Читать книгу Last Light - Alex Scarrow - Страница 22

7.21 a.m. local time Al-Bayji, Iraq

‘This is bloody mad,’ Lieutenant Carter whispered breathlessly to himself.

Sergeant Bolton jogged over and joined him leaning against the wall beside the gate, catching his breath in short gasps, and tightening the straps on his Kevlar helmet.

‘All right sir?’ he grunted.

Carter nodded. ‘I’m fine. It’s those poor bastards outside I’m worried about.’

They could hear the Minimi continuing to fire in short disciplined, regular bursts. But they were becoming shorter and the pauses between them longer.

‘Whatever we do sir, it’s got to be quick.’

Carter nodded. ‘Sergeant, I don’t know their call-sign, I haven’t learned yet who’s—’

‘Those lads are part of Yankee-two-two, sir.’

The young officer nodded. ‘Okay, okay. Right.’ He looked anxiously around the compound as he bit his bottom lip, thinking.

‘Sir, we’ve got to do something now,’ barked Sergeant Bolton impatiently.

Carter peeked around the wall at the three men. The man on top cover was still firing. The other two were offering sporadic double-taps from the rear of the Rover, whilst the ground around them danced with plumes of dust and sparks that sprayed off the pock-marked, bullet-dented metal of the vehicle.

He touched the push-to-talk button of his radio and did his best to speak calmly into the throat mic. ‘Yankee-two-two . . . this is Yankee-two-zero. You’ve got to make a run for it lads. We’ll give you covering fire from the gate and the wall.’

‘Fucking make it quick, sir!’ the crackling response came back from one of the three men.

Carter turned to Bolton. ‘Sergeant, get some of our boys up on the wall.’ He looked around and saw there was a stacked pile of wooden pallets in the corner of the compound. ‘Use those to stand on. And rally a section over here by the gate. We’ll assemble some firepower here, all right?’

Sergeant Bolton nodded and began issuing voice commands on a separate channel.

‘And Sergeant, I want a man watching those three Iraqi gents we have with us.’

Bolton acknowledged that, and then jogged across the compound with a confidence and an aura of invincibility that Carter would have given anything to possess.

A few moments later, eight men of his platoon, including a burly-looking Fijian, were shifting the pallets across the ground to the base of the seven-foot cinder-block and plaster wall and stacking them high enough to allow them to see over.

The chatty Geordie lance corporal - Westley - scrambled over and slumped against the wall beside Carter, followed by a section of twelve men, who all followed his lead and fell in against the rough cinder blocks. Carter turned to see a line of anxious young faces studying him intently and waiting anxiously for their CO to formulate a way out of this mess for them.

‘All right lads, first thing we’re doing is getting Yankee-two-two out of that fix and in here with us. Then . . . then we’ll deal with the next thing on the list. Okay?’

Shit Robin . . . never bloody well ask them if an order’s ‘okay’.

‘So, that’s what we’re doing,’ he hastily added. ‘On my command take half this section out through the gate and break right. There’s a truck you and your men can use for cover. I’ll take the other half, and we’ll cover your move from the gateway. When you’re settled in we’ll come out break left, and we’ll all give those lads out there covering fire. Hopefully that’ll give them enough time to scarper over here. You got it?’

‘Aye sir,’ nodded Westley.

‘All right, take up your position on the other side of this gateway. Let’s get ready.’

Outside Carter could hear that the Minimi’s chattering bursts were diminishing in length and frequency. The bloke firing it - damn, he wished he’d had a little more time to learn their names - was clearly doing his best to conserve the last of his ammo, yet keep firing often enough to hold the crowd back.

Westley slapped six of his comrades on the shoulder and led them in a loping dash across the open gateway to the wall on the other side of the compound’s entrance, where they squatted in a row, ready to go.

No time to waste. Do it.

‘Yankee-two-two,’ said Carter over the radio, ‘we’re coming out to give you covering fire. On my command just get the fuck out of there and get over here.’

He looked over his shoulder to see that Sergeant Bolton had some men hunkered down on top of the pallets and ready to give covering fire over the top of the wall. He nodded to Bolton and then turned back to face Lance Corporal Westley on the far side of the gate.

He raised his hand so that both Bolton and Westley could see it and then counted down.

Three . . . two . . . one.

He pulled his hand into a fist as he jumped to his feet, leading his men round the iron gate and into the opening of the gateway. All seven of them dropped down to their knees and let loose a barrage of fire on the crowd that now was almost upon the stranded Rover. Meanwhile, Westley led his men out through the gate, breaking right across half-a-dozen yards of uneven paving towards a rusting truck parked with two tyres up on the kerb. There, they quickly found covered positions, and placed a withering barrage of suppressing fire down the boulevard. The advancing crowd, as one, dropped to the ground to avoid the opening salvo of gunfire.

‘Yankee-two-two . . . Go!’ Carter shouted into his throat mic.

The squaddie who had been doing an excellent job of top cover with the Minimi, instantly ducked down through the roll cage and began to scramble towards the back of the Rover. The other two men, meanwhile, leapt out from the meagre cover provided by the rear of the vehicle and started across the thirty feet of open ground towards the pink-walled compound, weaving to and fro in the hope of throwing off anyone attempting to draw a bead on them.

The third man still in the Rover suddenly stopped, and was hesitating, like some piss-head wondering whether he’d left his wallet back in the pub. Then Carter saw him reach up through the roll cage bars to retrieve the machine-gun.

He was tempted to shout out an order to the man to forget about it. But the Minimi was such an effective support weapon, to have it would make a real difference to the platoon’s chances of holding this position. They had plenty more belts of ammo for it in the other Rovers.

‘Come on, come on,’ he found himself muttering as he and his men continued to offer staccato bursts of covering fire, which for now was keeping most of the heads down out in the street.

The soldier in the vehicle managed to pull the awkwardly shaped weapon, with its extended bipod, down through the bars of the roll cage, and then out of the back of the Rover, tumbling out on to the ground with it in the process.

‘Smeggin’ hell move it, Shirley, you lazy bastard!’ Carter heard the Geordie lance corporal shout over the platoon channel, completely dispensing with formal call-sign protocol.

Over the shared channel, he heard the laboured breathing of the man, as he struggled with the gun and made ready to cross the open ground towards the entrance.

‘Fuck off Westley, you girl’s blouse,’ he heard the man reply.

‘Yankee-two-two . . . Dammit! . . . Shirley!’ barked Carter, making a mental note to ask him how he got that nickname. ‘Get over here now!’

The man shouldered the weapon, took a moment to steady his nerves, and then lurched out into the open, adopting the same weaving pattern as his two comrades had, but dangerously slowed down by the bulk and weight of the machine-gun.

The suppressing fire coming from Carter’s men, Sergeant Bolton’s position over the top of the compound wall and Lance Corporal Westley’s men was breaking down as magazines began to empty. At least half the men in all three sections were now somewhere in the process of ejecting a spent magazine, pulling a new one out of their pouches and slamming it home.

The armed militia amongst the crowd were beginning to be encouraged by the faltering volley of gunfire and several of them emerged from places of cover across the boulevard. They tapped short bursts in the direction of the lone soldier, desperately scrambling across the road.

Inevitably, a shot landed home.

A puff of crimson exploded from the man’s leg and he clattered to the ground still some yards from the kerb.

‘Get off your fuckin’ arse, you twat!’ bellowed Bolton from the top of the wall, his booming voice carrying over the din of gunfire.

The intensity of the fire suddenly increased as the militia-led mob were further encouraged. The cinder-block wall beside Carter and his men began to explode with bullet impacts, showering them all with a cascade of plaster dust and stinging splinters of cement.

Carter heard a hard wet smack and glanced to his left to see that the squaddie who had been kneeling next to him had been thrown backwards by a shot dead centre to his face. There was nothing he could recognise above the chin and below his ginger eyebrows - just a crater of mangled tissue.

Shit, shit, shit.

The lad was gone, dead already, despite the drumming of his boots on the kerb.

And there was the soldier in the road with the leg wound; he was screaming in agony, rolling around on the ground clasping his thigh.

Carter knew he had to pull his men back inside before he lost any more.

‘Everyone inside, now!’ he screamed over the radio.

Lance Corporal Westley’s men moved swiftly back towards the gate in well-practised fire-and-manoeuvre pairs. But Westley hovered by the truck he’d been using for cover.

Carter caught his eye as he gestured for his section to fall back inside. ‘Get inside! NOW!’ he bellowed to him. The Geordie hesitated a moment longer before reluctantly sprinting full tilt for the gateway.

Carter grimaced. We’re leaving that poor sod out there, still alive.

He brought up the rear, emptying his clip in one long wildly sprayed burst before turning round and diving for the open gateway.

With all of them inside, the iron rail gates were closed, clattering noisily as they slammed together. Sergeant Bolton had some men ready with more wooden pallets and other detritus found in the compound and swiftly piled it against the gates.

Carter clambered up the pallets stacked against the wall and then, waiting for a slack moment in the firing, chanced a quick glance over the top.

The soldier, Shirley, with the Minimi, had taken another couple of hits, by the look of his shredded combat fatigues, darkened from the blood of several wounds, the poor young lad was on his way out. Then, mercifully, perhaps, a shot knocked his head back and dislodged his helmet.

He was dead.

Shirley . . . he’d wanted to know where the fuck that daft name had come from . . . but of course, he was never going to find out now.