Marine J SBS Read online

  The door to the pub opened and Mick Morgan walked in, a man so big that he made even Willan look diminutive. He spotted his sergeant and immediately made a beeline for him.

  ‘Will! Scuttlebutt just heard.’

  ‘What is it, Mick?’

  The bigger man lowered his voice and leant close.

  ‘The grapevine has it that there’s an op on, somewhere in sunny climes, and 2 Squadron is providing the bodies.’

  Willan straightened. ‘Where’d you hear this?’

  ‘In the NAAFI. I brown-nosed the chief clerk. It’s all black as hell, need-to-know and all that, which means, of course, that every fucker except us knows what’s happening.’

  ‘Any details?’

  Morgan winked. ‘Fancy going on safari, Will?’

  ‘You’re shitting me, Morgan.’

  ‘No – straight up. Rumour Control has it they’re wanting two four-man teams for a little sneaky-beaky stuff down where the lions roam, to help out our colonial brothers, as it were.’

  ‘Fuck me pink.’ The cigarette burnt forgotten in Willan’s fingers. ‘We’re the only section actually in barracks at the moment. Three section is running about on Dartmoor, and One is doing that dive off the Lizard. Christ, Mick, it could be us.’

  The big SBS man was grinning from ear to ear. The pool players had stopped their game and were watching Willan intently, smelling what was in the wind.

  ‘I’ll bet you a pound to a pinch of pigskin that we get a Warning Order tonight,’ Willan said, eyes shining. ‘Mick, get hold of Willy Geary, and get together all the lads. I want them back in barracks early this evening, just in case.’

  ‘They’ll love that, Sarge.’

  ‘Let them piss and moan. I’m not going to let One or Three get even a sniff of this little plum.’

  Sure enough, the Warning Order came through that night. Seventeen years in the military had sharpened Willan’s intuition as far as operations were concerned.

  The section was placed on a three-day Readiness to Move, and Christmas arrived early, with great piles of equipment being issued to the eight men. Tropical combats were among the gear given out, confirming Rumour Control and Morgan’s predictions.

  As well as the High Power Browning 9mm handguns which were standard issue to all British Special Forces, they were also issued with the new Ingrams 9mm machine-pistol. Twenty-two centimetres long and weighing only 1.6kg, it can fire twenty rounds in a second. With the weapons came suppressors to eliminate flash and cut noise. Willan and his men spent a day on the range familiarizing themselves with the deadly new weapons, as happy as boys who have been let off school. They were warned, however, to keep consumption of ammunition to a minimum, and to fire on automatic only as a last resort. They would be given other weapons when they reached their destination, and the Ingrams were to be kept for special missions and last-ditch situations only. That little snippet of advice left the SBS men looking at one another. For the first time they wondered what they were really getting into.

  They were to take Klepper canoes with them, but also four ‘Rigid Raiders’ with 35-hp outboards, each of which could have carried the entire section. Each man was also given a two-piece tropical diving suit and Mark II fins along with his standard diving equipment, and packed away in metal boxes were large quantities of ‘Willy Peter’, or white-phosphorus, grenades, and limpet mines.

  ‘What are we going to do down there – fight a bloody war all by ourselves?’ Willy Geary asked.

  Some of their questions were answered at the final briefing. They had been jabbed full of vaccines by RAF doctors and informed endlessly about the wonderful diseases and local flora and fauna that awaited them. Then at last they found out that their destination was Tanzania.

  They were to be flown in to Dar-es-Salaam by Hercules and from there transported to the town of Mwanza on the southern shore of Lake Victoria. There their mission would become twofold. They would set up a training camp, acting as though they were one of the old British Army Training Teams which had been so successful in Oman, and they would have a large number of Ugandan exiles and Tanzanian militia to lick into shape.

  While this was going on they would also make their own analysis of the situation in the country and report back to London through a contact who would make himself known on their arrival. If circumstances warranted, and they probably would, they would then embark on operations across the lake to chastise the Ugandan raiders who were currently terrorizing the lakeside towns of Tanzania. Their discretion was relied upon, which made Willan snort with amusement.

  It was a warm, late-summer afternoon and the briefing room was stiflingly hot, reminding the SBS men of what their destination would be like. The man giving the briefing wore civilian clothes – a shirt with sweat stains darkening the armpits, and a tie. He had not introduced himself except to say that he was authorized to answer all their questions, and that nothing inside the room would ever go outside it, until the team was in Tanzania itself. The SBS men were left feeling uneasy and irritated. The man was obviously a ‘spook’ from Intelligence, and he treated them as though they were a bunch of untrustworthy children. Most of what they needed to know they would find out when they were on the ground, they were told. There were good people there, already setting things up for them. By the time they arrived in Mwanza the camp would be well on the way to completion, and supplies of armaments, ammunition and equipment would be awaiting them.

  ‘What kind of stuff do these Tanzanians use?’ Morgan asked, raising a hand.

  ‘Soviet,’ their briefer told him. ‘AK47s, AK74s, RPG7s, Dragunovs – you name it, it’s there.’

  ‘No T-72s, though?’ Willan asked with a smile.

  The civilian did not smile back. ‘No. The Ugandan forces have heavy Soviet hardware, though it is badly cared for and the Ugandans are inadequately trained. If the shit hits the fan, you can expect to come up against BRDMs, BMPs and old T-55s – we know that Gaddafi has supplied at least sixteen of those in the last year. We are also informed that Amin has at least sixty MiG 16s and 17s based at Entebbe which could be used for bombing all the northern Tanzanian ports. And France has also supplied him with eighty Savarin armoured cars.’

  ‘Fucking Frogs,’ one of the men muttered.

  ‘What about the state of the Tanzanian military at the moment?’ Willan asked.

  ‘They have several hundred barely trained militia – basically a bunch of teenagers with rifles and little else. Nyerere has tried to give an impression of a population which will turn out and arm itself for any crisis, but it cuts no ice in Kampala. There are volunteers coming forward, however, and the Ugandan exiles are certainly keen enough.’

  ‘No heavy weapons at all?’

  ‘A few Second World War M3 half-tracks and a battery of ancient twelve-pounders. That’s all.’

  The SBS men shared dubious glances.

  ‘And if the shit really does hit the fan, and Amin invades, what do we do then?’ Willan wanted to know.

  ‘You will receive further orders once you are in-country to cover all contingencies. At the moment your mission extends only to the twofold responsibilities I have already outlined.’

  ‘And we will receive these further orders from this mysterious contact of yours in Dar-es-Salaam.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘In other words,’ Willy Geary said in a whisper, ‘it’s the spooks pulling the strings, not the Navy. Terrific.’

  ‘Are there any further questions?’ the civilian asked.

  ‘Aye.’ It was Jock Fraser, ‘the marine from Aberdeen’.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just how long do you expect us to be out there?’

  The man in the sweat-stained shirt shrugged. ‘Intelligence believes that if Amin does not invade by November, it’ll be put off for another year. The rainy season will be in full swing by then, and the roads will be in such a condition as to bog down his vehicles.’

  ‘A lot of Soviet hardware is amphibious,’ Willan pointed
out.

  ‘True, but as I said before, the vehicles are not well maintained, and the troops will not like risking them. Amin needs a quick, clean victory. He will probably try to sweep down to the River Kagera and hold it through the rainy season, moving again once the rains have let up. He has to keep his troops on the move, and he has to give them easy victories. His main reason for the whole operation – if it happens, of course – is to head off discontent in the Army. It is his only power base in the country – without it, he’s finished.’

  ‘So if we bloody the nose of the Ugandan Army, Amin may fall?’ Mick Morgan asked.

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘What if we’re captured?’ Tim Breckenridge asked from the back.

  His question seemed to startle the civilian.

  ‘I cannot foresee that possibility.’

  ‘But if it happens?’

  ‘Then the British consul will make every effort to ensure your safe release.’

  A wave of laughter swept through the room. ‘With or without our knackers?’ someone asked derisively.

  Willan raised a hand to quell the mirth. It was all too unreal – hard to take seriously. But that was a stupidly dangerous thing to do. A teenager with a Kalashnikov could kill as readily as a Spetsnaz. He resented the way his men were being drip-fed information, though. Clearly this was a ‘black’ operation. It would never appear in the papers, and if any of his men died in Africa he felt sure that their deaths would be put down to ‘training accidents’, as one or two SAS fatalities had been in Ireland. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he and his team were seen as expendable in the eyes of the man who was briefing them. There would be no back-up, unlike Oman, where RAF Strikemasters were on call, and where every effort was made to recover the bodies of dead comrades. The government would probably write off eight SBS men rather than suffer the indignity of trying to extract them from a bloody little war in Africa.

  Still, it was what he and his comrades were paid for. They had volunteered for the SBS precisely because it gave them the chance to be involved in operations such as this. They had made their own bed; now they must lie in it. Thank God almost none of them were married – just Tony Parker out of the eight in the section. Perhaps that had even been a factor in the choice of his section – few dependants left behind, fewer awkward questions from grieving wives if the worst happened. It would not have surprised him.

  ‘When do we leave?’ he asked the sweating and obviously annoyed civilian who had briefed them.

  The man cleared his throat. The room went silent.

  ‘Tomorrow night. You’ll fly by Herc from Brize Norton.’

  Willan stood up. ‘You heard the man, lads. I want everything squared away by noon tomorrow. Those of you who feel the need can wet your whistles with good English beer one last time, but God help you if any of you have more than two pints.’

  The briefing broke up. Unexpectedly, the civilian approached Willan and stuck out his hand.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  ‘I have a feeling we’ll need it,’ Willan retorted, smiling wryly.

  The heat hit them like a wave. From the thundering of the Hercules they emerged on to crumbling tarmac in the dark of the night, with the lights of the airport off in the distance. They had landed at the runway farthest from the little terminal building. Willan smelt aeroplane fuel, dank air and a whiff of vegetation. Sweat began pouring down his back and sides as he walked down the ramp, Ingrams at the ready. There were trucks waiting for them there with their lights blazing, making him curse angrily. The roar of the Herc’s engines drowned out his voice. Christ, it was hot, even at two in the morning.

  Black faces all around him, grinning whitely in the headlights’ glare. ‘Jambo,’ they said cheerily, Swahili for ‘hello’.

  ‘Anybody speak fucking English?’ he barked.

  A man in old US Army fatigues came forward. He was lean as a wire, his face a smiling ebony mask. He held out a hand.

  ‘John Kigoma. Very pleased to have you here, Captain. Come this way. My men will help you unload your gear.’

  Willan followed him to the rear of the trucks. They were old American M35 Studebakers, looking as though they were held together by string and chewing-gum. He slung the Ingrams, waved at Geary as the SBS corporal glared suspiciously at the crowd of black soldiers, then bent over the bonnet of the nearest truck, where Kigoma had spread out a grubby map.

  ‘See here, Captain. We load up all your things and we go down Pugu Road, turn left up Msimbazi Street and then we go out of the city, all the way. There is an old barracks about five miles out of town. There we rest up and pick up some men of mine. In the morning – or when it’s light anyway – we set off for Dodoma, about three hundred miles. Three days maybe. Only at Dodoma are there railway cars which can take your boats and our vehicles. There we get on the railway, and you sit on a special train all the way to Mwanza, through Tabora – six hundred miles. Another three days maybe. It depends on the tracks. So you see, Captain, in one week we will be in Mwanza, maybe, and then we drive to the camp, which is just north of the town on the Mwanza Gulf, right on the lakeside.’

  A week! The distances made Willan whistle softly. He had forgotten to take into account the fact that this was a primitive country, but also a vast one, where distances were measured in hundreds of miles. And he did not care for the number of ‘maybes’ in Kigoma’s itinerary.

  ‘We’re supposed to be meeting someone here – a European. A civilian, I think.’

  ‘Oh yes, Captain. That is Mr Prentiss. He is waiting for you at the barracks outside town.’

  ‘Good. Let’s get all the gear stowed away and get moving then. We don’t want the Herc sitting here any longer than necessary.’

  Most of the SBS section helped the local soldiers unload the big aeroplane, though Willan put Corporals Geary and Hill to patrolling the area around the plane as the process went on. The Rigid Raiders proved bulky but were heaved aboard the ageing trucks with brute force, as were the outboards. It took over an hour. The Hercules taxied away and one by one the trucks started up with coughing roars and great stinking clouds of exhaust smoke. Two SBS aboard each truck, weapons at the ready, and a crowd of Tanzanians hanging from every conceivable perch. The little convoy bumped off into the night.

  Willan wiped the streaming sweat from his face. Welcome to Africa, he thought.

  The outskirts of Dar-es-Salaam were quiet. There was not much night-life, Kigoma explained, except in a couple of big hotels that only tourists could afford. The whole place stank of badly kept sewers and the heat was like a soft blanket, even with the wind of the truck’s passage. Willan could see clouds of dust billowing up in the headlights, and he could feel it settling on his skin, gritting between his teeth.

  ‘Is it always as hot as this?’ he asked Kigoma.

  ‘No, not always. This is the dry season, from June to September. Rains will come in October for six months. You will wish it was back in the dry season again once October comes.’ He laughed.

  They left the city behind. The upholstery of Willan’s seat was split and frayed and he could feel the iron frame underneath grinding into his spine. He winced as the truck lurched and shook its way over potholes. He slapped his neck as something bit it.

  ‘Fuck. What about tsetse fly – much of it here down on the coast?’

  ‘Oh no, thank the Lord. It is in the grasslands – the Serengeti, and up towards the Great Lake. Lots of sleeping sickness there a few years ago, but the people moved out. Nothing but lion and antelope and elephant there now.’

  The trucks pulled up after what seemed an interminable time, the headlights illuminating a series of dilapidated buildings to one side of the road, and a sagging wire fence. Someone with a rifle came forward and Willan instinctively levelled the Ingrams.

  ‘No no,’ Kigoma said quickly. ‘These are friends here. These are my men – the Tanzanian Army.’ He called out something in Swahili and the man waved them on.

  They f
inally stopped in a wide yard within the complex of buildings. As the engines stopped and the men jumped off the trucks Willan checked the luminous hands of his watch. Almost four. It would be dawn soon.

  There was a quiet which seemed loud after the roar of the Hercules and then the trucks. He could hear insects by the million out in the bush beyond and, looking up, he saw a vast black arch of sky spattered with stars.

  He shook his head, detailed Geary to set a watch over the trucks, then followed Kigoma into one of the buildings from which light was flickering.

  A puttering Tilly lamp, a bare room with crude chairs and tables and a wrinkled poster of Julius Nyerere on one crumbling wall. Geckos clung to the cracked plaster, occasionally scuttling after insects. A man in a light-coloured jacket and trousers got up from the nearest table with a cigarette in his mouth and held out a hand.

  ‘William Prentiss. Glad to meet you.’

  Willan shook his hand. The man seemed deeply tanned, though it was difficult to tell in the light. He was thin as a reed and his hair fell down over his collar and ears. He might have been forty, but it was hard to say.

  ‘Sergeant John Willan. My team are outside.’

  ‘Good. Kigoma will show them somewhere to lay their heads for an hour or two. We start off just after dawn, and it’s a long trip.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘They measure distances in days here, as much as in miles, Sergeant. Kigoma is a good man. He’s a colonel in the Tanzanian Militia, but he’ll be acting as interpreter and general liaison officer for your men.’

  Willan sat down, setting the Ingrams on the rickety table. Prentiss offered him a cigarette, but he declined. His mouth was too dry and the heat was too intense. Prentiss said something in Swahili to Kigoma, who was still hovering at the door, and the man left. There was talk outside. Willan heard Geary shouting orders.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked Prentiss.

  ‘I work for Six, as you’ve probably guessed. I’ve been out here since ’70. I was in Kampala then – that was when Amin was the friend of both the British and the Israelis. He’s firmly in the Arab camp now, and is trying to make Uganda into a Muslim country – what’s left of it.’