It took us two hours to reach CP Sarhad, just a kilometre north of Patrol Base 5. It was a holding area, giving us a chance for a break. We all rested up against Sarhad’s mud walls while Foot-Tapping went through the orders again with the Afghan commander. Some of us chatted, some of us smoked, and some of us ate snacks. All of us drank water.
We set off again about thirty minutes later. The clouds had yet to break, and we still had the breeze to keep us cool. A narrow track took us into a much greener landscape now, the thick grass coming up to our waists. It was still a disconcertingly obvious route, so we left nothing to chance, stopping constantly. The ANA had their own Vallon man up front, but we also carried out Vallon checks in their wake.
It took us three and a half hours to move from CP Sarhad to our next lay-up point at Compound 43. The distance was roughly one kilometre. Every man was now drenched in sweat. The midday sun was out and the breeze had disappeared.
Foot-Tapping had hired the compound from a local farmer, providing us with shelter for the rest of the afternoon and the night ahead. We carried out Vallon checks on the outer walls, then moved inside. There was a well, an orchard and a number of empty stables. We would be sleeping in relative comfort tonight, before leaving at first light.
We split the compound between the ANA and ourselves. Each stable measured about ten feet by twenty feet – big enough for a section of men. We cleared spaces for our roll mats on the crumbling mud floor, kicking aside all the straw and dried chicken shit. Dust billowed up towards the thatched ceiling just a few feet above our heads, where dozens of bees tended to their own comforts, seemingly oblivious to our presence. They’d built a network of little hives, each the size of a clenched fist.
We spent most of the afternoon inside, avoiding the sunlight. The walls were almost two feet thick, keeping out the worst of the heat. I was sharing my stable with ten other soldiers, Russ among them. They were mainly from 3 Mercian, although a few came from 1 Rifles. Two of them came in following a short patrol around the compound, their Dorset accents filling the stable.
“We’ve just been chatting to one of the elders,” said one of them. “There are two IEDs out there.”
The devices were dug into an alleyway alongside the compound. The elder had pointed them out to the soldiers, who’d marked them for the EOD team. It was troubling to think what could’ve happened if the elder had said nothing, but also reassuring to know that some of the locals were ready to help us out.
We all took turns on sentry duty. The lookout point was on the corner of our mud roof. To get there, you had to climb up a ladder and crawl over to the edge of the building. You couldn’t walk on the roof, in case it collapsed. Whenever the sentries changed over, dragging themselves into position, bits of mud and thatch sprinkled down from the ceiling onto our heads. After I’d stopped worrying about the two IEDs, I started worrying about the beehives, wondering whether they would fall down onto our heads as well.
I went on sentry at 3.30 p.m., crawling across the roof to get my handover from one of the young Mercians. He pointed out my “arcs” and then talked about the three “fighting-age males” wielding hand scythes in the field to my front, about a hundred metres away. They’d been cutting wheat for the last hour and weren’t deemed a threat, but I still had to watch them.
They did nothing of any interest. They just carried on cutting the wheat. I lay on the corner of the roof in the sun, feeling like a lizard. The temperature was still in the thirties, but the lack of exertion meant the whole experience was actually quite pleasant. Like being on holiday. It was nice to get outside, away from the bees and the crumbling ceiling. There was a gentle breeze blowing across the wheat, keeping me cool. Beyond the farmers were trees and green fields. It was like a postcard from Tuscany.
At just after 4 p.m., an IED detonated. It was to my right, but I could only guess at the distance. One kilometre? Two kilometres? Three kilometres? It was impossible to say. I certainly couldn’t see anything.
Colour Sergeant Fisher called up to me. He was manning the radio in a small pocket of shade in the main courtyard.
“You see anything, sir?”
“Nothing, Colour Sergeant.”
No information was forthcoming about the explosion. We kicked our heels in the compound for the rest of the afternoon, then gathered in one of the stables for a briefing after dark.
According to the elders, the Taliban had fixed our position and were planning to attack us the next day. “But they’re just rumours at this point,” said Foot-Tapping, studying his notes by torchlight. “Besides, we’re going to be leaving at 5 a.m.”
There was still no word on the afternoon IED, but overall the operation seemed to be going well. There had been only one minor casualty during the earlier heli-insertion, a soldier from 1 Rifles suffering a broken leg after a partial IED detonation. Otherwise it had been very quiet. An interpreter had been injured after a grenade had been fired into another compound, but that was about it.
Foot-Tapping rounded off the brief by once again reminding everyone to treat the compound with respect. “Make sure you pick up all your rubbish before you go,” he said. “We might have to come back here one day.”
“How much is this place costing us?” someone asked.
“We’ve given the owner 10,000 afghanis.”
“What’s that?”
“A couple of hundred dollars.”
“I want to see the management,” said one of the Dorset soldiers.
“Too right,” said another. “The roof is falling in.”
Those of us not on sentry went back to our kit and tried to get some sleep, but it was a lost cause. The sentries were doubled up after last light, crawling across the roof in pairs. The noisy changeovers, along with all the bits of crap falling from the ceiling, made for a restless night.
Reveille was at 4.30 a.m., just as it was starting to get light. Nobody bothered trying to cook any breakfast. We just packed our kit, cleared away the odd bit of rubbish and formed up in the courtyard. The ANA were up and about as well, and we all set off together at just after 5 a.m.
The plan was to get to Salaang by dusk. It was just under two kilometres away, but as before we were allowing ourselves plenty of time. The ANA led the way and we followed on behind, negotiating a stream and a couple of harvested poppy fields before stopping on a track about four hundred metres short of a compound at just after 7.30 a.m. We planned to lay up at the compound and finish the journey to Salaang in the afternoon.
We sat on the track for another three hours, warming up in the sun. There was no shade, and nothing to hide behind. Young men on motorcycles would occasionally drive by, making us all sit up, but otherwise it was quiet.
The owner of the compound eventually let us in at 11 a.m. It wasn’t as nice as Compound 43 – there was cow shit everywhere – but it did have a clean-looking stream running through it. I had run out of water by now, and was more than ready for a drink. The stream water itself was not to be trusted, but one of the Mercians lent me his Lifesaver,* allowing me to refill all my empty bottles without fear of infection. I poured a sachet of blackcurrant powder into one of them and gave it a try.
It tasted fantastic. I emptied my bottle in two swigs, and did it all over again.
Once again, we took turns on sentry. One of the Mercians sat on the roof in the atrocious heat and gazed out across the fields, while the rest of us stayed in the shade. The compound had just one empty stable to protect us from the sun – many of us had to pin ourselves to the perimeter wall, sheltering in a band of shadow two feet wide.
I went on sentry later in the afternoon. Another IED went off. Again, I couldn’t tell how far away it was, but that didn’t matter. It came in over the radio.
“It was just over three kilometres south-west of us,” said Colour Sergeant Fisher. “Must be the Marines.”
It was most likely 42 Commando, the unit hosting Virginia Wheeler. If she was out with a patrol, she would’ve been at the back, theor
etically the safest place. We’d only heard a secondhand-contact IED report at this stage. There was no word as yet on any casualties.
We all left the compound at just after 5 p.m. We had about another kilometre to get to CP Salaang. By now the sky had started to cloud over, and a gentle breeze had returned. We made good time across the open fields, keen to get into Salaang before nightfall.
Salaang was a checkpoint that was in the process of being upgraded into a patrol base. Ordinarily it was home to a platoon, but right now there were around seventy British troops and almost two hundred Afghans. Everywhere you looked, soldiers were trying to make themselves comfortable, sitting on their kit, drinking water, smoking cigarettes and cooking rations. We eventually found some space on the edge of the vehicle park, close to a JCB digger that was emptying gravel into a line of Hesco containers. It was dusty and noisy, but at least it was somewhere to lie down. We marked out a sleeping area with glow sticks – hoping that no one would drive over us in the middle of the night – and then got a small fire going.
We had another impromptu briefing that evening. Foot-Tapping was busy on a separate tasking with the ANA, so another officer from the Brigade Advisory Group, Captain Chris Ball, took us through the main details.
“It’s thought the insurgents have been overmatched in our area,” he told us. “We think they’ve pushed out towards the south and the west.”
“What happened with that IED?” asked someone.
“Two dead from J Company, 42 Commando,” he said. “Three injured.”
There were no sentry duties for us that night. We laid out on our roll mats and drifted off to sleep under the stars, grateful that none of us had been blown up.
The next day we built a sun shelter out of stakes, wire mesh and tarpaulin. At a push, a dozen of us could squeeze in underneath it. It wasn’t the greatest piece of engineering in the world, but it stopped us from burning up. We sat in our priceless shade and chatted, read books and smoked. Someone appeared with a twenty-four-can pack of iced tea, and it all felt remarkably civilized.
I was reading a book called Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. It was about the experiences of a US helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war. Each page I turned fell out in my hand, the glue in the spine having melted. I’d promised Ali she could read it after me, so I had to fold up every loose page and keep it in my pocket.
Mid-afternoon, news came through that J Company had hit another IED, very close to the scene of the previous day’s explosion. There was no word yet on casualties. Meanwhile the commanding officer of 1 Rifles, Lieutenant Colonel James de la Billière, had come under fire while driving alongside the Nahr-e Bughra Canal. His party – consisting of four armoured vehicles – had only been travelling for a few kilometres, but they still managed to draw small-arms fire on four separate occasions.
At just after 5 p.m., with the sun low in the sky, the Royal Engineers started to build the eagerly awaited bridge outside Salaang’s back gate. All the ground overlooking this section of the canal had been cleared of insurgents in the first few days of the operation, allowing the engineers to work in relative safety. It was the first time they’d ever tried to erect a forty-four-foot unreinforced bridge in an operational theatre, making it a historic occasion. There were about a dozen of them, crawling all over three huge vehicles parked up on the bank. They had to extend a launch rail slowly across the canal from one of the vehicles, establishing a platform on the opposite bank (it looked like a giant fishing rod, with a metal stand on the end). They could then start sliding into place the main parts of the bridge, which consisted of lengths of aluminium alloy weighing two tonnes each. If all went according to plan, the entire structure would be up and ready in less than two hours.
Russ and Ali moved among the engineers, recording their progress, while I chatted to their commander, Major Ralph Cole.
“This bridge is vitally important,” he said. “It’ll mean our troops can easily move north of the canal and disrupt the insurgents up there. It’ll also open up a trade route for the local Afghans.”
“Once the bridge is nearly done, I’d like to interview you in front of it,” I said.
“Of course,” said Ralph. “It shouldn’t take too long.”
By now the end of the launch rail was resting on its stand on the far side of the canal. The engineers were starting to manoeuvre the first lengths of aluminium alloy into position. We watched as two of them stood over the middle of the canal, balancing on the metalwork. With the threat from insurgents kept to a minimum, the only real danger came from the canal itself. The two men still had to wear their body armour and helmets, which meant a fall into the water could easily result in them both drowning, weighed down by the very kit designed to save their lives.
Suddenly the stand on the far bank buckled and collapsed under the weight of the launch rail. Tonnes of metalwork bounced violently up and down. The two men on the rail bounced up and down with it, but somehow managed to hang on. They inched their way back towards the safety of the near bank as the rail’s originating vehicle creaked and groaned, threatening to flip over.
“I’ll do that interview another time,” said Ralph tersely. “Excuse me.”
He hurried over to join his men on the bank. They were running around frantically, trying to work out what the hell had gone wrong.
Russ was still filming, so I went over to join him. He had managed to record the whole debacle, standing less than twenty feet away.
“Should make for a good training video,” he said.
A breathless sergeant ran towards us. For some reason, he’d only just noticed the camera.
“You can’t show this,” he blurted. “It’s a massive fuck-up.”
“It’s OK,” I said. “We’re Media Ops.”
“We’re not here to make anyone look bad,” said Russ.
By now it was gone 7 p.m., and getting too dark to film anyway. Russ, Ali and I walked back to the vehicle park while the engineers continued to work into the night, securing the launch rail so they could have another go in the morning.
The vehicle park was teeming with life, most of it Afghan. They’d set up a huge cooking pot over a fire, throwing in countless chopped onions and chunks of chicken. The smell from the pot drifted across our sleeping area, making us all yearn for a good curry. Our rations were good, but not that good. A dozen Afghans stood around the fire, their faces lit up by the flames, waiting for the feast.
Captain Chris Ball came over and gave us another brief, mosquitoes flitting in and out of his torchlight as he went through his notes.
“As you may already know, J Company hit another IED today,” he said. “They’ve got two down, injured. Another IED went off near PB5. That was the ANA. A group of them left the base to get some food from a nearby village, taking a vehicle down a short cut that was known to be unsafe. None of them are dead, but the vehicle is a write-off. The ANA at PB5 are refusing to recover it, so our guys are having to get it.
“We’ve been having a few problems with the ANA,” he went on. “Some of the Afghans with J Company are now refusing to soldier because of the IED threat. Here, you may also find there’s some drug use going on. There’s not a great deal we can do about it. Just be aware of it.”
After the brief, we stretched out on our roll mats, chatting about home. It was always a good time to reminisce just before bed. You went back to your happy place, got nice and relaxed, and drifted off. Before long, a sweet-smelling smoke hung over the sleeping area, helping us all to unwind. It came from the Afghans over by the cooking pot, relaxing after their feast.
“Can you smell ganja?” I heard Chris Ball say.
“Yep,” someone else murmured.
We all slept well that night. Without any sentry duties to worry about, most of us got at least seven hours. We didn’t start getting up until 5.30 a.m., by which time it was broad daylight. Ali got a little fire going, and we all had some coffee and heated up some boil-in-the-bag rations.
The engineers h
ad to wait for spare parts to arrive from Bastion, and weren’t due to resume work on the bridge until 8 a.m. To fill the time, Russ and I interviewed two brothers from the Brigade Advisory Group. Lee Swain was a rough-hewn sergeant major who was helping the Afghans with their logistics, while his younger brother Paul – a slightly more fresh-faced staff sergeant – was passing through the base with another tolay.
“Having a brother out here gives you that reminder of being back home,” said Lee. “It means you can talk to someone that’s very close to you about the situations you’ve been through. It’s very helpful.”
“It’s good to work alongside him,” added Paul. “I don’t get to see him all that often, but every few weeks we meet up. It’s good to have a chat and see how he’s getting on. That side of it makes life a little bit better out here.”
“And how does the rest of your family feel about you being out here?”
“They’ve got mixed feelings,” Paul said. “There’s the worry that we’re serving in a country like Afghanistan, but they’re also quite proud that we’re both out here. We’re fortunate to be in touch with family and friends on a regular basis, so it’s nice to let them know that we’re OK.”
Russ filmed them working alongside each other, unloading ration boxes from the back of a lorry. It was all staged, but we had to get them doing something together in the same shot.
“That’s fine,” I said after a couple of minutes. “Thanks for that. Have a safe tour.”
“Cheers, sir,” said Lee. “You too.”
Combat Camera Page 14
