Assault!

The Assault

The slimy mud oozed into my boots as I cautiously scrambled over the rough terrain with my three mates. We kept low to avoid the prying eyes of the enemy lookouts, even though it was nearly dark. We were on a recon mission, not a suicide mission. We had to avoid contact as well as we could.

This was one of the hardest missions I’ve ever taken part of in my life in the SAS. Here, at 500m from the heart of the enemy base, it was terrifying.

I’m Josh Hoshen, known to my friends as Titch. The guys in my troop were Callum Bedford, or Cow, as we called him; Patrick Grice whom we called Patty, and a new guy, Fred Lamshire. We called him Lammy. Our four-man troop had been called to check out the enemy base. The SAS were planning to launch an assault as a starter for an invasion, and we, 4 Troop, were whom everyone depended on to launch it.

We had spent the last three hours observing the base. It was one of the rare skills you learnt in the SAS, lying there for hours on end, watching enemy movements. We had noticed that a patrol plane flew low around the base every half hour, checking the surroundings, and the guards changed every hour. We also figured that they kept all their supplies of ammo and weapons in a medium-sized warehouse type building, the entrance to the SE. Their airbase was right in front of us. Parked inside were six Pucaras and five helicopters - three Hueys and two Alouettes. There was also four empty Helipads. We had just been ordered to advance and blow up their planes and booby-trap their Helipads. It was essential that we did, or our ships would be blown to smithereens by their deadly bombs on the day of the assault, not to mention that they might be able to get reinforcement by helicopter.

There was a putrid smell as we crept nearer. We registered a dark figure in one of the watchtowers, warily scanning the terrain. Suddenly, it jumped up, grabbing an object. The next thing we knew, bullets were streaking down from above, a chatter-chatter accompanying it burst.

Just as suddenly, my training kicked in and I threw myself behind an anthill, my friends jumping behind other obstacles. I waited a few seconds for a break in the firing, where the gunner reloads his gun. Quickly, I kneeled up, leveled my C8 Carbine as lead started to fall again, and fired into the night. There was a scream, then the shower subsided. But there was time to thank God, because suddenly all the other machine-gunners opened fire, their bullets thudding into the ground.

“Down,” I heard myself scream, then dived for cover.

They kept up for another two minutes. Finally, they stopped firing, either because they decided that they had shot or scared us, or because they were bored firing at an unseen target.

We stayed still for around a half hour to make sure that they thought we were long gone. Then, Cow gave the order to move slowly on our stomachs towards our next cover, a big tree at about 200m from the edge of the base.

It took an hour, maybe more, to finally reach the two fences surrounding the base - our next obstacles. Silently, I took out a wire cutter from one of my pockets and began silently clipping away at the steel wire mesh. Lammy helped me, while my other two companions kept watch. To make life hard for us, each wire was made of three strong wires twisted together. Three snips, and I was beginning to break my bones. I handed the clipper over to Lammy.

“Give up.”

Lammy took the clipper and clipped five wires easily. It was not surprising, as Lammy was the strongest in our troop. But after he had cut a hole just big enough for us to squeeze through, he was rubbing his wrists, showing how tough the wire fence was. We breathed a sigh of relief, and would have erupted into applause if it was the time to.

Then there was the second fence.

Lammy groaned.

“I hate this game already,” he complained.

“I’ll cut the second fence, if you wish,” I volunteered.

“Why not?” He handed the clippers to me.

This time, I got ten clipped before my hands started to hurt again.

Suddenly, there was a shout from Patty, and bullets started to rain down again.