Soldier A: Behind Iraqi Lines

by Shaun Clarke

Even as they were leaving, heading into the setting sun, Allied bombers were striking the positions marked on the Iraqis maps and relayed to the TACC by Major Hailsham.

  Had it not been for his missing road-watch team, Hailsham would have been pleased.

  Chapter 11

  Andrew and Danny walked all night. Just before dawn they came off the high ground, down a slight gradient, and ended up in a shallow wadi, only three feet deep. There they lay, cuddled together for warmth. Normally in such circumstances they would have been hot-bedding, or sharing a sleeping bag between them, but since those had gone with the bergens, they just lay close together for the warmth that would prevent hypothermia.

  As SAS troopers never discussed the dead, or those who ‘beat the clock’, neither said anything about Taff’s death, though both were deeply grieved by it.

  ‘Real cosy,’ Andrew said, trying to lighten their load a little.

  ‘Shut up,’ Danny replied. ‘I don’t need your jokes.’

  ‘Gee whiz, you’re so sexy.’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘I’s just all in a dizzy, little darlin’, to have you so close.’

  ‘One more word and I’m moving away from here.

  ‘My lips are sealed tight.’

  Andrew chuckled, but said no more after that. In truth he was too cold, his teeth practically chattering. If he, a fleshy man, felt that way, he knew that Danny felt worse.

  It was a long, miserable night and Andrew hardly slept. He was now too exhausted to sleep properly, which only made matters worse. His thoughts were slipping and sliding, shifting in and out of gear. One minute he was thinking of his wife and children back in London, the next he was wondering how the hell to get out of this mess.

  They still had rifles and hand-grenades, but everything else was gone. Even the high-calorie rations in their escape belts were finished and now they were starving. Left in the escape belts were the small-scale map and button compass, pocket knife, fishing line and hooks, hexamine fuel blocks and matches, but they were unlikely to catch any fish here, nor any other kind of food that could be gutted and cooked over a fire.

  In fact here, in this freezing, wind-blown desert terrain, they dared not even light a fire, for fear that the smoke would give away their presence to the Iraqis. So they were in bad shape, gradually freezing, slowly starving, and if a miracle did not occur tomorrow they would be in worse trouble.

  Unable to sleep, Andrew turned to look at Danny and realized that although he was nearly thirty, he still looked like a kid. He was rightly called ‘Baby Face’, and had the shyness to match, yet he also had the instincts of a killer and scared the hell out of everyone.

  Danny had always baffled Andrew. He was like the late Hollywood actor Audie Murphy. Before becoming a film star, Audie Murphy had been the most decorated GI of World War Two, having killed an extraordinary number of German soldiers. Yet he was every bit as shy as his baby face made him seem. Always wanting to be a soldier, Andrew, when a schoolboy, had been particularly impressed by Audie Murphy playing himself in a film about his war years. In that movie, To Hell and Back, Murphy had looked like a kid and killed like a machine. Danny had always impressed Andrew for the same reason. He was a baby-faced, shy, killing machine who rarely made a mistake. All his mistakes, as Ricketts had pointed out, were in his personal life.

  This got Andrew thinking about Ricketts and the others. Where the hell were they? Had they managed to escape from the MSR? And if so, where had they gone and what were they doing? Indeed, were they even still alive?

  Big Andrew shuddered at the thought that they might have been captured by the Iraqis. The green slime had confirmed that activities against the Scuds had badly frightened the Iraqis and made them embark on a determined hunt for SAS troops. If they caught any they would not treat them kindly – and the Iraqis, as Kuwait had taught the world, were quick to use torture.

  That possibility lodged in Andrew’s exhausted thoughts and took wildly exaggerated, haunting shapes, making him even less inclined to surrender to sleep.

  He did, however, drop off for short periods, but his feverish thoughts and the constantly howling wind did not permit much sleep. Mercifully, the sky cleared and the sun rose in a clear blue sky that was not exactly hot, but warm enough to begin drying their sodden clothes and thawing their frozen limbs.

  Looking around him, Andrew saw only the wadi, more rocky, hilly, frosty terrain on all sides, and a brooding, cloud-filled sky. Though the snow had stopped falling, the wind was still harsh and moaning like the voices of the damned.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Danny asked.

  ‘We keep going,’ Andrew replied. ‘The march will warm us up. Also, we’ve got to find food and drink. But first I’m going to check my damn feet. They both hurt like hell.’

  While a slightly refreshed Danny kept watch, Andrew pulled off his wet desert boots with great difficulty to find that his feet were swollen and badly blistered.

  ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘this isn’t going to help me.’ He tried wrapping them in bandages from his kit belt, but his feet were so swollen that he could not get them back into the boots with the bandages on. Setting the bandages aside, he removed the small knife and matches from his escape belt, sterilized the knife by holding it in the flame of a match, then gritted his teeth and proceeded to lance the blisters one by one. It took quite a bit of time and hurt like the devil. It hurt even more when he swabbed the raw wounds with TCP. Thinking at one point that he was going to faint from pain, he nevertheless managed to complete the job. He then smeared two separate short strips of bandage with antiseptic cream, placed them once around his feet, providing only one extra, thin layer, and managed by so doing to get his soaked, filthy desert boots back on. His heart was racing from fighting the pain, but it was fading now.

  Rolling around until he was lying on his belly beside Danny, he took hold of his SLR and gazed to the front. An Arab appeared at the bottom of the wadi with a big herd of goats.

  ‘Damn!’ Danny murmured, sliding his M16 into the firing position and flipping the sight up.

  ‘Hold on,’ Andrew cautioned him, placing his big hand on Danny’s frail wrist. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to take that bastard out,’ Danny said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s coming right towards us, you bloody fool, and he’ll soon be on top of us.’

  ‘So what? He’s just a goatherd.’

  ‘An Iraqi goatherd,’ Danny corrected him.

  ‘He’s a civilian,’ Andrew insisted. ‘You can’t shoot a civilian.’

  ‘Just watch me,’ Danny said, taking aim along the sight and sliding his itchy finger to the trigger.

  ‘He’s a Bedu,’ Andrew tried. ‘The Bedouin are reported to be friendly to our cause, so he might actually help us.’

  ‘I’m taking no chances.’

  ‘He could help us,’ Andrew said.

  ‘He could turn us in,’ Danny replied.

  ‘Why the fuck would he care about that? He’s not a soldier – he tends goats – and if we offer him some of our gold, he’s not likely to say no. That gold would be a fortune to a guy like him.’

  ‘Sorry, Andrew – no way.’ Danny was still aiming along the sight, but now sliding his finger over the trigger.

  ‘Look,’ Andrew said more desperately, squeezing Danny’s wrist, slyly trying to coax his finger off the trigger, ‘he’s a Bedu, which could mean he’s friendly. He’s also poor, which could mean he’s greedy. Let’s wave the gold under his nose and see what he says. He gets the gold if he takes us to the border. Come on, Danny, let’s try it.’

  By now, the goatherd, wearing a turban, an ancient coat of dark tweed, a long, tattered scarf and a pair of thongs, was sitting on a rock and idly watching his flock milling about at the end of the wadi.

  Danny studied him through the sight, then slowly, reluctantly, withdrew his itchy finger from the trigger. ‘Just go and ask him where we are,’ he said. ‘No more than that. I don
’t trust the bastard.’

  ‘Sure,’ Andrew said. ‘Right.’ Leaving his SLR on the ground, he stood up, waved his hand in a friendly manner and called out a greeting in Arabic. Surprised, the old goatherd looked up, but otherwise made no move. Still speaking fluent Arabic, which he had been taught at the Hereford and Army School of Languages, Andrew told the goatherd not to worry, explained who he was, and asked if he could come and talk to him. Not moving from where he was sitting, the man nodded agreement.

  After glancing down at Danny and indicating with a wave of his hand that he should do nothing for the moment, Andrew walked along the wadi to speak to the goatherd. When he reached him, he saw that he was very old, with a thin, weather-beaten, good-humoured face. After exchanging a formal greeting, Andrew asked the old man if he spoke English.

  ‘No,’ the old man said in Arabic. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s me who should apologize,’ Andrew replied, speaking the same language, ‘because my Arabic is so poor.’

  ‘It is a pleasure to find a foreigner who speaks it at all,’ the goatherd said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Andrew explained the situation, then asked the old man if they were far from the Syrian border.

  ‘No,’ the Arab said, shaking his head and pointing north-west. ‘It is not very far. About ten kilometres in that direction.’

  ‘Can you take us there?’

  The Arab shook his head again. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘but I cannot afford to lose my goats. They are my sole livelihood.’

  From his kit belt Andrew produced the pouch containing approximately £800 in small gold pieces, as well as the chit stating in Arabic that Her Majesty’s Government would pay the sum of £5000 to anyone returning the bearer to friendly territory. He handed the old man the chit, waited until he had read it, then took hold of the Arab’s wrist, turned his hand over and poured some gold pieces into it.

  ‘You can have the rest,’ he said, ‘when you deliver me and my friend to friendly people over the border. Will you do it?’

  Smiling, the old Arab dropped the gold pieces, one by one, into the side pocket of his tweed coat. Then he stood up and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Go, fetch your friend.’

  Andrew returned to Danny and said, ‘Hand me that SLR, mate. We’re on our way home.’

  Sitting upright, Danny passed the SLR to Andrew. ‘No, thanks,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not going,’ Danny said.

  ‘What the fuck do you mean, you’re not going? This old guy is going to take us to the border. He’s friendly and greedy.’

  ‘If you believe him, go with him,’ Danny said, ‘but I’m not going with you.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Danny, he’s OK!’

  ‘I’m not trusting any Arab,’ Danny said, ‘and I don’t think you should.’

  ‘OK,’ Andrew said. ‘You believe what you want, but I’m going with him. Besides, the Iraqi search parties are closing in and we double our chances of evasion by splitting up.’

  ‘We also reduce each other’s odds on individual survival,’ Danny replied. ‘Bear that in mind, Sergeant.’

  ‘I could order you to come for your own good,’ Andrew said.

  ‘You could, but you won’t. That’s not the way we do things.’

  ‘Shit, Danny …’

  ‘It’s OK, Andrew, you go. I’d just rather not join you.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Your choice, Sarge. Have a safe trip.’

  ‘Same to you, mate.’ Andrew nodded, grinned, then went to join the goatherd, who was already walking away from his animals and clambering out of the wadi. Andrew glanced back at Danny, who looked frail and terribly alone. As if sensing Andrew’s unhappiness, Danny suddenly waved and called out to him. Andrew stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘If anything happens to me and you survive, write a poem about me.’

  ‘I will, mate, I promise. It’ll be there in the Imperial War Museum for your children to read.’

  ‘Right. Good luck, Sarge.’

  ‘Same to you, Trooper.’ Instantly feeling a lot better, Andrew waved again, then turned away and followed the Arab out of the wadi.

  ‘How long did you say it was?’ he asked when they had walked for five minutes.

  ‘About ten kilometres,’ the Arab replied. ‘It will not take too long.’

  In fact, it took less time than Andrew had anticipated. They walked for about twenty minutes, crossing some more rocky terrain with low hills on either side and a wedge-shaped stretch of desert in the distance, muddy brown in weak sunlight. Andrew checked his button compass, making sure they were heading north-west, and when he saw that they were he relaxed and looked up again.

  At that moment, the Arab fled – surprisingly fast for an old man – shouting out that the man behind him was a British soldier.

  Directly ahead of the Arab was a laager of soft-topped trucks, mobile anti-aircraft gun units, and heavily armed Iraqi militiamen, all staring at Andrew.

  ‘Shit!’ Andrew exclaimed, shocked, betrayed, momentarily frozen.

  Regaining his senses, he turned and ran the other way, heading for the protection of the rocky outcroppings nearby. He heard shouting in Arabic, followed by firing rifles, and glanced over his shoulder to see the soldiers aiming at him, even as bullets kicked up dirt around him and ricocheted off the stones.

  The militiamen ran towards Andrew and he stopped to return their fire. He managed to get off a short burst before he was hit. ‘Shit!’ he cried out again – the one word he could think of – then he felt his leg bursting with pain and giving way beneath him. He kept firing as he fell, his bullets whining into the sky, then collapsed onto hard stone and dust as the Iraqis surrounded him.

  Excited, almost hysterical, they kicked him repeatedly, bent down and punched him, hammered him with their rifle butts, then grabbed him by the shoulders and hair and brutally hauled him across sharp, cutting stones to the vehicles of their laager.

  When they dragged him between two trucks, into their camp, his real suffering began.

  Chapter 12

  Major Hailsham and his men approached the elaborately camouflaged fixed missile site at night, guided to it by Trooper Willoughby. Parking the Pink Panthers and LSVs a good half mile away, they completed most of the journey by foot, then dropped to the ground and crawled on their bellies the final hundred metres or so, eventually taking up positions in a depression in the desert floor, forming a front a quarter of a mile long, just south of the site.

  Hailsham studied the target through binoculars, using night-vision goggles. This missile site was the real thing, not an expensively built decoy. In the cold blue light of the goggles, he saw a missile-launching area, adjoining command posts, guidance systems, two separate radar areas, supply dumps and early-warning stations with automated sensors on high observation towers – all behind steel fences covered in barbed wire and patrolled by armed guards.

  Right now, as he could clearly see from the activity in front of a concrete bunker and command post, a salvo of Scuds were being prepared for a multiple launch, possibly aimed at Israel. According to Intelligence, Saddam Hussein was still hoping to draw Israel into the war with another, unexpected Scud attack from a fixed missile site within range of that country. The green slime had therefore obtained the approximate location of the site and ordered Hailsham to find the exact location and take out the site. Now here he was with most of his squadron, lying belly-down in a useful hollow in the desert floor, looking up at a sky containing a full moon and brilliant stars. There was no wind tonight.

  ‘I don’t think we can take it ourselves,’ he said.

  ‘Neither do I,’ said US Master-Sergeant Red Polanksi, likewise lying belly-down in the sand close to Hailsham. ‘It’s too widespread. There are too many troops. We wouldn’t get in and out in time.’

  ‘Let’s blow a few fences, boss,’ Johnny Boy said from the other side of Hailsham. ‘Take a few down with the MILAN and then race
in and back out in the dinkies.’

  ‘You’re just spoiling for a fight,’ Paddy Clarke said. ‘This is all the Boy Scouts to you.’

  ‘The Boy Scouts are from your day,’ Johnny Boy retorted. ‘They’re not part of my background. So what do you say, boss?’

  Hailsham shook his head. ‘I say no. As our American friend noted, it’s too widespread, there are too many troops and we’d never get in and out in time.’

  ‘I’d be in and out like a whirling dervish,’ the reckless trooper said, ‘throwing grenades left and right.’

  ‘Grenades wouldn’t be enough,’ Paddy objected. ‘Even the MILAN wouldn’t do it. We need heavier fire-power, but we wouldn’t have the time to set it up. There’s too much to be taken out in there and it’s spread far and wide.’

  ‘Correct,’ Red said. ‘What we need is air support. We’ll have to call in a US strike force.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that,’ Hailsham said.

  Red grinned. ‘Sure. Why not? We need to flatten that goddam place – and for that we need really heavy air power within reach of this area. I suggest you let me call up a flight of the latest F-15Es, or Strike Eagles, of the 336th Tactical Fighter Squadron.’

  ‘What’s so special about them?’ asked Johnny Boy, always keen to learn from his older, more experienced, American hero.

  ‘They’re special all right,’ Red answered, equally keen to advise his admirable, and admiring, young British protégé. ‘Single-seat, 1600mph motherfuckers designed to attack ground targets using the Lantirn system.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Lantirn – with an “i”. Low altitude navigation and targeting infrared for night. It’s carried in two pods – one for navigation, the other for laser-targeting – both linked to the pilot’s electronic helmet visor, which magnifies the target fifteenfold.’

  ‘Sounds like Star Wars stuff,’ Johnny Boy said, clearly intrigued.

  ‘It is, kid. Short of firing laser beams as weapons, the Lantirn system is the ultimate in Star Wars technology, achieving better than ninety per cent accuracy and capable of dropping bombs within ten metres of the target on the first pass.’ He turned to Hailsham. ‘Believe me, Major, you couldn’t do better.’