Sabre Six : File 51 (11 page)

I patted my boys on the back and walked over to the four-ton lorry waiting for us at the bottom of the valley.

When we got to the bottom of the hill our boss called me over for a chat.

“You’re going back up. Not good
enough mate. Repeat!” I kept my mouth shut and got on with it. The lads moaned like fuck. It was our job, we were professional soldiers. Six hours later we had finally passed. The wankers were happy at last!

Arriving back at camp by 06:00hrs that morning, we were completely fucked. I had the biggest headache ever! I was very surprised to hear that we were ordered to report back at 15:00hrs that afternoon after we’d sorted our kit out and got our heads down for a few hours. The boss wanted to brief us up.

The wind had picked up again and my eyes were stinging. I belted it as fast as I could without being caught up in nature’s beastly elements. Then closing the flaps behind me, I walked into a tent full of fumes from the boss’s camping stove.

“What you got cooking then, b
oss?”

“I started it earlier: it’s taken me forever just to bring it to the boil.”

“That looks bloody marvellous that, boss, I haven’t had a stew in ages.”

“Sod off, Michael, and mak
e your bloody own!”

Stan and
Nig turned up together.

“Where the hell have you two been?”

“We were having a power nap!”

We poured ourselves a hot brew and the boss had a couple of plain biscuits to dunk.

“Come and sit down then, men! Let’s get this over and done with.”

We sat down on
our plastic chairs, Stan rocking backwards and forwards on his. We laughed our socks off when it collapsed and he plummeted to the floor. Stan went a little red in the cheeks, the silly sod!

“Right, l
ads, calm down! Let’s crack on.” We took our seats once more.

Marc, an e
x-army commando, came and sat down next to me. He wanted to borrow a pen, so I lent him mine. Marc was part of the Joint Services Intelligence Cell. It was his job to brief us men about the current situations brewing in country. We got out our notebooks and prepared for the briefing. Marc was from St Helena Island, just west of Namibia, Africa. He was born in a town called Jamestown, south of the Island. He had spent his childhood fishing, and it was not long before he set sail and fished for a career in the high seas. Marc’s father passed away at home in bed when Marc was sixteen: he died of cancer. His mother still lived on the Island and was alive and well. The British Army and the Special Forces recruited Marc in the spring of 1994, and in 1996 Marc joined the Intelligence Corps attached to the Special Forces.

“Right, m
en, let’s get cracking on. Tonight I am going to give you a briefing about ‘Operation Sombre.’ I want you to take notes and pin those ears back, as what I tell you tonight will be very significant to your duties here in Iraq.

I could still hear the wind outside battering the sides of the tent. Marc sparked up a fag and blew the smoke up into the tent
’s ceiling.

“The first team, led by you, Sergeant Fox, will prepare for patrols commencing in three days. Captain Ralf-Marshall and I will lead the second and third patrols.”

“Our mission is to dominate Al-Qaida by bringing the fight to them. We will deploy to high ground, by Black Hawk and then by foot, then tab in and deploy fixed observation posts watching over caves, roads, villages etc.”

“What support do we have, b
oss?” Marc stood up and walked to the front of the class. He stood very calmly. His hair was jet black and there was a hint of mixed race to him. He was rather a ladies’ man. Marc placed his note book on the desk, looked up at the boys, and introduced himself in a no-nonsense manner.

“Bugger all
, Nigel; sod all, apart from the men on the ground with you. You will be going into enemy held territory and you will be on your own. There will be no doubt of that.” We just smiled. A typical answer really.

“We’ll be going in by Black Hawk to this grid reference here on the map. This is a black-ops mission
, folks. Do you all understand that?” We all looked up at Marc. He was switched on to fuck! The briefing went on for a further hour. Each man knew what his job was, and I was a very happy boy.

“Michael, get sorted with Steve in a b
it and get your shit together. Ok, Mate?”

“Sound, B
oss!”

“That’s all I have to say, m
en. Thank you for your time.”

We ran back to our bunks. The storm had calmed down a little, but a thick pile of sand and other shit had collected against the hangar door, nonetheless. I was going to fill Stan’s boots up with sand but decided he’d had enough for one day, bless him! Once settled in for the night I wrote a letter home to Hannah, telling her that I missed her and that if anything should happen to me then she should move on without looking back. I wanted her to throw a party in my honour, and then get out on the town and celebrate a little. When I’d finished my letter, I handed it over to Lionel, our quartermaster, who was in charge of all materials, parts and bodies in the squadron. If I were to die, he would post it to Hannah. I rang her one last time and explained that I would not be phoning for a while as something had come up. I told her nothing: she was a bright girl; she knew the score.

My Bergen weighed in excess of 100lb, carrying food and water, spare ammo and radio batteries. I dumped all my kit
outside the hangar and watched Nig light his fag up. He blew the smoke into my face and then smiled at me, the cheeky shit! The chopper landed next to us and the pilot jumped out and ran past me. He was running to the toilets in distress – busting apparently. The boys and I dumped our kit in the back of the chopper and hung round for five minutes; Nig got a last fag in before we took off. The pilot looked round at us from inside his cockpit.

“Are you boys ready to go?” I nodded and smiled with the thumbs up; he then turned around, waved at the grou
nd crew and we began to ascend.

It was 23:23hrs, Friday 5
th
May, and it was freezing cold in the cabin. I put my hands in my pockets and rubbed them against my crutch to keep them warm. Stan and my boys looked happy; Nig was wanking… I think! It looked like it from where I was anyhow.

We were flying low level. The pilot was very
aggressive with his manoeuvres, and we were up and down like a yoyo. The door gunner told me to put on my headphones, as the pilot wanted a word.

“Hello, is this live?” The pilot enquired. “Can you hear me?”

“Hi, and yes, we are live!” He laughed, a little.

“So, we’ll be landing hard.
We’ll have a twenty second window on the ground, so you can get all your kit off etc.”

“Ok, B
oss! Sounds good to me.”

“Well, good luck g
uys from all of us! Keep safe, and thank you for travelling with Chicken Airlines! Hopefully we’ll see you all soon.” He signed off the net.

The cabin suddenly went into a red glow as the white lights were switched off. This should have made Nig
feel at home: it gave off the red glow of a brothel!

I got the boys to double check their kit
, with each man giving me the thumbs up once they had finished, and all was looking good. Next, the door gunner gave me the thumbs up and took control of his gun. He opened the door of the chopper, and then peeked his head outside, checking for any visible dangers. The chopper banked violently from left to right, up and down, side to side. It was very fortunate we had our belts on, or we would have been tossed out the door!  I shouted out for the men to prepare to move. The small red light we had in the back, was turned off; it gave just about enough light to read a map. We were now flying blind, relying on the skills of the pilot to take us down successfully. I could see the door gunner’s lips moving. He must have been relaying messages back to the pilot. I felt the bird hit the deck, automatically grabbed my kit and bunged it out the door. My men were out on the deck giving covering fire if needed. We got into all-round defence position: a circular field of fire in case of an insurgent attack. The bird took off into the dark sky; I could hear her for about two miles, and then silence. I checked our co-ordinates; it was very rare for the RAF to have actually landed in the correct location. They’d normally fuck it up. In my own opinion, the navy were a much better class, but that’s just my opinion!

I stayed on the deck for a few minutes taking my bearings, then got on the comms and relayed a message to check our kit. Once I got everything sorted, we quickly started tabbing to high ground. We needed to be at RV1 by early morning, no later than 04:00hrs. The ground was thick, tough going. It was a field full of rock and gravel with the odd bit of bush growing. It was not long before the cold bit right through my body: We had to grin and bear it and move hard through the night.

Our first objective was to operate an OP (Observation Post)
; we were to cover an Intelligence led position on the eastern edge of Dakar Ridge. From the top, we could set up a twenty-four hour observation post, clocking anything that moved, (as per Marc’s briefing). The going was tough but we got through it. By the time we arrived, we were soaking with sweat from head to foot.

On reaching RV
1, we immediately set up our OP; Nig then confirmed by a short, sharp burst radio transmission that we were in position.

I took up first post whilst the lads got their heads down. I could see the sun rising in the distance: it looked somewhat appealing, all things considered, and Hannah would have loved it. The traffic was somewhat low at this point of the day, just a few goat-herders with their floc
ks and the odd vehicle that was so beat-up, you wouldn’t be able to recognise their make anyhow.

What we needed to get
was some positive targets. Our job was to clock any military movement up and down the highway, then report it back in code via the radio net: it was that simple really.

Jesus Christ, once the sun came up it was boiling, I was sweating like a pig. I took a mouthful of drinking water and swirled it around my mouth. Stan was eating a ration biscuit, Nig was wanking again, and Keith was on-watch behind me. Our Nig had his shirt off catching some rays whilst abroad, the useless twat that he was, bless him!

Two hours had passed – it was Stan’s turn now. I briefed him and he got on with it. I, on the other hand, knelt down and collapsed on my webbing. I munched on a few old biscuit browns from my army 24hr ration pack; they were bloody minging as always.

“Wake up, b
oys, I got us a present! Look over there – can you see them?” Stan pointed towards the road, but I couldn’t see at first, as I had only just woken up.

“Well,
bugger me, yeah! I got ya, Stan! I got ya, son!” We all looked.

A convoy of Iraqi vehicles and troops made their way up the highway oblivious of our presence; there must have been over fifteen wagons there, and over two hundred troops. Nig tucked himself away and immediately sent a contact report in code. He liked using code: it turned him on a lot, not that it took much!

That night we packed up and prepared to move on to RV2. We made sure we smashed our OP up; it was made to look like a mountain goat had had a good time. We took off at about 21:30hrs: after dark, needing to be high up in the mountains by morning. We could find cover nearer the time; there was sure to be more up there than where we were now. At RV2 our next task would be to recce any caves in and around our RV. Our aim was not to move in, but to take grid references and then report them to High Command. If, and I mean if, we were to find any hostiles, we had been given orders NOT to fire, ONLY to observe!

On reaching RV2 we were quite surprised to fi
nd nothing, not one bloody cave. It was very disappointing really: not a single darn cave. Nig decided to knock it on the head and rest up for the day. In his words, “We were not in any hurry!” He was right, plus time was getting on by now. I sent Stan on stag for one hour; Nig would then relieve him.

The day was rather peaceful until it was my turn on stag. Keith woke me up at 15:30hrs and I picked up my rifle and slid over to my OP. Keith got in his pit behind me; I gave him the wanke
r sign as he slid into his bed, rested my rifle down on its side and picked up my binos. There was an amazing view down into the canyons far below. Then, dropping the binos, I put my finger on the trigger! “Bugger me!” I kicked Stan, and he leant next to me.

“Shhhh!”
I whispered in his ear. “Over there! Can you see him?” Stan looked over my shoulder.

“Keep quiet,
and wake the others up!”

The s
hepherd walked closer and closer towards our hideout. We could not have been too sure where we were hiding, as it was dark when we found it. For all I knew, we could be in a Tesco’s car park. I very slowly picked up my weapon and removed the safety catch, realizing as I did so that if I shot the bastard, the sound would echo throughout the entire valley. We would be dead within the hour. Placing it back on the ground, I carefully pulled out my knife and held it tight in my hands.