airstrikes. I got on my TACSAT and made the call.
‘
‘
I snorted. ‘Cheers. And thanks for the early warning, mate.’
I briefed the OC and Chris. The US forces were doing an op under cover of darkness to snatch a high-value target — that’s what Nick the Stick had meant by a ‘lift op’.
Then I got another call from the aircraft above us. ‘
‘Thanks for telling us,’ I cut in, sarcastically.
‘Roger that, sir. And sir, if you’re that close to the contact point you might want to have your men stand by to help our team extract, that’s if we need you.’
The bloody cheek of it. First they’d launched a covert op right on top of us, and didn’t bother to warn us. And now they were asking for our help, in case it all went to rat shit.
I told the OC what the pilot was suggesting. Butsy radioed the CO, who cleared us to assist. And so the entire company was placed on immediate notice to move, in case Nick the Stick and his buddies needed us to get them out of the shit.
The pilot then relayed a request from the task force doing the snatch operation. They were stood off in the desert, and they wanted us to launch a feint into the Green Zone. They were asking us to draw enemy fire, so they could sneak in and out again.
I briefed Butsy, and he passed it up to the CO. Having got clearance, Butsy now had to come up with an instant plan of action. From being exhausted and laagered up, it was flash-bang into launching a full-on combat assault to support the snatch operation.
Butsy put together a strike force, consisting of himself and his HQ element, plus 3 Platoon and our FST. He estimated we’d be up against no more than twenty enemy, after the pounding they’d taken over the past two days from us lot. We set off into the Green Zone, a line of troops navigating on night-vision and by the light of the moon.
We descended like a silent snake from the white of the moonlit desert into the thick sea of darkened vegetation. I felt my adrenaline pumping. I loved missions like this one. It was what a soldier thrilled for — taking the fight to the enemy on foot and in a nightdark battlefield.
Overhead, we had a US warplane shadowing us, with its state-of-the-art scoping equipment keeping a watch for the enemy. We pushed a mile down the track that led into the heart of Adin Zai, when suddenly it all went pear-shaped. The bush all around us erupted in a wall of fire, as the enemy hit us with everything they’d got. Rounds went slamming into the undergrowth and the dirt track, and RPGs were churning overhead, trailing gouts of fire like giant spurts of lava.
As the bullets snapped angrily past, I felt a kick to my backpack. A round had pinged off the ‘donkey dick’ aerial of my TACSAT, going snarling past my head and burying itself in the bush. When in man-portable mode — ie, not in the wagon — the TACSAT went in my pack with a thick metal aerial, about the size of a donkey’s dick, stuck out of the top. Hence the name. Luckily, it was made of thick, rubberised steel, and could take a few rounds.
The US warplane reported up to one hundred enemy fighters massing all around us, and closing fast. The OC decided the feint was most definitely over, and it was time to get the hell out of there. He was a man for doing battle at the time and place of his choosing. The trouble was, how on earth were we going to get out arses out of this one?
It was then that the pilot orbiting above us came up with a blinding suggestion. He proposed that we run hell for leather back the way we’d come, as he programmed his aircraft to hit the positions to either side of the track and to our rear with every weapon he carried. As we ran so he would shadow us, shepherding our progress with his awesome firepower.
The OC gave the order for all stations to retreat at full speed sticking strictly to the track, and we turned as one and legged it. As we did so the heavens opened up, the night sky below the invisible aircraft erupting in a seething fountain of white and blue flame that tunnelled earthwards, as first the cannons and then the bigger guns started to rain down fire.
An instant later the torrent of red-hot destruction tore into the vegetation to either side of us, which erupted in wild explosions. First came the small stuff, then the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of shells slamming into the earth to either side of us. Finally, the monster weapon opened up, lending its thumping, devastating firepower to the madness and the mayhem. From the slow, steady beat I guessed it had to be firing at the rate of a dozen or more projectiles a minute. As they smashed into the earth, a series of rhythmic flashes lit up the Green Zone, throwing monstrous shadows across our path. I felt as if I was running through a tunnel of churning, howling, raging fire, and into the depths of hell itself.
As the awesome firepower chased us up the track, it was touch and go as to whether we’d keep ahead of Spooky’s pounding annihilation. One wrong move by the pilot and a lot of us were going to get whacked. I spurred my legs to move faster, and cursed myself for smoking so many cigarettes over the previous two days. I reached the high ground soaked in sweat and coughing my guts up, but still very much alive. The adrenaline was pumping in bucket-loads. I didn’t know which had been the more terrifying: the mad dash through the kill zone, or being under the Spooky call sign’s guns.
With awe-inspiring skill the warplane’s crew had managed to open an escape corridor for us all the way back to the desert, without putting a shot wrong. Not one of the lads on that crazed mission had so much as a scratch on him. It was miraculous. It was like we were blessed. I knew in my heart it couldn’t last.
There had been something of
At 0100 we were back in our desert laager, and I got a call from the Spooky call sign overhead.
‘
‘It was nothing, mate,’ I replied. ‘If you’re done ’n’ dusted, can we go back to sleep now?’
I heard the pilot chuckle. ‘Roger that, sir. I’m gonna do a sweep around your position, just to make sure you guys are safe to get some shut-eye. Stand by.’
I was tempted to ask him not to bother, and to let me get some kip, but I knew what these American pilots were like. You couldn’t fault their enthusiasm, or their skill. A few minutes later a call on the TACSAT jerked me out of a doze.
‘Sweep complete. There’s nothing moving in the desert. You get your heads down. And stay safe down there.’
‘Same to you lot,’ I mumbled.
My head slumped back on to the sand, and I was out like a light.
By 0700 the following morning the SIB and bomb-disposal boys were done. We went about the horrific task of zipping up the nine bloodied corpses into body bags, and loading them on board one of the Vikings. We received the order to mount up. It wasn’t a moment too soon to be getting the hell out of there.
I got my head out the wagon’s turret, so I could see what was what. I never bothered wearing my body armour in the Vector, as it slowed me down too much. With the weight of the Osprey ceramic plates, I’d never be able to haul my fat arse out of the turret, or do my job properly.
On the signal for the off, there was this massive explosion to the front of us, not more than five metres away. It blew me back inside the Vector. Everything was chaos and confusion, and I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was still alive.
Through the ringing in my ears I could hear the distant sound of Chris screaming at Throp to reverse. There were voices everywhere yelling for us to dismount, but they sounded as if they were coming from the end of a long, echoing tunnel. A thick, choking smoke was everywhere. I presumed we’d gone over a mine and that the wagon was on fire. For fifteen seconds or more I was blinded in dust and a toxic burning that had me gagging for breath. Eventually I managed to haul myself back out of the turret, and as I did so I caught sight of what was on fire.
