of the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment are halfway through their six-month tour. They have been shot at twenty-four/seven by small arms, RPGs and mortars, but ask any one of them and they'll tell you it's what they signed up to do.'
Tonight they were about to kick the shit out of the insurgents who were within spitting distance of taking over Al Gurnan and starting to claim the ground as their own. They had to be broken. An insurgent stronghold soon became another link in the supply chain from Iran, just ten clicks away.
The Kingsmen's mission was to do the breaking, and ours was to report it. Dom talked, Pete filmed him, and I had to make sure the two didn't get shot, snatched or run over by a set of tracks sent screaming across the desert by a bunch of jabbering Scousers.
It wasn't easy. When Dom started playing newsman, he seemed to think there was a magic six-foot forcefield standing between him and any incoming fire. Sometimes he thought he didn't even need to wear a helmet. But in this war the enemy didn't give a shit whether you were a journalist or a soldier. If you were a foreigner they wanted you out, preferably in a body-bag. If they could get you alive, so much the better: you'd be the new star of The Al Jazeera Show, and all you could do was hope your next appearance wouldn't end with them slicing off your head online.
The chain gun ceased fire. The Kingsmen swarmed down into the wadi.
Dom made to follow, but I grabbed him and pulled him on to his knees. Another flurry of illume kicked off over the town and the cannon opened up again. I had to scream into his ear: 'They said not to go forward until they call us! Wait. Let them get on with it.'
The Kingsmen vanished for a few seconds in the dead ground of the riverbed, before reappearing on the far bank, screaming and shouting all sorts of Scouse shit they probably didn't even understand themselves.
They kicked their way through a series of old wooden doors and into whatever chaos lay the other side.
2
0805 hrs
The sun had risen enough to chuck out a bit of heat, but not enough to coax me out of the oversized fleece I had on over my body armour. I ran my tongue over my furred-up teeth and gave my greasy, stubbled face a rub.
Dom and Pete sat among steel ammo boxes, day sacks and general wagon shit the other side of the idling Warrior. Pete fucked about on his Mac laptop, editing the bulletin Dom had made during the attack. He wasn't one of those bunker journos who gave their action-packed report from the safety of a Green Zone balcony. And that was my big problem. I spent every waking hour either pulling him down or away from someone or something that could kill him.
Paul, one of the recce platoon, was top cover with a Minimi; he had to stand between us with his head and shoulders sticking out through the open mortar hatch. Sand and all sorts showered down each time he moved.
I brushed some desert off my fleece. It got cold out here at night and I was a bit of a lizard. I liked to keep warm, even if it meant wearing something Pete described as the colour of shite after a bad vindaloo. I hadn't got it from an outdoors store; I always ended up throwing my kit away every few weeks because it got so minging, so I'd treated myself to a trip to Oxfam. Three and a half quid as opposed to thirty; a bargain whatever the colour.
Last night had produced an insurgent body count of eighteen, at a cost of two wounded Kingsmen. Now a Challenger and our three recce-platoon Warriors had been tasked with setting up a vehicle checkpoint on the eastern road out of town to see what got caught in the net.
Looking out of the open rear door, I could see the wadi the guys had run through during last night's attack. It was littered with carrier-bags, dog shit, drinks cans, water-bottles; all kinds of trash that wouldn't be washed downstream until next year when the rains came.
A pack of scabby old dogs were kept at bay by the heat blasting from the grilles of the Challenger's massive turbo-charged diesel engine. Like the Warriors', its hull and tracks were caked with mud and dust. No call