The Gulf Conspiracy Read Free

beside him.
    Maclean shrugged and glanced from side to side before saying, ‘The official line is that there was no confirmed chemical attack on the base.’ He stressed the word ‘confirmed’.
    ‘ I though you guys confirmed it,’ said Childs.
    ‘ Every detector on the fucking base was screaming gas attack but the brass are pretending it never happened. What’s the point of having the team here if they’re not going to believe us? Who else can “confirm” it if we can’t for Christ's sake?’
    ‘ Fuck me,’ said Childs. ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you?’
    ‘ My granddad used to tell me about the fuck-ups the army made in his war,’ said Anderson. ‘Lions led by donkeys and all that. Some things never change.’
    ‘ And what about the all-clear sounding?’ asked Childs.
    ‘ That’s something else again,’ said Maclean. ‘Nobody’s putting up their hands for that one. Hundreds of our guys were exposed to nerve gas unnecessarily and no one’s to blame. It just never happened.’
    ‘ Bad enough fighting the Iraqis without our own mob having a go at us as well,’ said Childs.
     
     
    32 Field Hospital
    Wadi al Batin
    23rd January 1991
     
    Surgeon Commander James Morton watched as the helicopter touched down and sent sand flying up in all directions. As its side door slid open, three field medics ran forward in a crouching run to assist in evacuating the patient from the aircraft. The injured man was a vehicle technician who had been working on an armoured personnel carrier and whose arm had been caught in the half-track when a fellow technician, unaware of his presence, had started up the vehicle and attempted to move off. The man’s right arm had been all but severed. Plans to fly him to a proper hospital had had to be abandoned when blood loss became critical. Wadi Al Batin was the nearest place with the sort of medical facilities that might be able to cope with the situation.
    Morton looked at the face of the unconscious man and listened as one of the field medics reeled off a series of statistics as the patient was transferred from stretcher to table. He couldn’t be much more than twenty years old. He should have had all of his life before him. ‘Blood?’ he asked.
    ‘ On its way,’ replied one of the masked nurses.
    ‘ Let’s have a look,’ murmured Morton as he gingerly peeled away the wad of dressings from the patient’s arm. ‘What’s his name?’
    ‘ Jackson, sir. Private Robert Jackson.’
    ‘ Well, Private Jackson,’ said Morton. ‘I’m afraid your soldiering days are over, old son, and I hope to God you’re left-handed because this is going to have to come off. Make ready for amputation everyone, will you? How’s he doing?’
    The question was directed at the anaesthetist, a young RAMC lieutenant who had taken up station at the head of the patient and was taking readings from the monitors he’d been attaching to Jackson.
    ‘ Not good. He’s very weak.’
    ‘ As I see it, we don’t have much of an option,’ said Morton.
    ‘ You don’t think it’s worthwhile just trying to stabilise him and then transferring him to somewhere with a proper ICU?’ asked the lieutenant.
    Morton shook his head slowly. ‘Much as I’d like to, I don’t think I could get him stable with that mess still attached to his shoulder. Apart from that, the chance of infection in this hell-hole increases with every minute that passes. His only hope is a quick amputation, so let’s get on with it. Where the hell’s that blood?’
    ‘ It’s here,’ replied one of the masked figures as a vehicle pulled up outside the field hospital.
    Twenty minutes later Morton paused and stood back to allow the severed limb to be wrapped in gauze and removed from the table. Once again he asked for an update on the patient’s condition as he drew together the two flaps of skin he’d deliberately left attached in order to form a neat stump and started suturing them.
    ‘ Still iffy,’ replied the