Free Harry Flashman and the Invasion of Iraq by H.C. Tayler Page A

at least, it slowed down the process.
    As the sun dipped towards the western horizon, we joined the throng of officers heading for the CO’s evening briefing. The headquarters tent was jammed with bodies, with only enough seating for the first dozen or so. The remainder perched uncomfortably atop storage boxes and trestle tables, or stood in the corners of the tent on either side of the doorway. It was pretty phenomenal to realise just how many officers there now were in the unit, and gave a good idea of how much the Commando had grown from its peacetime complement. The CO kicked off proceedings by introducing the day’s new arrivals to the assembly, myself included, before asking his various branch officers to give a series of successive briefs on the issues of the day. The evening briefings would follow the same format almost every day for the ensuing months; the points were always delivered in the same order: manning, intelligence, all the operational issues (including any news on the armoured front, which was my part of the show), kit and equipment, signals, and on and on until every aspect of life in the battle group had been covered. On relatively quiet days in the buildup to war, the briefings would last around an hour; on busy days they were well over two. Personally I saw no gain in dragging out the proceedings so I tended to offer a “no comments” line when it came to armoured warfare. Besides which I had typically done no work and had little idea what the Division’s armoured assets were up to. But almost everyone else in the battle group was seemingly embroiled in an endless quest for perfection, so the briefings got longer and longer as the war got closer. If the effectiveness of the troops is reflected in the attention to detail of their officers then God help the Iraqi army, I thought to myself, the poor buggers will be slaughtered in droves. I should have known better than to allow myself such optimistic thoughts.
    The daily routine in Camp Gibraltar followed such a repetitive format that the days swiftly blurred into one another. Mornings dawned bright and chilly and the day’s activity began with a swift trot to the shower block. I chose to rise early simply to ensure that I could enjoy a long, hot shower before the limited supply of hot water ran out. Since there was essentially only enough hot water for around half the men in the camp, the shower blocks were festooned with notices beseeching us to take minimally short showers and thereby conserve the limited supply. Well bugger that, thinks I, a hot shower is one of the few luxuries attainable in this joint, so I jolly well made the most of it, royally soaking myself each morning and getting rid of the sand and grit that had inevitably glued itself to me during the night. Ablutions were followed by a visit to the dining tent and breakfast, which was undoubtedly the lowest-quality meal of the day, consisting largely of grey scrambled eggs and disgustingly shrivelled sausages of unknown origin, widely suspected of being made from camel meat. Much of what was on offer I would ignore, but at least there was coffee in abundance. Breakfast over, the rest of the morning would be taken up by a trip to Brigade Headquarters, transport permitting, or, if I was feeling in more of a social mood, I would wander through the camp to the QDG lines and enjoy putting the world to rights with the squadron officers. By the time I joined them for a cup of tea, usually taken away from prying eyes under a series of camouflage nets strung out from the recce vehicles, the camp would be awash with Marines undertaking training of all kinds. Squads of men could be seen scurrying around the camp brandishing weaponry of all kinds, assembling radio masts, practising grenade throwing, planting dummy Claymore mines, (11) running through drills on their anti-tank rockets, setting up machine-gun nests, etc. etc. The place was a veritable hive of activity and, after a couple of months