by Graham Joyce
Not cracked. It's just that when I know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, that's when I'm happiest. Form up. Move out. Press on. 24th of February 1991 and the British 1st Armoured of which we are a part is rolling. Hear the noise of war engines. And guess what? It's overcast, cold and raining. British weather, in the desert. Staffs ride in the hulls of Warriors, just behind the tanks and even though the desert is trackless we move, we bounce and we move.
I'm disappointed not to be part of the first wave. Yank Marine forces have gone under cover of darkness to make paths through the minefields and barriers and first layers of Iraqi defensive positions. After sunrise I begin to hear the gun reports of tank engagement. What I don't know is that the Yanks and the French have struck north to slam the back door on the Iraqis. The enemy have no air reconnaissance by now so can't have known this. No reinforcements and no way out. They've been popped in the oven and we're just about to turn it up to Mark 200. How d'you like your turkey cooked?
It isn't until later in the first day that we swing back eastwards to engage Iraqi armoured troops around the Kuwait border. I have the strange feeling that the war is already over after the first day because we just keep going. Black puffs of smoke drift across the sands and the crump of engagement ahead isn't getting any nearer. We stop to mop up a few emplacements, but besides a few rounds fired off the resistance is feeble. We pick up a few of their troops—conscripts, kids trying to smile at us—and they are all passed back down the line as prisoners of war.
There is no conflict. We can't find it. Just deeper into the desert and thick black smoke billowing around, and a weird stench. I keep thinking: I can see the smoke, I can hear the guns, but where's the war?
We roll on for hours, past burned-out shells of tanks and beetled armoured vehicles, all Iraqi. Flame is still licking from some of the gun turrets, smoke is winding from the guts of engines. Metal is buckled and bent. Vehicles are lodged in the sand, caterpillar wheels buried deep, and dust covers them like they've been there for years. It all has the feel of a battle long over. The only thing that makes you certain it's recent is the occasional burned corpses of soldiers flung from a bombed vehicle. Or half a corpse still in a vehicle, like the bit of the sardine you can't get out of the corner of a sardine tin. We put rounds into every burning tank we pass anyway, either with the 30mm Rarden cannon or we strafe them with the chain gun. Just to be sure. Well, not even that; more out of frustration of having nothing to shoot at.
Doesn't look much like there's going to be any kind of role for us boys. Not that I'm hungry for it, like some of the kids looking for action. I'll do it if it's there to be done, but I've learned enough about the bookkeeping of war. You don't want to get yourself in the red column just by staying too long.
I'm in the turret with the driver. Weird phosphorescent flashes keep popping from miles up ahead, and they're followed by what I want to call a flutter; it's like your eye goes a-quiver for a moment. And there's a smell in the air, nothing like the usual reek of burning and high-ex. And I don't like it. When it comes to combat I don't much like anything I haven't seen or smelled before.
Anyway I'm just thinking we're not going to see much action, and that this war is far off the radar, when we come under fire. Mortar and small arms.
—Rag-heads, 'bout five hundred metres, quarter left, goes my driver Cummings, a snippy little hard-case Bristolian with shit tattoos all over his neck.
—Shove in that dip, quarter right.
There's a dune we try to snuggle in behind. Our vehicle stops dead in the sand and the engines power down. I drag my knuckles across the side of Cummings' head.
—Do not repeat do not let me hear you refer to the enemy as rag-heads towel-heads sand-niggers or any other fucking thing other than the fucking enemy, right Cummings? Right?
—Colour Sar'nt!
They should know that by now. I won't have it. Not in the middle of combat. Down the pub, in the mess or in the whorehouse you can call 'em what the fuck you like. But not here. Won't have it.
—Why not? I ask him.—Why fucking not?
Another mortar falls and there are a couple of pings as bullets strike our AV. The boys in the back think I'm mad. We're under fire and I'm giving them parade-ground drill. But I know the mortars are well short and the bullets are spent when they hit the sides of the Warrior.—Come on! Let's hear it!
—Underestimation of enemy, Colour Sar'nt, says Brewster, at the top of the class.
He's going to say more but I cut him off.—Under-fucking-estimation of enemy! I don't know what we've got here but sitting just behind them is the National Republican Guard. More fucking highly educated than you are, Cummings. Crack fucking soldiers, you cunt. Loyal to Saddam. They are not towel-heads rag-heads or sand-niggers, they are the fucking enemy and you will respect their capacity to blow your fucking balls off, right, Cummings?
—Colour Sar'nt! goes Cummings, red in the cheeks. Another round of bullets ping the Warrior.
—These fucking people invented reading and writing while we were still living in mud huts and dancing round Stone-fucking-henge with blue faces, you got that, Cummings?
—Colour Sar'nt!
Well, that's enough of that. All the lads in the back are looking at me, so I swing down and give 'em a nice big smile, like really I'm just lemonade.—Good lads. Now then, what we got?
Turns out there is a little emplacement dug into the sand, still active behind our front line, and this is just what we're here for. Clean up. Mrs. Overalls. Get the Marigold gloves on, out with the bleach and polish, make the world shine. Our infrared should be able to tell us how many bodies they have dug in but it's on the fucking blink which is normal. All this gear works fine until you need it to run with sand in it; though I suspect these phosphorescent flashes might have something to do with the malfunction. Doesn't matter. Our AV is well equipped to take the enemy out.
The terrain suits us. There's a slight rise on our eastern flank so I can get a couple of lads out there to attack the position while we give covering fire with the cannon. Brewster and Dorky volunteer, as do one or two others. I give them the nod, and then for some reason—I don't know why—I decide I'll go and hold their hands. It's not that they need me. There's just stuff bothering me. Can't put my finger on it at all.
I order the driver to power up and move on fifty yards to fire a couple of white phos-grenades to make a smokescreen so's we can drop out and flit over to get behind the rise, hopefully unnoticed. When we reach the rise we can see a burned-out Iraqi tank on the sand maybe just another hundred yards away. We scope it out. There are bodies, or bits of bodies, lying around it. No life. It's all clear. It's a bit of useful cover and we go up behind it to set up our gear to help the Warrior make its fire on the Iraqi bunker.
—Fucking hell, says Dorky.
He's looking at a torso nearby. Or at least I think it's a torso. But it still has its arms and legs. It's a weird shape. Shrunk. Nasty.
—Never mind what's around you, I bark at him.—Get operational!
But Brewster and Dorky are paralysed by this thing. Mesmerised. It's an effort for them to look away.
—Come on lads, I say, a deep low growl.
Training kicks in, they go to it, fumbling a bit, fidgety, hyper, but they set up. And I look at this thing, but out of the corner of my eye because I don't want the lads to see I'm freaked by it, too. And I am. I'm freaked.
It's a corpse—of a kind—of an Iraqi soldier spilled out of the tank. Part of his head's gone but most of the rest of him is there. Well, I can't see hands and feet. None of that bothers me. I've seen enough bits of bodies in my time and after a while it's no different to what's in your burger. But this thing: it's a body but it's shrunk to maybe a third of the size it should be. It crossed my mind it might be a kid, but it's bearded and anyway it's not like it's a kid, it's like the whole thing has twisted like a plastic bag when you set fire to it. And it's left a spooky shadow behind, a man-shaped shadow on the sand.
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The boys are set up and ready, but I've got to shift this bloody mess. I step over to the thing and I try to side-foot it under the tank, out of eyesight, but my foot passes straight through part of it. Nothing turns my stomach. My guts are cast iron, but for the first time in years and years my bowels soften. Some of the thing sticks to my foot. I scrape sand and debris and push as much of it as I can under the tank.
I turn back. Dorky and Brewster are watching me now.—All set up, lads?
—Colour Sar'nt!
Brewster radios the Warrior and we watch the slow elevation of the canon before it locks. There's a pause before the Warrior launches its bombardment of the Iraqi emplacement. Dorky watches the results through binoculars and reports what's happening. I have to make a mental effort not to think about this goo stuck to my boot.
—Give 'em a strafing.
—Chain gun! Brewster tells his radio.
There's not much more. After the cannon and chain gun have softened them up they come out and all we have to do is point our weapons. These are not Republican Guard. These are conscripts; they've had enough and they're stumbling out with their hands on their heads. They seem to think we're the Yanks. Their idea of being a prisoner is to try to talk to us in Iraqi.
After the prisoners are passed back down the line the mopping -up pattern is repeated. The only thing that's changed is the dust. The tanks and the armoured vehicles are kicking up so much dust and sand that it's getting hard to see further up ahead. We're proceeding pretty much by radio coordinates and infrared activity. We stop a couple of times to check out a destroyed tank or other vehicle and we keep spotting these shrunk plastic bodies, with their shadow-casts, and all the time I'm thinking: what weapon is it that shrinks a human being but doesn't destroy a tank? I mean, the tanks are burned but the shell is intact. I have to break up little groups of boys standing mesmerised over these shrunk bodies.
—Don't look at it, lads. Press on.
About another ten kilometres ahead we get radio directed to another clear-up. Same as before: a few salvoes to loosen the sand around them then in we go. The Iraqis are pouring out like ants from a poisoned nest, but I don't want my boys to get complacent. There are always die-hards, and I want no rush. By the book, me, and I'm dedicated to bringing all my boys home with their trousers on.
The dust and the sand are being swirled around by a strong breeze coming from the east. It smells of spice and engine smoke and this other stuff I don't like, and it's choking so we have to go in now with scarves over our faces, just to stop your nose and mouth filling up. This time I peel off with five of my boys, Dorky and Brewster amongst them. From somewhere up ahead there's sniper fire coming at us, but it's being fired pretty wildly into the dust. We get down behind an escarpment.
They know the drill. I'm going out very wide; they're going to crawl on their bellies at spread intervals but stay in visual range, using the dust-storm as cover. Meanwhile I've got my other boys noising up the Warrior's chain gun to draw fire and support our attack.
I yomp off maybe three hundred metres wide. I can hear the report of the sniper as he fires on the Warrior, but I can't see him. The dust gets thicker. There's a strong breeze picking up and I can't tell how much of this dust is generated by vehicle movement and how much is a natural wind-blown sandstorm, but it's swirling and lashing about like a sand-lizard's tail.
I look across the line. The dust is so strong I can barely see Brewster, who is my nearest support. I wave at him. He sees me and I point to my eye, warning him to stay in visual range with me and the next man. I don't want to be shot by my own troops: happens all the time in combat. Brewster gives me the thumbs up to show he understands.
We make slow progress towards the Iraqi emplacement. They're still firing, infrequently and wildly. I have an instinct there's only one or two of them, maybe three hundred metres away. I'm going on my belly.
Then the dust whips up again suddenly and aggressively. You can actually see the sand in the air turning in spirals, a whip-o'-will, a dark thing, like a live creature, part smoke, part sand. And the dust is so thick I've lost sight of Brewster.
If he remembers his training he'll stay exactly where he is until we re-establish visual range. But at the moment I can't see more than maybe seven or eight metres ahead of me in the gritty yellow fog. We're all radio disarmed: nothing like somebody squawking through your set when you're on your belly six inches away from the enemy. Maybe I could use the radio safely with this wind and racket going on but I don't want to risk it. We wait. Behind the wind I can hear our artillery pounding the Iraqi dugouts a few miles ahead. Then I can't even hear that.
After a while the sandstorm begins to ease. I have a thin cotton scarf over my mouth and it's almost stiff with the dust logged in it. My eyes are stinging and sweat is dribbling along the curve of my spine. I'm scoping out the spot where I last saw Brewster, but even though the dust is clearing I can't see him or anyone else.
What I can see is the Iraqi dugout, and I'm way nearer to it than I should be. There's no activity. The dugout has taken a direct hit and there are bodies spilled. There's still no sign of Brewster and should one single rifleman remain in the dugout, I'm exposed.
I have two grenades. An L2 high-ex, and a white-phosphorous grenade. I decide to use the phos-bomb because as well as clearing anything within fifteen yards of where it lands it makes a good signal. I chuck it at the dugout and get down, keeping my eyes averted from the flash to avoid the after-dazzle. The thing goes off and the smoke rises pretty quickly. Anything coming out of the dugout is going to walk straight into my line of fire.
But there's nothing there.
I hang in, still waiting to make eye contact with any of my boys. Visibility in the dust is fluctuating at between maybe twenty to thirty yards, no more than that, and after the shock of my phos-grenade everything is quiet. I can't even hear the artillery up ahead and the flyovers have stopped altogether. I decide to wake up the radio.
My radio, like all of them in our unit, is a piece of shit twenty years old and it's fucked and we've reported it fucked and got no replacement gear. I have to make several calls before someone in my Warrior picks me up.
—Who's that? I ask.
—Fox, where are you?
—I'm at the dugout. Where's Echo and Valiant? These are the call signs for Brewster and Cummings: normal names are prohibited over the radio.
—They've lost you, Cobra.
—Did you see my flash?
—Flash?
—Phos-bomb, you fucking idiot. You couldn't fucking miss it. If you can't raise Echo and Valiant send me two other lads to clear this dug out.
This is bad radio procedure. Normal conversation is also prohibited but we're on a closed net at short range and I'm getting mighty irritated with everything.
—No flash, Cobra. Give me your last coordinates.
I sit back and wait. The thick yellow cloud of sand and dust is like a gas, a sulphurous fog, and I still can't see more than about thirty yards. No one comes. I radio again.
—We can't find you, Cobra.
—For fuck's sake. I'm gonna lob my high-ex. Follow the fucking bang, you useless twat!
—Colour Sar'nt.
I do just that. If there was anything alive in the dug out it's probably mince by now. I radio again.
—No bang, Colour Sar'nt.
—What?
—No bang. We're looking. We're listening. Sit tight.
I wait for another half an hour. What bothers me is that there is no sound from anywhere in the desert. Pretty unusual, I'd say, what with a war going on. The distant artillery has stopped. It doesn't make sense. I radio again but this time I can't get a signal at all.
My instincts convince me that the dugout is clear up ahead. I do what I tell my boys never to do and I make a solo approach. Not because I'm feeling brave but because I'm bored. I'm in the middle of combat and I'm bored, and when I'm bored I start thinking too much and that scares me more than the en
emy.
The dugout is well sandbagged and there is a big, black broken gun blasted halfway over the sandbags. I can smell the oil and the ripped steel. I approach silently, slowly from the rear. The dugout is clean. When I say clean, I mean there are no live enemy. Plenty of dead ones. Nothing done by my grenades though, because they're all shrunk, shrivelled bodies like I've seen before. Shrunk with their original shadows scorched into the dust. Scattered particles of my WP are still smoking, but no one's going anywhere.
I kick over the mess cans and check round. There's nothing of useful intelligence and I need to return to my unit. The problem is I don't know where my unit is and my radio is still on the blink. I go outside the dugout to climb the rise to see if I can get a better signal. Maybe ten yards from the sandbags I hear a click.
Things that never happen in real life: you see those war movies, maybe Vietnam, where a soldier steps on a mine and they cut to the expression on his face as he realises what he's done. There's a pause. Boom!