Operation Mayhem

by Steve Heaney MC

  I sent the guys back to their patrols, then gave Wag, Tricky and Grant the news.

  ‘The op’s evolving and we’re here for the duration, to protect the only viable route into Lungi Airport and Freetown. The task is open-ended, and this is it: the rebels stop here. Oh yeah, and Donaldson’s gone back to UK on a compassionate, and fucking Jacko’s taking over as acting OC.’

  As I was telling them about Donaldson being gone for good, I was watching the guys’ expressions. Wag’s face would become all puckered-up whenever he was annoyed, which was exactly what it had done now. He looked like a size ten bloke in a size eleven skin. As for Grant, he actually seemed relieved.

  ‘At least now we can get on with the job in hand,’ he announced.

  Wag grunted a bunch of curses in agreement.

  Tricky, meanwhile, was in sheer ecstasy at having got himself a Thuraya.

  We called the patrol commanders in and Grant briefed them in turn. They took the news about Donaldson’s compassionate pretty well. No one spared much of a thought about the OC any more. There were other priorities right now. We were twenty-six against two thousand, and we’d be here until battle was joined.

  We had no heavy weapons, one thin-skinned vehicle, and with only two Chinooks in theatre we suspected the QRF might take a little longer to get to us than the thirty-five minutes we’d been promised. The chances of a helo plus a platoon of PARAs being kept permanently on standby to come to our aid were just about zero – especially with the evacuation of hundreds of civilians under way.

  To make matters worse we had no access to any fire support. We had no air assets in theatre capable of doing danger-close air strikes in the thick of the jungle. And while we did have British warships steaming off the coast, ones boasting guns with the range to reach Lungi Lol, there was no one in theatre capable of orchestrating such complex naval fire support. In short, we were pretty much unsupported and on our own out here.

  Eddie’s Intel brief had contained one other, distinctly worrying, snippet of info: one of the chief aims of the rebels was to capture some British soldiers. No one needed telling what would happen to any so taken. If they could capture some elite operators like us, it would serve to humiliate the entire British military. It would also big-up the rebels’ own reputation, and very likely turn public opinion in the UK against intervening in such a far distant war.

  As the rebels had advanced towards Freetown they had already started to achieve their aims. They’d surrounded and laid siege to some 500 Indian peacekeepers upcountry in an isolated UN base. Parachute Regiment Major Andy Harrison had been captured, along with fourteen Indian troops. Major Harrison had only just been posted to Sierra Leone. He’d been sent here to try to turn the UN mission around, but before he could get to work the rebels had struck.

  That was only one in a wave of such kidnappings, all of which were being targeted chiefly at British troops. The RUF had surrounded and laid siege to a second UN base, this one staffed by seventy Kenyan peacekeepers. Inside the base were Royal Marine Major Phil Ashby, plus Royal Navy Lieutenant-Commander Paul Rowland and Major Andrew Samsonoff of the Light Infantry. It was those British soldiers that the rebels were hell-bent on getting their hands on.

  The RUF had vowed to spill British blood in Sierra Leone. As of yet, no British soldiers had been killed, but Andy Harrison had fallen directly into their hands, and had been savagely beaten and threatened with execution. The rebels had a habit of giving their missions darkly bizarre names: Operation Cut Hands; Operation Kill All Your Family; Operation Kill All Living Things. They had named their present mission ‘Operation Kill British’.

  The overall aim of Operation Kill British was apparently to turn Sierra Leone into ‘Britain’s Somalia’ – a reference to the American military’s defeat in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, immortalised in the book and the movie Black Hawk Down. Via Operation Kill British the rebels would drive us out of Sierra Leone, and their victory – plus the humiliation of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces – would be complete.

  And all that stood in their way right now were the twenty-six of us.

  9

  In light of Operation Kill British we figured better and stronger defences were in order, and for what we now had in mind we’d need the village chief’s help. Around midday we paid a visit to the Kingdom of Mojo. The lieutenant invited us in – his gate was always open – and Grant proceeded to brief him on how we were here for the long-term.

  ‘We need to go see the chief, ’cause we need a workforce,’ Grant told him. ‘The incentive for him to provide one is that there are two thousand rebels moving on Freetown and they are coming through his village. For us to be able to help him and his people, he is going to have to be ready to help us.’

  Mojo must have realised the seriousness of the situation. He seemed more alert and his whole pace had quickened. ‘Okay, I understand. Let’s go.’

  We made our way directly to the chief’s place and found him already holding court. Two women with a young boy were in a conflab with him.

  Mojo held out a hand to stop us butting in. ‘Okay, just wait.’

  We took a ticket and joined the queue.

  When they were done Mojo launched into one. He was the most animated I’d ever seen him, and while I couldn’t understand what he was saying I could sense the urgency, as if he was really trying to drive his points home. He finished speaking and the chief had a few words with his lackey.

  Then: ‘Okay, we will help.’

  Via Mojo we told the chief we’d work out exactly what we needed, now we knew he was able to assist. Then we said our thank yous and returned to the HQ ATAP.

  Tricky got a brew on – he was the master of the brews – while Grant gave Mojo a good talking to. Bearing in mind the state of their rifles and their drills, we didn’t want Mojo and his men anywhere near us when the bullets started to fly. But we did need some kind of force to man a line of defence to the rear of the village, in case the rebels managed to get around the back of us. We didn’t have enough men to mount a 360-degree defence, so maybe the Nigerians could act as an early warning force if the rebels were attacking from the rear.

  ‘Once we sort out the battle plan we may need you and your men to be involved,’ Grant told Mojo. ‘No longer can you just sit on the sidelines.’

  Mojo’s response was muted. He knew full well that the long, lazy months of summer were over and that he and his men were going to have to either shape up or ship out. But still he seemed reluctant to get involved.

  ‘But we are here only on peacekeeping duties,’ the lieutenant objected. ‘Our role is to keep the peace …’

  Wag and me waded in. We soon convinced Mojo that there was no f-ing peace to keep. If and when the rebels hit Lungi Lol it was kill or be killed – and that was the same for the Nigerians in their natty blue berets as much as for us. Grant told Mojo we’d come back to him on exactly what we needed, when we’d worked out the wider plan.

  With that Mojo left, shoulders bowed and heading for the privacy of his compound. Presumably, he was trying to think up the words to tell his men that the Lungi Lol Sunny Vacation was over, and that Armageddon was only just around the corner.

  With Mojo warned off, Grant, Wag and me gathered over the maps. It was time to drill down into the threat – to establish exactly what it was and where it would come from. As always, we would afford the enemy the ultimate respect until proved otherwise. We had to think along these lines: If I was advancing with 2000 men and that kind of firepower, how would I launch an attack?

  If the rebels chose to rush us in a full-frontal assault we’d face 2000 coming at us in human waves. With 300 rounds per man, we could in theory kill 7800 enemy fighters – but that’s if every round equalled a kill. As it was, we’d have to average one kill per 6.66 rounds fired, if we were to account for 2000. But my favoured plan of attack would be far more sophisticated than that, and we had to work on the presumption that the rebels would come up with something equally subtle and sin
ister.

  By now we’d had foot patrols out, pressing into the edge of the forest. One of those patrols had stumbled upon a feature that worried me perhaps more than anything. To the far side of Taff’s position – so on our right flank – there was a railway line. It wasn’t marked on any maps and we figured it was disused. But it constituted a clear line of advance through the jungle, and it ran pretty much parallel to the main highway.

  In short, it provided the rebels with a second line of march, in addition to the dirt track. If I was attacking Lungi Lol, I’d put a force on the main road and make it look as if I was launching a full-frontal assault. But at the same time I’d send a second force down the railroad, moving silently and stealthily through the jungle. I’d use that to outflank us, and hit us from the side and the rear – just as the feint from the front drew all our fire.

  From all that we could see, the first thing that was obvious was that we needed Claymores. They could be planted covering key avenues of approach – the worrisome railroad first and foremost. Triggered by a command wire, a mass of shrapnel would fire out in a 180-degree arc, scything down anything in its path. Claymores would be a game-changer. We didn’t have any, of course, but with the chief’s help we figured we could likely cobble some together.

  Top of our shopping list with chiefy went: ‘Find raw materials for making Claymores.’

  With a 1 PARA QRF being thirty-five minutes’ call away – plus add another ten to muster them – we’d need to hold out for forty-five minutes before a platoon of PARAs flew in to reinforce us. We needed to block enemy approach routes with Claymores and channel the rebels into massed groups, where we could mow them down with our heaviest firepower – the GPMGs. That should hold them off for long enough to get the QRF in.

  In order to channel them we needed to create obstacles that would slow them down and cause injuries, and put large swathes of terrain off-limits. We needed to squeeze them into kill zones. We needed to clear the vegetation around those kill zones so they had not a scrap of cover to hide, and so we could see them to shoot them.

  Second on our shopping list with chiefy went: ‘Get villagers to clear kill zones out to forest edge.’

  But the biggest challenge was how to channel the rebels into those kill zones. The Claymores would stop them in their tracks on the main approach routes. From there we needed physical barriers to corral them into death traps. The question was, what raw materials were available in and around the village to create such barriers? We had an abundance of wood. Most of the village buildings – Mojo’s palisade included – were built out of one particular type: bamboo. This wasn’t like the bamboo you get in your garden back home: here it grew to sixty feet in height and the thickness of a man’s arm.

  We had an abundance of bamboo, plus we had machetes and knives, and from what we’d seen the locals knew how to work with bamboo to build pretty much anything. It was Wag who first gave voice to the idea that was coalescing in our minds: could we get the locals to make and plant fields of ‘punji sticks’? Done properly, they’d trap and injure the rebels, corralling them into zones where we could cut them to ribbons with the guns.

  Wag and me had been on several joint training exercises with the SAS in the rainforests of Borneo. The aim was to operate for long periods as isolated groups deep in the jungle. We’d learned how to move through the forest without leaving telltale signs; how to track an enemy, and how to lose one that was tracking you; how to engage in close-quarter battle in the thick bush; how to cache weapons and food supplies; and how to survive in the jungle.

  As we contemplated the coming battle at Lungi Lol we realised there was one lesson from Borneo that we could well use here. The native tribes that live in the rainforests have a tradition of raiding each other’s villages. As a defence against such attacks, they plant fields of sharpened bamboo stakes around their settlements – so-called ‘punji sticks’. They’re lengths of bamboo honed to a razor sharpness, and they are as lethal as a steel blade.

  There are several variations on the basic punji theme. The stakes can be placed in the base and walls of a ‘punji pit’, so that when one of the enemy steps into it his leg is pierced in many places. They can be set in pits with their points facing downwards, so if he tries to pull his leg out the punjis will tear the trapped limb to pieces. They can even be arranged as a latticework of spikes and suspended from a tree, being triggered to drop on anyone passing below.

  In terms of winning a battle, wounding the enemy is often more effective than killing them outright. Generally, wounding one opponent takes three out of the fight – because two are needed to evacuate the injured man. Punji sticks were the ideal means to wound, and there was no reason why what works for the natives of Borneo wouldn’t work here. We were twenty-six facing 2000. We had very limited firepower. The rebels did not. Desperate straits called for desperate measures. The punji stick proposal got an enthusiastic response from all.

  We sketched out the ideal areas in which to plant the punji fields. We’d need two work parties from the village: one cutting bamboo in the forest and shaping and sharpening it, another clearing vegetation and driving the sharpened stakes in. We needed the punji fields to be well-hidden, so as to ensnare the rebels. We didn’t want twelve-foot-high monster spikes that were visible from a mile away. We wanted them hidden at around knee or thigh height, and maybe the odd punji pit dug as well, to really scare the shit out of the bad guys.

  Third on our shopping list with chiefy went: ‘Get villagers to make and plant punji fields.’

  Finally, we needed trenches dug, to get the lads below ground. The rebels boasted vehicle-mounted heavy weapons – namely 12.7 mm DShKs, the Russian equivalent of the NATO .50-calibre heavy machine gun – plus belt-fed support weapons. That kind of firepower would chew through the vegetation and the built-up earth banks around our shell-scrapes. We needed proper battle trenches, two to each patrol, sited so they mutually supported each other, in case one was in danger of being overrun.

  In addition to the two trenches per patrol – eight in all – we decided we needed one trench set forward on the main highway to control access into the village, and to ID any enemy forces massing to attack. We’d site that trench a hundred metres ahead of the village, and it would be manned by two guys on a 24/7 watch. It would also require some kind of cover constructed over it to provide shade, for it would be well out in the open.

  We also figured we needed two further trenches set to either side of the road at the rear of the village. Presuming Mojo and his men agreed to play ball, those would be manned by the Nigerian peacekeepers – who we hoped had been persuaded of the urgent need to move onto a war-fighting footing.

  Of course, if we sited the Nigerians in those trenches and we did have to fall back through the village, Mojo’s men would likely be trigger happy and firing at shadows. They could end up killing some of us – that’s as long as their rifles still worked. We decided the only way to prevent this was to ban Mojo and his men from firing back into the village. They would only be allowed to open fire towards the south and the west, so away from the centre of Lungi Lol.

  Last on our shopping list with chiefy went: ‘Get villagers to dig battle trenches.’

  The reason why we needed the villagers to do this, as opposed to us, was simple: while they were building the defences, we’d be keeping watch for the rebels.

  I figured now was also the time to radio in a request to The White Rabbit for trip flares and motion sensors. Those would be a total game-changer, in terms of stealing the enemy’s element of surprise. The British military had them, that was for sure. We’d used them countless times on exercises. But whether they’d actually got any into theatre was a different matter entirely.

  Priorities sorted, Wag and me went and fetched Mojo. We explained exactly what we needed the village chief to organise, plus we outlined the role we’d allocated to Mojo and his men.

  ‘We need you to provide security to the rear of the village,’ I told him.
‘We’ll need you to man one trench set to either side of the track. Your aim is to stop the rebels advancing from that direction. If the rebels attack you stay there and you do not leave and you hold that end of the village. Can you do that?’

  Mojo nodded. ‘Yes, okay. We can.’

  I fixed Mojo with a very direct look. ‘Right, so you are now involved in the active defence of this village, unless you tell us otherwise – at which stage you are on your own.’

  ‘Right, okay, I understand,’ Mojo confirmed. ‘We are in.’

  ‘What are the UN’s Rules of Engagement?’ I asked.

  Mojo looked at me like he didn’t understand the question. Our ROEs were tight: do not engage the enemy unless fired upon; continue to fight until that threat is eliminated. But ROEs seemed to be a totally alien concept to Mojo and his UNAMSIL force.

  ‘Okay, breaking it down: at what stage are you as the UN allowed to open fire?’

  Mojo glanced from me to Wag and back again. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Right, our ROE is fire when fired upon; maybe you should do the same. But one thing: if you see battle being joined, you never fire up into the village, not under any circumstances. You only ever fire west and south – away from the village. You must brief your men never to fire into the village, okay?’

  ‘Okay. But why?’

  ‘’Cause at the moment we have no way of ID-ing friend or foe and there could be villagers moving through. Secondly, our plan is that if we are overrun, then we withdraw from the village and we will be coming along the track passing by your positions. And we strongly recommend that you withdraw with us.’

  From the look on his face I could tell that it was finally dawning on Mojo what a shitty situation we were all in.

  ‘Our plan if we get overrun is we will be bugging out,’ I reiterated.

  ‘Okay, but we will need to stay,’ Mojo remarked, quietly.

  Wag and I exchanged glances. ‘But Mojo, you’ll be fucking massacred,’ Wag objected. ‘Mojo, mate, they will chop you up and eat you for breakfast.’