by Damien Lewis
‘You got it, mate,’ Mat’s voice came back at him.
‘How about fuckin’ covering fire from the GPMGs?’ Tom yelled.
‘Wait one, mate, I’ll get the lads on to it.’
Seconds after that radio call, Tom and Sam heard the reassuring roar of the GPMGs opening up from the roof of the entranceway tower, as Jamie and Ruff put down bursts of suppressing fire on to the enemy positions. Immediately that they did so, the heavy rounds from the Gimpys began to take effect and the incoming enemy fire lessened considerably, taking some of the heat off the rescue team. This slight lull in the pace of the battle gave the soldiers a chance to catch their breath and consider their options. Tom, Sam, Major Martin and CIA Steve crawled across to each other for a hurried Chinese parliament in the cover of the wall.
‘Once that air strike goes in, we gotta get goin’, boys,’ Major Martin yelled, ‘cos they got us pinned down bad.’
‘Sure thing, but which way’re we goin’?’ Sam yelled back at him. ‘Cos we sure as hell ain’t givin’ up on this thing yet.’
‘Too right, buddy, it’s dead ahead,’ the Major yelled back. ‘We’re pressin’ on to the HQ building.’
‘Ain’t no way out of here but forward, mate,’ Tom cut in. ‘But I got an idea. This wall runs parallel to the main wall – in just the right fuckin’ direction we want to go in. We got four minutes before that air strike hits – so let’s move along it far as we can towards HQ.’
‘What about puttin’ down some return fire?’ Major Martin asked.
‘You’re welcome to it,’ Tom replied. ‘You reckon you can hit those fuckers from here, under all this fire, be my guest, mate.’
‘Ain’t no time for talkin’, guys,’ Sam cut it. ‘Like Tom said, let’s just move it.’
With Sam leading the way, the three special forces soldiers and CIA Steve started to belly-crawl the length of the wall towards Dostum’s HQ. As they did so, they motioned for the Afghan fighters to do likewise. The low wall stretched for some forty yards in the direction of the building, leaving some thirty yards of open ground to cover at the far end. Keeping as low as they could, the rescue team proceeded in this way until they reached a tumbledown section of the wall. Here, only three or four levels of brickwork survived above ground.
Sam went to move across this horribly exposed section, keeping his body pressed to the ground. But as he did so he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. It was the scream of a mortar round inbound towards them. The shell exploded about thirty yards away, throwing a great gout of sand and rocks into the air, and then the enemy mortar operator started to fire for effect, laying down a barrage of mortar rounds on their position.
‘Someone get a bead on that motherfuckin’ mortar operator and take the fucker out!’ Tom screamed into his radio. ‘We’re getting fuckin’ murdered down here!’
‘Roger that, mate, we’re trying to locate him,’ came Mat’s reply. He was trying to sound calm and reassured, but at the same time he knew what a bad, bad situation his mates were in.
‘Well, fuckin’ get him,’ Tom yelled back at him. ‘Or he’s going to fuckin’ get us.’
As Tom lay there, desperately trying to work his body lower into the soft earth, he found himself praying for that US air strike. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the weirdest thing that he’d ever seen in all his born days. For a second he wondered if he was hallucinating. In the midst of all this murder and mayhem, he could see two white doves slowly descending from the heavens. Down and down they fluttered, until they came to perch right on top of the wall where Tom and the others were hiding. And there the doves sat, as the bullets and mortar rounds slammed into the earth all around them, cooing at each other like a couple of lovebirds or the universal doves of peace. For a second Tom just stared at them in disbelief. Then he caught Sam’s eye. From his fellow soldier’s expression he knew that Sam had also seen the two doves.
As the SBS soldiers continued to stare at the doves in amazement, the two birds turned and calmly gazed back at them. After what seemed like an age, the doves turned round again, spread their wings and took off gracefully, flying in a series of spirals ever higher into the air. While the bullets cracked and zipped all around them, the two white birds just seemed to be indestructible, untouchable, immortal even, like they were leading the life of the charmed. As the doves rose higher and higher above the fort, the noise of the battle receded and Tom was filled with an unshakeable conviction that he would live through that day. He suddenly felt suffused with a deep and residing tranquillity, a pure sense of peace that coursed through his veins.
‘Was I fuckin’ dreamin’, or what?’ Tom said to Sam, as the doves finally disappeared over the fort’s outer wall.
‘That weren’t no dream, bro. But it ain’t like nothin’ on this earth I ever seen before.’
‘It’s a sign, got to be. Like a miracle, mate.’
‘Sure thing, bro. Like a message that we ain’t gonna die.’
‘We’re going to fuckin’ live, mate. And we’re going to waste those fuckers.’
As if in response to Tom’s last words, above the ear-splitting noise of the mortar barrage they heard the scream of an incoming missile. Glancing up, they saw the flash of a spear-shaped projectile shooting across the sky above them, and then it slammed into the enemy positions in the southern end of the fort with a deafening roar. The very second that the five-hundred-pound bomb hit, Tom and Sam were on their feet, yelling, ‘GO! GO! GO!’ as they started pounding across towards the HQ building, barely thirty feet in front of them. As they dived into the shelter of the wall, Tom sank to his knees with relief. Somehow they had made it in there alive.
‘Never run so fuckin’ fast in all me life, mate,’ he gasped, trying to catch his breath.
‘Saved by the US Air Force, bro,’ Sam panted, as he sucked air into his burning lungs.
‘Saved by the fuckin’ doves more like it,’ Tom came back at him.
‘Yeah … But you know somethin’, bro? Them birds was made in the USA too, you know.’
‘Fuck off. They were British,’ Tom snorted. ‘I saw the Union Jacks on their wings.’
A few seconds after the last of the Afghan fighters had dived into cover of the wall, Tom and Sam heard the enemy machine guns starting up again from the gateway. After the shock of the air strike, the enemy there must have regrouped and were coming back at them for more. So far four five-hundred-pound bombs had hit the enemy positions at the gateway, yet still they kept on fighting.
‘Fuck me,’ said Tom, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Don’t they ever fuckin’ give up? I mean, they fuckin’ indestructible or something?’
‘They came here to die, bro,’ Sam replied, matter-of-factly. ‘They ain’t givin’ up ’til the last of ’em is dead.’
‘Fuckin’ unbelievable,’ Tom said, shaking his head in bewilderment. ‘I mean, they’ve got no fuckin’ air power or nothin’. That sort of will to keep fighting …’
‘You mean you don’t kinda come across it that often? Like I said, they’re fighting to the death, bro. Period.’
During Sam’s eighteen months in the SBS he and Tom had never worked that closely, so they didn’t really know each other before being thrown together on this rescue mission. But the intense pressure of battle meant that they’d formed an instinctive, natural partnership. Sam’s dry, sarcastic humour helped enormously in his ability to fit in with the lads in the SBS. The piss-taking was universal and relentless within the SBS, and the SAS for that matter. If an operator proved incapable of taking it, he wouldn’t survive in either unit. It was a way for each man to test out his fellow soldier, to push him as far as he would go, to prove that under pressure he would deliver.
As the rescue team were now in the cover of the massive mud walls of Dostum’s HQ building they were pretty much invulnerable to the enemy fire. But in order to press on the last few yards to the entranceway, they would have to break cover and advance along the front of
the building. This stretch of ground was completely exposed to enemy fire. After a short breather, Sam and Tom risked a quick look around the corner of the wall at their next objective. Along the front of the HQ building ran a shallow ramp at the far end of which was a raised doorway. Tom and Sam could see that the door frame was peppered with bullet holes and the blast marks of RPGs. In order to reach that doorway, they would have to run up that ramp in the full view of the enemy.
Just as they were about to duck back into cover, the two SBS soldiers heard frenzied chants of ‘Allahu Akhbar! Allahu Akhbar! Allahu Akhbar!’ coming from across the fort compound. They turned in that direction and spotted a group of some thirty enemy fighters rushing towards them across the open ground, screaming at the tops of their voices as they did so. Dropping to one knee Tom and Sam started firing off on automatic, spraying the charging fighters with rounds. As they surged forward the enemy soldiers opened fire in return with their AK47s levelled at the hip. The bullets went zipping and whining past Tom and Sam, ricocheting off the walls.
Tom and Sam were taking aimed shots and dropping the fighters as fast as they could, but still they kept charging forwards. Suddenly, there was the throaty roar of Ruff’s Gimpy opening up from the eastern tower. Tom and Sam saw the heavy GPMG rounds tearing into the enemy figures, but still they kept on coming. As they got closer and closer, the two SBS soldiers realised that the surviving fighters were clutching grenades. Repeatedly, Tom and Sam fired and re-aimed, fired and re-aimed with their Diemacos, as the enemy bore down on them. Tom got the lead fighter nailed in his sights, and for a split second he saw a crazed figure rushing towards him brandishing a grenade in either hand, his mouth set in an animal snarl, an undying scream of hatred on his lips.
At the same time that Tom squeezed his trigger, the enemy fighter must have pulled the pin in his grenade. He was barely thirty yards from Tom’s position as he did so, and suddenly there was a blinding flash and the roar of the explosion. As Tom and Sam dived back behind cover, four other blasts rang out, as the first grenade set off the others that the fighter had been carrying. As the smoke cleared, Tom saw the bottom half of the man’s body toppling slowly to the ground. The top half of his torso had been completely obliterated in the blast. He and Sam searched with their weapons for any remaining enemy among the drifting smoke. But all they could see was the sandy earth littered with shattered human remains and soaked in blood and gore. Severed arms, legs and heads were lying scattered across the ground in front of them.
The two SBS soldiers sank back exhaustedly into the cover of the wall and buried their heads in their hands. There seemed to be no end to the slaughter and the bloodshed that would be required of them that day. The enemy weren’t fighting like soldiers any more, or conforming to any rules of combat. They were making no attempt to preserve their own lives and survive. They were rushing towards death, embracing it like a long-lost friend. And it was falling to Sam, Tom and the rest of them to deliver their final death sentence. But this was no moment for reflection or for battle nerves to kick in: it was already time to prepare for the next round of killing.
Major Martin took advantage of the temporary lull in the fighting to check in with Boxer Base. He needed to know if they’d got comms going with Dave Tyson, supposedly holed up in the HQ building. But even the Major’s comms back to Boxer Base were intermittent and kept breaking up. The intel situation seemed as confused as ever, and he was left unsure as to whether CIA Dave was still inside the HQ building. In fact, no one seemed to have any definitive information on the whereabouts of the missing CIA officers, or what state they were in.
CIA Steve had remained pretty quiet throughout the whole of the rescue mission. He’d had the honesty to admit from the start that he was out of his depth on this one. It was a full-on combat mission, hard-nosed fighting all the way, and that’s not something for which the CIA trained its officers. The Agency trained them to shoot straight and in explosives use. It trained them in espionage, intelligence gathering and black operations. It trained them to operate behind enemy lines. But it didn’t train them for full-on, chaotic, relentless war-fighting.
‘Steve, you reckon your buddies might still be in there, right?’ Major Martin asked.
‘There’s been no intel so far that says they’re not,’ CIA Steve replied.
‘OK, then, I guess we leave no man behind,’ Major Martin announced. ‘We press on with the mission. Which means we gotta get a couple of guys inside Dostum’s HQ building.’
After seeing the US and British soldiers in action, the Afghan fighters had realised that they more than knew their stuff. Two of the bravest now offered to join Tom and Sam as they made the dash up the HQ’s ramp and into the entranceway. But first, Tom called up Mat on the radio to ask if there were any more air strikes expected any time soon. Just one more hit on the enemy positions at the gateway and it should buy them enough time to rush the building. By now, five strikes had gone down. One was a JDAM dumped about a half-mile out in the desert; the others were the five-hundred-pounders dropped on the enemy positions in the fort. Mat radioed Tom that he had another air strike some ten minutes away, and so they should wait it out.
After what seemed like an age, there was the scream of the incoming missile and the five-hundred-pounder slammed into the enemy positions. As it did so, Tom, Sam and the two Afghan fighters broke cover and made a mad dash for the doorway. The wiry Afghans were faster and lighter than the bulkier SBS soldiers, and they leapt ahead. But just as they reached the doorway there was a sudden burst of gunfire and the first of the Afghans was cut down in a hail of bullets, his legs being shot out from under him. The second was so close behind that he ran headlong into the wall of machine-gun fire, his bloodied body being blasted in though the doorway of the fort.
Sam and Tom were bringing up the rear and they just managed to stop themselves in time. They dived back behind cover again. They had been that close to both getting blown away. The enemy had to have a machine gun zeroed in on the HQ doorway, which had been turned into a killing zone. Major Martin’s rescue team had finally succeeded in getting one of their men into the HQ building. But they had little doubt that the Afghan fighter had been dead on arrival.
‘It ain’t happenin’, bro,’ said Sam, turning to face Tom. ‘No matter now many goddam air strikes we put down, they tryin’ to stop us reaching those boys alive.’
‘There’s got to be a way, mate,’ Tom replied, racking his brains for an answer. There was only one doorway into the HQ building, of that he was certain, but maybe there were some windows that they could try for. ‘Let’s take a look, mate, just in case we missed something. We’re so close.’
‘Well, I ain’t giving up, either way,’ said Sam, quietly. ‘I ain’t leaving those CIA boys behind. No way am I abandoning them in a place like this. No way, bro – not even if it kills me.’
‘The brothers are getting wiped out, Ali!’ one of the younger men announced, screaming to make himself heard above the noise of the battle. ‘The kafir soldiers are calling in air strikes. Five buildings have been hit along the line of the wall. The brothers are getting massacred.’
‘You think I haven’t noticed?’ Ali barked in reply. He was staring out of the blasted gateway in the fort’s central wall, across to Dostum’s HQ building.
Over the last few hours Ali had started to assume a leadership role among the surviving brothers. As their spontaneous revolt had developed into a savage fight to the death, he had found himself acting as a tactical and spiritual guide to his fellow fighters. He knew his Muslim theology better than almost any other brother. He could quote extensively from the Koran. And with Ahmed’s help he could plan their defence of the fort. Or so he had thought, until the air strikes started pounding their positions and shredding the brothers before they had a chance to stand and fight.
‘Maybe this is how Allah wills it, brother,’ Ali continued, quietly. ‘That we all die here in this fort. Do the other brothers not want to be glorious shouhada’
a? To taste the fruits of Paradise?’
‘Not this way, Brother Ali,’ answered the young fighter. ‘Not cut down by a kafir bomb dropped from the air. They want to die fighting, brother. Fighting for the glory of Allah. With honour in their hearts.’
‘Fine, then the brothers have got two choices. They either stick with us here and we try another counter-attack, or they retreat and get down in the basement, where the kafir bombs can’t reach them. And for those that do that, they must put brothers on the windows, so they can return fire from there. If anyone gets hit, they must pull more brothers up from the basement to replace them. As for me, I know where my duty lies and where I’m staying.’
Ali lifted the armed RPG up on to his shoulder and gazed out into the northern half of the fort, searching for a target. ‘By the grace of Allah, I’ve got infidels to fight and to kill.’
12
BEHIND ENEMY LINES
IT WAS 3.45 p.m. by now and the SBS soldiers were some two and a half hours into the battle for Qala-i-Janghi fort, but the firefight showed no signs of abating. Captain Lancer, Mat, Jamie and Ruff were still in the full flow of battle up on the tower roof. The enemy positions at the gateway had been transformed into a mass of blasted debris – the scorched and twisted remains of the Toyota pickups and piles of smoking rubble. The air was thick with the stench of burning, of cordite and of charred human flesh. At times the smell was so strong that it made the SBS soldiers at the battlements gag.
In the next thirty minutes, Mat called in four more air strikes. Two hit the enemy positions at the gateway, and two further strikes went in on the southern end of the fort. The laser-guided bombs rocketed in over the forty-foot-high diving wall to target the pink building, General Dostum’s stables, where the bulk of the enemy were holed up. At all times Mat was coordinating the bombing runs with Tom and Sam, as they tried to push ahead with their rescue mission inside the fort.
As each of the bombs slammed into the fort there was an ear-splitting explosion, and a thick plume of smoke and dust was thrown into the sky. During the short aftershock following each air strike the battlefield fell silent. But then the enemy would come back at the SBS soldiers as strongly as ever before, and no amount of five-hundred-pound bombs seemed to break their will to fight.