Crossfire ns-10 Page 6

  Suddenly the Rifleman stopped firing and jumped back. I yanked Pete so the guy could get into cover. Pro that he was, Pete filmed the lad as he hit his release catch and the mag fell to the ground. He slammed in a fresh one, hit the release catch for the working parts to go forward, and swung back into position. Pete moved behind him, filming over his shoulder.

  Dom tugged at my arm. 'Let's go.'

  Another bright burst of AK lit the alley mouth and thudded into the command wagon. Pete turned back to Dom. 'Go forward? You got a death wish, Drac, or what? We'll get enough good gear here.'

  Before he'd even finished, all hell let loose on the PRR. The snipers had seen more Iraqis moving in.

  16

  Dave didn't want to know about the dramas, he just wanted a body count.

  Barney got on the air. 'Five. But we got groups of two or three moving all over the arc.'

  'Wait out. Boss – Chindit?'

  You could have heard a pin drop on the net. Nobody was going to talk over the top of those two.

  'Chindit now mobile.'

  It was hard to see exactly what was happening in the dark now the street-lighting was dead. Riflemen ran all over the place. Contacts could be heard left and right, as well as beyond the buildings on both sides of the street. Shouts and screams of command filled the short lulls when the Bulldog guns weren't firing. I didn't try to work out what was going on. It's always best just to get on with your own stuff.

  An eight-strong Rifleman patrol came up behind us, panting and sweating, just as the wagon's gunner aimed a long burst at the end of the road. My ears rang. Empty cases tumbled off the hull and clinked on to the crumbling tarmac.

  The patrol's NCO yelled at the gunner. 'We're moving into the alley, crossing your front!'

  The last thing they wanted was a blue on blue.

  Pete filmed them as they hunched behind the Bulldog, waiting for the gun to stop. 'All right, Tel?'

  Pete had the handheld up to his eye. He couldn't use the hinged screen like a tourist because of the telltale glow.

  Dom got into reporter mode. 'Can you tell me what's happening?'

  The NCO didn't bother looking at him or the camera as he replied. His eyes switched between the road and the gunner, who was still firing. He had to force the words out as he tried to regain his breath. 'We're going to go down the alley and bomb-burst out the other side of the building. We got movement in cover over there and the snipers can't get 'em – so we're going to flush 'em out.'

  Pete put the camera on Terry, but only for a second before our gun stopped and the NCO legged it. The patrol followed. I watched the last man, the little Manchester lad, as he ran across the street and veered right, up towards the alley mouth. Blue cyalumes hung off buildings either side.

  There was no need for discussion. Dom was already on his feet and about to follow.

  I restrained him as another long burst came from the other side of the buildings, and checked he and Pete still had IR cyalumes gaffered to the backs of their helmets. 'You've definitely bent those things?'

  They nodded. I kept low and followed the patrol, who were well ahead of us now. An RPG kicked off to our right and flew straight down the middle of the road. It slammed into a building fifty metres further on and exploded. Lumps of concrete rained down on us. When I looked up again, the last man was disappearing into the alley.

  'Come on, quick!' We needed to get there before they were swallowed into the darkness.

  I stopped at the intersection.

  A dull glow shone along the alley from the street a couple of hundred beyond it. It was about two metres wide. Rusty metal doors and barred windows lined both sides. The ground was strewn with litter, rubble, puddles, dog shit. The patrol was nowhere to be seen. They had already bomb-burst out the other end.

  We crunched our way towards it. Dom needed controlling. He'd switched on his forcefield again and was surging ahead.

  'No one goes any further than the end, OK? We've got snipers above us and we don't know what the fuck's going on out there.'

  Pete snorted. 'You won't have to tell me twice, mate.'

  Dom got there first. He was scoping up and down as I joined him. Out there somewhere was the distant rumble of Chindit Company's Warrior tracks. Immediately ahead, across about thirty metres of sewage-covered wasteground, lay a rabbit warren of side-streets, ramshackle buildings and bomb-blasted sewers. That was where the patrol must have gone.

  I gripped Dom, the stench of shit burning deep into my sinuses. 'This is as far as we go, all right?'

  He pointed frantically to a fallen wall about fifteen away. 'There, Peter, look!'

  A body lay motionless in the half-light, face down on the wasteground.

  Pete started filming. With his camera's night-viewing capability he could see better than we could. 'He's got one round through the nut and there's an AK next to him.'

  Dom spotted another body sprawled on the road further on, just before the warren where the patrol must be. The snipers couldn't have missed the fuckers at that range.

  SA80s stuttered behind us back in the street. Pete arranged Dom at the edge of the alley so he had the body in the background. Dom started gobbing off to camera in hushed and dramatic Polish.

  Above us, another sniper added to the soundtrack. It was going to be award-winning footage.

  17

  Pete was still filming as a burst of AK screamed out of the warren. The rounds zinged over our heads and into the walls behind us.

  Pete jerked the camera away from Dom. 'Tel!'

  I turned to see a body staggering out of a half-demolished building and into the wasteground.

  It was a Rifleman – the dome of his helmet was silhouetted against the distant glow. He stumbled a few steps more and fell.

  Pete pushed the camera into Dom's hands and legged it across the wasteground.

  'Pete, stop!'

  Either he couldn't hear me or he didn't want to. I shoved Dom back against the wall. 'Stay here!'

  I tried to gain ground and catch up with him but it wasn't long before my boots were sinking into calf-deep puddles of sewage.

  The Rifleman lay prone on the ground. Sniper fire cracked off above us. The rest of the patrol was now engaged in a contact inside the warren. As long as they kept the fire going I could get Pete and the Rifleman – if he was still alive – back into cover.

  Pete was bent over the body. I fell on my knees next to him. Sewage splashed up my Osprey.

  Pete must have spotted Terry through the viewfinder. The boy groaned.

  'Pete, he's OK, he's alive. Come on, let's get him up.'

  Terry had taken a couple of rounds into his front plate. The force would have knocked him to the ground, but he wasn't injured, just bruised. He lay there in shock at still being alive. 'Fuck… fuck…'

  For Pete it was relief.

  'Get up, both of you. Come on!'

  I grabbed Pete as a scream from the snipers told us to get out of the killing ground. They cracked a couple of rounds over our heads.

  I looked up towards the warren as a body dropped just metres away. His AK hit the ground before he did.

  More bodies poured from the darkness. They weren't firing.

  'Run! They're going to lift us!'

  Pete and Terry were on their feet. I pushed them on through the stinking mud as the snipers tried to cover us.

  It was too late.

  An arm appeared from behind me. Then I felt hot breath on my neck and a head against my shoulders. He tightened the armlock, and the world was full of grunts and stale tobacco. His weight was dragging me down. The Velcro of my PRR ear pad ripped away and fell to the ground.

  Other bodies swarmed over Pete and Terry but they were going down fighting. There was nothing I could do for them until I was free.

  The screams, gunfire and Warrior engines receded into the background as I jerked left and right, pushing my head back to nut him, anything to get the fucker off me.

  My knees buckled. I fel
l to the ground and he collapsed on top of me. I kicked, pushed, punched, anything to get him off so Barney – anyone – could take a shot.

  I kicked out but this boy was massive and he kept hold. Wet with shit, his hair slapped against my face. We tumbled into a shallow ditch. I made a grab for his head and tried to butt him.

  We rolled over and over in the shit puddles. I saw the stars, and the next thing I knew my face was in the mud. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I had to breathe. It was like holding your mouth and nose as a kid after taking a deep breath, then carrying on until it becomes unbearable and keeping on going a few seconds past that.

  I felt a stabbing pain in my eyes and ears. I felt pressure in my chest and throat. I thrashed and bucked, but only succeeded in burrowing my head further into the slime.

  My body was telling me to breathe, but it wouldn't let me inhale water. I jerked and convulsed like a madman. After ten or fifteen seconds more I felt like I was in a vice that was being gradually tightened across my breastbone and spinal column. Water seeped into my lungs, my body was a mass of pain and I knew I was dying.

  I didn't even sense the other body appearing above us, or jumping down into the ditch, or the boot that must have come in fast and hard and smacked against the Iraqi's head. All I heard was a bone-crunching thud, then the man crushing me spasmed and relaxed. Next thing I knew, his weight was pulled off me. My lungs roared as I filled them with air.

  Another kick barrelled into my assailant as I gulped and coughed.

  The boot was Pete's. I could see him through the blur of mud and shit that covered my face. And then I heard the loud bang as he followed up with just one round from Terry's weapon into the Iraqi's head.

  'Staying down there all night, mate?'

  His free hand was outstretched. He hauled me to my feet.

  Sniper rounds whistled overhead, thudding into the warren. I fought for breath and spat shit from my mouth.

  A few metres away, Terry was kicking another dead body off him. He scrambled to his feet and stepped over the one Pete must have dropped.

  'Man on! Man on!' The screams came from the snipers.

  I spun round to see more bodies closing fast.

  Pete didn't miss a beat. Terry's SA80 went straight into the shoulder. 'Go, go!'

  I turned and ran, pushing the boy ahead of me. Pete put down a series of short sharp bursts that punctuated the stream of sniper fire above me.

  I stopped halfway and turned back, letting Terry go on. AK muzzle flashes strobed in the darkness as Pete kept firing.

  'Enough, Pete. Come on!'

  My body jerked as if somebody had swung a pickaxe handle into my chest. I was hurled back. My hands were flung into the air and I fell, pain searing my arm. The force spun me round and I crumpled, face down.

  I lay there, a bundle of pain, fear and disbelief. Like Dom with his invisible forcefield, I'd thought I'd never get shot again.

  I didn't have as much as a nanosecond to start crawling before Pete caught up with me. He managed one short burst before he ran out of rounds.

  He dropped the SA80 into the shit next to me and his bony hands grabbed my good arm and pulled. His grunts sounded louder than the gunfire.

  Bodies surged from the warren; the patrol was taking on the insurgents as they moved back towards the alley.

  The Manc lad stood his ground in the middle of the wasteground, his shoulder rocking back with the recoil from his weapon. The moment we were in the alley, Terry helped get me over Pete's shoulder in a fireman's lift.

  'You're all right, Nick. Sonia'll sort you. See you later, Tel.'

  He turned towards the Bulldogs and legged it.

  My forearm jolted with pain each time his feet hit the ground. I looked down. The skin was punctured big-time, but it wasn't flapping about. Maybe the round that had hit me hadn't smashed the bone. I couldn't tell.

  Sonia had the back of the wagon open and ready. Pete threw rather than loaded me in. Rounds from both sides of the street smashed against the armour. The GPMGs returned fire. The gunner above me gave it max.

  Sonia jabbed an autojet of morphine into my arse and tore at my T-shirt with scissors. She pulled a face. 'I might let off the odd fart, but I don't bloody shit myself!'

  I could hear Pete laughing with sheer relief as he and Dom jumped in for cover. 'Fuck me, mate. You're supposed to be looking after us!'

  Another burst slammed against the armour plating of the wagon and I heard two Warriors scream up alongside us.

  18

  Somebody leant over me, high collar and batwings silhouetted against the red light. His hand was in the air. His fingers were gripped round a plastic bottle. A tube ran down from it and into my good arm.

  A cannon kicked off a few rounds. Everything jerked as we moved off again. The guy holding the saline cursed as he tried to keep his balance.

  I could see Warrior seats. I must be on the floor, between the two benches.

  We lurched off again and my head rolled to the right.

  Dom and Pete looked down at me. Pete was filming.

  'You'll thank me for this later, mate. One for the family get-together…'

  I sort of saw a smile behind the lens.

  My head bumped on the steel floor and I realized I didn't have my helmet on. I couldn't remember it being taken off. Not that it mattered. My head didn't hurt. Morphine rules.

  One minute, two minutes, five minutes, an hour later, for all I knew, the wagon stopped and the door was pulled open. Scouse voices echoed in the darkness.

  'Get them out of there! I'm not fucking waiting out here all day, you cunts – get them out!'

  The guy with the saline shouted back, 'This one first!'

  Hands gripped me and floated me on to a stretcher. Red night-lights and dark shadows had been replaced by shot-to-fuck HESCOs and a sky speckled with stars.

  My new best friend with the drip stayed alongside the stretcher as I jerked up and down. Dom and Pete were nowhere to be seen. Boots crunched over a stretch of rubble-strewn ground. Seconds later I was blinking under blindingly white light.

  White tiles, white floors. Maybe six or seven others lying on stretchers, bound up with awesomely white dressings over filthy combats and body armour.

  A medic with rubber gloves on swam across my vision. He was Ospreyed up and helmeted. Wherever I was, they must be taking incoming as well.

  It had to be OSB. The place was permanently under siege from indirect fire, small arms and RPGs. One of their sangars held the record for having the most contacts in the whole of Iraq. The Chindits had even built earth ramps up to the HESCO walls so their Warriors' 30mm cannon could join in the firefights.

  My stretcher was lowered on to a table. Within seconds somebody was cutting off Sonia's field dressing.

  'It's OK, mate. It didn't hit a bone. Just a meaty hole, that's all.'

  A mortar landed close by and I must have flinched. The guy doing the cutting was a Jock. 'It's OK. They'll get bored in a minute.'

  Automatic fire kicked off from somewhere above me. Maybe it was that record-breaking sangar.

  Through the blur, I could see Dom and Pete in the room.

  The Jock was cleaning my left hand now. The liquid stank.

  'Pete!'

  They were busy talking to the guys, pointing at me.

  'Pete!'

  A burst of Scouse came from behind me. 'You'll be OK, la'!'

  Rhett came into vision. He inspected the wound as Dom and Pete stepped up beside him.

  Pete pointed at my Osprey. 'You copped this, mate.'

  I looked down like a drunk to see a blurred couple of strike marks, almost indents in the front plate. I couldn't see the ripped material because it was covered with shit and mud.

  Pete brought his camera up as Dom eased off my body armour and one of the medics cut along the inseam of my cargoes with a pair of scissors.

  'Nick, they're going to clean you up here. As soon as the attack stops Rhett's taking you back to the COB with
the other casualties. We'll see you there after they've sorted you out.'

  'You'll soon be sound as a fuck'n' pound.' Pete's bad Scouse echoed off the tiles.

  I tried to reach out to him with my good hand and was told to stay exactly where I was. 'Pete… thanks, mate…'

  'Oh, fuck off.' He laughed. 'It's only 'cos I need you.'

  I must have frowned.

  'You're a witness in the case of the floating turd!'

  I heard him laugh again, loud and long, and then the world grew gradually calmer.

  The morphine took effect.

  I felt myself floating.

  My world became a drowsy haze of dim red light.

  19

  I felt numb and dumb, like a drunk bouncing off the furniture in some badly lit nightclub.

  It was Dom, I was sure of it, shaking me, talking close to my ear. He was panicky, out of breath. Scared.

  'Pete's gone…' He said it over and over. 'Pete's gone… It's all my fault… I'm so sorry, Nick. I've got to go… I've got to go…'

  Was he crying? 'What the fuck you on about?'

  'I've got to go…'

  He was a blur, but it was definitely Dom. He sobbed something I couldn't quite hear. 'What you on about, mate?' I tried to push myself up but he stuck out an arm, told me to rest.

  His head moved closer to mine. 'Nick, no matter what you're told, it wasn't me, OK? It – was – not – me…'

  I felt him grip my hand. I tried to make sense of what the fuck he was on about. My head was still full of whatever shit had been mixed with the morphine.

  'Wasn't what? Wasn't you who what?'

  He squeezed my hand. 'You'll know soon, when the drugs have worn off. They'll tell you. Remember – it wasn't me. Say it, Nick.'

  'It wasn't me…'

  He let go of my hand and I tried to stay awake.

  20

  Friday, 2 March 1126 hrs 'Nick, it's me. Wake up, lad.'

  'Dom?' I turned over in a semi-daze. 'What you on about? Pete's done what?' My arm was throbbing. I eased open one eye. My arm was covered with a clean dressing. It felt newly sewn up.