Dirty Deeds Done Cheap (7 page)

We were pretty much pinned down, though, and there was no way we would be able to get through this town safely; and, as we got closer, the firing would almost certainly become more intense. We were in trouble. Best thing we could hope to achieve was to fix the wheel, then turn around to get the fuck out of Dodge. I was shouting to the Gurkhas to keep their heads down, but they didn’t seem to care. They’d been through a lot of firefights in Iraq and a lot of them were religious and believed in fate and karma: what will be will be. They didn’t seem scared of death. I just thought they were little nutters but we were all on the same page when it came to the tasks and missions we were given – we all just wanted to get out of there in one piece. These guys were priceless.

The road right next to where the mad Gurkhas were changing the wheel was now littered with hundreds of empty bullet cases and I did my best to control the rate of fire from our guys. When you’re not taking casualties and you’ve got the upper hand and superior firepower, you can find these situations quite exhilarating. My senses were sharp but, in the back of my mind, I was always thinking that to try to take the fight to the insurgents was suicide.

It could easily have been a come-on – a trap. Insurgents had used this tactic very usefully and cleverly with American troops in the past. The insurgents would start off with a very small force, and then often retreat. The Yanks would then do a follow-up, and then there would be loads of insurgents waiting in ambush with explosives and all kinds of ordnance to take them out. This was certainly one situation we would never purposely get into. Our job was simple: get from A to B with as little hassle as possible. At the end of the day, all we wanted was to get home in one piece. Although I did wonder about one or two of the guys!

The wheel on the Hilux was now done and there was no more damage to the vehicle. It was now decided to do a fighting withdrawal and come back the way we’d come. Tal Afar seemed too fucking risky to go through at this time. If the insurgents in the meantime had managed to circle us we would then be in the desert and could let rip with everything we had: M19s, M203s, M240s, M249s and .50-cals. I had a strong feeling the insurgents also knew this and, as I said before, they’re not stupid. It was an acceptable risk for us to attempt; plus, we had little or no choice: to try to pass their fire position was suicide, because they were fortified and well armed. We were in a no-win situation.

As we mounted up and prepared to get out of the area, we put down more suppressing fire on the flats, when an American Stryker patrol showed up and we all took cover behind these huge armoured vehicles. The Stryker commander, a captain, jumped down. ‘You guys OK? We heard a lot of shooting so we came to investigate. You guys need a hand?’ We explained in detail about our predicament. After discussing our options the American captain said, ‘Why don’t I just fire some missiles at that goddamned block of flats, then you can drive right on through?’ We explained about not wanting to injure or kill civilians and our aim to minimise collateral damage. He told us that the apartments were still under construction and no one lived there. The insurgents used them quite frequently to ambush American troops. I think he just wanted an excuse to flatten them. That was all the information we needed. ‘Flatten the fuckers,’ our boss said. The Yank smiled and jumped back into his big fuck-off machine of destruction and gave the order.

We all watched with anticipation as the three Strykers trundled off down the main road until they were level with the apartments. We could all hear the AK-47 rounds, fired by the insurgents, just bouncing off their armour. That was fucking ace! The twats in the flats were going to get one hell of a shock. You could see the missiles’ homing system targeting the flats, and then, in an instant, there were two whooshes and we followed the trail of smoke from the missiles hurtling towards the apartments. These missiles were awesome and in a split second three floors of the block were no longer there – just dust and rubble. Lo and behold – no more incoming firing! Fucking excellent!

It was pure poetry in motion. Killing another human being is not something to relish, but the fact was that these insurgents were trying and doing their damnedest to send us to a better place (or worse) – that made them fair game. I laughed my head off. I definitely have my own set of morals.

The apartments were no more – just dust. Our wheel was fixed and there were not so many insurgents left – none who could fight anyway. Life was peachy. Now that the Yanks had done our dirty work for us, there was pretty much no resistance left. We were all on a bit of a buzz now and all of us were laughing our heads off at what a bizarre situation we’d just been part of.

It was lovely to see the guys smile. They were always in the thick of it and, although they were tough bastards, a bit of relief never came amiss. Now this was something that could have come right out of a movie (a crap one, admittedly) – little guys fixing a wheel while under quite intense enemy fire. Even some of the hardened, veteran ex-SAS/SBS found it hysterical. It added a whole giggle factor to the totally fucked-up situation we had just survived; but, on the other hand, we were all deadly serious – we had to be.

In hindsight we should have just blown the damaged Toyota to pieces, left it for dead and carried on; but, as I said, the energy in the area was ugly and violent. However, there was no bloodshed this time apart from the bad guys. When those missiles hit they wouldn’t have known anything about it. They would have just been taken out. There would have been nothing left.

In situations like this you have to think on your feet and, as I’ve said, at the end of the day I was responsible for four of these brave little fuckers in my truck. If one of them had died or been maimed … Well, does anyone know how to write in Nepalese to one of their loved ones to say sorry? Because I fucking don’t. The British forces in these war zones have to be in these danger areas. I have the utmost admiration for these people and, time and time again, they are bound by duty to be there getting their arses shot off, but we, as private contractors, were are all there by choice. Sometimes not the smartest thing to do.

Now, back to those wheel-changing nutters. After taking stock of our tactical miscalculation (fuck-up, basically) we decided to get the hell out of Dodge ASAP and, because of the kind support of the Yanks, we had little resistance. We screeched off with the Gurkhas. The one driving us in our vehicle was using a booster cushion. I’m not kidding you, this guy was tiny, only about 5-foot-nothing, but he had balls as big as an elephant. Because of the intensity of the situation, he ended up driving like Lewis Hamilton, so we were now going through Tal Afar pretty fast. This little Gurkha could drive like the wind (I was, personally, bricking it) even if he could hardly touch the pedals.

Tal Afar was truly mental. I’ve never been through such a place. The local people seemed to wear vacant expressions on their faces, but as there was so much fighting in the city – in fact, there seemed to be fighting everywhere – I guess they were just numb to their circumstances. We all knew we just needed to get out of there, and fast, before things got any worse.

We flew through Tal Afar and we were soon on the outskirts of the city. As we were driving so fast, we unfortunately hit a mother dog; she was killed instantly but the puppy with her wasn’t. Because of the lower risk in the area we were now in, and because we were a bunch of soft bastards, we stopped and picked up the puppy and put her in the back of the truck. We decided to keep her, and we named her Kasper (after a good friend of mine). In the war zone it is definitely true that soldiers or mercenaries can be some of the softest bastards you will ever meet when it comes to animals and not humans. So now we had ourselves a pet.

I’m not going to lie to you and say Iraq, especially Fallujah, Mosul and Tal Afar, are out-and-out firefights every day, but it could be vicious and our personnel casualty rate was 47 per cent overall. Obviously, this was nearly half of our guys. We were losing an average of one or two guys a month through death or serious injury. This was far from our lack of professionalism; rather it was down to our being in the worst hotspot in Iraq. It made me think sometimes that I should have got a job in Tesco! All joking aside, the soldiering side of you loves it, but the family-man side (and your conscience) can sometimes deplore it.

As we ploughed through and out of Tal Afar we could see the American forces walking behind their armoured vehicles while on patrol, especially on the outskirts of town. You couldn’t blame them (if we had armour-plated vehicles we would definitely have done the same). We just fired straight past them at breakneck speed with a quick wave as a good-luck gesture. This was bandit country after all. They all thought we were crazy fuckers for having no doors on and hardly any armour. I was beginning to think that they were right.

As we got through this broken, tattered city it was obvious these people were in a mess. Something was wrong. The hearts-and-minds strategies weren’t working. When the US military accused the British forces in Basra of losing the battle for hearts and minds, I personally was a little bit disgusted. The British are very good at hearts and minds – as good as the Americans, I believe. Hearts and minds can win wars. I apologise to any Americans reading this, but don’t take it personally. It’s just my personal view – take it or leave it.

Tal Afar is a crazy place – an insurgent stronghold. I wouldn’t call it fun because this was still going to be a tough escape – basically trying to get out of this place in one piece. It was going to be a major escape. The American forces at the time were having a pretty hard time trying to keep control of the place. For everyone who works in Iraq who is of white or European origin, their worst fear is capture. If you were unlucky enough to get caught the consequences are unimaginable: days, weeks or possibly even months of torture. And I’ve already spelled out the likely consequences of that: certain beheading, after which I’ve personally had to pick up the pieces. I’ve read quite a bit of the Koran and know that the people who do these atrocities are hypocrites. They don’t believe in good or bad: they believe in their way or no way. I’ve some very good Muslim friends and they feel the same as me about this.

Once we’d hit the outskirts of Tal Afar with our new pet tied on the back of one of the trucks, we started to relax a bit, when, to our slight shock and surprise, we encountered a big burst of automatic gunfire. This place never let up! We couldn’t pinpoint where it came from, just that it was from our right. A stray round then winged one of the Gurkha gunners, who was on the back of one of the trucks. We just ploughed on, though – we had to. To stop would have been suicide.

I’ve worked for unprofessional companies with idiots working for them out in Iraq. They would probably have just started blasting away at anything that moved in a situation like the one we were now in. This is totally counterproductive, doing more harm than good. As you travelled through towns like these, some of the locals would often actually warn you of imminent danger and guide you away from what would almost certainly end up with the demise of some of your team in some sort of explosion or ambush. So it is always the smart option to keep some or as many locals on your side as possible.

This can also be a double-edged sword, though, as they could quite as easily be leading you into some sort of a trap. You have to make a rapid risk assessment on the spot, but a good rule of thumb is not to go down any narrow streets that could end up in any unfamiliar potential cut-off points. If you’re on one of the main routes you can almost take it as gospel that there is going to be some sort of device that’s going to do you some real harm: take out, kill or maim your patrol. This was part and parcel of the job; there wasn’t a lot you could do about it.

As we were getting to the relatively safe areas, adrenalin was now slowing down, so we stopped to assess and stabilise the injured Gurkha (poor little fucker). His injuries weren’t life-threatening and our medic did a fantastic job of patching him up. What had happened was that he’d had one round go through the right shoulder just below the clavicle – serious but he’d get to go home with a lot more medical insurance money in his pocket than he would have earned the whole of that year in Iraq, plus some great scars to show the girls when he arrived back in Nepal!

Everyone was now buzzing from the contact we’d just gone through – and it is a massive, massive buzz – probably from the amount of fire being put down from the Iraqi insurgents. I think that, after this one, we sent quite a few of the insurgents off to paradise and I think the Yanks would definitely have to stump up for a new apartment building! All my company would have to fork out for would be a new wheel. With all of this gung-ho shit, you’d think you would want to be getting to a safe place as soon as possible, but I tell you what sometimes: do you fuck! ‘Bring it on’ was the case sometimes. The smell of cordite does get you going and you feel alive and invincible at times. Of course, it’s pure testosterone and adrenalin kicking in most of the time. Difficult to explain to some people, perhaps.

As we’d now cleared the worst of it all, we were still on edge a bit, but our little colleague was fine. We’d had no further casualties so far and things were looking good. However, as we approached Mosul we had a bit of a scare – nothing serious but quite spectacular. While we’d been away, the insurgents had launched a combined attack on the Yanks. This attack had involved RPGs, mortars and gunfire. The Yanks in turn had called in a huge airstrike on them; this was truly awesome. We had to go firm, get defensive immediately, and then we settled back to watch the fireworks. To watch these fighter planes (F-16s) drop from the skies along with Apache attack helicopters sending guided missiles into houses is something awesome and was certainly better than Guy Fawkes Night. Our new puppy was completely oblivious to all of this and slept right on through it!

After witnessing these dramatic airstrikes and with, no doubt, an untold amount of dead or wounded insurgents, altogether we’d had quite a busy day trying to get through what must be one of the toughest cities in Iraq. We hadn’t delivered our package or completed the mission, but we’d had no losses. Of course, one of the guys had sustained a gunshot wound and we’d had a blown tyre, but overall it was not a bad result.