by Geoff Wolak
‘I always do, so no bother. And your FCO guy, can he alter plans?’
‘Not without checking with us, no.’
‘Then we wait some planes and some men. I’ll call you tomorrow.’
Phone away, I sat on my plastic chair, cleaning my rifle, other lads also cleaning or checking kit, and ten minutes later the distinctive drone built, a Hercules touching down in the dark, a string of lights now illuminating the strip.
It moved off to the left, and I walked out to get a better look, soon seeing men walking out the rear, a truck pulling up, local soldiers helping with kit off the plane as the engines idled.
Kit and men off, ramp up, the Hercules powered up and taxied past me, close enough to wave at the pilots, and to the end of the strip, a sharp turn, power on, and off it went into a dark blue sky. But having taken off, it banked hard left and came around, heading west. I figured it was heading to the capital.
Back at the frontof the billet I waited, a truck preceding a line of men with heavy kit, and the truck eased to a halt right in front of me, the same local officer jumping down.
‘Your men be up the stairs,’ he informed me as “A” Squadron appeared.
‘Up the stairs,’ I told them, and climbed the stairs with them, the men in desert garb – but with dark green Bergens. One bed had a mattress, but just one.
‘No mattresses?’ they complained about straight away.
‘We don’t have any, but they are on their way ... and will arrive just as we’re leaving,’ I told them, the men laughing. ‘Get settled in, and we have bottled water, and there’s a cafe if you need to eat.’
‘We need to eat,’ Fishy insisted.
I loudly suggested, ‘Grab a bed, dump kit, bring in the kit off the truck, and then I’ll take you to the cafe.’
I helped move kit bags and metal crates upstairs, but told the local officer to keep the chutes where ours were stored, wherever that was. He assured me they were under lock and key. Actually, he told me they were under a locked tree, but I got the gist of it.
Kit lugged, sweaty faces displayed, a mess made, I led them down and we walked diagonally across uniform squares, walking on the grass where I guessed we most definitely would not be welcome to walk on the grass, and to the gate.
We ran across the highway after a few trucks passed, the cafe open late, a few locals in.
‘We ain’t got local money,’ came from a few men.
‘I have,’ I shouted. ‘Sit down.’
The same lady came around to me. ‘Twelve chicken and chips, please, and fanta. Unless you have beer?’
‘I have dee beer, yes.’
‘Beer for each man. Thanks.’
‘Fucking warm here,’ the man opposite me noted, and I recognised most all of these men from the Congo.
‘Even warmer where we’re going,’ I told him.
‘Where we going?’ he puzzled.
‘French airstrip just inside Mali. We’re a long way from the bad boys here, that place is just eighty miles.’
‘Could use jeeps,’ a man noted.
‘Gentlemen, I have operational command,’ I told them as the locals puzzled us, the troop captain keenly listening in. Since he seemed to be seventeen years old, slightly built and fresh-faced, I was not expecting trouble. I pointed at the kid. ‘You taking part in live ops, Captain?’
‘I’ve been told not to, but to liaise here, and back with the CO.’
I nodded. ‘All good experience for you.’
Beers were placed down and opened by the lady’s bottle-opener, hanging from her dirty apron.
‘When we moving?’ Fishy asked me.
‘Maybe as soon as the morning, so don’t get comfy. Oh, did you bring some pilots down with you?’
‘Yeah, they went off to the officers mess.’
I faced the kid captain. ‘You can stay there.’
‘If it’s just a night, it makes no difference.’ He studied me for a moment. ‘You always sleep in with the men.’
‘I do, because it helps to know them well. That way, when you’re in the jungle, you have a feel for them, orders are sometimes not needed, just a look and a nod. And I also get to know the men and the moods. If any one of them thought of me as your troop does of you ... I’d have them removed.’
He took in the faces as they glanced at him. ‘I’m new, so it may take some time to ... get to know the men and their moods.’
‘French special forces follow their officer’s every word, so too the Americans...’
The troopers exchanged uneasy looks.
‘So how is Major Chalmers?’ I finally asked.
They were careful of what they said in front of the captain
‘In good health,’ one quipped.
‘And the plan?’ they asked me.
‘Not a clue, don’t even have so much as a map yet. But we do have a Skyvan at our disposal, so it can fly over and take a look.’
‘HALO in?’
‘Perhaps, a recon team,’ I agreed. ‘But there’ll be no helicopter rescue available, so we may need to be ... prudent and cautious.’
‘Since when have you been cautious,’ Fishy challenged. ‘You’re idea of a quiet recon is to kill every fucker in the town.’
The men laughed.
I made eye contact with the kid captain. ‘Shouldn’t believe all you hear about me.’
‘And that town in Somalia?’ Fishy pressed, so I gave them the story, the full story over half an hour, meals brought out, men tucking in – as well as listening in.
I finally said to the captain, ‘The best way to learn soldiering ... is by listening to such stories, and to learn from other people’s mistakes. And learn now, and learn well, that success is simply the absence of fuck ups. If you lead a group of men to get some hostages, and find that all the bad boys died from food poisoning, no shots fired, you get a medal – because you didn’t fuck up.’
‘Have you ... made mistakes in the field?’ he risked.
‘A mistake ... is to turn left when someone tells you it’s mined, men killed. If you have no choices left, and launch an assault and men are killed, that’s not a mistake. If a helicopter goes down, that’s not a mistake. A mistake is to ignore good intel or good advice, to read a map wrongly, to arrive at the wrong time.
‘If you mean well, and men are killed, that’s not a mistake in the field, that’s just everyday soldiering. In Bosnia, I suggested we snipe at the advancing hordes, and Tabby and Captain Tyler agreed, to slow the Serbs up. As a result of my sniping they fired artillery, and killed all the men in my patrol.
‘Some have seen that as a mistake, but ... we had no idea about artillery, and common sense would have dictated that they not use artillery so close to their own men.’
The captain said, ‘And that artillery did kill their own men.’
I nodded, men eating their chips. ‘Yes, many of them. The officer who took that decision made a mistake, one of many. Tabby made no mistakes, he had a few options, none of them wrong, just ... options; surrender, fight, sneak out, hide.’
‘And the correct option, with the benefit of hindsight?’ he pushed.
‘There isn’t one. Surrender would have seemed like a good choice, but we know now what they did to prisoners.’
‘And did Intel get it wrong?’ he asked.
I wiped my sweaty brow. ‘They were late, not wrong, late by four or five hours, and that may have made a difference. It was just bad luck that the Serbs were there for another reason.’ I could see his brain working away.
Food finished, I paid the lady, and we walked back, now past midnight. ‘There’s a range over the strip, jog around to it tomorrow if you like, but the command meeting at 9am, two storey building with HQ something written on it.’ I pointed. ‘That one.’
Back in my billet, Moran casually mentioned, ‘Two pilots came looking for you, be back in the morning.’
I nodded. ‘They’re in the officers mess.’
Moran lifted his head. ‘God, I can
’t remember the last time I stayed in an officers mess.’
‘Miss your batman and breakfast in bed?’ Rocko teased.
‘No, I have you to fetch my slippers.’
Laughter cackled around the room.
‘If I fetched your slippers, they may have holes in them,’ Rocko retorted.
‘Better than Tomo,’ I said, and Tomo lifted his head. ‘He’d shit in them.’
Tomo pointed out, ‘It was Smitty that shat in that officer’s desk drawer. I peed in the other drawer.’
More laughter cackled around the room.
I faced Swifty. ‘New officer upstairs, looks like he’s seventeen.’
‘Great, that always helps; an officer with acne.’
At 6am I was up, not having slept too well, and I puzzled our night guard by bending and stretching, then jogging for ten minutes. At 7am everyone was up, so at 7.30am I led them to the cafe, rifles in hand again, a diagonal route taken. But we did avoid the flower beds.
The same lady was on duty, leaving me wondering when she slept, and I ordered chicken and chips again, with fanta. Forty minutes later, as we ambled back, a Skyvan landed, followed by the Islander that Bob had mentioned.
‘Ride is here,’ Swifty noted.
‘How fucking reliable are they?’ Rocko grumbled.
‘We’ll test them today,’ I began. ‘We’ll be in them at the time.’
‘Chutes on,’ Rizzo said.
‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘Definitely.’
At 9am I led the kid captain plus Moran down to the HQ building, having sent word to the pilots and – hopefully – the FCO guy, Thorton. As we got there I noticed many new bodies.
Thorton greeted me, welcomed the kid captain and Moran, and then pointed out our two pilots before introducing me to a local colonel, much braid displayed on the man. SIGINT stood off to one side, the two hassled MOD guys near them. ‘This is Colonel Attah-Ali, he’s our host and will ... oversee whatever we do here.’
‘Thank you for your hospitality, Colonel,’ I began. ‘We’ll be leaving today.’
‘You will?’ came from several mouths at the same time.
‘Yes, we have a French base on the Mali border we’ll use.’ I faced the pilots. ‘Please check-out the Skyvan at your earliest convenience, gentlemen, and see if we have a contract pilot for the Islander.’
‘There are two,’ came from the MOD guys, the colonel looking a bit lost, Thorton looking a bit put out.
‘Then they should know how serviceable their plane is. Tell them that they’ll ferry us north today, two trips most likely, check on fuel please, and check with London to see what fuel awaits us – there should be some there.’
I shook the colonel’s hand. ‘Thank you for the hospitality shown, your men were most helpful.’
Captain Harris cut in, ‘Should some of us stay here, we have good comms here, what’s at the strip on the border?’
‘Not much at that strip, so yes – leave some people here, you are just at the end of the phone. And -’ I faced Thorton ‘- we’d bring any hostages back here.’
He nodded.
‘Pilots, Major, we wait news of serviceable aircraft, and fuel.’ I faced Captain Harris. ‘Get the details of that strip, check with London for any updates. And some maps might be nice.’
I led Moran and the kid captain out, and back to the billet. Inside, I shouted, ‘OK, pack up ready to go, we should have a flight out today.’
The “A” Squadron captain heard me as he climbed the stairs, no doubt to pass on that message to his men – but with less gusto.
Half an hour later Captain Harris appeared. ‘Four will come to the strip, rest will use the kit here, but if we find good electricity at the strip we could bring them up.’
‘No big deal,’ I told him. ‘But I want you close by.’
‘And that strip, there’ll be trouble? I need my tin hat?’
‘No, quiet backwater, no history of problems, two dozen French soldiers there.’
Ten minutes later, Moran noted the Skyvan taking off, and it made three touch-and-goes. The pilots eventually came to me, dressed in desert browns, blue-grey RAF berets.
‘Skyvan is OK, we checked the log books, bounced her around.’
‘Got the location?’
‘Yes, and maps, straight line there, sat nav in the bird, so we shouldn’t get lost.’
‘First, you take our kit, Islander as well in use, then back here. How long?’
‘Round trip, six hours.’
I gave that some thought. ‘Take four of us, four in the Islander, and as much kit as can be moved.’
‘Those crates are not heavy,’ they pointed out.
‘Two have ammo and grenades, they’re heavy.’
‘I’d say we’d get most of your kit first go.’
‘Split it, some tomorrow.’
‘What happened to the Hercules?’ Moran asked.
‘Went back to the UK,’ the pilots reported. ‘Not tasked to assist.’
‘Then we make do,’ I said.
Upstairs, I told them the plan, and that they would be flown out tomorrow, and to rest and acclimatise.
‘What about coaches?’ the kid captain asked.
I stared at him as others shot him looks. ‘Remember that chat about mistakes...’
With the local captain getting his truck back, and a few keen local soldiers to assist, we loaded most of the kit, personal crates left for those men remaining. The truck was sent off to find some parachutes. At the Skyvan the men loaded kit, the pilots glancing at the undercarriage several times. I finally asked if they were worried about the wheels.
‘No, there’s a scale on the wheel struts, tells us how heavy we are.’
‘That helps,’ I quipped.
We got all the kit we wanted to take on board, plus six men - not four, and we were still within safety margins, the pilots roping crates together to stop movement.
Engines started, I walked off the ramp and to Echo as they lined up. Other kit had been loaded to the Islander, none left on the hot tarmac, the Islander to take Rocko, Slider, Henri and Jacque.
‘Staff Sergeant Rizzo, hold the money.’ I handed over what I had left. ‘Should be enough for a dozen meals for just you lot, planes should be back for you tonight, but fly out in the morning. Get some running in, some range time.’
Thornton pulled up in his jeep. ‘Safe flight,’ he offered.
‘Any changes to plans and intel, sir, call me, they have my number.’
‘Will do. Good luck.’
‘Thanks for all of your assistance, sir.’
‘You’re a bit like I had imagined, but ... more officer and less killer.’
I smiled as I boarded. Ramp down, engines throttled up, and we taxied down the perimeter track, turned left and onto the runway, a check made with the small tower, and off we went, nose up in no time.
Levelling off, I grabbed a chute and placed it behind me before I sat back down, the lads copying, Smitty and Tomo now with my team. Tomo wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to me: “Are we nearly there yet?”
Laughing, I handed it to Swifty, the note passed around.
Below us lay an ocean of sand, occasionally broken by brown dirt or ridges, dried river beds, a few settlements, some odd areas of green cultivation in the middle of nowhere. But at least it was a smooth ride.
An hour later I peered down, the sand dunes shaped like rippled sand seen at low tide, as if a great ocean had been here once. It was a bad place to have a fuck up, few settlements, few roads.
Just over two hours after leaving Niger we circled the strip and made contact with the French below, descended in a loop and lined up, a gentle touchdown, and from the air I had seen the lack of facilities. The strip ran north to south, small tower on the right, a few brick buildings behind it, one large shed, some small sheds, a few tents, and little else.
As we taxied around I could see that the larger shed was a hangar for small aircraft, a Cessna being worked on,
a fuel truck sat awaiting some trade, two dated old buses, a few cars, four French soldiers and four local men stood ready to assist. And beyond them there was nothing, just a flat expanse.
Stepping down – and hit by the heat, rifle loaded and ready, I walked across to the reception committee as the Islander taxied around. ‘Speak English?’
‘Yes, some,’ came back. The man pointed at a shed. ‘Here, left, for you.’ He pointed at the Skyvan. ‘Cargo.’
I nodded, and waved the lads over as they lugged crates, the four local men running to assist. We had the use of one side of a hot shed and so we stacked our kit, the Skyvan sent off after the pilots had used toilets and drunk some cold water. The Islander pilots, both Belgians, made use of the facilities as well, took their time, then headed off back to Niger.
Outside the shed, I asked about accommodation. There was none.
‘OK, we sleep on sand, no problem.’
Leaving Smitty to guard the kit, we walked around the buildings and to a dilapidated fence. It would have to do.
‘Make a happy home!’
Swifty grabbed sticks as I rigged up a brown elasticated flysheet, large enough to cover ten men, making use of the two highest fence poles, and the highest point was six feet tall. Swifty hammered in sticks using a rock, and we soon had a home, ponchos laid down. Inside, we could walk around bent-double.
Settled, Mahoney on stag, I led Moran back to the buildings. After a cold drink, we enquired about bottled water, and were shown to a room housing many bottles, but also shown to a water tanker in a shed, its water cool enough.
Back at the bivvy we placed down bottles.
‘This all there is?’ Swifty asked.
‘Yep, less here than that range in Morocco. But the town is not far, and there’s a daily truck with produce to buy.’
‘Got any money?’
‘Ah, you saw through my cunning plan.’
‘I have some pounds,’ Moran noted. ‘Might be able to change some.’
‘Good thinking.’ I stopped, and checked my pockets, and my ID plastic bag. ‘I have forty quid. Thought I left some in there.’
‘At local prices,’ Mahoney began, ‘that’ll last a month.’
In almost perfect silence, we were soon laying on our backs, dozing, the day damn hot, a slight breeze easing our suffering.