Sniper one (37 page)

There were furious nods and 'hear hears' all round. Captain Curry waited ten seconds for any last comments, then gave his reply.

'Fine. I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I was secretly hoping you might all say that. If you want my opinion, I don't see why we have to hand over this place to the modern day equivalent of the Nazis. We'll withdraw when we're ordered to, or if we really have to. Until then, we're going to sit it out.'

The decision got a spontaneous round of applause and a room full of proud smiles. We walked out of the hot and sweaty briefing room into the cooler night air and back to our respective platoons with our chests puffed out and a renewed sense of determination in our stride. We were professional British Army soldiers doing what we were paid to do. It was in our blood to stand our ground.

The boys were pleased too when I told them the news.
Despite our exhaustion, it gave us a fresh new burst of confidence.

That night proved to be the quietest of the whole siege so far. It reaffirmed everything we had begun to suspect about the new rebel alliance. First there was their piss poor attempt at a compound assault. Now, they could barely be bothered to lob in more than one or two mortar rounds at us.

Yet again the Int boys had heavily overexaggerated the threat they really posed. Maybe they had all turned chicken at the sight of the air strike on Zinc. Whatever the cause, it was clear to us that the numpties were already beaten. Pikey was right: Abu Hatim was a pussy after all.

With not much fighting to be done and the tension swiftly receding, conversation on the roof that night for the first time turned to home. We were a good two-thirds of the way through the tour, so we allowed ourselves a start at that traditional end-of-tour conversational gem: what our dream first meal at home would be. It's a conversation that never normally lasts less than a month.

Quiet precedes most storms. Even hurricanes.

It turned out the previous assault had been no more than an elaborate dress rehearsal to gauge our firepower.

The next morning, the mortaring returned with a vengeance. It didn't stop Pikey from banging on tirelessly about jellied eel served with deep-fried Mars bars. We'd opened a can of worms with the first meal chat there.

The incoming got heavier as the day went on. By the afternoon, Pikey had shut up. By darkness, we were on the end of one of the heaviest daily poundings we'd had the whole tour. It was relentless. After the calm of only the night before, and our absolute certainty the worst had passed, the renewed heavy incoming confused the hell out of us. If these fuckers knew they were beaten, what was the point in mortaring us so hard?

The onslaught continued overnight and throughout the next day too, with just the same intensity. Yet more of the camp was being blown to bits. Repeated blasts left sand and shrapnel everywhere, and the sniper screen fencing had begun to collapse. Nobody could clear it up. All we could do was hunker down in the sangars and pray against direct hits.

Our confusion at what it all meant was nothing compared to what we felt the morning after that.

I got up at dawn after finally coming down from the roof at 2 a.m., when the mortaring had still been incessant. The first thing I noticed before I'd even opened my eyes was
the extraordinary quiet. I think it was peace that woke me up.

By the time I was on the roof fifteen minutes later, the sun was steadily rising over a ghost town. There was very little traffic on the streets, very few people going to work on the pavements. By 8 a.m., all of the souks were still closed. That was very odd, because it was a Monday. We'd never seen the city like that. It felt like a dream.

'It's fucking weird,' said Chris, who'd gone up to the roof when I went to bed.

'How long's it been like this?'

'The mortars packed up just before dawn. Then nothing, Danny. Not a bloody thing. It's like they all know something that we don't.'

It didn't take very long for the penny to drop. Silence was the most obvious of all combat indicators. The whole town must be in on this one, whatever the hell it was.

We stood-to, just in case. Dozens of belts of GPMG 7.62 link were hung over the sandbag walls of every sangar. Tins of 5.56 ammo were stacked outside each entrance, alongside crates of water, all ready for the off.

We waited for hours as the August sun just burned us redder.

Oost couldn't stand the tension.

'Where the fuck are these shits, then? They're doing my nut, man.'

When still nothing had stirred by 11 a.m., half the company stood down. It was too hot for the enemy to try anything then, and concentrating on nothing drains people unnecessarily. I went down to the Ops Room and volunteered for a shift on the radios so the 2i/c could get some kip. We'd all stand-to again at 3 p.m., when it was cooler.

The enemy guessed we'd do that. So they attacked at midday on the dot.

It started with snipers on the old town rooftops and a new heavy mortar barrage from two different positions. They were smacking stuff in on us from both Zinc and the north bank at the same time.

'Stand-to! Stand-to!'

A dozen frantic shouts were coming from every sangar in the compound.

All over, blokes were throwing on their body armour and helmets. Fast-moving bodies crammed the corridors and crashed up and down the main staircase.

I legged it up the stairs to the roof three steps at a time. I looked down to guide my feet. Bugger it. I still only had my sandals on. I'd left my boots in the Ops Room. Too late. Just before I reached the roof door, the steady thumping of Top Sangar's Gimpy opened up. I burst out on to the roof to feel the crack and snaps in the air as bullets zipped past splitting the atmosphere around them.

'Fucking get down!'

As my body hit the floor a neat burst of four rounds smacked into the door frame behind me.

Thank God for the roof's all-round three-foot wall. Nobody could raise their heads even a centimetre above it because the air was thick with flying lead. Small chips of stone and concrete shot off its exterior on all sides. Enemy bullets also piled into the sangars' sandbags every few seconds with puffs of dust erupting from each one. Noise was everywhere.

Top Sangar had practically the only eyes on. Des braved the hail of lead to scream out all the information about the enemy he could for everyone's benefit.

'Three buses pulling up at Yellow 3 . . . at least twenty
UKMs dismounting with AKs, RPGs, heavy machine guns . . . Separate dismounted attack coming up from Tigris Street, maybe twenty more men . . . No, make that the pontoon bridge
and
Tigris Street now, another dozen there . . . Another big group going over the bridge to Red 11. Heading up to the hospital and dam . . . Targets on the river road too now . . . Hang on; now there's activity on the north bank as well. Minibuses pulling up. Get the fucking Gimpy onto them, Oost. Passengers are armed UKMs; taking positions in the rubble . . . It's a 270-degree, no fuck it. It's just a fucking 360-degree contact . . . Targets approaching from all sides. Repeat, targets approaching
from all sides
.'

They were crawling all around us like ants. Attackers were closing on us from the east, south and west, supported by constant static fire positions over the river to the north. There must have been hundreds of them; far too many to count. At least three times the size of the dress rehearsal mob.

Shit. We had to start getting our heads up, or they'd be all over us in five minutes.

'Get the fucking rounds back down at them!' I shouted over the din. 'Lads, everyone's got to start spotting for targets.'

Dale burst open the roof door and hurled himself down on the floor to join me giving out commands.

'Oi, all of you get your faarkin' heads up! Wait for the incoming to stop. Heads up, rounds back, heads down again.'

Dale grabbed at his PRR.

'Ops Room, Sarn't Major. Get every spare fucker up here now.'

This was it. There was no doubt we were facing a clear and concerted attempt by the enemy to completely overrun
us, and with everything they'd got. They seriously meant business. Cimic had always been their prize. Now they were coming to get it. There was no doubt either that they thought they could do it. OMS mortar crews had landed a shitload of incoming right on us in the last sixty hours, let alone the last three weeks. Surely these British infidel dogs have had enough. They're getting mortared to fuck, they've been on their own for ages; they'll be a pushover. They'll run away or surrender. If they don't, we've got enough men to force our way in.

If you want to gain access to Cimic, there's only two sides to do it from: Tigris Street and the dam in the south, or straight over from the alleys in the east. So they hit us from both. Dozens of small teams steadily approached, firing and manoeuvring just like we would. On the roof, we got bullets and mortars, while the front and back gate sangars got never ending RPGs. They were good.

If only Spectre gunships flew in daylight. They'd be in Shangri-La with this lot.

Nor could we expect any help from the battle group either right then. It would take hours to assemble a column big enough to have a go at getting through all those lunatics. We didn't have hours. Got to suppress them and slow them up. It was our only chance.

Showing big balls, Louey was the first to scamper over to the western wall.

'Watch out, watch out,' shouted Des, as the whistle of a descending mortar round grew rapidly louder. It landed just long in the river as Louey poked his SA80 over the wall's edge and began to squeeze off second-long bursts at whatever he saw.

A dozen blokes from Recce Platoon then joined us on the main roof. Another four with Minimis piled up the
ladder double quick time to Rooftop Sangar with Des and Oost, and Dale now too. The L96s were abandoned. They couldn't put down enough fire. Showing considerable pluck, the blokes followed Louey's lead and started to get their heads up long enough to spot targets, and share them out.

Once the enemy started to get within range of their own mortars, their crews were ordered to silence their tubes. That allowed our spotting to pick up.

'Gunmen running out of Baghdad Street now.'

'Enemy at 500 yards, the river road.'

'OMS grouping behind nearest tree to the dam crossing.'

They were the cues for anyone who could to concentrate their fire in the target's general direction. Eventually we began to drop a few of the attackers.

A whoop went up from a young Recce lad who wasted an RPG man the second he emerged from behind the Pink Palace to fire.

'Fucking get it! Whooooh!'

His four mates all cheered just as loud and air punched as the adrenalin of the tiny success hit them too.

'Oi, keep the fucking noise down,' Dale shouted. He was trying to listen in to the frenzied radio chatter to bring guns on to the closest enemy positions first. He also knew the importance of everyone keeping in control. Let the rush of blood go to your head, you lose concentration, you get shot.

I darted around the roof shouting out 'covering fire' as I moved; spotting, bringing lads on to targets, and letting rip on my SA80 when I could too.

After the initial twenty minutes of chaos, we began to find a good battle rhythm. The battle engine was ticking over nicely.

Another four gunmen began a sprint across Tigris Street in the direction of the dam. Reloaded now, the Rooftop Minimis were on to them in less than a second and cut the last two down right in the middle of the road. Then they slotted a third, who was stupid enough to go back for his mates.

Next, a black saloon car with an RPG sticking out the back window swerved out of an alley on to Tigris Street right by Front Sangar. Just as the RPG man leant forward to fire at point blank range, the sangar Gimpy filled the car full of holes. The driver swerved sharp left and away hurling the RPG man backwards into his seat. His warhead shot off high into the sky instead.

'Out of rounds,' yelled Pikey on the GPMG in Top Sangar. A second later someone sprinted over from the roof door with half a dozen fresh belts.

Rob Green's call of 'Minimi ammo' was met by another young lad dashing a few metres forward from the stair block to skid a full tin of 5.56 along the floor at him. The moment it left his right hand he nimbly changed direction for Rooftop to deliver a second tin in his left hand for the gunners up there.

As the tin arrived against Rob's thigh, the two blokes either side of him leant round to tear it open with greed.

'If you need oil, it's over here', shouted someone else.

Soon Dale's fears turned from not enough outgoing fire to too much.

'Disciplined fire, boys. Disciplined fire.'

It was still his job to keep one eye on the ever depleting ammo pile. We were using it up fast. But there was a more pressing problem than that.

'Enemy at 200 to the south west,' screamed Des with renewed urgency.

I ducked down beside Louey on the western wall and poked my head up over its lip. Dozens of them were over the dam on our side of the Tigris now. They were gathering behind the huge piles of hardcore from the waste ground's building site. It gave good cover, and an even better position to shoot at us. RPGs on target from there would do us some proper damage.

Smudge, Longy and Pikey all popped off grenade after grenade from the UGLs on their SA80s into the building site, but to no avail. The grenades had too small a bang to have any real effect.

Bloody hell. We were dropping them, but no way near enough to put the rest of them off. No matter how accurate our shooting was. The sheer volume and blinding fanaticism of the attackers made that irrelevant. They were getting nearer and nearer. We were at full stretch, everyone was battling their bollocks off, and we
still
weren't halting the advance.

'Look, Sergeant, man, see them guys behind the iron poles? They're even wearing body armour and helmets.'

Jesus. Louey wasn't wrong. Probably all nicked off the Iraqi police.
These guys aren't fucking around
. Their number was also growing all the time.