A backlash of some sort was expected. So from the early hours, most of the platoon was up on the roof. The rest of the company either doubled up in the sangars or waited in full battle kit as an emergency QRF.
The plan worked. The OMS men had no idea what was coming and were nabbed in their beds. The teams also picked up a fair stash of arms and explosives. But best of all, they got out with just a few volleys of fire at their rear. At Cimic, it remained quiet too.
We had to wait until sunrise to discover what a hornet’s nest we had kicked over.
The OMS were absolutely livid that the battle group had the audacity to kick down the doors of some of their top men’s homes. It was the first time we’d gone after them and they were in outraged shock. As far as they were concerned, it was a declaration of outright war. By the time it got light, they began to mobilize everybody they could, and their fighters started to come out in serious force. The town went crazy. We watched from the roof in amazement as the whole spectacle unfolded.
The city was a wall of noise. Trucks with loudspeakers were driving around and around blasting out angry messages in fast Arabic. The imam of every mosque was up in his minaret on their Tannoy systems. Cars packed full of blokes dressed in black cut about the place at full speed with guns poking out of every window, and car horns were honked incessantly. All over the city, thick plumes of black started to snake up. Many were the result of rubber tyres being set alight. It was an easy way to block a road.
‘Jesus Christ, this is going to be interesting,’ I said to Chris as we looked out over the mass hysteria. ‘Do you think they’ve just been told they’ve won the Olympic bid after all?’
Chris thought the whole thing was hilarious. His General Melchett impression was in full swing.
‘I don’t care if they’ve just rogered the Duke of York with a prizewinning leek. They’ve all gone completely fucking kookoo.’
We asked Khalid, one of the Iraqi interpreters who worked for us at Cimic, up on to the roof to translate what all the loudspeakers were saying.
‘They say, “Tell everybody to go home and get a gun. Come and fight infidel oppressor.” They say this is jihad.’
11
The OMS were putting it about that our raid was a personal attack on the authority of Moqtada al-Sadr. And in Al Amarah, that was as good as an attack on Allah himself.
Khalid had started to get nervous. He could see his well-paid job coming to a swift end.
‘Sergeant Mills, this is very bad. They are going to come in here and kill you.’
Des interjected. With the pride of a seasoned Boer hill scout, he stroked his long’s barrel. ‘Don’t worry, Khalid. They’re going to have to get past ten of these little puppies first. I’d just love to see them try.’ And he meant it.
Cimic became a frenzy of activity. Everyone was now either standing to, or preparing to. The place was feverish with anticipation. There was another major hurdle we were going to have to overcome that day. We were overdue a big resupply from Abu Naji. We were low on food and ammunition, and it wouldn’t wait. A column of Warriors was going to have to come into the city again to do it. The smart arses at Slipper City hadn’t thought of that one.
What we didn’t know was that there was a little bit of method to all the OMS’s madness. By noon, they had mounted their own fortified checkpoints on all the roads leading into Al Amarah, and many of the major road junctions inside it too. The city had been effectively sealed off. With us inside it. And the enemy was ready and waiting to unleash seven shades of shit on anyone who tried enter.
They had also taken a load of senior policemen hostage. We had no dialogue with the OMS. So they broke the news in a phone call to Molly Phee. They would execute all of their hostages unless their prisoners were returned immediately.
I sent some of the boys down to get us a bigger supply of ammunition. If it was going to kick off, we might as well be prepared. They brought a shed load of it back up, and we made a massive central pile in the middle of the roof; boxes of green spot for the longs, belts of 7.62 for the Gimpys, tin after tin of 5.56 for the Minimis and SA80s, and crates of illume rounds for when it got dark. All the weapons we could lay our hands on we brought up and lay next to each of us. I personally had four beside me: a Minimi, GPMG, SA80 and my long.
Not everybody in the platoon had got a kill yet. So there was still a bit of idle banter going about, as soldiers do.
Pikey and Oost were particularly chomping at the bit as they had stayed back on a roof watch the day of our first vehicle patrol. Still crowing from his wonder shot, Ads didn’t miss the opportunity to take the piss.
‘You never know, boys. You might just get the chance to fire your weapons today. Start catching up with us.’
They did.
The plan for the resupply was to send the Warriors all the way up the Red route past us on the other side of the river, and over Yugoslav Bridge. They would then swing right around the north bank, down the Greens, and over into Al Amarah old town from the east, crossing the bridge at Blue 11. That way they’d avoid having to pass straight by the OMS building and the centre of the enemy’s strength, at Yellow 3.
At 1 p.m., two foot patrols from the Mortar and AntiTank platoons were pushed out from Cimic to meet them. Their mission was to secure the convoy’s two major choke points. They were roundabouts either side of the bridge it would cross, at junctions Blue 11 and Green 9. Our job again was to provide overview.
Unfortunately, the OMS had the same idea. They also wanted to control the choke points, as one of just two ways into Cimic. And they’d beaten the foot patrols to it. As soon as the boys turned up, they got taken on by a huge amount of gunmen in doorways, windows or on rooftops directly overlooking them. They were getting cut up pretty badly by small arms fire from all angles. We heard the ambush, but couldn’t see it. Blue 11 is just out of the roof’s view. There were too many enemy weapons firing to even be able to count them. It sounded pretty bad.
I legged it down to the Ops Room to see what they knew. A few seconds later, the inevitable confirmation came over the radio, called in by one of the platoon commanders, Captain Paul Hooker.
‘Zero, this is Alpha Three Zero Alpha. Contact. Wait out.’ The first words said over the net in any contact. It clears the airwaves because when anyone hears that they know to shut the fuck up.
‘We’re getting engaged by around fifty enemy. Multiple positions.’
Then it went from bad to even worse.
‘Contact casualty. Wait out.’
A good young private called Baz Bliss had taken a bullet in the side. It tore through his body armour, bounced around a bit inside, and came out his front, taking a bit of his right lung out with it. He had been shot by a sniper armed with a Draganov, the Soviet-made equivalent of our L96s. A seriously nasty weapon. If there was a bloke with a Draganov out there and who knew how to use it, they were in serious trouble.
Realizing this, the patrols had sprinted for cover randomly, wherever they could. They were totally split up with some having made it over the bridge, and others not. The lucky ones found market stands and a concrete wall to cover them; the unlucky had only the two-foot wall of the roundabout itself.
RPGs had now also started to tear over the roundabout lot’s heads too. I could even hear the loud bangs of their explosions from the Ops Room. It sounded totally desperate.
There was no let-up. The longer it went on, the more panic crept into their radio transmissions. You could even hear them losing their tempers with each other over the net.
‘Listen, you need to get us the fuck out of here,’ said another voice over the net. ‘There’s fuck all we can do. We can’t move an inch. We need some fucking help down here.’
Hearing your mates desperate and panicking is not a nice thing.
‘OK. The Warriors are on their way,’ insisted Featherstone. ‘Try and keep calm.’
I charged back up to the roof to help the boys spot for targets. I hoped we still might be able to see some of the enemy’s positions from our vantage point, if not the roundabout itself. By the time I got up there, they were already busy engaging a series of muzzle flashes.
‘Keep your eyes peeled for a sniper, boys. We’ve got a fucker with a Draganov out there.’
