‘No. I need you here, mate,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice calm. ‘Listen to me, I need you here for the following reasons. You need to keep your eyes on Daz, you need to guard the vehicle so someone doesn’t throw a grenade in the back, and I need you on that net.’
‘Fucking hell, I’ve got to get out of this thing. Please Dan, let me go over to the wall with the others.’
‘Sam, stay calm. Think about Daz.’
But he was too worked up to listen to reason. I tried to suggest a compromise.
‘OK, mate, we’ll do this. You get yourself out of the door on the right side in cover from the incoming, and sit down there behind the front wheel. I’ll pass the handset out to you.’
He did it, and it seemed to calm him down.
‘Good lad. Now shoot any fucker who comes near you.’
‘Right, Dan.’
I ran back to the wall. We were still putting down good suppressing fire and they weren’t getting anywhere near us. But we were also stuck. There were too many of us to get into the one remaining vehicle and we couldn’t just leg it back to base through the streets
Sergeant Ian Caldwell came on the VHF, so I leapt back over to the Snatch again to talk to him. He was the commander of the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) tasked at Cimic to come and rescue us. A tall thin bloke like me but with a big nose, Ian was a good mate of mine. Also like me, he had a reputation for speaking his mind. He told me he was on his way in two Snatch Land Rovers. Good. We could certainly do with a bit of rapid help. I had already given the Ops Room the best roundabout route to get to us away from where I suspected there would be ambushes.
‘You know the best way to come, Ian?’
‘Yeah, yeah, the Ops Room told us. We’ll be with you in five minutes.’
‘Fucking brilliant. Do us a favour mate, put your foot down.’
Two minutes later, Chris was at the end of the firing line by my Snatch.
‘Three Snatches, Danny. Just driven past our position.’
As they came up level with the OMS building, the vehicles drove into a fresh shower of bullets. The drivers immediately threw the vehicles around with a screech of tyres and they pulled up at the top of the alleyway.
‘Cover them, lads.’
We had to put a lot of fire down onto the OMS to cover the Snatches’ arrival. I slapped the rifle onto fully automatic and raked it with a full mag of rounds. That should get the fuckers’ heads down.
As I turned round and ducked down to change the mag, a posh-looking bloke was crouching beside me. He was wearing just a T-shirt under his body armour, but no sign of any rank. I had been expecting Ian.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Hello there. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Jonny Gray. I’m the Commanding Officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.’
‘Oh, hello, sir. Erm, very nice to see you.’
‘It looks like you’re in a spot of bother. Can we help?’ It was the sort of calm and convivial tone you’d use with someone who’d just got a flat tyre.
The colonel and his men were on their way back from training an Iraqi army battalion nearby. By total chance, they’d just happened to drive straight into our fight. Now they were all clustered around the lip of the alleyway, watching us put the rounds down.
I gave him a quick sit rep, and asked him how many men and weapons he had.
‘We’re twelve chaps in three vehicles. You’re in charge here, Sergeant, we’re in your hands. Oh, we’ve also got a GPMG with us.’
This was gleaming news. I could do with a Gimpy. The General Purpose Machine Gun is a big old dragon that gives you some excellent fire power. Its 7.62mm rounds were going to punch much bigger holes into the screwballs we were up against than our SA80s.
‘Right, bring that Gimpy over here and I’ll place it, if you don’t mind, sir.’
No sooner had the colonel scampered back to his men, than right round the corner came a dirty great big jock, well over six feet tall, with the machine gun in one hand and a big ammunition box of 800 rounds in the other.
Just the sight of him put an enormous smile on my face. Oh yes, a big scary bloke like that is just what we need. He was with a team of four, who were all carrying belts of Gimpy ammo too. Excellent, we could fight for hours with that. I told the jock to take his team down to the other end of the alleyway to protect our right flank.
The Argylls’ arrival had proved to be pretty timely. The sound of another big blast echoed out, but from a little further away. It must have come from the other side of the OMS building, and it was followed by repeated AK fire. Then we heard the slightly higher pitched firing noise of SA80s.
It was Ian’s QRF being ambushed. He’d come the most direct way he could, which was straight past the OMS building. That’s exactly where they hit him, just as I had predicted. All my instructions to the Ops Room had been ignored. Ian wasn’t going to get to us in a hurry now.
Then more bad news came over the radio. The Warrior armoured vehicles of the battle group QRF from Camp Abu Naji had finally been tasked to come and extract us. But they were still forty-five minutes away. What had they been fucking waiting for?
This was a problem. Even if the twenty of us could hold out against probably the ever larger number of enemy before the cavalry finally arrived, Daz wasn’t going to last that long. We had a drip in him, but it was just saline solution. He had a lot more than one hole in him and he was slowly bleeding to death. He would need a surgical team to stabilize him.
It was time for Plan B. I told Sam over the PRR to leave us the VHF and drive like the clappers back to Cimic House with Daz. I don’t think he’s been happier to hear anything in all his life. As the Snatch wheel spun off down the street, you could hear rounds still pinging off it. As for the rest of us, we would just have to slug it out until either Ian’s mob fought their way through or the Warriors turned up.
The Gimpy was up and running now, and spitting out fire when targets popped up in the street at the other end of the alleyway. The Gimpy team and Daz’s departure had created a lull in fire from the OMS. I decided to take advantage of it, and rescue the sensitive radio equipment from Daz’s burning Snatch. I spotted a doorway into the garden next door from the main road, and another out of it again next door to the OMS building. I reckoned we could get most of the way there out of the view of the OMS if we got into the garden next door and kept low against its lefthand wall. Then, we could leg it out to the Snatch, do a double quick smash and grab and be away with what we needed.
I told Colonel Gray my plan. To my surprise, he immediately insisted he would come with me. Someone as senior as him is normally stuck behind a desk and would hardly ever get the chance to get his hands dirty any more. It’s not at all what COs should do, but he just couldn’t resist it.
‘Fuck it; this is going to be my VC moment. I’m going to be bloody H Jones and get shot trying to be a hero. I can’t believe it. I’m supposed to be going home in seven days’ time.’
It wasn’t exactly the behaviour of a Glasgow school teacher either, but Ken said he was up for it too. Just like the colonel, Ken was also past his best years but he didn’t want to miss the excitement either.
‘Ads and I are in too,’ Chris said. ‘Some peacekeeping tour, eh?’
The five of us put fresh magazines in our rifles, pulled back the cocking handles, and flicked the safety catches off. We were ready for action. But Ken still had something left to do.
‘Hang on a wee sec there, Danny.’
Just as I was about to give the word to go, Ken pulled a cigarette from a packet in his pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it. He stood up straight with a smouldering Benson and Hedges stuck between his teeth, and stuck his chest out. Now he really looked the part. He inhaled deeply, then he let the smoke go.
‘Right,’ he announced, ‘let’s kick us some fuckin’ arse.’
When you need a fag, you just need a fag I suppose.
