We sat with our backs against the trees, watching the two lads filling the bottles.
“Ten Ks,” Dinger said. “Fucking hell, we could run that in thirty minutes.”
“Pity about the full moon,” Bob said.
“And the desert camouflage,” Dinger said. “And the fact that every man and his dog is out looking for us.”
When Mark and Legs came back with our bottles we considered the options. There seemed to be four. We could cross the river; move east to avoid the border and attempt to cross on the following night; keep going west; or split up and try any of the three as individuals.
The river was a fearsome sight. It must have been about 1,600 feet across, and after the torrential rainfall it was in full flood, flowing fast and furious. The water would be freezing. We were weakened by the long tab and lack of sleep, food, and water. We couldn’t see any boats, but if we found one it would become an option. That left swimming, and I doubted we’d last more than ten minutes. And who was to say there wouldn’t be troops waiting on the other side?
We ruled out moving east because there was too much habitation for us to conceal ourselves in daylight. Moving west seemed the best option: they knew we were in the area, so why not just keep going? But should we do it as a patrol or as individuals? Going it alone would certainly create five lots of chaos for our pursuers, but at the end of the day we were a patrol.
“We’ll go west as a patrol and cross the border tonight,” I said. “There must be some follow-up in the morning.”
It was about 2200 and bitterly cold. Everybody was shivering. We had been sweating and the adrenaline had been flowing. In these conditions your body starts to seize up as soon as you take a rest.
Looking west along the Euphrates, we saw headlights crossing a bridge a mile or so down. There wasn’t a lot we could do. We couldn’t waste time boxing around it. It was too late for anything fancy like that. We would have to take our chances.
“Let’s just take our time and patrol,” Bob said. “We’ve got enough time.”
The natural water courses ran into the Euphrates. Normally we would have kept to the high ground. It’s easier to travel along, which saves time and makes less noise and movement. We were cross-graining them to stay parallel to the river, but not so close to the water that we left sign in the mud.
The ground was frozen mud and slush. Barbed wire fences cordoned off bits of land. We encountered small, rickety outbuildings, knolls of high ground, trees, old bottles that we tripped over, bits of frozen plastic that crushed noisily underfoot. It could have been wasteland in Northern Ireland.
The wind had stopped. The slightest sound traveled hundreds of feet. We were patrolling into the moon, our breath forming clouds in the freezing air. We took our time, stopping and starting every five minutes. Dogs barked. When we came to a building, somebody would go up and check; then we’d skirt around. When we came to a fence, the first man would test to see if it was going to make a noise; then he’d put his weapon on it to force the wire down and make it good and tense, and he’d keep it there while everybody stepped over.
We had to go round a three-sided hut. The owner was snoring by the embers of a fire but didn’t stir as we tiptoed past. Forward of us was a road. If we looked to the left there was the road that ran into the frontier town of Krabilah. Lights were going on and off in buildings. Tracked vehicles trundled backwards and forwards, but far enough away not to worry us. There was still the odd shot or burst behind us. We’d been patrolling for about 2 miles. Four to go. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Hours of darkness lay ahead. I was feeling quite good.
We followed the line of a hedgerow, then cut across left into a natural drainage ditch. It ran into a steep wadi, which in turn seemed to run into the Euphrates. The wadi was about 150-160 feet wide and 80 feet deep. Both sides were more or less sheer. The bottom was virtually flat, with a trickle of a stream. We couldn’t box around it because we didn’t know how far it went. It might have headed south, and there were roads to our south that we wanted to avoid. I then noticed that it went round to the west, which would be great. We could use the shadow that it created for as long as we could.
As I got to the edge of the wadi, I crawled over the lip to have a look inside. Mark was behind me. I started to move down, and as I did so, the horizon on the opposite side of the wadi was a lot easier to see. The first thing I saw on the skyline was the silhouette of a sentry.
He was walking up and down, stamping his feet and blowing into his cupped hands to keep warm. I looked around him, and I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was a vast location-tents, buildings, vehicles, radio antennas. As my eyes focused, I started to notice people coming out of the tents. I heard bits of talking.
They had their backs to the moon, looking in our direction. I didn’t move.
It was fifteen minutes before I could make my way back to Mark. I knew he would have seen the same as I had because he hadn’t come to join me. He, too, was lying as still as a stone. This was scary stuff. We were terribly exposed.
I got back level with Mark. “Have you seen it?”
“Yes, this is outrageous,” he said. “We need to get back and sort our shit out.”
“No drama.”
We’d crawl back to the others to regroup. From there we’d make our way back to the hedgerow, sort ourselves out, and find another route round. We had gone 100 feet to get out of the immediate area when we got up to a semi crouch position in the ditch.
Jittery shouting and firing happened at the same time. All hell was let loose. Mark was down with the Minimi and stitched all along the hedgerows, wherever he saw muzzle flashes. The location on the other side of the wadi opened up. I was severely unimpressed because they were on higher ground.
I used the last of my 203 bombs; then it was time to run away gracefully. I wanted to get back to the riverbank because it would give us cover. There was shouting and firing all over the place as we legged it. The rest of the patrol was having contacts. There was major chaos going on all around the hedgerow. I assumed that Bob and the others were in a group of three. The Iraqis on the other side of the wadi were firing in all directions. I heard 203 bombs, which had to be Legs because Dinger and Bob both had Minimis. It was very noisy. Everybody was involved in his own little world. I realized with a sinking heart that there was no chance of us getting together again. We were split now into another two groups, with only miles to go. What a pisser. I really thought we’d cracked it.
Mark and I were on the bank of the Euphrates, trying to make sense of what was happening. The waterline was 30-50 feet below the line of the ploughed land that we’d just come over, and in between lay a system of small plateaus. We were on the first one, in amongst the bushes.
We could hear the follow-ups from the opposite bank, working towards us with torches and shouting to one another. There was intermittent, nervous enemy fire from our side of the wadi, then contacts to our left and half left involving 203s and Minimis. Tracer was going horizontal and then vertical as it hit rocks and buildings.
We stuck our heads up like a couple of ferrets and looked around. It was hard to know what to do and where to go-whether to cross the river or go through the positions and risk getting killed or captured.
“No way the river,” I whispered into Mark’s ear.
I wasn’t brave enough for that, so we decided to go through the positions. But when? There was so much confusion, it was difficult to say what was a good opportunity and what wasn’t.