Spider Shepherd: SAS: #1 (19 page)

Shepherd shook his head, wondering if he was having hallucinations. It made no sense that Russian equipment was coming ashore in support of a British operation, but it was even stranger that ZSU-23-4s were arriving. They were purely of use as anti-aircraft weapons and, according to the briefing before the op, the only aircraft in Sierra Leone were British.  He exchanged a questioning glance with Jock, then shrugged his shoulders; his job was to do what he was told to do and not ask too many questions. 

The vehicles rumbled past them, churning up the sand and knocking aside small trees and bushes as they roared up the beach.  Shepherd could see that the guys riding in the turrets of the armoured vehicles were white but the rest of the crews were black. None of the vehicle crews even acknowledged the SAS men, but Shepherd heard a couple of shouted orders and immediately recognised South African accents.  Suddenly the Russian vehicles made sense – they had probably been captured in Angola during one of the many regional conflicts in which South Africa has been involved in the apartheid era.

The convoy disappeared into the scrub of Sierra Leone and that was the end of the mission for Shepherd and his team.  As they reassembled, Jock was still shaking his head. ‘Now I’ve seen everything.’

Geordie nodded. ‘What the hell are South African mercs doing in Sierra Leone on a British Government sponsored mission?’

‘Keeping it at arm’s length, I guess,’ Shepherd said. ‘HMG doesn’t want to be seen to be involved in the fighting here - maybe too many echoes of colonial times - so they hire some mercs to do the job instead.’

Jimbo scratched his head. ‘Which is?’

‘Who knows?’ said Shepherd. ‘Keep the government in power, overthrow the government - one of those, probably.’

‘If you ask me,’ Jock said. ‘This isn’t really about governments at all, it’s about minerals.’

‘Well we’ll have time to ponder that later,’ said Shepherd. ‘For the moment we’ve  got some unfinished business.’

Wearing their NVGs, they made their way back past the still smouldering ruins of the village and along the route they had scouted that afternoon. Even though it was the early hours, the rebels were still awake, high on a cocktail of drugs, alcohol and adrenaline.  The captured boys from the village were still herded together in a circle, with two rebels standing guard over them, dozing over their rifles. There was no sign of the girls, but the rebels standing around the doorways of the huts and the occasional cries and screams from inside, showed where they were and left no room for doubt about what was happening to them.

Shepherd beckoned to the other three and in whispers they identified the initial target each would take, choosing the ones who looked like leaders from the way the others deferred to them. ‘On my signal,’ Shepherd said. They spread out, took up firing positions and zeroed in on their targets. Shepherd had chosen a powerful figure standing in a hut doorway, dimly illuminated by a lamp burning inside it, though through his NVGs, Shepherd could have seen him clearly even without the light. He squinted along the sight, focusing on the bridge of the man’s nose. He took a deep breath, took up the first pressure on the trigger then gave a slow exhale and squeezed the trigger home.

The first shots from the other three came within a heartbeat and all four targets crumpled to the ground. The SAS men were already zeroing in on other targets, firing three-shot bursts, cool and unhurried, picking the rebels off one by one. The rebels panicked, firing off wild bursts in all directions, uncertain even where the SAS fire was coming from. One rebel stumbled from a hut where he’d been raping a girl  and was cut down as he tried to haul up his shorts. Another, wielding an RPG, was hit by a burst from Shepherd a fraction of a second before he pulled the trigger. Smashed backwards by the impact of the rounds, the rebel’s dying shot sent the RPG round blasting straight up into the sky, where it detonated in a ball of flame as it reached the end of its programmed four and a half second flight time.

The thunder of gunfire eased and then stopped as the remaining rebels scattered and fled, running blindly into the bush. The SAS men moved slowly and methodically forward, ensuring the rebels were dead and finishing off the wounded with a round to the head. They felt no remorse. In their eyes the rebels had already forfeited whatever rights the Geneva Convention might have given them by the slaughter of the villagers; anyone who could murder women, children and babies, and burn the bodies, deserved to die.

The village boys had remained in their huddle pressed flat to the ground their eyes wild with terror as they saw the SAS men approach. While Jock and Shepherd tried to reassure them, Jimbo and Geordie went from hut to hut, checking there were no rebel soldiers still hiding there and bringing out the girls. The clothes of all the girls were torn and their faces and bodies bloody and bruised.

Shepherd gathered the children around him. ‘Anyone here speak English?’ There was no response at first, but when he repeated the question, one of the boys raised his hand. ‘I speak a little.’ He looked no more than nine or ten years old, but the look in his eyes spoke of things that no child should ever see.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Shepherd.

The boy hesitated again. ‘I am called Baraka.’

‘I’m Dan. Can you tell the others that there’s no need to be frightened now? The rebels have gone for now, but they may come back later, so you need to leave this area. Do you have anywhere safe that you can go?’

‘Can’t we go with you?’ There was a look of such desperate longing in the boy’s eyes that Shepherd felt a lump in his throat and found himself hesitating for a moment, his mind racing as he tried to think of a way they could get the children to safety, even though he knew it was futile. They were on active service and could not encumber themselves with refugees, no matter how desperate their plight.

‘I’m sorry. We don’t know where we’ll be going next. But we’ll alert someone who may be able to help you. There are people who can help you.’

The hope in the boy’s eyes faded. ‘No one will come.’

‘You don’t know that, Baraka. I promise you that I’ll try to find help for you.’

The boy shrugged, still unconvinced.

‘Where will you go?’ asked Shepherd.

‘Back to our own village. Where else can we go?’

Shepherd fell silent, unable to answer him.

‘Come on,’ Jock said. ‘One thing’s for sure, we can’t help them by standing around here.’

They began to move off, but Shepherd couldn’t stop himself from looking back and saw the boy’s young-old face staring after them, his eyes boring into him.

Back at the beach, as the sun came up, Shepherd contacted base on the radio, and sent in a contact report - standard procedure when a patrol had been in a firefight with the enemy. ‘There is a group of kids there. Their parents have all been murdered by the rebels, the girls have been raped, the boys are just as traumatised - some of them were even forced to kill their own parents. What help can we get for them?’

‘It’s not our job to nursemaid refugees,’ was the cold-hearted response.

‘I know that,’ Shepherd said, feeling his hackles rise but trying to keep the anger out of his voice. ‘I’m just asking that you notify the authorities or a relief organisation that may be able to help them.’

‘I’ll pass that on.’

Shepherd wanted to go on with the argument but Jock, listening in, laid a warning hand on his arm. ‘Wait one, base,’ he said, then covered the mic. ‘Spider, I know where you’re coming from, but you’ve more chance of being struck by lightning than you have of persuading base to help,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘Wait till we’re in Freetown and we may be able to contact one of the aid agencies ourselves.  I know someone who works for Medicaid International and they may be able to do something. Okay?’

Shepherd hesitated, then gave a reluctant nod. He opened the mic again. ‘OK base, job done,’ he said. ‘Request permission to leave the area. If you can get us a heli lift to Freetown, we can link up with the Operational Squadron.’

‘Negative, no air resources available. You’ll have to stay where you are until resources can be spared.’

‘We’re short of rations. We need to be lifted out.’

‘Nothing available. You’ll have to wait out.’

Shepherd broke contact and exchanged a world-weary glance with Jock. Geordie was on sentry at the edge of the beach while Jimbo was already working on his tan, sprawled on the white sand, still marked with the tank tracks from the landing the previous night.  He lay back, clasping his hands behind his head with a blissful expression on his face. ‘This is the life,’ he said. ‘People back home would pay good money to stay here. Sun, sea, sand, what more could you ask for?’

‘They’d probably expect to eat occasionally though,’ Jock growled. ‘Anyone bring a bloody fishing rod?’

HOSTILE TERRITORY

SIERRA LEONE

October 1997.

Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd yawned as he watched the line of the sunrise inching down the mountains. He was standing at the edge of a palm-fringed white sand beach, listening to the ocean lapping at the shore. Jock McIntyre, Geordie Mitchell and James ‘Jimbo’ Shortt were sitting around a small campfire. Geordie was making a brew while Jimbo shared out the rations. It was meagre fare; they’d been on half-rations for the first ten days they’d been stranded on the beach and were now so short of food that they’d reduced it to one-quarter rations for the last two days.  Throughout that time, Shepherd had been reporting in to base every morning, asking for a helicopter lift out, and every morning he’d received the same reply: ‘Negative, no air resources available. You’ll have to stay where you are until resources can be spared.’

‘We’re short of rations,’ Shepherd had told the man for the tenth time. ‘We need to be lifted out.’

‘Nothing available,’ the voice over the radio had said. ‘You’ll have to wait.’

That morning Shepherd had been determined not to be brushed off again. ‘Base, we need a lift-out,’ he had said as soon as he made contact. ‘I don’t think you realise the seriousness of our situation.’

The same mantra had been repeated. ‘Nothing available. You’ll have to wait.’

‘Patch Super Sunray into this,’ he’d said, using the NATO signals designation for the most senior officer involved in the operation.  Super Sunray denoted the Commanding Officer of 22 SAS, the most powerful Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army.  Shepherd had no means of knowing where the CO was - he could be in Hereford where he should be, running the overall operation from where he could support it best, or he could be on the ground in Sierra Leone medal hunting.  Until the advent of satellite communications it was understood that the CO would be in the base in Hereford fighting the political battles, but there are few medals to be won there and since the Falklands War the CO had more often than not left the running of the operation to the Ops Officer while he got as close to the front line as he could.

As soon as he had confirmation that the CO was part of the conversation, Shepherd outlined his situation. ‘Boss, we’re very short of rations and we’re short of ammunition.’ Shepherd knew that while he had to explain how precarious their situation was he mustn’t overstate his case - he had no way of knowing if other patrols were in graver situations and being truthful in operational situations was the very essence of SAS soldiering. ‘If we get into a contact with the rebels there’s every chance they’ll over-run us. If that happens you’ll be one patrol short because we gave them the good news ten days ago and if they get a chance at us, they won’t be slow to take revenge. So if you can’t find a helicopter anywhere in Sierra Leone for a lift-out, you’d better order up four body bags instead.’

There was a long silence. ‘Wait out,’ the disembodied voice had said.

Shepherd had sipped his brew as he waited for the Head Shed to come back on the line. The CO’s voice had been impassive.  ‘LZ. Grid 127704. 1200 hours local.’ Shepherd had acknowledged and the connection had been broken. ‘Hallelujah,’ Jock had said when Shepherd told them the news. ‘I was beginning to think I’d never see a Scotch pie or a deep-fried Mars Bar again.’

Jock was a Glaswegian hard man who delighted in playing up to every kilt-swirling, bagpipe-blowing, Irn Bru-drinking Scottish stereotype, but Shepherd knew that despite the lack of a formal education, Jock was one of the most intelligent men he’d ever met. Only a short fuse and a reluctance to suffer fools gladly had prevented him from reaching high rank. He’d risen as high as Sergeant twice but both times had been busted back down to the ranks after settling disagreements -first with an Admin Warrant Officer, and then a Squadron Sergeant Major - with his fists. Had he not been such a good soldier, or had either of the men he flattened been commissioned officers rather than NCOs, he would almost certainly have been RTU’d - sent back to his former unit. But even the SAS was not so well off for good men that they could dispense with a man of Jock’s qualities.

Jock was older than the other three members of the patrol, who had all gone through Selection together. The patrol medic, Geordie Mitchell, had a broad Newcastle accent and looked the least fit of all of them. He had a milk bottle complexion, watery blue eyes and thinning hair that made him seem much older than his years, but he was as tough as an old army boot and a very gifted medic. He had joined the Regiment because it offered the best opportunity to practise his skills in his chosen field - battlefield trauma.

As soon as Shepherd passed on the news they packed up their kit and began making their way along the coast towards the Landing Zone. Their route took them close to an inhabited village, evidently one that the rebels had so far not targeted and destroyed. They skirted it at some distance. A couple of gaunt figures appeared at the edge of the village, watching them pass by, there was no attempt to intercept them. Something didn’t seem right to Shepherd, and it took him a while to work out what it was. Then he had it: there were no dogs.  He realised almost immediately why that was – Sierra Leone was a land where everyone was on the brink of starvation and pets and guard dogs had become just another food source.

Three miles beyond the village they reached a broad stretch of sand, bordered by low scrub, that the Head Shed had designated as the Landing Zone They carried out a recce to make sure the area was secure and then readied the air marker panels so they could mark the LZ when the chopper was close. The panels were reflective plastic which were virtually invisible from ground level but which showed up vividly from the air. Job done, they settled down to wait for the helicopter to arrive.

Just before noon they heard the sound of rotors and saw a black speck in the sky, growing rapidly larger as it flew towards them. They were astonished to see that it was not one of the usual Special Forces choppers - a Puma or Chinook - but a Russian Mi-2 helicopter, known by its NATO nickname of ‘Hoplite’. It looked clumsy and ungainly in flight with the bulge above the cab that housed its engines and air intakes almost as large as the cab itself. ‘Will you look at that?’ Jimbo said. ‘It looks like two helicopters mating.’

‘I don’t care what it looks like,’ Geordie said. ‘Just as long as it gets us the hell out of here.’

‘Keep your fingers crossed about that then,’ Jock growled. ‘From what I remember, it’s got about the same load-carrying capacity and range as a Mini.’

They laid out the air marker panels and went into all round defence mode as it came into land. The downdraught from the rotors lashed the palm fronds and whipped up flurries of sand, almost blinding them.  To their amazement the pilot then shut down the engines, which went against every SF and RAF rulebook.  Shepherd dashed to the pilot’s door and could immediately see the reason for the error. Instead of a fresh faced RAF SF pilot, he saw a middle-aged man in a Russian flying suit with Czech badges on both sleeves.  Shepherd pointed at the rotors and made a whirling sign with his hand but the pilot simply shrugged.

When the dust and noise had finally settled, they discovered that the nationality of the pilot was as surprising as his aircraft. Jerzy was a stocky Czech who looked more like a nightclub bouncer than a pilot.

‘This is the only chopper available?’ asked Jimbo.

‘This is all there is,’ Jerzy said in heavily accented English. ‘You don’t want to fly in it, that’s fine by me. I get paid either way.’ He shrugged carelessly. ‘Anyone who doesn’t want to fly with me can stay here.’

‘No, we’ll fly in it, providing you think you can get it airborne with all of us and our kit on board,’ said Shepherd.

‘We have a lot of fuel on board which we need to get us to Freetown but the only way to find out is try, yes?’ said Jerzy. He grinned. ‘Shall we make a wager?’

‘I don’t suppose you brought any food with you?’ Geordie said. Jerzy shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t think you would have.’ Geordie gave a theatrical sigh, threw his bergen into the Hoplite and clambered aboard. ‘Come on then you guys, chop chop. If we get a move on we might just be in time for an all-day breakfast at a Freetown greasy spoon.’

‘I can see that being a recipe for disaster,’ said Jimbo. ‘I think I’ll stick with ration packs.’

‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ laughed Jock, slapping him on the back. The two men followed Geordie into the back of the helicopter.

Shepherd sat up front with the pilot and the initial frost between them soon thawed as Jerzy went through his pre-flight checks. ‘What brings you to Sierra Leone?’ Shepherd asked.

‘When the Cold War ended there wasn’t much demand for ex-military helicopter pilots back home so I thought I’d try my luck in Africa,’ said the pilot. ‘Until recently I was earning a reasonable living ferrying airline passengers between the airport and the capital. The airport’s at Lungi on the north side of the Sierra Leone River, Freetown’s on the opposite bank. There’s no bridge so passengers heading for the city either have to take a ferry or a very long road detour - about 180 kilometres - and the roads are far from secure. Anyway, the unrest and the Civil War here has cut the number of civilian flights - and the number of people on them - so that I’m lucky to see one or two passengers a month these days. So until the British Army arrived, I’d been whiling my time away in Freetown, making a dollar where I could, but mostly drinking too much beer and watching satellite TV whenever there wasn’t a power cut. But now I’m - how do you say it? - back on Easy Street because I have a contract with the British Army. They don’t have enough helicopters to support their operations, so I fill in for them where I can.’

‘So you’re a mercenary?’

‘A mercenary?’

‘A soldier for hire.’

Jerzy laughed and slapped his leg. ‘That’s what I am,’ he said. ‘A soldier for hire.’

There was a whining sound from the turbines as he pressed the starter, then the engines coughed like a heavy smoker clearing his lungs and rumbled into life, belching out diesel fumes.  Jerzy shifted the lever into flight idle and the rotors began to turn, slowly at first but accelerating rapidly into a blur of motion as the downwash whipped up such a storm of sand and dust that the beach disappeared from view. His gaze flickered across the gauges, then he gave a thumbs up to Shepherd, and raised the collective. The helicopter lifted on its springs with an almost human groaning sound. Even though they’d been carrying minimum kit, the four passengers on board were stretching the Hoplite to its limits. The helicopter rose painfully slowly, struggling to break free of the ground effect. It juddered in the downwash, its engines screaming and its airframe vibrating so hard it sounded as if it was shaking itself apart.

‘Bloody hell!’ Shepherd said. ‘Good thing we’ve been on starvation rations for a fortnight. If we hadn’t lost a few pounds, I don’t think we’d have got airborne at all.’

‘Jimbo’s just shat himself if that’s any help,’ said Geordie.

The rotors eventually bit into cleaner air and the noise and juddering decreased as the helicopter rose sluggishly from the beach and wheeled away towards Freetown. Looking down, Shepherd could see the scorch marks and devastation as they flew over the ruined village he and his patrol had found when they carried out a recce on their first day in Sierra Leone. It was a reminder, if any was needed, that the orphaned and brutalised children they had freed from the rebels were not yet safe and he made a private vow to himself to do whatever he could to help them.

Shepherd was grateful that the flight to Freetown was a short one because the fuel gauge had been falling like a stone throughout the flight. It was showing close to empty as the helicopter breasted a ridge and approached the capital in the foothills of Mount Auriol. A small cluster of high-rise buildings at its centre rapidly giving way to ranks of ugly concrete buildings and palm-roofed shacks.

Jerzy overflew the civilian heliport and brought the Hoplite in to land at the Sierra Leone Air Force Headquarters near the head of Aberdeen Creek. As the rotors wound down and the dust settled, Shepherd and the others shook hands with Jerzy and then strolled across the cracked and weed-strewn concrete hard-standing towards the barbed wire compound where the SAS Operational Squadron had set up its headquarters.

The first thing they did was to find something to eat and they then went to report to the Operational Squadron commanding officer. He kept them waiting for twenty minutes and when he did see them, his body language and the way his gaze kept straying to the papers on his desk suggested he already had his hands full running his own squadron and the additional presence of Shepherd’s patrol was a distraction that he felt he could do without.

He nodded distractedly as Shepherd completed his report on the task that had brought them to Sierra Leone in the first place: a beach landing that the patrol had organised by what had turned out to be a troop of South African mercenaries, and then spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I’ve nothing for you at the moment lads, and you’ve earned a bit of downtime, so why don’t you check in at the Tradewinds Hotel on Lumley Beach Road?’ He scribbled a signature on a printed form and handed it to Shepherd. ‘It’s one of the few hotels still operating. Just hand that to the owner. We have an arrangement with him, so just relax and take it easy and if I need you for anything, I’ll give you a call.’

Shepherd knew when he was being given the bum’s rush, but it was pointless arguing about it, so he just nodded. ‘No problem, Boss. And do you mind if I raise the plight of those children with some of the aid agencies here?’