18 Hours by Sandra Lee

Author:Sandra Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2006-06-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Each round that exploded out of Jock’s chamber was for one of the wounded blokes lying a metre or two away, patched up and morphed up to their eyeballs.

Pfffat, pfffat, pfffat, pfffat.

JOCK WALLACE WAS DIGGING into the blood-soaked and snow-covered clay of Hell’s Halfpipe with his Babyseal knife like a man possessed, tossing the frozen earth out as he dug a deeper shell scrape. The tips of his fingers were scraped raw from clawing at the sharp rocks buried in the icy dirt and his knuckles were bloody and hurting, but he’d blocked out the pain in pursuit of protection. Pain was not an option. They were eight hours into the fight and, despite the thunderstorm of firepower from the skies that the coalition was directing at the enemy, al Qaeda and the Taliban hadn’t let up.

And they were gloating. Jesus Christ, the fuckers are gloating! Jock thought. Every so often after launching an RPG or another mortar at the men from Charlie Company, the ninja-clad AQ would dash out of their hiding places high on the ridge, yell something in their native tongue, grab their balls and gesticulate at the men down below, taunting the soldiers in Hell’s Halfpipe. They had no fear; the soldiers’ 7.62mm ammo had run out hours earlier and the smaller 5.56mm rounds had trouble making the distance.

Yeah, real religious, Ahmed. Jock decided he was not going down to these smart-arsed bastards.

‘We could hear them laugh at us. They were laughing every time we shot at them. They were 2000 feet above us. Our small arms could not reach them up there,’ said Private Wayne Stanton, a young soldier from Tennessee.

Some of the al Qaeda and Taliban threw stones, an impotent act the soldiers found comically medieval, given the more modern firepower they had at hand. A chorus of foreign words punctuated by Allahu Akbar rang out down the valley when one of the US troops missed his target.

The enemy did the same thing after an air strike roared over. As soon as they heard the incoming fast movers, the enemy ducked into their caves and waited for the bombs to explode before emerging in a vulgar display of triumphalism, grabbing their crotches and dancing around.

‘Before the dust had settled they were out shooting at us again. They were even waving at us. It was a little disappointing,’ SAS Warrant Officer Clint said soon after the fight.

It pissed the soldiers off, but at the same time the taunts only served to rev them up more.

The enemy was so close that Jock could almost smell them. He and Clint had been having a deadly serious but friendly shooting competition — aiming their M4 carbines at the enemy 200 metres away and seeing who could get off the best shot. Jock’s finger was on the trigger, the weapon locked on semi-automatic to conserve ammunition, spitting out well-aimed shots at targets in range. Each round that exploded out of Jock’s chamber was for one of the wounded blokes lying a metre or two away, patched up and morphed up to their eyeballs.

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