As JTAC, Julian called in some Apache air support, which suppressed the enemy fire. The air strikes continued while a medevac helicopter came in to winch him out. The amazing thing was, Julian was on the radio, still calling in the Apaches and coordinating his own evacuation while he was being winched up. The Americans in the helicopter were astonished by his courage and persistence.
Things calmed down after some jets came in with 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs and multiple gun runs. The main KAU push went forward from lower in the valley, and the Talibs were firing back at them, but we were too far away to provide effective fire, instead acting as the eyes to direct more air support. One of our patrols was still pinned behind a rock. Another of our guys had torn his groin muscle and was radioing his medic for pain relief, but the medic said tersely, ‘I can’t really make it right now, I’m pinned down behind a rock.’
When the bombs had suppressed the enemy firing, we saw an unusual sight. The twenty or so KAU on the high ground dropped their weapons and sprinted forward to take the next Taliban position. It was weird that they dropped their weapons; they said they had to get there as quickly as possible. They were rough and untrained, recruited for a few dollars a day. They would be given a rifle and webbing, which they knew how to use – they grew up with AKs the way we grow up with cricket bats and footballs – but fought on a strictly casual basis, only working for a few hours a day before knocking off. Their methods were often unorthodox and, as that night had shown, it could be pretty sketchy working alongside them.
It was a long day; the moments of fighting were interspersed with extended lulls. Between times of being shot at, I actually fell asleep once. We reconsolidated with our patrols in the valley late the next afternoon. We heard through the ICOM that more enemy fighters were going to shoot at us, and when we went looking for them we found a staging area they’d used – cooking, tents, supplies, beds, Dushka ammunition, mortars, paperwork, sixty days’ worth of naan bread, palm oil, water. It could have supplied enemy forces on the hills for weeks. We found lots of hidey-holes in the rocks where they were even safe from the Hellfire missiles, but the Talibs themselves had squirted.
The final result was sixteen to twenty EKIA and, most importantly, a cleared road. We’d helped the KAU break the stalemate and travel freely through that part of the road, so it had been a success, albeit an unorthodox one.
*
For one of our last jobs on that trip, we were moved to the Helmand Valley, near Kandahar, our first job as Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) in a province other than Uruzgan. In Helmand, a traditional Taliban stronghold, the Brits had taken a lot of casualties. The bureaucratic restrictions were so complex that our theatre commander didn’t even have the power to authorise us; it had to go a long way up the chain for approval. It seemed strange to me.
Even in a new province, the frustration continued. The job we were doing was in concert with the 4RAR Commandos. From experience, we’d told them in our briefings that if there was no immediate threat when clearing a village, it was counterproductive to ‘blow in’ – that is, to use explosives to enter the first target house. It would wake up the whole village and alert all the enemy fighters in the area. The Commandos agreed, but when the moment came, they blew in. We thought they would have enough professionalism to do what they’d said. When they set their explosion off, our terp’s radio went bananas with all the enemy fighters waking up. They knew where we were and what was going on. The Commandos’ blow-in had enabled them to get their network of fighters ready. As a result, we were involved in sporadic contacts all through the day.
As each trip to Afghanistan approached its end, my mood changed. I slowed down and grew more reflective. I’d compare it (although it’s obviously a lot different) with a session in the surf. At the beginning, you’re frothing to get as many waves as possible and go about your business frenetically; once you’ve achieved that, and turned it into a good session, you stop and take a look around. I would want to soak up every detail and remember it all, in case it never happened again. Even though the 2009 trip had fallen short of expectations, it was still successful because we didn’t lose anyone. I still loved the job and wanted to make sure I didn’t forget it.
Our last job was to fly into a bazaar in Uruzgan in a helicopter and take out a particular target. As we descended, we saw him jump on a motorbike and take off. We shot at him but missed; he crashed but got up and ran. A crowd of children had gathered around, we couldn’t shoot, and he got away. We hooned around on his bike afterwards, dressing up Daryll in an old Russian fur cap and giving him a local name and character. It’s the type of thing you do when the trip is ending and the mood is lightening. When we finished fooling around, we blew up the bike.
TWENTY-SIX
A feeling that assailed me towards the end of the trip was how much I was missing Emma and Kaylee. There were phones set up at the base at Tarin Kowt, so throughout the trip I’d been able to phone whenever I was back there, usually every second or third day. Communication tended to find its own rhythm when I was away. There would be a lot of calls at the beginning, but once we both got into our routines it was more a matter of monitoring things. There isn’t a lot to talk about when you can’t say in detail what you’ve been up to, and nothing else happens in Afghanistan that makes very interesting small talk. I wanted to hear about what was happening at home, but Emma knew not to drag me through the fine details of problems I couldn’t help with. Towards the end of the trip, though, the phone calls picked up more, as we got excited about being together again. On 1 October Kaylee had her third birthday party and sounded so happy on the phone after going to an animal farm to play with rabbits and ride on ponies. She made me laugh every time I heard her voice.
Our reunion would be especially exciting this time, as it would be taking place in London, where I was to go for a private reception with the Queen. I had to leave a week before the rest of the squadron, and was fairly crook flying out after a big last night. I emptied my guts before the Dash 8 flight from Tarin Kowt to Kandahar, and then, not having eaten that morning or the night before, I was starving. Using my SAS resourcefulness, I purloined a blueberry pie that had been cooking in a microwave oven, and ate it on my way to the bus stop, shooting a filthy glare at anyone who looked at me as if it might not be my pie.
There was a Canadian general aboard the Hercules flight from Kandahar to Dubai, and the pilots decided to show off, as they do, throwing the plane about. I get motion sickness at the best of times, and now, feeling as I was, I had my body armour and helmet off and was tearing down the back of the plane before it had even levelled off. I managed to keep the blueberry pie down until the end, when the pilots decided to weave and duck and dive again, and it all went into my helmet. Fortunately, the liaison officer sent to pick me up in Dubai suffered from air sickness too. He said, ‘You poor bastard,’ and emptied my helmet into the bin.
On 6 November I landed in London and met Emma and Kaylee, as well as Barry from my patrol, who I’d been allowed to invite over. He was off crutches but still struggling with his legs. We did some tourist stuff and went to Hereford to see the 22 SAS base – the original model for the Australian SAS. I was impressed with the whole thing, but strangely, while I was sipping a whisky in the RHQ building, what hit me hardest was a poster of an American soldier who’d lost a leg to an IED in Iraq. The picture showed him in his multi-cams, back in Iraq, with one pants leg rolled up and his prosthetic leg showing. The text read: ‘What’s your excuse?’ Having Barry there, barely able to walk, it was pretty emotional for me. He was one man who didn’t need to offer any excuses.
The next day was raw and rainy, and I was taken in my service dress to Windsor Castle. Barry and my mentor Patto came with Emma, Kaylee and me. Outside, in the rain, soldiers were selling wristbands for Help for Heroes, a charity for wounded soldiers. They were about to deploy to Afghanistan for the first time and were really keen. Five guys from their unit h
ad already come home after IED blasts. They wanted to be over there to look after their mates. Although their background was very different from ours, their inner drive was the same.
A stuffy army colonel came to meet us. Formality, as I’ve explained, was not my strength as a soldier. I had to learn to adapt again. This colonel turned to Barry and said, ‘Look at Mark’s service dress. Does that look right?’
Barry took a look and said, ‘Yep, he looks fine.’
The colonel persisted: ‘Look at my tie, and look at Mark’s. It’s not straight, is it?’
Barry said, ‘Still looks all right to me.’
Having just come out of country, it was hard to adjust to this type of thing. I was still getting used to having people around me. A few days earlier we’d been sleeping with the dogs, like dogs, on whatever scraps of cardboard we could find in a village in Afghanistan. A few days out of that, Windsor Castle was a bit of an adjustment, and nobody had really briefed me on what I was expected to do.
Leaving the others outside, Emma and I were shown through some rooms. The Green Room was green with gold trim. The Crimson Room was crimson with gold trim. You never anticipate that a place is going to be just as over-the-top and ostentatious as on television, but it was. Everything was covered in gold.
I sat on a couch with Emma. The Australian defence attaché was there, and a Canadian general who was reporting to the Queen on the state of the Canadian forces. He said, ‘You’re going in before me. I’ve been relegated.’
I apologised.
He said, ‘I’ll be relegated for a VC winner any day.’
We heard a distant barking, and paws scratching the floor: the corgis were coming. Ushers and minions were rushing about. I was told to stand in front of a pair of white doors. I said to the usher, ‘What’s the protocol? What am I supposed to do?’
‘Nobody’s told you yet?’
This was seconds before Her Majesty was ready to receive me. He quickly said, ‘Bow when you go through the doors and move towards her and then bow again, don’t speak until you’re spoken to,’ and a lot of other Don’ts that I immediately forgot. He said, ‘There will be camera crews and journalists to photograph the meeting, and then it’ll be you and the Queen alone for fifteen or twenty minutes.’
I said, ‘Is it Ma’am as in jam?’
He said, ‘Yes. Bow and take three steps forward.’
We met in the White Room, which was, funnily enough, white with gold trim. I bowed, took three steps forward, and bowed again.
‘G’day, Ma’am. Mark Donaldson.’
The photographers snapped and left, and we stood and chatted for fifteen minutes about Afghanistan, where I’d grown up in Australia, and my family. She was talking about her grandchildren running around destroying the place, and we exchanged stories about the willpower of three-year-old girls. I just found her an extremely warm, down-to-earth lady, more like a favourite grandma than a queen. We stayed standing up the whole time. She was shuffling in her shoes, as if they were making her uncomfortable, and I was so relaxed with her I was going to say, ‘Do you want to take a seat, Ma’am?’ I later heard that that would have been a definite no-no, so it was just as well I didn’t say it.
Then she said, ‘At this event tomorrow night, just remember to pause before you lay the wreath so that I can touch it.’
The next night, the evening of Remembrance Day, there would be a wreath-laying ceremony in Westminster Abbey for the passing of the last of the World War I generation. All I’d been told was that I had to go to it.
I said, ‘Are you going to be there, Ma’am?’
She looked at me funnily and said, ‘Yes, at the wreath-laying, I’ll be there.’
We talked about Windsor Castle and she said, ‘I had an American here in this room, and we were sitting here, and he said, “This is a lovely place, Ma’am, but I don’t understand why you built it so close to the airport.” ’
I laughed and said, ‘You should have said, “The land was going cheap.” ’
She had genuine concerns about Afghanistan, and was very inquisitive. I asked her about the VC. She said, ‘I remember signing off on it on Christmas Eve. I read through it twice with all the family around. I was so amazed.’
I said, ‘Sorry, Ma’am, did you say Christmas Eve?’
She said she remembered it well. Interesting – when the chief of army had met me in January, he’d said that it still needed to be sent to the Queen for confirmation. It was good to know from the source how it all really happened! But maybe General Gillespie had been given the wrong information.
It was awe-inspiring to talk with her about the Cross. She’d given Keith Payne his VC, and Ray Simpson too. It was her great-great-grandmother who conceived the award back during the Crimean War. The medal is older than Australia as a country. To be attached to that is a huge honour and being in England, seeing how much they respect it, brought that sense of history home to me. To meet the Queen, who was related to the person who instigated its inception, was incredible.
We shook hands again, and I was ushered away through the big doors. Outside, crowds were already cheering and clapping and saying, ‘Well done, Mark!’ The pictures taken by the photographers less than half an hour earlier had already gone around the world. It humbled me to see how much it meant to a crowd of Brits outside Windsor Castle.
I went to the Abbey for the rehearsal for the wreath-laying, and was shown how it would run. The Queen and all the heads of the Commonwealth or their representatives would be there. I said, ‘Cheers for the heads up! I’ve just made myself look like a dick in front of the Queen!’
Sergeant Johnson Beharry, the British soldier awarded a VC for his actions in Iraq in 2004, was going to lay the wreath with me. He was a really nice guy. As we did a walk-through, a British Defence Ministry staffer told me how they had gone through my VC recommendation and compared it with the 1300 others who had received the award, checking through the criteria. I’d never known it went through such a strenuous process, but I was always learning new things about the importance of the Cross.
While Emma and Kaylee wandered off to do a self-guided tour of the most secluded parts of the Abbey, Johnson and I had a laugh while a tenor was practising for the ceremony and hitting some high notes. Johnson said, ‘They must be grabbing his balls to get him that high. I’m not going to be able to look at him tomorrow without laughing.’
I said, ‘I’ll look after you.’
‘The Queen’ll be sitting right there watching us from the throne.’
During the ceremony, the feeling when the Queen arrived couldn’t have been more different from when I’d met her the day before. The whole place bowed. She wore a royal robe and a crown, and had an entirely different demeanour – she was large and powerful, not a favourite grandma but The Queen. As everyone was bowing and scraping, I was just taking it all in and found myself looking at her. She caught my eye. I thought, Fuck! and ducked my head. We weren’t there as people any more. She was Queen Elizabeth and I was a subject.
The tenor came out to sing. Johnson was daydreaming, and I nudged him. He got the giggles. I was saying, ‘There’s nothing to laugh about, mate!’ He couldn’t stop. Then we both looked up and the Queen was staring at the pair of us. Johnson put his head down. I looked away.
Johnson and I walked up some steps in unison, picked up the wreath, which was the size of a truck tyre, and walked it down through the abbey with the Queen behind us. We walked to the grave of the Unknown Soldier. The Queen put down her card and touched the poppies, and we laid the wreath on the tomb and stepped back. I was thinking, I’m just an Aussie country kid from Dorrigo, laying a wreath with the Queen for the passing of the World War I generation. Sometimes there’s a chasm between who you are and what you find yourself doing. I was thinking to myself that you can become something bigger and better than you ever imagined.
Outside
, I found Emma and did a couple of interviews. We went to a pub with Barry and Patto for a feed. British people were coming up, hugging and thanking me. A man said, ‘I’m from 3 Para in the Falklands. I just want to shake your hand.’ It was full-on, getting this treatment in England, and brought home again how important that award was to them.
Over the next few days, we were privileged to see some unforgettable sights and people in London and across the Channel. At the House of Lords, we met Viscount Slim, who had been an important mover in creating an Australian SAS back in the 1950s. His father had been Australia’s governor-general. Their family crest has wattle in it, to show the link to Australia. He looked, acted and talked like a lord. In his eighties, he still had the movements of a forty-year-old. He congratulated us on what we’d done, and hit me over the head with a roll of paper and said, ‘Don’t let it fucking go to your head!’
‘I’ll try my best, sir.’
He said, ‘I like you guys,’ and took us on a private tour of the House. He said, ‘Don’t listen to what they’re saying or else you’ll go to sleep like everyone else.’ Sure enough, one of the lords was racking out in the middle of parliament. We took a look around before he bought us a drink at the bar and showed us where Charles I lost his head.
In France, we saw another side of the historic links between Australia and our allies. In Paris I participated in the nightly lighting of the flame at the tomb in the Arc de Triomphe, where among other things they thank the forces that came to save their country. We toured the Western Front, visiting Fromelles when they were excavating the World War I graves, and were allowed to handle precious artefacts, such as Rising Sun badges, a morphine vial, a lucky charm and a button that had been dug up. At Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, I spoke the Ode at the nightly service. It was as if they had Remembrance Day, or Anzac Day, every single night. They truly never have forgotten. On the walls there were 55,000 names of those who died in battle. About a hundred British schoolkids were at the ceremony, and some French services personnel, and the kids mobbed us, wanting photos with Australian soldiers. Later, sitting in a pub in dress uniform felt very comfortable and natural and honourable, perhaps more so in Belgium than it ever could in Australia.
The Crossroad Page 30
