I reached behind me: ‘ROUND!’
Cantrill scrabbled forward and thrust the mortar at me. I dropped it down the tube, fired it, and seconds later I’d got light bursting over the far side of Dolly’s position.
I started screaming: ‘WATCH AND SHOOT! WATCH AND SHOOT! PICK YOUR TARGETS! WATCH YOUR AMMO! WATCH YOUR AMMO! WATCH YOUR FUCKING AMMO!’
As I yelled out instructions I spotted scores of figures sprinting across the dirt highway at the fringes of the jungle. More and more of the rebel fighters were pouring north to join the killer thrust of the assault, which had turned against 33 Bravo big time.
I screamed out a warning: ‘REF TRACK TWELVE O’CLOCK AT TREE LINE ENEMY – RAPID FIRE!’
An instant later the guns in H’s trenches swivelled around and unleashed hell, scything down figures on the highway. I grabbed my SA80 from where I’d laid it on my boot and joined them. As I opened up I could see rebel fighters taking hits, getting smashed and stumbling to the ground. I was halfway through my thirty-round mag within seconds.
As I fired I started yelling at Nathe’s position to my right: ‘NATHE! CAN YOU SEE THEM? CAN YOU SEE THEM?’’
‘YEAH! ON! ON! ON! ON!’
The lads at 33 Alpha opened up on the rebel targets, adding their firepower to mine and H’s. I was firing by ‘battle-sighting’ now – looking over the top of my sights and sighting down the barrel alone – so as to allow me to maintain my peripheral vision. The last thing I needed was to get tunnel vision, and miss some rebel fighters creeping up to hit Cantrill and me.
From my vantage point I spotted a new threat now: hordes of shadowy figures surging through Fern Gully to swarm Dolly’s trenches.
I screamed out a further warning. ‘33 BRAVO DUE EAST – WATCH AND SHOOT! WATCH AND SHOOT! NEAR END OF FERN GULLY!’
Barely had I finished yelling when a savage burst of rounds sparked out from Dolly’s position. It was their GPMG tearing the night apart, signalling that their gunner had spotted the enemy fighters all but on top of their positions. This was it now: this was where the rebel commander had chosen to make his die-hard push. This was where they would overrun our first positions, or die trying.
Then I heard it. Desperate cries of: ‘STOPPAGE! STOPPAGE! STOPPAGE!’
More SA80 bullshit, but this time from over at Dolly’s trenches, and with the rebels surging out of Fern Gully and spitting-distance close.
Then, even worse from H: ‘CHANGING BELT! CHANGING BELT!’
An instant later H’s Gimpy ceased fire, the solid stream of rounds that he’d been hammering into Fern Gully coming to an abrupt end.
For a long-drawn-out moment Dolly’s lot were on their own, guns malfunctioning and the enemy right on top of them. H must have done the fastest GPMG belt change in history. Barely seconds later he had the weapon up and into action again. He hammered in the rounds up and down the length of the target, saturating Fern Gully with leaden death: from his position he could pretty much fire into the entire length of it.
But H was on his last belt of 200 rounds of link now, and if Dolly’s lot lost H’s fire support, they were pretty much finished.
‘H – FUCKING WATCH YOUR AMMO!’ I yelled. ‘WATCH YOUR FUCKING AMMO!’
By rights H was now eating into his escape and evasion (E & E) rounds. We’d agreed that when we got down to the last third of our ammo it was time to get the hell out of Dodge. I didn’t doubt that there were a whole lot more blokes who’d passed the same point – but now was hardly the time to turn and run. If we tried to bug out right now, Dolly’s lot were going to get slaughtered.
The illume over Dolly’s position was drifting low towards the trees. It’d soon be gone. I reached for another, then hesitated. By firing this one, I was about to eat into our E & E ammo for the mortar. We’d fired twelve: we had six remaining. I was about to cross the same line as H, and any number of the other lads.
Over the raging din of the firefight I could hear Dolly yelling desperate fire orders at his blokes. Though I couldn’t make out the words, right at this moment I knew how much he needed accurate supporting fire, and for that he needed light.
I said a quick prayer, gave Cantrill the nod, then dropped the round down the tube.
19
There was a pop in the sky as the illume burst right over the top of the deep, V-shaped gully, throwing the length of it into this harsh, phosphorescent glare. I yelled out the fire instructions, but there was almost no need: from every position that could get eyes-on Fern Gully the lads were smashing in the rounds. It was getting hosed down by a murderous barrage of fire.
Fuck rainwater: right now the Gully had to be churning with rebel blood.
All of a sudden a voice rang out from behind me, tearing my mind away from the brute savagery of the fight.
‘STEVE! STEVE! STEEEEEVE!’
I glanced over my right shoulder, thinking it had to be Cantrill. Maybe he was warning me that the rebels were rushing our position again. The Royal Marine captain was lying there staring up at me, next round held at the ready, and it clearly wasn’t him doing the yelling. I glanced over my other shoulder and there was Grant. He was a few feet back from Cantrill, lying prone on the man’s heels.
‘STEVE! RIGHT – LET’S GO!’ he yelled. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘MATE, LET’S GO! COME ON! LET’S GO!’
I stared at him, caught in a moment of confusion. What was he saying? Who should go? Just me and him, or all of us?
‘Mate, let’s withdraw!’ Grant yelled. ‘We need to withdraw!’
It suddenly dawned on me what he was saying: Time to get the hell out of Lungi Lol.
I didn’t know how long we’d been fighting for now, but it felt as if we’d been battling for a lifetime. I figured Grant’s rationale for withdrawing had to be this: me, Dolly, H, Nathe and the others were so far forward and absorbed in the firefight that we’d lost any perspective. We’d passed the one-third of our ammo limit, the trigger to bug out and start the E & E; we’d been hit all along our front line positions, so very likely we were getting surrounded. I could understand how Grant had made the judgement call that now was the time to go.
‘Mate, withdraw!’ he yelled again. ‘Mate, let’s withdraw! Let’s go! Bug out!’
But I hadn’t been expecting this. A chaotic jumble of thoughts crashed through my head. I figured I had a better sense of the battle, being so hands-on as I was. I figured we could still win this, that we had the measure of the rebels now. If we could hold on for just a few minutes more we’d get the QRF in, and sooner or later we’d start to get a little light. Come first light we could see the rebels properly to kill them, and we wouldn’t need any more illume.
Sure, we were well down on the ammo. I figured H, Nathe and Dolly’s lot were well past the one-third mark. I was taking a wild stab in the dark, but maybe Taff and Ginge would be better off on the ammo front. I didn’t know what casualties we’d taken, but I hadn’t heard a single cry of ‘man down’ – the call for a wounded man needing urgent evacuation and treatment. We still held our defensive positions, and we’d be more exposed if we abandoned those and went on the run. Who knew what we’d stumble into if we tried to E & E through the jungle?
Those thoughts flashed through my mind in microseconds. If we pushed the rebels back from Dolly’s position they’d be forced to regroup, having taken scores of casualties. That meant we could get the QRF inserted into our battle trenches, which meant thirty fresh blokes from 1 PARA plus shedloads of ammo. Time becomes hugely warped and confused when drugged out of your mind on adrenaline, but either way the QRF could only be minutes away now.
If we tried to withdraw right now, we’d be doing so with Dolly’s lot still under a murderous siege. If we ceased firing and pulled back we’d be leaving them to face the brunt of the rebel assault, and I didn’t figure they’d make it. Plus we still had a village to protect here. The villagers of Lungi Lol fucking needed us.
Decision made.
I shook my head violentl
y. ‘NO, MATE! No fucking way! We’re staying! We stay! We’re staying!’
I didn’t have the time to give Grant a detailed heads-up as to my reasons why. But Grant and me had such a relationship that I figured he’d trust my call on this one. He could rest assured that I’d considered all the options and made my decision accordingly. Grant would trust my call, I was sure of it.
‘Mate, we’re staying!’ I repeated. ‘We stay!’
‘Okay, mate, okay. I hear you!’
Grant was good with it. He didn’t know my reasons, but he knew I’d have them. That was why Grant was such a great bloke to have in command.
Dolly’s patrol was still in the thick of it. I could hear their guns hammering away. They needed light up over them pronto, for the last illume that I’d fired was well down by now. Turning to Cantrill I reached for another round, and within seconds I had it winging into the air high above Fern Gully. As it burst bright and angry in the dark night sky it was like a signal: No one fucks us out of Lungi Lol; we’re staying.
The firefight raged on. I fired another illume and another, as the ones before them faltered. As a final flare round burst, throwing its harsh light down the length of the battlefield, the firing from the rebel side ceased abruptly. One moment, all hell was letting loose – the next, almost nothing. I could hear the odd pop-pop-pop of an SA80 firing from out of Dolly’s trenches, but it was as if they were chasing after fleeting shadows.
In the near-silence I could hear Dolly yelling at his blokes, checking they were okay.
I heard Grant’s voice from behind me again. ‘Steve, I’m gonna move back to Tricky! I’m gonna send a full contact report!’
‘Got it.’ I gestured at Cantrill. ‘Mate, go with him.’
Cantrill eyed me for a long second, before nodding his understanding. ‘Yeah, okay, fine.’
I gestured for the daysack, and he thrust it into my hand. Taking the mortar tube in my left and the rifle in my right, I slung the sack of rounds over my shoulder. Like that I doubled over, sprinting in a crouch for H’s trench. I needed to stay forward, but we’d been exposed in this position for far too long now. If I could make it to H’s trench, I could get into some cover, rest the mortar on the lip, and still put up the light. Like that I could self-load, so I wouldn’t need Cantrill any more.
As I thundered through the bullet-riddled bush I yelled out a warning: ‘H, it’s Steve! Steve! Steve! It’s Steve! I’m coming in.’
H barely grunted an acknowledgement. His eyes were glued to the sights of his GPMG. To one side of H his wingman – Bucks – was likewise eyes-down his weapon. I tore across the last few yards and leaped in. Then I hunkered down, so I was sandwiched between the two of them. I threw the bag of remaining rounds onto the forward lip of the trench, laid the mortar tube next to the bag, grabbed my SA80 and took up a position leaning on the revetment, my eyes down the barrel of my weapon.
To my left H had the GPMG menacing the length of Fern Gully, but right now there were bugger all targets to fire at in there. Bucks was to my right, SA80 likewise in the aim. I could hear the odd burst of fire from the direction of the jungle, from where the latest rebel assault had been launched. Somewhat ominously, there was nothing much in terms of return fire from 33 Bravo.
For a moment I had this horrible thought: What the fuck’s happened to Dolly’s lot? I had visions of them being captured and dragged off into the heart of rebel hell.
The final illume round spluttered out into darkness, the last of the gunfire seeming to die with it. For a moment there was complete silence, and then I heard this new noise start up – these agonised groans and moans coming from the direction of the gully. No matter what a bloke’s nationality the language of pain, agony and dying is pretty much the same. Aaarrrggghhh.
For two minutes or so these horrible cries rent the darkness, before they too died into silence. All I could hear now was the brrsst-brrsst-brrsst of the basher-beetles, as they bumbled about in the vegetation to either side of us.
H let out this nervous laugh. It began as a faint chuckle deep in his chest, before creeping up out of his throat. He still had his eyes-down his gun, but from the corner of his mouth this thick Yorkshire accent went: ‘Fooking hell, mate.’
‘Yeah, fuck me,’ I confirmed.
Silence.
Observation.
Watchfulness.
Where will they come from next?
And what the hell’s happened to the lads at 33 Bravo?
I figured the QRF could only be minutes out, so we had to have a helo inbound. At the same time I figured the rebels had withdrawn with the aim of getting into our rear. They’d hit us left, right and centre and been smashed. That only left one avenue of attack. They’d probed our positions, in what amounted to a series of savage recces-by-fire, losing dozens of blokes killed and injured – but in doing so they’d discovered the limits of our defences and how to skirt around them.
That meant we had to get the QRF down on an LZ that was least menaced by the enemy. No point getting thirty-odd PARAs flown in, if their Chinook got blasted out of the sky and all the blokes were killed.
There was a bit of whispered chat between H and me as to where the enemy had gone to, and where to get the helo in. Wherever the rebels had pulled back to, we knew in our bones this was only a temporary lull. The rebel commanders had vowed to take Lungi Lol and execute Operation Kill British. They’d keep coming.
They’d regroup in the jungle, patch up their wounded, and decide upon a new plan of attack. And here in H’s position, plus in 33 Bravo’s trench at least, we were down to less than a third of our ammo, and I figured we had to have wounded.
For a moment I wondered what we’d do with our casualties. Most minor flesh wounds we could treat in the field. But anything serious would have to get a casevac – a casualty evacuation back to Lungi Airport. It made sense to get any injured blokes out on the same Chinook that would fly the QRF in. In which case I figured it was time for me to get to the HQ ATAP, so I could get a sense of things, and liaise with the helo that was flying in.
‘I’m going back to the HQ ATAP,’ I grunted at H.
He nodded a silent acknowledgement.
I told him the obvious: to keep watching the track and the gully, scanning for movement. Grabbing the daysack of 51 mm rounds plus my SA80, I clambered out of the trench, retrieved the mortar from where I’d laid it, and began a hunched run the 70 yards back towards our HQ.
As I neared it, the village ahead of me seemed alive with figures. It was still dark, so I couldn’t make out a great deal, but it sounded like complete chaos in there. I guessed we had to have dead and wounded villagers – those who’d been caught in the crossfire – and some of those might well need casevacing, alongside our blokes.
As I thundered into the HQ position I yelled out a warning: ‘It’s STEVE! STEVE! I’m coming in!’
I crashed through the foliage and sprang into the depression. Grant and Cantrill were there, with Wag and Tricky to the rear crouched over the Thuraya and the radio.
I locked eyes with Wag. ‘Anything in from the patrol commanders? Wounded?’
I was expecting him to say: 33 Bravo report three casualties, and so on and so forth all down the line of patrols.
He shook his head. ‘No, mate, nothing yet.’
‘Any update on QRF?’
‘Yeah, initial contact report’s gone and received. Sending more detailed one right now.’
We didn’t need a confirmation message that the QRF were inbound. Our first contact report would trigger their launch, in which case they could only be bare minutes away now.
At that moment an unmistakable figure appeared from the direction of the village. It was Mojo, and following in his wake were his men. I counted eight blokes in all. I’d just presumed that Mojo’s lot were in position in the trenches at the rear of the village. In which case, what were nine of them, their commander included, doing here?
Grant got to his feet and turned on Mojo. He simpl
y exploded. ‘What the fuck are you doing here? Why the fuck are you not in your positions? Get the fuck down to your trenches, or else!’
Mojo had a look on his face like he’d just shat his load. He didn’t have a weapon with him, but then again he never seemed to carry one. At least his blokes appeared to be armed. I saw him bark some orders at his men. They turned almost as one and started sprinting down the road towards the rear of the village.
‘Tricky! Wag!’ Grant called over. ‘Heads-up.’
We knelt in the HQ depression, the four of us facing inwards. We huddled together cheek to cheek in the cover of the earthen bowl. Cantrill was down in the prone position on the lip of the depression, looking back the way we’d crawled, his SA80 in the aim. But I could tell he had one ear cocked at the four of us.
‘Right, guys, decision time,’ Grant announced. ‘What are we doing? Those attacks were most likely a probe, so there’s still an argument that now is the right time to get out. Do you think we should go?’ he queried. ‘There’s a lull in the battle. We’re not under fire. So do we get out now? Steve?’
‘No, mate, we stay.’ I was adamant. ‘We’ve repelled the attack. We’ve re-bombed our mags. We’re in good defensive positions. We’ve inflicted serious casualties. The plus points of staying outweigh pulling out, putting half the blokes on the Pinz and running down an open track. Mate, I reckon in these initial stages we’ve stemmed the tide. I’m taking it that the QRF are inbound, and unless someone tells me different we haven’t took any casualties.’
Grant shrugged. ‘Too early to say.’
‘Agreed, mate, but with our position being as it is I still reckon we stay.’
‘Okay. Wag?’ Grant prompted.
‘Agree with Steve. For the time being we’ve held ’em off. But I need to get around the blokes and do ammo stats and check on casualties. But for me, for now, we stay.’
Operation Mayhem Page 24