Eye of the Storm (38 page)

And that was exactly what he did. On the morning of the 26th we heard, finally, that Alpha One Zero had successfully crossed the border and was heading north. Less happily, that morning – three days after they had been flown in – there was still no contact from Bravo Two Zero. The CO therefore ordered a helicopter to go in after dark to try to locate his missing men.

That night, an RAF Chinook lifted off from Al Jouf to begin the search. It was accompanied by a US Air Force helicopter fitted with sophisticated electronic and other equipment for locating people in the dark. But despite flying a search pattern around the spot where Bravo Two Zero had been dropped off, the choppers didn’t pick up so much as the whisper of a trace of anyone. It was as though the patrol had vanished into thin air. Either ‘McNab’ and his men were moving very fast and covering a lot of ground, which told me that they had already ditched most of their equipment and were racing for the border, or they had been captured or killed. If they were trying to get back, however, we had no way of knowing until we could establish radio contact – if we ever did.

As for me, I seemed to have been left in some kind of limbo. There was no way that I could get forward to join Alpha One Zero in Iraq, even if that were still thought necessary, because the CO now needed every available Special Forces helicopter for searches. Then, early the following morning, I was again summoned to the Boss’s ‘office’ – still a desk on the luggage conveyor belt in what would one day be the baggage-reclaim area of the terminal building. ‘I’ve seen the sitrep,’ I told him at once. A report from Alpha One Zero, now over the border at last, explained that they had established their first LUP in enemy territory, in the midst of an Iraqi division’s position in Wadi ’Ar Ar.

‘You’re going in tomorrow,’ said the CO, without preamble. ‘Definitely. Have you got that?’

I nodded, then added, ‘OK Boss,’ for good measure. I was still carrying the letter he had written for me to give the patrol commander in my pocket, and my gear was still packed and ready to go. There was nothing else to say. The die was cast.

Or at least it seemed to have been, until four o’clock that afternoon, when I walked into the ops room and found the CO standing there with a broad smile on his face.

‘What the hell’s going on? Is the war over?’ I asked.

‘Better than that,’ he chortled. ‘We’ve had our first contact with the enemy.’ Contact meant a firefight, and from the CO’s antics it looked as though it had been a successful one.

‘That’s great,’ I said, then added ‘Any casualties?’

‘Not on our side. But guess who had the contact?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ I replied – after all, we had a fair number of patrols out there. ‘Share the big secret.’

‘It’s Alpha One Zero,’ he said. And as he gave me the details I knew straight away that I would not be going out to join them. Three enemy killed and one captured meant success; indeed, they had even captured intact the enemy soldiers’ vehicle, a Russian-built Gaz jeep. The contact indicated that the patrol commander had found his feet and had started to get his act together. The patrol was some fifty kilometres north of the border, and they would soon be heading for their designated area of operation. That, of course, was the logical assumption, and the CO agreed. ‘It might just work after all,’ he murmured. ‘Let’s see how they get on.’

We didn’t have long to wait. Half an hour later a message came in from Alpha One Zero: ‘Moving south towards the border. Will advise rendezvous location in morning for prisoner pickup and resupply.’

I thought the CO, who was always ultra-cool, was going to explode. This time he completely lost his rag, and his comments about Alpha One Zero and its commander, though extremely succinct, didn’t make pretty listening. He ended his outburst by telling me, ‘There’s no question about it, Billy. You will
definitely
be going in tomorrow evening.’

Alpha One Zero’s actions had become not just erratic, but increasingly ludicrous, almost like something from a comedy sketch. Now, after days of delay, they seemed to be running around the Iraqi desert like headless chickens. Having had time to mull it over, I didn’t reckon the Boss’s idea of sending me in as 2IC was going to work. Not now. Time was short, however, so I told him there and then that I wasn’t happy with my brief.

‘I don’t want to add to your problems at this stage, Boss, but I don’t think I can operate like this. Not in the way you want. I don’t need all this aggro that’s being lined up.

‘I can’t go in as 2IC knowing that I can take over full command at any time just by producing your letter from my pocket. I can stage a mini-coup whenever I want if I have this joker. That’s exactly what it’s like – having a wild card that will trump everyone else’s hand.

‘The patrol commander is obviously getting very negative advice from somebody – and I have a good idea who that person is. Whatever I advise as 2IC, the OC is going to have this bloke telling him the opposite, and he’s going to end up like a piggy in the middle. And at that point I play my joker – and ship him out.

‘I can’t work like that. I could never expect to have the men’s confidence and trust after pulling that kind of stroke.’

The CO may have been angry, but he had lost none of his decisiveness. He looked at me for a moment, then said, ‘You’re absolutely right. Give me the letter back.’

Reaching down, I unbuttoned the map pocket on my trousers, pulled out the letter and handed it to him. He went over immediately to where the staff assistant was sitting at a nearby desk and dictated a new letter, which he signed as soon as it had been typed. He brought it back and handed it to me.

‘Read it,’ he said.

Looking down at the paper, I scanned the brief message. It was addressed to the A Squadron commander, and read:

    You are to comply with this order. You are to hand over your command to the RSM. He can take whatever action is necessary to ensure that you leave your present location. You are to get on board the helicopter. You are to speak to no one and report to me directly on your return.

It was signed ‘Commanding Officer, 22 SAS’.

When I had read it, I sealed it in its envelope and slipped it into my map pocket, buttoning the flap. I would go in on the following night, 28 January, in the Chinook that was scheduled to make the first resupply delivery to two of our four mobile fighting units.

Against all my expectations, I was going to war.

*
 A fully automatic weapon, not unlike a machine-gun, that fires different types of 40mm grenades. It is usually mounted on a 110, and, with its high rate of fire, is a very effective weapon. Also referred to as an M19.

Chapter Seventeen

A
S
I approached the gaping rear doors of the huge, twin-engined, twin-rotor Boeing Chinook, I was acutely aware that I was about to become the central character in a piece of regimental history. This was the first time ever that an SAS squadron commander had been relieved of his command in the field, and also the first time that the RSM had been sent in on active service to replace an officer.

Unsurprisingly, I had spent most of that day killing time before my flight, turning over in my mind what was likely to happen when I reached Alpha One Zero. I would, I think, have to have been rather less than human if I had not wondered about my takeover of the patrol, although I knew that no amount of thinking before the event could possibly prepare me for the reality.

Furthermore, my destination lay behind enemy lines, so quite apart from any problems that might arise with men whose patrol commander I was to replace, or with informing that officer that, in effect, his career was in tatters, I was also having to adjust to the recognition that, from this night on, every move I made could lead to an incident that might well become a matter of life or death. Nor was it just my life or death; I was about to become responsible not only for the successful outcome of a vital mission, but also for the lives and wellbeing of thirty-three soldiers, most of whom were married and had children.

On the Chinook’s tail ramp I paused and took a look around me. It was an impressive scene. The two great rotors were already spinning and shimmering, turning silvery in the bright moonlight. The sky was clear, the night dry but bitterly cold. We had heard that day from the weather men that this was the coldest winter ever recorded in Iraq. Perhaps the meteorologists should have forewarned the Intelligence donkeys back in the UK who had briefed us to expect mild, even warm weather. As a result of this advice, a lot of the guys hadn’t even bothered to bring sleeping bags.

Still, I knew that at least one aspect of my arrival was going to cheer up the lads in Alpha One Zero and Two Zero no end. With a lot of pushing from the CO and myself, the RQMS had investigated the local
souks
(bazaars or markets) and had managed to get his slippery palms on a good supply of burnouses, Arab goatskin overcoats, known to us as ‘bedous’ or ‘Al Jouf coats’. They stank more than a little and were none too elegant, but they were surprisingly warm – which was all that would matter to the men.

I had taken only a few steps up the ramp when I felt a tug on the yoke of my belt kit, the strap that goes over the shoulder to support the weight of equipment in the belt. It was the CO. As I turned he put an arm around my shoulder and, leaning forward, yelled in my ear, above the noise of the engines, ‘What I have done is a first. What it won’t stand is a major contact in the first twenty-four hours.’

I could barely hear him. Even so, I knew that what he was telling me, in the nicest possible way, was, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, because at the moment my head is on the block.’ I gave him what I hoped was an encouraging nod, shouted, ‘OK, Boss,’ and strode up the ramp with my mind firmly focused, and my fingers just as firmly crossed.

Top whack, a Chinook can carry nearly fifteen tons of equipment. This flight was stretching that capacity to the limit, since the aircraft was taking enough fuel, water, rations, ammunition and other equipment to resupply the two Alpha half-squadrons in the field. In addition to the three-man crew, it was reassuring to find an RAF corporal manning the forward pintle-mounted machine-gun should there be a hostile reception committee waiting when we landed. The only others on board were the RAF load master, me, and two SAS SNCOs who were there on my orders. They could help offload equipment at the landing site, but the main reason for their being on the flight was to assist me in case I had trouble with the squadron commander.

I waited until after we were airborne to tell them what was going on – that I was flying in to take over command of Alpha One Zero. They were even more stunned – ‘gobsmacked’ would be more accurate – by my announcement than I had been when the CO first told me. Their jaws dropped, and they were clearly having a struggle getting their brains to accept the message from their ears.

‘You’re joking, Billy,’ one of them finally managed to blurt out. ‘We thought you were just coming along for the ride.’ That dragged a laugh out of me, albeit a cynical one. ‘Do you honestly believe I’m so stupid that I would climb aboard one of these things of my own free will without a good reason?’ I asked them. ‘You may both be daft enough to do it – but I’m not.’ I looked hard at the two of them for a moment, my mind still turning over what might happen when we reached the patrol. Then I gave them their orders. When we landed they were to wait on, or very close to, the helicopter, and be prepared for my call. I paused again, then dropped the bombshell:

‘If I decide that it is necessary, you are physically to restrain the OC A Squadron and put him aboard the helicopter, using whatever force is needed, and no matter what he does or says.’

This time the shock almost bowled them over. I waited a few moments until I thought it had sunk in properly, then confirmed, ‘And also’ – they sat rigid, waiting for further revelations – ‘don’t go shooting your mouths off all over camp when you get back.’

Now, their looks said, I was the one who was being stupid. They had just had handed to them on a plate the juiciest item of gossip of the war so far. There was nothing in all God’s earth that was going to keep them quiet. Only the chopper crashing on the way back was going to keep this mega story from bursting out. I knew it, and they knew it, but I had to go through the motions.

The load master was hardly less surprised when I told him what was about to happen. Utterly dependable, Flight Sergeant Jim was a first-rate guy who had been with the RAF’s Special Forces flight for a long time and had operated with the Regiment on many previous occasions. We had built up a good rapport over the years, and got on extremely well.

The load master of any aircraft is in complete control while it is on the ground – and that means that the pilots, however senior, cannot take off without his say-so. That, of course, was my reason for telling him. Having let Jim know the score, I briefed him on just what I needed from him at Alpha One Zero’s location. It was quite simple: I didn’t want him sanctioning take-off until I had given the all-clear with a thumbs-up signal.