Lethal Shot

by Robert Driscoll

  ‘I don’t know how they got there. The Taliban never come here.’

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  You learn never to take what the locals say at face value. So when in another village an Afghan said, ‘You might want to check that cave in the mountain because the Russians used to use it,’ we immediately thought it would be either a red herring or a trap. Phil led us up, on full red alert. We took the cave from several directions at once – and unearthed the largest haul of explosives ever found in the country. Tons of the stuff. Much of it was Russian, but there was a lot more that had been stockpiled more recently. We called in the bomb boys and they detonated the lot, taking down much of the mountain in the process.

  Yet despite one false lead after another, you could never drop your guard. Just because we weren’t being shot at, there were plenty of other patrols suffering casualties and losses. The threat was definitely there – just never ‘there’ there. I lost count of the times we arrived at a scene to find clear evidence of Taliban activity but no bodies. They were either very lucky, or very clever.

  Two months and half a dozen missions in, my most exciting contribution had been coordinating a landing site with the supply helicopter so we could get refills of water. As the highest level of infantrymen, marines are trained to carry more weight than other troops, and in a mountain patrol most of that weight will be water. Even Green Berets can’t carry enough for a fortnight, though, so every four days fresh packs would be despatched. Because I was part of the Tactical Air Control Party, nine times out of ten I was the guy managing the resupply. We’d mark out a secure landing area, the chopper would touch down for however many seconds it took to chuck out the food and drink, then it would bounce back up and away.

  It’s important that every man is responsible for his own supplies. We carried enough meals for five days. Each one is in a silver-foil packet that you heat in boiling water then rip open and hold as you eat the contents. It sounds basic, but the food itself was okay.

  Not dropping our standards ran through everything. Even up a mountain thousands of miles from home we were all expected to be as fastidious as ever, from how we ran our camp to how we administrated ourselves. That meant proper areas for toilets that could cope with up to fifty people, proper positions dug into the earth to sleep in – and of course perfectly smooth faces. Because of the need not to waste water we didn’t wash, we cleaned our teeth without toothpaste, but what we never skimped on was shaving. There was a practical application, however. The threat of a chemical attack was very real. We all carried gas masks, and these seal a lot more efficiently if they’re not having to be fitted over a beard. So going unshaven was a practical concern, although it was clearly not one shared by the Americans, who proudly wore their moustaches and designer stubble and thought they looked the dogs’ bollocks.

  Not everyone agreed with them. One day we were working our way around a series of villages to the east of a wadi – a dried-up riverbed. Being lower than ground level the wadi gave us natural cover in which to sleep. This was a big mission, five Chinooks’ worth of personnel lined up along the bed. The routine stays the same: sentries through the night and a full company ‘stand to’ with weapons primed first thing in the morning and last thing at night, the two most likely times to be attacked. Anyone not on radio duties will take up his position, ready to respond to any threat. We must have done this fifty or sixtly times in one place or another. Not once did we see a soul – except this time.

  A sentry spotted the threat first. Walking towards us was a group of six young Afghan men, all armed. I could see at least two AK-47s and recognised other variants. These boys were not messing around.

  So why were they so exposed, and in broad daylight?

  My first instinct is that they’re a distraction. Is some greater threat creeping up on us from behind? But the sentries on that side shake their heads.

  Nothing.

  So what are these fuckers doing?

  This is it, I’m thinking, action stations.

  Card Alpha was operational. The ROE were clear. We couldn’t fire a lethal shot unless attacked. The decision Phil Guy and the other officers had to make was, at what point did a threat become an attack? For all we knew these Afghans were weighed down with bomb vests. If they got close enough they could decimate us without firing a shot.

  What the hell are they doing?

  I can feel the tension in the wadi. Everyone’s at 100 per cent readiness. Phil’s radioing in for advice – for clarification on Card Alpha. Then someone calls out, ‘Captain – look at their guns.’

  Anyone near a pair of bins grabbed them.

  What the …?

  Sticking out of the muzzle of every one of the Afghans’ rifles was a flower. Poppies, mainly. I wasn’t buying it. It made no sense.

  If this isn’t a diversion, I don’t know what is.

  Phil summoned the interpreters. This is where those guys earn their money. They’re not infantry-trained but they still have to get out into the front line.

  In their own language they called out what I assume was ‘What’s your intention?’

  The men stopped and waved and smiled. Then one called back, ‘We’ve come to visit the brave British men.’ And that’s when I noticed they were all wearing makeup.

  Phil gave the order and we spilled out of the wadi to surround them. They didn’t look scared, or threatening. They actually looked happy. The chat among thems was gleeful, if anything. I asked an interpreter what they were saying. He looked almost tongue-tied.

  ‘They’re saying how pretty you all are with your lovely shaved faces!’

  I’ve heard it all now, I thought. These men, of an obvious persuasion, had risked their lives to get a look at the famous clean-shaven marines. They were sick, they said, of staring at hairy Afghans and stubbly Yanks.

  We’re only human, so a bit of flattery earned them a cup of tea and a bite to eat from our foil ration bags. Then they skipped off as menacingly as they’d arrived.

  * * *

  My tour in Afghanistan was coming to an end. I’d arrived in February. It was now May. In one of the camps near by I’d chat to few of the Special Forces guys I’d met. They were seeing action every time they left camp. It was torturing me that the TACP kept having near misses.

  ‘Maybe you’ll get lucky next time,’ one of them said. ‘And we can come and tidy up for you.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Little did he know it, but our luck did change. Although not for everyone. A lot of our LRRPs were to the south of Kabul, to Gardez, to places of interest along the Pakistan border. For my final sortie we were in Khost, south-east of Gardez and close to the border. On this occasion the intel was solid. Massive recent Taliban activity, so another operation for fifty of us. But we didn’t fly out immediately. There was a gap of several days while support vehicles made the journey by road. I knew what result that would bring: another missed opportunity. Even so, HQ had to get one right eventually. Didn’t they?

  Where we set up camp was barren desert. We parked the vehicles, dug trenches to sleep in and settled down for the evening. We were almost certainly a tad blasé by now. I was sitting on my bergan talking shit to the guy next to me. Others were sleeping, some were eating, some were playing cards.

  And then some were shooting.

  Out of nowhere the sound of repeated gunfire tore through the silence. The sentry was unleashing all barrels.

  ‘Fuck, we’re under attack!’

  We’re all dressed for action. Our weapons are within reach. We can be up and aiming the dangerous end of a rifle outwards in seconds. I did and so did everyone else around me.

  And we were all too late.

  In the distance was the smoking husk of a van. Next to it were the dismembered remains of an Afghan national. All around me were ten men high-fiving each other for a successful defence of the camp. And, more importantly, a successful kill.

  That adrenalin spike you get when you think your life’s in danger t
akes an age to subside. The more I heard how the sentry had spotted a van acting mysteriously and radioed the other sentries to stand to, the more I wished I’d been on look-out duty. The driver had stepped out of the van and lined up to shoot at the one sentry he could see. As he did, the sentry fired back. At the same moment ten BRF boys stood up from the trench. One of the guys had a UGL 23 – an underslung grenade launcher fitted beneath the barrel of his rifle – and scored a direct hit on the van. It and its passengers were destroyed on impact. The rest of the lads emptied a magazine each into the hostile.

  Bloody typical, I thought. Why wasn’t I on sentry duty?

  And that was it. That was my Afghanistan. Thrilling at times, but ultimately unfulfilling. The government, more interested in the bigger picture, declared our mission a success and the order was given to pull out. If that mission had been to prove how quickly the brigade could deploy, how much intelligence it could gather and how few casualties it would suffer. then it had been a success. But on a personal level, it had offered more than it delivered.

  Everyone left. One day 45 Commando were there. The next day they weren’t. My camp emptied itself just as fast till the only marines still hanging around were those who’d arrived first. Every single tent we’d erected we now had to take down – and burn. Cheaper, it’s said, than carrying them home – and the Marine code said we definitely couldn’t leave them behind. And then, suddenly, we were done. I looked at the field. What had been a bustling community for four and a half months was an empty shell. A ghost town.

  I didn’t have high hopes for the journey home. We were put on a bus with no suspension to Kabul airport, about 60 kilometres due south. I could imagine that the bus’s aircraft equivalent was already waiting for us. At the airport we sat in a tent, waiting for our flight. A large white jumbo jet landed, taxied to a halt and completely blocked our view. I couldn’t believe it when we were told that it was there for us. It was an Icelandair passenger plane. Civilians would be on board. What the hell were they going to think of us?

  I never found out. The stewardesses, on the other hand, could not have been lovelier. The food and the drink and the beautiful flight attendants just kept on coming. It was the happiest I’d been since I’d boarded that Chinook.

  Just my luck, I thought, if we get shot out of the sky before I’ve tasted everything.

  * * *

  When we built the fire at Bagram, it wasn’t just the tents that burned. I felt my love of the Marines die as well. It just hadn’t lived up to my expectations. As I watched the flames I knew I’d done the right thing in applying for the Met. My girlfriend, Deborah, certainly thought so. No sooner was I back than we decided to take the step of moving in together. We both needed some commitment in our lives.

  We all had a break. Back in Plymouth I started on some more courses, this time aimed at transitioning me from the military into civilian life. For the rest of the year my marine ‘work’ took a back seat. They knew I was leaving, I knew I was leaving. It was just a matter of counting down the days and trying to stay busy, which I managed to do successfully beyond Christmas and into the new year. And then one day I bumped into George 2. I hadn’t seen him since Afghan.

  ‘Are you coming with us?’ he asked, as bullish as ever.

  ‘Coming with you where?’

  He pulled a face.

  ‘Where?’ he laughed. ‘Iraq of course. We leave in two weeks.’

  Ohhhhh shiiiiittt …

  CHAPTER SIX

  KOSOVO, AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ – AND PECKHAM

  Towards the end of 2002 there were rumours that the UK was going to become involved in some sort of action in Iraq, a member of President Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’. America was rattling its sabre, and we weren’t usually far behind. I didn’t think much of it. Nothing to do with me. And then I was asked to extend my service. It’s like that line from The Godfather III: ‘Just when I try to get out, they pull me back in.’ No sooner had George 2 planted the seed than it was all I could think about. I could have said no but I didn’t want to. Six months of sitting on my hands since returning from Afghanistan probably contributed. I was bored. The police didn’t want me till June the following year. What else was I going to do?

  It didn’t take me long to land a job with my old logistics mates. None of the work sounded particularly sexy but I’d worry about changing that when I got to Iraq. So far my best results had come when I didn’t plan them.

  Next stop: telling Deborah.

  I’d like to say I handled it well, but I suppose it was the beginning of the end of our relationship. In her eyes I’d pledged my life to her, and here I was sodding off for another six months on my own.

  I kept saying, ‘This won’t stop me joining the police,’ but I don’t think she was in the mood to listen.

  For some reason she didn’t believe my interest in the Marines had ended. That this tour meant nothing …

  * * *

  Yet again I was in the advance party. Same story: get this vehicle to Brize Norton and jump on the plane with it. The only difference was that this time there were only three of us. Oh, and on this occasion they actually told me where we were heading: Kuwait City.

  Like Bagram, the city was already overrun with American troops. Unlike Bagram, there was no evidence of the war Kuwait had been involved in more than a decade earlier. It was bustling, there were motorways, nice cars, there didn’t seem to be any sign of conflict or poverty, just people going out about their business. Kuwait City was urbanised, functional, modern – the exact opposite of anything I had seen in Afghan.

  Once again, our arrival saw us dumped on an airfield. This time there was a welcoming committee to chauffeur us to Camp Commando, just north of the city. The fact that I was travelling with an officer and a colour sergeant probably made a difference. The seniors in question were the Quartermaster and George 1, so I couldn’t have been in better company. I was even upgraded to acting corporal to ensure I had similar privileges.

  We were billeted in an air-conditioned American tent. Not only did I not have to erect it myself, there was electricity, little screened-off areas that served as separate rooms, even televisions. That was nothing, however, compared with the construction job going on west of the city in Camp Doha. The place was like a small town. There was a gym bigger than anything I’d seen back home, and even restaurants like Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and KFC were being built for the incoming hordes. There was military hardware everywhere you looked, large armoured vehicles, everything on a massive scale. Even though our camp, Commando, was largely unpopulated, our little band of forty or so marines was still dwarfed by the hundreds of Yanks doing their advanced prep. When the troops did start to arrive, the UK forces would multiply in hundreds while the Americans grew in thousands.

  It was very clear that this was going to be, once again, an American war. All the briefings were given by Americans. These were something else. In the UK a major or a lieutenant-colonel will shuffle amiably in front of a group of officers, NCOs and other ranks and run through the order of the day. The US equivalent was rather more showbiz. There was music, there were lights, and there was a general issuing a call to arms so passionate, so evangelical, that it would have had a pacifist reaching for a rifle. And they did this every time.

  Despite the activity in the camp, there was actually an attempt at stealth. The Iraqis obviously knew that something was happening, but the intention was that they shouldn’t know what. Not until it was too late. A lot of my days were spent travelling in unmarked cars with senior officers. My role was strictly that of security but I got to see everything they saw. There wasn’t a possible location we didn’t scout. For a while Babiyan Island, two miles from the border with Iraq, was considered as a jumping-off point for the invasion. Then we moved even closer. The plan was to establish hundreds of small camps along the border by pushing up mounds of sand with bulldozers to create a gun line. I saw it grow from conception to reality in a matter of days.

  It was great
being involved in the advance party. Seeing all the factors that led to the decisions. But knowing that HMS Ocean was on her way with 40 Commando, that 42 Commando would be flying in within days and that 45 were already training to support UKSF, I had that sinking feeling that, when the going got tough, I’d be nowhere near the action. Again.

  It was time to get networking. My best chance was with the TACP I’d worked with in Bagram. The second those boys arrived I was pestering Phil Guy for a switch.

  ‘Rob, I’m sorry, we’re on maximum capacity this time. The whole brigade’s here. There are no vacancies.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m going to ask again.’

  ‘I expect nothing else.’

  It was the same story everywhere else, but I didn’t let up. In the meantime, there was training and preparation. At this stage we all believed that Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s oppressive leader, had access to chemical and nuclear weapons, so everyone had to be trained in specialist equipment to detect an attack. We were also put on a course of naps tablets – nerve agent pre-treatment pills designed to protect your nervous system in the event of a chemical attack. But that was only half the story. If you are exposed you still need to inject yourself with a pen that was now part of the kit, as were gas masks.

  It was exciting, but it was only a matter of time before my real work in stores started. Shipments were arriving daily and once 3 Commando Brigade began to arrive those had to be distributed. I was assigning beds, weapons, medication, gas masks, boots, you name it, all from my little corner of Camp Commando. It was like a tiny British principality in the middle of the USA.

  By the end of the February our guys were in situ. Training was slick. There was a real mood in the camp that D-Day was imminent. Then the word came that we were to stow all our personal belongings. This could only mean one thing: the greatest military operation since the Second World War was days away.

  We waited and we waited and we waited. The first week of March came and went. By the time the second week had passed without incident I wasn’t alone in thinking that, after all, nothing was going to happen. Obviously the powers that be had found some diplomatic solution instead.