It's a lovely Tuesday morning in downtown Lashkar Gah, and the market's been busy since dawn. The local Terrorban Warlord, Osama Bin-Liner and his motley crew, are taking advantage of the massive crowds to infiltrate into town, and pick up a hidden cache of IEDs. We've all read our Kipling so well know Afghan females are equally as cruel and barbaric as the men folk. So it'll be today, they'll wander randomly around the market, detonating at the first sign of an Infidel.
And Infidels there will be aplenty, in the shape of 45 Royal Marine Commando! Captain Harry Faversham has been tasked with getting to the secret cache before the Terrorban. His cunning plan is to have a Warrior thunder into the market square, and make a big show of troops dismounting. Under the cover of this diversion he will personally lead the snatch team into Lashkar Gah from the opposite direction.
Lashkar Gah on Market Day...
Enter the Warrior with Brass Band playing...
Enter Happy Harry and his Sneaky Beakys...
Bin-Liner didn't get to be the Knob he is today without knowing a thing or two about diversions. In the blink of an eye the alleys and rooftops teem with his fighters.
Captain Harry's patrol fall in a hail of gunfire, only himself and one lone Commando reaching the cover of a back alley...
Initially things go well for the Warrior dismounts, a Terrorban sniper being flushed out and quickly dispatched.
Retribution is swift, a passing shopper explodes on the front of the Infidel's Chariot!!!
Had this have been one of the antiquated 'snatch' Lannys that 45 Commando had been using the month before, the results would have been devastating. As it was, the Warrior crews fillings were certainly rattled, but other than that they continued rolling forward. A brief exchange of fire resulted in the target compound's defenders being dispatched to the pleasures of the many Virgins in the Magic Garden. The British AFV reversed up to the gate as the dismounts quickly located and made safe the secret arms cache and loaded it aboard...
But what of Captain Harry Faversham RM? He was in a spot of bother to be honest. Osama Bin-Liner had decided to finish this Infidel off personally, sneaking up behind the noble Captain and taking careful aim with his AK47... that's when Mrs. Bin-liner turned up! Earlier that day her husband had to recourse to beating her with a stout stick, being a bit miffed, at her lack of enthusiasm for donning Lashkar Gah's most popular fashion assessory... her bomb vest. Through the slits of her Burka Mrs. Bin-liner smiled at the chance to kill two hated birds with one stone! Poor old Osama put his fingers in his ears, and Harry looked on gormlessly, as Mrs. Bin-liner scuttled into the compound and exploded!!!
The massive blast blew Osama back down the alley and out of our story, Harry was stunned but saved by the state of the art body armour, he'd swopped for a Fairborne-Sykes only the week before, off a Yank Navy Seal in Camp Bastion. Seeing their Commanding Officer stagger to his feet the Warrior crew picked up it's dismounts and thundered through the marketplace to his rescue. Under a sustained bombardment of RPG rockets 45 Commando ex-filtrated to conclude a sucksessful mission, resulting in am immediate award of the MC to their intrepid Captain.