Chapter 1

The morning sun was beating down as I stripped off and ran over to the shower block. We had woken at 05.00 hours and done our PT, a 10K run followed by a series of exercises to keep us in tip-top condition.

We all did one hundred sit-ups, push-ups, and burpees. By the time we had finished, we were all drenched in sweat.

We were being billeted in the corner of a huge American base. This base was called Base New York or Base NY. There were around three hundred front-line marines, plus one hundred logistics staff, cooks, intel staff, mechanics armourers etc.

It was also the home to six choppers and their crews. There were also some armoured trucks.

The SAS teams preferred the American bases as they had great food and facilities. There were very few British bases with a Costa coffee shop to be fair.

I had my wash kit, towel, and a clean pair of shorts. The hot water washed away the desert’s dust, sweat and grime. I was the first of our brick to enter the shower block.

An SAS brick is the four-man team that we work in. There were four bricks in the camp plus some Ruperts (that is what we in the SAS call the officers) and a few armourers and Logistics guys.

Our troop was made up of the team leader Big Guns, or Guns as he was known.

His nickname came from the fact he had been in the Royal Artillery plus unlike most SAS guys, he was a gym bunny, and he had the guns to prove it, so Guns for the muscles and Guns for his time in the artillery. He was a couple of years older than the rest of us and had been in the regiment for seven years. Most SAS guys were mega fit, short and wiry but not muscle-bound. Guns was the odd man out.

There was the Doc, he was our team medic, so he was known as the Doc. Then there was Curly, he was our communications expert, when it came to radios, GPS and all that sort of thing he was the master. He was as bald as an egg and thus he was Curly. He was also one of the toughest bastards around and if there was hand-to-hand combat, he was the man to have in your corner. You only had to look at Curly to know he was a hard bastard.

Me, well I was the team sniper and they called me Rosie. That nickname had come from one of the instructors in Hereford. My name was Terry, someone called me T, the instructor was a cockney and T soon became tea and tea for cockneys is Rosie Lea, so I was Rosie.

Doc, Curly, and I were all Ex-paras as were most of the guys in the SAS, it seemed a natural stepping stone to special forces. You had to be ultra-fit to be in the SAS and the para training got you most of the way there.

I had only been in the shower for a few minutes when I heard the other guys run into the block. The water pressure was low so getting there early was a good idea. There was a fair bit of banter as the lads came in, it was part of being an SAS trooper, the piss-taking, and the banter.

I swill off the shampoo and soap and dried off. I got into my clean shorts and sprayed on some deodorant. As I was packing my wash kit away Captain Davis came into the shower block.

He was what the SAS call a Rupert, all officers were Ruperts. As officers go, he was a top lad, he knew that we did our stuff and did it well. He kept us informed, he did the paperwork and he made sure we were well billeted and had all the kit we needed. It was all we asked of a Rupert.

He looked after the four bricks and the support staff.

“Lads get yourselves washed and into the canteen ASAP” he shouted, “we have a briefing at nine hundred hours in the intel tent!”

We all answered with a yes boss. There were no sirs or yes sirs in the SAS and we never saluted. Saluting an officer made him a target.

I walked back to our tent and got into some clean combat gear. The other lads came in and did the same. We walked across to the canteen tent. The Yanks did great food, and the canteen was always rammed.

We grabbed a tray each and got into the queue. I filled my plate with scrambled eggs, hash browns and half a dozen rashers of bacon. I then grabbed some slices of toast and a couple of glasses of OJ.

The rest of the lads piled food into their plates.

We all sat at the same table and tucked in, food was fuel, and we were on constant high alert, we had to be ready to go at any second so keeping fuelled up was important. Plus, the Yank cooks were top-class, and the food was very tasty.

We always sat together, and we had to get used to the looks we got from the American soldiers. We were never sure if it was hatred or jealousy, but they always seemed to stare at us when were in there.

The Doc finished his food first and got up and went to the coffee station. He came back with four mugs. We grunted out thanks, Guns and I went up for seconds. When we had all finished eating Doc asked the million-dollar question.

“So, I wonder what interesting bit of work they have planned for us now?” he said and glanced at Guns, Guns shook his head as he chewed on a rasher of bacon.

“Fuck knows mate,” Guns said.

“Let’s hope it’s something juicy, it’s been ages since we had anything interesting to do!” Curly chipped in. The rest of the lads nodded their agreement. We had all joined the SAS for the action. It was the toughest selection process in the world and once you had passed that you then started the training and that was no walk in the park. Most SAS troopers fire off more live rounds in training than the average soldier does in all his time in the Army.

You joined the SAS to get stuck in, to test yourself and to kill bad guys, no matter what the MPs and the British government said, we were trained to kill, and we did it well. Every SAS trooper I knew craved action and hated the downtime we had to endure.

“We could do with some real action!” said Curly, “We will be getting rotated out soon.”

He was right, we had been out and about a few times but had only engaged the enemy twice in the last month and then it had been a short firefight. Also, we only had two months left in the desert before we were rotated out and headed back to Hereford for some R&R.

We saw some of the lads from the other Bricks come in and get their food. There were hellos and fist bumps traded as they sat on the table next to us.

A sergeant called Billy Bones the leader of the Alpha Brick came over and shook hands with each of us before heading up to the food counter.

Each of the four-man bricks was named, we were Bravo brick or B brick, and the others were Charlie and Delta.

“So, Guns looks like all hands on deck for this little outing,” Billy said as he sat down and plonked down a plate of food that would have fed a family of four.

“Yes, it seems that way mate, any idea what’s going on?” Guns asked.

“No mate, not a scooby,” he said and shovelled food into his mouth.

As he chewed the rest of the guys from the other bricks came in and there were nods exchanged as they got in line for food.

“I guess the Yanks have something big planned, “Doc said and looked around the canteen, there were no front-line guys in there. The few Yanks that were eating looked like backroom staff, armourers, and logistic guys. You could always tell the difference between front-line troops and backroom staff. There was the look, the swagger, and the way they walked and talked gave them away.

All the lads in our brick had finished their coffee, I went and got four one-litre bottles of water, one for each of the team. We all knew that keeping hydrated was mega important. I handed them out and we all got up and walked back to our billet.

We shouted our goodbyes to the other troopers as we left.

I glanced at my watch; we had an hour before the intel briefing. I got my weapons out of the locker and got my cleaning gear out. Sand is a killer when it comes to weapons and cleaning our weapons was something that was second nature to the lads in the SAS. A blocked or faulty weapon can kill you in a firefight and it could kill your mates. We all took pride in keeping our weapons clean and tidy.

I stripped and cleaned my Glock 17, then I cleaned my rifles. The great thing about being in the SAS was we could pick our weapons; all the guys had their own favourites. We were trusted to have the right tools for the job, and we took pride in our longs and shorts, that is rifles and pistols to a civvy.

Doc and I bother favoured the L119A1/A2 which is also known as Special Forces Individual Weapon or SFIW, with the optional grenade launcher. We both had one with the grenade launcher and one without they both had strengths and weaknesses. Again, it was about having the right tool for the job.

Guns and Curly preferred the Heckler and Koch M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, which was used by most of the marines out here.

Once my L119A1/A2 rifles were both clean I got out my other tool. I was the troop’s sniper and for that job, I had a rifle made by Heckler & Koch that came with a built-in Schmidt & Bender sight that had brilliant night vision as standard. It had been tested by the guys back at Hereford and all the lads that had been impressed with it. It had proven effective at distances up to 600m plus Once broken down the padded case it was stored in can be attached to a Bergen. It was light and easy to carry, it was a three-piece weapon that broke down into a nice, padded bag and seemed to weigh bugger all.

Once my longs and my short weapons were cleaned, I sharpened my Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife.

I emptied and refilled my Bergan rucksack, making sure I had all the kit I would need. Medi kit, camo blanket. Camo paint that sort of thing.

“Lads let’s get moving!” Guns said and we all followed him out of the billet, and we headed over to the Intel tent.

The other lads were there already, and we took our seats. Captain Davis was already in there with two American Intel guys. There was plenty of back-slapping, handshaking, and fist-bumping as we took out seats.

“Right Gentlemen!” Captain Davis said, calling us to order.

We all straightened in our seats. I had my notepad and a pen with me as did most of the other guys.

“Right guys, Our American hosts are going out tomorrow, they have grade-A intel about a training camp,” Captain Davis told us, “We are going to be there as backup and to mop anyone that makes a run from them!”

“How many Tangos are in the training camp Boss?” Guns asked.

“We think there are fifty to seventy-five total tangos in total, that’s the trainees and the training staff” One of the intel guys chipped in.

“You think?” Said Guns, “I would have thought if it was Grade A intel you would know for sure?”

“The numbers are fluid, but we think that fifty to seventy-five is about right,” he said, and you could tell he did not like being questioned. He was a major and I bet in the US Army questioning him would have led a guy to a charge for insubordination.

“We have two hundred guys going supported by four helicopters,” the other intel guy said, “So we will have the upper hand.”

“Vehicles?” Doc asked.

“Yes, Six M7 Bradley Fire Support Vehicles plus one Bradley Battle Command Vehicle”

That was a lot of firepower, they were going in hard I thought to myself.

“We will also have another fifty hundred Marines standing off, around a mile away as a backup force.” The other intel guy said.

Then he showed us the valley we were going into and where the camp was. He explained the method that the Americans would be using and explained where our bricks would be used. I knew the valley; it had been where I had met Asmaan and Damsa.

It made me wonder if they were still there if they had kept safe and more importantly would they be safe after the Yanks had gone into the Valley. The Yanks had a bad reputation for blue-on-blue deaths, also known as friendly fire. They were also known for the damage they did to locals...

Many locals had been killed or wounded by the over-enthusiastic Yanks. The training camp was at the other end of the valley but if they ran from the Yanks the bad guys would be running toward Asmaan and Damsa and the Yanks would be chasing them. I could only hope that the Marines did their job and caught the Taliban fighters in their sleep.

“And I am right in thinking that we will be going in and bedding in tonight”?” Guns asked.

“Yes, that’s the plan, all the bricks will be dropped into the desert, we have choppers booked,” Captain Davis said.

“We will drop you well away from the camp,” one of the intel guys told us, “You will then walk into the position!”

“Why are you not just sending in a team to light it up and use predators or reapers to smash the place up?” asked one of the sergeants from one of the other bricks.

The predator is a remote-controlled drone that is armed with plenty of missiles, rockets, and a large calibre machine gun, it was a killing machine. It could be flown into position without being seen and could attack at the press of a button. They were almost silent and could fly in at a high altitude.

“We would like to gather evidence and if possible, some prisoners to question,” said one of the intel guys.

There was a major difference between the Marines and the SAS, we never took prisoners. The famous trademark two shots to the head was the preferred method of putting enemy combatants out of the game. We liked to know that no one was going to walk up behind us in a firefight, so we made sure that enemy combatants were one hundred per cent out of the game when we had finished with them.

“So, we get into position, and we wait for our orders?” Curly asked.

“Yes, that’s the plan, and if the Marines do their job, it will be home for tea and medals without a shot being fired,” said Captain Davis with a wry smile.

To be fair if the American Marines got their job right there would be nothing for us to do.

“Right guys we will be at the far end of the valley, anyone that comes running your way needs to be dealt with and if possible, we need prisoners,” one of the intel guys said. All of the SAS lads looked at each other, it was a knowing look. The chances of us taking prisoners were slim.

They talked us through the method of attack that the Marines would be using, call signs were discussed and submitted to the memory banks. We also sorted out our pick-up points and our emergency pick-up points.

The intel guys left us to it, and we did what the SAS do, we talked the plan over and over. Captain Davis chipped in, but it was the lads that would be on the ground that did most of the talking. The plan was to use the four choppers to drop off the four Bricks, we would be dropped off around ten miles from the valley, so we did not worry about the camp guards hearing us or seeing us.

. Then we would tab into the areas that we were going to cover; Tabbing is the army term for marching. We would be dropped off around midnight and that would give us four hours to get nearer to the valley and take cover. Then we would have the day to rest up before the Marines made their move the next day.

The marines would attack the camp and we would mop up any runners. Then the choppers would come and collect us and drop us back at the base. Easy peasy lemon squeezy as they say. If it all went to plan it would be a walk in the park for both the Marines and us SAS lads.