Carter looked surprised. ‘Didn’t your employer provide you with some kind of basic firearms training?’
‘No.’
‘Oh great. What about the others?’
‘I don’t know. But I’d guess Mike probably has.’
‘The American?’
Andy nodded.
‘Right, well we’ll issue him with one I suppose, and you can decide amongst you who’ll have the other one.’
‘All right.’
Andy noticed the young officer nervously balling his trembling hands into fists. ‘How long have you been out here?’
Carter looked at him and smiled. ‘It shows does it?’
‘Just a little,’ Andy lied.
‘I only got commissioned this year, and they sent me out here last month. The lads lost their platoon commander a few weeks ago. I think he was caught out by a mortar attack. Those bastards are getting more and more accurate with those damned things.’ The Lieutenant put his idle hands to use and tightened the straps of his webbing. ‘So anyway, that sort of makes me the new boy, as it were.’
Andy offered a wan smile.
Wonderful.
The convoy rolled along the road, heading south-west. They passed through a small village in the dark without incident. Making good progress, they reached the outskirts of Al-Bayji at about ten to seven in the morning. Lieutenant Carter was in the front Rover, on top cover, standing up in the back of the vehicle between the bars of the roll cage with another soldier, both of them holding their SA80 assault rifles ready and cocked. The soldier on top cover in the following Rover had the platoon’s Minimi, a belt-fed light machine-gun, mounted on a barrel-fitted bipod. Following that, were the two Toyota Land Cruisers.
Andy was in the first, with Mike, Farid, the young driver Amal, and a chatty lance corporal from Newcastle who just wouldn’t shut up, called Tim Westley. Mike was holding Amal’s AK. Andy noticed the young Iraqi casting a resentful glance over his shoulder at the American. Apparently, the two young drivers actually owned these weapons. Farid explained that possessing their own assault rifle had been one of the prerequisites for the job; as well as being able to drive, that is. Andy could understand the lad’s rancour, an AK cost a month’s salary.
In the following Cruiser was Erich carrying the other AK, Ustov the Ukrainian contractor, the second driver Salim, and two more men from Carter’s platoon. Bringing up the rear were the other three Land Rovers, with Sergeant Bolton on top cover in the last of them.
Lance Corporal Westley was in full flow, as he had been pretty much since they set off at five that morning.
‘—and the other fuckin’ idiots in second platoon like, was wearin’ them shemaghs thinkin’ they was right ally with it man,’ continued Tim Westley’s stream-of-consciousness one-way conversation. Mike listened and nodded politely at all the right moments, but from his expression Andy could see the Texan couldn’t understand a single word he was hearing.
‘—an’ it’s right naff, man. Aye, was all right first time round, like - Desert Storm an’ all, but right fuckin’ daft now, mind. Only the TA scallys wear ’em now. You can spot those soft wallys a mile off . . .’
The convoy slowed down to a halt, and with that, Lance Corporal Westley finally shut up as he wound down the window and stuck his head out to take a look-see.
Up front, Andy could see Lieutenant Carter had raised his hand; a gesture to his platoon to hold up there for a moment. Beyond the leading Rover he could see a swathe of coarse grass and reeds leading down a shallow slope towards the River Tigris, and over this a single-lane bridge that led across the small fertile river valley into the town of Al-Bayji beyond. On the far side of the bridge, some 500 metres away, he could see the first dusty, low, whitewashed buildings topped with drab corrugated iron roofs. Beyond them, taller two and three-storey, flat-roofed buildings clustered and bisected randomly with the sporadic bristling of TV aerials, satellite dishes and phone masts along the rooftops.
With his bare eyes he could see no movement except for a mangy-looking, tan dog that was wandering slowly across the bridge into the town, and several goats grazing on the meagre pickings of refuse, dumped in a mouldering pile that had slewed down the far slope of the small valley into the river. He spotted several dozen pillars of smoke, dotted across the town skyline, snaking lazily up into the pallid dawn sky. The columns of smoke seemed to be more densely grouped towards the centre of the town.
‘It looks like they had a lot of fun last night,’ muttered Mike.
Andy could see Lieutenant Carter had pulled out some bin-oculars and was slowly scanning the scene ahead.
‘We should just go for it,’ said Mike quickly checking his watch. ‘It’s almost seven already.’
Andy nodded in agreement. Through the town was the only way, flanked as it was by fields lined with deep and impassable irrigation ditches.
If they put their foot down and just went full tilt, they’d be out the far side and heading down open road towards the British encampment before anyone could do anything about it.
Come on, come on.
But then, what if there was an obstruction, a burned-out vehicle, or a deliberately constructed roadblock? They’d find themselves stuck. Andy decided, on reflection, that the young officer’s caution was well-placed. But time was against them, the sun was breaching the horizon now, and even from this side of the bridge, he could sense Al-Bayji was beginning to stir, perhaps readying itself to face a second day of sectarian carnage.
Lieutenant Carter raised his arm once again, balled his fist and stuck a thumb upwards.
‘All clear ahead,’ said Westley, translating the hand signal for them.
And then the officer patted the top of his helmet with the palm of his gloved hand.
‘Follow me.’
Carter’s vehicle lurched gently forward with a puff of exhaust, off down the pitted tarmac road towards the bridge, and one by one the convoy of vehicles revved up and followed on.
‘Here goes,’ said Mike, winding his window down and racking his AK, ready for action. The American looked comfortable with the assault rifle in both hands. But then, Andy reflected, Mike was probably the kind of guy that had a display-case back home in Texas full of interesting firearms.
Andy noticed a look of unease, perhaps anger, flashing across the face of Amal, and a subtle gesture from Farid, placing a calming hand on the lad’s arm.
CHAPTER 14
6.57 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq
Lieutenant Carter’s Land Rover rolled off the end of the bridge and into the outskirts of the town, with the convoy following tightly behind.
Up close, the signs of yesterday’s chaos were apparent. Splashed across the side of the road, Andy spotted a dark, almost black, pool of congealed blood and a long smear leading away from it towards the doorway of a nearby building; no doubt the body of some poor unfortunate dragged back home to be mourned in private.
The lead Rover picked up speed as it rumbled down a relatively wide, but scarred, road, flanked with a few single-storey buildings. They approached an open area that Andy recalled passing through about this time yesterday, a market square full of traders preparing their stalls for the day ahead. This morning it was deserted.
Travelling through this open and exposed part of the town, he felt they were a little less vulnerable. The doorways, the windows, the roof terraces from which an opportunistic ambush might be launched, were far enough away from them, beyond the area of the market-place, that most of the shots would go wide, and they’d have a chance to react. However, up ahead the road that they were cruising along at a fair clip, punishing the suspension of each vehicle with every pot-hole, carried on towards the centre of town, and vanilla-hued buildings, one or two storeys high, encroached on either side. To Andy’s inexperienced eye, the way ahead looked dangerously constricted and overlooked.
‘Keep yer eyes peeled lads,’ said Westley, his cocky demeanour now subdued and replaced with a flinty wariness.
Mike exchanged a glance with Andy.
‘Rooftops an’ garden walls,’ Westley added. ‘They don’t like firing off from inside the buildings, like . . . it leaves ’em vulnerable to being bottled up.’
Mike seemed to understand that. ‘Gotcha,’ he replied.
Lieutenant Carter’s Rover led them into a shaded alley, and as the sun flickered and disappeared behind the rooftops overlooking them, it felt disturbingly like driving into the gaping jaws of some menacing beast.
‘Shit,’ muttered Andy.
Let’s do this quickly.
The road bent round to the right, a tight corner that had them slowing down to a crawl as they weaved their way past a van parked inconveniently on the bend.
And then Carter’s Rover came to an abrupt halt.
Amal responded quickly enough so that they slewed to a halt only a foot from the Rover in front.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Mike. The van and the corner were obscuring Carter’s vehicle from view.
Westley put a hand to the ear of his PRR - personal role radio - headset. ‘CO says the road round the corner’s blocked. We’ve got to fuckin’ well back up and find another way through.’
Andy turned in his seat, and saw the rear-most Rover, with Sergeant Bolton up top, reversing already.
And that’s when he heard the first crack of gunfire.
‘Ahh shit, someone’s firing already,’ growled Mike.
Turning to face forward again, he saw a flicker of movement from the balcony of a building directly ahead and above them. The squaddie on top cover in the Rover just in front of them spotted the same movement, and swung the Minimi machine-gun swiftly round on its mount, aiming upwards at the chipped and flaking waist-high balcony wall.
Instantly a string of white puffs of plaster powder erupted along the length of it and the man dropped down out of sight.
‘Ah smeg, tha’s really gonna wake ’em all up now!’ shouted Westley.
Amal, meanwhile, was reversing their Cruiser following the other vehicles backing up along the narrow road.
They had passed a right-hand turn fifty yards up, just a few moments earlier, which would take them more or less in the direction they wanted to go. It was another narrow street, overlooked by tall buildings with balconies, but maybe it wasn’t blocked.
Andy spotted movement now in the windows of several other buildings: the fleeting faces of some children and their mother, in another an old man wearing a white dishdash staring out curiously from the darkened interior of his home.
The rear of Lieutenant Carter’s vehicle now appeared, reversing around the corner, the young officer and the soldier beside him double-tapping - firing two or three-round bursts - at the balcony to keep the man up there down on the ground and out of trouble.
The convoy moved backwards slowly, with no further rounds being fired at them. That single shot seemed to have been all there was; and even then, Andy wasn’t sure it had been a gunshot. It could well have been a vehicle misfiring in a nearby street for all he knew.
Still, the damage was done. The Minimi burst, and the subsequent bursts from Lieutenant Carter’s Land Rover must surely have roused the locals.
They pulled past the right-hand turning, going back several dozen more yards to allow the two vehicles in front to back up past it. Then, with a squeal of tyres and a shower of gravel spat out from beneath it, Carter’s Rover spun right into the narrow street, and the rest of the convoy swiftly followed suit.
‘Let’s go!’ Mike urged Amal, banging repeatedly with his fist on the back of the driver’s seat.
The short exchange of gunfire had definitely stirred the townsfolk. They spotted many more faces peering from darkened windows and doorways down the narrow street and on the balconies above them. Andy, looking up, could only see a narrow strip of blue sky criss-crossed with electrical cables and dangling laundry. This street was even narrower than the one they had just backed out of.
We’re going to get trapped.
To him that seemed bloody obvious; a foregone conclusion the way things seemed to be going already. They were getting tightly boxed in here. If there was an obstruction this way, things could get hairy.
Up ahead, the convoy approached another corner, this time turning left. The lead Rover spun round it quickly dislodging a cloud of dust in its wake, and the others followed swiftly.
To everyone’s relief, the street widened out, and opened on to a much wider stretch of road; a dual lane, with some semblance of paving on either side and a grass-tufted island running down the middle. There were only one or two vehicles parked on either side, and along the central, weed-encrusted island, several withered old date palms were dotted, giving the street the notional appearance of a once pleasant boulevard gone to seed. Andy noticed, though, that there were quite a few pedestrians out and about, gathered in clusters. Whether they were about their normal business, or roused by the short burst of gunfire and curious, he wasn’t sure.
Lieutenant Carter’s Rover came to a halt, and the rest of them followed his lead.
‘Why’s he stopping?’ asked Mike.
Andy leaned his head out to get a better look at what was happening ahead, and saw that the far end of the boulevard was packed with a gathering of men; some kind of town meeting in a building that had spilled out on to the road. The people were blocking the way ahead.
‘Shit, we can’t get through, the road’s blocked. That’s why he’s stopped.’
Westley cursed under his breath. ‘Shit. We could just push through, like. You know?’
Farid cast a glance over his shoulder at the soldier in the back seat. ‘You want we run over them?’
‘Yeah, smeg it. If they won’t move out of the way.’
‘I agree,’ Mike said to the young squaddie, ‘anyway, if we fire off some warning shots first, they’ll move aside. And if they don’t . . . well that’s their look out.’
‘I am thinking they will not move,’ Farid countered sternly.
‘So what? We just sit here and let them swarm us?’ Mike snapped back at the old man.
‘It is murder to just drive into them. That is haram. Bad.’
‘Them or us?’ added Westley, ‘Fuck, I say us.’
Farid turned to Amal and spoke to him quickly in Arabic.
‘What the fuck are you telling him?’ shouted Mike angrily.
Farid turned in his seat to face him. ‘I ask him if he know another way around. Amal have family in Al-Bayji. He knows the town.’
Andy, ignoring the debate, was watching the distant milling crowd. There were many faces now turned towards them, and hands pointing. The convoy of vehicles nestling discreetly in the shadow of the side-street had finally been noticed by the crowd.
‘Ahh shit!’ said Westley, listening in on his PRR headset. ‘CO says he sees some RPGs amongst them.’
Andy nearly asked what an RPG was, but stopped himself. Even little Jacob knew what those three letters stood for: rocket-propelled grenade.
The crowd began to move slowly towards them, and as they spread out, Andy could see for himself that they had a fair distribution of weapons of various types amongst them.
Whatever we do, we better bloody do it now.
As if in answer to his thought, he noticed one of the crowd stopping, kneeling down and swinging a long tube round and up to an aiming position.
The next second he saw a momentary flash and a puff of smoke, and a small black projectile weaving up the road towards them.
‘RPG! Shit!’ shouted Westley.
It whistled by the convoy easily missing them by a dozen yards, but close enough that they heard the angry hum of displaced air. It thudded against the wall of a building fifty yards behind them, dislodging a large patch of plaster, but failing to explode.
Lieutenant Carter had apparently decided enough was enough and gestured to the soldier manning the Minimi in the Rover behind to lay down some suppressing fire.
The machine-gun began chattering
loudly, and Andy watched with horror as half a dozen of the men leading the advancing crowd seemed to disintegrate as pink clouds of blood and tissue erupted from chests and heads. In response, every armed man in the crowd decided to open fire at pretty much the exact same moment and the hot air just outside their Land Cruiser seemed to pulsate with shots whistling past.
Carter’s vehicle swung erratically to the left, and Andy could see the officer gesturing wildly with one hand towards a two-storey pink building with a high-walled compound in front of it. There was a sturdy iron gate in the middle of the wall that was closed and appeared to be padlocked. His vehicle cannoned towards it, bouncing up on to the kerb and a moment later crashing heavily into the gate. The gate rattled violently on its hinges as it swung inwards.
‘Go, go, go!’ shouted Westley. Amal instinctively spun the wheel round and slammed his foot down, pulling out from behind the Rover with the Minimi towards the building. The Rover in front of them remained stationary, the machine-gun still chattering suppressing fire at the crowd, keeping them from advancing any closer.
Andy realised something must have happened to it, and as they pulled past and swung left, he saw the windshield had gone and the driver was slumped forward on the dash. There were three other men in the Rover; two had climbed out of the back and were kneeling down using the rear of the car as cover, the third was still standing up through the roll bars and firing the Minimi in a series of long bursts that were rapidly eating up the belted ammo. All three were in danger of being left behind.
Amal drove towards the pink building, bumpily mounting the kerb as the lead Rover had done, everyone inside banging their heads on the roof as they rode over it and through the now open gates into the compound beyond.
Their Cruiser slid to a halt amidst a cloud of dust, and in quick succession, the second Cruiser entered, followed by the remaining three Rovers.
Through the fog of dust Andy could see that Lieutenant Carter was already dismounted, running across the compound towards the open gate and shouting orders to his men who began piling out of their vehicles. Carter took cover behind the wall, beside the gate, leaning out quickly several times to check on his three lads trapped in the middle of the street.