Harry Flashman and the Invasion of Iraq (23 page)

“Look, chaps, I appreciate the effort,” I stuttered in a faltering voice, wondering what they must be thinking of an officer who not only fled the scene of battle but who also lost control of his weapon in the process, “but really, I’m not hurt. Well, asides from my leg of course...” I allowed my voice to trail off, hoping to leverage the sympathy vote in order to ward off their inevitable anger.

“Are you sure, Sir?” asked one of them, jamming two fingers into my throat, presumably to take my pulse. “Only there’s claret all over your face and you look to be in a bit of a state.”

I reached up and gingerly touched my forehead. To my surprise he was right, my fingers came away sticky with blood.

“Well I don’t know what the cause of that is, but I promise you it ain’t a bullet wound,” I told my audience. Truth be told, I suspected I had gashed my forehead on a piece of barbed wire as I fell, though I couldn’t be sure. Whatever the cause, it looked a lot worse than it was - I couldn’t feel any pain at all. In contrast, my thigh, with the shard of wood still embedded, was throbbing like the blazes.

Just then the troop sergeant appeared, pushing aside one of the Marines to get a better look at me. I held my breath, waiting for wrath of a veteran NCO to fall on me, knowing he had seen me for the coward I really was. Instead, he bent down and squeezed my arm, exclaiming, “Bloody hell, Sir, that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. We had the situation in hand you know, there was really no need to conduct a one-man assault on the jundie trenches.”

“What the...” I was about to ask what the devil he was talking about, but stopped myself. Suddenly I realised how different my ‘assault’ must have looked from his perspective. A fire-fight had broken out, the house was under attack from two sides, and out of the building, howling like a banshee, comes one of his number who sprints towards the enemy trenches before diving to the ground in order to engage the Iraqis at close range. I must have given the appearance of a fanatic hell-bent on making himself a martyr.

“Well, yes, I suppose it may have looked a tad rash,” I muttered, manfully. “But y’know, in the heat of battle, well, instinct just takes over...” I stopped and stared purposefully into the middle distance as if mulling the possible consequences of my actions. What was actually going through my mind was an overpowering sense of relief. First off, I was still alive and not too badly hurt - although the stabbing pain in my leg still persisted. Second, my attempt to desert in the face of the enemy, coupled with some astonishingly amateurish conduct, had been perceived as heroism and if anything my reputation, which by rights should have been in tatters, stood to be significantly enhanced by the day’s events. I could have wept with relief. Instead, I glanced up at my audience and said, “I say, d’you think the company medic could take a look at my leg?” “

A pair of Marines scuttled off to fetch the medic while the troop sergeant peered at the blood-stained front of my desert trousers, cautiously lifting the fabric away from the skin around the hole where the sliver of wood had penetrated. Shortly afterward the medic arrived and the subsequent inspection of my right thigh did nothing to offer me any comfort. The piece of wood, a wedge-shaped shard around an inch in length, was embedded in my thigh muscle, around nine inches north of my kneecap. The flesh around the entry wound was badly swollen and the area drenched in blood. The medic seemed quite sanguine about the whole affair though - I suppose after a week of fierce fighting he had seen a lot worse.

“No probs,” he said, grinning at me. “Obviously we need to get it out pronto before septicaemia sets in. But it looks as if I can get hold of it, so I don’t think we’ll have a problem.”

Despite my protestations about being taken to the Regimental Aid Post, he began to douse my leg with iodine. The inky brown liquid seeped into the wound and I squealed with pain.

“That stuff always hurts,” grinned my tormentor, before unclipping a pair of fold-away pliers from his belt in order to take hold of the offending item. The extraction was every bit as painful as the iodine, but at least it was over quickly. The medic brandished the offending item in the jaws of his pliers, threw it to one side and proceeded to make me wriggle in agony as he opened up the wound to make sure no debris remained inside.

Once the area was cleaned to his satisfaction he produced a needle and thread and began to close the punctured skin. I continued to thrash around like an epileptic, because the heartless bastard hadn’t bothered with an anaesthetic.

After an eternity of stitching and sewing he finally doused the area with antiseptic powder and dressed it with a spotless white bandage.

“I think we’re done, Sir,” he proclaimed at last, pulling my filthy, blood-encrusted trouser leg down over the pristine bandage. And with that he disappeared, leaving me sprawled on the sleeping mat, alone.

My mind was still racing from the roller-coaster ride of the day’s events but beneath the adrenaline-fuelled high I knew I was dog tired, so I lay back on the sleeping mat and closed my eyes. Relieved and amazed to be still alive, I felt sleep wash over me - even the residual pain in my right thigh failed to keep me awake for more than a few moments.

I was rudely awoken sometime in the early hours by a Marine shaking me by the shoulders. Freezing cold from a night spent without a sleeping bag, I sat upright cursing, fully intent on seeing out the rest of the night without getting embroiled in any more idiocy with D-company.

“The company commander is asking for you,” said the Marine.

I was incensed. “Then tell him to come and find me,” I answered frostily. “Is he not aware I have an injured leg?”

“He’s only next door, Sir,” answered the Marine awkwardly. “I think he wants to chat to you about our next move.”

“For God’s sake!” I exclaimed, clambering to my feet. “Why are you lunatics in such a rush all the time?”

He didn’t bother responding to this but scuttled rapidly away, leaving me hobbling stiffly towards the doorway.

I found the company commander poring over a map of the area with two of his troop commanders. My nerves were still fragile from the previous day’s activity and I was far from sure I could endure another advance to contact so soon. I braced myself for the news, all the time trying to work out how I could possibly avoid being dragged into the melee.

“Harry!” he exclaimed. Then, less enthusiastically, “Bloody hell, you look a mess. You feeling okay?”

“No, by George, I am not,” I told him bluntly. “I am pretty damned far from okay, if you must know. My leg is hurting like the blazes, I’m freezing cold, my equipment has been scattered across most of southern Iraq, and now I am being deprived of sleep. What do you want?”

“Er, actually old man, I got you up to tell you we’re getting rid of you.” I looked warily at him and waited for more. “Apparently 42 Commando want you back,” he added. “Mind you, after a day or two with us, I should think that’s a good thing - any more heroics and I think we’d be sending you home in a box.” The subalterns chortled obediently at his bonhomie and even I cracked into a grin. All things considered, Umm Qasr was like a holiday camp compared with the horror of 40 Commando’s assault and the thought of returning there was, in the circumstances, the best possible news I could have wished for.

“BRF will take you back to Umm Qasr,” he added. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

The first fingers of dawn were brightening the eastern horizon by the time the Land Rovers arrived. Unburdened by a rucksack I hobbled out of the house and we sped off, engines grinding noisily as the tyres struggled to grip the loose surface. My driver was a cheery soul, regaling me with tales of recent firefights and narrow escapes involving the cavalrymen of QDG. It had surprised me that I hadn’t clapped eyes on their armoured recce vehicles during my time with 40 Commando, but evidently they had been keeping themselves busy elsewhere, seeking out Iraqi formations all the way from Al Faw to Basra and beyond.
(6)
Damned fine chaps, the Queen’s Dragoon Guards, even if they are Welsh.

By the time we reached the metalled road, daylight was upon us and I was able to get a better look at the surrounding countryside. If the previous day had been turgid for me, it had evidently been a darned sight worse for the enemy. A few burned-out tanks had been visible on the roadside on my inward journey, but now they were everywhere. Many vehicles were still smouldering, the corpses of their former occupants often lying nearby, thrown from the vehicle by the massive force of the missile strikes. Dead infantry soldiers could be seen lying next to their trenches. The blackened hulks of armoured personnel carriers and transport trucks lined the side of the road - they had been shoved aside by our advancing Challenger tanks - and dismembered artillery pieces and 4x4s lay nearby, equally silent. It was an eerie scene, made more so because the two Land Rovers were the only things moving in the still landscape. I kept my wits about me though, and I was grateful that the machine-gunners in both Land Rovers did likewise. Thankfully the journey was uneventful and we arrived back at Umm Qasr unhindered, in time for me to scrounge a quick cup of tea from the chief clerk prior to the morning brief.

NOTES

1.
J Company lost 7-1, but the match served its purpose in calming relations between the locals and the Marines.

2.
During the course of the war, several men of 40 Commando escaped death or serious injury when bullets struck the breastplate of their body armour, a seemingly remarkable occurrence since the breast plate is relatively small (roughly A5 in size).

3.
Pinzgauer: a versatile, open-topped 4x4.

4.
Hoofing: excellent or outstanding (Royal Marines slang).

5.
Fedayeen: extremist Iraqi troops, highly loyal to Saddam Hussein.

6.
The QDG acquitted themselves with such courage on the Al Faw peninsular and beyond that the Brigade Commander took the unprecedented step of issuing every man a commando flash (badge) to be worn on the sleeve of their smocks and nicknaming them the “Royal Marines Light Horse”.

8

In my delight at escaping the horrors of 40 Commando’s assault I entirely forgot about my bedraggled appearance. Dried mud and blood streaked my face, my clothes were torn and filthy, and the white of a bandage was plainly visible through the gash in my right trouser leg. On top of all this I was limping like a cripple, since my leg had seized up in the night and was causing me a good deal of discomfort. The result was a great deal of curiosity within 42 Commando Headquarters as to what I had been up to. But before I had even begun to wax lyrical about my derring-do, I was seized by the Ops Officer and dragged off into a briefing with OC L Company.

“Harry, sorry to jump this on you when you’ve only just returned.” He grinned unapologetically. “We’ve been tasked with an urgent mission and I need to get you guys on the road as quickly as possible.”

My heart sank. After the bloody inferno of the past 24 hours I had fully expected at least a full day to get some rest and sort out my equipment, most of which lay scattered in the dirt back on the Al Faw. Instead, here I was, about to be thrust headlong into another episode of madness. I began to yearn wistfully for a night curled up in my bed, and felt a lump forming in my throat. But of course I said nothing, and the Ops Officer continued with his briefing.

“Here’s where the problem lies,” he explained, pointing at a map pinned to the wall. “The Al Faw peninsula is away to our east, we’re here in Umm Qasr, and 40 Commando has cleared most of the route to our north towards Basra. But there remains a bloody great area of marshland and waterways to the northeast which is completely insecure. No-one else has got the manpower to clear it, which is why it’s fallen to us. With a little help from our friends in 539, of course.”
(1)

I could see an immediate flaw in his plan: namely, me. “Look here,” I interjected. “I can see why you need to clear this area, but it’s a job for you boating types. What good is an armoured specialist in an area of marshes, eh?” I chortled at the obvious logic, but the Ops Officer looked unfazed.

“Two points,” he replied. “First, the Iraqis don’t just use tanks, they use all kinds of Russian armour, and a good deal of it is amphibious. Think of all those BTRs and BMPs they’ve got. Those things would be ideal in the marshes.”
(2)
My heart sank. “Second, and more to the point, a little bird tells me you were involved in raiding operations in the Congo a few years back, and we could use a little first hand experience, if you catch my drift.” He held up his hand to stop me objecting. “I’m afraid there’s no arguing Harry, the decision has been made.”

These “riverine” operations, as they were described, involved the clearing of huge tracts of marshland crisscrossed by dozens of canals, dykes and narrow waterways that riddled the low-lying land on the south side of the Al Faw peninsula. The whole area was a maze of tracks and waterways, punctuated with tiny settlements and solitary thatched fishing huts. Line-of-sight would inevitably be difficult from small boats because of the endless reed-beds which lined the riverbanks and obscured the view of the land beyond. It was no place to hide a large formation of troops, but determined pockets of enemy could remain hidden in there for months. (They’d probably develop trench foot, mind you.) It was also ideal landscape for mounting ambushes on easy targets - like difficult-to-miss boatloads of Royal Marines. It’s an understatement to say I wasn’t keen to join the party, but there was no moving the Ops Officer, so I kept my thoughts to myself and he pressed on with the brief.

“We’ve outflanked this whole area,” he continued, gesticulating to the map. He was right too: 40 Commando were situated to the north and east, and 42 Commando held the towns of Umm Qasr and now Umm Khayyal to the immediate west and northwest of the marshes. “But as long as it remains unsecured it represents a weakness - a potential threat - to our supply routes along the north side of Al Faw and into Umm Qasr itself. There’s no easy way to do this, so we’re going to send multiple simultaneous patrols through the waterways to flush out anything - or anyone - hiding in there.” He paused for breath while staring impassively at me, then added as an afterthought, “You’ll have air cover, of course!”