ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold (12 page)

‘Jim’s got a valid point, if not quite accurate.  Some of the badly wounded would survive the wait, but I doubt the seriously wounded would.  Those who survived would also survive the chopper trip home anyway, making this whole unit a waste of time not to mention more dangerous for the men on the ground.’  It was Davies’s turn to receive the strange look.

‘Whose grandiose idea’s this anyway?’  I asked.

‘The Prime Minister’s.’

‘Tell him its crap.’

‘Can I put your name to that Murison?’

‘Of course you can.’

He closed the folder he was reading through.  ‘You think we’re wasting our time?’

‘Aye and ours.’

‘Of course you don’t think we have any chance at all, how long was it, 72 hours.’

‘I’ll tell you what, you prove to me we’ll last longer even a few months and we’ll make this work for you.’  An impossible task eh, wrong.

Mr. D’Ord turned to where his accomplice was sitting by some form of projector.  ‘OK Ivan, run the disc.’

‘Yes sir.’

Mr. D’Ord came round and sat with us.  The lights dimmed and a telly projector illuminated the wall behind his desk.  We were then treated to half an hour of the new weapons the government had developed.  For a soldier even an old soldier they were mind blowing.  I could feel my palms begin to itch.

When it was over and the lights went up.  Gigs summed up all of our feelings.  ‘Wow.’

Mr. D’Ord regained his seat.  ‘Well?’

‘What about the air force.’

He smiled.  ‘Yes I asked about that.  I was told that they were in a similar position to the army, they wouldn’t go into details.’ 

My mind ticked over the possibilities.  Buff nudged me.  ‘Can we do it?’ 

‘Don’t know; if the SRAF weapons are anywhere as near as good as these they could probably stop them half way across the Atlantic.’

‘No!’  The manny D’Ord was shaking his head.  ‘We’ve been told to prepare for a land war.’

‘That doesn’t sound right.  You mean they’re going to try and force them into a land war.’ 

‘Yes, I believe so.’

Ali grabbed my shoulder.  ‘How can they dee that Jim?’

‘Nay sure Ali, I suppose the easiest way is to deny them the rigs then hand over the islands.’

‘How would that work?’  A strange question I thought from a Brigadier.

‘We sell the oil to the Europeans; they’ll need it for the same reasons.  If they have it, it stops Europe slamming the door in their face, leverage.  They would probably sell it on cheaper and siphon off enough to keep their own forces ticking over.  If they are denied those resources, they will have to go for the big prize quicker.  That means they’d need the islands, as big staging posts, airfields an stuff which if we want them embroiled in a land war we’ll have to hand over without much of a fight.

The longer we deny them the North Sea oil the more desperate they will become to get their hands on our mainland stocks.  Ah right, I’ve got it!  As long as we have got control of the North Sea oil we can stop production, they will blockade it anyway.  They will have to supply Europe from their existing stock and a land war will also deplete it faster, damn that’s good.  How long?’  I fired the question back.

He was smiling, nodding his head.  ‘It depends on how long we can keep them from going into production on the mainland that’s why these men are so important.  It will be their main task.  If we do it right we can burn away their reserves in a year, a conservative figure would be two, we hope somewhere in-between.’

‘So, can we do it Jim,’ Buff prompted again impatiently. 

‘That depends on three things, how well we’re prepared; getting the troops home and a lot ó luck.’

The brigadier supplied the first answer, ‘I’ve been told we have ten years supplies stockpiled.  Our troops I know nothing about, as for luck we may have to make some of our own.’

I felt my head sway from side to side a little, ‘In that case we could be in with a chance.’

For the next half hour arguments raged back and forth as this casualty evaluation role was picked up.  I sat and listened for the most part.  When asked I found I disagreed with most of the suggestions, they began to get exasperated.

‘Well have you any ideas.’  Mr. D’Ord asked eventually.

I sighed, ‘I do, but I don’t like them.’

I received a hard shove in the back from Nommy.  ‘Why is it going to make you break sweat ye old bastard?’

‘Aye and the rest ó ye.’  I stood and faced them.  ‘I guarantee you’ll a’ hate it.’

‘Oh fucking get on wee it.’  Nommy encouraged gently.

‘All right, would you mind,’ I asked the two mannys’ indicating the seats.  ‘I don’t like speaking to two audiences.’

‘Not at all.’  I waited until they had re-seated themselves before picking up the large felt tip from the conference board.

‘Right, this is the only way I can see this working.  Our greatest asset is the Americans themselves.  They are great lateral thinkers; if it’s there, they’ll see it.  Let me explain.’  I turned to the board and started drawing.  ‘Let’s leave deep penetrative patrols just now.  They will take a lot of careful thought.  For the moment, well concentrate on tasks just behind the front lines.  The jobs the SAS will most likely be doing most of the time is target marking, fuel, ammo dumps, enemy HQ’s, troop concentration, Armour concentrations that sort of thing.

Hopefully they’ll avoid contact and we won’t be needed.  However, there will be times when they, through necessity, have to deliberately make contact with the enemy and that is when they are at maximum risk.

Now if they just pop out of their holes and start blowing things up, it won’t take the yanks long to realise that these men are operating from behind their lines and all they will do is swamp the area with troops, Op’s, or satellite surveillance.

Sooner or later their going to have to pop up for air and bang, scratch one SAS unit.  On the other hand if a sentry is taken out here,’ I laid a cross on an imaginary frontline, ‘Then half an hour later something is blown up here, then half another hour later another sentry is capped up here.  It won’t take them long to figure out they are crossing back and forth across their lines.  It’s there, therefore I see.’

Mr. D’Ord sat forward, ‘Yes but they will take counter action and soon realise there’s no one there.’

‘Aye but we have to keep up with them-countering their counter action.  Sniper action only has a limited life span.  Of more use will be artillery or mortar barrages, or pinning a section down with sustained machine gun fire.

Fighting patrols doing a little wet work snatching, sentries that sort of thing will enhance the illusion greatly, especially if they’ve been told that’s what they are helping cover SAS movement back and forth across the lines.’

‘Yes in case they’re captured and let slip the information,’ Mr. D’Ord interrupted.

‘Exactly.’

‘We could keep them guessing for months and without catching anyone it could severely affect their morale.’

‘Aye and if we’re lucky there could be enough friendly fire incidents and sentries shooting at shadows to confirm the presence of our patrols.’

Mr. D’Ord was beginning to get it, ‘yes, I like it, damn it I like it.’

I carried on, ‘there is one other thing we could do to enhance that illusion but it isn’t very nice.’  I hesitated for a moment before continuing.  ‘If when we get to our objective we find our man’s died we could leave him close behind the enemy lines, some where he’ll be found, maybe cause an incident.’

I was drowned out by a roar of disapproval.  My eyes connected with Mr. D’Ord’s he didn’t like it either but he could see the cold sense behind it.  ‘We would have to have the approval of every individual before the war started and we couldn’t do it with someone we had already operated on.’ 

‘Murison, you make me want to puke at times, would you give your approval?’

My eyes sought out Abie, ‘Abie if it meant keeping the rest of you safe for another couple of months, days even, aye I’d do it and so would you after you’d thought about it for a while.’  He opened his mouth to reply then closed it again, slumping down in his seat folding his arms.

‘Now this is where we come into the scene.  If we get called out, we have to be taken to a position as close to the casualty as possible and then the second part of the deception carried out, and for those who haven’t been following me.  That means when the second sentry is killed, or bombardment takes place to cover our non-existent SAS men coming back across to our lines.  That will be our cue to cross the enemy’s front line.’

‘Then we will run slap in to a follow up operation.’  Buff blurted out.

‘No we won’t and our safety depends on this one thing.  Once operations carried out and that second sentries been dropped, no more offensive action of that nature must take place in that area of operations.

We have to make them believe that’s it for the night.  What would you do Buff if you’d spent five nights chasing shadows, then ye heard a section up the line had been mortared or a sentry topped?  Think.’

‘Aye.’  He nodded.  ‘I’d probably sit down, light a fag, or pit on a brew.’

‘Exactly, the boys at the top can scream blue murder but the troop will ken they’re safe and switch off,’ I shrugged, ‘hopefully.’

‘It could work; yes I think if it’s managed properly it very well could.’  Mr. D’Ord decided thoughtfully.

‘Hey hold on a minute Jim.  So what your saying is, any time the SAS plan to blow some shit up we put on a diversion to pretend that they have crossed the lines.  Then after they have blown the shit up, we put on another one to pretend they have crossed them again.  And if there’s a casualty then that’s when we crossover.’  Gigs asked.

‘Aye pretty much.’

‘Right got that bit.  So how far behind their lines will we have to go to reach the real SAS base?’

I nodded, ‘aye it’s about time some fucker started catching on.  Their objective could have been 10 - 15 miles behind the lines.  Their base could easily be another 10 - 15.’

Gigs almost fell out of his chair, ‘you’re fucking joking!’

‘Told you, you wouldn’t like it, the mere thought ó it’s frightening the shit out ó me.  Which reminds me are the army still using they auld wood and canvas stretchers.’

Mr. D’Ord looked at Ivan.  ‘Yes I think so.’

‘We’ll never be able to do it with them.  What kind of resources will we have at our disposal?  Would we be able to get our hands on engineers, maybe design a new lightweight version?  We will also have to find out what kind of medical facilities they have.  We may have to make up specialist packs to take with us.  Is there such a thing as lightweight medical equipment?  The only stuff I’ve seen were made in the First World War and weighed a ton each.  But before we even started on this we need to know one thing, will we be armed?’

The brigadier shrugged, ‘Of course you will.’

‘I’m sorry sir, but that isn’t your decision it’s our Mr. Whitton’s.  Are we going to be glorified medical orderlies and stretcher-bearers or are we going to primarily be a protection unit.  This is an ethical question that no one else here can answer.’ 

‘Will it make much of a difference Jim?’  Davie asked.

‘An enormous one, especially when we’re crossing their front line and some silly sod pops their head up for a look see.’ 

He groaned as the penny dropped.  ‘You know how to take a chunk out of a man’s soul Jim.’

I shrugged, ‘I’m sorry Davie.’

‘I am too.’  The manny D’Ord quickly realised his mistake.

‘Don’t be, you’re a fighting man not a doctor.’  Davie forgave him.  I took the opportunity to pour myself another coffee.  ‘Jim talk to me, help me out here.’

I shrugged, taking a sip of coffee.  ‘No matter what you decide Davie I’ll give it a bash.  Anything’s got to be better than killing for a living.’  I received a nod of thanks.  ‘If we go in as an unarmed stretcher party in some ways we’ll be a damn sight better off.  We wouldn’t have to carry half the weight or do half the training and we can sleep at night with an easy conscience.  On the other hand, we could be caught by a cook with a rolling pin and a bread knife.

We might have to be escorted by regular or special forces, which means more bodies.  More chance of getting caught; which we would be eventually.’

His brow furrowed with concentration, ‘You think so?’

I nodded, ‘Aye definitely, we might get away with it for a few months six or seven if we’re very  lucky, but by that time most of them in the front line will be veterans and that’s when it gets a lot harder.  You’d also have to lay down certain ground rules; like what do we do if we ran into wounded enemy soldiers or cause a few.’