13

There was one major reason behind our second offensive's stunning success. This time, we held nothing back. We went to war, and with every single weapon we fucking well had at our disposal. None of this peacekeeping one-arm-behind-our-backs shit any more. As the Yanks say, it was whoop-ass time.

It had even been given the name of a decent tube station this time. It was called Operation Waterloo.

Full credit to the Slipper City planners, they did some serious telephoning around before this one began. Everybody we knew was invited to the party. The battalion's A Company, who had been sitting down in Basra as a reserve force for the division, were called up for it.

Beautifully, brigade had managed to lay their hands on six Challenger II main battle tanks for our squadron of Queen's Royal Lancers attached to our battle group for the tour. The tankies were delighted. It meant they could bin the poxy Snatch Land Rovers that they hated and get back to doing what they did best. But when the news went round Cimic that we were going to have six times 62 tonnes worth of hurt on our side, I promise you we were happier.

But best of all, a US general in Baghdad agreed to loan us two AC130 Spectre gunships as close air support for the night. Spectres have been around since the end of Vietnam. They have the normal frame of a basic propeller-driven Hercules transport aircraft. But mounted on it is a devastating array of machine guns, cannons and various hi-tech sensors. Their poor vulnerability from ground rocket and missile fire means they can only come out to play at night. But it's well worth the wait. They are quite simply flying dragons of doom.

The Spectre smacks anything that moves for you, no matter how big or small, with three different weapons systems. Its two twin 20mm Vulcan Gatling guns spit out 7,200 rounds a minute each. They dump so much brass on the aircraft's floor that their gunners have to use shovels to clear up the spent cartridge casings at the end of the night. Then there's the larger 40mm Bofors cannon, firing 100 rounds a minute. But its pièce de résistance is a 105mm howitzer. It fires any 44lb shell, from concrete-penetrating rounds to airbursts, at a rate of ten rounds a minute. To feed that lot, the plane carries up to 10 tonnes of ammunition per sortie.

Flown and operated by a crew of thirteen, the Spectre can either be called in by forward air controllers on to specific targets or plod around happily self-generating its own. It can even engage three different targets at the same time, if you'd like it to.

We'd never seen one in action before. To say we were looking forward to that would be the understatement of the century.

Waterloo was also given an H hour of 2 a.m. But this time we weren't trying to avoid a confrontation. Instead, we went out looking for one. It was a ballsy trap for the OMS leadership, with their own bloated egos as the bait. The battle group was going to go right into the town centre as tooled up as possible, and just sit there on the OMS's doorstep. It was hoped that would cause them such affront, they wouldn't be able to resist a full-out assault. Once they were out in the open, we'd destroy them with overwhelmingly superior firepower. Essentially, it was come and have a go if you're hard enough. And there was even a classic snipers' job for us to do written into the plan too.

I briefed the platoon on the plan in Cimic's QRF room before we left.

'OK lads, this is what's going to happen. The two Warrior companies from Slipper City are going to form the main attack column. At the tip of it will be four Challenger IIs.'

'Awesome,' chimed in Des. Ever a fan of firepower.

'They're coming in via the front door, right up the Red route. The main road junction at Red 11 is where they're going to stand and fight. If it's aggro you're after, we all know they're going to get it there.'

Not only was Red 11 the OMS's favourite ambush point, but it was also only 500 metres from their HQ over a big bridge on the other side of the Tigris. As a meeting of two major dual carriageways, the expansive shape of the junction also gave any defender very clear 360-degree arcs of fire.

'Now our job. We're to mount a blocking screen between the town centre and the main source of the OMS's manpower, the Aj Dayya estate. Our orders are to take up covert positions at Blue 11 overlooking the roundabout there, report enemy reinforcements, and destroy them if need be.'

Pikey's gypsy nose was already twitching.

'Err, Danny, isn't that where Captain Hooker's lot got so badly smacked the other day?'

'Exactly.'

'Excellent. Fucking bring it on.'

'Now we've no idea what's going to come out of the Aj Dayya. Might be an army of them, or might be nothing. That's what we're there to find out. One thing's for sure though – we're guaranteed another grandstand view of the party again.'

We infiltrated as stealthily as we could in the darkness, first down Baghdad Street and then via a series of back alleys we knew. We didn't bother knocking on any doors. We just quietly climbed up the exterior of our chosen tall houses from their back gardens, giving each other a hand as we went up. We didn't want their owners to find out we were there until the morning.

We were spread out over the flat roofs of three houses in an arc facing east across the Tigris that gave us a good view into the estate. We were all on our bellies with our longs and vision aids set up and ready to go.

Set back from the roundabout is a large bronze statue of a horrible great fat ugly woman. She is Al Amarah's most famous resident. During the Iran–Iraq war, she killed a dozen Iranian soldiers by blowing herself into tiny pieces alongside them. Over the years, the myth had perpetuated, and now the locals proudly boasted that she killed 1,000 Iranians. Kids who played around her in the daytime used to look up at her in awe. It summed up the city for us: a place that hero worships fat ugly suicide bombers.

As the minutes slowly ticked down to H hour in the perfect silence of those early morning hours, I got butterflies in my stomach. I wasn't scared; I just really wanted the plan to work. After everything they'd done to us, we were desperate to see the OMS get some payback.

Three minutes after 2 a.m., we heard the first cracks of AK fire to the south.

'Fucking get some of it, you wankers,' whispered Ads to himself beside me. I clearly wasn't alone in my feelings.

The armoured column was entering the city. After being caught napping the last time, the OMS now posted spotters at night. They soon roused the ranks, and within fifteen minutes all hell had broken loose again.

Lines of red tracer and the flashes of RPG rockets poured down on the convoy. But this time, it was taking no prisoners. I followed the convoy's progress by listening in to its lead Challenger's radio reports on my Clansman.

As each junction on the road was approached, enemy positions on or around them were hosed down by the tanks' chain guns first, and then stormed by infantry dismounts in the back of the Warriors. Their job was to clear any remaining RPG nests and remove hidden booby traps the heavy vehicles couldn't see. It was pure mechanized urban warfare, tanks and infantry working side by side to seize a town by its short and curlies.

'Enemy destroyed, Red 6 clear,' reported the tank commander. 'Dismounts loading up now. Proceeding to Red 7.'

And just as the Americans had promised, there circling high above the convoy as it made steady progress north were the two Spectre gunships.

The Spectre crews really earned their pay that night. To the battle group, they were worth their weight in gold. The permanent low pitched drone of their four propeller engines was constantly reassuring. We couldn't see the convoy itself, but we knew exactly where they were from where the Spectres laid down their devastating fire. As long as the OMS men weren't shooting from civilian houses, they would pulverize them as soon as they were stupid enough to show themselves.

Red 11 was soon reached and secured. A tank sat out on each of its four corners, and the twenty-four Warriors panned into an all-round defence behind them.

'Red 11 clear. Now come out, come out wherever you are,' invited the tank commander.

The OMS fell for the trap immediately. Just over 976 tonnes of heavily armed steel in their faces sent them apoplectic, and hundreds of fighters were ordered out to retake the junction. The convoy became a huge magnet, the OMS's troops helpless iron filings.

Ground and air worked in tandem to beat off attack after attack; literally dozens, and they kept on coming. Of course, they stood no chance. The few RPG men that did get their rounds through on to target found their grenades just bounced off the Challenger's ultra thick skins like flimsy arrows. An RPG explosion on a Chally's hull would barely spill its gunner's coffee inside.

Once word spread that it looked like the Brits were going to hang around, we started to get busy too. Carloads of armed men started to leave Aj Dayya. We put rounds into their tyres to make it a little harder for them. Then came the familiar crump of mortar fire, and from very nearby. There was more than one base plate on the go. The OMS had set up a mortar line on five flatbed trucks just 500 metres away from us and were trying to pound Red 11. We could see the rounds launch, but had no direct sight of the base plates so we couldn't engage them ourselves.

We put in a request for Spectre air support. It was just the excuse we had craved.

I passed the coordinates back to the Ops Room in Cimic. Five minutes later, the drone of propellers moved towards us until they were somewhere above our heads.

The VHF beside me crackled into life.

'Alpha One Zero, this is Zero. Be advised Steel Rain is above you.'

Spectre pilots have call signs only the Yanks can get away with. Brit pilots would never be sad enough to call themselves Steel Rain. We loved it anyway.

There was more from the Ops Room.

'Alpha One Zero, Steel Rain has identified a group of armed men on rooftops around Blue 11. Send loc stats.'

Holy moly. The Spectre crews now had us on their little CCTV screens. To avoid a rather painful blue on blue, I didn't hang about telling them exactly where we were. Again via the Ops Room, I guided the Spectre crews on to the flatbed trucks. Then the mortar crews launched another volley, which only sealed their own fate.

Three minutes later, the Ops Room came on again.

'Alpha One Zero, Steel Rain has identified the target. Will use the 105s to neutralize. Steel Rain wants you to be advised that you are within "No Fire" range.'

'Acknowledged Zero. We're cool about that.'

If friendly troops are within blast or ricochet radius of the Spectre's armaments, its crew has to warn you before they fire. Shrapnel could go anywhere with a dirty great cannon firing at an angle out of the sky in the middle of a city at night. Each weapon has its own 'No Fire' range, and for the Spectre's 105mm howitzers it was 700 metres. If you're within 200 metres of its target, it's called Danger Close. It would take the CO himself to sign that off. The threat to us though was slim. We were 500 metres away, at height, and in good cover.

So the OMS mortar crews were going to get the good news from the 105s, were they? Fucking excellent. I passed the news around the platoon over the PRR.

'So keep your swedes down lads,' I was careful to add.

The Spectres didn't disappoint. It was like the gods joining the offensive on our side.

With a deafening boom and echo right above our heads, great balls of pink suddenly streaked down through the night sky towards the first flatbed truck and exploded on it in a rage of yellow flames. Sparks shot up hundreds of feet into the night sky, and bits of metal and wood flew off in every direction. The truck took six shells in a row, and it was like the thing was being hit with a giant hammer – bang bang bang bang bang bang. It pummelled it to pieces.

For Chris, it was all too much. The American blood inside him rushed to his head and he jumped to his feet and punched the air.

'Yeah, brother! Woo woo woo! Give them fucking hell from us!'

The fact that he was supposed to be an undercover sniper clean slipped his mind. But nobody was going to hear him over the sound of the howitzer.

'Shut up, Chris, you silly septic, we're supposed to be covert!'

'Sorry, Danny. Just couldn't resist it.'

Then the aircraft methodically moved on to the next flatbed, and gave it exactly the same treatment. All five of them got five or six shells each, around thirty in total. It was an awesome spectacle, easily the most impressive demonstration of firepower I'd ever seen. It was also a terrific feeling for us up there alone to know we'd got friends like that on our side. If only Spectre was around every time we got mortared.

The whole show lasted ten minutes before the aircraft's drone moved south again. Since each truck had a petrol tank, fires raged on the spot where the trucks once stood for the rest of the night, sending dust clouds high above the area. The smell of gunpowder, burnt wood and singed flesh was overpowering.

A few minutes later, we saw the gunship join its sister craft pounding down shells again around Red 11.

After three hours of furious combat, the OMS's attacks began to dry up. In their stupidity, they had badly worn their ranks down.

At dawn, the CO gave the order we'd all been waiting to hear. It was relayed across all the battle groups' PRRs.

'Advance and storm the OMS headquarters. Let's go and knock on their door.'

This time, all the snipers let off a huge cheer from our rooftops.

With the Challengers leading again, the column advanced over the bridge and on to Tigris Street at Yellow 3. It was met by a barrage of fire from the OMS building's defending force. Fighters were spread out across its garden walls and the park opposite by the river, the place we had codenamed Zinc. Spectre smacked into them too, silencing them in a few minutes.

With no more resistance visible, the OMS building was surrounded. Someone brought out a loudhailer to instruct everyone inside to come out with their hands up. But its occupants had long since fled, leaving their foot soldiers as lambs to the slaughter.

Instead, the Warrior dismounts that stormed it found a giant hoard of weapons of every shape and size. There were enough AKs to equip a battalion, along with mortar tubes, mortar rounds, heavy machine guns, rockets, blast bombs, missiles and mines. Even a Soviet-made AGS 17 automatic grenade launcher. It took three of our great big eight-tonne trucks to take all the stuff away.

A foot patrol sent into Zinc found Spectre's calling card all over the park: dismembered bodies with their rifles and RPGs still beside them.

By 10 a.m., the battle was over. Everyone was jubilant. Not only had we won a sweet victory overwhelmingly, but it had been a tremendous feeling to have been part of an armoured battle group at war. We were just proud to have been there.

We had to keep up our watch over Aj Dayya for the rest of the day, in case of a counterattack from the estate. Unexpectedly, the five of us on my roof ended up celebrating our success with some very rich homemade Arabic coffee.

Just after the OMS building was stormed, a set of keys went into the padlock on the other side of the sheet metal door that led down into the house whose roof we were on. We all spun round just in time to point our longs at the door. It opened slowly, to reveal a chubby bloke in his forties with a bushy Saddam Hussein moustache. He had a grin on his face from ear to ear, and clasped his hands together as he addressed us in fluent English.

'Not to be afraid. You are most honoured guests in my humble home. We heard you shouting in middle of night after airplane strike. Now we must make you feel welcome. You like Arabic coffee?'

'Err, well . . .'

'I am number one fan of British Army. Mehdi Army are scum. My father in England in 1950s. He was pilot in the Royal Air Force.'

With that, he puffed out his chest in pride. Extraordinary. We had managed to pick the house to sit on that belonged to the one person in Al Amarah who loved our country as much as any of us did. His name was Abdul, and his old man really had been in the RAF. After he invited a few of us down for coffee that was so thick you could stand a spoon up in it, we had to inspect all his father's old squadron photos. He had flown Canberra bombers out of RAF Cottesmore in Rutland. All of a sudden, his two best friends appeared. They too were huge British patriots, and shook our hands incessantly.

After half an hour of glad handing, I got sudden inspiration for a brilliant tactical move.

'Ads, I've got an idea. Come with me. Excuse us for a minute, Abdul, but where's your toilet?'

We found it on the bottom floor of the house.

'Right, Ads. What I'm about to do in there is top secret. It's vital you stand here and cover for me. Understood?'

'Sure, Danny.' He wore a frown of utter concentration. 'I'll follow you anywhere, mate.'

Not in here you won't.

I went inside the toilet and closed the door. Presented with a nice clean porcelain toilet cistern and wooden seat, I pulled down my trousers and pants and sat down in some considerable comfort. It was a tactical bowel move. Having been up on the roof all night, I hadn't been able to manage the morning constitutional. It was a shame to let such a good opportunity go to waste, and who knew when I might get it again? I needed Ads there just in case some mean-spirited OMS man ran in off the street and slotted me on the shitter.

'You sneaky bastard,' he said, shaking his head as I emerged. So I stood guard while he dropped the kids off at the pool too.

The great counterattack from Aj Dayya never came, so we took it in turns for one pair to do a stint on the roof while the other four spent the rest of the day watching TV with Abdul in his nice air-conditioned sitting room.

We were called back to Cimic at sunset. That evening, Operation Waterloo's second phase began. The two armoured Warrior companies and the attached company of Royal Welch Fusiliers had moved into the town's main police stations. At a synchronized time, all four companies in the city pushed out patrols to re-establish law and order on the streets.

The OMS scored an early success with an attack on Sgt Adam Llewellyn. A ten-year-old boy on a rooftop chucked a petrol bomb into his Warrior turret. The top half of his body was engulfed in flames and by the time they had got him out, there was skin hanging off all over him. His burns were awful, but the fact that it was a ten-year-old that had done him was most shocking.

Apart from that, the patrols met little resistance. The few other individual lunatics who took us on were shot dead on the spot. But there weren't many who tried. The OMS had been given a thorough kicking. Dozens of their men lay dead and they had little ability left to fight.

We had proved two important things: we had the bigger stick and we were prepared to use it. It wasn't a trick we could pull every day. The Spectre gunships and A Company's Warriors together were a rare treat that we would be lucky to get again. But the OMS didn't know that, and we weren't going to tell them.

We'd also won the town back for the price of just three serious injuries: Sgt Llewellyn, a corporal shot in the foot, and a private fragged by a grenade hurled from a passing motorbike.

The cherry on the cake for Y Company was found in what was left of a school classroom on the north bank. A muzzle flash had been spotted from a top window in the school during the battle. So a Challenger II put a shell from its main gun straight through it. The body of an OMS sniper was found under the rubble. Next to him was a Draganov sniper rifle. It had been the fucker that shot Baz Bliss.

*

A few days later, it was considered calm enough for the armoured companies to pull out of the police stations and leave it to the local cops to get on with it again. The chief of police was called in by our CO and Molly Phee for a delicate fireside chat.

'Your men have had all the training, we've cleared up the enemy for you, so, with respect sir, is there any reason why they can't start earning their fucking pay now?' the colonel asked him. And for a few days, they even did.

Out on patrols, we learnt what had been happening while we were locked down in Cimic. The OMS had enforced strict Islamic law on Al Amarah's streets. Women who dared to show their ankles underneath their long black veils had been beaten. A man had been shot in the mouth for drinking whisky. Normal people came up to us quite openly to thank us for doing something about it. Many seemed delighted the OMS had been forced to wind their necks in.

It was important to keep up the momentum and build on what we had achieved. Basic security on the streets allowed us to go after a number of smaller targets that we'd wanted to have a crack at for some time. We carried out a series of raids, smashing doors down with a heavy metal thumper. In one house near the OMS building, we found a massive arms stash inside a false wall in the garden. RPGs and boxes of ammo were stacked from the hide's floor to the top of the six-foot wall. The buffoon owner inadvertently put Pikey's well-honed street antennae on to it by standing right in front of it and looking deeply uncomfortable.

Prodding him in the chest with a finger, Pikey demanded: 'Oi jackass, why the fuck is you standing in front of that wall all the time we've been here?'

'What wall mister?'

That sealed it.