Crossfire Read Free

embedded.
'Entombed, more like,' Pete said. He'd been a
tankie himself once upon a time, and even he
didn't like the lid coming down. We were
jammed shoulder to shoulder in the eerie red
glow of the night-lights. Rhett's scuffed and
dusty desert boots were level with my face. The
gunner was up there on his left, frantically feeding
rounds into the 30mm cannon.
    The wagon took one final hard right and came
to a jarring, gut-wrenching halt. The stern reared
up under the momentum, then crashed down
like a breaking wave.
    'Dismount! Dismount!'
    Rhett's shout was drowned by the cannon
kicking off above us.
    Dom got a punch from one of the Kingsmen
and hit the button above his head. The rear-door
hydraulics whined. I could see stars, hear the
roar of gunfire and heavy machinery.
    The four recce guys tumbled out into the inky
blackness. Pete shoved a hand over his lens and
we followed.
    My Timberlands slid and twisted on the rubble
as I ducked down against the bar armour, gulping
fresh but dust-laden air. Oil wells blazed out
of control on the horizon. Gases and crude
were being forced out of the ground under
phenomenal pressure, shooting flames a hundred
feet into the air.
    The night was filled with the thunder of 30mm
cannon kicking off across the dried-up wadi bed
that separated us from our target – the buildings
no more than a hundred away. It had prevented
the drivers going right up to the front doors.
    I was hungry for more air. My nostrils filled
with sand, but I didn't care. I had my feet on the
ground and I was in control of them. And, thanks
to the mortar platoon, I could see what was
happening. Their 81mm tubes had filled the sky
with illume. Balls of blazing magnesium hung in
the air above the town before beginning their
descent, casting shadows left and right as they
swung under their parachutes, silhouetting
the two massive Challengers rumbling left and
right of us.
    Bright muzzle flashes from four or five AKs
sparked up from the line of houses that edged
the built-up area.
    Our gunner switched from the 30mm Rarden
cannon to the 7.62mm Hughes Helicopter Chain
Gun to dish out a different edition of the same
good news.
    Two Warriors lurched to a halt alongside us,
throwing up a plume of dust. My nose was
totally clogged now. Guys spilled out of the back
doors with bayonets fixed.
    Pete adjusted the oversized Batman utility belt
round his waist where he stuffed his lenses and
shit, and raised his infrared camera to his face.
He was like a kid in a sweetshop as the mass of
armour surrounding the town spewed infantry
into the sand.
    Dom got ready to do his Jeremy Bowen bit to
camera. He rehearsed a few soundbites to himself
as Pete sorted the sound check.
    'The Kingsmen of the Duke of Lancaster's
Regiment are halfway through their six-month
tour. They have been shot at twenty-four/seven
by small arms, RPGs and mortars, but ask any
one of them and they'll tell you it's what they
signed up to do.'
    Tonight they were about to kick the shit out of
the insurgents who were within spitting distance
of taking over Al Gurnan and starting to claim the
ground as their own. They had to be broken. An
insurgent stronghold soon became another link in
the supply chain from Iran, just ten clicks away.
    The Kingsmen's mission was to do the breaking,
and ours was to report it. Dom talked, Pete
filmed him, and I had to make sure the two
didn't get shot, snatched or run over by a set of
tracks sent screaming across the desert by a
bunch of jabbering Scousers.
    It wasn't easy. When Dom started playing
newsman, he seemed to think there was a magic
six-foot forcefield standing between him and any
incoming fire. Sometimes he thought he didn't
even need to wear a helmet. But in this war the
enemy didn't give a shit whether you were a
journalist or a soldier. If you were a foreigner
they wanted you out, preferably in a body-bag.
If they could get you alive, so much the better:
you'd be the new star of The Al Jazeera Show , and
all you could do was