Crossfire (6 page)

The tank park
2340 hrs

'Where the fuck is Peter with those drinks?'

It was the first time I'd heard Dom swear.
Things obviously weren't too hunky-dory on
Planet Platinum Bollocks. He'd come back
fuming from his session at the FCO building.
Pete and I had tried to draw him out, but he
stayed tight-lipped.

It was H-hour minus twenty, and we were
choking on the exhaust from B Company's nine
Bulldogs. Their back doors were open. In the dull
red glow from the interiors I could see a mass of
last-minute checks going on. I watched Terry as
he tugged his chest harness over his Osprey body
armour and positioned the pouches to make sure
his mags, frag and smoke grenades were secure.
Once he was sorted, he couldn't resist having
another quick squeeze of a zit.

All I had to check was the field dressing in the
left map pocket of my cargos, same place everyone
kept one. That way we knew where to grab it
if someone took a hit and started leaking.

The ear pad of my PRR crackled as guys blew
into their mikes to test their radios were working
and on the right channel.

Dom turned to me. The guys were around us
so he kept his voice low. 'They are so young.'

I pointed to Terry, now pulling on his gloves –
maybe to stop himself attacking his face. 'That
little fucker there's first through the door
tonight.'

Dom moved a few steps to check he really was
seeing teenage spots on the man leading the
attack.

'That's how it is.' I shrugged. 'They're infantry,
they're all young fuckers.'

Dom was still brooding as Terry clambered
into the back of his Bulldog. Maybe he was thinking
how lucky that stepson of his was in
comparison. I guessed he'd be tucked away in a
nice warm university bed right now, probably
not his own. Good for him. I always wished I'd
had the chance of college instead of running
round like Terry, with a tin hat on, getting shot at.

Pete returned with three white cups and
caught the fag end of the conversation. 'That kid
who's first through the door tonight is only
nineteen.'

I took my brew but Dom shook his head.

'Take it, you'll like this one. I got us some real
coffee. I told 'em vampires can't drink tea, it kills
them. Go on, it'll calm you down. You shouldn't
go chasing after those fuckers. It winds you up
too much.'

I took a sip of the strong, milky brew as Dave
came on the PRR. 'All call signs. Ten minutes.'

Around us, working parts were cocked.

''Ere, Drac, you get any one of those spooks to
interview yet? We got a busy day tomorrow?'

Dom's mobile rang before he got the chance to
answer. 'Baz! You sure?' He jammed a finger in
his other ear and shouted: 'Is that better? I said,
are you sure it's him? That's great news. When
did you find out?'

He closed down and put the phone back in his
pocket. He looked at Pete. 'I've got a lead.'

'Want me to come with you?'

'No, I'll go first thing – should only be a few
days. Just get lots of footage. You know, the boys
emailing home, that sort of thing. Bread-and-butter
stuff. Cover for me with Moira. You know
how much she hates me doing my stuff on her
dime.'

Pete was frowning. 'What are you—'

There was an explosion two hundred away,
followed closely by another.

'Take cover!'

As if anyone needed telling. Cups dropped to
the tarmac as we legged it into our Bulldog.

Pete grabbed my arm. 'Something's wrong,
Nick. This is about more than an interview.'

'Personal?'

'Very.'

Dave was already on the net. 'Soon as all call
signs are complete, we're mobile.'

Thirty seconds later, the company rolled out of
the tank park in their nine wagons, just as
another Katyusha piled into the compound. The
explosion sounded much closer this time. Yet
another whooshed over the open mortar hatches,
its rocket even louder than the wagon's engines
and tracks.

The Bulldog was essentially the old APC
(armoured personnel carrier) that had been
rumbling over the Westphalian plains of
Germany for thirty or forty years as part of the
BAOR and during the Cold War. I'd spent two
years in them myself as mechanized infantry, and
remembered them as slow and sluggish. But this
lot had been geared up with a brand-new power
pack so they could scream along at fifty m.p.h.,
keeping pace with the Challengers and Warriors.
They also had brand-new armour all round,
including bar armour to keep the RPGs at bay,
and a turret with a GPMG had been mounted
where the wagon's commander would normally
sit and poke his head out to watch thousands of
Russian tanks screaming towards him.

Ours was the command vehicle, at the rear
of the column. Dom, Pete and I were crammed
into the back, along with Dave, two medics, the
company commander and his signaller.

The company commander, a major, was on the
net to another rifle company, Chindit, to tell them
we were leaving early. Chindit were from 2
Lancs, who were defending the OSB (Old State
Building) in the centre of the city.

They'd be backing us once the contacts started.
The plan was to let the militants run and drive
into the contact area and take us on. As soon as
that happened, Chindit Company, reinforced by
three extra Warriors from Rhett and his recce
platoon, would scream out of the OSB in
their Warriors and cordon them off. With so
many Warriors on the ground, the militants
would have nowhere to run. It was then the job
of both companies to dispose of as many
insurgents as they could in the killing ground
they had created.

This was just one of the four strike ops that
would be going in tonight. The other companies
from 2 Rifles would be doing the same in other
areas, also with 2 Lancs backing them in their
Warriors. It was going to be one fuck of a party.

I bent my five-inch plastic IR cyalume stick so
that the glass inside broke, mixing the chemicals
that made the thing glow, though only when
viewed through NVAs.

Everyone else was doing the same, then attaching
them to the back of their helmet or Osprey. In
the confusion of contact it was a good way of
knowing where your mates were before you
decided to take a shot through your night sight at
a moving body.

It was just as suffocating inside the Bulldog as it
was in the Warrior, even with the mortar hatches
open. Dust and exhaust fumes blasted in as we
roared towards the compound exit.

Dave sat next to the door handle and pointed
out where all the wagon's shit was located.
'Behind the boss there, morphine and
tourniquets. Spare ammo is here.' He kicked the
metal boxes below his seat with his heel.

Another rocket went off in the compound. He
waved a finger under the table that held all the
computer and signals kit the company
commander was gobbing off into. 'Pass 'em
about, will you?'

I leant over and lifted the lid of a battered
plastic picnic cooler. It was packed with 500ml
bottles. Drinking water wasn't in short supply in
the compound. There were pallets of the stuff
people could just help themselves to, and almost
as many squirty bottles of hand cleanser. Out
here, soldiers had to wash their hands every time
they ate, had a dump or simply had nothing else
to do. Sickness and diarrhoea could affect anyone;
get a couple of guys with a bug and soon the
whole company's out of action.

I threw him the bottle and passed a couple
more round. I reached behind the company
commander and tapped the scabby boots of the
gunner. He reached down from his turret and
grabbed it. Next thing I saw, he was pouring the
contents away and preparing to take a piss into
the empty bottle.

The company commander pressed a series of
buttons on the control panel in front of him to
switch between the different nets he was listening
to and waffling on. His laptop showed the
positions of all call signs in the city.

Dom and Pete were squashed up on my left.
Sonia, one of the medics, was by the door. The
other medic, sitting next to Dave, was dressed in
full party gear – body armour, bingo wings,
ballistic glasses, leather gloves. At a nudge from
the CSM he stood up through the hatch and stuck
his SA80 out into the gloom. The GPMG turret
swung right as we passed through Saddam's
majestic gates. We were out of the compound.

Nobody said a word. Through a haze of dust
piling in through the mortar hatch, I'd caught the
occasional glimpse of clear starlit night. Now I
began to see bulbs. They dangled across the
streets like strings of big party lights, and led off
to concrete-block houses at either side. Normal
street-lighting had been fucked years ago.

Faded billboards advertised Marlboro and
Nescafé, and gave a message in Arabic that I
guessed said Gillette was the best a man could
get. The newest ones advertised Iraqna, the
country's mobile-phone network.

Washing hung from balconies above closed-up
shop fronts. Kids' Teletubby T-shirts and football
shirts were soon filthy again from the dustcloud
we kicked up. From this angle, I could have been
in the back streets of Naples.

The wagon came to a sudden halt. Dave
pushed down the lever on the big metal door and
let it swing open. No hydraulics on these old
things. He grabbed the top cover to tell him to
jump out with him.

Dom was confused. 'We there already?'

Through the open door, I could see the top
cover was already taking a fire position by a
wrecked car.

'Not yet.' Dave kept the door open and yelled
to Pete to jump out with his IR camera. 'There's
time to film if you want. One of the locations saw
where the rockets came from and called in a fire
mission. We can't go any further until it's done.'

Sonia eased her feet out of the way so
Pete could dismount, and Dom was close behind.

I followed, glad to be out of the wagon even
after such a short time. 'How long we got?'

'Just enough to make sure the fuckers don't hit
us as well as the firing points – it's only about a
K away.'

Dave pushed the door shut and Sonia locked it
from the inside.

'Who's firing?'

'The artillery. We've got a 105 from the COB on
the case. That's why we stay well back. Can't
trust them to shoot straight.' Dave chortled away
to himself.

I made sure Dom and Pete were in cover, then
sheltered in a doorway. Lights went out all round
us. I pictured kids and grannies being jammed
under tables for a bit of protection. The locals
knew as well as we did that shit was on its way.
If the Brits were static, they were a target.

The whole company was shaken out in all-round
defence along the road. My PRR was alive with
guys making sure all the arcs were covered.

Pete started filming as Riflemen pulled down
the night-viewing aids attached to their helmets
over their non-aiming eye. The NVAs on their
weapons were already switched on, ready to take
aim if they saw a target. Alot of them had chosen
to wear their normal dark green camouflage
smocks. Some had also covered their helmets
with dark green covers. It was a matter of
personal choice. They were fighting at night in a
town, not in a sandpit.

Nothing could be heard above the rumble of
the Bulldogs and the now much calmer chat
on the net. I'd just taken a couple of steps out of
my doorway to get closer to Dom when a loud
whoosh overhead was followed by an explosion
as a 105mm artillery shell slammed into the city
ahead of us.

Dave ran over to me as another whistled over
our heads. He crouched against a Datsun that
looked like it was held together with gaffer-tape.
'I bet they don't tell you about any of this shit
back home, eh? Can you imagine what the
papers would say?' He ran his hand along an
imaginary headline in the air. 'British Artillery
Shells Basra.'

A third 105 round landed, and seconds later an
AK opened up just ahead. Two Bulldog guns and
six or seven SA80s returned fire.

Two more AKs opened up. The PRRs were
jumping and the CSM got on the net. 'Leave 'em,
we've got things to do. Let's go, mount up.'

The Bulldogs' guns kept up the rates as guys
jumped back in. I grabbed hold of Dom and Pete.
Dave and the medic kept their covering positions
as Sonia held open the door. We scrambled in
and the others followed.

Dave seized the door handle and pointed at
Pete and Dom. 'Make sure you look after those
two. If they can lift you, they will. They're always
after a squaddy. One of you guys would be even
better. Bigger ransom.'

Pete turned to Sonia. 'And they'd be able to
understand what we were saying. He'd be no
good on Al Jazeera.'

Dave waited on the PRR for confirmation that
everybody was back inside their wagons. Finally
he leant across and thumped the company
commander on the leg before giving him the
thumbs-up.

As the tracks squealed again, we took three or
four rounds of AK into the side. The GPMG
rattled off a reply.

The wagon jerked and there was a loud scrape
of metal on metal. The whole right side of the
Bulldog lifted and the scraping continued.

Pete grinned. 'Someone won't be driving to
work in the morning.'

Dave thumbed the medic to get his arse back
on top cover, and it wasn't long before he was
signalling Pete to join them with his camera.

Dom wanted to follow but Sonia grabbed him.
She sounded like she should have been on
EastEnders
. 'It's just where the rocket launcher
was, innit? Stay here, love, it's safer.'

Pete came back down. He opened the side
screen of the camera and pressed play. We
crowded round. It was fantastic quality, black-and-white
IR, none of that hazy green stuff I was
used to seeing on TV. The 105s had wreaked
devastation. The remains of a six-barrel rocket
launcher lay mangled on the back of a truck. Pete
had homed in on what was left of a body. The
image shook as the Bulldog bounced about, but
he looked to be in his teens. The shredded clothing
was still smouldering. An arm was missing,
and a big chunk of the launcher stuck out of his
back.

'We got one of the fuckers, anyway.' Sonia's
East London tones even drowned the engine
noise.

My nostrils twitched. I could smell shit. I
looked at Sonia and raised an eyebrow.

'Not me.' She smiled. 'We're nearly there. Their
sewers are fucked.'

Dave got on to his PRR. 'Front vehicle, count
us in. Everyone, listen in.'

The company commander's head was buried
in his laptop. Signals popped up on the screen
every few seconds like messages in a chatroom.
He talked non-stop on the net. The signaller
worked frantically beside him. It was almost like
watching a movie.

The Fijian's voice filled the net, very slow, very
laid back, speaking as if he couldn't smell a whiff
of shit. 'We're turning on to the target street now.
Four hundred to go. Street is lit, house lights
going out.'