Everything wasn’t normal. The lads were out in the Green Zone embroiled in the fight of their lives. And I couldn’t help but think that’s where I should be, bringing in bombs on the enemy to smash them. Before leaving I tried explaining to Nicola the importance of what I was doing out in Helmand.
‘I’ve done all right out there, trying to look after the lads,’ I told her. ‘The air’s a massive part of the picture. And that’s what matters — looking after the lads. Not killing people.’
‘I know. I know.’ Nicola was all teared up. ‘Just don’t take any stupid risks, OK? I know what you’re like, Paul.’
That was the great thing about Nicola: she never said ‘don’t go’. She knew what I did for a living, and she never once tried to stop me. Every time I went to war we both knew it might be the last, but she never once tried to stop me. What a top girl.
I made her a promise. ‘When I’m home, we’ll go to Disney for Ella’s second birthday. Soon as I’m home. I reckon we’ll have earned it.’
Three days later I was back in Camp Bastion and ready to rejoin the lads. I was also itching to catch up on all the news. Major Butt had taken B Company through the enemy positions, driving them out of the Green Zone. Rahim Kalay and Adin Zai were now owned by our boys, but it had taken days of intense close-quarter fighting to secure them. One of those actions had already passed into 2 MERCIAN legend.
The OC had sent a fighting patrol into the Green Zone at night, to winkle out the enemy. At around 0200 they had been challenged in Arabic. The enemy opened up with a barrage of RPGs and machine-gun fire. Using a drainage ditch full of human faeces as cover, the platoon withdrew from the firefight. But in the confusion of doing so one of their number, an eighteen-year-old private, had gone missing.
The patrol was led by Sergeant ‘Jacko’ Jackson. Jacko had called the young lad repeatedly on his radio. Finally he’d answered. He was lying in a ditch with his leg shot up. He’d put tourniquets around it, and was clutching a grenade in either hand. As the enemy got ever closer he’d pulled the pins out with his teeth, and was holding the release levers closed. He was going to blow himself and them sky high if they found him.
The patrol couldn’t see where he was, so they asked him to throw an IR Cyalume — an infrared light stick visible only by night-vision — into the air. That would give them a fix on his position. The trouble was the private had a grenade in either hand with the pins out, so how was he going to throw the light stick? He opted to jam one of the grenades between his knees, and use the free hand to hurl the Cyalume.
It was at this stage that the private said he was visual with the platoon ten metres away. He presumed the lads had come to rescue him. In fact, the platoon hadn’t moved out of their shit-filled ditch, so it had to be the enemy. Sergeant Jackson ordered the wounded soldier to cease talking on his radio, for it was leading the enemy to him. The private replied that he was going to blow the grenades, if that was the enemy so close to him. Jacko managed to talk him out of it, and promised that they were coming in to get him. He then decided that they needed a feint, both to distract the enemy from the Cyalume throw and the rescue attempt, and to draw their fire.
Sergeant Jackson opted to lead a lone assault on the flank of the enemy position, so they would think they were being surrounded. He set off into the darkness, crossed the terrain and charged the enemy with assault rifle blazing, and chucking in some grenades for good measure. As Jacko had gone mental with his weapons, the rest of the platoon saw the Cyalume go up and rushed in to the rescue. They got their wounded man out, and Jacko managed to extract without being killed or captured. A week later the lad was back in hospital in the UK, with his leg patched up and trying to chase the nurses.
Jacko had tumbled over at one stage during the attack, as something powerful smashed him to the ground. The following day the OC had been giving him a bit of a bollocking, ’cause he couldn’t raise him on the radio. Jacko had shown the OC his radio kit, and pointed out that the green light was on, proving that it was working. In response Butsy had pointed to a bullet hole that went straight through Jacko’s radio, his backpack and into his body armour. No one had noticed it up until then.
‘Look, Jacko, that’s why your bloody radio’s not working,’ he’d remarked.
But in taking Rahim Kalay and Adin Zai we’d sadly lost another of the lads. Guardsman Daryl Hickey had been part of Somme Platoon — the same bunch that had got blown up in the 107mm rocket strike on their Vector. The Somme lads had been providing covering fire, as B Company assaulted an enemy position. Guards-man Hickey had taken a gunshot wound. He was evacuated by Chinook, but was dead on arrival at Camp Bastion.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have saved him, had I been the JTAC on the ground during those battles. It was an irrational thought, and there was no reason to think my replacement was any less capable than me. But I couldn’t help thinking it, and it only served to heighten my hunger to get back on the ground with my team.
I was told that I was leaving the following morning for FOB Price, but I was going by a slight detour. I was to run an Operation Loam resupply convoy to Sangin, some fifty kilometres north-east of Camp Bastion. Every month an Op Loam convoy would set out, a line of trucks with escorts seeking to deliver food, ammo and water to a string of British bases along the Helmand River valley.
The convoys ploughed through the open desert, throwing up a massive plume of dust. They were visible for miles around, and they were forever being targeted by the enemy. Those convoys had earned the less-than-affectionate nickname of ‘Operation Mine Strike’. This month’s Op Loam convoy was short of a JTAC, so muggins here got the tasking. En route back from Sangin I’d get dropped at FOB Price, and link up with my FST.
I did not want to do this, but at least it’d get me back with the lads. I had no gear whatsoever in Bastion, so I had to beg, borrow and steal a JTAC-ing kit. I went to the Signals Compound, and got myself a TACSAT. They filled it up with the crypto for me — the encrypted signals information I needed for it to work, and I blagged myself a rifle and a pistol.
At 0400 the convoy left Camp Bastion. In charge of the convoy was the packet commander — I was riding with him in his Vector. Behind us were fifty-two MAN fifteen-tonne army trucks, with WMIKs, Mastiffs and Vectors in support. It struck me that these logistics boys — the ‘loggies’ — were the unsung heroes of this war. There was no glory in running this gauntlet every month, and it was certainly no fun for anyone but the enemy.
Seven hours after setting out we had our first vehicle go over a mine. A WMIK had been roaming out front, clearing the way ahead. The massive explosion blew a crater the size of a house in the sand, and blasted the WMIK thirty metres or more from where it had been hit. The WMIK Land Rovers have mine protection provided by ballistic matting, and the two guys in the front were pretty much OK. The rear had taken the brunt of the blast. The 50-cal gunner had taken shrapnel in the leg, and his left foot was in a bad way. The convoy medic put a tourniquet around the guy’s shin, but there were thick globules of blood oozing out of the seams of his boot. We had to get the guy back to Camp Bastion, so they could cut the boot off him, and treat the injury. I got on my borrowed TACSAT.
‘Widow TOC, Widow Seven Nine. Sitrep: I’m with the Op Loam resupply convoy thirty kilometres due west of Lashkar Gah. We’ve got a WMIK hit by a mine, and one T2 casualty. I need immediate air, plus IRT. I’m making up my own ROZ: ROZ Bommer.’
I needed a ROZ, so I could be free to control air missions above the convoy. I got allocated a pair of F-15s inbound, Dude Zero One and Dude Zero Two, plus a Chinook with Apache escort to do the casevac. ROZ Bommer was getting busy.
We got the casualty on to the bonnet of a WMIK, so we could drive it up the ramp of the Chinook and into the aircraft’s hold. The medic had the lad’s shins strapped together, to hold the injured leg still, and he’d got some morphine into him to stop the screaming.
First into the overhead were the F-15s, and I got them fl
ying air recces above the convoy. It wasn’t two minutes before they spotted trouble.
‘Widow Seven Nine, Dude Zero One: I have a compound five hundred metres to the south of your position. I’m visual with forty males of fighting age. No weapons visible, but it looks like an ambush.’
‘Roger. Keep a close eye on ’em. Wait out.’
My first priority was to get the wounded on to the Chinook, and the convoy moving. Sat in the open desert like this we made a peachy target. I also had to deny the WMIK to the enemy, not that there was much left of it. I’d get that done whilst awaiting the Chinook.
The wrecked vehicle was way to the front of the convoy. I asked Dude Zero Two to hit it, whilst his wing kept an eye on the compound. The packet commander was a young lieutenant, and he was giving a running commentary on what was happening to his OC, back in Camp Bastion.
I’d just begun my talk-on with the F-15, when he interrupted me.
‘The major says do not at all costs deny the WMIK. We need to recover it to Camp Bastion.’
I stared at the guy for a second. ‘Tell your major to fuck clean off. We’re not recovering it. We’re blowing it up.’
The guy relayed my message. ‘Widow Seven Nine says negative — he’s going to blow it up.’
I heard the major kicking off on the net. ‘Well, tell Widow Seven Nine if he does, I’ll be billing him the cost of a replacement vehicle.’
‘Listen, mate: you brief your boss the following,’ I rasped. ‘We’ve got forty males of fighting age gathering in a compound ahead of us. The Dude call sign says it’s an ambush. The WMIK is totally fucked. We need to get the casualty out, and the convoy moving.’
The lieutenant relayed my message, and the major repeated his order to recover the WMIK. He wanted it lifted on to a truck and taken back to Bastion, so he could check for himself if it was beyond repair.
I grabbed the lieutenant’s radio. ‘This is Widow Seven Nine: I’m no mechanic, but Jim couldn’t fix the bloody thing. It’s fucked. I need to blow it up and get us moving.’
‘I repeat what I’ve said: I want that vehicle recovered.’
‘You want me to jack you up a helicopter, so you can fly out yourself and see how fucked it is?’
There was no response. It sounded like the major had switched off his radio.
So be it. I’d been here before on this tour — when the Vector had been hit by the 107mm rocket, at Adin Zai. Plus we’d had WMIKs hit in mine strikes. In each case any attempt to recover kit or weaponry or the vehicles themselves had been met by savage follow-up attacks. We’d learned the hard way that putting lads at risk for a knackered vehicle wasn’t a clever idea. But somehow, I doubted whether the young lieutenant in charge of the convoy had such combat experience.
I turned to him. ‘Right, I’m blowing it up. You can blame me if there’s any comeback.’
The lieutenant looked doubtful. ‘We can’t do that. There’ll be hell to pay.’
‘Listen, you can just blame me. We’ve got to get this convoy moving.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t do it. I’m going to get the recovery truck forward to begin lifting it.’
I gave the guy a look, then dialled up the IRT. It was his convoy, but it was a dumb decision if ever there was one. More importantly, he was putting his men’s lives needlessly in danger.
The IRT Chinook was three minutes out. I got one of the lads to mark the LZ. He dropped a green smoke grenade on the patch of open ground. The surface of the desert was covered in a fine, talcum powder dust, and as the Chinook came down we were engulfed in the massive brown-out of a rotor-driven dust storm. We got the WMIK up the ramp, the wounded guy onboard, and the heavy in the air again in two minutes flat. That done, I tried again to persuade the lieutenant to let me blow the WMIK. He refused.
Whilst the recovery truck came forward to lift it, I got the Dude call signs flying shows of force over the compound to our front, firing flares. I had no doubt those were the bastards who had planted the mine, and they were there just itching to launch a follow-up attack. The F-15s flew repeated passes twenty metres above the compound, as the low-loader manoeuvred into place. We had no mine-clearing kit, and without doubt the enemy would have planted more than just the one — so every man engaged in the recovery was risking his life. It took forty-five nail-biting minutes to recover the wreck, every second of which I was expecting to see a vehicle or a bloke go over a mine and get blown to fuck. Thankfully, luck was with us, and we got on our way with no further casualties.
As we pushed onwards we were only making fifteen to twenty kilometres an hour. Trucks kept getting bogged down the whole time, whereupon they had to get towed out of the shit by another wagon. It was a hideous way to travel, and I was mightily pleased to hit FOB Robinson, at 2200.
The packet commander planned to do the run up to Sangin in the early hours, to catch the enemy napping. In the meantime, we had the chance to get some kip.
I awoke at first light to discover that the convoy had left without me and the packet commander. Somehow, they’d managed to get on the road for the run down to Sangin without their commander or their JTAC.
The convoy made it back to FOB Robinson without being ambushed. The plan was to set off at 0600 on a non-stop drive to Camp Bastion. But we’d had Intel come in that the enemy were planning to smash us big time on the return journey. We knew roughly where the attack was expected, and I helped the packet commander cobble together a new strategy.
I got in touch with a fellow JTAC, Sergeant ‘Bes’ Berry, one of the guys who’d trained me back in the UK. He was the JTAC embedded with a unit of Estonian Commandos, who were operating in the high ground to the east. We wanted them in overwatch of our route around the expected ambush point.
Bes said he was fine with that, but that he had a slight problem. Whilst tabbing up the mountain one of the Estonian lads had ripped the sole off his boot. He’d cut a lump out of his roll mat, and black nastied (gaffer-taped) it to his boot. If we could get the guy a replacement pair of size sevens, they’d happily do the overwatch of our convoy. I got on the radio, and got a replacement pair of Meindls put on that morning’s Chinook flight down to FOB Rob. I radioed Bes with the news.
‘Mate, the plan is we’ll rendezvous with you en route. I’ll pass you the boots, if you keep an eye on us lot, OK?’
‘Good one, Bommer, you got a deal,’ Bes replied. ‘By the way, mate, how was the AIDS test?’
Everyone seemed to have heard the story about my ‘little prick’, as they were calling it.
‘I’m riddled, mate. Only joking. See you tomorrow for the boot drop-off.’
The Chinook arrived with a pair of Meindls, but they were size nine. I spoke to Bes, and asked him what he wanted: a brand-new pair of size nines, or the sevens off my own feet. They were in fairly decent fettle, if a bit smelly. He said he’d take mine.
At 0400 the convoy set off. I had Vader One Seven and Vader One Eight in the overhead, a pair of Lynx helicopters. The Lynx has problems operating in the intense heat of the Afghan day, so I rarely got it as a platform. But it was early and still cool enough for the Lynx to fly. I got the Lynx flying air recces ten kilometres to the front of the convoy.
At 0530 I got the call.
‘Widow Seven Nine, Vader One Seven. I’m visual with two male pax on a motorbike, ten clicks ahead of you. Every fifteen metres or so they’re stopping, removing their backpack, and laying things on the ground.’
‘What d’you reckon they’re up to?’ I asked.
‘It’s clear as anything: they’re mining your route.’
‘Can you see any weapons?’ I asked.
‘Negative.’
‘Roger. Wait out.’
I radioed Bes. From his mountaintop position he was visual with us, plus the enemy motorbike team. Bes confirmed what the pilot had already told me: the motorbike boys were laying mines.
I put a call through to Widow TOC. ‘I have Vader call signs ten kilometres ahead of my convoy, visual
with two male pax on a motor-bike. Every few metres they’re stopping and laying mines on our route.’
Widow TOC replied: ‘Unless you can see weapons under no circumstances are you to engage. If they’re unarmed, you cannot engage.’
‘Well, it’s hardly Cleveland bloody County Council fixing the motorway, is it?’ I replied. ‘What’s mines if not arms?’
‘Repeat: if you cannot PID weapons you cannot engage.’
I came off the radio fuming. Thirty minutes later I lost the Lynx, for the air temperature was getting too hot for them to fly. Ten minutes after that we made the rendezvous with Bes’s unit, and I handed over my boots.
‘Your lad’s welcome to ’em,’ I told Bes. ‘No way is he getting off that mountain with a lump of carry-mat wrapped around his foot. And thanks for keeping overwatch, mate.’
‘No worries,’ said Bes. ‘I’ll buy you a pint in return. Stay safe, mate.’
We pushed ahead. Some four hundred metres beyond where the Lynx had spotted the motorbiking pair, we hit the first mine. A WMIK out front took a blast bang under the front wheels. The vehicle wasn’t as badly damaged as the first WMIK, but it was well out of action.
Worse still, all the crew were injured. There were broken arms and lacerations, and one of the guys had damaged his back. I was bloody seething. We’d had the minelayers in our sights, and the Lynx could’ve nailed them. But I’d been ordered not to fire. As a result we now had three lads seriously injured, and a fighting vehicle half torn to pieces.
What was the sense in any of that?
I got the IRT called out, and I was allocated a pair of Harriers. I then got a call from Ugly Five Zero and Ugly Five One, the Apache pilots that had done such a fine job of smashing the enemy over Rahim Kalay. They’d been monitoring the air. They were en route back from a mission, and could offer me thirty minutes’ playtime.
I got the Harriers ramped up high, and the Apaches in low searching for ambush teams. I was itching to find the bastard enemy and smash them. I got the Chinook in to do the casevac, and the three wounded lads were loaded aboard. There was no sign of any hostile presence, so the convoy pushed ahead with Apaches and Harriers in overwatch.
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