by Shaun Clarke
It was impossible to check this as the ground was in darkness and the air raid had already begun, with French Jaguars dropping their bombs from high in the night sky, well out of range of the pounding Iraqi guns. The explosions were catastrophic, shaking the ground beneath his feet, illuminating the darkness with rapidly flickering, silvery light and filling the air with crimson sparks and phosphorus fireflies.
Danny dropped to the ground, letting the shock waves pass away, then jumped out and started running again. He repeated this process over and over again until, after what seemed like an eternity, the air raid ended and the Jaguars disappeared.
Looking back, Danny saw that the main facility was now much further behind him, with many of its buildings on fire, some of the fencing blown away, other parts scorched and buckled, and a pall of smoke covering all. Nevertheless, as he now realized, that fenced-in area was only one part of the facility and the rest of it was scattered far and wide, over a broad expanse of land filled with wadis and ditches, criss-crossed by a web of roads and dirt tracks.
Luckily, there were no minefields, though Danny spent most of that night trying to extricate himself from the grounds of the military complex which, since the bombing raid, had been filled with patrolling foot soldiers, roaring troop-trucks, and heavily guarded mobile gun batteries.
Eventually, feeling exhausted and in a state of disorientation, he came to a road junction, where he found himself stuck between a three-man vehicle-control point and a fixed AA gun site. Unable to go forward, but determined not to turn back, he crawled into a culvert beneath the road, scraping his already bloody knees and losing more blood.
The culvert was filled with foul-smelling rubbish that almost made him retch. His feet, as well as his raw knees, had become extremely painful, with many cuts and ulcerated blisters. As it was pitch dark in the culvert, he could do little about this and instead, as the night progressed and the silence wrapped itself around him, he was tormented with hunger, thirst and cold.
At first light he moved on, circling around the vehicle-control point and the gun batteries, feeling increasingly weak and dizzy, aware that he was losing his sense of balance and might not last much longer. This, he dimly realized, was due to dehydration, which would kill him if he failed to find water. Miraculously, just as he saw another vehicle-control point and was about to collapse at the mere sight of it, he came across a small stream flowing over white stones of surprising brightness. Filled with gratitude and relief, he dropped to his hands and knees, then shoved his whole face into the freezing water and greedily drank it.
Just as quickly jerking upright with revulsion, he spat the water out. It was foul. Even worse, it was burning his mouth and tongue. Forcing spittle into his mouth to rid himself of the bitter, acid taste, he spat again, though could not stop shivering with weakness, shock and growing nausea. Already, that single, brief taste of the water had scorched and blistered his mouth, making his tongue swell up dangerously, threatening to choke him.
Glancing down into the water, at the surprisingly pure white stones below, he realized they had been burnt clean by the same substance that was searing his mouth. Chemical waste. Recognizing the fact, Danny went into a spasm of repeated vomiting, which only ended when there was nothing left to throw up. Now, with his belly empty and his swollen tongue threatening to choke him, he knew that he was on his last legs and could not last much longer. However, recalling all he had been taught in the Combat and Survival Phase of Continuation Training, he refused to give in to despair and instead crawled into another culvert, where he lay up all day, trying to regain his strength and conquer his hunger and thirst by force of will.
To an extent, he succeeded, and once the darkness fell he walked past the vehicle-control point in dead ground, where he could not be seen. But he was barely past it when flashing in the sky far behind him indicated that the facility was being bombed again by the Allies. This time, he could not have run even if he had had to – though luckily there was no need. The facility was now a long way behind him, with the sounds of the air raid mercifully distant and muffled. Eventually darkness reclaimed the sky and the silence returned.
Danny, though unsteady on his feet, resolutely kept walking. Suddenly, in the dark night, he came upon barbed-wire fencing that appeared to run for miles on both sides of him. Assuming he had reached the border, he climbed over the barbed wire where wooden stakes had been driven through it for support. The pain was excruciating, particularly when the barbed wire tore his already bleeding knees and hands, but he gritted his teeth and endured, sweating profusely, until he could drop down to the other side.
Lights were shining in the distance, but by now he was so weak and confused he was starting to hear voices in his head.
‘It’ll be there in the Imperial War Museum for your children to read,’ Andrew said distinctly.
Shocked, Danny glanced about him, but there was no sign of Andrew. Then he remembered that he was marching all alone and that Andrew had either been killed or captured.
‘The men in that mobile unit packed up their plates and saucers this mornings,’ Ricketts said, loud and clear, ‘and I think they’ll be leaving soon.’
Danny glanced around again, but Ricketts was nowhere in sight.
‘We need a loaf of bread,’ Darlene said. ‘Can you go out and get one, luv?’
‘Yes, Darlene,’ Danny replied to the bitter wind.
As he walked towards the distant lights, which he hoped were friendly houses, he collapsed twice and each time became unconscious. The second time, he fell flat on his face and saw, when he recovered and examined himself in his hand mirror, that he had broken his formerly perfect nose.
‘Very nice,’ he said to the mirror. ‘Now you look more mature.’
During moments of lucidity, Danny realized that he was in serious trouble and was likely to collapse for good if he did not find drinkable water soon. At first light, badly depleted, afraid that collapse was imminent, he sat with his back against the wall of a wadi and distinctly heard his mates calling to him.
‘Hey, Baby Face!’ Jock called.
‘Quick, Danny!’ yelled Paddy. ‘Get your arse over here!’
What Danny could see, however, about 200 yards away, was an isolated goatherd’s shack. Two hundred yards was not far, but to him it seemed miles.
‘Damn it, Danny,’ he said aloud, but with difficulty because his tongue was so swollen, ‘don’t give up now. You’ve come this far, go the rest of the mile. Stand up, Danny. Start walking.’
That was enough to get him started. It even brought his senses back. He remembered to break down his rifle into its component parts to show that he was not a combatant. Carrying the pieces in a small sack, he managed to walk as far as the goatherd’s shack, where he found a woman outside, kneeling by an open fire boiling soup in a pan as children played happily around her. She looked up, unsurprised, when Danny stopped before her and coughed into his clenched fist.
‘Hello,’ he said in his basic Arabic. ‘Sorry to trouble you, but could you tell me exactly where I am?’
Registering from his appearance and imperfect Arabic that he was a Coalition soldier, the woman smiled and waved to the other side of the barbed-wire fence, where Danny saw a border post with an Iraqi flag fluttering on its watch-tower. The woman spoke to him in Arabic, then, seeing that he didn’t understand, pointed to the watch-tower and said, ‘Iraq!’ She then pointed to the ground at her feet and said, ‘Syria. Syria!’
Realizing that he had made it, after marching for six days and seven nights, and covering a total of 117 miles, Danny raised his hand in a weak gesture of gratitude, then collapsed.
Chapter 15
Arriving safely in Syria at separate locations and different times, Ricketts and Danny were handed over to the Coalition forces and flown immediately to Tabuk in the northern desert of Saudi Arabia, then from there back to the SAS FOB located 87 miles inside Iraq.
Reunited with a relieved Major Hailsham in his lean-to i
n the FOB, the three men shared their regrets over the deaths of Geordie and Moorcock, then speculated briefly on what had happened to those gone missing – specifically the much-loved Sergeant Andrew Winston, the lesser known, relatively new troopers Gillett and Stone, and, of course, the redoubtable biker, Trooper Johnny Boy Willoughby, and the American Special Forces Master-Sergeant Red Polanski. Knowing that they were either dead or imprisoned, possibly even being tortured, and that nothing could be done to help them, the three men in the lean-to became embarrassed and hastily changed the subject.
‘You might like to know, Danny,’ Major Hailsham said, ‘that the reason we couldn’t respond to your SARBE beacon is that according to Intelligence the Iraqis alerted nearly two thousand troops when you escaped. Those, along with extensive helicopter and aircraft recces, made picking you up, let alone finding you, virtually impossible. In fact, they even alerted civilians along the river-bank to look out for you and any others like you.’
‘Yes,’ Danny replied, ‘I sussed that. That’s why I was constantly encountering troops on the move or civilians walking about the whole night, from last to first light. That’s why it took me so long.’
‘You were lucky you got here at all,’ Hailsham said. ‘That was a record-breaking march by any standards, and you did it through the heart of enemy territory and came out in one piece. That’s some achievement, Corporal.’
‘Thanks, boss.’
‘And all you suffered was a broken nose,’ Ricketts said. ‘It makes you look more mature.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant-Major!’
Ricketts and Hailsham grinned.
‘How did you actually get back to safety?’ Hailsham asked. ‘Some Syrian woman, did you say? Any hanky-panky?’
Danny blushed and looked terribly serious. ‘No, boss,’ he said. ‘I collapsed from exhaustion, hunger and relief when that Syrian woman told me I’d crossed the border. While I was still unconscious, the woman’s husband put me on a bed of straw in the barn for the animals. He left me there until I recovered. I slept there until I was ready to leave.’
‘Sleeping with the animals,’ Hailsham said. ‘As close to nature as a man can possibly get. And then?’
‘When I regained consciousness, the woman built up my strength with a daily diet of soup and bread. When I was fit enough to walk, she took me to the nearest town, where a fat Syrian official handed me over to the police. When I showed them my letter of reward for safe transfer, they tore it up, threw me in a filthy cell and beat the shit out of me – just for fun, I think.’
‘Absolutely disgraceful,’ Hailsham said.
‘No argument there, boss.’
‘And so?’
‘Having got that little bit of aggro out of their systems, they drove me away in a battered Mercedes, passing a sign pointing to Baghdad. When I commented on this, the bastards had another bit of sport by saying that’s where they were taking me – to hand me over to Saddam’s secret police. Luckily, they were just joking. In fact, they drove me to a Saudi border town, where I was handed over to the British Embassy. The toffs in the Embassy, who seemed embarrassed by my presence, got me on that American plane flying in to Tabuk. I guess you know all the rest.’
‘No saucy scandals, then?’ Hailsham still looked hopeful.
‘Sorry, boss. Can’t help you there.’
‘We’re glad to have you back all the same,’ Hailsham said in his most soothing manner. ‘You were quite lucky, Danny.’
‘Yes, boss, I was.’
‘So was I,’ Ricketts said. ‘A lot luckier than those other poor sods, caught by the Iraqis.’
Realizing, by the sudden silence, that he had got back onto an unwelcome subject, Ricketts glanced out of Hailsham’s camouflaged lean-to at the many tanks, trucks, mobile gunnery units, Land Rovers, LSVs and motorbikes spread between the other tents in the setting sun. The sight of them sent a powerful surge of pride through him. Suddenly ashamed, however, of the pleasure he was feeling when the others might be in bad trouble, even dead, he coughed into his fist, returned his gaze to Hailsham, and asked, ‘How are things going with the war?’
‘It’s practically over,’ Hailsham said. ‘The air strikes have severely damaged Saddam’s airfields and disrupted his command and control structure. We’ve broken his communications links to the front. Ninety per cent of Iraq’s internal communications have been knocked out and the transportation of fuel severely disrupted. Damage to ammunition storage dumps has been slight so far, but the long-term supply of missiles has been seriously interrupted and the production of chemical-warfare stocks hit hard. The national electricity grid has been shut down. The Scuds have been pursued into the wilds of Iraq, well out of harm’s way – at least out of range of Israel – and our own raids have spread panic and confusion throughout the Iraqi army, which has, according to the green slime, mistaken our small numbers for a regiment of about ten thousand men.’
‘And the ground war?’
‘It’s well under way. Two major invasion forces crossed the border simultaneously at 0400 hours the day before yesterday. In the east, elements of the 1st and 2nd US Marine Divisions broke through the minefields into Kuwait and fought their way due north towards Kuwait City. At the same time, in the far west, elements of the American 18 Corps, with French reinforcements, made a wide sweep across the desert. The Americans eventually severed Highway 8, which runs from Basra to Baghdad, thereby trapping the Republican Guard divisions. While they were doing that, the French were securing the western flank of the advance.’
‘Neat,’ Ricketts said.
‘The third part of the invasion,’ Hailsham continued, ‘was the airborne attack by the 101st Assault Division – the Screaming Eagles – who shipped two thousand men in three hundred helicopters to establish an FOB well inside Iraq, striking at the severed Highway 8. Meanwhile, in the east, the US Navy was shelling the coast and the 1st US Cavalry Division were continuing their artillery raids and reconnaissance patrols in the area of Wadi at Batin. By G plus one, the day after the start of the ground war, the British 7th Armoured Brigade, spearheaded by the Queen’s Royal Hussars and fourteen hundred Challenger tanks, was advancing into Iraq along the sixteen lanes opened up by the 1st Mechanized Infantry Division. Right now, even as we talk, and while the Iraqis are inexplicably continuing to focus their attention on their southern front, the Americans in the north-west are cutting the highway to Baghdad, the Arab forces in the east are advancing on Kuwait, the Egyptians are taking large numbers of prisoners, and 18 Corps is advancing towards the Republican Guard divisions in the far north-east. Already nearly ten thousand prisoners had been captured and hundreds more are waving white flags. You got back just in time.’
‘For what? What are we slated for?’
Before Hailsham could answer, a familiar, insolent voice cracked like a whip: ‘Sir! Trooper John Willoughby reporting for duty, sir!’
Looking around in surprise, Ricketts, Danny and Major Hailsham saw Johnny Boy snapping to attention and clipping a theatrically smart salute, even though his beret was missing and his desert clothing covered in blood and filth. He had a broad, cheeky grin on his handsome face.
‘Johnny Boy!’ Danny cried out in surprise.
‘Jesus!’ Ricketts murmured.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Hailsham said. ‘Please give me, an explanation, Trooper, for your recent absence.’
“Scuse me, boss,’ Johnny Boy said, ‘but Trooper Willoughby is absolutely shagged and begs permission to sit.’
‘Place your arse on a chair, Trooper Willoughby, then make your report.’
Still grinning cockily, Johnny Boy took one of the folding chairs at the table, wiped some dust off his bloody, filthy clothes, swept his blonde hair back from his forehead with an elegant hand movement, then nodded, as if congratulating himself.
‘Well, sir …’ he began.
‘Where’s Master-Sergeant Polanski?’ Hailsham interjected.
‘In the hospital at Riyadh,’ the trooper
answered, ‘waiting to be shipped back to the States. He has a hole in his side and it hurts like hell, but he’s going to be OK. Some guy, that old Red!’
‘We all knew you adored him,’ Hailsham responded drily. ‘Now go back to the beginning, dear boy.’
‘Yes, boss.’ Johnny Boy leant forward comfortably in his seat like a born storyteller. ‘Well, boss, when we were following you on the Honda, a mortar shell took us out and we found ourselves lying on the desert floor with the Iraqis steaming right at us.’
‘That’s when we lost you,’ Hailsham said.
‘Yes, boss, that was it. I picked my face out of the sand and saw you racing away …’
‘Go on,’ Hailsham said.
‘Well,’ Johnny Boy continued, polishing each word like a gem, ‘I was pretty bruised from the fall and old Red seemed unconscious, which may be why the Iraqis neither killed us nor beat the shit out of us. Instead, most of them chased you lot while one truck stayed behind to pick us up. I pretended to be unconscious – at least almost unconscious – you know? Moaning and groaning with eyes closed – and since Red apparently was that way, they must have thought we were harmless …’
‘How unimaginative,’ Hailsham interjected softly.
‘… so they threw us into the back of a soft-topped truck, on the floor, surrounded by half a dozen exhausted militiamen.’
Johnny Boy straightened up, drawing out the silence for effect, then beamed and leant forward again to continue his story.
‘Of course, we didn’t have any weapons. At least that’s what the poor sods thought. But I still had my commando knife tucked down my boot and the daft bastards didn’t see that. The truck had turned around and was heading back the way it had come when old Red groaned and opened his eyes and then gave me the wink. One of the Iraqis kicked his arse and he groaned again and closed his eyes, acting as if he was half-dead and pretty well out of it. But I knew he wasn’t. So, when the Iraqis started gibbering among themselves, having an argument about something, I slipped out my knife and slammed it into the boot right by my hand – right through the guy’s foot.’