Soldier N: Gambian Bluff

by David Monnery

  It was not likely though. It had rained for an hour or so in the middle of the night, the ground was soft, the moonlight dulled by high cloud cover. Conditions for a silent approach were almost perfect. And as far as they had been able to tell from observation the rebels had no binoculars.

  Wynwood was twenty yards from the first building now, with the rest of the party strung out across the open ground behind him. He passed through the deep shadow of a mango tree, savouring its sweet scent but hoping that a ripe fruit would not drop onto his head.

  As planned, the last two Senegalese in line were left by the door of the first building, and the two then bringing up the rear at the next. By the time they reached the back of the house which was being used by the officer in charge of the roadblock, only Wynwood, Franklin and four of the Senegalese remained. Two were left at the back door.

  Wynwood reached the front corner of the house and put an eye around it. Four men were sitting round a smoky fire, two in uniform and two not, each with a gun within reach. Two of these were Kalashnikovs, the other two Sterling sub-machine-guns. The Welshman withdrew his head and used a finger to spell out SMGs on the wall. Franklin nodded in understanding. Silence might be a priority but not if it involved looking down the barrel of an SMG. The rebels would not be given any second chances.

  ‘OK?’ Wynwood mouthed silently. Franklin nodded again, the two Senegalese simply looked nervous.

  The four men walked out into the open space, so naturally that it took the rebels a full three seconds to realize that they were not on the same side. And by that time they had also become aware of the four guns aimed in their direction.

  ‘Stand up and put your hands above your heads,’ Franklin said softly but with deliberate clarity, hoping that all four spoke English. Apparently they did. ‘Now walk this way and lie flat on the ground. On your stomachs.’ They did as they were told.

  Wynwood went to pick up the Sterlings, gave one to Franklin, and indicated to the two Senegalese that they should keep their guns on the four prone rebels. Then the two Englishmen took up position at the front door of the HQ house, and Wynwood shouted ‘now!’ with all the power in his lungs.

  There was the sound of doors being pushed open, shouldered open, kicked open, the sound of surprised voices woken from sleep, one crash of broken glass, one drawn-out groan, but not a single shot was fired. Ten minutes later thirty-five rebels were being led in single file up the road in the direction of Serekunda, with six of the Senegalese soldiers in attendance.

  If four of the prisoners looked somewhat underdressed for their night-time stroll it was because Franklin and three of the Senegalese were now sitting around the fire in the clothes they had been wearing. Twenty minutes later, when the four men of the regular rebel road patrol arrived in their jeep, even the growing light of dawn was not enough to expose the deception. All four were arrested without a fight, and sent on down the road after their comrades. As the first glow of the sun emerged from the distant ocean horizon one route to the rebel HQ was wide open.

  A mile and a half away, at almost the same moment, Diba awoke with a start. He lay there for a few moments, wondering what had woken him, but could hear only the birds in the tree canopy that covered the depot. His mouth was dry from the booze, and maybe his brain was a little fuzzy from the dope. He could still smell the women on him, which made him feel good. A feeling spread through him, as strong as it was unreasoned, that this would be an important day in his life.

  It was time to get away from the depot – even with the sort of entertainment that had been provided on the previous evening, the place was beginning to feel more and more like a prison. There was little doubt that Comrade Jabang and his revolution were doomed, and who knew what the crazy bastards might do with their backs against the wall. This lot might be more interested in looking good and ordering people around than anything else, but Diba had a sneaking suspicion that they thought they were trying to help humanity, and anyone who even thought something like that needed their brains washing out.

  It was definitely time to put some distance between himself and the comrades, and get started on his own programme. The first thing was to get hold of a decent gun. A Kalashnikov was probably a great weapon for fighting wars, or even hijacking planes, but it did not fit snugly in the waistband of his trousers.

  The sun was now clear of the sea, the sky beginning to clear. Caskey, standing up in the turret of the armoured car, looked back along the column of vehicles stretched out on the Serekunda road. Directly behind his vehicle were the four lorries containing their sixty-four Senegalese troopers, and behind them more armoured cars and lorries loaded with several hundred more soldiers. If N’Dor had got his act together a similar force would be launching an attack along the Bakau road in precisely twenty-five minutes.

  Feeling a little like Ward Bond in Wagon Train, Caskey raised his arm and gestured the column forward. The armoured car jerked forward, almost throwing him off balance, and then settled into a satisfyingly smooth rumble. Caskey grinned to himself. The sun was shining, there was a breeze in his face, gorgeous palm trees waving him by, and he was off to war again. In moments like this he could understand the Sioux going into battle crying out that it was a good day to die.

  Not that he expected to die in The Gambia. There would probably be a lot of sound and fury in the next half-hour or so – in fact he was counting on it – but Caskey did not really expect the terrorists to put up much of a show. It would be like sex, he thought – arriving was nice enough but it was the journey which provided most of the excitement.

  Two lorries back Franklin was also thinking about sex. Or perhaps love – who could tell? He had not seen Sibou for more than two days, since escorting her home on the night they had made love. On the following afternoon the three SAS men had come across to Bakau for their appointment with Lady Jawara, and they had not been back to Banjul since. He wondered whether she was angry that he had not made contact. Or pleased. Maybe she would rather forget the whole business. After all, what could come of it – with him a soldier in Hereford and her a doctor in The Gambia?

  He tried to put it all out of his mind. The Senegalese soldiers packed alongside him were mostly sitting in silence, some of them nervously chewing their lower lips or breathing deeply. A couple of the men who had taken part in the pre-dawn capture of the roadblock unit were in his lorry, and they seemed more relaxed than the others. It was all about confidence, as his athletics coach had told him over and over again.

  They had been travelling for several minutes now; they had to be near the disembarkation point. Right on cue, the lorry started slowing down, and then turned right through the familiar gates of the Medical Research Centre. If the rebels had heard the approaching vehicles, then with any luck they would assume that they were on hospital business.

  The Senegalese troops dismounted, and formed up in a column of pairs behind Caskey, Franklin and Wynwood. There was a lot of nervous grinning now, a clutching of amulets and the odd bow in what was presumably the direction of Mecca. At Caskey’s signal the column started off, with the Englishman at the front maintaining a steady jogging pace along the stretch of bare earth which adjoined the right-hand side of the road. They had about four hundred yards to go, which at this pace translated into not much more than two minutes.

  It felt longer. The trees which leant across their path offered some cover, particularly if the Field Force depot sentries were in their usual position just inside the gates, and the sound of a hundred and thirty-four feet was more muted than Caskey would have believed possible, but sooner or later someone was bound to become aware of their approach.

  They were more than halfway now, and he was beginning to feel the pace a little. By this time the armoured cars should be on the move behind them, the plan being that they should become audible at exactly the same moment as the first assault team became visible. ‘Hit ’em with everything at once,’ was Caskey’s motto, and preferably at speed.

  The gates wer
e only a hundred yards away now, and the fire-station tower leapt into view above the trees, but still no shots or cries of alarm rose up from the rebel stronghold. And then suddenly one of the sentries ambled out across the road and into view, looking as if he had not a care in the world. For several seconds he seemed engrossed in rolling a cigarette, but either the movement or the sound of the runners must have caught his attention, because his head jerked round and his mouth dropped open. The cigarette slipped from his grasp, he looked around wildly as if in search of somewhere to hide, and then half-ran, half-scrambled his way back towards the gates.

  Through the entire pantomime not a sound escaped his lips. It was his fellow-sentry who raised the alarm, letting out a blood-curdling shout at the same time as he opened fire with his Kalashnikov, apparently at the trees across the street.

  The moment the alarm went up, Caskey had told his men, make as much noise as an entire fucking army. They now obliged, firing their Kalashnikovs and SMGs into the air with wild abandon, and shrieking like a bunch of hyperactive banshees. The drumming of their feet on the road suddenly seemed three times as loud, as if someone had accidentally knocked the volume control.

  The ambling sentry had already disappeared, the one with the gun took one appalled look at what was coming towards him and bolted out of sight through the gates. Caskey was about twenty yards behind him, shooting through the open gateway in a half-crouching run, braced for the impact of whatever it was the rebels had to throw at him.

  There seemed to be nothing. Figures were visible in the distance, some already running for cover, some foolishly just standing there, curiosity getting the better of their survival instincts. Thanking their lucky stars, the SAS men and the Senegalese troops spread out in the prearranged pattern, still running, with the leading twenty men heading straight for the last-known location of the hostages.

  Jabang had, as usual, been sitting on the command office verandah when the first shot rang out. Instinctively, he knew what was happening, even before the sudden, tumultuous outburst of gunfire and shouting which came on the first shot’s heels.

  He walked quickly inside and picked up the light sub-machine-gun which Taal had got for him, and stood there for a few seconds, holding the gun and staring blankly into space. Then he strode purposefully through the command room and out of the building’s front door. About a hundred yards away he could see men in uniform running in what looked like all directions. The Senegalese.

  He became conscious that several of his own men were standing around him, all carrying guns, all looking at him and waiting for his orders.

  He did not know what to tell them.

  There was a loud explosion away to his right, in the direction of the cell block. The hostages were being released! Jabang started off instinctively in that direction, his men dutifully following him, but almost immediately found himself face to face with Taal.

  The military commander, who had neither shirt nor shoes on, was carrying only an automatic pistol. ‘Get to the back gate,’ he told Jabang, ‘it’s the only way out.’

  Jabang looked at him as if he was a creature from Mars.

  ‘Go!’ Taal shouted at him.

  Jabang went, collecting more and more men as he went. The mad burst of gunfire which had started the attack now seemed reduced to the occasional shot, and at the gate Jabang could see many of his men already hightailing it into the distance across the stretch of mostly open countryside. He took one last look back, wondering where Taal was, and then started running for his life down the dirt lane and through the knee-high grass.

  For all his determination to be ready when the time came, Diba had the misfortune to be in the middle of his morning shower when the assault team came through the gates. He struggled back into his clothes, grabbed the rifle which he had had the sense to keep with him, and cautiously poked his head out of the washroom barracks, just in time to see two white men race past him, followed by a bunch of Senegalese soldiers.

  He pulled his head quickly back, waited five seconds, and tried again. The soldiers were gone. He stepped out, turned a corner and started running like everyone else towards the rear of the depot, swivelling his eyes to left and right for any sign of immediate danger. The parade ground in the centre seemed empty at first, but as Diba loped across it he saw a man emerge from the command offices on the far side, carefully buttoning his Field Force uniform shirt, as if this was the day of all days for being smartly turned out.

  The man was carrying an automatic pistol, Diba realized, and he slowed his pace to a fast walk as Taal came towards him, then pulled up the Kalashnikov and blew a bloody hole in the neatly buttoned shirt. Hardly breaking step, Diba let the rifle drop and stooped to pick up the pistol. Now he had a weapon for the outside world.

  Not far away Wynwood and Franklin were taking turns smashing the cell locks, and telling the hostages they were safe. Most of them looked undernourished and generally the worse for wear, but it seemed that none had been tortured or killed. In a world like this one, Wynwood thought, be thankful for such mercies.

  Outside Caskey was experiencing a mix of emotions. The operation seemed to have been a complete success when it came to safely rescuing the hostages, but most of the rebels had probably escaped, because it had been planned that they should. The normal procedure for an op like this was to have assault and perimeter teams, the latter mopping up what the former flushed out. But this time Jawara and N’Dor between them had vetoed the encirclement of the depot, on the grounds that the terrorists were more likely to harm the hostages if they had no means of escape. Caskey had argued that the assault team would be moving so fast that the terrorists would have no time to realize they even had such options, but he had been overruled.

  Still, he thought, looking round at the Senegalese troops now swarming through the depot grounds, the rebellion was over. They had done what they had come to do. The Gambia belonged to President Jawara once more.

  Two hours later General N’Dor gave a press conference under the baobab tree behind his HQ. He confirmed the strong rumour that two British Army advisers had taken part in the attack on the Field Force depot. ‘We knew that the rebels did not shoot at white men,’ he explained, ‘because we had seen white men going and coming even in areas we considered dangerous. The rebels didn’t shoot at them because they wouldn’t know whether they were diplomats or other personnel, injury to whom could bring down outside intervention on their heads.’ The General nodded here, as if he saw the rebels’ point. ‘Lives have been saved,’ he went on, ‘and that’s what matters. Whether they were saved by white, blue or green men is to us unimportant.’

  He offered no explanation as to why the rebels, seeing their last stronghold being overrun, should still be worrying about outside intervention.

  By this time the three SAS men had been given a lift by the Senegalese back to the Presidential Palace, where they found the red carpet conspicuous by its absence. The President had apparently removed himself to his bungalow in Bakau, and the SAS men were politely informed that rooms had been reserved for them at the Atlantic Hotel. Their belongings had already been packed and taken across.

  ‘I’ve heard of overstaying a welcome, but this is ridiculous,’ Caskey said.

  ‘At least our bags weren’t taken to the airport,’ Wynwood said.

  Worse was to come for Caskey. From the Atlantic he phoned Bill Myers, who told him that direct communications with London had been established, and that the Foreign Office was less than ecstatic about the SAS unit’s elastic interpretation of ‘military advice’. They were also wondering why Caskey had not sent back a single report since their departure from London.

  ‘Because we’ve been too damn busy doing the job we were sent to do,’ Caskey said angrily. ‘Sorry, Bill,’ he added, ‘it’s not you I should be yelling at.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Myers said. ‘And your real boss sent you all a “well done”.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’

  ‘An
d he’s given you all a week’s immediate leave.’

  Caskey went back upstairs to tell the others, but both men were stretched out in their rooms, fast asleep. He went to his own room and sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling the familiar flatness of a mission completed.

  It was early afternoon before Radio Gambia announced the routing of the terrorists and ‘the restoration of democracy and order’. Those few rebels and criminals still at large in the Bakau-Fajara area would soon be captured, the announcer said. All those people who had not yet returned to their work should do so without delay.

  Sibou Cham listened to the broadcast in the nurses’ common room at the Royal Victoria, and wondered whether Moussa Diba was dead, captured, or one of the ‘few still at large’. The odds were on his having been taken, but she had no intention of taking any risks until she knew for certain.

  She wondered whether the news on the radio meant she would see Worrell Franklin that evening. It was always possible that she had completely misread him, and that he had no intention of ever making contact with her again, but she did not think so. It had been so wonderful that night on the beach, and she found it hard to believe that he would not be as willing to repeat the experience as she was.

  Two hundred or more rebels and ex-prisoners had managed to swarm out through the Field Force depot’s back gate, but for most of them it proved to be no more than a temporary reprieve. There were only three ways out of the Bakau area: by sea, across open country, or by road. Few of the rebels had any experience with boats, the open savannah made them sitting targets, and all traffic on the few roads and tracks out of the area was subject to stop and search by the authorities. Not surprisingly, more than half of the escapees had been captured by midday, and a majority of the rest before the daylight faded.