The One That Got Away - Junior edition

thinking, What is there in there that I should have? Then I realized: it was the medic pack. ‘Left behind the medic pack!’ I shouted to no one in particular.

When I’d gone about twenty metres from the bergen I said to Legs, ‘Have you got the radio?’

‘No,’ he gasped. ‘No time. I had to leave it.’

Suddenly I remembered, My hip flask! It was the one my wife had given me for Christmas, and it was still in my bergen.

I don’t know what happened. The sensible thing would have been to leave it behind. But something clicked, and without hesitation I ran back down the slope. As I reached the bergen, I thought, You idiot, you’re going to get shot now. As I bent down, my back to the Iraqis, I imagined parts of my chest hurtling out in front of me, and wondered what it would look like. Would my clothes tear apart and bits of flesh and bone fly out? But I stuck my hand into the top of the pack, found the flask, brought it out, stuffed it into a trouser pocket and started forward again.

By then I was finding it hard to walk. I felt like I was suffocating. But fear was driving me on.

At last we got over the top, into dead ground, and collapsed onto the deck. ‘I don’t know how we managed that,’ Andy gasped.

‘Nor do I,’ I said. ‘But look at this — at least I got my flask back.’

‘Where was it?’

‘In my bergen,’ I told him. Andy was stunned. ‘I went back for it.’ I unscrewed the top, took a swig of whisky and handed it to him.

For a few seconds we lay there, trying to get our breath. When we stood up again to see where the guys were, we were amazed to find everyone in one piece. I’d thought we must have lost two or three, but they all appeared and came round, just like that, nobody so much as touched.

It took us only a few seconds to reach a group decision. If our Lost Comms procedure worked, the Chinook would come in to the drop-off point at midnight; but now that we’d stirred up such a hornets’ nest, and the Iraqis knew we were in the area, the chances were that they’d ambush the helicopter and shoot it down.

We decided it was safer to make for the Syrian border.

First, though, we’d head south, to throw the Iraqis off our track.

‘Right,’ I called, ‘let’s go.’ Without trying to take command, but wanting out of this place, I led off, with Andy behind me and the rest in line.

By then we thought we were out of range of the Iraqis’ original position, but some of them had worked their way round onto a closer ridge. As we came into view they opened up again. Also, we were back in view of the antiaircraft gunners, who resumed firing. Some rounds were whizzing past us, others landing ten or fifteen metres away. We just kept walking like mad.

Then the vehicle with the .50 machine gun came up onto a crest and started cracking rounds over us again from a range of 400 or 500 metres. Luckily for us, though, the light was dying and the rounds were going far too high.

So we set off, and walked for our lives into the gathering night.

CHAPTER 5 Disaster Strikes

Thursday 24 January: Escape — Night One

Until we cleared the second long valley, a few anti-aircraft rounds were still falling in. Some burst in the air with a puff of black smoke and a crack, and others hit the ground. Then we were in the clear, out on the barren gravel plains, and we headed due south, marching as fast as we could in single file. Mark guided us with his GPS.

It was a great shock to us that we seemed to have been abandoned by our own people. It’s an unwritten rule of the Regiment that if guys need help, their mates come and get them. Now we’d yelled ourselves hoarse on radios and TACBEs, and there had been no result. We could not have known at the time that the nearest aircraft that could have detected the TACBE was 500 kilometres to the east — about four times the maximum range of the machines — and that we had been given the wrong radio frequencies, so that none of our calls on the 319 had gone through unscrambled.

After half an hour someone shouted, ‘We’re being followed!’

Looking back, we saw the lights of a vehicle. At first we couldn’t tell whether or not it was moving, but then through Vince’s night-sight we made out that it was definitely coming after us. In some places the desert was completely flat, with no features of any kind. The vehicle could make good speed across those areas. But luckily for us there were also a lot of wadis, in which the going was rough and the driver had to go slowly. There was no way he could see us — the night was too dark for that — but he knew the line we’d taken down the first wadi. He was driving in the direction he’d seen us go.

Our boots crunched on the ground. We could have been quieter if we’d gone slowly, but we needed speed. I went as fast as I could in spite of the noise, with the other guys close behind, at intervals of no more than two metres between each man. We knew that although the desert seemed empty, there were outposts dotted all over it. We could have walked onto a position at any moment. There was also the risk of stumbling into an encampment of the desert-dwelling Bedouin.

After an hour, and maybe eight or nine kilometres, we stopped and came together in a group. Dinger took off his jacket and started covering it with rocks.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I’m ditching my jacket. It’s far too hot.’

‘Keep it,’ I told him. ‘Tie it round your waist. You’re going to need it.’

Later he thanked me, and said I’d saved his life. But for the moment he cursed as we got going again. I kept thinking of all the stuff I’d left behind. I hated the idea of the Iraqis stealing our kit. With a flicker of satisfaction I remembered that we’d left the claymores and anti-personnel mines buried in the floor of the wadi, and wondered whether they’d taken any of the enemy out. I also wished I’d kept more food in my pouches, and less ammunition. As it was, I had nothing to eat but two packets of hard, biscuits, five in each packet. At the very least we were in for forty-eight hours of hard going, on little food and water.

When you’re moving in a straight line, and have a contact, it’s usually the Number One who gets hit. Even if he isn’t shot, it’s Numbers Two and Three who have to get him out of trouble. On that march our standard operating procedure (SOP) — which everyone knew by heart — was that if we hit trouble the lead scout would put a 203 round towards the enemy and empty a magazine in their direction. By that time Two and Three should already have gone to ground, and be putting rounds down. Number One would then spring back, zigzagging, and go to ground himself, to cover the other two, while the rest of the guys fanned out. It was important, though, not to panic and start firing at phantoms, as shots would immediately give our position away.

I was Number One. Vince, who was Number Two, kept dropping back, as if he didn’t want to be near me. ‘If we get a contact in front,’ he said, ‘whatever you do, don’t fire back. You’re better off sticking your hands up.’

I said, ‘Hey — if we get a contact, I’m shooting. Because if we get captured, we’ll get done.’

‘Don’t. If you shoot one of them, they’ll kill the lot of us.’

By that time the patrol had closed up again, and there was a bit of an argument. Nobody agreed with Vince so I just said, ‘Stick behind me,’ and led off again.

A few minutes later a message came up the line, to slow down and stop. Somebody shouted, ‘Stan’s gone down!’

Stan was one of the strongest guys in the patrol. I ran back and asked what was wrong, but he was on the deck and seemed to be nearly unconscious.

‘Stan!’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’

He just went ‘Urrrhhh!’

One of the guys said, ‘I reckon it’s heat exhaustion. He’s sweating really badly.’

‘But it’s freezing,’ I said.