Free Sniper one by Dan Mills Page B

down.'
    Two minutes later, Chris was at the end of the firing line by my Snatch.
    'Three Snatches, Danny. Just driven past our position.'
    Blimey that was quick. And I thought Ian said he was only in two Snatches?
    As they came up level with the OMS building, the vehicles drove into a fresh shower of bullets. The drivers immediately threw the vehicles around with a screech of tyres and they pulled up at the top of the alleyway.
    'Cover them, lads.'
    We had to put a lot of fire down onto the OMS to cover the Snatches' arrival. I slapped the rifle onto fully automatic and raked it with a full mag of rounds. That should get the fuckers' heads down.
    As I turned round and ducked down to change the mag, a posh-looking bloke was crouching beside me. He was wearing just a T-shirt under his body armour, but no sign of any rank. I had been expecting Ian.
    'Who the fuck are you?'
    'Hello there. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Jonny Gray. I'm the Commanding Officer of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.'
    'Oh, hello, sir. Erm, very nice to see you.'
    'It looks like you're in a spot of bother. Can we help?' It was the sort of calm and convivial tone you'd use with someone who'd just got a flat tyre.
    The colonel and his men were on their way back from training an Iraqi army battalion nearby. By total chance,they'd just happened to drive straight into our fight. Now they were all clustered around the lip of the alleyway, watching us put the rounds down.
    I gave him a quick sit rep, and asked him how many men and weapons he had.
    'We're twelve chaps in three vehicles. You're in charge here, Sergeant, we're in your hands. Oh, we've also got a GPMG with us.'
    This was gleaming news. I could do with a Gimpy. The General Purpose Machine Gun is a big old dragon that gives you some excellent fire power. Its 7.62mm rounds were going to punch much bigger holes into the screwballs we were up against than our SA80s.
    'Right, bring that Gimpy over here and I'll place it, if you don't mind, sir.'
    No sooner had the colonel scampered back to his men, than right round the corner came a dirty great big jock, well over six feet tall, with the machine gun in one hand and a big ammunition box of 800 rounds in the other.
    Just the sight of him put an enormous smile on my face. Oh yes, a big scary bloke like that is just what we need. He was with a team of four, who were all carrying belts of Gimpy ammo too. Excellent, we could fight for hours with that. I told the jock to take his team down to the other end of the alleyway to protect our right flank.
    The Argylls' arrival had proved to be pretty timely. The sound of another big blast echoed out, but from a little further away. It must have come from the other side of the OMS building, and it was followed by repeated AK fire. Then we heard the slightly higher pitched firing noise of SA80s.
    It was Ian's QRF being ambushed. He'd come the most direct way he could, which was straight past the OMSbuilding. That's exactly where they hit him, just as I had predicted. All my instructions to the Ops Room had been ignored. Ian wasn't going to get to us in a hurry now.
    Then more bad news came over the radio. The Warrior armoured vehicles of the battle group QRF from Camp Abu Naji had finally been tasked to come and extract us. But they were still forty-five minutes away. What had they been fucking waiting for?
    This was a problem. Even if the twenty of us could hold out against probably the ever larger number of enemy before the cavalry finally arrived, Daz wasn't going to last that long. We had a drip in him, but it was just saline solution. He had a lot more than one hole in him and he was slowly bleeding to death. He would need a surgical team to stabilize him.
    It was time for Plan B. I told Sam over the PRR to leave us the VHF and drive like the clappers back to Cimic House with Daz. I don't think he's been happier to hear anything in all his life. As the Snatch wheel spun off down the street, you could hear rounds