Immediate Action by Andy McNab Read Free Book Online

was twenty years old. He was a nice bloke, with a mother and a girlfriend. I'd seen him write in a letter just the week before:
        "Only forty-two more days and I'll be home."
        My vision of the army at the beginning was getting money, traveling, and all the other things I'd seen in the adverts: You're all on a beach, windsurfing and having fun. Maybe they were Nicky's visions as well.
        Even going to Northern Ireland was exciting because it was another experience. Maybe, I now thought, they needed a few posters in the recruiting office of dead boys in ponchos.
        All too often British soldiers who died on active service in Northern Ireland would get a brief mention on the news-"Last ni lit a British soldier died then go unremembered. But I resolved to myself that I would never forget Nicky Smith. I would always keep the newspaper cuttings. I would always have his bloodstains on my map.
        I was haunted by images of disembodied feet and the Saracen spattered with blood like a child's painting. It made me fucking angry, and I personally wanted to put the world to rights. I wanted to get the people responsible. I suddenly felt that I had a cause, that I was doing something, not just for political shit or because I was saving money to buy a car; I was there because I wanted to do something for my own little gang.
        Saracen armored.car had got bogged down in the cuds near Crossmaglen, and me and another rifleman, Gil, were put on stag to guard it.
        Council estates in rural parts of Northern Ireland consisted of nice bungalows, paid for by subsidies from the European Economic Community. A new one was under construction; the Saracen had gone into the site to turn around and had got bogged down in the mud. Another Saracen was trying to drag it out. The company were called out and were in all-round defense with an inner and an outer cordon but split up into groups of two and three. All our arcs overlapped each other, giving us 360 degrees' cover around the vehicles.
        As we took over, the other fellows told us where our arcs were, what they'd seen, what they hadn't seen, where we were in relation to other people on stage. We lay in the, hedgerow looking out; it was cold, and the grass was soaking. My trousers were wet through.
        My feet started to go numb, my hands were already frozen, and I couldn't cover my head up because my ears had to be exposed so I could listen. I was bored, I was pissed off, and I spent two solid hours slagging down can drivers for burying their vehicles in the mud.
        The SLR (self-loading rifle) at the time had a bipod attached to the barrel that was like a pair of chopsticks with a spring at one end.
        It was a necessary bit of equipment because the rifle was too heavy to hold properly with its cumbersome night sight on. Every now and then I'd have a look through to see what was going on.
        In the early hours of the morning, as I scanned the countryside yet again, I saw some movement. I refocused the night sight and blinked hard. I recognized what I was seeing, but I didn't believe it.
        I quietly said to Gil, "We've got two blokes coming down the hedgerow here."
        Gil said, "Yeah, okay, fuck off, big nose."
        "I'm telling you, we've got two blokes coming down.
        Have a look."
        They were skulking down in front of us, maybe just over a hundred meters away-not that far away at all.
        "Fucking hell, you're right!"
        As they got closer and came into direct line of sight, I could clearly see that one of them was carrying a long (rifle).
        "What the fuck do we do?" Gil said.
        I didn't know. Did we issue a challenge? After all, they might be two of our blokes. But what if they weren't and they went to ground? There was no way of contacting an officer or NCO. We were riflemen, so we couldn't be trusted with a radio. Shouting at the inner cordon would just create