Dirty Deeds Done Cheap (8 page)

We were soon back in camp and we sent the wounded Gurkha off to the sickbay. He would in time, undoubtedly, be sent back to a hospital in Germany to recuperate and when he was recovered he’d be sent back to Nepal. At least he wasn’t going home in a box, which made him one of the lucky ones. Many
did
get sent back home to Nepal in boxes. Not nice.

But watching those airstrikes had been amazing and demonstrated to me what truly awesome firepower the Americans had. There’s no way I’d like to be on the receiving end of any of that! It had gone on for a good thirty minutes and it was truly compulsive viewing.

M
y alarm went off at 06.00 and I didn’t even hear it. I was totally knackered. We’d been on patrol until the early hours escorting a convoy of petroleum trucks down from Turkey again. I was awoken by Stu banging like fuck on my door and shouting about getting my lazy arse out of bed or I’d be late for breakfast. Now, to tell you the truth, my ideal morning routine, if I’m not going for a run or doing some gym work, is a nice, long, red-hot shower followed by two or three cups of coffee and some beans on toast. I had none of that this morning. I was late. I chucked on my trousers and T-shirt and legged it out of my room. It was still dark. I couldn’t figure it out. Why was it still dark? Then it dawned on me: the other guys had sneaked into my room and altered my alarm clock by an hour and a half while we had been out on patrol. Then, when the other patrol had come in from another mission, they banged on my door at around 05.00. ‘That’ll teach you to take so fucking long in the showers Mercer!’ Stu said, cracking up. ‘Arseholes!’ I said, slamming my door and getting undressed again. And then I thought, Fuck it! I might as well get into my patrol gear – normally a T-shirt, plain khaki combat trousers, desert boots and belt with pistol holster on it. I would come back for my hardware later (all my heavy stuff). At least I definitely had time for breakfast now, since there was absolutely no point in going back to bed. But I’d get my revenge.

Everything we carried on us, including weapons and ammo (which took up a hell of a lot of room), was kept in our rooms. With the hours we kept, an armoury would have been a pain in the arse. Obviously, we had one, but it kept to strict opening hours. Also, if the camp came under attack, I don’t think there would be any way you could separate us from our guns. We had to be kept armed all of the time.

After my rude awakening, I took a brisk walk down to the mess hall past some huge conifer trees, planted for Saddam when he used to visit, and then past the constantly bustling helipad. I could make out an Apache gunship and a Black Hawk getting ready for takeoff; they looked like they meant business. The sun was coming up now and it looked to be another glorious day (apart from the bombing and shooting). I hadn’t really heard any shooting yet – a rare situation – and it was almost peaceful. I hung around the helipad for a while because passing helicopters always fascinated me – probably something going back to my school-boy days. I could smell breakfast cooking and I was now feeling famished, so I made my way to the mess hall. You could always eat as much as you wanted – so we always used to train like hell.

I entered the mess hall and I could see there were troops covered in dirt and dust and looking knackered – they were obviously just in off some patrol. Then, in contrast, there were some troops looking clean but slightly apprehensive, probably because they were about to go out on patrol. And last, but not least, there were the desk jockeys, who always looked immaculate, as they were never required to leave the camp or even go out of the gate. After a great breakfast of poached eggs and beans on toast, I walked back to my room.

As I was walking along the main road six of our Toyota pickups approached, driven by our Fijian and Gurkha drivers. Every morning and night these guys would check the water and fuel and mount the heavy weapons on the trucks before our mission. It was quite a sight. They looked is if ‘don’t fuck with us’ was written all over them. I jumped in one of the approaching vehicles through the open door and we drove down to our accommodation. I ran into my room and went through my routine: pistol in holster, body armour on, ammo pouches attached to body armour. OK, so the whole lot weighed a ton, but it was very comfortable when driving. I then put my rucksack on, which contained ten spare magazines of thirty rounds, so in total I was carrying around six-hundred rounds of ammunition. Then, lastly I picked up my M16 with M203 grenade launcher. Wrapped around my M16 was a bandolier of twenty rounds of high-explosive 40mm grenades. I would always put these around my neck until I got to the vehicle. I turned my light out and kissed Kasper the dog bye-bye and, as usual, she tried to bite me. Little fucker!

I went to give my team a quick brief, do a comms check and make sure everything was ready. Once we were out of that gate there was no room for screw-ups. It all had to be slick as fuck. As usual, all the Fijian guys prayed, and I prayed with them. We could always do with all the luck we could get. We got the signal to mount up and assembled in a line of march – head of the patrol at the front, 2IC (second-in-command) in the middle. In the event that the lead vehicle was taken out, the 2IC would take charge. Every American soldier we saw on the way out of camp gave us a wave. We waved back. They knew that some of the time some of us wouldn’t be coming back. Adrenalin was going some now as we approached the gate.

Each patrol commander pulled up his vehicle at the main entrance and we all got out. It always amazed me that not one of the guys was nervous. On the contrary, everyone was smiling and checking his kit. These were a fucking great bunch of guys, tough as you like, confident but not overly so. Last checks were made, then the command was given to load our weapons and make ready. I heard hundreds of loud clicks, almost in unison, ringing out (this was the guys cocking their weapons). We were ready to roll and got back in our vehicles and set off. The pace quickened and the wires and chains at the sentry post dropped. We flew past the concrete bollards and out we went out as we’d done so many times before. Not a round was fired at us, thank goodness!

We were to take a different route today and our main mission was to act as backup for another one of our call signs – they’d drawn the short straw and had a dangerous cargo of one hundred fuel tankers to protect. Our main job was to position our heavy weapons (the ones on the backs of our trucks) either side of the main dual carriageway on two opposite hills to protect their convoy, staggered so as to avoid a possible crossfire. We also positioned two vehicles as cut-offs, one up the road and one down.

As we tore through town, every one of us was checking his arc in anticipation of what could easily turn into a very bad situation. The main reason for this was that just outside town the CIA – or OGA (other government agencies), as they prefer to be known in Iraq – had a heavily fortified safe house on the outskirts of Mosul. This was guarded by some of our Gurkhas and the American security company Triple Canopy. This house was not that safe! It was constantly getting mortared and shot at by the insurgents, so driving past the bloody place always gave everyone the heebie-jeebies. There were some ideal ambush positions for the insurgents around this area, with high ground on either side of the buildings and the main complex. Unfortunately, it was the only road to and from our base, and insurgents could just as easily hit us at any time – as later on we would find out, big time.

We sped past the OGA building, which was now on our left, as fast as possible. We really did have to drive at breakneck speed. Everyone was tense, with thumb and fingers on their safety catch, at the ready. The heavy-weapon gunners on the back were equally ready, each gunner in each truck taking up arcs left and right. I was at the back this time, in control with the M19 automatic grenade launcher. This thing could bring down a house; it was a weapon definitely not to be used for warning shots! We also had two massive Fijians in the back seats with M240 GPMGs; we had some awesome firepower.

Once past the OGA (CIA) building we were then on to a dual carriageway with hills on one side and a 10-foot wall on the left. To all intents and purposes, we were travelling along a shooting gallery, and the insurgents knew this. However, this was the only way out of town and the insurgents also knew that, if they had a pop at us on this route, they would have twenty-four pissed-off Fijians or Gurkhas with bigger guns than they had, unleashing everything they had in return, so it was easier for them to fire at the Yanks. Now, the insurgents are far from stupid. They are extremely effective and intelligent. But they would often go for the easy target, and this we were certainly not. They knew they would have trouble on their hands if they went for us.

As we got past the worst part of the danger, my arse began to relax a bit and I took my thumb off my safety catch and switched on my sat-nav and switched off the bomb-jamming equipment. We’d done this journey many times before but, in the event of having to split the patrol, we had emergency RVs (rendezvous points) put into all the routes we took. All of this was put in code in case any insurgents managed to get hold of one of our vehicles. If a vehicle was disabled and we would have to leave it behind, we would blow it up to make it unusable.

We got deeper and deeper into the desert and there were now no signs of houses, just the occasional hut by the side of the road selling engine oil and truck bits. Soon we came up to our main positions. We then put the Toyotas into four-wheel drive and left the road – always a risk, as getting stuck in the sand can make you can easy target for a sniper. Three of our vehicles broke left and our three broke right. My group of three vehicles carried on for half a click (kilometre), then we got into our positions, facing towards the dirt tracks that insurgents could possibly have approached us by.

Now that we were in position, I posted a sentry with binoculars (whose job it was to scan the whole of the area we were covering to spot any potential trouble). We did a comms check again and surveyed the area. Nothing and no one (not even on foot) could approach us without our seeing them. We had ample cover from the road. In any case, we were supposed to be overt, not covert.

After we were settled and in position it was now around 08.30 and I was getting some funny looks from the Fijians. Fuck! They’d gone two and a half hours without eating and if they didn’t eat soon I wouldn’t be popular! ‘Get stuck in, then,’ I gestured. They didn’t need to be asked twice. Those guys could really put away some food. After they had their feed they looked much happier. I felt better, too.

Because we were now pretty much in the desert and totally in the middle of nowhere, all the team leaders decided to let the lads have a bit of target practice with the heavy weapons. These are so powerful and formidable that there weren’t any ranges around on the American camps that we could use to practise on, so when we had time, and it was safe to do so, we’d let our gunners let rip in the desert. Each team let each other’s know what they were doing and we gave each other strict arcs of fire and identified some targets well away from each other. I chose an outcrop of rocks about 800 metres to our right. We were already made ready, so my gunner set his sights, took his safety off, then
boom
,
boom
,
boom
! Three rounds of 40mm high-explosive grenades went hurtling towards the rocky outcrop. He had almost a direct hit and a huge dust cloud rose up. A split second later we heard the impact (sound does take a while to travel). That was good enough for me. My gunner had one more burst and by then he’d obliterated the rocks. Target practice now over, we reloaded and then ate a few more snacks.

After about an hour and four cups of coffee, we heard over the sat phone that the other teams’ mission had been cancelled, so they were now on their way back. Good news all around. This would mean we would maybe make a late lunch back on camp, which made the guys cheer up enormously. The other teams would be passing through our position in approximately thirty minutes, so we prepared to move. The plan was to let the other teams pass, then, fifteen minutes or so later, we would follow on. This would split us up and make sure that there wouldn’t be twelve vehicles all travelling in a line – which would obviously make one mother of a target for an insurgent with his hand on a trigger to detonate an IED or for someone keen on ambush.

Twenty to twenty-five minutes later we could see the other teams approaching in the distance and, as they came past us, one of our lads mooned at them and the rest of us gave the finger – the usual sort of greeting that we gave to each other. We were always trying to have a laugh and a piss-take at every opportunity. It was a good way to destress. We briefly chatted to the other team on the radio and confirmed our plan. As they sped past we sat tight and watched them approach the outskirts of town. I was feeling hungry now and was looking forward to a nice lunch.

As we mounted up in our trucks we heard a loud boom in the distance, then saw a huge cloud of black smoke. My heart sank and I started to chant my mantra in my head, ‘No! Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Then it came over the comms network. It was a broken message: ‘Nine Zero Charlie, contact, wait out.’ It was a contact report from our mates. They’d been hit. The other team were in deep shit: they’d been hit, and hit bad. That was one hell of an explosion they’d gone through and, if we could see it 5 kilometres away, it must have been a big bastard of a bomb – very bad. In a second we were off and trying to maintain radio silence. This was so that if the call sign in trouble needed to pass on information to the American HQ our comms chatter wouldn’t interfere. Then came a message over the radio: ‘Nine Zero Charlie, contact report: we’ve been hit by an IED outside the CIA building and are coming under effective enemy fire.’ It is such a distressing, helpless feeling, to hear one of your call signs (your friends, your mates) in trouble and you’re not there to help. There was thick black smoke billowing up into the sky now, and as we approached we could hear the firing, and lots of it! We had a lot of bother on our hands! We were going in to kick arse or get our arses kicked; we were heading into the unknown but we had to go – it was our friends in there!

We had to make a split-second decision: whether to go firm and wait for a request for assistance or go into the kill zone and assist. What a predicament! There could be nothing and nobody left alive to rescue in there. They could have all been taken out for all we knew. Fuck it! We were going in – it was our mates in there, right in the middle of that shit storm. We were all chomping at the bit and eager to go and help out when Frank, our patrol commander, gave the nod and that was it: safety catches off, and we were away. We could now see bits of the car that had obviously contained the IED. I could see the engine block, wheels, tyres and a big bloody crater where it had been. ‘Watch and shoot lads!’ I shouted. ‘Any fucker with a gun who’s not one of ours, kill ’em!’