3may7

MAY 2003 @ SAC page 7.

I sent Mantis out early, to move to the edge of the gulley. While the rest of us, grabbed some food from our equipment stash and I dumped my webbing set. Mantis came over the radio, �Is there anyone friendly, uphill from my position?�

�I do not know who is unaccounted for, so hold your fire.� I moved off to check out the situation. Rounding the gorse bushes uphill, I spotted Nitrox covering the high ground and moved over for a chat with him. He had spotted Mantis and the situation had been resolved without friendly fire, even though Nitrox had no radio. Nitrox went on to explain that he had not been able to relocate his stash and that it was somewhere nearby. I knew that he had to find it before dark, so sent him back and briefed him to get 3 guys to help him, by directing them where to look. In the meantime, I radioed the team to hold position. After less than 5 minutes, Nitrox returned with his equipment and we all had the thumbs up. Moving over to Mantis, I told him to head for the stone bunkers.

It was our opponents! I got on the radio straight away, �Spectre, hold your position. RV 2 is now RED. Repeat RV 2 is RED! Take cover and await further instructions.�

�Recieved and understood!� came Spectre�s response.
Turns out that Spectre was only 50m away from the position, that we first sighted the patrol.

All of our team kept still and watched the stone bunkers. Within a minute, we could see two other dark shapes moving into the bunkers from the west. As we observed, the 4 figures came together and stood on the path between the bunkers.150m away. We were in a half light, with a yellow and blue sky, showing the first stars, as the sun was below the horizon. The 4 figures stood motionless for a long while, looking straight at us. Three of us were on a ridge, while the rest was prone and it was too late to move. I figured we had been seen.

Opening my sandwiches, I gave 3 out of the 4 away and asked everyone else to spare something for Nilz. I had forgotten that he had not brought out any food, so did my best to scrounge him something. I saw a car arriving at the car park. Stinger and Capt had been listening to Team 2�s channel and could hear HUDSON and SPUNKMEYER using grid references to navigate. They were obviously searching for us and the signal was boomiong through. �That�s real close!� Mantis commented. So I asked STINGER to check the strength of the signal, he confirmed it was FULL POWER.

�CHRISTMAS� came over our channel. It was the pre arranged code for SPECTRE walking onto the land.

�RENDEZVOUS 1 is RED. Repeat Red. RENDEZVOUS 2 is Green. Out� I replied.
Soap laughed at me and asked how long it had taken to come up with the codes. I replied that it was just something we came up with in 5 minutes (when I had last seen Spectre). Rendezvous 1 was the location of our STASH, while RV 2 was the Stone Bunkers. We watched and waited, with the light steadily fading into darkness. Capt came over to my position and we chatted about the game and what our opponent�s may do and their radio ettiquette. Mantis commented that the temperature was dropping (as it was clear).

After a while, I saw a dark shape move out past the silver birch, exactly where I predicted Spectre would first be seen. He walked forward towards the Stone Bunkers, but I was suddenly suprised to see another shape step out of the treeline 10m behind the first.

Looking back, I saw the patrol moving round the contour. I felt confident that we would make it to the top fenceline without problem. Mantis had decided to move through the trees and we past the OP, all was quiet. Nearing the stone bunkers, we cleared them out and I had a look inside. Ready to move once again, both Mantis and I noticed a deer heading our way along the top fenceline. I briefed him to move to a cut in the ground, without disturbing the deer. Passing the message back, that we didn�t want to startle the wildlife, we stopped. Mantis moved off and was almost in position, when we all set off after him. Then I heard movement behind and was suprised to see Soap, coming dashing out of the stone bunkers and roll on the ground near Stinger.

�I�ve just been painted by a laser!� I heard Soap telling Stinger. They then relayed the message to me so I waved them all to move out at double speed. We moved off in the dead ground and all got down near the top corner of the land. Mantis and I sat on the ridge, watching the top fenceline, while the others layed out on the grass and rested. We could still see fairly well, as it was only dusk. Indeed the sunset was brilliant and the sky was clear. Below us, was open ground and the stone bunkers, which we all watched for movement. We felt safe in this position and I told everyone to chill out. I doubted that Team 2 knew where we were and had a hunch that no-one had painted Soap with a laser. As otherwise there would have certainly been firing. I watched the road for a car arriving, as I knew Spectre could turn up any time now.

We sat and waited while the sun went down

�BACK UP REQUIRED @ the stone bunkers.� Was intercepted on Team 2�s channel.

�We�ve been seen chaps.� I assured everyone. For a good couple of minutes I was busy trying to decide what to do. I tried to give Spectre more information, although he had no map, so I could not use codes and had to be careful what I said. In the end, he was not going to try and make it upto my position and would meet us later. I suspected that this was not necessarily true and said more for our opponents ears.

The time was 10:45 so in the end I decided our best plan was to dig in here and hold out till midnight (the CEASE FIRE). I knew the temperature dropping would be a problem, as many of us wore tropical shirts and had no extra layers to hand. Yet I figured that 75 minutes in the cold, was not too much to ask of my HARDCORE team. If it had been earlier, we would have tried to break out. So I told Stinger, Soap and Satan to take the central trench, covering any attack from the bunkers. While Nilz and Sab would cover the eastern fenceline, looking downhill. I tasked Nitrox and Nete (who could now, only use his lower powered gas guns) to move the flag to the corner and defend it at all costs. This left, Mantis and Capt to cover the South fenceline, while I decided to hang around in the centre of the 4 groups. The team dispursed and got into our snap positions, I was confident that we would be fine due to the nature of the terrain and our strong position.

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