Dirty Deeds Done Cheap (5 page)

We came off the main road and started making steady progress through the town. The two vehicles that roamed up and down the convoy sped ahead and set up roadblocks. Nothing stopped us – nothing. We gave clear and precise warnings and had signs written in Arabic on the vehicles warning anyone to stay at least 20 metres away from us. If they came any closer, they’d become a target. If a vehicle came too close a few rounds were fired in front of it. If that didn’t stop it, then we would shoot out the tyres. If it still came onto us, the engine was shot up, then the driver and, most likely, any passengers! We couldn’t afford to mess about taking unnecessary risks in these situations. A lot of the time it was a case of kill or be killed. It was a simple fact that you couldn’t let unfamiliar cars get too close.

If we did somehow manage to get stuck in traffic – some big traffic jam through a town, for instance – we would all jump out and mingle between the Iraqi traffic. Even most of the insurgents didn’t want to kill their own, so we always took cover in between the Iraqis. However, that said, the things we saw did make us wonder sometimes.

We were doing quite well so far on this convoy. We’d lost only two of the tankers out of the eighty we were escorting and we’d had only one minor contact and one minor injury. We tanked on through the town with everyone getting out of the way. Because of the way we’d handled previous firefights, with total aggression and a huge amount of returned fire, a lot of the insurgents knew we would unleash hell on them were we to come under attack. American intelligence (probably our CIA mates) had told us that most of the insurgents would rather take on the US military than us. We were now nicknamed ‘the Black Death’ by the insurgents. Apparently, this was down to the colour of the Fijians and Gurkhas’ dark skin. On a typical run we would usually lose about 15 per cent of our tankers, mainly due to breakdowns but often enough due to IEDs and RPGs.

We had now, at this time, travelled into the thick of it with our convoy, right into the centre of Mosul, and were nearing our final destination: an American airbase on the outskirts of the city. This is where we would drop the tankers off and the Americans would take over. We were on our last hurdle and only just around the corner from the base. By this time it was around midday and everything, so far, had gone really smoothly; but, as we were to find out, we had worse to come, worse than we could possibly have imagined.

We slowly approached the turning to get onto the main road that led up to the airbase. We slalomed in and out of the, now familiar, concrete bollards until all of the tankers were safely inside. You could actually see the relief on the faces of most of the drivers. Once parked up in files of ten in the huge lorry and fuel park, most of the drivers got out of their cabs, unrolled their prayer mats, then knelt down and started praying, no doubt in thanks that they had arrived in one piece – this time. Once their prayers were finished, they all then got their pots of tea going – very sugary and sweet. The drivers, because they could be on the road for days at a time, had compartments built onto the sides of the lorries that contained little stoves, food, kettles, cups, tea and sugar, so they were basically self-sufficient on the road.

Now that the mission had been safely completed, our medic went over to the driver who had been shot through the hand. He was still whinging but our medic tended to him. Each of our patrols had a fully qualified paramedic who carried everything needed to stabilise a casualty – big time. Our medics were of the highest standard – they had to be. Most were either ex-soldiers who had done a paramedics course after the military, or were patrol medics in the armed forces, but they had to be military-trained as well and they also had to be able to fight. Indeed, when I had been in the mob I had been trained as a medic and had spent 16 weeks training in an NHS hospital. However, my skills were not required here. I did have the skills and knowledge to help in an emergency but I had other responsibilities in this job, which took precedence here.

Our medics certainly earned their money and they saved a lot of lives. They really were shit hot, of the highest standard. Once the injured Turkish driver was patched up I drove him to the American hospital on base. He’d had a good dose of morphine when he’d arrived on base and now he’d stopping whinging – which was a relief (the Turks whinge like hell when they are not even injured – that is normal for them – so you can imagine what they’re like when they
are
hurt). He had been irritating me with his constant whinging – even after the morphine. This thought made me feel slightly ashamed but that was how I felt. He had, after all, had a big hole, the size of a plum, clean through his hand and, when I asked for a look at it, I could clearly see the ground through his hand, so maybe I was being a little harsh on him.

Once I’d dropped him off I drove back to pick up the rest of my team and, surprise, surprise, they were eating – tucking right into the emergency rations. We carried loads, so it was no problem, but, with those Fijian guys making up a large part of our team, it was just as well we did. But at least now our truck was faster and lighter.

After our feed and once we’d made sure all our big Fijian guys were happy, we refuelled our Toyotas at the Yanks’ fuel point, checked the oil and water, and then prepared for our dash back across town and back to our base for a nice warm shower and some more scran. It was 17.30-ish now and soon it would be getting dark. This made it even more dodgy for us, as it was obviously far easier for the insurgents to attack us and get away with it at night.

All our vehicles lined up at the gate; we gave a wave at the American sentries then our drivers gunned the throttles. We tore out of the gate, then back onto the main road, hitting 70 m.p.h. as quickly as we could. Cars could see us coming and were trying to get out of the way as quickly as possible. The thing is, the insurgents can be extremely effective. If they want to get you they will try whatever they think will work, all different tactics. All you can do is react with disciplined professionalism, give them all you’ve got and, should you get hit, do as much damage limitation as possible. Then take them out. Period. If they know this they are more likely to go for an easier target, maybe some sectarian murder or something similar.

The way 90 per cent of attacks happened was that first there would be an improvised explosive device (IED), which could be anything from a dead dog packed with explosives on the side of the road to a similarly packed parked car. The insurgents had even started removing kerbstones on the side of the road, putting 105mm high explosive shells behind them and packing in nails, bits of metal (basically any sharp object that could maim or kill) and replacing them so that you couldn’t tell they’d been tampered with. You must admit, it’s pretty ingenious. Then, after the IEDs exploded, the insurgents would follow up the ambush with RPK machine guns and AK-47 assault rifles. Mayhem. So if you were caught in a blast you had to be on your toes – if you survived it, and a lot of our guys didn’t – because the blast was so powerful. And that was normally just the
start
of an attack. The insurgents ran their operation like a military campaign, they would have people spotting for them on the edge of town, giving them exact locations of Coalition forces, so they knew to be at just the right place at the right time. This was the reason we drove so fast through town: our company’s policy was that (hopefully), because we drove as fast as we did, by the time the insurgents had seen us and been able to trigger their device, we’d have already gone past it and they would miss us. This often worked, but sometimes they saw us coming too soon – as they often posted lookouts – and sometimes it didn’t.

If we had to stop for any reason we would debus (get out of the vehicles) and get behind cover. If there were other local cars around, we would get in between them and crouch down. Even the insurgents were reluctant to kill their own, so you were pretty safe mingling in crowds. Once we were under attack and had identified our targets, we would try to blow the crap out of them, if possible. If it was in town our gunners were disciplined: we opened up only with M16s, M240s and M249s. If we’d opened up with the M19 grenade launcher or the .50-calibre we would have blown houses away and taken towns apart, but our guys were professionals and none of us wanted to harm innocent civilians – none of us.

I know some people will think it is wrong but we weren’t arsed about taking prisoners. We were just looking after our own butts. If you don’t agree with this philosophy I’d put this book down now. I was just looking out for my lads and comrades. It was a deterrent, one of the main reasons for the insurgency not to take us on. The insurgents would rather take on the US military than us because they knew that we were unable to take them prisoner. Not for one minute am I suggesting that we would ever have executed them, but they would be disarmed and maybe get a beating and then be told to fuck off. If we could hand them over to the Iraqi police we would always try to do that, but this was not always possible, as it would mean going static in a potentially hostile situation, which was something we would always try to avoid.

As we drove through towns we could hear gunshots a lot of the time, some far away, some close, some hitting us and our men. I could see scorch marks and craters everywhere where IEDs had gone off, and sometimes you couldn’t help wincing when you were coming up to a position that was renowned for IEDs – but we always tried to avoid those locations if we could. Every time we came through towns, we tried to take a different route but, unfortunately, coming up to our camp there were only two roads and two entrances, so you were limited when it came to this point. As we approached our base camp on this occasion, the sentries gave us a wave and dropped the wires and chains, so we were able to charge on through. Once inside, we pulled over, all got out and unloaded and cleared our weapons, and then raised our left arms in the air to show we were clear, meaning that we had no round up the spout.

This may sound stupid and obvious, but it was vitally important, because nobody wants to have a stupid and completely avoidable accident on camp (someone getting accidentally shot) because some arsehole on your team forgot to clear his weapon properly. Mistakes can happen, people forget, so we had to implement seemingly obvious procedures. It is the same as being in the UK armed forces: you have procedures you have to follow even if you think they are idiotically obvious. Better safe than sorry. Even now, over ten years since I left the forces, I check and double-check everything – to the annoyance of some of those close to me.

Everyone, now being safe-ish inside the camp, started to relax and began chatting and having a bit of a stretch. Being stuck in one of those vehicles, with some of the lads carrying so much kit with them that you barely had room to move, could cramp you up a bit sometimes or at least make you a bit stiff, and on a really long or tense mission it could become a real problem. This problem was even worse if you were in the back with the Fijian guys. I love them to bits but, as they were so huge, they easily seemed to take up as much room as two Gurkhas.

Stretches over, the team leaders then went to the ops room for a quick debrief and to find out the next detail and missions. We never knew what we would be doing next or when we could be going out again. It could be 03.00 or maybe we would have the day off to do some training. You just never knew what was in store. It wasn’t a job, it was an adventure – and a fucking dangerous one at that!

After the debrief our boss told us about an incident earlier that day. Eight Iraqi contractors had been in the thick of it and in a right mess, getting bombed and shot at. To put it simply, there had been a firefight between these Iraqi private contractors and the insurgents. After the firefight the Iraqi contractors were injured and were taken to an Iraqi hospital instead of a Coalition camp hospital, which was a big mistake. There is pretty much no way insurgents could gain access to a Coalition hospital on a camp, but in the middle of an Iraqi town this would be a piece of piss for them with unimaginable consequences. The insurgents had then broken into the hospital and killed and decapitated the contractors.

The Yanks had picked up the bodies and heads and brought them back and put them in a small tent right outside our office (I know I keep calling the American troops ‘Yanks’ but 90 per cent are a great bunch and I’ve worked with them on many occasions, so no offence is intended). Sure enough, after a gander inside the tent we could see that there were actually eight bodies in body bags with their heads lopped clean off. Later we had the grisly task of moving them.

As we approached the tent, later that day, I was feeling a bit uneasy and I thought that, unless you were a serial killer, this was going to be quite unnerving. I wouldn’t say I was scared, just really didn’t want to see them. I haven’t got a morbid streak (which is unfortunate, being a mercenary and ex-Marine). I’d rather be having a laugh outside with the lads. As a soldier you don’t have that choice, but as a mercenary, or contractor, you do.

I remembered the aftermath of the First Gulf War when I was a young Royal Marine Commando twenty years old, having to clear up some real nasty shit, so I wasn’t looking forward to this. It made the body bags feel weird to move with the heads rolling around inside. The heads eventually stopped rolling around and fell down to about the arse area, so it felt as if we were dragging their heads along the ground when we were actually carrying them. I had heard once somewhere that a head can weigh up to 2 stones and I had never believed it, but, after actually trying to pick one up by the hair (as I’d seen in so many movies), I realised that this is impossible: they’re just too heavy and you have to pick them as you would a water melon – not a nice thing. It was pretty grim, but someone had to do it. In situations this grim, you sometimes get the giggles. Don’t know if it’s because it’s so horrible or just the way your brain copes with it. But I decided I wasn’t going to lose my head over it! Pardon the sorry pun, but picking up heads was something I’d never done before; in fact it was way outside any experience I’d ever had, thank fuck!