Harry Flashman and the Invasion of Iraq (18 page)
We reached the end of the main street shortly before the sun hit the horizon, whereupon the company turned about and began heading for home. I was as amazed as anyone by this unlikely turn of events - we had marched into the heart of the town to a friendly greeting by the locals, without a single shot being fired in anger. I discovered later that our US colleagues had never ventured out of their armoured vehicles, hence the bewilderment of the Iraqis to see us patrolling on foot. The bombing which they were so upset about had been a disproportionate response by the Americans to small-arms fire and, with no-one on the ground to direct the incoming air-strikes, it had inevitably been horribly inaccurate. Those same Iraqis who engaged the Americans with their AK47s had taken a long, hard look at the newly-arrived Brits and sensibly decided that caution was the better part of valour. Silent or not, the fact remained that the town was still crawling with jundies, so I kept my wits about me on the return journey to the UN camp. Like the outbound journey it passed off peacefully and we were back inside the wire shortly after dusk. Umm Qasr had fallen to M Company with barely a murmur, and no-one was more relieved than me. To the great amusement of everyone present, the company commander memorably remarked during the ensuing evening brief that he had suffered harder nights out in Plymouth.
By the time we returned to the camp, the rest of 42 Commando had taken up residence and the place was a hive of activity. The last of the yanks had disappeared, tails between their legs, in the direction of Kuwait, leaving acres of derelict, unhygienic accommodation for us to choose from. Commando Headquarters was housed in one of the camp’s larger buildings which had suffered only minor damage during the bombardment. J Company and L Company had found accommodation blocks near the centre of the camp, while M Company and J Company squeezed into a series of portakabin-style buildings alongside.
No accommodation had been set aside for the attached ranks and it was a case of every man for himself to secure the best of the remaining facilities. As you have probably gathered, every man for himself is a game I excel at, and it was only a short time before I discovered a plum accommodation block, largely unscathed by shelling, featuring not just a bed but a large, American-style refrigerator. The place was occupied by some enlisted ranks from the motor transport section, who I took great pleasure in evicting before going in search of some clement company, in the form of the combat camera team, with whom to share my new-found luxury abode. I eventually found them having a row with various members of Recce Troop over a dust-filled hovel with no windows, so it gave me great pleasure to invite them into my new home and thereby ensure I had the benefit of their company - not to mention the inside line on a lot of good gossip from Brigade Headquarters - for the foreseeable. Would you credit it, by the time we got back to my new home, several more Marines were in the process of moving in. The impertinent devils had even pushed my bergen to one side in their rush to ensconce themselves in the bedroom. I spent a gratifying thirty seconds venting my spleen and threatening to charge every man among them, before they dragged their belongings back through the door and scuttled off from whence they came. It was that kind of night - little more than anarchy, where the victor took the spoils and the devil took the hindmost. And if you did discover something of value, it paid to keep a tight grip on it, lest another roving party attempted to liberate it for themselves.
Their old home may have been a dust-filled dump, but in it the combat camera boys had discovered a stash of food - proper tucker from a grocery, mark you, infinitely better stuff than tinned rations - which they had diligently taken with them as they exited the building. As a result we treated ourselves to a slap-up dinner of spaghetti bolognaise (although the sauce had a slightly odd taste, being made from a couple of tins of ham, since there wasn’t any beef). Under any other circumstances I would have thought it relatively meagre fare, but compared with boil-in-the-bag rations it felt like an evening at Simpsons in the Strand.
As we finished eating, the door crashed open and in strode the Battle Group Engineering Officer, whom I had first bumped into at Junior Staff College a couple of years earlier. He was a larger than life figure who, coming from good stock and being fairly able to handle a horse, was utterly wasted on the Royal Engineers; he self-evidently should have been a cavalry officer. Barrel-chested and with an ebullient personality to match, he was seldom without an idea for starting mischief, or at least an anecdote of previous illicit derring-do. On this occasion he was sporting an ear-to-ear grin and clutching an armful of parcels and letters from the UK.
“Evening chaps,” boomed the BGE. “Didn’t know where to find you, so I headed straight for the smartest looking building.” He cast his eyes around the room, which was dimly lit by a couple of candles and a collection of head-torches. “I wasn’t far wrong either, from the looks of it. This is a bloody palace compared with our grot.”
“It’s performance-related,” I told him, with a straight face. “I’d offer you a seat but we don’t have any. You can sit on a bergen if you wish.”
He drew up a rucksack, dished out several letters, and then produced a half-pint bottle of whisky from his coat pocket. He was pretty liberal with the stuff, but then he could afford to be, since his father was sending him a parcel on a twice-weekly basis (the whisky being decanted into plastic ginger beer bottles in order to get past the screening processes of the British Forces Postal Service). It was just as well, since between us we disposed of the entire contents in a matter of minutes.
The conversation flowed as merrily as the whisky, with my Engineer chum and me exchanging anecdotes from Staff College (which under any other circumstances would have been crushingly dull; I can only think that the anarchy of war had made us nostalgic for the predictable tedium of Shrivenham) and the combat camera crew bemoaning the fact that our easy entry into Umm Qasr meant there hadn’t been any firefights for them to film. Still without the benefit of a decent night’s sleep since the invasion began, I quickly felt the pangs of fatigue creeping up behind my eyes and began contemplating a retreat to my newly-acquired bed, when suddenly we heard the crash of a huge explosion, the building shook, windows rattled, and the roof tiles lifted momentarily and dropped back into place with a bang.
“Shave a dog’s head!” exclaimed the BGE, plagiarising a expression recently coined by the ever-inventive Ops Officer. “What in the blue blazes was that?”
“Buggered if I know Sir,” answered the matelot cameraman, “But I’d suggest that, as Engineering Officer, you might want to report to the Ops Room and find out.”
“Point taken,” came the answer, and he exited the room at speed.
I prayed to the gods of cowardice and longevity that it wasn’t the start of a bombardment. My prayers were evidently answered; in the minutes that followed the silence of the night was broken only by dogs barking in the distance and the sounds of the occasional vehicle entering or exiting the camp. Working on the assumption that being fast asleep and (apparently) ignorant of any threat to the camp might reduce my chances of getting dragged into any shenanigans, I wasted no time in sliding into my sleeping bag and stretching out on the mattress. I was asleep in seconds.
I was awakened the next morning by the BGE, still as exuberant about life as he had been the night before. The explosion, he informed me, was a Silkworm missile landing a short distance from the camp.
(6)
It had exploded harmlessly in the desert, which was bloody lucky considering there was a large military establishment, not to mention a decent-sized town, within a few hundred metres. News imparted, he shot off in search of his engineering brethren to brief them on the day’s work.
I mooched over to the Ops Room for the morning brief, hoping to avoid any form of duties. The camp, even in its bombed-out state, was a far more pleasant environment than the town, and the thought of a quiet day soaking up the sun and devouring some more half-decent food, was a compelling one. Inevitably, such plans were scotched the moment the Commanding Officer opened his mouth.
“Congrats to OC M Company on yesterday’s efforts,” he began. “We’ve got this place in our grasp now, we need to make sure we keep it so. Our main efforts are therefore humanitarian aid, coupled with ensuring the security of the town. The place is presumably still crawling with Iraqi troops and Ba’ath party members, so let’s set about rounding them up.”
The remainder of his orders were taken up with the specifics of how these tasks were to be achieved. Now that the town was deemed safe, the ITN camera crew had been brought up from Kuwait and were eager to get some shots of Marines patrolling the streets. Food and water would be distributed to the populace by Marines operating from trucks driven up from Kuwait. Meanwhile, J Company was tasked with mounting lengthy patrols through the town and searching any unoccupied buildings that might be housing recalcitrant jundies. I slouched discreetly at the back of the orders group hoping, as usual, to avoid work and, as was fast becoming the norm on this deployment, failed.
“Flash,” said the CO almost as an afterthought, glancing in my direction, “there’s no point in you sitting around camp scratching your arse. The guys on the ground can always use a little extra experience, and I know you’ve served in Northern Ireland, so you can join in with J Company’s patrol routine. Enjoy.”
If he had had an axe to grind with me, he couldn’t have done it any better. But what made the CO’s final remark so galling was that he actually meant it. As far as he was concerned, probably the toughest thing about being in command was the lack of time spent on the ground, sticking it to Johnny Foreigner. He actually envied blokes setting out on patrol, and doubtless would have traded places with me in a heartbeat, the bloody lunatic. I did my best to look stoical and determined and hoped my silence lent me a false air of confidence which would disguise the mild hysteria which was enveloping me.
The first patrol left the camp on foot a couple of hours later, with yours truly tagged on at the back. I was getting heartily sick of being sent on every mission the Commando undertook, especially since my blistered feet were in need of some quiet recovery time, but it didn’t do to complain, not in 42 Commando anyway, so I suffered in silence. Umm Qasr didn’t look any better second time around, it was still a squalid little town with filth everywhere I looked. I mooched along at the back, mind in neutral, wondering how long it would be before I was reunited with my bed and how many, if any, jundies we would encounter before then. The patrol took the same route I had travelled before, turning left in front of the hotel grounds and winding its way down the long main street. Asides from the empty Ba’ath Party building, there were also a couple of schools and several industrial units which lay idle, many of which would be ideal refuges for frightened Iraqi soldiers. Several of them would be searched during the course of the day and at least one of the section commanders in the patrol had already expressed a hope that some of the jundies came out fighting.
Halfway down the main street I was greeted by the grinning face of Sameer, my assailant of the day before, now apparently my best friend. He came barrelling over, gesticulating wildly and salaaming in quick-fire Arabic, which rather alarmed the Marines adjacent to me. I waved them away, explaining that Sameer was a local contact whom I needed to speak with for intelligence reasons. They did as they were bid and my newfound buddy, as expected, invited me into his house for a cup of tea. His gang of consorts was nowhere to be seen and anyway my feet were in agony, so I gladly accepted and slid through the door as the patrol disappeared up the street.
My broken Arabic was barely enough to understand him at first, but I have a way with languages and within a few minutes we were conversing reasonably easily. Sameer’s house was fairly basic in layout but it was at least clean, and his sofa was an extremely comfortable, well-worn leather number, presumably imported in the days before economic sanctions. I slumped into it and he squatted on the floor, cross legged. He bellowed a series of commands over his shoulder and then turned to face me so the conversation could begin in earnest. How many of us were there? How long would it be before Saddam was toppled? How long would we stay for? Did we know there were lots of fighters (foreign fighters, he called them, in reference to the fact that they were Sunni rather than Shia Muslims) still hiding in the town? What about the Ba’ath Party people, what did we propose to do with them? (“You think you are in control of the town, but you are not, the Ba’ath Party people are still in control here, you know?”) I answered his questions as best I could, which by and large meant a series of thinly-disguised “I don’t know” replies. Still, he seemed satisfied enough and I guessed that his standing in the community would be even higher now that he could boast of having entertained a British officer in his house.
Our chit-chat was interrupted by a swish of the curtains separating the lounge from the kitchen. The recipient of Sameer’s commands was his wife, a plump little woman who greeted me with a wry smile despite having her head bowed in the traditional manner. She carried an enormous tray of tea and cakes, which was all rather English in nature - and I did them proud by tucking in as if I hadn’t eaten for a week. The food tasted all the better knowing that the patrol I was purportedly in was currently kicking down doors, risking life and limb in pursuit of enemy soldiers.
Sameer’s wife retreated to the safety of the kitchen and our conversation continued with the revelation that Sameer was a taxi driver. To be more precise, he was the owner of a taxi firm, which employed most of the individuals I had met the previous day. Every cloud has its silver lining - in Sameer’s case the imposition of economic sanctions had resulted in the closure of Umm Qasr’s school, gifting him a monopoly on taxi rides to and from the school in Basra for those parents who could afford it. As one of the bigger employers in the town, he was looked up to by most people and tolerated by the Ba’ath party henchmen, who he disliked with a passion -although he was wise enough not to broadcast his opinions too widely among his countrymen for fear of retribution. To me though he was most forthcoming and wasted no time informing me of the whereabouts of several leading Ba’ath party members, including his next door neighbour.