Watch Out

The first sign of trouble was often a young child darting away from the patrol to warn the militia of their approach. Then the crowded market street would empty, the shutters would rattle down and the first RPGs would be fired.

“Maybe it’s a bit sick but I enjoyed this,” said Mills. “I have waited 18 years as a soldier for this. The truth is that when we saw all these rounds go off around us and missed, we started to chuckle. But it doesn’t mean I want it to happen again.”

While his pumped-up snipers shared “high-fives” after action, many soldiers were afraid, especially during private moments of reflection.

“Getting the courage to go out again is difficult,” said one lance-corporal. “You feel like crying your eyes out.”

A private said he began to shake when he picked up his rifle. “I didn’t know how long our luck would last,” he said.

Despite the constant threat, patrols set off into the city every day. “The worst thing psychologically were the mortars because you felt there was nothing you could do to defend yourself,” said Major Justin Featherstone, commander of Y Company. One mortar bomb landed on his own bed; fortunately, he was not in it at the time.

Another of the most pressing problems was the increasing difficulty of re-supplying the coalition’s Amara headquarters, known as CIMIC House. At one point, by May 1, the 140 people inside were down to their last box of eight litres of water — even though each person was supposed to drink one box a day. The cooks had run out of fresh food.

Fourteen people were arrested during an attempt to round up the senior Mehdi army leaders, but the move provoked a ferocious reaction as an armoured British convoy set out from the Abu Naji camp, just south of Amara, to secure a supply route through the city to the headquarters.

The convoy came under heavy fire. One soldier, Barry Bliss, was shot through the lung and was lying critically ill and trapped by the gunfire, when Corporal Matthew Natumeiu came to the rescue.

According to Featherstone, his commanding officer, Natumeiu charged across an open bridge to help some other soldiers pinned down there.

“He found the others were trapped behind a low wall under machinegun fire,” Featherstone said. “The rounds were just winging over them and they couldn’t lift their heads for a moment.”

Natumeiu then dived across the wall and into an open square — a clear target for up to a dozen Mehdi gunmen. “It was an incredibly brave act. He just knelt down in the square, aimed his rifle, and picked off targets one by one,” said Featherstone.

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