He felt his leaden fatigue evaporating as bursts of adrenaline surged through his veins. What with the infil into Iraq, plus sentry duties and the to-ing and fro-ing from various LUPs to the LZ, he was approaching five nights with no proper sleep. He reckoned his team had had an average of three and a half hours’ kip every twenty-four hours, and a lot of that during the burning heat of the
day—and sleep snatched here and there was never the same as a proper full night’s rest.
Bearing in mind how utterly filled-in they were, he was amazed at how his men were holding up. Only Scruff’s lot had been on the ground for as long as they had, and he felt as if his team had gelled well. It was good to be on the ground with them. He’d been looking forward to getting the wheels turning and the mission started for real.
And now this. A fucking goat herder.
Sure enough, he detected a stick-like figure—the herder—so there was at least one Iraqi sharing the desert terrain with his scraggy animals.
Grey reflected on how it had been a lone goat herder that had pretty much done for the Bravo Two Zero patrol a decade or so earlier in Iraq. The B2Z boys—“B2Z” was how British soldiers tended to refer to that iconic mission—had seen the goat herder approach the gully in which they were hiding. They clocked the fact that he was just a kid. They saw him catch sight of them, and they read the shock and recognition on his features. And the decision they made not to open fire and slot that goat boy cost them the security of their patrol, not to mention good men’s lives. As soon as the goat boy saw them he took to his youthful heels and raised the alarm. Barely an hour later the B2Z boys had half of the local population coming after them with guns, not to mention the Iraqi military. The patrol was scattered, and men died and were captured, and all because they’d let that Iraqi kid live.
Under the rules of engagement Grey knew the circumstances under which he had the right to shoot the goat boy. If the kid spotted the British force, then he was a clear and present threat, and Grey was within his rights to open fire. But like the B2Z boys, he doubted whether he had it in him to gun down a young kid in cold blood.
Grey fixed the billy goat with his IR flashlight to blind it and drive it away from their LUP. As it turned and stumbled away, Goat Boy got spooked and started yelling what sounded like
“
Feringhi”
—“Foreigner!” For once, Grey would have given anything to have had Sebastian with him on sentry. Their terp would have known exactly what the Iraqi kid was saying—whether it was a warning that a foreign military presence was in the area, or a warning to his goats to wind their necks in.
As the herd disappeared into the distance, bells clanging softly, Grey stole a glance at the HQ Troop. There was bloody Sebastian lying comatose on his fold-up camp bed. In a way it made sense that those men didn’t stand sentry. They needed to keep well rested and sharp so as to command and control the mission, plus they had their own duty rotations to manage, so they could keep a listening ear on comms from Headquarters.
But it grated that they’d brought with them small luxuries like camp beds, and all because they could afford to carry the extra weight on their wagons, which weren’t so laden down with machine guns or ammo. Yet, right now what grated most was that Grey hadn’t been able to call upon Sebastian’s Arabic skills so as to check out what that kid goat herder was yelling out.
It was too late to worry about it now. The moment had well and truly passed. Grey felt a silent tap on his shoulder. Moth appeared beside him like a wraith to take over watch.
“Anything?” he queried as he slid himself into the driver’s seat.
“Yeah, maybe,” Grey hissed. “A herd of fucking goats. Plus a goat boy. Would you believe it? Wankers.”
Moth’s watery eyes were like saucers as he stared at Grey, the blue-gray of the moonlight lending them an added ghostliness. “He see us, boss?”
Grey shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. I couldn’t be sure. That’s why you didn’t hear the .50-cal roar as it smashed a load of goats apart.”
“If he saw us he’ll raise the alarm.” All traces of sleep had gone from Moth’s voice now. He was stating the obvious, but it was something that needed to be said.
Grey nodded. “He will.
If
he saw us. He was a kid. Maybe eleven or twelve years old. Not my style to slot him.”
“Mine neither, boss,” Moth confirmed. “That kind of shit would torture your head for the rest of your days.”
Grey eyed the young operator for a long second. The more time they spent in the field, the more he realized there were hidden depths to Moth.
A couple of years back a troop of SBS had been sent on Operation Barras, a Special Forces hostage rescue mission in the West African country of Sierra Leone. Rebels had taken captive a patrol of British troops on peacekeeping and training operations, and threatened to kill them unless a set of impossible demands were met. A combined SAS/SBS force was sent in to rescue them and lay waste to the rebels’ jungle base.
Trouble was, the rebels had recruited child soldiers by raiding villages, chopping off limbs indiscriminately and forcing young boys to kill their own parents. The kids were fed a cocktail of powerful drugs, and their heads were filled with evil voodoo nonsense: they bathed in potions that supposedly made them “bulletproof.”
When the SAS/SBS assault force hit their jungle base, the kid rebels charged fearlessly onto their guns. The men did whatever it took to stop them and to rescue the British soldiers. Many came away with dark memories, ones that would trouble them for a lifetime. One even spoke about a parade of ghostly figures—rebel kids—that would march through his sleepless nights for years to come.
Moth was right: that kind of shit would most definitely mess with your head.
Grey pointed toward the southeast. “He came from that direction.” He moved his arm northward. “He left in that. Keep your eyes peeled.”
“Boss,” Moth confirmed.
Grey flicked his eyes toward the east, where a faint halo of blue was starting to lighten the flat, featureless horizon. “We’re moving out in an hour’s time. Keep alert for any Iraqi presence.
Anything.
I’m going to get my head down for a few minutes.”
As he burrowed into his sleeping bag, Grey found that his mind was churning. In spite of the exhaustion, sleep just wouldn’t come.
He couldn’t help but wonder whether they had just got compromised. It was first light on day three, and they were all but out of there—and now this shit had to happen. It was the uncertainty—had they or had they not been seen by Goat Boy?—that was really getting to him.
It stood to reason that the herder had appeared at this time of day. No one in his right mind would be out herding in the dead of night, or in the burning heat of the day. If only the goat herder had made it to their wadi an hour or so later, the Squadron would have been out of there. As it was, Goat Boy only had to harbor a suspicion that some unknown but deadly force lurked in that wadi for him to be able to cause them real problems. If he went and reported it to the village elders, they’d likely drive out to investigate. If they did, they were bound to pick up on the tracks left by close to thirty vehicles leading into and out of the LUP. There was just no way to hide the passage of that many Pinkies and quads.
Not only that: if the Iraqis did find the LUP, they’d very likely be able to trace the Squadron’s move north, as the wagons would leave a motorway trail across the desert. No matter if they moved by day or by night, their tracks could still be followed.
Grey resolved there was nothing much he could do about it now. He’d raise it at the OC’s morning briefing, and they’d take it from there. He snuggled into his sleeping bag, and drifted off to sleep with that thought foremost in his mind. As his breathing slowed to a regular rhythm, the fierce Iraqi sun edged above the distant horizon—due east of their position, and in the direction of Bayji, the city stronghold of the diehard Iraqi Fedayeen.
Grey awoke some twenty minutes later with a driving sense of urgency to get the Squadron on the move. In spite of his intense fatigue, he felt an unshakable sense of foreboding—as if some dark force was out there and preparing to come after them. He made his way across to the OC’s briefing and gave a report of what he’d seen during his watch.
There were others on sentry who’d also seen the herd of goats, but it didn’t much alter the Squadron’s intentions. Until they had
absolute confirmation that they’d been compromised, the mission would continue as planned. Yet there was definitely an added sense of urgency now to get the Squadron on the move and to be primed to deal with any threat with instant, lethal force.
From now on every vehicle or Iraqi seen would be treated as hostile unless proved otherwise. If the life of any Squadron member was in danger in any way, the threat would be engaged and taken out. But none of that meant that they’d start mowing down any Iraqi kids who might wander past their position. No one blamed Grey for not opening fire. In his place, the rest of the men would have done exactly the same.
Just after first light on day three of their mission, M Squadron prepared to depart the LUP. Apart from the added urgency of getting out of there, it was crucial to make at least the first day’s move in daylight. They needed good visibility to achieve the secondary tasking of their mission—to search for and waymark any TLZs.
The Pinkies assembled in an arrowhead formation, with the quad bikes making an outrider force scouting to the front and the flanks. It was the role of the quads to be the eyes and ears of the Squadron and to help scope out the route.
The larger Squadron arrowhead was made up of three smaller V shapes, each of which corresponded to one troop, with the HQ Troop sandwiched in the middle of them. Within each V shape every vehicle had its set position so that if the Squadron came under heavy attack, each of the troops could peel off and fight as independent units.
It was this type of complicated fire-and-maneuver operation that the Squadron had been rehearsing during their weeks spent training in Kenya. It was complex and difficult work when coordinating thirty-odd vehicles, and in the SAS and Delta Force it took months, if not years, to perfect. M Squadron had had barely a fraction of that time to learn their craft, and right now they were about to be tested to the limits and beyond.
As the Squadron moved out, Grey spared a fleeting thought for Sebastian. He searched for the HQ Troop and found it at the center
of the arrowhead. Sebastian was in the back of the OC’s wagon perched on the rear gunner’s seat, but with no machine gun to man. His skin was lily-white, and his nose appeared to be smeared in a thick white slick of sunblock. His jungle hat was brand-new and looked as if it had a seriously starched rim.
The ride in the wagon’s rear was rough as hell, and without the big .50-cal or a grenade launcher to keep a hold of, it would be doubly uncomfortable. The men manning those big weapons would be continually scanning their arcs of fire, keeping on the balls of their feet ready to rotate the weapon to the left or right whenever a threat presented itself.
Sebastian was sitting there like a sore thumb, glancing all around him and using his free hand to shade his eyes. It made him look distinctly lost. Grey figured their terp might finally have realized that things were starting to get serious. Operation No Return was under way, and they had many miles of hostile terrain to cover, plus an army of a hundred thousand to find and talk into surrendering. Who knew what might lie ahead, or what each man on the Squadron—Sebastian included—might be called upon to do?
Already, hundreds of miles of hostile territory separated the Squadron from the nearest friendly forces. Essentially, they had no backup and no rescue force to call upon. If the shit hit the fan, they were on their own out there—and more so than any other elite unit in the entire Iraq theater. And if and when it did all go noisy, Sebastian, their newbie terp, was just as vulnerable as the rest of them.
As the wagons gathered speed, Grey glanced further behind him: the base of M Squadron’s arrowhead was some four hundred meters across, with quad outriders to either side. As the Squadron thundered forward it threw up a massive dust cloud half blocking out the sun. To his eyes it looked seriously imposing, and it gave the impression that M Squadron was a force to be reckoned with.
He turned to face the way ahead, his eyes down the barrel of his weapon. Behind him he had his body armor slung over his seat. No one in their right mind would choose to wear the stuff unless they were forced to engage in a firefight from the wagons. Hours spent
bouncing through rough terrain in body armor would likely break the wearer’s back, not to mention roasting him alive under the beating sun. Hung over the seat as it was, it at least provided a modicum of protection against fire from the rear.
In any case, the terrain here was billiard-table flat, apart from where the odd wadi running into the Euphrates sliced through the earth. No one was about to leopard-crawl up to the Squadron and launch a surprise attack. If the men of M Squadron did spot trouble ahead, they could clamber into their body armor before the bullets started to fly.
As the wagons forged ahead Grey and Dude were scanning their arcs to the left, right, and front. Raised up on a rear turret mount, the big .50-cal was able to put down all-round fire in 360-degree defense. Mounted on the hood, Grey’s GPMG could unleash rounds from the driver’s side across to the wagon’s rear in a 160-degree arc. Pushing ahead at Squadron strength as they were, the real threat was most likely to come from the front, where the tip of the arrowhead thrust into uncharted territory.
They headed past the landing zone where the Chinooks had repeatedly put down, and Grey was more than happy to leave that patch of churned-up terrain behind them. Gradually, the landscape changed. They moved into an area consisting of vast patches of hard-crusted sand dunes, like a frozen yellow ocean. These were best avoided. Interspersed with the sand dune seas were flat and featureless gravel plains that offered zero cover in which to hide, but perfect driving conditions.