Kicking Bombs

by Barry Stevens

  I started to roll it around and around each of the mortars so I had an area about six centimetres wide and two centimetres high covered on each one. I went back into the room and searched in the dark for tape and a knife or something to cut the detonation cord with. I found a small roll of black electrical tape and the pair of sidecutters Sami had used to remove the cable ties from my wrists the day before.

  I ran a couple of loops of tape around the mortars so the detonation cord wouldn’t move and proceeded to do the same with the smaller Soviet anti-personnel mines.

  I cut a few pieces of detonation cord about a metre long and tied a special knot in one end of each known to all explosives experts as a Eulalie knot named after the man who devised it initially.

  I placed the Eulalie knots into the fuse wells at the point of each mortar. I removed the shipping plugs from the TM-62s and taped a couple of Eulalie knots into them as well. The shipping plugs are used when moving and storing the mines; however, when they are set these are removed and specific detonators made for these mines are placed in the opening they leave. By placing detonation cord in these openings on the mines and the mortars and detonating the detonation cord the mines and mortars will explode. Even if all of them don’t go off the detonation of one single mine or mortar will cause sympathetic detonation and they will all explode within one hundred thousandths of a second.

  I tied and taped one end of the roll of detonation cord to the pile of ammunition and made sure each piece of detonation cord connected to another, completing a ring main of explosives.

  Making sure the safety was set on safe I took the PMN mine that had the detonator device in it and tied off one end of the remaining roll of detonation cord to the pile of ammunition and made my way out the door and down the stairs into the courtyard, unrolling the cord as I went.

  When I got into the courtyard I quickly looked around. I was making this up as I went along. I had no real idea of what the hell I was going to do next.

  My eyes landed on the straggly gum trees. I decided to climb up one of the trees and get onto the roof of the adjoining buildings. I lobbed the roll of detonation cord onto the roof near a tree and climbed it using some dead branches. As soon as I got to the top I realised the sun was starting to come up. The call to morning prayers would be next and the goons and Safi would be awake.

  I ran low across the roof of the other building, unrolling the cord as I went, when as expected I ran out. I estimated I was about 25 to 30 metres away from the pile of explosives I had left behind. I couldn’t try to pull the detonation cord for any more length in case I pulled it away from the main pile of ammunition.

  Looking around desperately, I ran as fast as I could to a side wall of the building I was on. It dropped off into a dirt laneway covered in rubbish and an old Iraqi armoured troop carrier hull. I dropped the remaining length of cord down into it and lowered myself down the brick wall beside it. I quickly tied a Eulalie knot in the other end of the detonation cord, wrapped a few loops of detonation cord around the PMN mine and taped it on tight.

  Then it happened; the morning call to prayer.

  Time was up. I set the mine and placed it on the ground beside the hull. I picked up an old car rim and climbed up into the turret of the old dark green armoured shell.

  The timing had to be perfect. I had to drop the rim onto the mine and at the same time drop low and fast onto the floor of the old piece of armour. It wasn’t the small charge from the PMN mine I was concerned about. It was the huge explosion that would be caused by the pile of anti-tank mines and mortars only 20 metres away that I was worried about.

  I lined myself up with the car tyre rim held over my head when I heard one of the goons on the top of the stairs call out for Safi. He had found the charge!

  I threw the rim and hit the deck hard. There was a huge explosion followed by the force of thousands of bricks and rubble hitting the side of the old personnel carrier I was cowering in.

  It seemed to rain down dirt, dust and sheets of roofing iron for ages. As soon as the rubble and rubbish stopped falling I pushed it away from the turret area and made to get as far away from the area as I could, as fast as I could.

  All of the buildings around me were flattened. There was rubble everywhere. Thick plumes of dust still filled the sky, which made it hard to breathe. I looked down at the ground and noticed that my bright orange overalls were now covered in dust. There was a few places were a little orange was showing through, but generally I was covered in dust from head to toe.

  As I staggered out of the decimated remains of the laneway, tripping over broken bricks and roofing, an old man dressed in traditional clothes came running over to me talking to me in Arabic. With all the dust on my face and my scruffy beard he thought I was a local.

  I just pushed passed him, seemingly ignoring his remarks, and he continued to run into the debris up the now totally demolished alley. When I reached the end of the alley I stumbled out onto a main road. There was compete mayhem everywhere. There were cars stopped with their windows blown out. There were people with wounds over different parts of their bodies staggering and pleading for help all over the place. The main buildings at the side of the road had all of the glass blown out onto the street along with what seemed to be most of their roofing. That’ll do it, CJ, I said to myself.

  25

  Rescued

  107mm Rocket, R107

  Made in North Korea. These were just another example of Iraq buying anything that other countries were selling cheap and in bulk. This 107mm high explosive rocket was originally designed and built by the Chinese and used a lot by the Chinese and the North Vietnamese. North Korea copied or attempted to copy most Chinese weapons and munitions. Thousands of Chinese and Korean rockets were destroyed in Iraq after the US invasion. Because they contained and extremely high quantity of explosives plus the solid rocket fuel contained in their tail tubes they really made a nice crack when we set them off.

  Nobody seemed to notice me. People were running around me calling out in Arabic. My ears were ringing from the explosion, but I could hear the screams of people still caught and trapped under the rubble inside what now remained of their buildings.

  It was surreal. I stood for a while in one place trying to get my bearings when what seemed like the last of the dust settled and I could clearly see I was standing on the street running along the Tigris River not far from the 14th of July Bridge. I looked down the river a little and saw what I was looking for. On the other side of the river was the construction site where the new American embassy was being built.

  I knew they had very heavy security around the construction site so I decided to do whatever it took to get me there. I looked around for something that would float. There was no way I could swim the Tigris at this point in my condition. It was far too wide to even consider it.

  All I could find was a couple of large, black plastic garbage bags full of rubbish, lying on the street outside of what use to be a restaurant of some kind.

  I grabbed them both and ran to the side of the river. I emptied one of them and quickly tied a knot in the top of the other. I then dropped the full bag into the empty one and tied that up as well. Hopefully by double bagging the rubbish it would give me a better chance of keeping them afloat.

  I threw them into the water and jumped in after them.

  As soon as I hit the water my dusty overalls turned bright orange again. I thought it wouldn’t be long before someone noticed me in the water and possibly linked me with the explosion.

  I started kicking as much as I could. I decided to roll over onto my back and hold the rubbish bag on my chest. Hopefully that would cover me from view for a while longer or at least get me far enough away so someone couldn’t swim after me.

  I was nearly I out into the centre of the river when all of a sudden I heard gunfire and bullets zipping into the water around me. I looked over towards the road and saw an Iraqi Police pick-up truck with two uniformed men with AK 47s aiming in my dire
ction. I had no choice but to push the bag away and dive under the water the best I could. Luckily for me the Tigris is a cesspit of rubbish and raw sewage so the water is extremely dirty. My orange overalls would disappear as soon as I went under water.

  I didn’t count on the fact that the now bright orange of my overalls would also make it easier for them to spot me each time I came up for air. Every time I broke the surface it was only seconds before bullets slammed into the water around me. Every time I came up I sucked in the air as fast as I could, turned towards the construction site and went under swimming as hard and deep as I could.

  Every time I went under I disappeared into complete darkness. The water was so polluted that the sunlight only broke through right before the surface itself.

  I came up again and again. It felt like I wasn’t getting any closer to the far bank when I suddenly felt the burning of a bullet hitting me in the calf muscle. I felt down and realised it wasn’t that deep but it still burnt like hell.

  From then on every time I came to the surface for air I screamed for help towards the construction site. I came up frantic, calling out over and over again, ‘I’m an Australian! I’m Australian! Help me!’ At this point I was getting desperately emotional and felt I was falling to pieces right at the last moment. I knew I had to hang on and man up but it was incredibly hard to swallow my anxiety and keep going.

  I must have called out at least a dozen different times when I came up for air. It was getting harder to call out at all; I was rapidly losing all of my strength and found it hard to breathe let alone call out for help. At that point I all but gave up. I couldn’t dive under any more. Then I heard an outboard motor heading in my direction. The shooting stopped and I rolled over onto my stomach and slowly started to breaststroke towards the still distant shore when I noticed it was a US Army team in an inflatable boat.

  They came to within 15 metres from me and screamed out for me to raise both arms, all the while aiming their M16s at me. I tried to do exactly what they said but, of course, every time I did I went under. Every time I went under I panicked and came back up again gasping for air only to be yelled at again by some idiot with an M16 to put my hand up above the water.

  Eventually I just didn’t give a fuck and lay floating on my back the best I could and screamed out, ‘I’m a bloody Australian, you fuckwit! If you’re going to shoot me then just do it but hurry the fuck up before I drown.’

  I must have convinced them a little because someone on the boat threw me a rope and told me to hold on. I noticed that two of the men were still aiming their rifles at me but at least they were starting to slowly pull me towards the bank, close to the construction site on the other side of the river. It was obvious they didn’t completely trust me at that stage and weren’t going to chance it by lifting me into the boat before checking me for explosive devices and weapons first.

  When they arrived at the bank, one at a time they jumped off the Zodiac inflatable onto the bank. At least one man always had his rifle aimed at me. I was still in deep enough water that I couldn’t stand up. My splashing around trying to stay afloat was now slowing right down as I was now completely exhausted. One of the soldiers told me to roll onto my back and backstroke over towards him. Backstroke, hell I was flat out staying above the surface and he was stipulating swimming styles. Regardless, I managed to do what he wanted and slowly but surely made it close enough so that I could finally stand up with my head just out of the water.

  One of them shouted at me, ‘Back up! Back up! Do not turn around!’ As I slowly moved backwards I kept stumbling in the mud and falling over. As I fell over, they kept on screaming, ‘Get up! Back up! Get up! Back up! Do not turn around!’

  I finally had had enough of this shit. I was knee-deep in muddy water and just fell exhausted onto my back. I tried to lift myself up into a sitting position but couldn’t. The best I could do was keep my head above water. Thankfully the shouting came to a stop and I had time to again tell them that I was an Australian. I shouted at them, ‘I’ve been shot! Help me!’

  All of a sudden one of the men gave an order for another to pull me out. I heard some splashing and then felt someone grab me from under my arms and yank me backwards up the muddy bank. He rolled me onto my stomach and frisked my back, arms and legs before rolling me over and running his hands over my chest. He pulled open the front of my overalls all the way down to my groin and called out ‘clear’ to his team.

  One of the men, who was obviously in charge, knelt down beside me and started asking questions. ‘Who are you? Why were you in the river? Why were the police shooting at you?’

  I answered him the best I could but I was still totally exhausted and emotional. An image of Sami lying in a pool of his own blood flitted through my mind, but I quickly pushed it away. I tried to explain who I was and he finally got the idea that I was one of the good guys and called it in on his radio. He requested an ambulance to be sent to their location immediately.

  As I waited for the ambulance to arrive they lifted me up onto the bank out of the mud. One of the men wrapped an aluminium survival blanket around me and another cut away at my overalls, revealing my wounded calf muscle. He opened up a military-style field dressing and assured me that this would do until I got to the hospital. The team leader sat beside me and passed me his canteen, assuring me that I’d be okay now. He looked down at me and said, ‘Hey, man! I’m real sorry about all that shit out there in the river, man, but we just got to be careful. You know, right?’

  As I sipped the nice clean water I just nodded and told him, ‘It’s okay. Thanks for finally believing me.’

  It wasn’t long before a crowd of people started to gather around. A lot of them must have been labourers from the embassy construction site because they all seemed to be Iraqis. The team started to yell at them and tell them to move away but typically it didn’t do any good. Finally some more US Military people turned up and pushed them back just as a US Military humvee ambulance arrived with screaming sirens and flashing lights. Suddenly I knew it was all over and I’d be okay.

  Two men and a woman dressed in marine digital cams ran over to me carrying a standard army stretcher and knelt down beside me. The team leader gave them a brief description of what happened and informed them of my bullet wound. The woman placed an oxygen mask over my face and gave the command to the men to get me onto the stretcher with a standard one, two, three lift. The soldiers helped them where they could and then carried me over to the ambulance. As they were putting me into the humvee blood box the team leader came over and wished me good luck. One of the medics climbed into the back and sat beside me, the others closed the doors and ran around to the front of the vehicle and we took off, sirens screaming.

  26

  Ibensina Hospital

  224 kg Chemical Bomb, BR-500

  Made in Spain. These bombs are the cruellest of weapons. Chemical bombs use manufactured chemicals to incapacitate, harm or kill people — mainly the latter. Strictly speaking, a chemical weapon relies on the physical effects of a chemical contained within the delivery system itself. Chemical weapons like the BR-500 can be used to kill huge numbers of people, which is why all chemical weapons are classified as weapons of mass destruction. In addition to having horrific effects, chemical weapons are cheaper and easier to manufacture as well as to deliver than nuclear or biological weapons. One of the first major uses of chemical weapons was during World War I when chlorine gas was used. In this case it was released in massive clouds by the German army to cause lung and eye damage to their enemies in the trenches. Modern chemical weapons include choking agents like phosgene and chlorine, blister agents like nitrogen mustard and lewisite and nerve agents like tabun, sarin and VX.

  I knew exactly where they were taking me — the main hospital in the Green Zone was right next door to the Australian Embassy building and wasn’t far from where I came out of the river. Along the way the medic in the back took my blood pressure and pulse rate and wrote it all down in a sm
all green notepad. He adjusted my oxygen mask and assured me that I’d be okay. If he only knew a fraction of what I had been through … everything was looking up from here on in.

  The sirens were turned off and the ambulance came to a quick stop. The doors immediately opened and it seemed like there were dozens of medical people at the back of the vehicle all looking in at me. I was taken out and wheeled quickly into an emergency ward. It was incredible. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing; obviously these guys had done this a thousand times over.

  A man dressed in hospital scrubs came over to me and introduced himself as the doctor. He asked me to explain my injuries. It was clear he was aware of the bullet wound in my leg as there were three people already cleaning around the area while another three watched. I showed him my wrists and pointed out my ankles. At this point I was totally exhausted and obviously shock was setting in real quick. I started to get cold very fast. The doc ordered a medic to get so many mils of something stat. Whatever it was, the very second he injected it into me it felt like someone had immersed me in a deep pool of complete bliss. All of a sudden I felt warm and completely free of pain. God it was good.

  As all of this was going on there were other medics inserting IVs into my wrists, connecting me to a variety of machines and cutting away the rest of my dirty overalls. Every time a wet piece of clothing was cut away someone would clean and dry the area. When one of the female medics cut the cloth away from my shoulder and arm where my tattoos had been hacked off she dry retched and had to be replaced by another. The very second I was naked and as clean as I was going to get someone covered me in warm woollen blankets and placed a pillow under my head. They worked on cleaning my wounds and placed temporary dressings over them.

  Another doctor come over to me and told me his name. At that point it could have been Doctor Who — I was totally whacked and didn’t really care what was going on. Apparently they were going to operate on my bullet wound straightaway. They were concerned that the rank, sewage-filled water from the river would infect the wound. I was told my other wounds could wait and I was quickly wheeled away, and lifted off my trolley bed onto an operating table. I remember staring up at what seemed to be more lights than a football stadium. It wasn’t long before a female medic injected a syringe into one of my IV lines and I was out of it.