Eye of the Storm

by Peter Ratcliffe

‘Over the berm,’ I pointed across the road. ‘You first, Des, then Ken, and we’ll bring up the rear. Now go.’

  Des’s driver revved up, took a fast run at the berm and bounced over the top easily. Ken on the motorcycle was only seconds behind him, doing a great impression of Evel Knievel as he leapt the top with a foot or more to spare.

  Then it was our turn. Mugger revved up and we charged towards the berm and raced up the side. Then, just as we reached the top, Mugger let the revs drop and we stalled right on the crest, rocking slightly backwards and forwards.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Mugger, what are you messing about at?’ I hissed in his ear.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he said.

  By this time Des had realized what had happened and had driven back to the bottom of the berm on the far side.

  ‘I’ll tow you off,’ he shouted.

  ‘No you won’t,’ I yelled back. ‘All you’ll manage from that side is to pull us in up to our axle. Come back over here and pull us off backwards.’

  Our position was beginning to get slightly hairy. From our excellent vantage point in our Land Rover on top of the berm, I could see the three sets of headlights creeping ever nearer. They were now less than 800 metres away. ‘Better be prepared,’ I told Harry in the back, and within seconds was reassured to hear the double thud of a grenade being loaded into the Mk19 as the weapon was cocked.

  Getting a good purchase from the metalled road, Des made his return run over the berm with ease and within thirty seconds had a winch line attached to the back of our 110. Thirty more and we were free and back at the foot of the berm. Mugger reversed some distance to give us a good run-up, and Des’s driver did the same once the winch line had been recovered.

  By now the enemy were no more than 600 metres away and time was getting a bit tight. Once more Des’s vehicle managed to sail over the berm without difficulty, and then it was our turn again. I half-turned in my seat, grinned at my driver and said, ‘Mugger, don’t stall it again – please?’

  It was his turn to grin. ‘Piece of cake, Billy,’ he said, ‘piece of cake.’ And with the revs rising to a howl we surged forwards and then up the side of the berm. At the top the 110 leapt the crest, flipped nose down, and we were suddenly rushing and sliding down the far side and on to the road.

  ‘All right,’ I said. Then, after a quick glance back along the road to where the oncoming Iraqi vehicles were now less than half a kilometre away, I told them, ‘Let’s get out of here before these guys get any closer.’

  But we had little to fear. I figured that as the enemy were using headlights their night vision would be so poor that they’d need to be within a hundred metres to spot us. The noise of their own engines would more than mask the sound of ours at this distance.

  When we’d put a good kilometre between us and the enemy I signalled Des and Ken to follow me off the road and into the desert, where I pulled up. The other Land Rover and the bike stopped alongside me, and for a moment silence reigned. I told Des and Harry to stand down the grenades from the Mk19s and then gave the go-ahead for a cigarette break.

  We didn’t have long to wait. Some ten minutes later, when the search vehicles were almost opposite the first of the manholes we had doctored, the charge blew, sending a huge gout of red and yellow flame high into the sky. I couldn’t see what the reaction was aboard the enemy trucks, except that their headlights were suddenly stabbing in all different directions. We waited just under five minutes for the other charge to blow, which it did with an equally spectacular display of pyrotechnics, the heavy boom of the explosion reaching us a few seconds later.

  ‘Saddam won’t be launching any more Scuds using that command line,’ I declared. ‘Well done, lads. Now for the RV.’ Cigarettes crushed out under foot, we mounted up and set out to drive the thirty kilometres or so to the rendezvous I had agreed with Pat. I didn’t know it, but I had a couple more hours in which to enjoy the success of our mission before all my high spirits would be knocked out of me.

  We arrived at the RV shortly after 0330 hours, to find no trace of the other group. After half an hour and still no sign of them I asked Des to give me the latitude and longitude of the spot I had picked out. When I plotted the reference against our position on the map I saw at once that we were not at the location I had selected, and where I had told Pat to meet us.

  ‘You’ve brought us to the wrong place,’ I told Des bluntly.

  ‘No I haven’t,’ he replied, somewhat sheepishly.

  ‘Des, I’m telling you that this is not the place where I told Pat to meet up with us.’ I was rapidly running out of patience.

  He looked at me even more sheepishly and said, ‘I think I’d better tell you what happened. After you told Pat the RV location he called me over and told me he was changing it to the place we’re at now.’

  I was absolutely stunned. For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then I said incredulously, ‘You mean, if my vehicle had become separated in a firefight and headed for our rendezvous we would have been the only ones there, because for some reason known only to him, Pat has changed the location?’

  Des didn’t answer, probably wisely, since I was furious. I made up my mind there and then that, come that night, Pat would be shipping out on the resupply helicopter. Meanwhile it looked as if my 2IC and the rest of the patrol weren’t even going to make the changed rendezvous, and we needed to find an LUP. This time I made Des follow me. I hadn’t decided how I was going to deal with him yet.

  We drove through the night for a few kilometres, until we came across a site that looked ideal for an LUP, especially since we only had two 110s and a motorcyle to conceal. Having disposed the vehicles and detailed a couple of sentries, I went straight back to my Land Rover, where I contacted Al Jouf on the radio and reported a successful mission. In return, HQ advised me that a new second-in-command was flying in that night with the resupply. He would take over from Pat, and would stay with us for approximately two weeks; however, he would be under my overall command throughout his allotted time with the patrol. HQ didn’t name him over the radio, but described him as ‘the new OC designate of A Squadron’.

  There was a further message, forwarded from Pat, which told me to meet him and the rest of Alpha One Zero at 1800 hours that evening. You are forbidden to use foul language over the radio, but had I been able to I surely would have used it then. Instead, I had to content myself with sending him a return message, through Al Jouf, telling him, as a direct order from me, that he was to meet me at another location at 1800 hours, and giving the map coordinates. And that, until I met up with him, would have to be that.

  From our LUP during that morning we detected enemy activity on a hilltop some three or four kilometres away on our right flank. Since we could see them I was sure that they could see us, but they caused us no bother. I was in no position, with only six guys and two Land Rovers, to do anything about them there and then, and after briefing Des and his crew to keep an eye on them during the day, I tried to put them out of my mind. Before pulling out at 1730 that evening, however, I sent a brief message to Al Jouf giving them the coordinates of the Iraqi position. If the enemy troops stayed there for long after we left, then they were going to have a very unpleasant extra dish for dinner in the shape of a few air-to-ground missiles.

  The RV I had selected was only thirty minutes’ drive away, and we arrived at almost the same time as the rest of our unit. The moment all the vehicles had come to a stop I walked straight over to Pat and told him to come with me. I was still seething, but I managed not to say another word until we had walked about a hundred metres away from the men and were out of earshot. I then gave him one of the biggest bollockings I had ever handed out.

  ‘What the fuck do you think you are you playing at?’ I began. ‘I told you where you were to meet me, and the moment I walked away you told Des you were changing the location.

  ‘You deliberately countermanded my order. You had no authority to do so, and on top of that you jeopardized the lives of the peopl
e in my vehicle. If there had been a contact and a split, we would have gone to a completely different location from everyone else.’

  Pat said nothing.

  ‘I’ve had enough of you and your negative attitude,’ I went on. ‘You’re out of this location on the resupply helicopter tonight.’

  He was shocked, so stunned that he couldn’t say a word. He knew, though, that he was completely in the wrong. Without a word he just turned away and walked slowly back to his vehicle with his head down. He looked utterly dejected, but I didn’t feel the slightest pity for him. I was still fuming. Not just because he had ignored my order, or even because he had put my life at risk, but because he had risked the lives of Mugger and Harry.

  Having dealt with Pat I went back, found Des and took him on one side.

  ‘All right,’ I demanded, ‘I want to know why you didn’t tell me that Pat had changed the RV location.’

  ‘I’m sorry, it was my fault,’ he said. ‘But I was between a rock and a hard place. Pat’s senior to me. It’s as simple as that.’

  And of course, it was – the damned seniority system. In the Regiment we have a kind of batting order among people of the same rank. This is based on the date at which a man was promoted, and everyone knows where they stand in this order, just as batsmen do in a cricket team. You can have six guys who are all staff sergeants, but each one knows who is senior to him – and who is junior. It doesn’t take a genius to work out whether someone was promoted before you were. Everyone knows this is how things work, and everyone accepts it. The Regiment is a very small one, and that’s the way it has always operated.

  Des had naively thought that Pat’s change would make no difference. And had I not asked for the lat. and long., or if we had arrived at the location and Pat had been there, I would never have known about the switch, since I would not otherwise have checked the coordinates.

  There was no point in chewing Des out further. I simply told him, ‘If anyone countermands any of my orders in future, I want you to tell me the moment it happens. No matter who it is, or how senior he is. This time we were lucky and nobody got hurt. I don’t want there to be a next time.’

  I went back to the convoy and told the men to get aboard their vehicles. Then I walked over to Pat’s Land Rover.

  ‘Okay,’ I told him. ‘I trust you picked out a decent landing site last night. We should have plenty of time to get there before midnight. Even so, let’s get moving.’

  Whatever his other failings, Pat was still the best navigator we had. He just lacked the qualities I needed. It was obvious, too, that he didn’t like me or the way I ran things. Later I was told that he thought me much too laid-back to command a patrol behind enemy lines and bring it home safely.

  I will admit that that’s the impression I like to project. It’s both my nature and the way I operate. Faced with a choice I will always go for positive action, but I would never risk people’s lives unnecessarily. Nevertheless, the SAS is a regiment whose motto is ‘Who dares wins’, and that’s what our job is all about – going forward and actually trying to achieve a mission or a goal. Pat seems to have found me a bit too blasé, even careless; I found that he lacked what I was looking for in a 2IC to drive the patrol on to complete its tasks.

  The distance to the landing site was only thirty kilometres, and we should have been there well before midnight – giving us a couple of hours in which to make the site secure before the chopper came in – if Yorky hadn’t driven Pat’s Land Rover over the edge of a sheer drop into a ravine, something which, in those conditions, can happen to anyone. How nobody was killed or badly injured God only knows, for the 110 dropped about six or seven feet and then rolled over, landing upside-down in the ravine. I think the three of them were saved by the roll bar, which took the main force of the crash, but they had all suffered some hard knocks and were badly shaken up. All the fuel had spilled out of the vehicle’s tank, and ammunition, fuel cans, weapons, equipment and rations were scattered along the bottom of the ravine.

  It took us nearly an hour and a half to get the Land Rover out, but we were forced to work with great care so as not to cause any sparks that might ignite the fuel. Eventually we managed to winch the thing upright, hook it up to the Unimog and drag it backwards out of the ravine.

  They were amazing vehicles, those Land Rovers. We refuelled Pat’s battered 110 once it had been checked over and it started first time. In fact, in our whole time in the field, during which we covered thousands of kilometres over some appalling terrain, we didn’t experience a problem with any of them. I would endorse Land Rover’s product any time.

  Pat and his crew were so badly shocked that I actually relented in my decision to ship him out. Pulling him to one side, I told him that I had decided to give him one last chance. But, I added, he had received his final warning. I think he appreciated it. He damned well ought to have done, charity not coming high up on any RSM’s list of priorities, least of all mine. He mumbled some kind of a thank you, though he was still pretty shaken from the accident. By some miracle Yorky was also unhurt and, to his credit, declared himself fit enough to drive. We were able to resume our journey in our earlier formation, delayed but still more or less in one piece.

  In the event we arrived at the landing site with a good two hours to spare before the rendezvous, set for 0200, and immediately set about securing the area. We had to make sure it was completely sterile – free of the enemy and of any civilians – and this was done by sending out patrols for several kilometres around. If there was no sign of the enemy we would arrange the vehicles in defensive pickets around the site, and station members of the patrol in the centre to guide the helicopter in. Since we had to maintain complete radio silence, the pilot wouldn’t land if he didn’t get the correct signal from the ground.

  Right on time the Chinook came clattering in, flying just thirty feet above the ground. It made a sweeping pass overhead, turned within a hundred metres and landed, noisily but gracefully enough, exactly where planned. Dust blew up in great clouds from the down-draught and the noise was horrendous, since the engines were kept running.

  The first person I saw when the tail ramp came down was the load master, and I went forward beneath the spinning rotors to greet him. Then I handed him a confidential report I had written to the CO, explaining the situation with Alpha One Zero. Some things I couldn’t trust to the airwaves. In that report, after giving the CO my appraisal of the men I urged him under no circumstances to consider splitting the unit into two patrols. I’d heard over the radio that one Delta half-squadron had split, but I felt that we would be a more effective fighting force if Alpha One Zero remained intact, not least because Pat’s way of operating gave me cause for concern. It was imperative they remain together under my command until we quit Iraq.

  While I had been talking to the load master another man had disembarked, carrying an M16 and a bergen. This must be my new 2IC. Having safely handed over my report I turned to the newcomer and we shook hands. I still didn’t know who he was, but I yelled in his ear for him to follow me away from the noise of the engines. As we moved off my men clambered aboard the Chinook and began rolling everything off. The helicopter had already resupplied other patrols on that run, and the fact that we were the last unit to be resupplied on that flight meant everything left aboard was intended for us, which made the unloading simple.

  When we were a couple of hundred metres from the helicopter the new arrival set his bergen down and put out his hand again.

  ‘I’m Major Peter,’ he said. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Billy.’

  I took a moment to look him over carefully. He was in his early thirties, about five feet nine inches tall, stocky, with a thick mop of fairish hair and a steady, confident gaze. He seemed like a nice guy. This was the first time we had met, for he had been on a staff posting in Riyadh and our paths hadn’t crossed during the couple of days when I had been there. When the previous patrol commander had been pulled out Peter had been designated as his
replacement. He was not due to take over as OC A Squadron until November, but the CO thought that sending him in to join us for a few weeks would give him a chance to meet half his squadron and set him on a very good learning curve. A very steep learning curve, if you had asked me, but I was confident the CO knew what he was doing.

  I quickly brought Peter up to date on the mission so far, and briefed him on my future intentions. For a couple of days I had been mulling over an idea in my mind, and while waiting for the helicopter had finally decided to go ahead with it. I intended to start moving during the day as well as at night, and to carry out operations in daylight, where that was possible. There was no hesitation from my new 2IC – he was in full agreement. ‘It’ll give us a chance to see what the enemy is up to,’ he said. ‘I’m all for it.’

  I warmed to him even more a few moments later when he produced a familiar-looking bottle from under his coat. ‘This is for you,’ he said, glancing around to make sure no one else was watching. ‘I feel as though I shouldn’t be giving it to you, in view of the CO’s orders, but I’m told it’s purely for medicinal use.’

  I laughed. ‘Give the thing here,’ I said, taking the bottle of dark rum, ‘it will come in very useful. A little tot in hot chocolate or coffee will do wonders for the guys’ morale.’ Then a thought struck me.

  ‘Where’s the rest of it?’ I asked. I had put in for half a dozen bottles.

  ‘That’s it,’ he told me. ‘I only brought the one bottle.’

  Well, there goes the guys’ morale booster, I told myself. I was damned if I was going to share the one bottle around. It was going to stay in my pack and provide an occasional solo nightcap in the days to come.

  By this time everything had been unloaded from the helicopter, including a replacement motorcycle for one that had packed up, and I went down and gave the load master the all-clear to pull out. Within forty-five minutes of the Chinook clattering off into the night sky the vehicles’ tanks and all the jerry cans had been replenished with fuel, and we had our maximum supply of water stowed aboard. As usual we had a lot of fuel left over in the burmoils that the chopper had brought, but I knew from earlier experience in the Middle East that if it was left where it was then the bedouin would eventually find and make use of it. They weren’t our enemies, however, so good luck to them.