Bravo two zero (47 page)

    The Red Cross people were tense. They posted sentries in the corridors and at all the entry points, and armed them with candles and food. It was obvious that they were expecting this to be a rough night.

    Mark and I had a beer and then turned in. I planned to kip on the floor next to his stretcher in case of trouble. That was the plan but it didn't happen. I went back upstairs to get some food and chocolate and fell asleep in a chair. Red Cross people, awake all night, sat among us in groups of two and three.

    I woke up early. An official appeared and announced with a grin that it was time to go home. Mark and I had a problem now of security, because men from the Regiment are required to keep their faces out of the press at all costs. I went up and saw the pilots, and explained my concerns to the Red Cross.

    "No problem," they said. "At the same time as the coach comes to the front of the hotel, ambulances will be going to the back because we can only get the stretchers out through the service area. You can go in one of the ambulances with your friend."

    The aircrew agreed to put on a diversionary show for the media, pulling their jumpers over their heads to get the cameras clicking. Footage of these camera shy "Special Forces" lads was broadcast all over the world.

    We moved off in a convoy. We had two Red Cross guys in the front of our ambulance, and as we drove along, one of them said, "We'll give you a tour of Baghdad, if you like. If you look to your left," he said, adopting the voice of the typical tour guide, "this is the Ministry of Information. It was a whole system of buildings, and just one building was dropped. Talk about precision bombing. And on your right you have the Ministry of…"

    Posters of Saddam and the symbol of the Muslim crescent were on every street. There was devastation everywhere, but by the looks of things the precision bombing had indeed been excellent. Without a doubt they'd been hitting their military targets. Civilian buildings right next door to the ruins were relatively II unscathed.

    He started talking about the Iran-Iraq prisoner exchanges that he'd been involved in. He said they'd been exchanging prisoners in their twenties who looked over forty, they'd had such a terrible time of it. Their life was gone. Some of the injuries were horrific, open wounds that had been left to fester.

    "This is actually the most successful exchange yet," the bloke said. "I think that's because of pressure from the military, who probably want their manpower back. There is a lot of concern about stability. A coup seems imminent. The sooner we get you out the better."

    "I'll second that one," Mark said.

    I read the road signs towards Baghdad International, and as the kilometers ticked down, I felt my apprehension building. There seemed to be a lot of administrative cock-ups because we'd drive a little way, then stop, then drive on, then stop. I couldn't see any aircraft.

    "We have this all the time," the driver said. "The bureaucracy is mind-boggling."

    We rounded a corner and saw a convoy of buses full of Iraqi prisoners.

    They didn't look very happy with themselves. The main terminal was deserted. We sat through two hours of petty administration before the call finally came for us to be put onto an aircraft.

    The walking prisoners went up the steps at the front of the two Swissair 727s. The stretcher cases were maneuvered up the stairwell at the rear.

    I stayed with Mark. The Swissair crew greeted us like VIPs, and straightaway the coffee came out-with cream. It was nectar.

    As the aircraft lifted from the runway, we roared like a football crowd.

    I looked at Mark and grinned. This time we really were going home.

13

    The head boy of the American contingent, a colonel, came over the loudspeakers. He wanted to orchestrate it so that all his men were dressed only in their POW kit, to look good for the cameras. They had to bin their pullovers. He also organized them so that they came out in strict order of rank. I couldn't believe it. Five minutes out of an Iraqi jail and he gets his military head on again.

    Mark and I were unaffected by this crap because we knew we wouldn't leave the aircraft until the media had dispersed. We were getting in amongst the sticky buns and coffee when the captain announced that our pair of 727s would soon be getting an escort of F15s and Tornadoes.

    No sooner had he said it than two American F15s came up alongside, one flying slightly higher than the other. They maneuvered until they were flying right over the wings of our aircraft. The Yanks were up and giving it lots of "Yo!" One pilot responded by taking his mask off and giving it the old "Way to go!" arm swing in the air. He fired off chaff and banked away. It really was a fantastic sight.

    Then the pilots got their acrobatic hats on. One spun off and did a victory roll and landed up over the other wing; then both F15s landed over the starboard wing.

    Now it was the turn of the R.A.F Tornadoes. They came up so close that I could see the pilots' eyes. One flier took off his mask and mouthed the word "Wankers!" with, of course, the accompanying wrist action.

    John Nichol, the R.A.F prisoner who had shaken my hand, went up forward and spoke to some of them on the radio. They fired off chaff and were spinning around the sky as well-and doing it all a bit better than the Yanks, I thought.

    "These jet pilots think they're the only ones that can do that," said our captain. "So, fasten your seatbelts, please, and hang on tight."

    With that he banked the aircraft steeply and put us into a perfect barrel roll. The other Swissair jet came up level with us, and both aircraft flew in concentric circles, meeting up again in the middle.

    There was another big roar as we passed into Saudi airspace, and then all the jets came down, hoiked down the chaff, and were off, afterburners flaming in the brilliant blue sky.

    We landed in Riyadh to a tumultuous welcome. Every pressman and his dog was there, and every bit of top brass-Stormin' Norman included. Mark and I peeked out from behind the blinds and saw that some of our people were there too. It was just a matter of waiting. The Saudis disembarked first, followed by the orderly exit of correctly dressed Americans. The rear door was opened and the stretcher cases were loaded into the ambulances. Our people came on board.

    "We're going to throw you in the back of one of the ambulances," one of them said. "You'll then go straight around the corner into a C130.

    We'll fly out, land at another airfield, and pick up a VC10 which will take you straight to Cyprus, where you're going to hospital."

    We got onto the C130, and the rest of the Brits joined us. We flew for about twenty minutes, landed, and picked up our connection for Cyprus.

    The interior of the aircraft had been thoughtfully rearranged so that the seats faced one another. We were each given a day sack, in which was a Walkman, spare batteries, shaving foam, a razor, underpants, soap, and a watch with both digital and analogue time.

    It was dark when we landed at R.A.F Akrotiri. Again, our own people were there to meet us. Each of us was allotted a sponsor we knew. Mine was an old mate, Kenny. His first words were: "Am I ever pissed off that you're still alive. I was down to take over your job next September."

    There were lots of handshakes, and a bottle of gin was circulating rapidly. A fellow sergeant called Mugger was in overall charge of the SAS recovery mission. He was running around Riyadh with a borrowed Warrant Officer crest on his wrist to give his requests added authority, as nobody from, the Regiment was wearing anything that showed who or what they were.

    "I wish you'd been delayed even more," he honked, "because I've been running around doing the RSM bit. It's fucking great."

    We were put on a bus and taken straight to a segregated secure ward at the military hospital.

    The massive, hulking frame of Stan loomed out of the darkness, closely followed by Dinger, fag in hand. Stan had hepatitis and wasn't feeling too good, but Dinger was firing on all cylinders.

    "I've phoned Jilly," he said. "I've got it all squared away; don't worry about the phone cards. Our blokes have rigged up a link through to the UK."

    Mugger went down to the town to organize a few videos for our entertainment, and the B Squadron sergeant major turned up with a hospital trolley loaded with booze for a piss-up. We were smuggled out of the ward and down to the library, where we set about getting blitzed.

    Gordon Turnbull, the R.A.F psychologist and counselor, had arrived in Cyprus to oversee the recuperative phase.

    "What have you got there?" he asked Mugger as he spotted him heading for the library.

    "Videos for the lads."

    "Mind if I have a look?"

    Turnbull nearly had a heart attack. Mugger had bought us Terminator, Driller Killer, and Nightmare on Elm Street. "You can't do this!" he shrieked. "Those blokes are all traumatized!"

    "Traumatized?" said Mugger. "They're pissed out of their brains. Come and have a look."

    Turnbull saw us and blew a gasket.

    "Don't worry about it," Mugger said. "They were all fucking barking to start with."

    I helped Mark into the bath, and a big lump of skin the size of a bath plug fell out of the hole in his foot. I then went in search of our special phone.

    The armed guard sneaked me down to the cellar and took me to where a couple of scaleys were guarding the phone to keep away freeloaders.

    The link worked perfectly, and I got through to Jilly straightaway.

    I staggered to bed after lots of "I love you." As my head hit the pillow, I worked out that this was the first proper bed I had slept in for eight weeks, three days.

    For the next couple of days we had X rays and tests, and the dentists had a provisional go at my teeth. We had posttraumatic shock sessions with Gordon Turnbull, which lasted only a few minutes each. Poor Gordon, he'd thought it was Christmas with all these traumatized blokes coming back from captivity. He was good at his job, but the mentality of the blokes made them far more interested in taking advantage of everything else that was on offer. Our blokes had organized for us to get down to the town, and the Red Cross had given us a float of money.

    We wanted to buy our duty frees before it all disappeared.

    The Red Cross went round asking if we had any special requests, which they would then go into the town and buy on our behalf. | "Why don't you just give us the money, and we'll | buy our own kit?" I said to a distinguished-looking I lady in her late fifties. ‹j "You can fuck off," she smiled. "Do you think I was | born yesterday?"

    However, she eventually relented. I bought jeans,.: T-shirts and videos, and a suitcase to put it all in. Everybody had a good old shopping frenzy. After an | hour we started running out of money, and Kenny f was flapping because we put a 600 pounds dent in his plastic. He knew he'd have a long wait before we paid him back.

    The Belgians had a medical team there as part of their contribution to the war. They had a big going away barbecue, and Mugger got us all invited. The night passed in a blissful haze.

    The following day it was confirmed that I had hepatitis. Being made to eat our own shit just might have had something to do with it. Other medical checks showed that my shoulder had been dislocated, I had ruptured muscles in my back, scar tissue on my kidneys, burns on my thighs, and loss of dexterity in both hands, but I was keen to get back to the UK.

    We packed our kit on March 10 and jumped aboard a VC10. Unfortunately it wasn't going straight to Brize Norton; we'd caught the military equivalent of a number 22 bus.

    We flew to Laarbruch first to drop off a lot of the R.A.F personnel. We stayed at the back with the blinds down while whoever was in charge of the air force in Germany greeted his boys off the plane. Without a doubt it was a big homecoming. After the ceremony the top brass got into his car. His next port of call, and also our next destination, was an hour or so's drive away, so we now had to wait on the pan at Laarbruch to give him time to get to Bruggen. When we landed, he was at the other end to greet the second batch of R.A.F prisoners. The whole ceremony was repeated. We sorted out some crates of Grolsch and slowly got pissed.

    We flew into Brize Norton, and as the aircraft closed down its engines, we could hear the familiar sound of our own 5Agusta 109 helicopters coming in to land. They came down right alongside the aircraft. My squadron OC was on board, and Mark's sister, who lived and worked in London. After a brief reunion we boarded the helicopters and lifted off for Hereford.

    The camp was deserted. Two of the squadrons were still in the Gulf, and other teams were scattered as ever on various jobs.

    The adjutant came out to the helipad.

    "Welcome back," he said. "Come into the office."

    He popped a bottle of champagne. As he poured it, he said to Mugger,

    "Right, you need to be back here for half six tomorrow, because we're taking you straight back out. You're needed in Saudi."

    "Fucking hell!" said Mugger, completely crestfallen. He had been looking forward to a few nights at home with Mrs. Mugger.

    To the rest of us the adjutant very generously said: "There's no big rush at the moment. Take a couple of days off."

    The families officer offered me a lift home. As my house came into view, I asked him to stop.

    "I'll walk from here," I said. "I need the exercise."