Dan Mills - Sniper One

‘Thanks.’

‘Just one thing. John is, but you’re not Royal Marines, are you.’

Buzz just smiled. I’d come across a few of his type in my time. Always the same. They don’t say, and you don’t push them. You don’t need to. Everybody knows the game.

Buzz had come down from Baghdad. He was a sergeant with his unit. He was too polite to say it, but it was obvious to us that for him Al Amarah was just some shit hole of a town he’d never heard of in the middle of nowhere. Compared with what he was used to doing, he must have been expecting to be bored off his tits. When the call came in, there’d been no other volunteers to go south with him from the unit. Instead, a regular Royal Marine had been collared for the job of being his Number Two instead.

‘The common conception in Baghdad is there’s fuck all going on here,’ Buzz explained.

‘Is it now? Terrific.’

Buzz had been brought in for a specific reason. Our longs had a range of up to 1,000 metres. Any target further away than that, and we were just pissing in the wind. Literally, because the smallest gust would blow the round off trajectory at that distance.

That put a lot of places the enemy loved to use out of our range. The bus depot on the north bank was 1,200 metres away, and the Yellow 3 junction right by the OMS building was at 1,700 metres. It was infuriating, because we could spot them running around up to no good but were powerless to stop them.

Someone in Abu Naji had good connections with his unit, and had put in a request for one of their sniper pairs because of the additional range of the weapons they use.

We explained the problem to Buzz.

‘OK, roger that. We’ll see what we can do for you.’

Up at Rooftop, they unpacked their kit. They had two grip bags with them. One was full of ammunition. Out of the second came some whopping great big sights and two pairs of ear defenders. That meant only one thing.

Buzz finally unsheathed his valise. And there it was. A .5-inch calibre Barrett sniper rifle.

Oh fucking yes.

I’d seen a Barrett before, but never fired one. It was known in the trade as the big bad mother of the whole sniper rifle family. Weighing a whopping 14 kilograms (or more than two stone), it measures five feet from the end of its specially designed square-shaped stock to the tip of the thickly grooved muzzle.

It was designed by the Americans primarily for use on the battlefield to take out armoured vehicles; drivers or the engine blocks, it did for both. It was also excellent for destroying enemy inside strong defensive positions such as sangars.

The weapon took rounds the same size as the Soviet-made Dshke heavy machine guns that had cut us up so badly on patrol with the OPTAG sergeants. The regular army uses .5 calibre Browning machine guns too, but only on a heavy tripod or welded to the roll bars of Land Rovers.

The Barrett has an accurate range of at least 2,000 metres, and sometimes further still. Simply, the more gunpowder there is in the bullet, the faster and further it will fly. You can only use them in a static position because it’s too bloody heavy to carry around on patrol. The IRA had a Barrett in Northern Ireland, and used to fire it from inside a specially modified car boot. They wreaked havoc with it for a few years on isolated army patrols in bandit country.

Buzz’s toy was going to do us a whole load of favours, and we were chuffed to bits just at the very sight of the thing.

First, he put down a couple of zeroing shots into some rubble on the dam to make sure the journey hadn’t screwed up his sight settings. That’s when we really understood the need for the ear defenders. Hearing it fire was a joy in itself. It made a deafening boom like a miniature artillery piece, and gave off an echo that lasted a good ten seconds. A big puff of dust erupted from the sandbag wall underneath the thing, and the whole wooden sangar quaked on its foundations. From that moment onwards, we dubbed it ‘the Beast’.

‘Fucking hell, man, that thing’s awesome,’ whispered Chris.

‘Tell me about it. Imagine what one of them slugs would do to an OMS man’s guts, eh?’

‘What guts. Put a round through his kidneys and he could stick his hand through his body to wipe his arse.’

Neither of us wanted to look unprofessional in front of Buzz and John, but it was damn hard to conceal our excited giggling.

The pair didn’t have to wait long for their first long-distance kill.

That afternoon, they spotted what must have been a senior OMS man standing on a rooftop right at the back of the bus depot. He was coordinating a group of gunmen having a hefty go at us from the north bank and an AK47 was slung across the front of his body.

Sitting next to them, I followed the shoot through the sights of my L96.

The target was at least 1,600 metres away — the equivalent of sixteen football pitches placed end to end. It was right on the limit of my eyesight in the heat mirage, even through my Schmidt and Bender sight. I had to strain to make the guy out.

Buzz fired. The round impacted right on the firing mechanism of his AK. Then a technicolour explosion of blood and flesh. Simultaneously, the man went flying backwards out of his flipflops like he was a puppet on strings, and straight off the back of the other side of the roof. No more senior OMS man.

It was the first of a good handful of kills that afternoon. The insurgency’s increasing mayhem provided no shortage of targets. Buzz was loving it.

‘Fuck me. I thought it was supposed to be quiet down here. Is it like this all the time, Dan?’

‘Yup.’

‘Bloody excellent. This is proper war fighting down here, you know?’

‘Yes we do, mate.’

‘We don’t get any of this sort of work in Baghdad. If only the guys knew what they’re missing now. They’ll be gutted when I tell them about it.’

At midnight after a good twelve-hour session, Buzz and John announced they were going to get their heads down for a bit. They’d been travelling overnight, and, amazingly, the Beast actually seemed to have quietened things down just a fraction in the city. There was one mean new bastard in town and they all knew it. The noise of the Beast alone was enough for the OMS brass to sit back and ask themselves what the hell we’d got our hands on. Then there was the damage it did to their men who’d got on the wrong end of it.

‘I’ll leave my rifle up here,’ said Buzz as he got up. ‘So any of your lads can use it if a long-range target pops up. Don’t be shy with it, she’s a real beauty.’

No danger of that, matey.

‘Use this bag of ammunition.’

He chucked over a tightly cross-squared bag fastened by a draw cord. It reminded me of the old bags you used to keep your plimsolls in at school. We respectfully waited until they’d got at least as far as the stairs down into the house. Then, as soon as they were out of earshot, we were like little kids in a sweet shop.

‘Oi, Danny, pass the Beast over here,’ whispered Smudge immediately. He was salivating to have his photo taken while firing it. ‘They did say don’t be shy.’

‘Fuck off, Smudger. I’m the boss here, and anyway — you’re not qualified to use it.’

A cheap trick, but true. And the only time in my whole career that I’ve ever relished quoting poxy army red tape. Since Chris was also qualified to use such a marvellous weapon as the Beast, I justified us a few practice shots just in case we did need to have a go at any long-range targets.

And marvellous she truly was.

In every sense, the Beast gave off one hell of a kick. If you didn’t grip it good and hard, it could recoil off your shoulder blade and smack you in the face hard enough to crack your jawbone. Also, you’d be deaf for ten minutes without the ear defenders. Chris and I put a couple of rounds into the giant metal leg supports of Yugoslav Bridge. They made a terrific row just rocketing around off its different struts.