by Geoff Wolak
‘First French team, weapons down on the poncho, pick up the FN rifle and a magazine – four rounds.’ They placed down their old rifles and grabbed the SLRs, magazines slapped in. ‘Make ready weapons.’
They set the old moveable back sights to four hundred.
‘Advance, but return here afterwards.’
I turned to the French Major. ‘They’re familiar with these rifles?’
‘Yes, of course, many still in use here in Africa.’
The sounds produced during firing were distinctly different, more rounded, less of a sharp crack.
The first French team started towards us, soon swapping SLRs for their own rifles, being sent straight off around the village, the second French team grabbing fresh magazines.
‘Advance!’
Mally approached me as the teams rotated. ‘What do you want us doing, Boss?’
‘Helping out with the weapons. Help Crab and Duffy please for an hour or so.’
His six men, plus the four externals, moved to Sergeant Crab and the metal crates, and with all the teams firing an SLR once, Mally’s team assisted with cleaning as bolt action .303 rifles were laid out, four loose rounds on each poncho.
‘First team, ammunition in pockets, you are only allowed to load one round and fire one round at a time. Ready.’ Moran translated. ‘Advance.’
They jogged off, soon lying down, rounds in and pushed down, bolt closed, a few looking for the safety, the sights adjusted, and then they fired. Back to us, they complained of not knowing how the sights worked.
‘Us neither,’ I told them, Moran translating, the next team getting ready as the first marched off.
With all the teams back, they were all handed standard old AK47s, magazines with four rounds.
‘Advance!’
With the last team dispatched, the first French team now had three weapons each laid out, two magazines and four loose .303 rounds.
‘When I say go, you will start with the FN SLR, and when finished you will run back, next weapon, you are on the clock as well – but don’t sprint. Ready. Advance!’
They ran, grabbed the SLRs and magazines, turned and jogged off whilst keeping a line, magazines in, weapons cocked, soon blasting the head-targets.
After three advances they were shining with sweat when they got back to us, being encouraged by their countrymen.
‘You will now go around the hill - but double time. Go.’
They were back twenty minutes later, soaked in sweat and panting, plastic water bottles handed over, but they had time for a rest.
With the last team dispatched, Crab and Duffy drove down to the 100yard point, ponchos placed down, rifles, and small plastic sheets placed down at the 25yard mark. They finally drove back.
‘First French team,’ I called, the major wondering what we had done down the range. Medical tape out, the last three fingers of the left hand of each man were taped up, the French puzzling it. Handicapped they certainly were.
‘You will again fire the SLR, four rounds, and then run back, followed by the .303, then the AK47, and then back down to 100yards where you will find a Henri Martini .22 and ammo.’
Moran translated.
‘You will fire once, wait for the head target to come back up, fire again, weapon down. You will advance together to 25yards, and use the revolver, two rounds, again waiting for the target to come back up – if you hit it. Then run back. Simple. Ready.’
They exchanged confused looks.
‘Advance!’
They grabbed rifles awkwardly, as if fingers had been broken, magazines in, and off they went, the French major smiling as his men lay down, awkwardly holding their rifles with white-taped fingers sticking out straight.
The .303 bolt needed the left hand to hold it firm, something they discovered at the time, cursing and struggling, the revolver not an issue one handed, but better held by two hands.
Schedule complete, they were sent around the hill – at the double, the second French team having whispered advice to each other about what to do, Echo also planning ahead.
As the final team headed off - the first team just getting back and soaked in sweat, Crab swapped the .38 revolvers for .22 World War One revolvers.
Medical tape out, heads wiped, the French cursed as I taped over left eyes, their major laughing at them.
‘Advance!’
Heads were turned like owls as they checked what they were doing, and ten minutes later, puffing and sweating, they pushed .22 rounds into the dated revolvers, aimed carefully and fired.
At 2pm, the first team back and about to collapse from heat stroke, they were given three hours rest, many in need of it, it was hot as hell. Tape was peeled off. Mally and his men were about to collect up weapons when I called them in, grinning as fingers were taped up.
‘You’re a sadist, you know that,’ Mally told me just before I taped his eye.
‘Gentlemen, you know what to do, worst two scores go for a long walk in the heat.’
The Externals did well, a few weapons held awkwardly, some not that familiar with the SLR or AK47, but they could shoot straight. Scores tallied, ten men drenched in sweat, two of Mally’s men were sent off around the hill, cursing as they went.
Moran and I helped collect up weapons, the hardware soon back in the crates, our pilots tasked with cleaning them – and thus learning how to strip and operate them at the same time.
Back at the fence I gathered the Wolves. ‘Part of being here ... is experience; to live and operate in the heat, sleep in the sand, note the smell, take in the view. This -’ I gestured off to one side. ‘- is what it looks and feels like when you come down here to do a job. When you have a quiet moment, sit and think, take it in, and consider what you might do if you were here on a live job.
‘Don’t fear it, don’t be inconvenienced by the heat, learn how to deal with it. And the desert has some advantages, like no rain to piss you off. And you can sleep outdoors. Take in your surroundings, learn to love it, and then you can operate in such places. Dismissed.’
I sat in the shade of my flysheet with Moran and we tallied scores, Echo still in the lead, 2 Squadron second, the French trailing our Wolves first team – my four lads in that team.
At 4.30pm I called out the Wolves, dismissing my four lads, Sasha listening off to one side. ‘What you’ve done here ... is get some experience of what the desert feels like, and this range and that dummy village was used to get us ready for two jobs down here.
‘What you can’t do, is travel down from a cold windswept UK and parachute into the desert and do a job. That first day or two, your body adjusts, or you sweat to death. You’ve been living in the sand, eating in the sand, shitting in the sand, and that helps to build up experience for when you come down here on a live job.
‘If I had a live job to do down here next week, I’d have my guys go at that dummy village over and over. That way, they have it straight in their heads what to do, so when they get to the job its routine, not a surprise.
‘My guys are experts, and with experience, yet they’ll still practise the simple things over and over like they’ve never done it before. That way ... less fuck-ups.
‘If you come down here on a real job, you may parachute into the desert, walk and navigate, cook and sleep in the sand, then shoot someone. You’ve now all done that, and you know that you can do it. What comes next is a belief that you can do it.
‘And a word about the bad guys. If you get shot, it’s bad luck not good aim. They’re goat farmers and sheep shaggers who’ve had ten minutes training on the AK47. If you lose to them, you deserve to be shot. Don’t fear them, keep a cool head, single well-aimed shots around 200yards, and you’ll win. What they’ll do is spray it around over your heads.
‘And learn something now. There have been many times when my lads have asked about going into a village or compound, and I’ve said no; we skirt around, shoot from a distance. If you get close up, people shoot through walls and doors, throw grenades. If you
’re two hundred yards out – then no grenades, and solid dirt between you and the bad guys. Always avoid getting up close to the action if you can.
‘And if you’re by yourself, and there’re ten of them coming at you, take a breath, steady yourself, stay down, aim and fire, and keep going, and thirty seconds later they’re all dead. But the fact is ... if you shoot the first five the rest will fuck off anyway. I’d put one of you up against twenty of theirs any day. What’s needed ... is for you to believe that you can do it.’
At 4.45pm I blew a whistle, and tired bodies moved slowly towards some semblance of order. All were gathered at 5pm, water topped up. Crab handed out maps to those who did not already have them.
‘OK, listen up. The helicopters will be here soon and will drop you a few miles away. You need to navigate to the coordinates I give you, then back here. Simple.’
The Pumas touched down ten minutes later, a sand storm kicked up.
‘Make safe weapons, unload!’ I shouted, and as each of the first two French teams headed for a Puma I handed them a sheet.
The Pumas were back in hardly ten minutes, the final French team and Echo sent off, Rocko still complaining about dodgy French helicopters.
An hour later, the sun low on the horizon, Pumas headed back to the airfield - job done, all the teams inserted.
‘And the purpose?’ Major Liban idly enquired.
‘I may have accidentally asked the helicopter pilots to drop the teams twenty miles away at random places. Silly me.’
He threw his head back and laughed. ‘The navigation will need to be good, yes.’
I sat with Moran and the major and got some food cooking. Haines and his second flight, as well as Mally’s team, had been sent out as well, it was just us for supper.
My phone trilled. ‘It’s Swifty. That dosey French pilot dropped us at the wrong spot.’
‘I know, find your way back.’
‘Son of a -’
I put the phone away, getting four more calls, similar answers given. Figuring we’d be up late, Moran and I got some sleep down in the huts, sat phone by my ear ready.
At midnight we strolled back up, no one home, and made a fire, wondering who would be first back, and an hour later a team of Wolves came in, Nicholson smiling; he had navigated.
‘Nicholson, is there something you’re not telling me?’ I pressed.
‘Well, we were on this road, and this truck came along...’
‘And..?’
‘We got a lift for six miles in the back.’
‘Good, shows initiative. Dismissed till 9am.’
Echo came in next, having walked twenty-three miles at a brisk pace.
‘Good time,’ I commended. ‘How did you fix your position?’
‘The stars,’ Rocko said, a few lads snickering.
‘And ... how did you really fix your position?’
Rizzo admitted, ‘If you press a certain combination of buttons on the sat phone if gives you the position.’
‘It does? Show me.’
Rocko’s sat phone was a different model; mine did not have that feature.
‘Dismissed till 9am,’ I told them. ‘And good thinking, always cheat if you can.’
Sasha’s team came in next. They had guessed that they were east of the base, so had walked west till then found a road, then fixed the shape of the hills, and found a spot on the map that matched it, getting a bearing.
‘Good work,’ I commended. ‘Rest.’
Two French teams came in together, told to sleep by Moran, the Pathfinders, then 2 Squadron together, Mally’s team crawling in after some arguments about navigation. All were back by 2.15am.
At 9am many were sat finishing their cooking, some washing and getting ready. I called in the English teams and stood above them on the firing point.
‘If you don’t know where you are in the desert, you look for features – like roads, gullies, hills mostly. You then make an assumption, and move off, having told yourself that you should reach some feature after a certain number of miles. If you hit that feature then you’ve confirmed where you are, if not you need to reassess.
‘And at night, in the desert, you each count your steps and then average them out. If it’s a flat expanse of nothing, compass and steps taken does it, but you must trust that process. OK, buses will be here soon. Make sure your water is topped up, rations, phone batteries working. Captain Moran, same detail to the French please.’
I went and found Mally and his team. ‘OK, today your ten men are going to static line drop a few miles away. You will advance on the village, make an assessment of men seen – looking like standard targets, get as close as you can, then have at them. Mally, you’re in charge, no arguing. And yes, we’ll be watching.’
The men were marched down to the road, buses loaded, soon to be in the hands of the RAF. Moran and I walked back up to Crab, to load crates into the jeep. A hot hour later we had the range as we wanted it, many poncho’s laid out, lots of ammo and magazines getting warm.
After a sip of cold drink the drone could be heard, a Hercules soon circling at 1,000ft before heading east. What we could not see were the teams jumping just beyond the hill, team at a time, the Hercules circling after each drop, three jeeps with RAF staff sat on a road near the drop zone.
When the teams landed and grouped they had handed over chutes to the waiting RAF – sand shaken out, and had marched towards the range. We spotted the first French team half an hour later, a shine to their faces.
I waved them to me at the 300yard mark, Crab, Duffy and our pilots helping out. The French were duly lined up, expectant looks thrown at the range – and its assorted goodies laid out.
‘Line up, spread out beside the numbers, make ready your weapons – check barrels for sand!’
They did as asked.
I radioed the butts, and head targets appeared, but they were anything other than static. To the French team I instructed, ‘You will run down to 200yards, kneel, fire one round, advance to 100yards and fire one round, back to here, then do that again. Standby, advance!’
They ran down, knelt, fired, many targets missed, ran again to 100yards, took more time, and most targets were hit, back to us, a quick turn, and to repeat. Scores were noted.
‘Stand to one side,’ I ordered as the second team plodded purposefully in, waved over. They scored a little better, and forty minutes later all were lined up behind me in teams, the French major observing.
‘First team close in on me.’ They closed in as I radioed the butts. ‘You will run to one hundred, kneel, wait for targets, and fire a maximum of five rounds. After that you will walk up the hill and back to us. Get ready.’ They spread out. ‘Advance!’
They ran and knelt, got ready, and waited. And waited some more. A target popped up on No.8 lane, a shot fired, but missed.
They waited.
Two targets popped up, one hit and snapped back.
Four targets appeared, three hit, and ten minutes later all targets had popped up five times, a whistle blown from the butts. Grouped up, the team marched off, team two taking their places, and they knew what to do.
They fared slightly better before marching off. Echo and the Wolves did well, the first team getting back as the last man leaving the range kicked up dust. They ran to me and lined up.
‘When I say go, you will move to the 100yard point, five rounds at moving targets in quick succession, and all hits will be recorded. You will then pick up the FN SLR, five rounds rapid fire, followed by the .303, but you may load the magazine of the .303. You then have an Uzi with a full mag, and you can use all of the magazine.’
Moran translated.
‘Get to your lanes.’
They ran.
‘Advance!’
They swapped rifles, loaded and checked the SLRs, and fired away. SLRs placed down, .303 loaded, they fired as quickly as a bolt action rifle would allow, finally onto the Uzi, magazine in, cocked, short bursts fired standing up.
Uzis do
wn, Famas up, they were sent back, heading off to the distant hill again, the next team having witnessed it all, the men in the butts radioing scores per lane, all written down.
Major Liban began, ‘They all complain, but they all like a competition, especially like this. In France, we shoot, we parachute, but never together on the same day, no games like this.’
I nodded. ‘Any armed conflict is fought with racing hearts and racing heads, so a calm day on the range is not much use.’
‘Of course.’
With all the teams through, it was coming up to 3pm and hot as hell, the first team back soaked in sweat, dismissed till 6pm. We started to collect up weapons, Mally back as we finished, Duffy having observed them.
‘Well, how’d they do?’ I asked, the men all dusty, faces streaked in sweat and dirt.
‘Approach was stealthy, and they took good position, coordinated the attack, buildings searched in covering pairs, good withdrawal – whistle blown, so not too bad.’
I faced the four Externals. ‘What you’ve done here so far ... has been like a real job – which is the whole point. You sneak up on a place and make sketches and maps, note the guards etc, then you make a plan - then you go in. What you did today was to static line first, then hit the enemy camp, so you got that under your belts for the future.
‘And the more times you do this, the more routine it gets, so when it’s a real job you know what to do, and you don’t panic. That dummy village looks a lot like a job we did down here, the desert the same, and we dropped by helicopter – so you now have some experience of all the elements coming together.’
I faced Mally. ‘Based on what you’ve done, I could see myself telling Bob that you could handle a live job.’
He seemed pleased. ‘We’re not past it yet.’
‘But don’t take the good jobs from us, we like getting medals.’
At 6pm, and with the light fading, the men gathered – and they were now cleaned up a little. I detailed the team rankings, much booing and jeering from the French, Echo still in the lead.