Dan Mills - Sniper One

Jesus. Louey wasn’t wrong. Probably all nicked off the Iraqi police. These guys aren’t fucking around . Their number was also growing all the time.

I had an idea. Time for the 51.

‘Right. I’m going to get some HE on these bastards.’

We’d been ordered only to fire high-explosive rounds off the roof from the 51mm mortar as a last resort. This was a last resort. Soon, they’d be at the walls. The whole city was blown to pieces anyway, it wasn’t as if there was anyone who’d care any more.

‘Ops Room, Danny. Permission to fire the 51.’

‘Danny, Ops. Yes. Go.’

I chose a spot behind Top Sangar to give myself a little bit of cover from the direct fire from the dam and Tigris Street. On my knees, I rammed the mortar’s base plate deep into a couple of sand bags so they would absorb its kick.

‘Want a hand, Danny? I’ll feed you the rounds.’

It was Corky the medic. This was no time for him to be waiting around for business in his dressing station, and he knew it. It was all hands to the pump. He squatted down beside me and ripped the lid off a brown tin of ten dark green HE mortar rounds cushioned in plastic casings.

As he carefully passed me the first, he pulled the pin out of its tail fin, making it live.

I slid it down the tube. Holding the barrel by its leather grip with my left arm, I pointed it towards the dam and studied the ranging spirit level in an attempt to angle it for a correct trajectory on to the target. It was educated guesswork at best as I’d never fired HE from a mortar before. Hell of a time to learn. When it felt about right, I grabbed hold of the firing mechanism, a piece of rope at the mortar’s base.

‘Firing 51.’

‘Firing 51,’ came the refrain from Rooftop Sangar so everyone knew the next big bang wasn’t incoming, and then I gave the lanyard a firm yank. Boom. It was just like firing an enormous shotgun. It was a good job I kept a firm hold on the tube too or the huge kick of it would have bounced the thing right back up into Corky’s face.

‘One hundred metres too long and 50 too far to the right,’ called out Chris, spotting for me in the sangar in front of me. The round had landed in the middle of the river just behind the pontoon bridge. Getting the bastard on target was clearly going to be an art form.

I popped the second round down the barrel, turned it a little to the left and straightened the barrel a fraction.

‘Short by about 50 metres, Danny.’

Bugger. Maybe third time lucky. The third’s explosion was a lot louder.

‘That’s good, mate, that’s good! That’s target on!’

It had impacted on a harder surface, meaning its shrapnel wouldn’t just absorb into the ground and it could do more damage. The mortar would have to land within 15 metres of the enemy to be fatal.

My third touched down just on the lip of our end of the dam, where enemy fighters were massing. So I popped three more over on exactly the same heading. Big cheers erupted from the two roof sangars.

The shells dispersed or killed one big group. Their positions would be filled soon enough by reinforcements though; there seemed to be no end to the enemy’s available manpower. The 51’s tube was red hot now, so I doused it down with almost two full two-litre bottles of water. I took a swig from the second for myself. I was gasping with thirst in the intense heat of the glaring sun. We all were. No time to worry about sunburn now.

‘Right, give us some more, Corky.’

Then, the unmistakeable deep crump of an 82mm OMS mortar tube. The enemy were replying.

‘Mortar incoming from the east!’

Everyone ducked down and hugged their helmets tight. The round whined just over the roof and dropped on the compound driveway no more than 50 metres away. Jesus Christ. The enemy were insane. Unless their rounds were incredibly accurate, they were just as likely to kill their own men as us. They didn’t give a shit.

It was an unbelievably close shave. Every one of the twenty-odd soldiers on the roof behind the three-foot walls had their backs fully exposed to a blast anywhere on the roof. Dale wasn’t impressed.

‘Right, you lot,’ he bellowed. ‘The second you hear incoming, you’re straight in the fucking sangars.’

Pointing at the series of scorch marks left on the roof from earlier barrages: ‘You can see where they land. They do that again, that’s it. You’re fucking dead.’

But there was a new drama elsewhere. An urgent report crackled over the PRR.

‘Ops Room, Back Sangar. We’ve got a rocket down here. It’s fucking facing right at us.’

A clutch of enemy used the latest mortar barrage to break cover and run out into the river road 50 metres east of Back Sangar. There, they dumped a homemade firing frame loaded with a 107mm Chinese rocket — a projectile big enough to do away entirely with Back Sangar and the five men in it. It was all set and ready to launch on a ticking timer. It would go off in seconds; no longer.

Captain Curry didn’t waste any time.

‘Back Gate Warrior, Ops Room. Get out there quick and give it some pedal.’

The moment the OC’s order was given, the Warrior’s engine revved up and its clumsy tracks began to grind over the driveway’s paving stones. Two sentries ran to the back gate to pull it open.

As soon as the 30-tonne beast’s gunner had a direct line of sight through the opening gap, he stamped on the foot pedal and opened up the chain gun with an enormous thirty-second burst. The hailstorm of pinpoint accurate rounds demolished the threat completely; the frame first in a shower of sparks, then the rocket eventually went up where it had fallen on the road with a boom and a large puff of grey smoke. Just as quickly as it opened, the back gate slammed shut again.

Then a yell from Smudge inside Rooftop.

‘Shit! Target on the civilian gate!’

He’d been duelling with enemy snipers on the rooftops above RPG alley, when movement caught his eye below. A gunman had sneaked across the road and behind the compound wall in the blind spot between the two gate sangars while the rocket drama had been going on. He was followed by a second. The first man climbed up on top of the iron gate used as an entrance to Cimic by civilians.

Sixty metres from Back Sangar and just five feet tall, it’s the weakest point in the compound’s perimeter because it has no sniper screen. The man had already got one leg over the gate when Smudge spotted him. Jumping up on the sandbag wall to get a better aim, Smudge raised his Minimi to his shoulder and began blasting away with well-aimed three-second-long bursts until he ran out of ammo. He killed the first man, and hit the second trying the same thing in the arm.

It gave the soldiers on the ground enough time to turn their fire on the threat. Five seconds later, half a dozen Minimis and SA80s plus a Gimpy were hurling everything they had at the gate, riddling it from top to bottom. More troops sprinted round to it and engaged the enemy from over its top, driving that attack back.

Unfortunately the rocket and the civilian gate had been just a sideshow.

‘Enemy to the west at 100.’

Des’s urgent shout refocused all our attentions in a second.

‘They’re moving up and down like jack rabbits.’

One hundred metres away was too close by half. The wasteland after the dam and its dozens of piles of earth presented the perfect ground to approach on. The enemy were using it like seasoned infantrymen. At least fifty SA80s, Minimis and Gimpys were hosing down anything that moved on it now with furious vigour. But they were too quick for us to nail any more than a handful.

Fuck, could we do with a dirty great F16 right now. Screw Danger Close, just slap a 1,000 pounder right on them.