Truth be told, I was happy to get out of Iraq by then. The ceasefire bored us all to tears just like it had in July. Life also moves on. My priorities began to change; I was looking forward to my new job, seeing my kids again. By then, I’d done my bit for the place and the battalion. I’d also proved myself to everyone I’d needed to — most importantly, me.
Despite all that, leaving the platoon was always going to be hard. Having fought with them so hard for so long, we’d developed a bond the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Half of them had become men on the tour, and all of us had become soldiers. We’d also had the time of our lives.
On the afternoon before I left, I handed over command of the platoon to Daz.
‘It’s all yours now, mate. Take good care of it.’
‘Roger that, Dan. We might, but somehow I don’t think the QM will miss you.’
That night, Major Featherstone got special dispensation to throw a small party for a handful of us who were leaving the company the next day for good. It meant a barbecue, and a couple of beers each.
The OC gave a small speech, followed by an even smaller one from me. But I meant every word of it.
‘I just want to say cheers, guys. The last six months have been the pinnacle of my career. It’s been a privilege to serve in Y Company, and an ever greater one to command Sniper Platoon. Even on a boring peacekeeping tour like this. I never thought I’d have the chance to do even a tenth of what we’ve done. You’re the best soldiers I’ve ever met, so here’s to you.’
The OC was straight back on his feet.
‘Before you sit down, Dan, the snipers have got something for you.’
A couple of the boys came forward and presented me with the Iraqi flag that had hung from Cimic and defied everything the OMS had thrown at it.
‘This is for you, Danny. We thought it would make a fitting souvenir after all your close shaves.’
Every one of them had written a little good luck message on it. It was a very touching moment.
It’s amazing how long you can make two beers last when that’s all you’ve got, and we gassed the rest of the night away as a full platoon for the last time. Each of us retold the full stories of our own individual escapades. Then we relived all the fantastic stitch-ups. Smudge even admitted he was finally over Natalie.
Late on, Ads came up with an idea.
‘Hey, why don’t we all meet up on April the eighteenth next year? It could be our soldier’s anniversary reunion? It would work if we all made the effort.’
April the eighteenth was the date of our first contact in Al Amarah when Daz got blown up. It was a nice thought, and everyone agreed to it. But we all knew it was very unlikely to happen. The battalion was moving from Tidworth to Germany, so half of us would be living in different countries by then.
A Hercules from Sparrowhawk took me down to Basra the next day. After an overnight in the air station’s soulless camp, I flew out of Iraq on a Tristar back to Brize Norton on 7 October, exactly six months and a day after I’d first arrived.
It wasn’t until I got to Kings Cross the following afternoon and changed into my civvies that I had a chance to sample my very first pint of the black stuff. To my parched lips, it tasted like darkened honey. I had an hour and a half to kill before my train left for Catterick, so I made it three.
I sat down alone to prop up the station’s bar, and idly glanced up from time to time at its flatscreen TV. It was showing Sky News. Halfway through Guinness Number Two, a report came on from some grave-looking reporter who’d finally talked his way up to Al Amarah. Word of what had happened there must have begun to leak out.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, he wasn’t though. All of a sudden, Sky started running clips from a couple of the battle group’s contacts. One had even been filmed on Cimic’s roof.
‘Hah!’ I blurted out loud.
It could only have been a matter of time before those home movies got on TV. They were simply too good to stay in PWRR hands.
Then to top it all, there was me. Crouching, helmet on, with the 51mm mortar tube clasped in my hand. That nailed it down to the day of the OMS’s all-out assault.
‘Yeeesss!’ I leapt to my feet and toasted the screen with the remainder of my pint. It got me a whole load of funny looks. Just another drunkard in a train station with mental problems, the rest of the drinkers must have thought. I didn’t give a stuff.
The camera shot panned down to my feet as I tugged on the lanyard to launch another round.
‘Look at that silly fella on the telly,’ said the barman to nobody in particular, as he polished a glass. ‘He’s fighting a war in his bleedin’ flipflops.’
Epilogue
I was wrong about Ads’s suggestion on my last night in Abu Naji. Most of us did end up meeting for a night out in London the next April the eighteenth. The few that couldn’t make it sent texts instead, reading ‘Happy April 18’. The year after that, we all went up to Leeds on Chris’s invitation. A load of mates, just sitting in the pub, with a few beers and a lot of old stories. Old soldiers just talking about their war.
Most of all though, at our reunions, we talk about the fun.
Our QM had done something good for morale before we left. He’d managed to work out that the battle group had fired more rounds on the tour than the entire British invasion force had fired during the Iraq war.
The battalion handed over Maysan province to the Welsh Guards on 22 October. The first thing they did was to give the camp a thoroughly good tidy-up. Typical guardsmen, everything spick and span. I wouldn’t deny it needed it though, after what we’d put the place through.
The regimental historians also got stuck into the record books. It turned out that the Siege of Cimic House proved to be not only the longest continuous action fought by the British Army anywhere since the Korean War, but also the lengthiest defensive stand since World War Two. In total, the battle group had also clocked up 963 different contacts, and suffered two dead and 48 seriously wounded.
Much of the bravery shown by everyone across the ranks was justly rewarded in the Operational Honours and Awards List published in March 2005.
Private Beharry was given the Victoria Cross; and became the first living recipient of the nation’s highest award for bravery in thirty-six years. He’s recovered enough now to leave hospital and wear a uniform, but he’ll never see active service again. There were also two rare Conspicuous Gallantry Crosses (now the second highest medal after the VC), ten Military Crosses and seventeen Mentions in Dispatches.
Colonel Matt Maer got a Distinguished Service Order, the highest military honour for leadership in battle, along with the OC of C Company.
From Y Company, Dale got a battlefield MBE, Justin Featherstone got one of the MCs, and I got one of the MiDs.
With the usual smattering of ‘well done’ lower medals to boot, it made a grand total of thirty-seven different medals and awards. The list made us the most highly decorated serving battalion in the army. Even then, it could easily have been double that. All in all though, it’s fair to say we put the regiment’s proud name back on the military map.
The more time elapses, the more Cimic House and what happened there seems to grow in army folklore. It’s funny, because none of it felt particularly legendary to us at the time.
Three years on now, I keep hearing the odd bloke in the mess coming out with the ‘I was in Cimic House during the siege, you know’ stories. I’ve never seen most of them before in my life. I don’t bother embarrassing them, because it’s just a compliment really.
After August 2004, the OMS of Al Amarah — or any other insurgents — never took the British Army on again in face to face combat. Since then, the city’s streets have been by and large quiet and peaceful.
Moqtada al-Sadr may still be riding strong, but the local OMS’s fortunes have flagged. They don’t enjoy anywhere near the same level of popular support in Al Amarah as they did during the summer of 2004. A lot of Maysanis never forgave them for starting a fight they couldn’t win. Not only had they smashed up large chunks of the city with us, but a lot of poor or stupid young men had gone to their deaths pointlessly.
