Dan Mills - Sniper One

In May it had been exciting. Now we all knew the huge increase in volume also hugely increased our chances of getting hit. People being dead made a difference too. It reminded us of our own mortality.

Nerves started to jangle. A strict ban was imposed on doors being slammed. Any big bang was making the more jittery like Redders jump out of their fucking skin.

Yet again though, and through it all, I never once failed to get a single volunteer to go up to Rooftop or Cookhouse Sangars, the most exposed and dangerous places in the whole compound. Quite the opposite, I had to order people out of there to give someone else a turn. This was the calibre of the boys.

It certainly took mental strength to do that. Each person would have been having his own private conversation with himself. I know I did. This is how it went:

‘This is shit awful unpleasant. Yes, but hold on, this is what I’m actually here for. I’m going to fucking do this. I’ve got a uniform on, and I’m going to rise above it.’

You have to harness the fear and just go with it, use it to your advantage. We were snipers, we always get the shit jobs. Fucking deal with it.

It was all the more important for me not to show any fear. As a commander, it’s vital you set a good lead. If you do, and you’ve got your blokes’ trust, you can be sure they’ll follow you most places. But it wasn’t really about me. What really made everyone stick it out was the fact that we were all in it together. Nobody wanted to be the one to let the group down. Keeping your end up for everyone else became much more important than the fear of physical injury. If you had to die, it would be right beside your best mates anyway.

Oost put it well to Des.

‘Look at it like this, brother. If you buy it, the chances are I’m going to buy it with you. Then think, you can spot for me in the sky.’

‘Fucking awesome, man!’

If we were all still strong mentally, the same could no longer be said for Cimic physically. The heavens shitting down high explosives and shrapnel like rain was taking its toll. The place had begun to collapse.

Dozens of unexploded mortar blinds now littered the camp. The ones on main pathways that seriously hindered movement were all marked up on the Ops Room white board. It was now far too risky for Charlie Curry to do another of his walk rounds.

More Snatches in the vehicle park got fragged beyond repair. A civilian Land Rover Discovery for the Civil–Military Cooperation (CIMIC) unit’s use also took a direct hit right through the roof. That was going to piss off some pencil neck in the MoD.

There was barely a window in the main house that hadn’t been blown in or badly cracked. Every day we seeped lower into a squalid cesspit. Among the first things to go were the satellite dishes on the roof, so no more telly, Internet or phone calls home. None of that mattered a jot. But when the water and electricity started to go off for six-hour bursts, things were getting a bit more serious.

No one could wash properly. All but one of the Portakabins had been blown up, so the only water supply left apart from the bottled drinking water was a tap on the back wall of the house. When it was working, you could put your head under it.

For peeing and pooing, there were just the two toilets in the house itself for more than 100 blokes. One was an Arab drop hole, the other a sit-down porcelain number. When the water was off they didn’t flush, so you’d just have to do your business on top of the bloke’s who’d been in before you. Six hours of no water and the shit really stacked up.

We stopped bothering going down from the roof for a piss. Going up and down the ladder was too dangerous. Instead, we filled up empty two-litre plastic water bottles and emptied them out later. More than once, blokes in a rush at night took a bloody great big gulp from a urine-filled bottle mistaking its contents for water. In that heat, all liquids were at the same lukewarm body temperature.

Fresh food supplies were also running out fast. To conserve what was left and cut down on movement again, the cookhouse went down to producing just one cooked meal a day in the evening. Breakfast and lunch were out of ration boxes.

Everyone was also sleeping like tramps now. Very rarely did you ever sleep in the same place on any consecutive night. A few bunk beds had been salvaged from the accommodation blocks, but if none of them was free, you’d go for an armchair or a sofa, or otherwise just curl up where you could on the floor. If you didn’t wear a head torch while moving around at night, you’d step on twenty bodies in the corridor.

When the Ops Room staff finished their long shifts, their desks became their beds, and someone else would kip on the floor beneath them. The CIMIC guys’ lives had become totally meaningless with the uprising, so they had their offices torn up underneath them to make way for a little more precious living space.

With all that toil, sweat and closeness, the place properly stank.

Then there was the August heat. We didn’t think it was possible for it to get any hotter than July, but it did. On bad days, the temperature even hit 60°C. That’s fucking potty heat. No matter how long we’d been there, we were never going to acclimatize fully to that. We drank litres more water, but were still losing the same amount of body fluids. Salt deprivation meant more attacks of cramp in sniper fire positions, and that got properly painful.

All in all, by the end of the siege’s second week we were in need — desperate need — of any form of relief.

We got it.

Captain Curry had mentioned to me that there might be another sniper pair coming our way from somewhere. When they turned up one day in the middle of a big firefight, it was totally out of the blue. Nobody quite worked out how they’d got there either; not even Captain Curry.

I was over in the Pink Palace when I got a call on the PRR to come up to the Ops Room. Curry wanted to see me.

‘Oh, hi Dan, thanks for coming over. I want you to meet these two chaps. They’re a sniper pair from the…’ he paused, as if considering the options, then continued, ‘er, the Royal Marines. They’ve come to help us out here for a little bit.’

The first bloke extended his hand. He was in his late twenties, clean shaven, with mousy blond hair and a West Country accent. His haircut was the normal regulation short back and sides and he wore the usual British military combat fatigues.

‘Hi, Marine John Withers.’

Then the second stepped forward.

‘Hello, mate, I’m Buzz.’ He was a cockney.

Interesting. First name only. And Buzz didn’t wear any rank either.

‘Dan Mills. Good to meet you.’

Buzz looked nothing like us. He was older and shorter than John, in his thirties and stood at about five foot seven, as well as unshaven, with at least three days’ stubble. He looked scruffy, with just a dark T-shirt on and a thin blue flak jacket over it, and a pair of civvy boots that weren’t desert coloured. In fact, the only military thing he had on was a very dirty pair of desert combat trousers.

It took me about five seconds to work out he wasn’t Royal Marines. Might have been once, but not any more. He also carried a bloody great valise over his shoulder that was almost as tall as him and looked extremely heavy. What was in that?

Despite Buzz’s appearance, both men were very polite and professional.

‘Can you give us a bit of a show around? We’d be grateful,’ said Buzz.

‘Pleasure.’ I was happy to have any help we could get.

Chris and I showed them all the positions we were using, and gave them a visual tour of the city from the roof. Buzz asked if it was OK if they worked from Rooftop Sangar.

‘Be my guest, mate, shoot from wherever you want.’