Dan Mills: Sniper One

I would like to thank: Rowland White, for his faith, foresight, advice and enthusiasm from the word go; Tom Newton Dunn for the mountain of hard work, skill and dedication that made it all happen; and Carly Cook for her keen eye and excellent suggestions.

Sue for her unfailing support while I was in Iraq, and Sandra for her support and patience during the research and writing. Chris Mulrine and Adam Somers for when my memory began to fail me, Defence Public Relations (Army) for their honest advice, Rebekah Wade at the Sun for releasing Tom, and Mark Spicer for giving me the bug.

My daughter Elizabeth for watching over me, and my son Morgan and daughter Alexandria for giving me a reason to come home.

The men of fighting Y Company; in particular Captain Simon, Ian and Dalebert. Finally, all the chosen men of Sniper Platoon who I had the extraordinary privilege of leading and fighting alongside. Keep your heads down.

Dan Mills, January 2007

18 April 2004

‘Gunman top window,’ screamed H.

H was the first to spot him, from his position of height as top cover on the back of Daz’s Snatch Land Rover.

As soon as I heard the call, my eyes darted to the gunman. The moment you hear a gun is trained on you, you scan for targets. And there he was, in the top window of the sinister three-storey building inside a well-fortified compound. Unusually for buildings in Al Amarah, it had a fresh coat of white paint and bars across every window.

As my eyes found him, he began to slide an AK47 through the iron grille. The metal barrel glinted in the bright sunlight as the gunman moved slowly from side to side. He couldn’t seem to decide which of the nine of us he wanted to aim at first.

I was already walking backwards to my Land Rover, the other vehicle in the small patrol, which was parked up 50 metres further down the road. But Daz’s vehicle was just 15 metres across a road from the compound’s front gate. If the gunman was anything like a decent shot, we were all sitting ducks.

He was in animated conversation with a couple of his other stooges; one older, one younger. All of them were bearded, dressed in black dish dashes and wore green canvas chest rigs. They seemed to be jabbering away, I could almost hear them weighing up the situation: ‘Shall we, or shan’t we?’

Then the compound’s heavy gates slammed shut with a loud metallic clunk. The four angry blokes with the same heavy Islamic beards who had been shouting at Daz and I had abruptly scrambled back inside.

They’re thinking what I’m thinking. This is going to kick off. I know it.

It was only the first time we’d been this far away from base. But I’d done enough tours of Northern Ireland to realize what was going on here.

The mood was changing very rapidly from bad to terrible. My brain scrambled to keep up with the pace of events. I had already decided to get the fuck out of there and told the boys to mount up. Now it looked like we’d run out of time already.

Immediately and involuntarily, my pace quickened as I continued to walk backwards. I wanted to turn round to look where I was going, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off that clown in the top window.

Fuck it. How did we get into this mess so quickly?

I couldn’t turn and run to the Snatch, because that would mean we’d lose face in front of these nutters, whoever the hell they were. And the British Army doesn’t do that. But I also knew it was no time to hang around.

Don’t get excited, Danny Boy. Keep the heart rate slow and concentrate, you’re no good to anyone panicking like a big girl.

‘I’ve got eyes on,’ shouted Smudge.

‘Seen,’ said Ads, along with a couple of other blokes a second later.

It had taken no more than four seconds for the three other top cover boys in the two Snatches to focus their Minimis on the top window.

Good. At least the boys are all wide awake. Then again, it wouldn’t have said much for my training if they weren’t during a drama like this.

The boys’ reactions calmed me down a bit. Anyway, weapons aren’t exactly uncommon in this desolate and forgotten corner of Iraq. Even grannies are known to walk the city’s streets with AKs slung over their backs. None of this means it’s going to go tits up.

I had got to within ten metres of my Snatch, and all we needed was a few more seconds to get into the Land Rovers and shove off home sharpish. No problem.

That’s when the grenade came hurtling over the compound wall. We all saw it at once. Half a dozen voices screamed ‘Grenade!’ simultaneously.

Then everything went into slow motion. The grenade took an age to travel through its 20 metres of flight through the air. A dark, small oval-shaped package of misery the size of a peach.

On its upward trajectory, the handle sprang off, landing separately on the pavement with a light tinkle.

Then, a small cracking sound. The handle’s release allowed the hammer inside the grenade to spring down hard onto its percussion cap. That ignited the gunpowder fuse, which began to burn furiously creating enough heat to ignite the high explosive charge.

My second-in-command Daz was the last to see it. He had been standing behind his Snatch with his back to the compound. As he turned round, the still ticking grenade just cleared the Land Rover’s roof and hit him square in the chest with a dull thud.

Daz was left momentarily frozen to the spot, open-mouthed with shock. It bounced off his body armour’s breast plate, and down onto the pavement before slowly rolling into the road and right under the Snatch itself.

In a desperate scramble, everyone else instinctively threw themselves down and covered their faces.

Another whole second of total silence.

Then BOOM.

A blinding flash of light, a pulsation of shock wave and deafening bang; all at once. Shrapnel flew in all directions; hundreds of red hot tiny pieces of metal whizzed through the air, pinging off the metal gate, the stone walls and my Snatch. Simultaneously, an instantaneous whirlwind of dust and detritus whipped across the filthy street, coating anyone within 10 metres with a thin layer of grime and spots of engine oil.

All I could hear was a ringing in my ears, worsened by an immediate secondary echo as the furious tirade of noise bounced off the surrounding walls and back down our battered ear canals.

At last, silence again. So I dared to look up. It had gone off right under the Snatch’s bonnet, blowing the engine compartment to pieces.

Fuck, that was close.

For a few seconds, it looked like we’d got away with it. I looked up again to see the Snatch on fire. But nobody was screaming, and everyone was still on their feet.