through its sturdy sandbag walls, saving us from any splinters.
Oost and I sat up against the northern wall stunned, and our ears ringing.
‘Holy fucking Mary. That was a close one.’
‘Too fucking close.’
Since the rest of the roof was still getting heftily shot at, there wasn’t much time for existential contemplation. No point in thinking about it anyway, there was nothing we could have done. We rejoined the firefight, and rebuilt the ruined sangar after dark.
By midday the next day, I was in Cookhouse Sangar spotting for Des while Pikey had run down to eat. It was during a short lull in the attacks so we chewed the cud a little. A few mortars had come in, so we popped our helmets on just in case.
That time, I had no warning at all.
Since a high-velocity round travels 300mph faster than the speed of sound, I felt the wallop of the bullet before I heard it. A hard smack on the back of my helmet, followed a fraction of a second later by the crack of the round being fired, and the shot’s echo off the surrounding rooftops. We both ducked right down below the sandbag parapet.
‘Shit, Des, what the hell was that?’
‘Dunno. You OK?’
It felt like I was. ‘I think so.’
Des had been facing me, and worked it out quicker than I did. I’d been shot for a second time.
‘One round, so must have been aimed right at you. From over your left shoulder about 200 metres away I think, judging by the sound. Are you hit, man?’
Des poked his periscope over the parapet and scanned the horizon. With no second shot following the first, he poked his long over thirty seconds later. In a state of semi-shock, I took off my helmet to feel for the damage. Again no blood, but a mighty fucking sore head all the same.
‘No, can’t see any movement either. Whoever he was, he’s gone.’
We looked at the helmet. The fucker had been very unlucky, it was a great shot. On its right side was a gouge five centimetres long and one deep. The round must have struck just to the right of the helmet’s rear, causing it to shave one side rather than go straight through.
If the slug had impacted ten centimetres further to the left, it would have taken off the top part of my skull, with half my brain probably still attached to it.
Des whistled.
‘Fuck, man, you lucky bastard. No wait, you’re an unlucky bastard. You know what, Danny, I don’t know what the fuck you are any more.’
Des had a point. That was two extraordinary calls in twenty-four hours. I picked up another sandbag and put it behind my head and stayed with Des until Pikey returned. Then I went back up to the roof and showed Chris my helmet.
‘You know what, mate? I think someone’s telling you to go downstairs for a bit. Go and get yourself a brew or something. We’re fine up here for now, mate, I’ll call you when it kicks off again.’
For four days in a row now I hadn’t left the rooftop for longer than fifteen minutes and only to eat. Maybe Chris was right, perhaps I had started to lose concentration, and that wasn’t good.
I went down to the cookhouse to get a cup of tea. Just off from the kitchen was Corky the Medic’s room. I could hear him pottering about in there so I popped in to see how he was.
The room had changed a lot too since I’d last seen it during the ceasefire when I’d had to visit Corky about my viral infection. Corky had turned it into a proper dressing station. Everything was laid out there next to the bed: neck braces, bandages, scissors, scalpels, tweezers, IV drips; the lot.
‘Nice place you’ve got here, Corky.’
‘Thanks, Sergeant. Hope I never see you in here again. In a nice way, of course.’
‘Funny you should say that really.’
‘Why?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
Stuffed underneath a sideboard was a big cardboard box with some company’s logo stamped on it. I didn’t recognize it from my previous visit either. Being a nosy parker, I gave it a little shove. It was heavy.
‘What’s in there then, Corky?’
‘Oh, er, you don’t worry about that, mate.’
We both made a start for it. I was nearer than him.
‘Easy tiger. Bit of contraband booze do we have here? Don’t worry, you can share it all with me.’
‘No, mate, it’s not. Listen, honestly, don’t worry about it…’
It was too late. I already had a paw inside it and had got a hold of whatever it contained. Out came something folded up and made out of a rubbery nylon material, but unusually dense and thick. As I unfolded the thing, I saw there was a zip on it too.
‘Oi, oi! Is this your gimp suit then, Corky? You filthy little bugger.’
Then I realized what it really was, and stopped dead in my tracks. A body bag.
‘They delivered a whole load of them during the last resupply,’ Corky explained. ‘Sorry. I did try to tell you.’
Well, that was a nice touch. Someone somewhere thought we’d obviously be needing a few of these as our early transport home. The discovery did little for my mood, so I left sharpish.
Poor old Corky. He had a tough deal in that room. All his trauma kit was clearly carefully looked after and ready to go. That’s because he knew he might be called upon at any moment to do every single thing he could to save our lives. But he also knew if all his efforts failed, he had a second job. To bag, tag and watch over our dead bodies.
The battle group knew it had to go into Al Amarah and do something about the uprising’s increasing intensity. If not a knockout blow, then something if only for the sake of it. For the Warriors to keep sitting back in Abu Naji while the OMS ran amok looked weak and gave the OMS a propaganda boost. In Cimic, we were also beginning to crave a respite, even if only for twelve hours or so just to take the consistent pressure off for a little bit.
On Day 10 of the siege, the day of my close call in Top Sangar, Operation Hammersmith was launched.
The enemy was now considered too strong for the battle group to be able to retake all the town’s police stations and then, crucially, hold them as we’d done in May. Instead, a full-on offensive on the Aj Dayya estate was launched. We knew that’s where most of the OMS’s most effective manpower was based. If a fair few of its key players were taken out, it would surely help to lance the angry boil.
Under darkness and in the early hours again, the plan was to punch into the city with four Challenger IIs, then encircle Aj Dayya with a ring of steel made up by C Company’s fourteen Warriors. Finally, the Royal Welch Fusiliers would carry out a series of search and arrest operations. In a rare triumph of persuasion, we were given Spectre on call for the first three hours.
This time, Sniper Platoon was restricted to overwatch where we could from Cimic. Charlie Curry wisely judged that the basic defence of the compound couldn’t spare us if a massive counterattack came its way.
What we missed we were only too glad to.
The column came in and, as everyone from the CO downwards had expected, it got properly creamed.
Along with Captain Curry and the company’s other platoon commanders, I spent most of the battle in the Ops Room trying to keep track of the carnage going on all over the city.
Redders shouted out the vehicle crews’ snatched radio messages as he heard them over the net. One of the first set the battle’s grim tone.
‘Lead Challenger now immobilized. Twelve RPG direct hits.’
Jesus. Until then, we’d thought our main battle tanks were unstoppable. But there was worse.
‘Warrior call sign Whisky 28 in such deep shit. In a dead end with enemy all around it. Calling in a danger close strike from Spectre now.’
Danger close means dire straits, and we all knew the chances were they were going to catch a bit of the Spectre’s cannonfire themselves. There was a tense silence in the Ops Room for two minutes as all eyes fixed on
