Forward into Hell Page 5

  A young lad who had been sitting in the middle of the craft was manhandled to the front. He placed his GPMG on the ramp in readiness. His face was a picture. It had a look of ‘What am I doing here?’ that said it all.

  The OC was busy screaming down the radio ‘net’ for confirmation of the tank. After all, a machine-gun against a tank was not good odds. The OC passed the handset back to the signaller, looked up front at the gunner and asked him why he was there.

  ‘A tank, sir,’ he replied.

  ‘What tank?’ screamed the OC.

  ‘On the beach, sir.’

  ‘You twat,’ said the OC. ‘It’s a tent. Get down.’

  So nervous were we that we couldn’t help but giggle quietly at the balls-up. To say that that gunner looked relieved would be an understatement.

  The cramped conditions inside the landing-craft became unbearable. Trying to stand up with all our kit was impossible. Sweat ran down through my hair. My mouth was dry with nerves. I was longing to land now, even if we had to fight. Six weeks of sea was enough for any Para. I could just see over the side of our craft. Five to six other landing-craft were moving alongside us.

  Very impressive, I thought. And at least we’re not the only target.

  Fanning Head was still blazing, as the order to prepare for landing was screamed by the craft-handler to the Navy lad up front. The engine of the craft slowed as we reached our landing spot, Sandy Beach, according to the map. The ramp was lowered and we stood there enveloped in sweat, the adrenaline surging, waiting to launch our attack. But we were greeted by a stony beach. The image of storming it disappeared in a flash. Two hundred Paras hobbled off the landing-crafts. The stones and the kit we carried would have made it impossible to run, even if we had needed to.

  We deposited the mortar bombs about thirty metres ashore and began to make our way towards the small settlement. The settlement, roughly two kilometres away, consisted of about ten houses. Later, we heard that forty-three Argies had fled the settlement on seeing our arrival.

  We reorganised ourselves for the coming march. The weight of full SF kit and ammo was the heaviest we had ever had to carry. Slowly, we marched, sweating and puffing, over terrain that was to become a constant pain in the arse throughout the campaign.

  Within fifteen minutes, Pete Gray, a sergeant in B Company, screamed, ‘Air raid red.’

  Everyone fell to the ground and looked up. Clear sky, nothing. ‘Where’s the red, then?’ shouted some lads.

  ‘Up there somewhere,’ came a sarcastic reply.

  ‘Point your weapons upwards anyway. Make it look as if we’re doing something,’ I said to Steve and Taff.

  Whoosh. Three jets passed overhead before we could even fart.

  They screamed into San Carlos Bay to attack the task force’s shipping. There was a rattle of small-arms fire, then our missiles screeched into flight at the enemy. It was like watching a slow-motion movie. One of the jets disintegrated above a ship and the sea was showered with its remains.

  ‘Wow, what a turn-on,’ laughed some lad.

  ‘Shut up, you twat. Just fire if they come this way.’

  Within seconds, another two or three jets whizzed past, with a few token shots from us – too late, of course.

  Over the bay, where 2 Para were tabbing up the hills, a Pucará flew slowly into view. It seemed like a snail compared to the MIGs. A rocket flew out from the surrounding hills and hit its wing. The plane spun around and tried to manoeuvre away, then disappeared from view over a hill.

  The Navy fired everything they had at the jets. Some were hit, others flew off without a scratch.

  C Company moved up into a large group of hills called Settlement Rock, while A Company moved into the settlement of San Carlos. We in B Company had a long uphill tab towards Windy Gap. We were to be the first line of defence for the beach-head attack about to be staged at San Carlos. Tons of kit and troops were expected to land after we had secured the settlement. Windy Gap was about six kilometres inland, a bloody hard uphill slog.

  When we passed San Carlos, two Gazelle helicopters had just been shot down by some of the fleeing enemy. Word very quickly went around that the crew had been shot in the water while trying to swim ashore. Our anger brought home the reality of war and introduced us to the type of enemy we would be fighting. I personally felt that, if we had caught those responsible, we would have killed them for the cowardly act. But weren’t all Argies cowards?

  Resting every few kilometres, we made our way to our position. My back was killing me. The sweat ran through my helmet and down my back like water. We wobbled up the hill swearing at everyone. ‘Not very happy teddy bears,’ as we used to say.

  Three-quarters of an hour later, we stumbled into Windy Gap, where the wind indeed shot through the small valley. Sitting on the hill, using my webbing as a back-rest, I looked back at the route we had marched. What a shitty place it was. It looked worse than Dartmoor and the Brecon Beacons put together.

  Within a few minutes, the cold wind was digging through my clothing, and as my sweat dried it produced a shiver all over my skin. I struggled to stand up with all my kit and my weapon in my hand and looked for Skiddy from the Anti-Tanks, who, together with us, would form B Company’s SF teams. It had been decided long before that the Wombats wouldn’t be used, much to their disappointment. Skiddy, Kev Connery and Johnny Crow, now with us, would form the gun teams for B Company.

  They were sitting slightly behind me. I walked over to them and found Kev was already making a brew.

  ‘What now?’ I asked.

  ‘Fuck knows,’ grinned Skiddy.

  We both agreed to set our guns about fifty metres apart and dig in. Looking at the area on the hill where we were, we decided that the valley and dead ground ahead of us was the most likely attack area for the Argies.

  We got out our shovels and started to dig a trench in our different positions. However, at no more than a shovel’s depth, water began to seep in. Taff stood laughing and Steve flopped to the ground, while I threw my shovel away in disgust. We all sat, making another brew, watching the small hole fill up. Skiddy, watching our progress, laughed, as he was having the same trouble.

  To crown it all, rain started to fall. It was like having a bucket tipped over us. We sat there, on a bloody hill thirteen thousand kilometres from home, in our wet-proofs in the rain, wind and sleet, with an air attack in progress and our trench filling with water. What a lovely war. But we were still laughing.

  The OC and his band of followers marched over to us. As we stood there with the rain lashing us, he decided that the gun positions weren’t correctly sighted. Map out, binos out. The gang of leaders decided we should move further down the hill, on to more of a slope, overlooking a valley. Our present position would then become the area to our left.

  Kit packed, weapons on shoulders, the two gun teams marched off to our new positions. These were a little better. We had a peat bank behind us, so we could blend in better with the terrain. The rain had stopped, but the wind screamed through our clothing. Because of an overweight webbing fighting order, no bergens had been carried on the landings. Promises that they would be delivered to our positions later that day were now broken and we couldn’t have carried that much kit in one go anyway. With last light creeping in fast it now seemed that we were in for a shitty night.

  A meal was cooked by the gun team’s chef, Steve. We packed all our kit away and set our SF gun on its FPA. I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit that, sitting on that hill, I wished that I was back between clean sheets.

  Our shelter that first night consisted of a poncho placed on the ground, stacked in four corners with peat and another poncho laid on top and weighted down with large stones. Webbing was used as head-rests, as cowboys use their saddles. We lay on this bed in our Arctic clothing, our feet wrapped in black poly bags, and settled down for the fourteen hours of Falklands darkness.

  Guards sat behind the SF gun, two hours on, four off. There was no sleep to be had, wh
at with the cold and rain, ponchos flapping all over the place and everyone restlessly changing positions all the time. It was a great first night.

  6

  AERIAL OVERTURE

  First light was a relief. We could move and do something. Having crawled from our cold, damp position, we stood up and ran on the spot, thumped each other on the shoulders and banged our feet together, to bring life back into our half-dead bodies. Breakfast and a brew finished, we set about improving our disgusting position.

  A few hours later, some stores arrived, four-by-four wood to use in constructing the bunkers that seemed to have been copied throughout B Company’s positions. Trenches were now a thing of the past, because of the wet and boggy ground.

  Skiddy, Kev and Johnny finished their bunker well before us and sat back watching us slave away at something that resembled a kids’ camp in the woods. Four platoon officers came around on inspection, seemed happy with even our poor construction and disappeared over the hill again.

  Struggling with drizzle, rain, sleet, wind and boredom was our next task. As we sat making a brew three hours after daybreak, ‘Air raid alert’ was being screamed over the hill.

  Jumping to our positions, we unlocked the SF gun and looked up, waiting.

  ‘Here they come!’ shouted Kev, pointing into the far distance.

  By the time we had looked in that direction they were on us. We fired as much as we could, in front of the coming enemy aircraft, hoping the rounds would hit. They were gone in seconds. We stood up and watched them dive into San Carlos Bay below.

  Grabbing my camera, as I always did, I watched a Seacat score a hit on one plane. We could hear the rattle of gunfire even from our positions. The planes flew round and attacked again, then headed towards us. Within seconds, they passed over us, through a barrage of small-arms fire from B Company and away into the safe distance.

  They attacked again later that day, from another direction. We could only watch and pray for the safety of the Navy.

  Pete Gray gathered the NCOs around him for a daily brief and informed us of things we weren’t interested in, but also informed us that A Company and C Company had had a ‘blue on blue’ some time earlier. Apparently, both companies had patrols out looking for the Argies who had escaped on our landing. One patrol had spotted the other and asked for mortars on their ‘position seen’. In turn, the other company asked for artillery on the first company. So a battle began between A Company and C Company, both firing small arms at each other. Within minutes, the operations officer in charge realised the error and radioed for a cease-fire, but not before three to four lads had been badly shot up, two of them suffering head wounds. The ops officer was temporarily removed from the task.

  Standing there, listening to stories of this type of balls-up made us wonder about the outcome of the war. Fortunately, the incident was the worst error 3 Para were victim to.

  The last meal of the day finished, we settled down for another night of cold, wet stag (guard) duties. While we were sorting out the duties between us, Taff spotted light flickering about three hundred metres in front of us, across the small valley. Shouting to Skiddy, we quickly relayed the sighting to Pete Gray and the chain of command came into action. We set our SF guns on to the still-flickering light and waited. With the ammo lying beside and attached to the gun, we sat trying to build up a mental picture of what could be out there. Argie patrol? Perhaps an attack? The platoon, slightly behind, watched and waited with us.

  ‘OK, OK, what’s going down here?’ asked the platoon commander.

  ‘That light,’ I said.

  ‘Strange. What the fuck’s that, then?’

  ‘You tell me, sir, but we’re waiting to shoot if you wish.’

  ‘Wait. I’ll find out.’

  The minutes passed by. An hour passed by. Nothing.

  In the end, the PC came trotting back to say he wasn’t really sure.

  ‘But Intelligence say they have lost a Marine patrol somewhere.’

  You’re telling me it’s either Marines lost in our line of fire, or perhaps the Argies?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, that’s about all, Corporal B.’

  I walked over to Skiddy, to inform him of the mess-up. ‘Looks like we’ll have to wait till it moves.’

  All that night we watched that fucking light flicker in front of us, as we sat waiting to fire. The threat wasn’t as bad as we thought. It was just the unknown.

  First light found us still by our guns, watching and waiting, very cold and thoroughly pissed off. Out of the early-morning mist came a batch of Marines who had sat on the hill all night after their officer had got them lost. We all stood there grinning and making sly remarks. Not one man replied: the humiliation of it all was too much. I often wondered how and why the incident happened, but, above all, did they kill that officer? Because we could have killed the lot of them.

  The next air attack flew in to our right, down the valley, just above the water-line of the river that led to San Carlos Bay, now nicknamed ‘Bomb Alley’. Again we fired, but with little hope of hitting these fast targets. The enemy aircraft banked away and headed up through C Company’s area. Watching them, on the hill, had been the Artillery’s Blowpipe teams. Their NCO was away at the time, about one hundred metres in front of their position, having a crap. We could just see him trying to pull up his white longjohns and denims, when his partner fired the missile. Whoosh. It screamed into life, trying to attach itself to the heat of the aircraft.

  We watched the missile go, swaying, then stop in midair, just like an early film of rocket exploration. It started to plummet to the ground just above where their NCO was trying to dress himself. We watched him trying to run, his trousers half-down, across that terrain. It was like a comedy show. He dived into the grass as the missile hit and exploded very near to where he had been crouching. By now, we were rolling about in fits of uncontrollable laughter.

  ‘The age of technology!’ screamed Steve.

  The bergens and resupplies of compo arrived, much to our joy, later that day. That night seemed like luxury. With the stag system now brought down to two hours on, ten off, shared between our two gun teams, we had plenty of kip. The warmth of the sleeping bags brought new life to us all.

  The third day passed in the same way as the previous two. We waited for news of what to do next. The air attacks continued and we admired the bravery of the enemy pilots. They were hit from every angle, but still continued to attack. Some of us wondered whether their land forces had the same attitude. If so, we would be in for some hard battles.

  Orders came down that we were not to fire any more small-arms rounds at the enemy aircraft as this was unnecessary wastage. So we sat and watched the Navy slog it out, much to our anger. However, on the last attack of that day, an eighty-four-millimetre anti-tank rocket was fired and some lads still shot at anything that moved, just to feel they were doing something constructive. So much for orders. The last plane to fly over us was hit by small-arms fire. Pete Gray screamed that it was hit by him. The plane smoked badly and slowed, before spiralling over the distant hills.

  In front of us was a small pond. Skiddy and Kev had watched a gaggle of geese sitting on it, trying to elude the war and the unaccustomed activity around their home. We decided that, during the next air attack, we would kill them for fresh meat. Three planes flew in together. Not one shot was fired at the enemy, but plenty at the geese. Not one of us hit his target. We all looked at each other and couldn’t believe we’d missed. The geese flew away, seemingly laughing at us, no doubt feeling safer on the enemy side of the island.

  ‘That takes the biscuit, missing enemy geese as well as the aircraft,’ roared Kev.

  The next day, Steve was washing the mess tins out in the pond when another air attack came screaming in.

  ‘Stay there, Steve,’ I screamed.

  Looking up, having only half-heard, he stood and walked towards our positions with his hand cupping his ear to try to hear me. We all dived to the ground as the fir
st air attack of the day roared towards us. It was a Mirage, lower than normal, so close you could see the pilot as he fired a short burst of cannon fire at Steve, who by now had decided he would be better off behind the gun than armed only with dirty mess tins.

  The enemy rounds missed by miles, but their thundering fire brought home the seriousness of it all. Steve stood up when the plane had passed, looking up nervously, then picked up his mess tins and walked back to us. He looked a bit shocked. He threw the mess tins at all of us and said, ‘You can fucking clean them next time.’

  Sitting in the bunker, Taff and I kept grinning at each other, until we burst out laughing at Steve, who still looked hacked off. ‘Fucking leave it out, you pair of kids,’ he screamed.

  He calmed down and, much later, giggled with us.

  On about day five, we went back into the settlement for R & R. What a joke that turned out to be. Although we were the furthest forward of the troops, it was decided to let us rest away from our dangerous position for twelve hours. What got us was the fact that we had all been quite happy in our bunkers, away from the hassle of officers and too many chiefs. All the same, we stumbled back the six kilometres to the settlement, with half of B Company. We passed one of the burned-out Gazelles that had been shot down on ‘D-Day’.

  When we reached San Carlos, everybody appeared to be running about doing their own thing. The arrival of B Company seemed to cause an upset to the routine, but not for long. We grabbed an all-in airborne-style stew from the cooks and were given some hot water to wash in. Many of us chose to wash our private parts and change our underwear.

  We then moved into a sheep shed, to be greeted by the sight of two hundred lads, all trying to pitch their sleeping bags for the night.

  ‘Brilliant,’ whispered Steve, ‘we’ve a great little bunker sat empty up the hill.’

  ‘Looks like we’ve got some nice cushioned wooden floorboards for the night,’ added Taff.