Eye of the Storm (45 page)

‘Perfect,’ I grinned at them. ‘In the words of the song, “Who could ask for anything more?”’

We had already agreed to a thirty-minute delay on the explosive charges to give ourselves time to get well clear of the area. The charge comes in a plastic-covered case, which makes it easier to handle, and within a couple of minutes Mugger and Ken had the first one ready. As timers we were using time pencils which, when broken, start a chemical reaction. Depending on the pencil you have selected, that reaction lasts for a carefully computed length of time before it produces a spark. At the end of the selected delay this would ignite the safety fuse, which would then ignite the detonator cord, which in turn would ignite the detonator pressed into the explosive charge. It sounds complicated, but once the time pencil has produced a spark, the chain reaction that follows is pretty much instantaneous.

The two demolition men decided between them that Ken, who was the slimmer, had better be the one we lowered into the manhole to place the charge. We did this using a loop line which I fetched from my Land Rover. A loop line, as its name implies, is a piece of strong nylon cord some thirty feet long with loops at each end. Using our karabiners, which are small metal clips with spring-loaded gates used by mountaineers, we could string these lines together to form a rope which we could abseil down. We could even use them to tow vehicles, since they are immensely strong. Ken put a foot in one of the loops, and we lowered him down to the bottom of the shaft. He placed the charge alongside the cables and snapped the pencil timer, whereupon we hauled him out.

Immediately Des and his crew, with Ken, sped to the next manhole cover, 200 metres away, while Mugger, Harry and I replaced the cover on the first one, snapped the security bar back in place and carefully arranged the forced-apart padlock so that it would at least pass a casual inspection. We then brushed the area around the cover with sacking to obliterate any signs of our having been there and headed after Des.

He and his team already had the cover off the second manhole, Ken had prepared the charge, and we were able to lower him down straight away. In less than three minutes the cover was replaced and we were cleaning off the area. Then Mugger grabbed my shoulder.

‘We have company, Billy,’ he said quietly. I looked up and immediately spotted three sets of headlights zig-zagging slowly down the road towards us, about a kilometre away.

Suddenly we were all on full alert. There was no chance of our visitors being bedouin this time. This was the enemy, and they were heading straight for us. We were almost certainly outnumbered, although I doubted we were outgunned. I was weighing up the odds and risks involved when the three vehicles stopped. Then, within a couple of minutes, they came on again at the same steady pace.

‘They’re checking the manholes,’ said Mugger. ‘That spare wire must have been a trembler. We’ve tripped the alarm system and they’ve come to see what’s going on.’

Between where we had left the vehicles and the edge of the road there was a small berm running parallel to the roadway. If we brought the bike and Land Rovers across it, we would be able to use the metalled road to make a fast getaway. Even though we would then be on the roadway with the enemy vehicles, I decided that this was our best option.

‘Over the berm,’ I pointed across the road. ‘You first, Des, then Ken, and we’ll bring up the rear. Now go.’

Des’s driver revved up, took a fast run at the berm and bounced over the top easily. Ken on the motorcycle was only seconds behind him, doing a great impression of Evel Knievel as he leapt the top with a foot or more to spare.

Then it was our turn. Mugger revved up and we charged towards the berm and raced up the side. Then, just as we reached the top, Mugger let the revs drop and we stalled right on the crest, rocking slightly backwards and forwards.

‘For fuck’s sake, Mugger, what are you messing about at?’ I hissed in his ear.

‘Oh shit,’ he said.

By this time Des had realized what had happened and had driven back to the bottom of the berm on the far side.

‘I’ll tow you off,’ he shouted.

‘No you won’t,’ I yelled back. ‘All you’ll manage from that side is to pull us in up to our axle. Come back over here and pull us off backwards.’

Our position was beginning to get slightly hairy. From our excellent vantage point in our Land Rover on top of the berm, I could see the three sets of headlights creeping ever nearer. They were now less than 800 metres away. ‘Better be prepared,’ I told Harry in the back, and within seconds was reassured to hear the double thud of a grenade being loaded into the Mk19 as the weapon was cocked.

Getting a good purchase from the metalled road, Des made his return run over the berm with ease and within thirty seconds had a winch line attached to the back of our 110. Thirty more and we were free and back at the foot of the berm. Mugger reversed some distance to give us a good run-up, and Des’s driver did the same once the winch line had been recovered.

By now the enemy were no more than 600 metres away and time was getting a bit tight. Once more Des’s vehicle managed to sail over the berm without difficulty, and then it was our turn again. I half-turned in my seat, grinned at my driver and said, ‘Mugger, don’t stall it again –
please
?’

It was his turn to grin. ‘Piece of cake, Billy,’ he said, ‘piece of cake.’ And with the revs rising to a howl we surged forwards and then up the side of the berm. At the top the 110 leapt the crest, flipped nose down, and we were suddenly rushing and sliding down the far side and on to the road.

‘All right,’ I said. Then, after a quick glance back along the road to where the oncoming Iraqi vehicles were now less than half a kilometre away, I told them, ‘Let’s get out of here before these guys get any closer.’

But we had little to fear. I figured that as the enemy were using headlights their night vision would be so poor that they’d need to be within a hundred metres to spot us. The noise of their own engines would more than mask the sound of ours at this distance.

When we’d put a good kilometre between us and the enemy I signalled Des and Ken to follow me off the road and into the desert, where I pulled up. The other Land Rover and the bike stopped alongside me, and for a moment silence reigned. I told Des and Harry to stand down the grenades from the Mk19s and then gave the go-ahead for a cigarette break.

We didn’t have long to wait. Some ten minutes later, when the search vehicles were almost opposite the first of the manholes we had doctored, the charge blew, sending a huge gout of red and yellow flame high into the sky. I couldn’t see what the reaction was aboard the enemy trucks, except that their headlights were suddenly stabbing in all different directions. We waited just under five minutes for the other charge to blow, which it did with an equally spectacular display of pyrotechnics, the heavy boom of the explosion reaching us a few seconds later.

‘Saddam won’t be launching any more Scuds using that command line,’ I declared. ‘Well done, lads. Now for the RV.’ Cigarettes crushed out under foot, we mounted up and set out to drive the thirty kilometres or so to the rendezvous I had agreed with Pat. I didn’t know it, but I had a couple more hours in which to enjoy the success of our mission before all my high spirits would be knocked out of me.

We arrived at the RV shortly after 0330 hours, to find no trace of the other group. After half an hour and still no sign of them I asked Des to give me the latitude and longitude of the spot I had picked out. When I plotted the reference against our position on the map I saw at once that we were not at the location I had selected, and where I had told Pat to meet us.

‘You’ve brought us to the wrong place,’ I told Des bluntly.

‘No I haven’t,’ he replied, somewhat sheepishly.

‘Des, I’m telling you that this is not the place where I told Pat to meet up with us.’ I was rapidly running out of patience.

He looked at me even more sheepishly and said, ‘I think I’d better tell you what happened. After you told Pat the RV location he called me over and told me he was changing it to the place we’re at now.’

I was absolutely stunned. For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then I said incredulously, ‘You mean, if my vehicle had become separated in a firefight and headed for our rendezvous we would have been the only ones there, because for some reason known only to him, Pat has changed the location?’

Des didn’t answer, probably wisely, since I was furious. I made up my mind there and then that, come that night, Pat would be shipping out on the resupply helicopter. Meanwhile it looked as if my 2IC and the rest of the patrol weren’t even going to make the changed rendezvous, and we needed to find an LUP. This time I made Des follow me. I hadn’t decided how I was going to deal with him yet.

We drove through the night for a few kilometres, until we came across a site that looked ideal for an LUP, especially since we only had two 110s and a motorcyle to conceal. Having disposed the vehicles and detailed a couple of sentries, I went straight back to my Land Rover, where I contacted Al Jouf on the radio and reported a successful mission. In return, HQ advised me that a new second-in-command was flying in that night with the resupply. He would take over from Pat, and would stay with us for approximately two weeks; however, he would be under my overall command throughout his allotted time with the patrol. HQ didn’t name him over the radio, but described him as ‘the new OC designate of A Squadron’.

There was a further message, forwarded from Pat, which told me to meet him and the rest of Alpha One Zero at 1800 hours that evening. You are forbidden to use foul language over the radio, but had I been able to I surely would have used it then. Instead, I had to content myself with sending him a return message, through Al Jouf, telling him, as a direct order from me, that he was to meet me at another location at 1800 hours, and giving the map coordinates. And that, until I met up with him, would have to be that.

From our LUP during that morning we detected enemy activity on a hilltop some three or four kilometres away on our right flank. Since we could see them I was sure that they could see us, but they caused us no bother. I was in no position, with only six guys and two Land Rovers, to do anything about them there and then, and after briefing Des and his crew to keep an eye on them during the day, I tried to put them out of my mind. Before pulling out at 1730 that evening, however, I sent a brief message to Al Jouf giving them the coordinates of the Iraqi position. If the enemy troops stayed there for long after we left, then they were going to have a very unpleasant extra dish for dinner in the shape of a few air-to-ground missiles.

The RV I had selected was only thirty minutes’ drive away, and we arrived at almost the same time as the rest of our unit. The moment all the vehicles had come to a stop I walked straight over to Pat and told him to come with me. I was still seething, but I managed not to say another word until we had walked about a hundred metres away from the men and were out of earshot. I then gave him one of the biggest bollockings I had ever handed out.

‘What the fuck do you think you are you playing at?’ I began. ‘I told you where you were to meet me, and the moment I walked away you told Des you were changing the location.

‘You deliberately countermanded my order. You had no authority to do so, and on top of that you jeopardized the lives of the people in my vehicle. If there had been a contact and a split, we would have gone to a completely different location from everyone else.’

Pat said nothing.

‘I’ve had enough of you and your negative attitude,’ I went on. ‘You’re out of this location on the resupply helicopter tonight.’

He was shocked, so stunned that he couldn’t say a word. He knew, though, that he was completely in the wrong. Without a word he just turned away and walked slowly back to his vehicle with his head down. He looked utterly dejected, but I didn’t feel the slightest pity for him. I was still fuming. Not just because he had ignored my order, or even because he had put my life at risk, but because he had risked the lives of Mugger and Harry.

Having dealt with Pat I went back, found Des and took him on one side.

‘All right,’ I demanded, ‘I want to know why you didn’t tell me that Pat had changed the RV location.’

‘I’m sorry, it was my fault,’ he said. ‘But I was between a rock and a hard place. Pat’s senior to me. It’s as simple as that.’

And of course, it was – the damned seniority system. In the Regiment we have a kind of batting order among people of the same rank. This is based on the date at which a man was promoted, and everyone knows where they stand in this order, just as batsmen do in a cricket team. You can have six guys who are all staff sergeants, but each one knows who is senior to him – and who is junior. It doesn’t take a genius to work out whether someone was promoted before you were. Everyone knows this is how things work, and everyone accepts it. The Regiment is a very small one, and that’s the way it has always operated.

Des had naively thought that Pat’s change would make no difference. And had I not asked for the lat. and long., or if we had arrived at the location and Pat had been there, I would never have known about the switch, since I would not otherwise have checked the coordinates.

There was no point in chewing Des out further. I simply told him, ‘If anyone countermands any of my orders in future, I want you to tell me the moment it happens. No matter who it is, or how senior he is. This time we were lucky and nobody got hurt. I don’t want there to be a next time.’

I went back to the convoy and told the men to get aboard their vehicles. Then I walked over to Pat’s Land Rover.

‘Okay,’ I told him. ‘I trust you picked out a decent landing site last night. We should have plenty of time to get there before midnight. Even so, let’s get moving.’

Whatever his other failings, Pat was still the best navigator we had. He just lacked the qualities I needed. It was obvious, too, that he didn’t like me or the way I ran things. Later I was told that he thought me much too laid-back to command a patrol behind enemy lines and bring it home safely.