Chris Ryan by The One That Got Away Page B

to Vince and hissed, 'Did he see you?' `No, no, no,' he answered. 'We're OK.' I left it at that, but I didn't believe him. Things were get�ting scary: there wasn't exactly a panic, but we knew we were about to be rumbled. I felt fear starting up in my stomach. Legs was still at the radio, trying to get through. 'What's happening?' I demanded. `I'm trying,' he said. 'I'm trying.' `Have you been on the guard net?' I asked him. `No.' Contact!55 `Well, get on the guard net and start tapping Morse.' The guard net sends out new frequencies, and I knew that if we came up on it, we would compromise its entire operation for the current twenty-four-hour period. But in this emergency such a procedure was justified. Legs started working on the text for a burst transmission. 'High possibi�lity compromise. Request relocation or expel,' his message read; but just as he was tapping it in, we heard the roar of a heavy engine and the squealing and grinding of what we thought were tank-tracks, approaching up the wadi. That was when the adrenaline started to flow. There wasn't any more creeping about. We were all buzzing round. Wild thoughts raced through my mind: the damage a tank could do with one round into the end of the wadi � it would destroy us all. There's a form of anti-personnel round like a huge shotgun; if they whipped one of them up there, that was us finished. `Get the 66s open,' somebody shouted, and we cocked our rocket launchers. The guys had spread out round the end of the wadi, lying behind whatever cover they could find. Dinger chose that moment to light up one of his filthy, home-rolled fags, amid strong protests. There we were, waiting for this tank to come into view round the corner. Every second the squealing and grinding got louder. We were stuck, pinned like rats in the dead-end of the ravine. We couldn't tell what else might be coming at us over the flat ground above. The chances were that the Iraqis were deploying behind us, too; even at the moment, they were probably advancing on our position. A couple of hand grenades tossed over the edge would make a nice mess of us. Even so, if the tank came into view and levelled its gun on us, we'd have no option but to run up on to the plain, and chance it with the AA positions on the high ground. By then it was 1700 hours, but still full daylight. Someone said, 'Let's get some water down our necks, fellers,' and everyone started drinking, because we knew that if we had to run for it, we'd need the liquid inside us. Other guys began frantically repacking their kit, pulling off the warm jackets 56The One That Got Away they'd been wearing and stuffing them into their bergens. A couple of the lads struggled out of their NBC suits and stowed them. No one gave any orders about what to do. We just decided that if a tank or armoured personnel carrier came round the corner, we'd try to take it out, and then go past it down the wadi, using the dry watercourse as our escape-route. The rockets wouldn't have been much use against a tank, but they might have disabled it by blowing off a track. So there we were, getting water down our necks and having something to eat. Then I looked round at the tail ends of the rocket launchers in front of me and said, 'Hey, fellers � watch the fucking back-blast on these things. I don't want my face burned.' When a 66 is fired, the danger area behind the tube extends for twenty metres. There was silence for a minute. Then, suddenly, out of fear and ten�sion, everyone started laughing. They couldn't stop. I thought, 'This is bloody ridiculous. There's a tank coming round the corner, and here we all are, giggling like school�girls.' Dinger pointed at my German Army cap and shouted, `Hey, Chris, you look like Rommel.' `Fuck off, Dinger,' I yelled back. He was dragging des�perately on his fag. 'Put that fucking thing out!' `Ah � fuck the SOPs,' he said, and everyone laughed some more. I checked my 203 magazines again, tapping them on the bottom