Operation Mayhem

by Steve Heaney MC

  What really seemed to have got to him was how the blokes had settled in to living under such conditions, and yet how upbeat and positive they remained. The highlight had been Nathe waxing lyrical about the joys of jungle cuisine, as he crouched over his bubbling cauldron. We got back to the HQ ATAP shortly before his helo pick-up was due, only to learn from Tricky that it was all-change for Captain Cantrill.

  ‘We’ve had a message in from Lungi ref “our guest”,’ Tricky announced. With nearly all comms being done via Thuraya by now, The White Rabbit had adopted a kind of coded way of speaking. The Thuraya was ‘insecure means’ – unencoded and vulnerable to intercepts – and in theory anyone might be listening in. Tricky eyed Cantrill. ‘I guess “our guest” has to mean you. Message is there will be no pick-up today: earliest 0800 tomorrow.’

  Cantrill nearly coughed up a lung. He had absolutely nothing with him for overnighting with us lot: all he had were his personal weapon and his belt kit, two water bottles and zero food. Glancing around, he practically begged if he could have one of the I-beds. I did a long intake of breath, commented on how good he smelled with all the aftershave, and said he was welcome to share mine …

  The slagging really started now. We slipped into Navy-speak, just to really twist him.

  ‘So, it’s turning out to be a nice run ashore for you, eh?’ I needled. ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got a wide and varied menu on offer in the galley.’

  ‘Can you imagine how smelly you’ll be, after a night with us lot?’ Wag gloated. ‘Got your toothbrush?’

  ‘Want us to have words with the village chief, to see if he can set some showers up?’ Tricky threw in. ‘You got your foo-foo powder? You do know it’s hands-to-bathe, don’t you?’

  Hands-to-bathe is Navy-speak for when a vessel gets into port and all aboard are permitted to dive off the ship for a mass swim. Foo-foo powder is talcum.

  ‘Fuck off, fucking pongos,’ Cantrill muttered. ‘The fucking Army.’

  He was sat there eyeing the four of us like he was surrounded on all sides by pure evil … and we hadn’t even got to show him the village shit-pit yet. It struck me that he had an expression on his face similar to the one the newspaper reporter had worn, when I’d given him the village tour.

  ‘D’you want me to get a wet on – cheer you up a bit?’ Tricky added. ‘Sippers?’

  A ‘wet’ is Navy-speak for a brew. Sippers means sharing between all. We always did that – passing the one massive mug between us. Navy types never did.

  ‘Like I said, you can sleep next to me tonight,’ I added. ‘You fucking smell lovely.’

  That was it. Cantrill was staring at me like I was the Antichrist. Sharing an I-bed with me was clearly his worst ever nightmare.

  The torturing only really stopped when the SAS lads came beetling back through the village. They pulled over in their Land Rovers to share their news over a brew – sippers, naturally. From all that they’d been able to glean, the rebels were massing some serious firepower just to the north of us. They asked us what our drills were if we got overrun. I joked that we were going to hand over the lone Royal Marine as a sacrificial peace offering.

  Joking aside, I told them that our plan was to hold firm at all costs, or at least until our meagre supplies of ammo ran out. But if the rebels got around the back of us and hit us from the south and the west, we’d have problems. If that happened, we’d try to fight through their number and E & E through the jungle.

  At that the SAS lads wished us luck, then set off en route to Lungi Airport.

  15

  That evening Mojo pitched up with the bread delivery, and now there were twenty-seven rolls, one extra for Cantrill. The Marine captain’s eyes were out on stalks. Suffice to say the poor bloke didn’t know what to make of it, particularly when we invited him to sit down and dunk his roll in one of Nathan’s balti specials.

  In fact this one was really special. Today, Nathe had somehow managed to get his hands on a giant African pouched rat – a rodent about the size of a small dog. Nathe argued that the locals ate this kind of shit so why shouldn’t we? A lovely bit of fresh. But strangely, Captain Cantrill didn’t seem to be hungry.

  I asked him what he had with him ammo wise. He had two mags, so sixty rounds for his SA80. It was approaching stand-to and time to slip into night routine. We called prayers and briefed the patrol commanders that we were shortly to be RIP’d by Captain Cantrill’s boys from 42 Commando, but to remain eyes-peeled while we still held the village.

  That done, I said to Cantrill: ‘No point you stagging-on or being on the comms, mate, ’cause you don’t know the routine. May as well get your head down.’

  With our levels of fatigue – not to mention malnutrition; in spite of Nathan’s curries, the weight was dropping off us – a fresh pair of eyes might well have been very useful tonight. But we were so into our stag rosters by now that it was too much hassle to slot Cantrill into the rotation of sentry duties. The Royal Marine captain bedded down on some cardboard left over from the ration boxes, as the rest of us settled into dark routine.

  My first stint on stag was tense, but relatively uneventful. My second sentry duty was scheduled to last from 0100 to 0230 hours, when I would go to wake the next man. I joined Grant on watch and asked him what he’d seen. He told me nothing as such. But there were loads of those weird animal-like noises echoing through the jungle, and tonight he was 100 per cent convinced they were human. He did some whispered impressions. I ripped the piss a bit, but we both knew exactly what it might mean.

  Not only did the RUF use those chilling ‘animal cries’ to signal to each other as they moved through the bush – they also made them to terrify those they were about to attack. Their targets were almost invariably villages full of women and children. Well, if they were out there massing to hit us right now, they were going up against a very different adversary to their normal fare of defenceless civilians.

  I gazed into the darkness, straining my ears for any weird or unusual sounds. Sure enough I detected these odd, inhuman, piercing shrieks and wails coming from out of the distant tree line. A lot of jungle animals make calls like that – troops of monkeys in particular. But somehow I didn’t figure this was any group of primates moving through the darkness. These weren’t like any normal cries of nature that I’d ever heard.

  Instinct told me these were the bad guys.

  Their unearthly cries sent these icy chills up my spine.

  At 0230 hours I woke Tricky so he could take my place on stag, then returned to my watch for a further thirty minutes, while he got himself ready. We staggered the changeovers, so you never had two blokes going off sentry at once and a position left unmanned.

  By now I was really struggling to keep awake and remain alert. Pathfinder Selection needs to be as rigorous and brutal as it is – failure rates are normally in excess of 90 per cent; on one recent Selection we had thirty-five start and only three make it through – because these were the sort of operating conditions blokes had to be able to handle day after day after day.

  When Tricky was ready to take over I went to get some shut-eye. Wag had already replaced Grant, and he’d brief Tricky on whatever we had seen or heard. I collapsed onto the I-bed, and swung my legs onto the rope mattress with my boots still on, lay back and closed my eyes.

  I was looking forward to getting a good few hours’ kip before stand-to. Mine was the second bed out from the depression, with Cantrill on the floor next to me, and Grant on the I-bed beyond. I lay there for a while trying to get comfortable, before gradually drifting into semi-consciousness.

  The next thing I knew I had Tricky kneeling beside me, shaking me violently awake.

  ‘STEVE! MAXIMISE! MAXIMISE! MAXIMISE!’

  Instantly I was up on the bed, feet swung down. I elbowed Cantrill in the ribs. ‘Get up! Get up! Get up and get your kit on!’

  Cantrill was wide-eyed awake now. He shrugged his webbing on, and joined Grant and me in the depression, facing east towards the silen
t threat. I had no idea what time it was exactly, but the absence of any noise felt all wrong. The jungle had gone unerringly quiet.

  The stillness felt crushing.

  Claustrophobic.

  Suffocating.

  The intense, eerie quiet was broken by a single shot. It had the unmistakable dull thud that a low-velocity round makes. It was one single low pop – the signature noise of anything above 7.62 mm in calibre, and more than likely the sound of a pistol being fired.

  It had come from the front and slightly to my left, so from the direction of the track leading into the village. There was just the vaguest possibility that someone might have had an ND – a negligent discharge (firing their weapon accidentally). It was extremely unlikely with one of us, but quite possible with Mojo and his men. Still, the way things were feeling right now I really didn’t think so.

  The next instant the darkness to our front was torn apart by a long, punching burst of fire. I caught the instantly recognisable hammering crack of the GPMG, as it unleashed a savage volley of rounds. It was a ten- to fifteen-round burst – zzzzzzzzttttttttt – and it was pretty obvious it had come from the single battle trench to our front, the one manned by H. It could only be H letting rip with his favourite weapon – the Gimpy.

  We weren’t using tracer, so it wasn’t as if I could follow H’s rounds into target. All I could see was the flash of his muzzle, as he unleashed hell. Tracer rounds have the advantage of pointing out the enemy’s position. All a soldier has to do is follow his own side’s tracer to the target, but likewise the enemy can also follow the tracer back to find and target you (unless you’re using modern delayed action rounds).

  The roar of the GPMG was answered almost instantly by return fire. It wasn’t automatic shots at first, but very repetitive single shots and lots of them: crack, crack-crack-crack, crack-crack. It sounded like bigger calibre weaponry than 5.56 mm, so it had to be AK47s as opposed to our own SA8os – and that had to mean the rebels.

  Maybe twenty seconds had passed since that first single low pop, and it was now that all hell was let loose. There was a massive eruption of fire from the jungle. The entire forest seemed alive with it, muzzle flashes lighting up the ragged fringe of trees in all directions. We knew in that instant that this was it: the rebels had launched a human wave assault from all along our front.

  I could feel the rounds tearing through the branches above us, and I could see the tracer streaking through the night sky like swarms of giant, supercharged fireflies on acid. With the fire came a roaring wave of sound that washed over us, as if one long continuous tsunami had us gripped in its depths.

  The nearest rounds went buzzing past my head like angry wasps – bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt – barely inches away. The next instant the roof of the ATAP above us was ripped apart, as a barrage of incoming tore through it, scattering wooden splinters and shredded leaves across the lot of us.

  I saw Tricky’s radio shack disintegrate under a murderous blast of fire. Then I saw trees to either side of us juddering under the impact of rounds, trunks blasted asunder with the sheer volume of leaden death that was pounding into them. I shuddered to think how many rebels were out there.

  I’d never known a rate of fire like this. There is one particular exercise that involves crawling on all fours, with scores of machine guns zeroed in and firing above your heads. We had Overhead Fire and Flanking Fire guns zoomed in on us, and it was designed to make us get used to being under murderous levels of fire.

  This was far worse.

  NATO 5.56 mm rounds make a distinctive pop-pop-pop sound as they scoot past your head. This was very different. Much of the fire coming our way was 7.62 mm short – the calibre of bullet fired by the AK47. It makes a much heavier chthud-chthud-chthud as it rips by. And from the rate of fire the rebels were unleashing it was clear that they suffered none of the shortages of ammo that we did.

  Amongst the AK47 fire I could make out the heavier crack and thump of bigger calibre weapons opening up now, as the rebels’ machine guns kicked into action. Just as we’d feared – they outgunned us as well. This was sheer fucking murder. Either we started to get the fire down and kill them, or they’d be on top of our positions, swamping us.

  Right at this moment they’d have their fighters surging forwards, using the cover of the hail of fire to rush us. I figured I could hear rebel voices screaming out of the darkness, plus more and more of those weird, animal-like cries – although now there was no doubt who was making them. The savagery and blood lust embodied in those ghostly howls was spine chilling. I knew now what the rebels were trying to do: they were baiting us.

  In theory, this was an Operation Other Than War (OOTW) that we were on, and under the rules of engagement we could only open fire in response to being fired upon. Well, we’d just been given every excuse possible to let rip, if only we had the ammo to do so. Instead, our priority was going to have to be to conserve our ammo, but still kill a shedload of the bad guys.

  That first, single, low-velocity pop had sounded like a rebel opening fire, but getting an immediate stoppage. The instant reaction from H suggested he’d had the guy in his sights and was just waiting for an excuse to open up on him. But almost immediately H’s GPMG had been drowned out by the sheer volume of return fire.

  In fact, several minutes back H had spotted two columns of figures creeping down either side of the main highway, sticking to the drainage ditches for cover. H had given maximise as soon as he’d identified them as rebels, so dragging those of us asleep to instant attention. That done, he’d continued to watch the rebels as they’d drawn closer, keeping them nailed in the stark metal sights of his machine gun.

  The lead rebel figure had raised himself into a crouch, and opened fire with his AK47 – the signal for the rest to launch the attack. He was the one who’d had the stoppage – so firing off the single shot. The fact that his gun had jammed had enabled H to get the drop on them, and open up with the GPMG, mowing down that first rank of RUF fighters. But the advantage had lasted barely moments. Hordes of rebels had crowded in from behind and let rip.

  During the hours since last light the rebels must have filtered into the jungle all around us. They’d sited their machine guns all across the forest to our front. In every direction I looked I could see muzzle flashes sparking under the canopy, and I could feel the rounds tearing past just a couple of feet above the HQ depression, the trees and vegetation getting torn to shreds.

  I glanced behind me at Tricky and Wag. Tricky was crawling towards the 319 radio, trying to reach it before it got shot to pieces. Wag was on his hands and knees and had somehow managed to grab the Thuraya, which was a massive fucking relief. I knew he’d get a contact report away – format: what had happened, where and when, and get the QRF scrambled.

  Behind us the village was utterly deserted. The noise was enough to wake the dead, but the villagers had clearly decided to stay put and hunker down, which was exactly what we’d told them to do should the rebels attack. Any shadowy figures moving through the open we’d treat as hostile, and they’d very likely get gunned down.

  I turned back to the front. Time seemed to have slowed into an agonising stillness. I had Grant kneeling to one side of me, Captain Cantrill to the other, his eyes like bloody saucers. I guessed this wasn’t quite what he’d bargained for. He’d flown in for a short recce in his nicely-pressed uniform, only to have to bed down in the dirt, and get woken to seven bales of shit breaking loose all around him.

  The rebels were unleashing with tracer rounds and where they were firing high their trails were arcing into the heavens way beyond the village. Tracer takes a good kilometre or more to burn out fully, and the night sky over Lungi Lol had erupted into Sierra Leone’s most fearsome ever firework display.

  The number of weapons hammering rounds into us was unbelievable. Terrifying.

  As our fire rose in volume to meet theirs I could hear the popgun bark of our SA8os, as the blokes out front gave their all. They were letting r
ip with four- to six-round bursts – aimed deliberate shots – mixed in with longer eruptions from the GPMGs. Trouble was, at this rate of fire we’d soon be out of ammo, let alone keeping a third in reserve so we could make a fighting withdrawal.

  I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to take immediate action. I needed to take control of the battle, or we were done for. As platoon sergeant my place was forward with the guys. I had to get there and I had to make the move now.

  I heard Wag’s voice screaming from behind me: ‘Steve! I’ve got the Thuraya! Sending contact report now!’

  I yelled a reply. ‘Got it! Wag! Wag! I’m going forward!’

  Every night I’d slept with my weapons beside me: my SA80, my Browning pistol, the 51 mm mortar, plus the bag of mortar rounds that Wag and me had scrounged off Mick, back at Lungi Airport. My plan if we were hit during the hours of darkness was to use the 51 mm to put up illume, so as to light up the battlefield. I’d expose the rebels in the kill zones – the areas where the villagers had cleared the vegetation – so the lads could see to shoot them. Plus I’d make them visible at a far greater range, so we could kill them before they overran us.

  Putting up the illume was crucial to our defence of the village. The lads would all be expecting it. It was part of our game plan for a night attack. But to get the mortar rounds up I had to move forward, and that meant into the teeth of the enemy fire.

  I reached for the 51 mm mortar, then glanced to my immediate front, checking the route via which I needed to crawl. I could see a line of muzzle flashes sparking out of the dark jungle to either side of the track. I counted a good dozen, and each had the fast, rhythmical fzzzt-fzzzt-fzzzt-fzzzt-fzzzt of a belt-fed 7.62 mm machine gun.