The Sixteen (18 page)

After we’d been travelling for about an hour-and-a-half, the sky began to lighten and in the distance, we saw a few small fishing boats. As we drew nearer, more came into view. Lynch paused as he came out of the cabin carrying another cup of tea for me and looked over at them for a moment.

‘Part of the local fishing fleet,’ he observed before adding, ‘we’ve still got about another six miles to go before we reach the mainland.’

As we made our way closer towards the shore we saw more and more of the small fishing boats, all of them heading out to sea. We appeared to be the only ones going inland.

‘This must look a bit fishy, don’t you think, us going the wrong way?’ Spot sniggered. ‘Won’t they be a bit suspicious of what we’re up to?’

‘No, don’t worry, often some of them fish all night and are usually on their way back in at this time of the morning,’ Lynch told him confidently.

The sun was higher now, warming the early-morning air and glinting brightly off the water ahead of us. Gradually the coastline emerged from the dawn haze and we began to make out a number of bays and small coves. About a mile offshore, Lynch passed Dynamo a pair of binoculars.

‘We’ve been lucky so far, I haven’t seen the patrol boat in the area,’ he said as Dynamo scanned the shoreline.

‘Bloody hell, have you seen this lot, it’s like flamin’ Morecambe
Bay over there!’ he exclaimed. ‘There’s a lot of people moving about and the port area is pretty busy. I thought it might be quieter this early in the morning.’

‘Here, give me a look.’ Chalky motioned for Dynamo to pass him the binoculars. ‘You’re right, this could cause a bit of a problem.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Lynch said calmly. ‘There’s another cove we can go into around that headland about quarter of a mile to the north of the village, there is an old jetty there too. We should be out of sight from everybody in there but you’ll have to take a chance and make a jump for it on to the jetty – I don’t want to get in too close and beach this thing.’

Chalky and Spot took it in turns to watch through the binoculars as we drew closer to the shore then suddenly Spot nudged the other man.

‘Here, Chalky, take a look at this. I can see at least four blokes lounging about on that jetty with weapons. Two of the swine look as though they’ve got rifles, and the others are carrying Sten guns. Look!’ He passed the binoculars to Chalky and turned to Dynamo. ‘I don’t understand why they should be there, it’s difficult to make out from here if they’re soldiers or not, but it looks as if they could be wearing some type of uniform like khaki jackets,’ he said as Chalky then passed the binoculars along to me.

I was surprised to see that the village was quite busy. I don’t know why but, like Dynamo, I’d thought there wouldn’t be many people about at this time of the morning. It was larger than I’d expected too with a lot of small boats dotted around the harbour area and a couple of large cargo boats tied up alongside the jetty.

Lynch had changed our course and we headed past the village on our starboard side towards the small bay to the north.

‘That should give ideal cover,’ he said, pointing to the sandy
embankment surrounding the bay. ‘No one should see you getting ashore from this position.’

The remains of a jetty stuck out about thirty to forty yards from the beach. It was an old wooden construction, broken down and in a bit of a state. As we got closer, we could see that it hadn’t been used for some time and was literally falling to bits. Lynch threw four bundles of fish on to the deck, half a dozen in each bundle tied together with string.

Chalky picked them up and held them out in front of him, wrinkling his nose.

‘And just what exactly are we supposed to do with these?’ he said. ‘I hope this isn’t lunch.’

Lynch grinned at him. ‘Try to look like fishermen.’

‘Well, we’re obviously not very successful ones judging by the age of this lot, are we?’ Chalky joked back, looking at the fish he was still holding up in disgust. ‘Where are our rods, then?’

Lynch just laughed and steered the boat in as close as possible to the jetty.

‘I’ll be back here 1700 hours this evening about two hundred yards off this point, so don’t be late and keep me waiting, there’s good chaps. If you aren’t here then, I’ll be back at 2300 and again at 0500 and so on, you know the drill.’

Chalky threw the fish on to what looked like a sound piece of the jetty then jumped off the boat as it moved alongside. I followed closely behind him, but as I landed on the rotten timbers, they gave way beneath us with a loud crash and I began to slip backwards into the water. Chalky grabbed me and hauled me up beside him.

‘I hope no one heard that,’ he muttered. ‘Bit early for a bath, isn’t it Geordie?’

By now, Spot and Dynamo had also jumped off the boat and landed without any problems further along the jetty. They both
ran up the slight embankment and looked over the top as Lynch headed the boat back out to sea.

‘See you later,’ he shouted and sped off.

‘It’s OK, we’re in the clear,’ Dynamo said. ‘Nobody from the village could have heard the racket Geordie made, it’s too far away!’

‘It’s not my flippin’ fault that the rotten jetty’s falling to bits,’ I said indignantly, kicking out at a decayed bit of timber nearby.

From our position, we could see most of the nearby village. It was fairly compact with a main street running through the middle of it. We sat there for about ten minutes taking in the layout of the place and checking to make sure we weren’t going to bump into any trouble. Although it was still early and the place seemed pretty quiet and peaceful, there were a lot of people moving about. It was particularly busy by the main jetty where workmen were unloading a couple of large vessels and reloading the cargo on to a nearby truck. The guys with the guns we’d seen earlier were nowhere in sight.

‘Ok, let’s get on with it,’ Chalky said, taking a map out of his back pocket and laying it on the ground. He glanced at his watch. ‘Right it’s 0655. We’re here and the border with Syria is over that way, roughly where those mountains are.’ He pointed to his left. ‘We’ve got about nine miles to go, south of where we are now, following that road on the other side of the village.’

Following where he pointed, we saw far in the distance to the east a range of snow-capped purple-grey mountains, outlined in the early morning sun.

‘The situation is this,’ Chalky went on. ‘We’ve got bags of time so we don’t have to rush anything, and this village doesn’t look as though it’s going to cause any problems. I think those guys with the rifles might just be acting as local policemen – I don’t think they’re
going to be a problem to us. So we’ll break up into pairs, what do you reckon? Geordie and I will go through the centre of the village, you two go around the outside and we’ll both meet here where the side street meets up with the main road leading to Beirut,’ he said, pointing to a spot on the map.

‘That shouldn’t cause us any problems, it’s only a small place,’ Spot said.

Dynamo nodded. ‘You and Geordie go ahead and we’ll catch up with you in a few minutes; it’ll look less suspicious that way and we won’t draw attention to ourselves.’

For all we had bags of time, Chalky immediately stood up and set off down the embankment.

‘Come on then, Geordie,’ he called back to me over his shoulder.

We entered the village along what appeared to be the main street and passed some of the old people we’d observed from the embankment but none of them took any notice of us. The whole area was a complete shambles with boxes and litter lying all over the place. For all it was still early there was quite a bit of activity going on and a lot of people sitting around outside some of the buildings – these may have been shops or cafés but they all looked to be either shuttered or boarded up. Most of the buildings were single-storey concrete affairs but there were a few relatively large constructions of two or three floors.

It wasn’t a very large place, only about half a mile long, and we walked through it quickly, passing several side streets lined with square-looking houses and buildings and a few stationary old cars. As we neared the pre-arranged meeting place, we saw Spot and Dynamo coming towards the same junction from our left.

‘What a dump,’ Dynamo said as they caught up with us. ‘How can anyone live in a place like that? The poor sods haven’t got much, have they?’

‘Whose bright idea was it to carry these stinking things?’ Spot said in disgust, throwing the fish he was carrying into a nearby gutter.

‘Phooh, yeah, you’re right,’ Chalky said and we dumped ours too. ‘I think Lynch was having a bit of a laugh, there.’

We headed south along the fairly wide main road. In lots of places the concrete was cracked and holed and it was badly in need of repair. We saw very little traffic. Just a few pickups and the odd car or truck went by and a guy on a bike, but he just kept his head down and pedalled on.

As we walked, we discussed our contingency arrangements should I fail to fulfil the mission as planned. Obviously, we would need to go ahead and take the target out together with his two guards, as they posed the most immediate threat, and then make our escape in any ensuing confusion. We’d then head towards the busy port area, pretending to attempt to escape by boat, but would actually double back to the crowded main area of the city where we could lie low until dark. The military would probably continue to look in the area we first headed and not expect to find us back in the city centre. Dressed like the locals as we were, we would be able to blend in more there than if we headed straight out on to the open road.

Obviously, such a delay would mean that transport was imperative for us to make an escape. In order to do this, our best option would then be to head out towards the main road and try to get a military vehicle and some uniforms to help us get out of the city and back to the village: military vehicles would not generally be stopped at roadblocks or checkpoints. However, we didn’t plan in too much detail; if we needed to change our original idea we would simply play it by ear, making use of whatever was available around us at the time.

We walked for about four miles with the sea on our right and although still early in the day, it was already very hot and sweat was pouring from us. Hearing a truck approach us from behind just as we began to climb up a steep hill, we kept our heads down until it passed by and continued on its way. It was an old vehicle and as it reached the brow of the hill, it began to struggle and gradually slowed down until it was barely moving.

As we’d kept up a steady walking pace after it passed us, we’d now almost caught up with it and were actually beginning to overtake it. Just then, another truck appeared over the brow of the hill travelling in the opposite direction, loaded with workmen and armed troops. Chalky, who was leading the way, quickly indicated to us to fall back behind the slow truck and use it for cover. It didn’t look as though the old truck was going to make it so I kept my head down and started to give it a push and the other three joined in. By this time, the truck with the troops had driven by without giving us a second glance and headed off towards the village we’d just walked from.

The slow-moving vehicle was loaded down with crates of fruit and apples and as it eventually climbed over the brow of the hill Dynamo jumped on to the back, smashed open one of the crates and threw each of us an apple.

‘Here’s lunch lads,’ he said, laughing.

The truck began to pick up speed as he jumped off and the driver beeped his horn in acknowledgement of our help. Dynamo waved back at him, a half-eaten apple in his hand, then suddenly the truck stopped, the passenger door opened and a man climbed out. Immediately we stuffed the apples up our shirtfronts like naughty schoolboys, as the man called out something in Arabic. Dynamo walked towards him and they had a brief conversation before the guy got back in the truck and it drove off.

Dynamo turned to us with a huge grin on his face and bit into his apple. ‘I thought we might have a spot of bother there for nicking the old boy’s apples but he very kindly offered us a lift into town, chaps, which was jolly decent of him, don’t you think? Naturally I had to decline his offer,’ he said, as we all burst into helpless laughter.

From the top of the hill, we could see the skyline of Beirut in the distance, about five miles away, its buildings outlined against the sea where a couple of large ships were heading towards the coast. We sat for a few moments eating our apples watching the distant city. It looked massive to me, the biggest place I’d seen in my life so far. I couldn’t believe that we were actually going to walk right into this place and kill someone in broad daylight.

The outlines of the buildings were totally strange to me with round roofs and towers and funny spires unlike anything I’d seen before. Dynamo told me they were called mosques and minarets.

‘Some guy goes up there a couple of times a day and screams his bloody head off and the rest of the daft sods fall on their knees,’ he told me, laughing as we set off once more towards the city.

It was blisteringly hot under the cloudless sky. The road was dry and stony and our feet kicked up little clouds of dust as we walked, and our boots and trouser legs were caked with the sand and dirt. Just past an old burnt-out rusting car, a stream of water ran down towards the road. This flow probably should have gone underneath the highway through a nearby pipe we could see, but this was badly cracked and broken, allowing the water to take the route across the ground. It was probably a sewer and it stunk; the stench was indescribable. The foul liquid was covered with swarms of flies and insects which flew up into the air as we ran past with our hands covering our mouths, noses and eyes.

‘Filthy bastards,’ Chalky said. ‘God knows what’s lurking and fermenting in that lot.’

Dynamo turned to me again. ‘By the way, Geordie, have you got that needle handy?’

‘Yeah, just a second.’ I looked at my sash and pushed the buckle up but couldn’t find the spot where I’d hidden the wire. ‘Bloody hell, I think I’ve lost it! I can’t feel it!’ I said, frantically feeling along the bottom.