Chris Ryan (2 page)

Shakespeare to Viz comics. I'd taken a load of paperbacks by Tom Sharpe, who always makes me laugh. On the whole, though, we were too tired to read or play, and we began to suffer from sleep-deprivation. Then suddenly another job came up, for a team to go down and put extra security on the British Embassy in Abu Dhabi during a visit by Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secre�tary. They picked five of us who had done the bodyguards' course and ferried us down there. In Abu Dhabi we had a look round the Embassy, and settled into a flat-roofed bun�galow within the grounds, which were maybe a hundred yards square, and beautifully kept � a huge garden with irri�gated lawns, shrubs, flowerbeds and trees. The main Embassy building was two storeys high and quite large, and several other staff bungalows were dotted about. Local security was operating outside the walls of the compound, and we were to patrol inside. Up at Victor we were banned from going into town, but here there was nobody to keep an eye on us. Hurd was not due to arrive until 6p.m., and we had a couple of hours spare. Also, we were dressed inconspicuously in casual civilian clothes � polo shirts and corduroys � so we took our chance and went into town for a look round. It was strange, walking round the streets of a prosperous, gleaming new town, to find that everything seemed normal, with not a hint that a major war was about to erupt. It felt good to have a break from training, see a different culture, 16 The One That Got Away and eat different food. After a meal we did some shopping, and bought little radios, miniature binoculars and a camera. I also bought a couple of shamags for myself, and another four or five for the guys still at Victor. Then we slipped back to the Embassy in time for the arrival of our star guest. When he came in, we saw him get out of the car and go into the building, so that we knew he was our responsibility for the time being. The situation, in the run-up to war, was enough to make anyone jumpy. We'd been getting reports which suggested that the Iraqis were capable of parachuting a special forces team into Abu Dhabi to take Hurd out � and at the time we had to treat them seriously. We thought they might have kamikaze types trained either to drop from the air or to come in by boat, because the Embassy was only about a hundred metres from the sea. After dark the perimeter wall was illuminated by lights that cast deep shadows, so that it would have been difficult to spot anyone hanging about. In the middle of the night one pair of our guys was on patrol in the compound and the other three of us were asleep in the bungalow, when somebody suddenly began screaming 'CONTACT! CONTACT!' at the top of his voice. Still half asleep, we leapt up and cocked our weapons, bumping into each other as we rushed about trying to make out where the enemy was. Just as we were about to burst out and sweep the compound, we realised that the person yelling was Paul, who'd been having a nightmare and had dreamt up the whole con�frontation. Somehow we settled down again, and in the morning, after Hurd had made an early departure, we whipped into Abu Dhabi again for breakfast of coffee and croissants. A couple of the guys bought telephone cards, so that they could call home. Back at Victor, nobody mentioned any�thing about having been in the town, and when I handed out the spare shamags, I said to the lads, 'Just don't tell anyone where they came from.' That little episode left us even more exhausted, and we told the OC we needed a day off because we were knack�ered. He made a compromise and let us off a navigation Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 17 exercise, so that we were able to get our heads down for an extra four-hour stretch. The Regiment had established a Forward Operating Base at Al Jouf, an airfield in the north-west of Saudi Arabia, and we knew that if we were deployed across the border it was from there that we would go in. When the air war began, on the night of 16/17 January, with coalition air�craft bombing targets in Iraq, we expected to be deployed at any moment. Although we didn't know it at the time, the Commander of British Forces in the Gulf, Lieutenant General Peter de la Billiere � himself an outstanding SAS officer who had served in numerous earlier campaigns, from Korea to Malaya, Borneo, Oman and Dhofar � had been trying his hardest to persuade the American Commander-in-Chief, General Norman Schwarzkopf, to send us in. But Stormin' Norman had a hang-up about using Special Forces; he had seen the American Special Forces make a hash of things in Vietnam, and now he preferred to use conventional methods � to soften up the Iraqis with bombs, and then overrun their positions with tanks, without wasting highly-trained special troops. Besides, he could get all the in�telligence he needed from satellites and reconnaissance aircraft. In the end, however, DLB persuaded him that SAS patrols would glean useful intelligence if they were inserted deep inside enemy territory, and the C-in-C agreed to our deployment. Hardly had he done so when Saddam Hussein started putting Scud missiles down on Israel, and neither satellites nor aircraft could find the mobile launchers. Sud�denly � and quite by chance � the regiment had a vital role to perform: to find the mobile launchers, put an end to the bombardment of Israel, and so prevent Israel entering the war with potentially disastrous consequences to the co�alition. Suddenly our future became more clearly defined. No longer mere BCRs, we were assigned a proper task. The big Special Forces punch was to come from 'A' and 'D' squad-rons, who would go in as substantial motorised patrols, each 18 The One That Got Away heavily armed and half a squadron strong, tasked with find�ing the Scud TELs (transporter-erector-launchers) and calling in Allied aircraft to take them out. But the plan was that before the heavy mob was deployed, three eight-man patrols from 'B Squadron, designated Bravo One Zero, Bravo Two Zero and Bravo Three Zero, would infiltrate deep into Iraqi territory and lie up in OPs (observation posts) to report enemy movement, especially that of Scuds. De la Billiere believed that if we could establish OPs first, and start passing back useful intelligence, it would streng�then his hand in bargaining with Schwarzkopf and increase the chances of the big patrols being deployed. Naturally our own CO was as eager as anyone to get people in there. For our patrol, Bravo Two Zero, members were selected from a nominal roll, and according to their particular skills: besides fighting power, we needed a demolitionist, a sig�naller and a medic (myself). Our main task would be to gather intelligence; our aim was to find a good LUP (lying-up position) and set up an OP. From there we would maintain surveillance on the MSR (main supply route) which ran westwards from the town of Al Hadithah to three airfields known as H1, H2 and H3, and along which it was thought the Iraqis were moving Scud launchers. Once established, we would remain in the OP for up to ten days, reporting enemy movements by radio or Satcom telephone, and calling in fighter-bombers to attack any worthwhile tar�get. A subsidiary task was to blow up any fibre-optic communications links we could find. After ten days, we would either get a re-supply by helicopter, or move to a new location, also by chopper. Besides all our personal equip�ment, we would take kit for building the OP: 120 empty sandbags per man, vehicle camouflage nets, poles, and ther�mal sheets to put over the top of our structures, so that if Iraqis flew over with thermal-imaging kit they wouldn't be able to pick up the heat rising from our bodies. To practise the task we'd been assigned, we went out into some sandhills and dug in OPs. Now it so happened that I was pretty good at this, having done a lot of it with the Terri-torial Regiment in Germany, where one of our main roles Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 19 had been to construct OPs and man them for three weeks at a time. After the earth and rock of Europe, the sand of Arabia was a doddle. We began by digging a pit three metres by two. The sand kept sliding in, but once we were down to a reasonable depth we built walls of bags filled with sand, then laid poles across the top and covered them with thermal sheeting and sand-spattered hessian. At the front we left a slot for observation, camouflaged with strips of hessian like a net curtain, and a small aperture at the back, concealed by a flap of hessian covered in sand and glue. The main object of the exercise was to work out what we would need to go to ground in Iraq, and the answer seemed to be plenty of sandbags and plenty of water. At the end of the day we all went round each other's OPs, and I am glad to say that ours was by far the best. Encouraged by the nature of the desert in the south of the Gulf, we decided that to build an OP in Iraq would be a viable proposition, and that we should be able to get away with it. Each patrol's plan, in fact, was to put in two OPs, one covering the other, 50 or 100 metres apart and linked by telephone line. One would have an observation opening facing forward on to the MSR, and the other would be in front of it with the opening facing backwards, so that the guys there could watch the ground behind their colleagues. It was when we started getting our kit together that the scale of the shortages finally emerged. 'Right,' we said to the SQMS, 'we need 203 rounds.' `Well,' he replied, 'we haven't got any.' `Why the hell not?' `There are just none here.' In that case, I decided, I wasn't going to carry the gre�nade-launching part of my weapon across the border, because it made the whole thing so heavy. The launcher, or lower barrel, is easily detached, and without it the rifle becomes considerably lighter and a joy to handle � but in that mode it needs a replacement stock, since the main stock comes away with the lower barrel. The SQMS told me I 20 The One That Got Away couldn't split my weapon, because he had forgotten to bring out the extra stocks. In fact there were plenty of 203 rounds � but other people had them. One day I went across to see two friends in 'A' Squadron and found them sitting in their Pinkie. They were just about to move up to Al Jouf, within striking distance of the border. I said, 'Listen � we're flying up tomorrow, just after you. Is there any chance of you giving us some bombs?' John � Sarah's godfather � lifted up the seat, and under�neath were boxes of 203 rounds. They brought out twelve and said, 'Here, take these.' So I went with both parts of my weapon fitted after all. It was the same with claymore mines, which we wanted as a deterrent to put the brakes on anyone trying to come after us in the desert. (If you're being followed, you can put down a mine with a timer, and crack it off after maybe five minutes. Even if it doesn't do any damage it slows people down, because they wonder if there are more mines in front of them.) When we asked for claymores, the answer was that there weren't any, and someone told us to make our own out of ammunition boxes packed with plastic explosives and gympi link � the metal belt that holds machine-gun rounds together. This was ridiculous: home-made devices like that are crude, large and heavy, and we hadn't got the capacity to carry them. Later we did make a single claymore out of plas�tic ice-cream cartons, and one of us took it in his bergen. In fact there was a whole tent full of claymores, but through lack of communication at various levels, they remained hid�den away. In the end we were given a mixed load of stuff by the Special Boat Squadron: five claymores, a box of L2 gre�nades, one of white phosphorus grenades and some 66 rockets. We shared out some of this with the other two patrols, and I myself finished up with one L2 grenade and two white phos. Yet another sore point was pistols. The twenty pistols packed and shipped for our own use simply disappeared, nicked for the other squadrons. The result was that the only Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 21 guy in our unit with one was Vince, who had brought it with him from 'A' Squadron. We also asked for silenced pistols, and in particular for the make invented during the Second World War for Special Operations Executive. Although fairly primitive, these have never been surpassed for sheer quietness. They come in two parts � the silenced barrel (a fat tube) and the pistol grip, which is also the magazine � and part of their secret is that they have so few working parts. They fire single shots only, and have to be reloaded manually, by undoing and pulling back a screw, which lifts the next round into the breech; but the quietness of the re�port is uncanny� no more than pffft � and at close range the 9mm. slug is deadly. The other two squadrons had such weapons and as things turned out, there were several moments during my escape when I could have done with one; but again, we were told that none were available. People started getting a bit pissed off with all these short�ages, and one day in the hangar someone challenged the OC about them, saying, 'Look � we've got no pistols, we've got no grenades, we've got no claymores. You're expecting us to make claymores out of ammunition boxes, and it's bloody stupid, because they're not effective.' The OC, who was doing the best he could, blew his top, and said, 'Listen, you're about to go to war. You'll take whatever you can get. You're not in Northern Ireland, where you can ask for any kind of asset. You've got to im�provise. That's what makes the Regiment so good �improvisation.' In fact the things we were missing were basic equipment which we should have had. Take the maps, for instance. The only maps we had were really poor and designed for air-crews; their scale (1:250,000) was so small that they showed few details, and although they might have helped navigators they were no good to people on the ground. To back them up, we badly needed satellite-derived informa�tion � but again, we were told that no satellite imagery was available. Our first escape-maps were also as old as the hills. Incredibly, they had first been printed in 1928, then updated 22 The One That Got Away for the Second World War; but at the last minute we were issued with newer ones, printed on silk, which we worked into the waistbands of our trousers. Each of us was given a photostated indemnity note, in Arabic and English, promising �5,000 to anyone who handed over a coalition serviceman to a friendly power. Deciding the document was rubbish, I threw mine away. Later, however, I changed my mind; because I couldn't speak Arabic, I thought I'd better have a note after all. So I got another member of the patrol, Bob Consiglio, to photos�tat a copy of his (with the serial number 075 in the top right-hand corner), and
took that with me. We also signed for twenty gold sovereigns apiece, in case we had to bribe somebody or buy our way out of trouble. Of course we were supposed to return these after the conflict, but not every�body did. At Christmas, back in Hereford, we'd had what was known as Cross-brief Studies, the formal review of what the Regiment had done during the past year, and a forecast of what it would be doing the next. Proceedings had finished with an address from the CO, who asked everybody except `A' and `D' Squadron to leave, and then made some pretty sombre comments. 'Look, guys,' he'd said. 'There's a good chance we're going to be at war, and it may escalate into something big. But if any of you look like getting caught, you certainly want to consider saving the last round for yourself.' Basically he'd been saying: 'Shoot yourself rather than get caught.' Now, out at Victor, those words began to spread around. The Regiment didn't want anyone else to know that the' SAS had been deployed, and we were supposed to be in iso-lation � not only within the camp as a whole, but also within squadrons. As soon as we were tasked, we should have been separated from everyone else and put into our own isolation pen. Our briefing room � in this case a tent inside the hangar � should have been secured by the Headquarter unit, and nobody should have been allowed in there except members of the patrol � because, if you're captured, the less you know Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 23 the better. As it was, maps and papers were left lying about the floor, and everybody knew what everybody else was doing. Inevitably, people talked to each other, and the CO's advice leaked out to us as well. For years people had reckoned that you'd be better off shooting yourself if the IRA got hold of you, and that black Africans would probably skin you alive. Now the same seemed to apply to the Iraqis. Guys went around saying, `These people will carve you up if they get you. They'll have your bollocks off, for a start.' We were not to know that most of this was pure hype. The military capabilities of the Iraqis were also becoming wildly exaggerated, but our intelligence about the true situation was so sketchy that rumours kept building up. While we were still at Victor, we were given jabs against anthrax, which made everyone feel like shit for three or four days, with bad bruising in the arm that had been injected. One man's arm remained black and blue for six weeks, and some people had muscle around the puncture actually go rotten three or four weeks after the jab. Several guys from `A' Squadron had to be dragged back out of the field for minor surgery. I was lucky, and got nothing worse than a cold and a burning throat; I kept waking up in the night, coughing up lumps of phlegm the size of golf balls. The patrol's principal task would be to man the OP, but there was also the possibility that we might be tasked to blow fibre-optic communication lines, one of which was thought to run alongside the MSR. Luckily one of our lads had done some moonlighting for a contractor laying fibre-optic cables, and he told us that we needed a particular device, like a metal detector, for tracing them � so we indented for one immediately. He also knew that if a cable is cut, the operators can send out a pulse of light which bounces back along it, giving them a precise indication of where the break is, so that repairs are fairly simple. We therefore worked out that, if we did blow a line, we would put anti-personnel mines around the break, so that when engineers came to re�pair it they would be taken out. We would also lay another, 24 The One That Got Away delayed-action device to blow the line again later. But the main aim of the exercise would be to kill as many skilled per�sonnel as possible. Western technicians had poured out of Iraq during the past few weeks, and we knew that there must be a shortage of engineers; if we managed to kill the first wave coming out to make repairs, it was a good bet that the next lot, in true Arab fashion, would say they couldn't find the break, and the line would remain cut. When I heard the code-word for our patrol � Turbo � I couldn't help laughing, because Turbo was the name of the best dog I'd ever owned. A black Staffordshire bull terrier of incredible strength, he was the most engaging character you could imagine: a desperate fighter and randy as a billy-goat, but deeply affectionate with humans, with a look in his eyes that would melt any heart. When I thought of all the scrapes he'd got me into, a warm feeling came over me, and I almost felt he'd become a member of the patrol. At first we heard that Bravo Two Zero would be com�manded by Bob Shepherd, an exceptionally level-headed Scotsman, always cheerful and smiling, who had been my instructor on selection. He had come out to Saudi with 'A' Squadron, but had recently been brought into `B' Squadron to strengthen its middle management. The news of his appointment delighted us. By our standards Bob was quite old � thirty-six � but he was always closely in touch with the younger guys, and someone we could look up to and trust absolutely. Tall and strong, with swept-back dark-brown hair, he'd always been outstandingly fit. On the selection course he was probably the fittest instructor of all, but also one of the nicest; you could be sure he would never stitch you up, but would spend time helping you. Unfortunately his command lasted literally a few minutes. Partly because of personality clashes, partly because he'd had experience with heavy weapons, he was kept back to work with the other squadrons � and his place was taken by Sergeant Andy McNab. Andy was then about thirty-two, a Cockney Jack-the-Lad with such a gift of the Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 25 gab that he could talk his way out of any situation and tie you in a knot. Dark-haired, with a moustache, he'd done a lot of work in the Regiment and was a good demolitionist � but words came out of him so fast that you never quite knew where you were. Paired off with Andy � sharing bed-spaces, vehicles, cooking equipment and so on � was Dinger, a lance-corpo�ral of twenty-eight who'd been in the Parachute Regiment. A bit of a wild character, Dinger drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney, couldn't give a flying monkey's, and was always game for a fight. If you described anyone as mad, or as a joker, it would be him. Yet he was also a good family man, married with two daughters. Just before we left, one of his mates did him a really short crew-cut, which gave him an extra-youthful appearance. The other sergeant was Vince, an older man, about thirty-five, a medic like myself, who tended to be a bit ner�vous and twitchy in his movements. He was tall and slim, with an athletic build; he had fuzzy, dark-gingery hair and a drooping, Mexican-type moustache. He came from Swin�don, and was married with three children. He was putting a bold front on things, but I knew his heart wasn't in this oper�ation. Only a few days before, we'd sat on his camp-bed and he'd said to me, 'I don't want to be doing this.' We discussed things a bit, and I said to him, 'Well � now that we're here, we'd better just get on with it, and hope we'll come out OK at the end.'.I got the impression that he wanted to finish his time in the army and be done with the whole business. A closer friend of mine was Trooper Bob Consiglio. Twenty-four years old, the son of a Sicilian father and an English mother, he was dark as any Italian and very small (only 5' 5") but incredibly strong, with a heart like a lion. He was the only guy ever known to have spent six months in Hereford without trapping a woman. He used to try like mad, every night, all night long, but he never made it. It seemed that his lack of height was against him. Girls some�how didn't realise what a good sense of humour he had; if ever someone was going to say something really daft, it 26 The One That Got Away would be him. He was a really nice lad, and would do any- thing you told him to; a hard worker, and a cheerful character. If you thought of Bob as a dog, he'd be a terrier. Bob was endlessly good-natured, and, when he was the newest member of the troop, had taken a lot of stick from the rest of us. He didn't exactly look at us in awe, but he went all out to impress us, trying his hardest not to appear the dummy. The result was that we kept playing jokes on him. Once, when the staff sergeant was away and I was running the troop, we went climbing in Pembrokeshire, on the Welsh coast. I went into Bob's bag and took out one shoe. When we reached the foot of the hills he started to hunt about, and although he wouldn't say anything I could see him getting worried, thinking he'd left the shoe behind. I deliberately started to hustle him: 'Get your kit on. Let's go.' `Can I climb in my big boots?' `No � get your stickies on.' He began muttering and hesitating, playing for time, but in the end he had to say, 'Listen � I forgot to put one of my stickies in.' I pretended to blow my top at him, and he began to apol�ogise. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I'll run back and get it.' `Go on, then,' I told him. 'And make it fast.' Away he went � and when he'd gone a few yards I shouted after him to come back. No matter how much we used to pull the piss, when it came to fighting, Bob wasn't frightened of anything. At Al Jouf he and I lived under the same vehicle cam net, and I said to him one day, 'Bob, if anything happens when we're in there, make sure you stick with me. Get on my arse when we're leaving.' And he said, 'Yeah � I will.' It wasn't that I didn't trust him to do anything by himself � though I did want to protect him, almost as if he were a brother. Rather, because he was such a brave little sod, it would be to my own advantage to have him close. Twice Bob's size was Stan � a different character en�tirely. A Rhodesian who'd moved to Australia, he was over six foot tall, not that obviously muscular, but very, very Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 27 strong, well-spoken, and a gentleman. Down under, he'd been at university, rowing in the university boat team, and then became a dentist, with a practice of his own in Sydney. But all he'd wanted to do was join the SAS, and gradually he had worked his way there. In Hereford he again had a dental practice, while at the same time serving in the Regiment. A single man, and very good looking, he became known in the camp as 'Dr Sex', such havoc did he create among the local girls. Nothing ever seemed to bother him; whatever hap-pened, his voice kept the same tone, and he just got on with things. If he had a fault, it was that he was too nice, too placid and, for all his intelligence, perhaps a bit naive. He was an�other good mate of mine � and I wouldn't have liked to see him get angry, because he could be a formidable fighter. The other two members of the patrol were Legs Lane �so called because he was tall and thin � and Mark, a keen New Zealander who had joined the squadron only a month before. Both were very quiet � Legs particularly so � and it was difficult to get much out of them; but both were good men, and Mark especially was always one to start straight in, game for anything. Legs was a key man in the patrol as he was carrying the 319, the main radio set. Finally there was myself: a Geordie from near Newcastle, aged twenty-eight, and a corporal. During six years in the regular SAS I'd gained a good deal of useful experience in many countries, and at the beginning of 1991 I was physi�cally the strongest I'd ever been, because during my last tour with the SP team I'd hit the weights and built up a lot of muscle on my upper body. The extra strength had been use�ful, because much of what you do on the SP team is bodywork � you're forever going up ropes or sliding down them, climbing into buildings, carrying guys, jumping off vehicles, pushing people away or restraining them. In all this, you're handling a lot of weight. In your black kit, you have your body armour, kevlar helmet and waistcoat loaded with ammunition, stun-grenades and axes, besides your machine-gun and pistol. With all the hours on the bench, and practical work, my weight had gone up from 11 to 121/2 28 The One That Got Away stone. Little did I know that the extra muscle was going to save my life. In our last days at Victor we were busier than ever. Andy was getting the demolition kit sorted. I saw to the medical packs, Legs Lane to the radio. Everyone scrounged ammunition. We were told that when we moved up to Al Jouf we would go more or less straight in, so that everything had to be ready before we left. We were also told to leave all our non�essential kit behind. We flew up on the evening of 18 January in three Her�cules, staggered. On board were all the squadron vehicles and stores. The air war was then at its height, raging for the third night, and there was quite a high risk of being shot at en route. Through the headsets dangling from the walls in the back we tuned in to an American AWACS controller directing a US pilot with an Iraqi on his tail. The pilot was highly excited, and kept yelling, 'He's got us! He's locked on!' but the controller remained completely cool and talked him calmly through the turns: 'OK. Steady. I have you on radar. Steady. Bank left. Just bank left . . .' The American ended up taking the Iraqi out, and it was great to listen in; the pilot's excitement and fear and the controller's laconic replies brought home to us the fact that the war was going on in earnest. The sky was full of armed warplanes, all trying to blow the opposition out of the air. During the flight the SSM went round telling everyone to start taking their NAPs tablets, to combat the effects of nuclear or biological con�tamination. We were all saying, 'Yeah, yeah. OK.' But somebody muttered, 'These fucking things make you ste�rile,' so although a couple of the guys took the pills, the rest didn't risk it. When we felt the wind at Al Jouf, somebody gasped, `Jesus! It's a hell of a lot colder up here.' Because we'd been told we were going to deploy immediately, we'd left most of our warm kit behind. The moment we landed, we began to unload our equip�ment and pile it in a grassed area like a garden, about thirty rr L Stand By . . . Stand By . . . Go! 29 metres by twenty, next to one of the hangars. Helping us was an officer who had been commissioned from the ranks, and had a fearsome reputation of being a real bastard. Everyone was in dread of him, even the majors. Now he was the quartermaster, but he got stuck straight in, and was carrying the long cardboard boxes of rations off the aircraft with us. He laid three boxes down parallel to each other in one layer, and three across them in the next tier. When Bob Consiglio started the third layer with a box lying in line with the one below, instead of across