ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold (53 page)

CHAPTER 56

‘Lt Murison.’

‘Yep.’

‘Stand to again.’

‘OK.’

I heaved myself off the bare bedsprings I had been lying on.  ‘Let’s go.’  We climbed onto the chopper and waited.  Twenty minutes later the pilot turned in his seat.  ‘Stand down.’

‘For fuck sake,’ moaned Buff.

This was the umpteenth time we’d been loaded onto the helicopters only to be unloaded again.  We had been wrenched from our beds at four in the morning and flown to this isolated spot in the far northwest, shunted into a cold Nissan hut and forgotten about.  Apart from the periodical stand-to, we didn’t have a clue what was happening.

‘I’m getting a bit pissed off we this Jim, sort it will ye.’  Gigs stormed past me back into the Nissan hut.

‘Aye OK,’ I sighed into the wind.  The pilot of my machine was out stretching his legs.  I walked over.  ‘Are ye no freezing out here?’

‘No we’re plugged into a ground generator.’

‘Do you know what’s happening?’

‘Haven’t a clue, they’re shut up in that shed over there with a guard at the door.  If you go anywhere near he starts waving his gun at you.’

‘Rifle.’

‘What?’

‘Waving his rifle at you.’

He looked down his nose at me.  ‘Such strange bod's you army fellows.  Always insisting on the proper words for your little popguns.’

‘Navy eh?’

‘Appropriate for this mission don’t you think?’

‘Tell me what boat do you serve on?’

‘Ship.’

‘What?’

‘We serve on a ship.’

‘Such strange fellows you Navy types.’  His return grin lit up his eyes, and I could see the devil may care hidden in their depths.  ‘Want to find out what’s happening old boy?’

‘Do you think you’ll have any more luck with the sentry than I did?’

‘Tell you what, you show me how to sink a ship sometime and I’ll show you how to deal with a sentry, OK.’

‘This should be interesting, I’m Mark.’

‘Jim.’  We shook hands.  ‘Whitton.’

‘What?’

‘Tag along will ye.’

‘What the fuck are you up to now Murison?’

‘Stop girning and get your arse out here.’

‘Any word yet Bruce?’

‘No nothing,’ his co-pilot answered.

‘Fine, I’m going for a little walk with this Army type.  Toot if you need me.’

‘Will do.’

We headed off.  ‘Have you really got horns on those things?’  I asked innocently.

‘Of course, they’re very handy for scaring seagulls and warning other aircraft of your approach.’

‘Oh aye nah doubt.’  It had been a stupid fucking question and judging by the grin on his face, I wasn’t the first that he’d caught out with it.  ‘You any good at what you do?’

‘Anti-ship and sub patrols, we hunt in pairs and the pair you have at your disposal today are supposed to be the premier pair.  Are you any good at what you do?’

‘Don’t know yet, you’ll have to just wait and see.’  I eased off the restraining strap on the pistol and innocently transferred the rifle to my left shoulder.  ‘Just keep walking, don’t stop.’

‘Halt.’

‘Sorry, what was that?’

He un-slung his rifle and tried to get it into the aim.  I whipped out the pistol and pressed it against his forehead.  I held his frightened stare until he dropped his eyes.  ‘You’ll have to practice that one a little better, won’t you?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Shoulder your weapon.’

‘I can’t let you in sir.’

‘I’m going in whether you like it or not, understand?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Good now shoulder that weapon.’  He did so and we walked in.

‘Who the hell are you?’  Demanded an angry Colonel.

‘See, I told you nobody told them we’d arrived yet.  So what’s happening baldy?’  All he could do was splutter.  I thought he was going to have a heart attack.

‘Lt Murison, come to join the party?’

‘Hey, hello how are you doing?’

‘We were never properly introduced, were we?’

‘Nope.’

‘General Morris, Commander Royal Marines.’  We shook hands.

‘Do you know this man sir?’  Baldie spluttered.

‘We met one day at the Prime Ministers weekend residence over tea and cakes, now butt out.’  I growled.

He was about to take me to task but the General got his oar in first.  ‘It wasn’t nice of him not to introduce us was it?’  That was enough for Baldie.

‘I put it down to his age, now what’s happening?’  He quickly brought us up to speed.  ‘Christ there’s nothing like a well-co-ordinated attack to give you a hardon in the morning is there.’

‘They must have been practicing for months to achieve that sort of precision.’  Decided Mike.

‘They were, in the Arizona desert, and before you ask, that’s as much as I can tell you.’  The general supplied.

‘That’s alright; it isn’t that hard to work it out.’

Mike eyed me sceptically while the General seemed amused.  ‘Really, would you like to enlighten us?’

‘If ye want, we carried half a dozen domestic weather satellites for them two years ago, it wouldn’t have been hard to piggy back our own surveillance equipment on them.’

Mike’s eyes were swivelling between the General and myself.  ‘What makes you think that?’  The General looked round suspiciously, but no one seemed to be listening.

‘Common sense, how else could you work out a way of taking out the whole of their first strike if you hadn’t been watching them.  What was their best time in practice?’

‘Thirty seconds.’

‘Today?’

‘Apart from the team for osprey who were for some reason 2 minutes behind everyone else, 22 seconds.’

‘That must have been some piece of flying,’ added Mike wistfully.

‘Yes we were very lucky.  If they were sloppy, we could have had a couple of dozen fights on our hands as it is now they’re concentrating all their efforts on osprey.  They are keeping up constant strafing attacks and to date have tried three assaults with heavy losses.  They know about the blast mats so they’re trying to rope down.’

‘Suicide,’ Mike commented, ‘I presume the rig’s been shut down.’

‘Yes, but there is still plenty that can burn.’

‘Why osprey?’  I asked.

‘It controls the flow of oil for the whole field.’

‘Got ye, so it’s worth the price?’

‘If they can take it, yes.’

‘We must have taken a chunk out of them if they can only afford to concentrate on one rig.’

‘We did about half their helicopter force, but that still leaves a lot.’

‘They must have a helicarrier with them,’ Mike added.

‘Yes they’ve two, one a helicarrier the other’s an aircraft carrier, one of their biggest.’

That set off a train of thought in my head.

‘They could still attack other rigs in force, but we believe they’re being cautious, if they can take osprey then they’ll move onto the next rig.’

‘Is their carrier, the big one, higher than the platform?’

‘I’m not sure, hold on.’  He moved over to an operator, we followed on.  ‘Cpl Dodd’s, is their aircraft carrier bigger than Osprey?’

‘That thing’s enormous Sir, deck to deck it’s certainly taller.’

‘There you go, why?’

‘It just seems strange to me, why bother with all the helicopters when all they have to do is pull up alongside and drop their assault teams down by rope.  They could keep our forces pinned down with small arms fire from the deck, fair enough they’d end up with their paint work a bit chipped, but surely the damage wouldn’t be that bad.’

The General regarded me long and hard.  ‘You know Mr. Murison, I am glad you’re on our side.’

‘That’s good, have you got an update list of the casualties on Osprey?’

‘I think so, Cpl Dodd’s.’

‘Yes Sir, here it is.’

Davie grabbed the list.  We remained silent while he perused it.  ‘There’s a lot of serious cases here Jim.  How are the medical team coping?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Can you find out?’

‘Yes I can try, Cpl Dodd’s.’

‘Putting you through now Sir, Colonel Hall Sir, General Morris.’

‘What is it?  I’m rather busy just now.’

‘There you are.’  The General indicated the vid-link to me.  The man on the other side of the link was a strong looking man of clean lines.  His combats looked well used.

‘Colonel Hall, I’m Jim Murison ACV’s.’

‘ACV’s we requested your help ages ago.  I’ve had two men die since, where the hell have you been?’

‘Locked in a Nissan hut since five this morning, can you put us through to your medical team?’

‘Yes OK I’m sorry; you probably wouldn’t have got through anyway.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ I told him beginning to feel the anger grow.  The screen switched over to a busy operating theatre.  ‘It’s all yours Davie.’  I turned back to the General, ‘could you give me a tactical overview?’

‘Yes certainly.’

Cpl Dodd pushed a button and the back wall lit up with a projection of the area.  It didn’t take me long to figure out they had the whole area sown up tight.  Unless.  ‘Have they declared war yet?’

‘No.’

‘Any limitations in order’s for opening fire?’

‘At this time only if fired upon.’

‘Typical, any idea what type of vessels these are, weapons, maximum range of weapons, distance between vessels, their top speed etc.?’

‘Cpl.’

‘Yes Sir, I’m on it.’  The display changed to one of a sea-going vessel with a large helideck.  ‘Their pickets are mainly made up of these.  Trent class patrol vessels.’

‘Don’t tell me Cpl Dodd’s, tell him.’  I pointed to Mike.  I listened in with interest.  It was obvious by the questions he was asking he, was doing a bit of revision. 

‘Can you handle one of those Mike?’

‘Yes, should be able to.’

‘Good.  Now Cpl Dodd let’s see how good you really are.  Can you pull up a tactical overview and demonstrate these vessels interlocking arcs of fire.’

‘Yes Sir.’  He sat back at his Console and moments later, I had the answer I was looking for.  ‘As you can see they adequately cover the area between each vessel.’

‘Aye, but they can’t cover each other.’

‘They don’t really have to, each vessel carries two hunter type helicopters; that effectively triples their defensive area and easily covers the vessel either side.’

‘Yes, but not today Cpl Dodd, to pull off an attack with the precision they did this morning, those vessels must have been carrying the assault teams.  I’d lay odds their own helicopters are either helping with the assault on Osprey or are still packed away on their helicarrier.’

‘Oh god yes,’ exclaimed the General, ‘hold on here a second.’  He went over to another operator who shook his head at his questions.  He came back.  ‘You were right; we haven’t detected any helicopters returning to these vessels.’

‘Right Mike,’ I took a piece of coloured chalk, ‘what I want to know is this.  If these two vessels here don’t close in or start closing in before we reach this one’s effective range, how far can you get before they are able to close the gap, if we take this one out?’  Mike didn’t bother with the chalk.  He gave his top speed to Cpl Dodd’s and he projected it onto the screen.  ‘Go get the other pilot, will ye Mike.’

When he got back, we worked through a few scenarios, fired a flexible plan, and were ready to go.  ‘Davie I need to speak to Tom Hall.’

‘Wait a minute Jim I’m assisting in an Op here.’

‘OK.’

The vid-screen had been pulled over to an operating table and tilted down.  ‘Yes that’s right, tie it off there.  Yes, that’s good.  Could you patch me through to Colonel Hall please?  Thank you.’

Colonel Hall appeared on the link.  ‘Colonel Hall we’re going to make an attempt to get through shortly is there anything you need?’

‘I don’t suppose you can carry in ammo can you?’

‘The A stands for armed, what do you want man?’

‘I’m beginning to like you.  Our entire big AA’s been knocked out, but the rifle fired missiles have been really effective and we’re beginning to run low.  If you could lay your hands on some of those I’d be grateful.’

‘Have you any here General?’