The Last Bayonet Charge
The sun is blazing, but we are in the shade of the wall behind us, a wall of sandstone worn smooth by millennia of sandstorms.
I peak around the bolder and see ex-soviet trucks and SUVs with a couple of Land Cruisers all painted in desert camouflage with red, white, and black tricolours painted on their doors. They definitely are not friendly.
Our vehicles were abandoned, out of fuel, necessitating an attempt to go further on foot, but all we have is our rifles and bayonets, an old weapon from old wars. The odd bullet buzzes overhead, ricocheting off rocks behind us, sounding like an old western movie, the zinging sound echoing off the natural wall behind us. We are ten in number who are we against the overwhelming numbers of Iraqi troops? Who are we to attack them? We are all Royal Air Force aircraft technicians, more geek than gunner, our combat training was for the Russians coming over the iron curtain and consisted of sitting behind the wire and launching aircraft from bombproof shelters. We know how to shoot our guns, though not very well, and even if we were better shots we have run out of bullets. In the inevitable lull before the action, I think back…
Stepping on to the top of the aircraft steps I feel the shock of walking into the wall of heat with the immediate realisation that this is the heat I have to get used to. The second sensation is the faint aroma of shit. If someone asked me, “What is the desert like?” I would reply hot, smells of shit and is full of rubbish. I see the desert’s likeness to a municipal dump as we drive around the airfield to our new quarters. I peer out through a window cracked by the rapid change in desert temperatures passed the barbed-wire fence whizzing by, out into the desert and there is rubbish everywhere. On a previous tour, I had asked about the rubbish and was told that it was because the desert is dry so there are fewer bacteria to break it down like in Europe, so the rubbish just blows around for centuries. This thought amused me, thinking that some university professor could make a study of the historical rubbish of the Kuwaiti desert.
Right now I still feel the heat despite being in-country for a week. The padding inside my helmet is soaking and sweat runs down my temples. I see the rubbish blowing about and ask myself what artists will depict when they paint this moment in RAF history. I am sure they will paint the bloodthirsty Iraqi hoards, and I am sure they will paint heroic British airmen and airwomen standing, bayonets fixed to empty rifles trying to steel themselves for the slaughter to come. I think no one will see rubbish in the prints that will hang in sergeants’ and officers’ messes all around the Air Force.
How the hell did we get here?…
Andy, the flight line controller, bursts into a crew room and yells, “See offs, right now”. We look over at him, “What?” someone says. “Fucking mooove!, the Iraqis have crossed the border, we need to get the jets off now!” Chairs scrape across the floor and rifles clatter together as we all burst into life and run to get our see-off kit. “Don’t bother with that shit; just go, fuck all the procedures; just get the jets up.” We run to our jets; they are sitting, still oblivious to the panic, gently cooking away in the heat under their sunshades.
The aircrew are arriving as I open the canopy of my jet. They clamber up the steps that Fathead has just hooked over the ledge at the side of the open cockpit. Boxy is already up there preparing the seats having heaved his Yorkshire ex-miner’s bulk up on the aircraft’s drop-tank. The pilots strap in, squeeze their helmets over their heads, strap on their oxygen masks, and go through their start-up procedure, their faces a study in concentration. Soon the engines are running, the noise screaming, rattling my head. I put my fingers in my ears and see Fathead doing the same as he stands by the fire extinguisher at the back of the jet watching for engine fires. Boxy has been more prepared than me, he had picked up his ear defenders as we made our mad dash. He runs around the aircraft, accidentally knocking his head on protruding radio antennae, taking out all the ground safety devices as the pilot gives me the thumbs up. Once Boxy has finished and is clear from the aircraft I give Fathead the nod and marshals the jet out having already run to the other side of the taxiway.
Our sun shelter is at the back of the compound, only a high fence topped by barbed wire separates us from the wide, rock desert going into the hazy distance.
Boxy and I turn our backs to the aircraft and crouch down to protect-ourselves from the sand thrown back by the jet wash as the volume of the jet noise increases and the pilot drops the parking brake and the jet leaves the shelter turning left at Fathead’s signal to trundle its way to the runway. A sense of calm starts to descend, the lads come back to me, asking what happens next. The truth is I don’t know but before I can admit this Steve comes up in the line wagon; a white pickup truck with go-faster-stripes down each side, the type that you see on building sites. It is in a right state: windows cracked, bodywork dented, one window stuck down. I get in the front, resting my rifle on my knees and the lads climb into the back, their guns clattering off the bodywork. Someone kicks a spare chock out of the way to make room enough to sit down. Just as Steve is driving off, turning the wagon to take us back to the flight line control we hear a loud “whump” before we feel the wagon rock with the force of the explosion. Instantly everyone looks-up, “What the fuck was that?” screams Fathead, an abnormally softly spoken Londoner who happens to have a head slightly out of proportion to the rest of his body. I know what it is; I have heard it before during a mortar attack on a police station when I was a kid in Belfast. I look over and can just see the sun shelter behind us collapsing. I say to no one in particular, “I hope Andy’s team were out of there.” Steve says nothing; just carries on driving.
Bam! Another mortar hits line control right in front of us: dust and bits of wood, computer, Perspex and body as everything in the office is thrown up into the air. Behind I see people climbing over the front fence. The lone guard having thrown down his rifle and raising his hands is shot, blood erupting from his back as he is bowled over by the force of the bullet’s impact. I yell at Steve. “Turn round. Let’s get the fuck out of here!” He doesn’t need telling; the steering wheel has already been hauled around and we are tearing down the taxiway to the back of the squadron compound. I am in shock screaming at Steve “He was fucking surrendering!” Steve punches me hard on the shoulder telling me to get it together. I refocus and see the guards’ Land Rover driving over the compound’s rear barbed-wire fencing. I see line teams four and five running for the hole. Another mortar explodes throwing them up in the air before landing: some in pieces, some whole; all unmoving. Steve swerves around the crater as another “whump” signals yet another mortar. They are going off thick and fast; as the mortar-men, expert in their trade, walk the mortars forward in front of their troops’ advance. We drive through the gap in the fence and out across the runway as we hear the scream of our jets coming into attack the enemy, their cannons making the loud metallic raspberry sound that announces a bad day for any enemy in its path.
My mind comes back to focus on our present. I am the highest rank, the most senior corporal. Some of the guys are looking at me others are chatting nervously; all are expecting me to do or say something. I feel ashamed; ashamed for leaving the guys who were alive, ashamed for being alive when better people than me died, ashamed for leading these guys into this situation, but most of all ashamed for lying to them; telling them that some may die in this bayonet charge, but some may live. Fozzy, a burly guy with ginger fuzz for hair, makes a weak joke about cleaning up the Iraqis with the rags on their heads, a nervous ripple of laughter spreads out though the team. Joanne, a tall athletic brunette tells me quietly, with a tear running down her cheek, “I’m ready to go.” Her stocky blond friend, Jemma, confirms that she is ready too and adds in a whisper so only Joanne and I can hear, “We all know no one will survive but I saw what the Iraqis did to the others, I know there is no other option and I want to go down fighting.” I could hug her; I feel off the hook, they can see through the lie and they don’t blame me for telling it. Now we can go; die with honour, I can’t help thinking of Gordon of Khartoum, such a cliché I know, but heartening all the same. “Right people!” I shout, “Check your bayonets are on securely, we don’t want them coming off when we stab them”. Fozzy, ever the joker, shouts back “Yeah, I don’t want the Air Force billing my wife for it later.” Genuine laughter breaks out around the group; the mood lifts a little. I shout “Ready”, pause to make the sign of the cross, just in case God does exist, he is actually catholic, and I have been wrong all my life, “Chaaaarge!”
Background to this short story.
I had heard of a story of aircrew abandoning the groundcrew who then had to execute a bayonet charge, and wanted to explore the feelings of the corporal who lead the charge; which is why I left the other characters relatively one dimensional. To set this up I used the standard procedure for the British compound at the allied military airfield in Kuwait prior to the last Gulf War. This is a story I wanted to tell since my own detachment to Kuwait during that time.
The major part of the story is the emergency aircraft launch followed by the blind panic of untrained, supposedly, military personnel coming under mortar attack. Thankfully the RAF’s training is much better now, with extensive operational training as part of a longer basic training than the six weeks I was given. The mood that I tried to portray also included a sense of remorse; in a minor way during the escape from the compound, but more so during the build-up to the bayonet charge.
