sir. And I joined the National Guard for the dental plan, not this shit.’
Davers wasn’t on his own. A lot of small-town America joined the National Guard for the medical insurance and education credits. Most saw the weekend training camps as a box to be ticked before they got to the real benefits. No one really expected to get sent away to war, let alone for a year or more.
That wasn’t the only problem. The National Guard deployed as independent units. The guy who ran the corner store back home might now be your commanding officer on operations. Everybody was a part-timer, and that always spelt trouble for command and control, and the standard of professionalism in contact. That was why most other countries integrated their part-timers into regular units.
We passed the tank and vehicle graveyard. Off-duty soldiers mooched around in the shade of their half- bombed homes. Davers turned a corner and passed a cafe furnished with an assortment of tables, sofas and chairs. The original Arabic sign had been crossed out and replaced with ‘Bagdad Cafe’ in crude white paint. The Whoopee Goldberg painting on the wall wasn’t much better. A couple of Hummers and AFVs were parked outside, alongside men and women drinking water and Coke, relaxing in the shade. Their body armour, helmets and M16s were piled on the ground at their feet.
‘Where we going?’ The fact that Frankenmeyer and the driver hadn’t bothered with their body armour and we were both in one vehicle had already given me the answer, but I thought I’d ask anyway.
He wiped the sweat from his shaved blond head with both hands. ‘Back gate, and that’s it – end of your ride.’
‘No chance of a lift back to the hotel?’
‘’Fraid not, man – you have to hail yourselves a taxicab!’ He liked the sound of that.
The driver gulped on a can of Minute Maid with such relish it made me feel thirsty. But there was no icebox in this wagon. There wasn’t even body armour on the doors, just sandbags on the floor.
We drove through the gate and turned right. The Tigris was to our left and the sandbagged sangar at the checkpoint was about two hundred metres ahead and on the river side of the road. Beyond that was the main drag, crossing the river via a big metal bridge.
The sangar looked like a square igloo built from hundreds of sandbags. As we approached I could see the rear entrance more clearly. Inside, three, maybe four soldiers were hurrying to put their belt-kit back on. They were supposed to keep it on at all times but that was a real pain in the arse. They probably just grabbed it whenever they saw a wagon coming; I’d done the same enough times.
Traffic boomed across the bridge. Trucks, cars, motorbikes stuck behind a military convoy, everyone hooting. They knew better than to try to overtake.
Awatchtower rose maybe fifty feet in the air just short of the sangar. It looked like something out of
The Hummer kicked up the dust and rattled and groaned its way from pot-hole to pot-hole, so the first I knew of the attack were the dull thuds as three or four rounds slammed into the side of the cabin.
The radio crackled. ‘Contact, contact, contact!’
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We swerved and everybody ducked. I hoped Davers wasn’t ducking as much as the rest of us when he hit the gas.
Frankenmeyer fumbled about, getting his helmet on. ‘Get to the checkpoint!’
Seconds later the wagon screeched to a halt by the sangar. I opened the door and pushed myself out on to the hot tarmac, checking for Jerry. ‘Get inside!’
The fire was coming in from the other side of the river. Soldiers poured out of the sangar, heading for the bank. Jerry slowed up and tried to pull the camera out of his bumbag.
‘For fuck’s sake, come on!’
The Americans opened up from behind a three-foot-thick wall as more rounds poured in from across the water, maybe three hundred metres away; long, sustained bursts, then individual shots. I could make out the distinctive heavy crack of the AKs’ 7.62, but couldn’t see any muzzle flashes coming from the jumble of six- or seven-storey tower blocks and concrete squares.
Jerry was still fucking about behind me, trying to get his camera working. I ran back, grabbed him and dragged him into the sangar. I saw immediately why the boys had needed to get out into the open: unbelievably, the place had been built without firing ports overlooking the water. They only covered the road to the bridge with a .50 cal.
For some reason, the floor was sandbagged. We threw ourselves flat as a couple of rounds thumped into the ones around the entrance. I looked out at the chaos along our side of the riverbank. The squaddie who’d been at the top of the watchtower was dropping down like a submariner from a conning tower. If there’d been a fireman’s pole they’d have been on it.
Frankenmeyer was trying to take control. ‘Can you see ’em? Can you see ’em?’
It didn’t matter: everybody seemed to be cabbying away regardless. The squaddie reached the bottom of the ladder. Frankenmeyer shouted, pointing to the sangar, ‘Get the fifty! Get the fifty!’
Jerry had his bumbag open. ‘Bastards! They’ve taken my memory cards!’ He scrabbled in his jeans for replacements as more rounds thwacked into the sandbags. The .50 cal was above him, its barrel facing the main, with the legs of the tripod straddling the firing port. It would have been useless even if it had been pointing the right way. The tripod was unsupported; it should have been weighted down with sandbags. If they started firing it, it would bounce all over the place and fall off the sill.
The soldier from the watchtower was coming full pelt towards the sangar, head down, M16 in hand. Her brown hair was long and had been up in a bun, but had now mostly fallen across her face and neck. There was a guy, a zit-faced nineteen-year-old, hot on her heels. I moved out of their way as they plunged through the entrance, pouring sweat, kicking Jerry’s camera out of his hands, as more bursts hit the sangar and the Hummer. She yelled at Zit-face as they tried to lift the .50 cal at the same time as shouldering their own weapons. It wasn’t going to happen: the slings weren’t slack enough to fit over their helmets.
I wanted these two out of here. They were flapping; their barrels banged together as they fucked about and there were too many made-ready weapons flying about in this tight space for my liking. ‘Cradle your weapons, hold the fifty by the tripod. Get the fucking thing out there!’
More rounds thudded into the sandbags and they flinched as they dragged out the heavy weapon, one holding the barrel, the other the tripod. They half ran, half stumbled with it towards the riverbank, the belt of thirty or so rounds on the weapon dragging behind them in the sand.
The command radio in the sangar was going apeshit. Everybody was being stood to. Jerry was still reloading, cursing the guys who’d dared to confiscate his precious cards.
I watched them rigging the .50 cal. Hadn’t they ever fired one of these things? They’d done their usual trick with the tripod legs straddling the wall.
I turned to Jerry as another barrage of rounds headed our way. He was lying on his side, camera pointing across the river like a weapon.
‘Keep an eye on the .50. When that fucker starts firing you’re going to get a great picture!’
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