Wilco: Lone Wolf, Book 32, page 1
Wilco:
Lone Wolf
Book 32
Copyright © Geoff Wolak
Started January, 2014
This book is historically very accurate in places, technically correct for the most part, yet it is fiction, really fiction, definitely fiction, and any similarity to real people or real events – although accidental - is probably intentional. Some characters in this book may be based on some of the idiots I have either worked with or unfortunately met over the years.
After a good night’s sleep, no toy planes packed with explosives disturbing my sleep or blowing up my house, I enjoyed a good breakfast with a few of the lads, all appearing half-dead, before I called a meeting in the Intel Section at a late 10.30am.
Harris had already handed in his notes and timeline, so I just needed to flesh it out with my reasoning, our aims and hopes, and with how the teams worked with each other in Afghanistan.
It took most of the day, but we finally had it all down, for the MOD records, and for history and posterity. And to stop Intel from whinging about my lack of written reports.
In the morning, and after a good night’s sleep after a few beers, I set off in my second hand bullet-proof car up to London, Crud wanting all of the detail about Afghanistan.
At Vauxhall, I signed in, soon up in the lift and to the Director’s posh offices, a cup of tea made for me.
‘You were gone quite a while this time,’ she noted.
I sat. ‘There was a natural break in the campaign, so I rotated the teams out, but a ground war takes years not weeks - this was no hostage rescue, although we did get some hostages.’
‘And your objective?’
‘Was hidden, in that … I wanted to see the Arabs sending expensive hardware at me instead of supporting the Taliban ground war, and … it worked.
‘But it was a risk, and I worried about the teams, and we had some clever attacks aimed at us - like the Japanese-style suicide pilots. So … I worried that my plan to trick them would be costly in lives, but it worked out OK and … no one suspected my real motivation.
‘They threw their expensive aircraft and helicopters at me and told the Taliban to fuck off; we know, we got the phone intercepts, they were screaming at each other.’
‘Of course,’ she noted. ‘Damn stupid of them to ignore the ground war for the chance to kill you. The Taliban lost a great deal of territory, then lost buildings and men in Kabul, and finally lost roads to the American B2s.
‘They’re reported as hurting, and their reputation is in tatters thanks to you - and thanks in part some stupid moves by the Saudi paymasters and the Arab middlemen. So if that was your objective … then it achieved its aims, not too many casualties.’
‘Not amongst western soldiers, no, but the Afghans are risk-takers, and Commander Bashir must have lost a few hundred men killed and more again wounded.’
‘I doubt that he cares,’ David put in. ‘Or that the families will receive any compensation.’
‘And Deep State…’ she nudged.
‘Could expand the war, but what Delaney wanted was a full-on future war and some justifiable reason for that war, both aspects now dampened. Now he’ll have to focus on Saddam Hussein and a plausible reason to invade Iraq.’
‘A reason to invade Iraq is hardly needed,’ David quipped. ‘They’ve upset everyone, even their Arab neighbours; they all wish to see him gone.’
I nodded. ‘Be easy enough to start a war there. Just won’t be very easy to finish it, bring peace and leave, that will take years. But anyway, is there anything pressing that you need me or Echo for?’
‘Nothing specific on the radar at the moment,’ David told me. ‘But things crop up quickly, as you know.’
Back at GL4, and most of the men were on holiday, young soldiers here using the ranges, and I spent time with each group. After my evening meal, I sat with Rocko and Stretch and filled them in on all we had done in Afghanistan, and what procedures and practises needed refining.
At 10am in the morning, 10am my time - much later in Afghanistan, I called Dolberman. ‘How’s it going?’
‘We’re settling into a routine now, meetings twice a day, issues sorted, and we even boarded-up some of the broken windows in the terminal - it stops the wind howling when we sleep.
‘We use side offices and have camp beds in them, I have a room with a desk and drawers, so it’s like being back at base.’
‘And the front lines?’
‘They creep forwards slowly, and the Taliban counter-attacks are a bit lame. We spot them and strafe them, then Bashir’s men drop mortars on the Taliban lines, then the Mi24s hit them, then they pull back and we move forwards a mile. Could take a while to reach Kabul!’
‘That’s not an objective, we just need to keep the Taliban on the back foot and to keep wearing them down. British teams behaving?’
‘So far, yeah, we have them on the Hueys going west and we have some in OPs in the hills. Your men up at the original FOB have hillside positions as well, but most of the action is down here, the road from here to Kandahar.’
‘Any wounded men?’ I asked.
‘Had an OP attacked but our men snuck out, two men wounded and airlifted out. They should make it. Had a guy throw a grenade at us inside the terminal here, but it landed between seats and was limited.’
‘Watch the locals, trust no one.’
‘We’re wary now, we certainly don’t sit down and play cards with these guys. They have their area and we have ours, and we now have a million sandbags here.’
‘Supplies OK?’
‘A lot of kit came from Dakdak, and now we have enough for a few months, too much really.’
‘Work out what you need and tell them up the line, let’s not have kit destroyed by a stray mortar. But if you have anything you can hand to Commander Bashir … do so.’
‘We hand him uniforms and boots, webbing, and he gets his ammo each week.’
‘And has Washington tried to give you a directive?’
‘Not really, no, and I told them I have the directives from you and that we speak, so … they’re oddly quiet about what we should be doing. I chat to Colonel Mathews most days, and he has his say, so you could call that a directive from Washington.’
‘Stick to the plan I gave you, slow and steady, low casualties, and if someone wants to alter that then smile nicely but call me afterwards.’
The next day I met the Air Commodore and his team at Brize Norton, a planning session held after a cup of tea and a chat.
Stood at the front of the group of all blue-grey uniforms, I began, ‘Those of your pilots assigned to me need more training, or – somehow – you find some top frontline jet pilots and we use them for old and slow prop fighters.
‘Your lot are OK with a Skyvan, OK I think at ground attack, but they lost a few of the intercepts with the Yaks, the Yaks were twisting and turning and losing the British and American tail aircraft.
‘So what we need is some jet fighter pilot that can’t fly fast jets anymore for whatever reason, and train him to be a Spitfire ace.’
‘There are such pilots,’ a Group Captain put in. ‘They get offered transport aircraft or helicopters, many quit, their hearts set on fast jets, of course.’
‘So find me two, we’ll put them through an intensive training programme, and when I go back down to Afghanistan they can come along – and hopefully shoot down a few Yaks.’
‘I can think of two straight away, they stand down this week, one with ear pressure problems,’ an officer put in. ‘I can chat to them before they quit on us.’
‘Send them to me for a chat first, because their life expectancies won’t be too good, they’d be in action day-after-day, a missile up the arse soon enough.’
‘Knowing one of the pilots well, I’d say he’d love that, crazy bugger he is.’
‘Crazy is what I want, not a good officer with neat handwriting. I want a man who’s wounded and bleeding - and gets angry at the enemy and keeps flying.’
They exchanged looks.
‘I’ll send them very soon,’ the officer told me.
The Air Commodore put in, ‘We’ll organise more dog fighting practise as well.’
‘Got a helicopter pilot you can have,’ another officer put in. ‘Ten years in, spent two years on exchange to the States, can fly most any helo, about to be court martialled for punching his CO when drunk.’
‘Delay the court martial, send him to me, he’d be dead in six months anyhow, no court martial.’
‘A bit cold,’ the Air Commodore noted.
‘It’s a war, you train for war, not to just run exercise after exercise. He can decide, and then take the risks in the mountains of Afghanistan. He could die in a simple helo accident here in the Welsh hills, or driving a car down the M4. It’s his life.’
The Air Commodore faced an officer. ‘Delay the court martial and send him, remind me to chat to his CO.’
I asked, ‘What caused him to punch his CO?’
The initial officer answered, ‘Allegedly … his CO grabbed the arse of his girlfriend, his CO also a bit drunk, few witnesses, but the girl did complain about his CO. Still, can’t have lower ranks punching out their CO.’
‘I definitely have a use for him, and his CO was probably a jerk anyhow.’ I faced the Air Commodore. ‘Create a new unit, call them … The Condor Le
‘I’ll use a different title for them, no Condor Legion,’ he said with a scowl.
‘How about … Odds and Sods?’ I floated.
Men laughed.
‘Wilco Detachment RAF, sounds better, and labels it as to what it is – and the inherent dangers.’
‘Straight away, sir, we may deploy again in a few weeks.’
An officer raised a hand. ‘There is someone I know, just lost his wife to a car accident. He was with us for more than twenty years, instructor, passion is prop fighters, and he has a restored Spitfire that they use in movies – he’s flown it in many movies.
‘Was set to retire, now fifty-four but fit, and … his mind is not where it should be, shall we say. He’s thinking of selling up and travelling.’
‘Sounds perfect, send him for a chat. And he can train the others.’
‘He knows more about Second World War dogfighting than anyone else, so he can teach the chaps, yes.’
‘And how did they do, overall?’ the Air Commodore asked.
‘They wanted to see some action, which was good – the right attitude, and when the enemy aircraft closed in they had at them without fear, apart from the fear of a few thousand pounds of High Explosives that the suicide planes were carrying.
‘When they hit the explosives they were jolted, even three hundred yards away. And your silly sods from 2 Squadron, they were in a Huey with a GPMG, and they knew the suicide plane was packed with explosives but still fired at it from just a hundred yards away or less.
‘The resulting explosion blew the fucking tail off the Huey and sent it into the dirt, a broken leg and arm the result, which could have been much worse. They got shouted at, and will be shouted at again for a stupid stunt. Some of their men are a little too keen to get themselves killed.’
‘Brave or stupid?’ an officer asked.
‘A fine line,’ I told him. ‘But the first rule of a special forces operator is to stay alive and to fight again another day, this is not Stalingrad, lives sacrificed for a cause. I want cautious men, not gung-ho idiots.
‘As for your pilots, they worked well and developed an aggression towards the enemy and a determination to get the job done, little sleep, being bombed each day, rough conditions. Most earned several medals, and each action they were in would normally be a medal.’
‘We have the report as to who did what,’ the Air Commodore told me. ‘A few noteworthy actions, yes. And our ground crews?’
‘They did very well, I couldn’t fault them, they slept and ate in the dirt, and after the bombing had finished they rushed out to re-arm and re-fuel the aircraft, never a complaint.’
‘And Bolton?’ he asked.
‘Sat down and started crying.’
They laughed loudly.
I continued, ‘He had the base and his stores just as he wanted them, all very efficient, then a suicide pilot hit his area dead centre, everything blown to pieces and burnt. The poor chap had to start over.
‘But he’s a dab hand at it all now, he knows how to get the stores organised, and those new bogeys with wheels were great, they saved a lot of time and effort.’
‘And when you go back, what extra kit would you take?’
‘The kit was fine, nothing comes to mind as missing, but we could use something to boil and purify the water, had a few men fall sick. We boiled our water, but we could use a large wheeled heater that boils the water, medics to check that it can be sterilized.’
They made notes.
‘Boiled water should be easy enough,’ the Air Commodore complained.
‘And a mini mobile kitchen on wheels, like the bogeys we have, a food station with stoves for say twenty men, each team having access to one. Basically, a trolley with a boiler and some supplies, but suited for your crews, food stored under the stoves.’
‘Be easy enough,’ an officer suggested. ‘They have those at air shows, I’ve seen them. I’ll pinch some away.’
‘I’d want six mobile cookers for a deployment. That way each team gets a brew and some hot food to keep them going, they don’t waste time on heating water with hexamine tabs.
‘And a larger version, with four men to operate it in shifts, for larger teams.’
‘I’ll have that sorted in a week,’ the same officer promised. ‘I saw one like that, must be someone selling them.’
I told them, ‘When you organise exercises, have one along, practise with them. If you ask your men to use Army rations and hexamine tabs they will get worn down and fatigued after a few weeks.’
I faced the Air Commodore. ‘Source some mounted fifty cal as soon as you can, sir, mounted on a metal pole, box-fed, for anti-aircraft work. We have GPMGs that work well, need some fifty cal with 2 Squadron.’
He made a note. ‘Americans have them, I’ll get some.’
‘And a fitting for a jeep, more jeeps for 2 Squadron, SAS-style jeeps. There’ll be a time when I want 2 Squadron driving to some place, camp made, mounted GPMGs and fifty cal.’
‘They should be mobile, yes; in this country we have the Scorpion tanks for that. I’ll get some, and for 16 Squadron.’
‘I can then organise an exercise for them,’ I suggested. ‘Desert drive, and then they live rough and shoot. They did that in Yemen, just that they had air-conditioned civvy jeeps to use.’
The Air Commodore noted, ‘So what we need is to be more mobile, jeeps and stores bogeys and food bogeys, so that we can move place to place and not rely on helicopters and aircraft so much…’
‘If it’s just my men on a job … we travel light, but if we have aircraft, and a remote airfield to run, we need much more.’
‘All of this is refining how we handle remote airfields in a war, so it’s all good experience,’ he noted. ‘And my medics?’
‘Are all old hacks at it now, they know what to do, no complaining.’
‘And my new Special Forces Medical Team?’
‘Did well, no complaining from them, they lived rough and did the job and seemed to be enjoying it. When others were tired and rundown they were smiling and cracking jokes, so you’d want to check their sanity.’
They laughed.
An officer noted, ‘So what we’re saying … is when your lot and our RAF teams land at a remote strip, we need a complete support system on bogeys; supplies, cooker and the kitchen sink…’
‘Yes, just that, and maybe a mobile shower system. The more we have on the bogeys the better, less to do, men get better food and quicker, and we can relocate faster. We need a bogey for your refuelling teams and armourers, a fast turnaround.’
‘Those bogeys you already have can be customised, so we’ll get on that,’ he offered me. ‘Basically, a Hercules lands, off roll eight bogeys and men, and … ten minutes later we have a base running.’
‘Yes, just that,’ I commended. ‘And if the bogeys can be towed by SAS-style jeeps, all the better; we can relocate quickly – or disperse when we have incoming.
‘As for Afghanistan, I was not sure what the conditions would be, how they would attack us, and I figured we’d move up into the hills not stay around the FOB.
‘But as far as your planes and their support teams are concerned, you need a robust mobile unit, everything on the bogeys.’
The Air Commodore stated, ‘Within weeks we’ll have better bogeys and more of them, and the standard monthly exercise will use them and test them. They roll off, and they roll back on at the end of the exercise, no lugging of tents any longer.’
Heads were nodded.
He added, ‘Two Hercules touch down, our team rolls off, prop fighters land, and we’re ready to fight quickly. We’ll practise that, quick landing and dispersal, quick retreat.’
‘And always take empty sandbags, and shovels, we always dig in.’
They took notes.
I added, ‘And you need to practise a quick start-up and take-off routine for your aircraft, because if you have a C-130 sat on the deck and we have incoming, a warning of just two minutes, we need that C-130 to fly away.’
‘Two minute start-up?’ a man asked.
