by Shaun Clarke
All of this was observed by Ricketts and his mates from their sangar halfway up the northern slopes. During the morning and afternoon, they were baking in the heat and, as usual, driven mad by flies and mosquitoes, but as last light came the air started turning cold, reminding them that they were in for an uncomfortable night. They were, however, heartened to see the mess tent being put up by the REME while the kitchen staff unloaded the equipment brought in on a Skyvan. By last light, the kitchen was in operation and men were queuing up at the mess tent, now brightly illuminated inside with lamps lit by the mobile generators.
Tired of living off brew-up and high-calorie rations from his survival belt, Jock contacted Lampton on his PRC 319 radio. ‘We have a bit of a problem up here, boss,’ he said while gazing at the sangar further down the hill, where he could actually see Lampton with his own radio.
‘Hear you loud and clear, Trooper. What’s the problem?’
‘An acute shortage of high-calorie rations, boss, hand in hand with the desperate yearning for a decent meal.’
‘I still hear you loud and clear, but this sangar has no kitchen, so why are you bothering me, Trooper?’
Jock grinned at Ricketts. ‘Seems to us, boss, that there’s bright lights and a healthy queue down in that mess tent.’
‘I have eyeball contact, Trooper, and can confirm. In fact, I’m just on my way down there myself to tag onto that queue. Any more problems, Trooper?’
‘A little problem of permission, boss, given that we’re on watch. Not complaining, mind you.’
Lampton broke down and laughed, then spoke through a wave of static. ‘OK, Trooper, you win. The Regiment respects persistence. Two men have to be on watch at any given time, which means one man at a time down in the mess. My recommendation’s for a Chinese parliament to decide. Either that or toss a coin if you’ve got one. Over and out.’
Not having a coin between them, they scratched a head on a small, flat stone and flipped it three times, with the first loser being condemned to go downhill last, the next loser second to last, the third loser second and the winner first. Ricketts, however, rigged it so that Jock could have first go as a reward for getting on the blower.
While Jock was in the mess tent below, making up for his two days of enforced dieting, Ricketts and the other two carefully shook out their gear, then rolled out two sleeping bags in the sangar. Only two of them would be allowed to sleep at any one time, with the other two keeping watch together, with each one ensuring that the other was still awake.
Waiting for Jock’s return, Gumboot huddled up in the sangar, protected by the wall of stones, and had a smoke. Ricketts and Andrew, their weapons resting lightly on the wall on either side of the GPMG, kept watch in all directions. After the heat of the day, the night was bitterly cold.
When Jock returned, Gumboot hurried downhill and Jock took Andrew’s place on watch, letting the latter huddle down behind the wall to warm himself and have a cigarette. Andrew went down next, with Gumboot taking Ricketts’s place beside Jock, allowing Ricketts to huddle beneath the wall, out of the biting wind. By the time Andrew returned, Ricketts was feeling a lot warmer and hurried down the hill to the mess, in the mood to eat.
After the dark and cold of the hill, the mess tent seemed brilliantly illuminated, warm and inviting. It was, indeed, packed and noisy, with everyone in a good mood, and Ricketts relished his compo sausages, mashed potatoes, green peas and baked beans, followed by apple pie and hot custard. He was there for forty minutes, had a good talk with some other troopers, then reluctantly climbed back up the hill to relieve Jock on watch. The men then took turns at watch, or stag, two on, two off, until first light. Sleep, when it came, was constantly interrupted as the adoo, still pursuing their guerrilla tactics, fired their rifles and mortars at irregular intervals throughout the night.
The resup flights had also continued throughout the night and by first light the following day Skyvans, Caribou transport planes and helicopters had lifted in defence stores and ordnance; full and empty oil drums, the latter to be used to build defensive walls; water and rations; jeeps, trucks, Saladin armoured cars; donkeys for carrying heavy loads on mountain patrols; and even live goats to be killed, cooked and eaten by the firqats.
‘Talk about special privileges!’ Gumboot complained. ‘We eat compo rations and those A-rabs get live goats for their fucking couscous. A diabolical liberty!’
‘The food’s part of their religion as well,’ Andrew explained, ‘which is why they get those so-called special privileges.’
‘How come religious people get everything and we sinners get nothing?’
‘It’s the same back in England,’ Andrew said. ‘The same in America. Religion excuses every damn thing.’
‘Still, it’s a fucking liberty. We get sausage and beans and they get bloody couscous.’
‘Would you actually eat couscous, Gumboot?’
‘Are you fucking crazy? That shit’s for the birds!’
‘There you are, then’
‘Never mind what I’ll eat or not, Andrew. It’s the fucking principle, mate!’
‘Couscous for breakfast, dinner and tea,’ Jock said, ‘must be a wonderful, stomach-wrenching experience.’
‘You’d be farting like a whale with gastritis,’ Gumboot warned him. ‘Stay well away from it, mate!’
From their vantage point high on the northern hill, Ricketts and Andrew, in particular, found it fascinating to observe with what speed and efficiency the base camp was built around the original, largely featureless airstrip. Artillery positions consisting of 40-gallon-drum hedgehogs were built on all four sides of the runway and manned with 25-pounders and Browning 0.5in heavy machine-guns, the latter having a range of 1400 metres and a firing rate of up to 500 rounds per minute. Sangars were placed at regular intervals between the hedgehogs and armed with Browning 0.3in medium machine-guns – range 900 metres and 400-500 RPM – and Carl Gustav 84mm rocket launchers. Other sangars were equipped with the same MMGs, but had 81mm mortars instead of the rocket launchers. The combination of heavily armed hedgehogs and sangars formed a natural defensive perimeter around the base camp.
The work was completed by lunchtime the second day. By late afternoon, marquees and bivouacs were sprouting all over the area, with many of the latter in two sets of three lines, making an accommodation area for the SAS, SAF and Baluchi troopers, each with their individual lines. The two sets of tents were divided by an area of flat land to be used as a football pitch and general recreation area. Portable showers and chemical toilets were raised near the tents. An artificial wall was created from piled Burmails to protect the rows of bivouacs from the four LZs specially cleared for the helicopters. South of the airstrip, near the cleared bottleneck, was a fenced-in armoured car parking area. Above it, near the eastern hill, were the officers’ tent lines and toilets, the mess tent, and a captured enemy personnel, or CEP, tent. North of the airstrip, obliquely below Ricketts’s sangar, were marquees used as the rations, equipment and ammunition stores. Located well away from those and the accommodations areas, in order to avoid the smell, was a donkey handler’s tent with fenced-in area for the donkeys, plus a similar area for the goats and goatherds. As they were not bothered by the smell and indeed had sole use of the goats as a source of food, the firqats had their own camp, located near the base of the western hill. From there they could constantly patrol the hill with the support of SAF troops.
By last light on the second day, the camp was a thriving community, with goats and donkeys braying; SAF and Baluchi troops being noisily and rigorously drilled by their officers; REMFs hammering, drilling and shouting instructions; SAS troops playing football on the new pitch; firqat members slaughtering a squealing goat, draining it of blood, skinning it, and cooking it over an open fire; jeeps and Saladin armoured cars roaring and rattling all over the place; helicopters ascending and descending from their four LZs; and Skyvans and Caribou transports continuing to land and take off on the runway, bringing in more
supplies and taking out what was no longer required.
All of this took place while adoo mortar shells and FN rifle fire continued to tear up the earth on the slopes above the western perimeter.
Shortly after the last of the four-man team in Ricketts’s sangar had returned from the mess tent, Sergeant Lampton came up the hill at the crouch to squat beside them and tell them what was happening.
‘The force is being split into two fighting units, or fire groups,’ he told them. The first, called the Eastern Group, will be tasked with probing deeper into the eastern area. As the adoo beyond the western hill are gathered around the Ain watering-hole, the second group, the Western Group, of which you’ll be part, are going to start clearing them out tomorrow. This sangar, including the machine-gun, will be taken over by some other troopers while you lot rejoin Purvis and Raglan to gain experience in close-contact mountain fighting, under my guidance. We move out at …’
‘First light,’ Andrew interrupted him.
Lampton grinned. ‘You’re obviously learning, Trooper. Now have a good night.’
The sergeant slithered his way back down the hill, to the sangar he was sharing with Tom and Bill.
Later, close to midnight, the adoo released their most sustained volley of fire since surrendering the airstrip. From Ricketts’s position in the sangar, he could see the eerily beautiful, gracefully arching, green tracer gliding out from the pitch-black western hill, picking up speed as it curved down towards the airstrip, then exploding either on the ground or spending itself in silvery bursts in the darkness above the many tents of the new camp. It was a magical sight he would never forget.
Though he did not know it then, it was the beginning of five days of bloody fighting.
Chapter 14
The intermittent rifle and mortar fire of the night allowed Ricketts and his mates very little sleep. Struggling awake at first light, when Gumboot and Jock were still on watch, he felt sleepless, cold and full of faint aches and pains. Sitting upright and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he glanced over the sangar wall just as another mortar explosion shook the lower slopes of the western hill, sending a column of sand, soil and smoke into the pearly-grey air.
‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I feel shattered.’
‘Aye,’ Jock agreed, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he leaned on the wall beside the GPMG with his M16 rifle resting across the stones. ‘Me and Gumboot, we’ve just been saying the same thing. What a fucking night!’
‘Right!’ said Gumboot. ‘Fireworks all night long. Just to keep our eyes open. I can’t remember when I last had a good sleep. My eyes feel like lead.’
Andrew, who had been sleeping beside Ricketts, groaned and also sat upright. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I feel terrible.’
Jock and Gumboot laughed. ‘You better get used to it,’ Jock said. ‘I don’t think we’ll get much rest today – nor tonight for that matter. Here come our replacements.’
Ricketts glanced over the wall again and saw the new four-man team making their way laboriously up the steep hill. A similar group was already at Lampton’s sangar, replacing the sergeant, Tom and Bill, who were presently making their way downhill. Pale sunlight was falling on the dry earth, streaking the grey light with silvery striations that heralded the heat. On the western hill, there was no sign of the adoo, who had been firing on and off all night and were continuing to do so. Most of them were hidden behind the rim of the hill, but others, Ricketts suspected, were sniping from behind the slope overlooking the camp – the slope that he and the others would soon be climbing. The thought filled him with a slight, healthy tension that would stand him in good stead.
The replacement team finally reached the sangar. Exchanging greetings, they sounded breathless.
‘That’s some climb,’ one of them said.
‘Sure is,’ Andrew replied, rolling up one of the two sleeping bags and stuffing it back into his bergen. ‘It clears out the lungs, right?’
‘Right,’ the replacement replied.
Jock and Gumboot were enthusiastically humping their bergens onto their shoulders as Ricketts rolled up his own sleeping bag and stuffed it into his bergen. This done, he hoisted the bergen onto his shoulder, picked up his SLR and stepped out of the sangar.
‘Good luck,’ he said to the four men as they took over the sangar.
‘And to you,’ one of them said. ‘You’re the ones who’ll need it.’
After waving goodbye, Ricketts scrambled with the others down the hill and into the newly erected camp. The rich aroma of boiled lamb and spices reached them from the firqats’ camp near the base of the western hill, where the Arabs, all wearing their jellabas and shemaghs, were kneeling around an enormous communal pot piled high with couscous, which they were scooping into their mouths with their fingers.
Gumboot screwed his face up in disgust, then held his nose as they passed the goats. But by the time they reached the mess tent, they were well out of range of the smell and were greeted instead with the welcoming aroma of bacon and eggs.
Entering the tent, they found it packed, the men queuing up along the servery and then taking their plates to the trestle tables. After the usual bullshit with the cook, they had a slap-up fried breakfast washed down with hot tea, their weapons stacked up around them, then made their way to the ammunition store, where they had to collect spare ammo and meet Lampton. The sergeant was waiting for them when they arrived.
‘Morning, lads. Got a good night’s sleep, did you?’
‘Wonderful!’ Jock said. ‘Slept all of ten minutes.’
‘Now we’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,’ Gumboot added, ‘and rarin’ to go.’
They had to join another queue to pick up their spare weapons, which included, as well as their standard-issue Browning high-power handguns and SLR or M16 rifles, Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm sub-machine-guns and, for some of them, 7.62mm Lee Enfield sniper rifles. Tom and Bill were given an M-72 LAW, and others, Ricketts noticed, were collecting 51mm and 81mm mortars with base plate, tripod and shells – heavy loads to be humping up that hill in the increasing heat of the morning. To increase the load even more, each group was carrying at least one PRC 319. It would not be an easy day.
The men then joined the many others grouping together near the hedgehog by the base of the western hill. The group, known as the Western Group, tasked with clearing the eastern slope of the western hill, consisted of the majority of B Squadron and G Squadron 22 SAS, the Firqat Al Asifat, the Firqat Salahadeen and the Baluch Askars. Being organized by British officers, notably Major Greenaway, they were surprisingly indifferent to the mortar explosions erupting at irregular intervals on the hill. In fact, the explosions were all fairly high up, out of range, as were the occasional adoo rifle shots.
‘OK,’ Lampton said to Ricketts and the others, ‘you men will be with me, coming up behind that group of firqats gathering over there.’ He indicated the Arab fighters with a nod of his head. Bristling with bandoliers, webbing and weapons, looking as fierce as usual, they were listening intently to Dead-eye Dick as he gave them instructions. With his L42A1 7.62mm bolt-action Lee Enfield sniper rifle slung across his back, his webbing bristling with ten-round box magazines and L2A2 steel-cased fragmentation grenades, a Browning high-power handgun holstered on his hip, and his two knives – a kunjias and a Fairburn-Sykes commando knife – sheathed on the belt around his waist, Parker looked every bit as fearful as his firqat comrades.
‘Shit,’ Gumboot whispered, ‘are we going with him?
‘Yep,’ Lampton said, grinning.
‘That bastard terrifies me,’ big Andrew said. ‘I’m not sure I like this.’
‘He’s a good man,’ Lampton said. ‘Good tracker, great sniper. He’s a good man to have in your area, so you should be thankful you’ve got him. Whoops! Here comes the briefing.’
Standing on a wooden crate, so that everyone could see him, Major Greenaway gave a short speech, saying that their ultimate task was to clear the Ain watering-hole and take comma
nd of the whole plateau, but that before that they would have to take the western hill and thus ensure the safety of the Jibjat airstrip.
‘Therefore,’ he said, ‘you will climb the hill in your separate groups, flushing out the adoo where you find them and hopefully taking some prisoners for interrogation. It’s anticipated that you’ll be on the rim of the hill by last light. From that vantage point, you’ll direct the fire of the 25-pounders onto the adoo positions on the other side. We will keep this barrage going all night.’
‘There goes our sleep,’ Gumboot whispered.
‘At first light,’ Greenaway continued, ‘you will make your way down the other side, pushing the adoo back to the watering-hole. Once that’s been accomplished, you’ll all regroup at the bottom of the hill in preparation for the final assault on the watering-hole and ultimately the Wadi Dharbat, where most of the adoo are entrenched. Any questions?’ The major looked around him, but saw only heads shaking from side to side. ‘No? Good. You may now proceed with all speed.’
The first of the SAF, firqat and Baluchi troops were already starting up the hill when Greenaway jumped down off his box and headed back to his HQ tent in the camp, accompanied by RSM Worthington. At the same time Sergeant Parker walked up to Lampton, nodded at him, then turned to Ricketts and the others, to study them with icy grey eyes.
‘We go up the hill together,’ he said finally, ‘but well spread out, with me and the firqats out front, you lot behind us. We advance at the crouch, from one outcrop to another, never standing fully upright and making sure that we’re never fully exposed for more than a few seconds.’ His voice was soft, almost a whisper, with hardly any timbre or intonation; not a comforting sound. ‘The adoo can see through rocks, use their eyes like periscopes, and have eyes in the back of their heads as well. You stand up and you’ll get a bullet through your head and fucking deserve it. Don’t panic up there. Don’t shoot the wrong people. On the other hand, if anything moves, don’t take too long to decide. Keep your eyes to the front and to the ground, because there might be land-mines. OK, let’s go.’