The Sixteen (30 page)

The first guy spoke again: ‘OK, chaps, we’ve got ten minutes before the truck arrives.’ It was weird to hear such a cultured and very English accent coming out of such a desperate looking bunch. ‘There’s a sewer running underneath the railway and unfortunately we’re going to have to pass through that rather than go across the top. We don’t know when another vehicle might come along that road and we don’t want to be seen crossing the railway lines,’ he went on, pointing to the map in front of him. ‘Now, we’re here, there’s the railway and there’s the road, this is a bit of a dust track which is where our truck will be waiting. Oh by the way, lads, meet Geordie, Sixteen.’

I didn’t know what he meant by that and nudged Chalky raising my eyebrows.

‘He means you’re the last one in, Geordie,’ he explained. ‘You know, number sixteen.’

Still crouched under the canvas they all began to introduce themselves to me; it was a bizarre experience and I was dying to laugh. There they all were dressed up like locals speaking perfect Queen’s English, politely telling me the names they were known
by in the group, as though we were at some vicarage tea party or something.

‘Pleased to meet you, Geordie, lad.’

‘Glad to have you on board, old chap.’

I felt a light kick on my backside and a voice behind us.

‘Hey, Dynamo’s bunch, grab this lot will you!’

There was a rattle of metal and, as we came out from under the canvas cover, a Sten was pushed into my hands, plus five magazines and some loose bullets. Dynamo and Spot were given .303 rifles, Chalky another Sten, it also looked as though they’d been given several grenades. Quite a variety of weapons were being used, with each man having something slightly different from the others.

The guy who handed them to us spoke again. ‘Don’t forget, we want these back, make sure you leave them in the truck when you return.’

Shoving the ammo into my bag, I slung the strap of the Sten over my shoulder and followed the others as they began to move off towards the large sewer pipe underneath the railway line. The pipe was about thirty yards long and roughly six feet in diameter; the stench inside was horrendous, and nauseated, I felt my stomach heave. We stumbled and slid our way through, arms outstretched touching either side of the slime-covered walls as we followed the tiny red signal light of the guy at the front.

‘Jeesus, what a stink!’ I said, revolted by the feel of what my hands were now covered in.

‘Hey! Don’t use that name around here,’ someone said, sniggering. ‘You could start another bloody war.’

‘What the hell do these wogs eat, it smells more like sheep dung?’

‘Oh, you’ve tried the local speciality have you?’

There was a ripple of barely suppressed snorts and giggles from down the tunnel.

‘OK, belt up, you lot!’ someone said as we emerged from the pipe and gratefully filled our lungs with clean air before scrambling up the embankment to the road on the top.

About two hundred yards away I could just make out the tiny dots of vehicle sidelights and followed the others towards the waiting truck, tripping over loose stones and rubble on the rocky, uneven ground. Despite the fact that we now had the benefit of moonlight, it was still difficult to see.

At the back of the old army truck, which Bren had waiting for us, I threw my bag inside and was about to climb in when I felt a pair of strong hands grab me by the collar and hoist me up. I straightened up and I found myself face to face with a well-built, strong-looking guy of about my own height, who leaned towards me to get a better look.

‘Ah, you must be, Geordie,’ he said shaking my hand. ‘I’ve heard all about you.’

‘I hope I got a good report,’ I replied.

‘That Cairo stuff, very clever, eh!’ he said with a wink. ‘My name’s Royston, by the way, I’ll talk to you later.’

We settled on to the hard wood benches fixed down either side of the truck and Bren drove off immediately. Half of the canvas covering the back of the truck was missing and from what I could see and hear, it appeared to be in a fairly dilapidated state. Each time we hit a rut or bump in the road the whole thing rattled so much that I thought it was going to fall to bits. I couldn’t clearly see anyone’s face in the poor light, but I could make out the shapes of the guys sitting opposite to me and was surprised to see that they all looked to be of about the same height and build.

Bren drove with the lights off, only switching them on every so often to make sure of his bearings. How he managed to see is beyond me. I was sitting next to the cab where a small square had been cut out of the canvas. Peering through this I tried to see through the windscreen, but couldn’t make out anything other than a rough dusty track lined with huge rocks and boulders each time Bren switched on the lights.

‘How the hell does he know where he is?’ I asked.

‘Don’t worry, he practically lives here and knows the place like the back of his hand, he’s almost one of the locals. Nothing goes on around this area without us knowing about it, you could say he’s our inside man,’ the guy sitting next to me explained.

It was pretty rough going, as we jolted and bumped our way along the potholed track, and after about fifteen minutes, it was obvious that we were climbing through a fairly mountainous area. The engine was straining and I wondered whether the old truck would make it or not. We travelled on slowly for over an hour and then began to descend steeply. Shortly afterwards Bren abruptly stopped the truck and immediately switched off the engine. Everyone jumped out at once.

‘Right lads, this is where I leave you,’ Bren said. ‘Try to keep in a straight line from here to the river, don’t go too far to the right it’s a bit marshy over there. You should find what’s left of an old bridge only a couple of hundred yards away in that direction over there,’ he said, pointing. ‘Dynamo, I’ll be back for you lot early Thursday morning, wait by those old ruins over there. I’ll flash the lights twice and you’ll know it’s me.’

‘What about the rest of them?’ I asked Chalky.

‘Everything’s taken care of, Geordie, come on!’ he said and made his way over to the others who were now huddled together near a group of trees on the hillside, checking our position.

‘OK,’ Royston said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ And grabbing our gear, we started down the mountainside into the Huleh Basin below.

What little I could see of the area in the moonlight appeared to be flat open land. It was mainly dark and silent, the only sound being the roar of the nearby river as it ran through the valley below us. Judging by the noise of the rushing water, it appeared that Ken was right, it sounded pretty rough!

It was a cold, clear night; the moonlight seemed to have brightened a bit, which made it a little easier to see by as we headed towards the sound of the river. Gradually we began to see brief flashes of water, silvery in the moonlight and after about twenty minutes walking the firm ground began to soften beneath our feet: we’d reached an area of marshland near to the river. It was beginning to get very cold now and I was very glad that Ken had warned us not to forget the veg. grease. As we neared the tree-lined riverbank, the land rose a little and the marsh area gave way to drier, firmer ground.

‘There are trees and bushes on this side but there’s nothing for us to use on the other side at this point. So we need to find what’s left of that old bridge Bren mentioned, it can’t be too far away,’ Royston said. ‘Once across we follow an old track on the other side.’

Two of the guys immediately headed up river and another two went in the opposite direction to try to find the remains of the bridge, while the rest of us sat down to wait and tried to estimate just how wide the river was – it appeared to be about thirty yards across. After about fifteen minutes, the two guys who had gone down river came back.

‘We’ve found it, it’s about three hundred yards this way,’ one of them said.

‘You’re right about it being old, Royston, there’s virtually
nothing left of it, just a couple of posts sticking out of the ground,’ the other added.

‘OK, well let’s hope there’s something on the other side we can use then. Go and get the other two and we’ll see you down there,’ Royston told him and we immediately set off south along the riverbank.

After a few minutes we reached the remains of what had been some kind of bridge. The guys were right, there was very little of it left.

‘Can you see anything on the other side?’ Royston asked, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the noise of the wide, swollen river as it rushed loudly past.

Ken was right, it would be totally impassable for anyone to get across using conventional methods, except for us. The previously clear sky was beginning to cloud over and the moonlight was now intermittent. Even using our binoculars it was difficult to make anything out so far away in the dark. We waited for a few moments until the moon came out again.

‘Look, there seems to be some kind of girder sticking about five or six feet out of the ground with another post just behind it,’ a guy who’d introduced himself to me as Reg pointed out. ‘Can the rest of you see it?’

‘You’re right,’ Spot said.

The stubby remains of an ‘H’ girder stood out of the ground a few feet away from the edge of the embankment with another, smaller, wooden post sticking up a few feet behind it. Royston scanned the opposite bank through his binoculars.

‘Well, there doesn’t appear to be anything else around,’ he said. ‘We’ll just have to use that, Reg. Watch out for those bushes in the background. We’ll get Spot to do this end of it.’

Reg and another guy named Den moved off about twenty to
thirty yards further down the river until they were at cross-angles to the steel girder. Once there, they took out their light lines, crossbow and a snub-end bolt. Reg, the guy with the crossbow, fastened a light line to the bolt, the other end of which was coiled around a side spool fastened on to Den’s belt. Den then positioned himself in the direction the bolt would take as Reg scanned the opposite bank through his binoculars in order to line up between the two obstacles on the other side: the steel girder and the wooden post. The object of the exercise was to fire the bolt between the two posts and a few yards beyond them.

All he needed now was a little bit of light from the moon and he waited until it came out from behind a cloud, then fired the crossbow and the line went screaming across the river and between the two posts as he’d planned. Den stood where he was while Reg came back to let us know that they had succeeded. Although we’d all been watching through our binoculars, it was still difficult to see the line lying there.

‘OK, Spot, you’re the man for the job, get yourself here,’ Royston ordered.

Spot also had a fixed side spool attached to his belt and immediately began to pull line off it, measuring out what he estimated to be the width of the river (his speciality) and allowing for a couple of yards past where we believed the line to be lying. We couldn’t afford for his line to go any further than that due to a number of small bushes directly behind the posts, in case his pick-up arrow became entangled. When he’d measured off the distance of line he required, he tied up the remainder of it on the fixed spool so no more would reel off. Then, picking up his crossbow, he dropped to one knee, and carefully placed the pick-up arrow in it before firing across the river. He aimed just to the left of the steel girder and slightly beyond, where he believed Reg’s line to now be lying on the ground.

Spot’s line also went screaming past the post on the other side then suddenly tightened and came to an abrupt stop before dropping to the ground. We couldn’t see if it had in fact crossed the other line but Spot-on wasn’t called that for nothing!

Slowly he began to pull the line towards him. If everything went to plan, the pick-up would collect Reg’s line lying on the ground as Spot pulled it backwards. As he continued pulling, Reg came rushing back to us.

‘It’s on, it’s on, it’s picked up!’ he exclaimed.

Spot grinned and winked at me.

The line attached to the spool on Den’s belt had begun to tighten as Spot pulled on his line, so Reg had immediately known they’d been successful! Now Den began to release more of his line, as Spot pulled Reg’s arrow over towards us. As it reached us, Den came back along the riverbank; his light line was now looped around the girder on the opposite bank and coming back to us. Spot removed the snub-nosed arrow, which Reg had fired across the river, and tied our heavy abseil rope to Den’s light line.

Now Den began to reel in his light line, bringing with it the attached heavy line, which looped around the girder on the opposite bank and came back to him. All we had to do was to tighten the heavy line using our pulley wheels and fasten ourselves on to the rope with our harnesses.

The whole exercise took merely minutes to execute and enabled all of us to cross the swollen, fast-flowing river in absolute safety, without getting wet. By using this method, it was impossible for any of us to fall into the river.

Once the last man was across, a couple of the guys released the tension on the main line allowing it to sink beneath the river, then they scrambled down the embankment, pegged down the main
line and hid the coiled remainder of rope in some bushes, thereby ensuring our method of escape.

The whole process was carried out quietly and efficiently, hardly a word was spoken, no one gave any direct orders, it was unnecessary. We all knew exactly what to do and how to do it, and we all had the same capabilities.

On the other side of the river, a narrow track led away from the remains of the bridge, which we followed for about five or six hundred yards to where it made a ‘T’ junction with a much broader, and by the look of it, fairly well-used, dusty road. This road we knew led up into the hills and eventually to our objective, no more than half a mile away, with the town of Jarâba itself further south of this position.

In order to avoid detection, we now broke up into our groups and fanned out, all heading in the same direction, to our pre-arranged rendezvous point in the hills.