Shaun Clarke - Behind Iraqi Lines

‘I used to spend so much time chasing nooky,’ he explained to Ricketts, ‘that I didn’t have any left for my poetry. Now I’ve got it on tap every night and I’m much more creative. Marriage has its good points, Sarge.’

In the intervening years, Ricketts had been promoted to sergeant-major, Andrew to corporal and then sergeant, while Jock McGregor, Paddy Clarke and the reticent Danny had become corporals. Geordie Butler and Taff Burgess, however, although experienced soldiers, had repeatedly been denied promotion because of their many drunken misdemeanours. Also because, as Ricketts suspected, they simply didn’t want responsibility and preferred being troopers.

As for Ricketts, now nearing 40, he was increasingly fond of the comforts of home, appreciating his wife Maggie more than ever, and taking a greater interest in his two daughters. It still surprised him that they were now virtually adults: Anna, 19, was working as a hairdresser in Hereford, while Julia, a year younger, was preparing to take her A levels and hoping to go to art school. Though he was proud of them, they made him feel his age.

Now, thinking about his family, and surrounded by his men in the cramped, clamorous hold of the Hercules, Ricketts was forced to countenance the fact that the battle for Kuwait might be his last active engagement with the Regiment. In future, while still being involved, he was more likely to be in the background, planning and orchestrating ops, rather than taking part in them. For that reason, he was looking forward to this campaign with even more enthusiasm than usual. It marked a specific stage in his life, and a very important one. After this he would settle down.

‘How much longer to go?’ Andrew asked no one in particular, suffering from a creative block and just needing someone to talk to.

‘About twenty minutes,’ Ricketts replied. ‘We’re already descending.’

‘Thank Christ,’ Andrew burst out. ‘I can’t stand these damned flights. You can burn me or freeze me or shoot me, man, but keep me out of these transports. I can’t bear being cooped up.’

‘You’re going to be cooped up when we land,’ Paddy gloated. ‘In a fucking OP in the fucking desert – hot by day, cold by night. How’s that grab you, Sergeant?’

‘I don’t mind,’ Andrew replied. ‘I’m a man who likes his privacy. Just stick me in a hole in the ground and let me live with myself. Since I’m the only man here worth talking to, I’d rather talk to myself.’

‘You might find yourself talking to an Iraqi trying to cut your black throat.’

‘Lord have mercy, hallelujah, I is ready and waitin’. Ever since that Saddam Hussein pissed on Kuwait City I’s bin dyin’ to come to the rescue. It’s part of my imperialist nature. My noble English blood, brothers!’

As the customary repartee – bullshit, as they always called it – poured from the other troopers, Ricketts thought of the march of events that had followed Saddam’s invasion. When the news broke, Ricketts had been sceptical about Saddam’s remaining in Kuwait City, assuming it to be a bluff designed to get him his way in other matters. Since then, however, Saddam had stuck to his guns. Because of his intransigence, the UN had imposed economic sanctions and a trade ban on Iraq; President Bush had ‘drawn a line in the sand’ and sent thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia; 12 Arab states, along with Britain and France, had done the same; over 100,000 refugees had crossed into Jordan; Saddam had used British hostages as a ‘human shield’, paraded others on television, and then declared Kuwait Iraq’s nineteenth province and released the hostages as a political gesture; and the UN Security Council had voted for the use of force against Iraq if it did not withdraw from Kuwait by 15 January.

By 22 December, shortly after the UN General Assembly had condemned Iraq for violating human rights in Kuwait, Saddam had vowed that he would never give up Kuwait and threatened to use atomic and chemical weapons if attacked. As he was still showing no signs of relenting, war was almost certainly on the cards.

‘Scuse me for asking, boss,’ Geordie said to Major Hailsham, ‘but is it true we’re not the first to be flown in?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Major Hailsham replied. He had been promoted shortly after his return from the Falklands, when Major Parkinson was transferred to another unit. With his sardonic sense of humour and excellent operational record, he was a popular commanding officer of the squadron.

‘You don’t?’

‘No, Trooper, I don’t. If any other members of the Regiment have been inserted, I wasn’t informed.’ Mike Hailsham was still a handsome schoolboy with a wicked grin. ‘But since I’m only the CO of this benighted squadron, they wouldn’t even think to inform me, would they?’

‘I guess that’s right, boss,’ Geordie responded, deadpan. ‘We’ll all have to accept that.’

In truth they all knew, and were envious of the fact, that other members of the Regiment had been working undercover in Iraq since a few days before the invasion, having flown incognito, in ‘civvies’, on British Airways flight 149 from London to Delhi, with a fuelling stop in Kuwait. Finding themselves in the middle of Saddam’s invasion, which had begun in the middle of that same morning – slightly earlier than anticipated by the ‘green slime’, the Intelligence Corps – the SAS men had melted away, dispersing in two directions, some to send back information from behind Iraqi lines, others to do the same from Kuwait itself, where they would now be hiding in a succession of ‘safe’ houses and operating under the very noses of the Iraqis. Naturally, their presence in Kuwait was unofficial and therefore remained resolutely unacknowledged.

‘We’re coming in to land.’ Hailsham observed needlessly as the overloaded Hercules began its shuddering descent. ‘Check your kit and prepare to disembark. I want no delays.’

‘Aye, aye, boss,’ Ricketts said, then bawled the same order along the hold of the aircraft.

Cumbersome at the best of times, though always reliable, the Hercules shuddered even more as it descended, groaning and squealing as if about to fall apart. Eventually it bounced heavily onto the runway, bellowed, shook violently and rattled as it taxied along the tarmac, before finally groaning to a halt.

Letting out a united cheer, the men unsnapped their safety belts and stood up in a tangle of colliding weapons and bergens. After a lot of noise from outside, the transport’s rear ramp fell down, letting light pour in, and the men clattered down onto the sunlit, sweltering tarmac of Riyadh airport.

It was not the end of the SAS men’s long journey. Lined up along the runway of the airport were RAF Tornado F-3 air-defence aircraft which had arrived four months ago, shortly after the fall of Kuwait, flying in from the massive Dhahran air-base. There were also a dozen RAF CH-47 Chinook helicopters of 7 Squadron’s Special Forces Flight.

The Regiment’s recently acquired, state-of-the-art desert warfare weaponry, including Thorn-EMI 5kg hand-held thermal imagers, Magellan satellite navigation aids – SATNAV GPS, or Global Positioning Systems – laser designators and other equipment, was unloaded from the Hercules and transferred to the Chinooks. When the transfer was over, the men, who had been milling about on the tarmac, stretching their legs and breathing in deeply the warm, fresh air, also boarded the helicopters and were flown on to Al Jubail, an immense, modern port on Saudi Arabia’s east coast, some four hundred miles from Riyadh and about five hundred from Kuwait City. They emerged from the Chinooks a couple of hours later, glad to be back on solid ground.