Children welcome British with laughter

On the road to Basra

It was a surreal way to invade a country. As a huge British convoy crossed into Iraq yesterday, hundreds of children came to greet it. In the end, at this border town at least, soldiers were met, not with gunfire, but with laughter and smiles.

As the troops moved past small boys ran up to the windows, smiling and grinning. Older men stood and watched. Occasionally they gave a thumbs-up signal. Troops drove nervously by ­ they are still very much under war orders. But many responded in kind, waving and smiling. A few handed out ration packs and water.

"I was not expecting this at all ­ seeing the civilians right on the other side of the border," saidLt Julia MacRory. "But we are here to look out for the population. We are actually here to liberate Iraq."

The weather was calm. The convoy created a huge cloud of dust but the sun shone down from a clear sky, with only a stiff desert breeze breaking the stifling heat.

Many British soldiers had been prepared for the worse but were jubilant as they moved across. As Pte Jamie Ferguson, 20, headed over the border he lit up a huge cigar that he had brought along for the moment. "This is it. This is me going to war."

As the convoy moved forward, the reminders of war came. American troops patrolled the area in Humvees, guns at the ready. A burnt-out tank lay skewed into a field. Shell craters lay in the road but most had been hastily filled with gravel by Royal Engineers to keep traffic moving.

Ricky Fisher is the youngest soldier in the British army, posted to Iraq just a day after his 18th birthday. As he drove further into Iraq he was calm but slightly bemused: "I was expecting some sort of violence but so far it's good to see people waving."

But fighting is going on further north. A plume of smoke rises far into the sky on the horizon. While the huge American bombing campaign had swept all before it the night before, British soldiers were still under orders to keep an eye out for the worst. "There could be someone with a rifle anywhere around here. I don't want to see any of my mates die. I don't want to get hurt myself," Pte Ferguson said.

The move across the border had been tense. Tanks and trucks travelled through a dusty scene with skies full of American helicopters heading north. All around came the sound of shells being fired and the occasional "whoosh" of a Patriot anti-missile battery kicking into action.

The Iraqis struck back and missiles sailed overhead, sparking the now-familiar Scud alarms as men and women scrambled for hastily dug trenches.

Some, especially the young, are more belligerent. Pte Craig Ferguson shouldered his rifle on being told to load live rounds. "We need to make sure we keep the dust out of these bullets, especially the first one. I'll give it a couple of lucky kisses," he said.

At the start of the week, men and women had begun the final stages of their preparations. In military parlance it is called "sanitation" of kit: it means burning all the letters received from family and friends. Small, smoking buckets dotted the camps as the tents were packed up.

Capt Jolley's men said their prayers too. An Army padre held a brief service: standing in combat fatigues, with rifles at their sides, they prayed under the skies. "They all said they didn't want to, but every single one of them was glad," Capt Jolley said. The padre was more blunt: "There are no atheists in the trenches."

By the end, the ordinary soldiers were desperate to get started. "It is what we train for. Every infantryman joins the army to fight a war," said one grizzled trooper.

Behind the lines preparations have been made for the worst. A giant field hospital sits at the northern end of Kuwait, its wards and doctors ready and waiting. Medics and nurses are going forward too. The weeks of waiting have led many of them to make friends among the soldiers. "My worst fear is if someone comes in who you know," said combat medical technician Kelly Evans, 19.

But now war has begun and the time for doubts is over. No soldier is talking about politics or about rights and wrongs. Daniel Connolly, an army padre, said: "The truth is they are fighting for their mates now. They don't really care about anything else."