Danger Close

by Colonel Stuart Tootal

  Matt Carter was trying to vector the Apaches on to the new threat, but neither he nor the pilots could get a precise fix on the Taliban. Carter was concerned about the cannon fire hitting their own people and wouldn’t clear the helicopters in until he could give them a precise target indication. Ali was convinced that he had spotted them and was shouting for an AT-4. Private Dewhurst ran back to his vehicle to get him one of the light antitank weapons Ali intended to use as a high-explosive pointer. Although having been hit minutes previously, Ali positioned himself in clear view of the enemy with the rocket launcher balanced on his shoulder. He seemed to take an age to fire it and Swann shouted at him to get on with it. Ali told him that he wanted to make the shot count. It did. Both the pilots and Carter saw the strike and a stream of 30mm cannon shells streaked on to the tell-tale smoke signature rising from where Ali’s rocket had landed. The fire fight abruptly died out and the Patrols Platoon cleared forward and entered a compound. It was splashed with blood and the trails of crimson-stained sand indicated where the Taliban had dragged their dead and wounded away.

  Landing a few hundred metres away, A Company were unaware of the contacts against the Gurkhas and the Patrols Platoon until the leading men of 1 Platoon also came under brief sporadic fire as they exited the Chinook. Corporal Trigg’ Poll led his section to engage two gunmen who were shooting at them from between the broken gaps of a mud wall. They returned fire and followed them up into a compound. Privates Damien Jackson and ‘Monk’ Randle entered to be greeted by a group of women and children. Some panicked on the appearance of the two soldiers, others milled around, but the presence of the civilians prevented the two young paratroopers from firing, allowing the Taliban to make good their escape from the rear of the compound.

  Concerned about becoming separated from the rest of the platoon, Poll decided to pull his section back to the landing point. But 1 Platoon had been dropped off in the wrong location and were half a kilometre from where they should have been put down. They could still hear the contact raging against the Patrols Platoon as they closed into the cover of a long wall. The platoon sergeant, Dan Jarvie, and Lieutenant Hugo Farmer worked out where they were. Having got their bearings, they headed north through an orchard towards where 2 Platoon had landed. Taking lead point with his section, Corporal Prigg Poll spotted a lone individual observing the platoon from a doorway. He was armed, but kept his AK by his side. He could have been a Talib, perhaps one of those who had engaged them? But in a land where everyone had a gun, he could equally have been a simple farmer looking to his family’s security. Poll held his fire and the Afghan watched the platoon move off towards their correct location.

  By the time my CH-47 touched down next to the compound, 2 Platoon had already secured and cleared it. It felt good to be on the ground, but now I needed to find out what was happening. The frantic snatches of the JTAC’s radio traffic I had heard coming across the Chinook’s intercom had told me that the outer cordon troops were in contacts. But I didn’t know what their status was and knew virtually nothing else about what had being going on as I circled overhead. I linked up with Will Pike who gave me a situational report. From what Will told me, I was confident that we could hold the compound and complete the search mission. With the arrival of Captain Rob Musetti’s additional machine guns aboard my helicopter, I assessed that we had sufficient troops to form a defensive perimeter that could keep the Taliban at bay. The Taliban leader we were after was obviously away from the compound directing the attacks against us, but a search might still yield useful intelligence and weapons.

  My immediate concern was with what was happening to the Patrols Platoon and the Gurkhas. We had all been taken by surprise by the close, hemmed-in nature of the surrounding countryside. The open desert had been replaced by a relative oasis of orchards, grass banks of thick vegetation and deep water-filled ditches that bounded small patchwork fields. It was what the military called ‘close country’. It was also a guerrilla fighter’s paradise, as it made any vehicle movement unprotected by dismounted infantry extremely vulnerable to ambush. I wanted both vehicle-mounted platoons to break out into the relative safety of more open country where they could take advantage of the range of their heavier weapons systems. To try to reach us would only invite further attack. We couldn’t get communications with the Gurkhas, but I managed to raise the Patrols on the net and spoke to Lance Corporal White who was Mark Swann’s signaller. Swann was disappointed, his men were buzzing from the fire fight and he wanted to get into a position where he could support me. However, he knew that it was the right call and started his withdrawal out to the desert in the west. Will’s signaller, Lance Corporal Shorthouse, shouted over that he had finally made contact with the Gurkhas and I was relieved when he informed me that they had managed to withdraw back to the district centre. Now I could focus on the immediate task at hand without having to worry about fighting two other separate battles.

  Before visiting the compound to check on the progress of the search, I turned my attention to how we would extract off the ground when it was finished. The countryside was too close to plan a helicopter pick-up from around the compound. We would have to move several kilometres to a safer pick-up point out in the surrounding desert. I consulted my map and selected a route west to where the Patrols Platoon would be able to secure an LZ for the helicopters. I briefed the plan to Will and Captain Matt Taylor. Matt had just stepped up to the operation officer position. This was his first op, but he questioned my extraction plan suggesting it might be better to choose a shorter route across a dry wadi to the east. I saw the merits in his proposal, although the Patrols Platoon wouldn’t be in a position to secure an LZ. But having to cross less ground, where our movement would be constricted and every wall or grassy bank could conceal a group of insurgents waiting to ambush us, was a better idea. I told Matt that we would go with his plan and to get Bastion to brief the pilots to be on call to fly to an LZ to the east. I winked at Matt: ‘Questioning the CO on your first trip out as the new ops boy, eh?’ Taylor was over 6 foot and built like an ox, but he looked down and smiled shyly. He had made a good call and he knew that I valued him for it.

  I entered the compound through a low, blue-painted wooden door that had seen better days. Weeds struggled out of the dry mud floor of the rubbish-strewn courtyard and the odd sorry looking chicken pecked among it. Captain Jon Evett’s Engineers were busily conducting the search of the internal rough mud-bricked buildings and he told me he would need at least four hours to do it properly. I updated him on what had being going on outside the compound and asked him to go as fast as he could. I spoke to an ANA officer whose men were keeping watch over the family who had been in the compound when we entered. They now sat huddled in a corner next to a large bundle of dried poppy canes; the women were shrouded in scarves. I averted my gaze from them and offered my salaams to the oldest man present, a gap-toothed, wizened individual, who returned my greetings. Through an interpreter, I apologized for the intrusion and explained why we were in his compound and that we meant him and his family no harm. I said that we came in peace and were there to help the Afghan people at the behest of the government. He told me that the Taliban had made him let them use his compound, but had now gone.

  As I left the compound and went to look at some of A Company’s positions I reflected on how incongruous my words must have sounded given the fire fights that heralded our arrival. The blokes of A Company were in good heart, but virtually all of them mentioned their surprise at the close nature of the surrounding countryside. A number pointed out the irrigation ditches which formed tunnels deep enough for a man to move through undetected and the high walls that all offered favourable cover for an approaching attacker. As I headed back towards the compound the snap and crack of rifle fire suggested that 1 Platoon were in action again as the Taliban began to probe our positions.

  Corporal Poll’s section had taken up a position behind a wall facing east. He reported hearing Afghan voices coming from the other
side. Lance Corporal ‘Billy’ Smart and Private Monk Randle took up fire positions over the wall and issued a challenge to two Afghan males armed with AK-47s and an RPG. When one of them raised his AK against them, Smart and Randle fired and dropped both of them. But they didn’t see their comrades around a corner and their actions invited a heavy weight of return fire which zipped over their heads. Private Damien Jackson pumped a couple of grenade rounds at them from the under-slung grenade launcher fitted to the bottom of his rifle, which allowed Smart and Randle to get into cover. Poll managed to shoot and kill another enemy fighter before dropping back into a small alleyway. His platoon commander agreed to allow him to make a left-flanking attack to roll up the remaining Taliban, whom Poll suspected had taken shelter in a nearby compound. Private McKinley heard the fire fight, but could see nothing through the thick vegetation. Climbing a tree to get a better look, he spotted an insurgent crossing a small wall. He beaded the insurgent with the black tip of his telescopic rifle sight and counted the nine rounds he squeezed off against him. The man crumpled. Alerted to his presence in the tree, other Taliban opened up against him. McKinley scrambled back down to the ground as enemy bullets chopped into the branches above him.

  Taking a gun group of GPMGs with him, Poll called on all single men of his section to follow him and pushed through the undergrowth to a compound. He came under contact and attempted to get through a small gap in a wall but the weight of fire pushed him back. Farmer closed up to his point section commander. Suddenly explosions erupted around them as the Taliban tossed grenades over the top of the wall. Luckily for Poll and Farmer the grenades fell on broken ground. The folds in the earth absorbed the blast and channelled the lethal lumps of fragmented metal harmlessly above their heads. Private Lanaghan was close enough to hear Poll shout, ‘Fucking hell, they are throwing fucking grenades at us!’ He was also close enough to feel the shock waves of the explosions. Poll and Farmer knew that there were women and children in the compound, which prevented them from throwing grenades back at them for fear of causing casualties among the innocent. By the time they had forced their way into the compound the Taliban had withdrawn by a rear exit, leaving the civilians and a number of panicking livestock behind them. Poll was having a bad day: as well as getting shot at and blown up, he had also been stung by a wasp and kicked by a cow.

  As the noise of the exchange of fire and the crump of grenades echoed across the fields, I looked at my watch; we had been on the ground for almost four hours. It was about 1500 hours and the sun was already beginning to slip towards the western horizon. The vegetation obscured most of the fighting and the odd stray round zipped above our heads. I was content to let Pike fight his platoons as I planned the next stage of disengaging from the battle and how we would get to a safe LZ to extract from.

  I was becoming concerned at how long the search of the compound was taking. The nature of the surrounding countryside was making fighting off the Taliban’s attacks hard enough by daylight, but it would become a nightmare when night fell. I urged the search team to get a move on. Jon Evett said he needed another hour and a half. I gave him forty-five minutes and told him that we were racing against the onset of darkness. I passed 2 Platoon, who were itching to get into the fight and had not fired a round since landing. They were snapping that i Platoon were getting all the action, but they were about to get what they wished for. A radio report came in indicating that the Taliban commander we were looking for might be located to the south-east of our position. The contacts against 1 Platoon had died down and it was a possible indication that the enemy were shifting their effort to take us on from a different direction. I spoke to Will Pike and ordered him to send 2 Platoon to clear to the south-east, but I impressed upon him the need not to let them get decisively engaged in a fire fight that would then become difficult to break off when we needed to extract. Last light was a little over three hours away and I was mindful that we would have to move to the LZ sooner rather than later.

  Trying to keep some form of tactical formation while cross-graining the tyranny of a terrain of mud-walled alleyways and irrigation ditches was like completing a rural assault course. The short assault-scaling ladders 2 Platoon carried assisted their passage. But even when they moved across relatively flat ground the concrete hardness of the ploughed ruts threatened to break ankles when they crossed it at speed. Each man was encumbered with between 50 and 60 pounds of kit, not including the weapon systems that they carried and the body armour that encased them in the sweltering heat. Although the sun was dipping, it was still 40°C in the shade. Corporal Tam McDermott led the point section. He paused as they came to a wide, open field and allowed his platoon commander, Tom Fehley, to catch up.

  Recognizing the danger of crossing the open terrain, Fehley ordered McDermott to go firm and adopt a static position to provide covering fire while he ordered Corporal Scott McCloughlan’s section to clear the orchard on the other side. Fehley agreed to let McCloughlan flank left round the open field to avoid the exposed ground. McCloughlan selected a route that brought the section to an alleyway blocked in on either side by high compound walls. He moved cautiously into the alleyway with his lead scout, Private Dale Tyler. Noting movement 100 metres to his front, he dropped to one knee. Suddenly the whole alley was riddled with enemy machine-gun fire. Rounds struck into the walls around McCloughlan and Dale as both returned fire. Dale loosed off a couple of UGL rounds as they withdrew back to where they had started, firing as they went. By the time they got back to the rest of the section, the whole of the orchard on the other side of the field had opened up. Other Taliban fighters blazed away at the two forward sections, their bullets thudding into the mud earthworks and slicing through the vegetation they were using for cover.

  McDermott was ordered to take over from McCloughlan and make another attempt to probe left, but the Taliban were bent on making their own efforts to outflank the platoon. Prudently, McDermott had placed privates ‘Zippy’ Owen and ‘Flash’ Gordon with two GPMGs to guard against this threat. It meant that both men had to adopt an exposed position and rounds kicked up the dirt around them as they hammered back with their beltfed machine guns. Although it kept the Taliban from taking advantage of the open flank, the weight of fire McDermott was taking as he crawled forward eventually forced him back.

  With the left approach closed as an option, Fehley ordered McCloughlan to try to find an approach on the right flank towards a small mound of higher ground. Seeing two men appear on the grassy hillock, McCloughlan’s section shook out into assault formation. Unable to identify the positive presence of any weapons, McCloughlan ordered his men to hold their fire as he moved forward to investigate. He moved cautiously, his weapon in his shoulder at the ‘watch and shoot’ alert position. He scanned the men through his rifle sight; he was close enough to see the expressions on their bearded faces. Both men wore black turbans and the traditional shalwar-kameez. As he inched forward AKs concealed in the long flowing material of their dress were brought to bear against him. His safety-catch already off, McCloughlan’s finger squeezed and released against his trigger, the firing mechanism spat bullets and automatically cocked and re-cocked as his rounds cut down the two men.

  I had been sitting by the side of the compound mentally willing the search team to hurry up as 2 Platoon had begun to move off I heard the first contact; the firing seemed to be much closer. I decided to get forward and many up with the company commander to find out what was going on. I passed the word to Tac; we re-chambered rounds and checked our gear. As we broke cover round the side of the compound, rounds whizzed past us and cracked over our heads, showering us with small branches and twigs. We dropped back behind the wall and decided to move round from the other side of the building. I left Matt to man the Tac Sat radio as we patrolled forward and told him to keep the JOC at Bastion updated. There was no fire on the opposite side, but Will Pike suddenly appeared from a flank and warned us that we were heading straight towards the enemy less than a few hundred metres aw
ay. We pulled back.

  Rounds were now landing regularly around the compound and I told Matt, who was standing up in full view, to get down; I noted the edge in my own voice. The pressure was beginning to build. I had spent all day waiting to hear the fateful words of ‘man down’ come across the net. Getting a casualty out of the close-knit terrain would be a nightmare. It would take a complete section of eight men to carry him back to the emergency LZ by the compound, which would denude our defences considerably. Additionally, calling a helicopter close in to the compound would invite having it shot down. I checked the premonition forming in my mind and for the first time that day I felt physically scared. There was a tightening in my chest under my body armour and my mind clouded with doubts as to whether we would actually make it out in one piece: 2 Platoon were still significantly engaged, the extraction phase was risky and darkness was approaching. I chastised myself; my job was to make sure that we got everyone out and self-doubt wouldn’t help that. I knew that I needed to occupy my mind with activity.

  I went to see how Evett’s men were doing and was relieved to be told that his search team were almost finished. I re-briefed Pike and Taylor on the extraction phase, stressing the importance of making sure 2 Platoon started to break their contact. I looked across at Bish; as the RSM he would play a vital role in the physical mechanics of the withdrawal, and he would also have the immediate responsibility of making sure that no one was left behind. I knew that he would be all over it and I took confidence from the expression of sheer professional determination on his face. Matt squared away the detail of calling in the choppers from Bastion; the trigger would be the break clean of 2 Platoon. It was good to be busy again and I went over to the Regimental Aid Post (RAP) to see the wounded prisoner who had been brought in. He had been apprehended as a youth tried to get him out of the fighting in a wheelbarrow. His lower legs were badly shot up, but he hardly winced as our doctor applied morphine, realigned one of his shattered bones and checked the bleeding. He would be a burden during the extraction. But even if he was a Talib, his best chance of survival was with us and the proper medical care he would receive at Bastion. As I watched Captain Harvey Pynn work on his mangled limbs, it made me think what hard bastards these people were.