slowed right down and it quickly grew quiet.
‘OK, get comfy, see if you can hit something, but don’t waste the ammo, silencers on.’ I sat on a rock, knee up, sling around my left forearm after putting on my silencer, and I peered down, seeing jeep headlights still, an 800yard shot. I aimed at the jeep and smashed the windscreen.
Seeing movement, black blobs moving across the lighter coloured sand, I picked off two men, no rounds coming my way as Swifty and Sasha fired down.
Looking far left, I could see a camp, but it was more than a mile away. Still, they were bunched up. Phone out, I called SIS London. ‘It’s Wilco in Somalia. Track back this location, then work out the coordinates for a target one mile south-south west, and pass both sets of coordinates to the Royal Navy Lynx pilots down here, and get them to call me. Wilco out.’
Sat there, I hit three jeep tyres over six minutes before my phone trilled.
‘Wilco.’
‘Commander Lewis, Lynx pilot. We got the coordinates and we’ve had a look at the map. What do you need us for?’
‘A strafing run. The second set of coordinates is close to the road that runs north. West side of that road, all lit up, is an enemy camp, men all bunched up.’
‘We can do some damage, yes. And your position is on the hilltop?’
‘Yes, a mile north of that camp. But be careful, they surprised the Americans earlier with fifty cal up a mountain, damaged two Seahawks. Come in fast and high, keep your distance from the hills.’
‘OK, will do. We’ll arm the bird and launch, say fifteen minutes, ten minutes to the coast, another ten to you.’
‘Roger that. Wilco out.’
‘What was that?’ Swifty’s dark outline asked.
‘Navy Lynx will strafe that camp down there.’
‘Fuckers down there are being over-confident given that there’s a fucking great big carrier offshore.’
‘They shot down an F18, no aircraft seen since, so yeah – over confident.’
For thirty minutes we sniped down, few worthy targets seen, suddenly a bright flash down the valley, a loud cackle and two blasts echoing up the valley sides, a Lynx speeding past and climbing. It came back down the valley a few minutes later, another loud cackle of thirty mil cannon, some red tracer seen fired towards it, its drone finally abating.
My phone trilled. ‘It’s Hunt. How’d that Lynx do?’
‘Hit the right target at least, two missiles plus cannon, so the fighters will be less confident now. Hard to tell about casualties from up here, have to wait the dawn.’
‘You have the American crew with you.’
‘Yes, F18 pilot and Seahawk crew. But their bird is damaged, but not a write off.’
‘Could send the Lynx back to get them.’
‘Well ... the reason they’re not sending another Seahawk is because there could be more mounted fifty cal around here that we missed. Might just get a Lynx full of holes.’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
‘I saw some tracer fired up at the Lynx anyhow, so they need to check for holes.’
‘I’ll talk to them now, French radar has the Lynx coming out to sea.’
‘Wilco out.’
Five minutes later, Franks was on. ‘You got a British helo to your position?’
‘It strafed the valley, hit a roadside camp; they were all bunched up.’
‘You didn’t call to task us with that..?’
‘You have political paymasters to suck up to, I have a free rein here. What’s the latest from Washington anyhow?’
‘Usual bullshit, with the military men wanting to fight and the White House cautious about expanding this and getting sucked into a wider conflict.’
‘This isn’t Vietnam, it’s a surgical strike – at least it would have been if we hadn’t been sold out.’
‘You any further along on that?’
‘My next call. I’ll get back to you.’ I called Tinker. ‘You awake?’
‘It’s 9pm here – so yes.’
‘Any detail on our white guy?’
‘Name is Skinner, Dermot Skinner -’
‘Does he have a grandfather called R S Skinner?’
‘How the fuck did you know that? You read the book?’
‘What book?’
‘Skinner’s Gold.’
Gold?
Tinker continued, ‘Back in the First World War a British submarine was on i
ts way to India, but the records were lost – or destroyed. Some say that it was on its way to Kenya to attack German shipping. Contact was lost after it took on provisions in Aden.
‘Anyhow, it was carrying boxes of gold, and R S Skinner was onboard, a young crewman. He was born in Northern Ireland, but was pro-British. What happened isn’t known, but some of the crew turned up in India in 1936 and were arrested and executed. Another crewman made it back to Northern Ireland, and was caught in 1941, and given a firing squad.
‘But the last thing he said before they shot him full of holes was that the crew had mutinied and the gold was taken off the ship in Somalia, right where you are.’
‘So ... Skinner the modern traitor was here to look for it on his day off?’
‘Possibly, yes, but if he found it the fighters would have grabbed it. You knew the story?’
‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘What do you know about the grandson?’
‘Raymond Skinner, ex-Engineers boy soldier, ex-14 Intel, worked with the SAS in Northern Ireland, friends with Gregson in Tenerife, and Gregson chatted to a mate in Kenya who gave you away. But Gregson didn’t deliberately betray you, and he was under the impression that “Skinner the grandson” was working for Mi6 in Africa.’
‘Was he?’
‘No, he was a security risk, tagged as such nine years back, disappeared off the radar six years ago, not been back to the province.’
‘And the fancy electronic kit he had here?’ I pressed.
‘Not sure where he got it from, and you don’t buy kit like that down the local market.’
‘Why was he tagged as a security risk?’
‘Known contact with INLA men, dodgy jobs in Africa.’
‘A gripe against the British?’
‘Not witnessed when he was with 14 Intel, but then again – look at Captain Bromley. Oh, Captain Hamble is back in the UK, hospital in Birmingham, no complications.’
‘Send a message to David Finch, that I want Hamble checked for attitude, and suicide, and I want him moved down to Oxford or to GL4. He can do paperwork. Tell David that in Civvy Street Hamble will be a risk.’
‘Must come as hell of a blow to a soldier, to lose a leg.’
‘In his state of mind he might just kill someone, or himself.’
‘I’ll pass an email now,’ Tinker assured me. ‘Oh, we have lots of phone data coming in. Someone throwing a party where you are?’
‘Yes, groups coming in from outside the area – damaged roads aside. They’ve all been offered big rewards for us lot, dead or alive. But we’re up a hill, they’re down below and not that switched on; they just got a Lynx up their arses, must have taken heavy casualties. I’ll chat to you in the morning, unless you have any phone data of men up on the hills around me.’
‘I’ll have a look and let you know.’
‘Hang on. What happened to R S Skinner?’
‘No one knows. He made it back to the province, married in Southern Ireland and fathered some kids, then disappeared off the radar in 1920 something. No record of him being put up against a wall and shot.’
‘No gold recovered either?’
‘No, and those caught in India had no gold. But the Skinner family are said to have gotten letters from R S Skinner about the gold. IRA used to tell tales about Skinner’s Gold around the pub fire of a cold evening. They even reckon an IRA team went to Somalia in 1982 to try and get it.’
‘How much would the gold be worth at today’s prices?’
‘Say ... two hundred million.’
‘I’ll keep an eye out for rusted submarines,’ I quipped. ‘Wilco out.’
Phone away, I stared down the valley, and a few miles down there lay the body of R S Skinner. But where was the gold? I turned my head towards Sasha. In Russian I began, ‘The skeleton we found in the cave, he was a crewman on a submarine, First World War. They mutinied, and stole boxes of gold, and ... it’s around here someplace.’
‘You think ... maybe we liberate it?’
‘I think ... we would not want the fighters to find it.’
‘And ... London?’
‘London might want the money kept away from the authorities and used for illegal operations. So ... say nothing of this, we come back here later with some help from Tomsk.’
Swifty said, ‘Can’t see fuck all now.’
I eased up. ‘On me.’ I turned, and led them slowly back to the pilots. Reaching Rizzo, a small fire going, I announced, ‘Bad boys have had enough for tonight, they’ve called a tea break.’
‘I heard a helo,’ the pilot noted as we sat.
‘One of our Navy Lynx helos. It strafed the men below us. Should be clear at dawn, to get you guys out, or at least to get some engineers in for your bird.’
‘Fixing it here will be tricky,’ the pilot cautioned.
‘Be a shame to abandon it,’ I suggested. ‘You lost an F18, so we don’t want to lose that helo as well, be bad for the folks back home.’
‘French lost a helo as well,’ Rizzo noted.
‘The fighters here have been sticking it to us,’ the crewman unhappily noted.
‘The fighters,’ I began, ‘have had some outside help, and outside funding, by some people keen to stick it to us. And they got heat seeking missiles delivered, radio scanning kit, weapons brought in, and they knew we were coming.’
‘Saudis,’ Ramirez complained.
‘Don’t repeat that,’ I warned him. ‘Not back on the ship, it’ll cost you your career. You pilots, forget what you heard, it’s way above your pay grade. Never mention it.’
Their dark outlines exchanged looks.
Stretch asked, ‘Ain’t these fighters those al-Qa’eda boys?’
‘Partly, yes,’ I told him. ‘But al-Qa’eda was created by the Saudis, to fight the Russians when they were in Afghanistan. Since then the al-Qa’eda boys have had time on their hands, and they wanted something else to do, and it’s still funded by Saudis.’
‘Do the Iranians have a hand in this?’ the crewman asked.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘No intel on Iranians involved here or Eritrea.’
Rizzo said, ‘My old mate, Sergeant Jacobs, he went into Afghanistan, to train the local boys to fight the Russians. He went back and forth for years, through Pakistan.’
‘A few old troopers went in to train the Mujahedeen, in the north,’ I told Rizzo. ‘Taliban in the south wanted no western help like that and, when the Russians left, the north fought the south, still fighting going on there.’
‘Russians are bit fucked now,’ Rizzo noted.
‘Every great empire has its day,’ I stated. ‘And now that the old Soviet Republics are short of cash, the local military commanders are selling off the weapons around Africa. They’re being used by the lads below ... to shoot at us.’
My phone trilled an hour later, the pilots of the Seahawk having elected to sleep in their ride. ‘Wilco.’
‘It’s Tinker. I just had a look at the phone data, and you’re surrounded on all sides.’
‘What does it look like east of me?’
‘A mile out, there are groups.’
‘OK, we’ll have at them in the morning. Tell GCHQ to alert us if they get close.’
‘Will do.’
Phone away, Swifty asked, ‘We got problems?’
‘We’re surrounded on all sides, fucking loads of them out there. Sasha, take the rest of our boys east to that OP, stay sharp, we’ll have some company after dawn.’
They packed up their kit and trekked off through the dark.
I said to Swifty, ‘What stag do you want?’
‘I’m not sleepy yet.’
‘I’ll get a few hours, then wake me. Listen for my phone.’ I pulled out my poncho and wrapped myself in it, Rizzo and Stretch asleep already, Ramirez asleep, the crewman in his comfy dinghy.
I woke naturally after two hours, and eased out of my poncho, finding Swifty’s dark grey outline stood with his rifle cradled. ‘Did something happen?’
‘Nop
e, you just woke.’
‘I’ll take over.’
‘Chilly now,’ Swifty noted.
‘Here, use my poncho and yours, ground is a bit cold.’ I eased up and stretched, the dawn an hour away. Plodding off east, I found Sasha’s team and I sat having a brew with one of the lads as the others slept peacefully.
The horizon slowly turned dark blue, the rocks starting to reveal their outlines, the sand gaining some colour other than grey, and half an hour later I had a dull grey view of what lay east. And there, a mile away, I could see parts of a track running north to south. That was how they were moving around. But between that track and us lay a nasty deep gorge and some very nasty looking cliffs and rocks; I had accidentally been forced into a good defensive position.
Unfortunately, north of us were higher peaks, and anyone up there could snipe down at us. Standing and facing north, I figured they would have an 1,000yard shot, and so we were not in danger; these local boys could not shoot that well.
I trekked back to the camp, past the turtle out of water that was the damaged Seahawk – no signs of life from within, and to the dinghy, soon sitting and getting a brew on as Stretch stirred, in need of a pee. Returning, he sat with me and we whispered, soon warming up mince meat and boiled potatoes. Considering that it was a desolate hill in the middle of a hostile country, the food was damn good.
The crewman finally stirred. ‘The smell of that damn food woke me,’ he complained, his face not as awake as his voice, his eyes almost closed.
‘Come get some,’ I encouraged.
He eased out of his dinghy – a water survival dinghy resting on a sandy mountain top, and sat cross-legged with us, spooning out mince meat and potatoes, his eyes just slits. ‘I was nice and warm in that dinghy. Comfy too.’
The sand started to turn brown as the dawn came on, our desolate mountain top starting to look even more desolate as we got the detail revealed to us minute by minute.
I could hear distant shots fired. Stood tall, I casually transmitted, ‘Report the firing.’
‘It’s Tomo. We just got two men near the fifty cal, but noticed like thirty more moving in, their heads down.’
‘Don’t get flanked, make sure you pick a spot that they can’t sneak up on. Intel says we’re surrounded on all sides, so stay sharp down there, and conserve the ammo.’
