by Damien Lewis
It was a bitterly cold night, with icy winds sweeping down off the surrounding hills. Mat’s team rolled out their down sleeping bags inside the hold of the MiG, which provided a modicum of shelter. They ate some rations and organised sentry duty. As Mat took the first, freezing cold watch of the night, little did he realise that some 20,000 NA troops were massing to the west of them, poised to wipe out the British forces now in Bagram and take back ‘their’ airport. The men of the SBS were outnumbered some 200-1 – which were odds that even C Squadron wouldn’t have relished, if they had known about it.
By now, angry radio and satphone exchanges were flying backwards and forwards between the enraged NA commanders and the US and British high command. The NA were demanding that the SBS withdraw immediately. They gave the British until dawn to comply with their demands: otherwise they would launch a massive offensive to retake the airport. The Afghan commanders were angry on two counts. First, their so-called allies had ‘stolen’ Bagram airbase from under their noses. Second, it was British – not American – troops that were now in possession of the airbase. And as far as the Afghans were concerned, British forces were far from welcome in their country. The British had a long history of waging war in Afghanistan, as opposed to the Americans, who had only ever come to their country as allies.
The Americans had first aided the Afghans in their battle against the occupying Soviet forces – which had all been part of the Cold War struggle between the communist East and the democratic West. The chief contribution that the US had made was to provide the Afghan fighters with US Stinger missiles, which were used to shoot down Soviet Red Army choppers as they ferried in supplies over the high mountain passes. A staggering 315 Soviet helicopters had been lost in that conflict. Finally, the Soviets had been forced to recognise that the war was bankrupting their country. The US policy of providing surface-to-air missiles had been a major factor in helping to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan and bring victory to the Afghan mujahidin forces.
As an angry dawn smote the sky towards the east of Bagram blood red, Mat tried to breathe some life into his stiff, frozen fingers. All night long the bitterly cold Afghan wind had howled through the wrecked MiG fuselage, penetrating their thick down bags and duvet jackets and chilling the men to the bone. Mat was tempted to light a fire to warm himself, using some old, discarded packing crates that lay nearby. But he knew the smoke from the fire would be visible for many miles around and could betray their position. Instead, Mat broke out his tiny hexy stove (a collapsible, metal grill that burns smokeless solid fuel blocks) and started to get a brew on. If they could get some hot, sweet tea inside them, that would help the thawing-out process no end.
As he was heating the water, Mat spotted the first of several Hercules C-130 aircraft in-bound towards the airbase. This time they were US aircraft and they were flying in an attachment of Delta Force troops – the nearest US equivalent to the SAS. The arrival of Delta Force signalled that the stand-off with the Northern Alliance forces was coming to an end. Overnight, senior US military figures had presented the Afghan commanders with a counter-ultimatum: unless they allowed British forces free access to their country, including Bagram, the US military would call off all air strikes against enemy forces. ‘The Brits are our allies and they’re part of the equation,’ the US commander had told the Northern Alliance. ‘They’re here to stay.’
As Mat and his team stretched their ice-cold limbs in the feeble light of dawn, with little idea how close they’d come to a showdown with their Afghan ‘allies’, the newly arrived Delta Force operators began deploying around the airbase to shore up the SBS positions. The US soldiers were surprised to find their British counterparts camped out in the wrecked Soviet aircraft with the most basic of kit, as far as they saw things. Four Delta boys came over to join Mat and his team. They found the elite British troop brewing up some tea on a tiny little stove, and cracking jokes as if there was nothing in the world to worry about.
‘Want a brew, mate?’ Mat asked, as he welcomed one of the Delta operators. ‘Take it you didn’t fancy a night at the airport, then?’
‘We, like, only just got here, buddy,’ the operator replied. ‘Guess we kinda didn’t fancy our chances bedding down in one of those Russian crates alongside you guys.’
‘Don’t blame you, mate,’ Mucker called over from the inside of the MiG fuselage, where he was still cocooned in his sleeping bag. ‘Cold enough to freeze the balls off of a brass monkey, it was.’
‘Fancy a brew, mate?’ Mat asked again. ‘I just got this on the go so you’re welcome to some.’
‘Coffee’d be good, buddy,’ the operator replied, as he crouched down next to Mat at the stove. ‘Say, you guys are the S-B-S, aren’t you? Cos, like, that’s what the briefer told us on the ride out here in the Herc.’
‘That’s us, mate,’ Mat said. ‘SBS – Special Boat Service. And proud of it. Why? You expecting someone else?’
‘Well, I kinda thought the S-A-S were the first of you guys sent out here,’ the operator said. ‘I mean, I sort of expected –’
‘They was, mate,’ Mat interrupted. ‘But they found the weather a bit too cold for their liking. So, they all just been sent home again.’
‘Bring any Hershey bars with you, mate?’ Mucker shouted over from the MiG. ‘Swap some for the coffee. I could murder some decent chocolate.’
‘I guess you guys don’t, you know, realise how close you just come to the shit going down, do ya?’ the operator asked, with a grin.
‘The Afghans? They’ve been no trouble, like,’ Mat said. ‘Quiet as the grave it was all night long. Apart from Mucker there snoring, of course. The whole fookin’ fuselage was shaking, he was so loud. I should know, n’all. I didn’t sleep a bloody wink, I was that cold.’
At the centre of the airbase was a massive hangar painted a dirty green colour, which was large enough to hide a jumbo jet in. It was pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel holes, but was more or less serviceable. To one side of the hangar was a three-storey accommodation block, and this is where the SBS now made their quarters. As soon as the men had slung their beds, they began work on the infrastructure required for an operational airbase. Further flights were expected in the coming days bringing in the SAS, the Paras, the Royal Marines and several hundred assorted US troops. Inside the hangar itself they set up the SBS ops tent, the nerve centre of their operations. Next to that was the quartermaster’s tent, containing the stores and the armoury, plus a mess tent and a field hospital. And on the opposite side of the hangar they made room for the heads and the shitters.
Some eighteen hours after their arrival at Bagram, the SBS gathered in the giant hangar for their first operational briefing. As they did so the men were wondering just what might now lie ahead of them. But the briefing was to be short and sweet. No missions had yet been allocated, the officer commanding (OC) of C Squadron told them. After the near disaster of the threatened attack by the Northern Alliance, it was abundantly clear that UK forces had no status in Afghanistan. Or rather, what status they did have was an altogether negative one. The men were ordered to keep a low profile and integrate with the US Delta teams as far as possible. Having only been allowed into the country by the skin of their teeth, the SBS would now have to show willing to their Afghan allies – which meant taking the fight to the enemy as soon as they possibly could.
The OC finished the briefing by stressing one other aspect of their deployment: Afghanistan in general and Bagram airbase in particular was seen as being a nest of vipers. Enemy spies were everywhere. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) concerning operational security (opsec) – and in particular communications back to the UK – were to be adhered to at all times. No mobile phone calls were allowed and no email facility was to be made available for troops to contact their families. Any letters home would need to be sanitised in the normal way, with no references made to their location, mission details, troop numbers or operational plans. All mail would be read and checked by the SBS offic
ers.
Over the next twenty-four hours more men and supplies started arriving by air, including the troops of the US 10th Mountain Division and operators from the CIA. But with enemy forces putting up stiff resistance all across the country, allied commanders remained unsure where best to deploy their forces, the SBS included. The main focus of the US-led air campaign was north of Bagram, around the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Here, the US 5th Special Operations Forces group had deployed on the ground in support of General Rashid Dostum and his Northern Alliance troops. But sustained US aerial bombardment of enemy positions had yet to produce any significant breakthroughs. As predicted, the Taliban forces were proving a tough nut to crack.
Some months prior to the Afghan deployment, Mat had been sent on an all-terrain-vehicle (ATV) training course in the UK. The focus of the course was to learn how to operate quad bikes. The main reason that he’d been sent was to satisfy health and safety regulations, which had now even started getting into special forces. Unless someone had a piece of paper to show that he was a ‘qualified’ ATV instructor, then the SBS weren’t supposed to teach ATV use at Poole. On the morning of their third day in Bagram, Mat decided to hold a quad-bike training session for those who’d missed out on it back in the UK. There was little else to do and somehow his instinct was telling him that the quad bikes would prove invaluable in the harsh Afghan terrain.
Bagram airbase was arranged in an elongated H shape – the two long arms of the H being the two main runways. At one end there was a short section of runway that was pockmarked with bomb craters and totally unserviceable – which made it a perfect quad-bike training ground. Mat, Mucker, Tom and Jamie marked off a course in a figure of eight, and called together a bunch of the lads. The quad bikes were big, hefty machines with chunky wheels: to the fore and aft they were fitted with racks for carrying bergens, weapons, ammo, jerrycans of water and fuel.
Prior to the lads trying their hands at the machines, Mat stood out front and began to give some verbal instruction. But just as he did so there was a noisy interruption from Gobbler, one of the comparative newcomers to C Squadron.
‘What the fuck’re we listening to all this shite for?’ Gobbler began, in his thick West Country accent. ‘You cain’t fuckin’ teach me nothing about quad bikes. I was brought up on a fuckin’ farm, weren’t I? Been riding ’em since I was born. I’m fuckin’ ace on a quad bike, mate, just you watch.’
With that Gobbler jumped on one of the quads, gunned the throttle and shot off round the first bend. Just seconds later there was an almighty crash, and Gobbler and his bike had disappeared from view. As one, the lads rushed over to see what had happened, only to discover Gobbler lying in a heap in one of the bomb craters with his quad bike wrapped around a rock. It would have been exceedingly funny had Gobbler not been so badly hurt. Being a medic, Mat jumped down into the crater to take stock of Gobbler’s injuries. As far as he could tell, Gobbler had broken both his arms and a leg, so he must have been going at one hell of a crack when his bike had hit that rock. As fast as they could they got Gobbler on to a stretcher and wrapped in some warm blankets, with a casualty evacuation chopper on the way. Whatever the prognosis when they got Gobbler to hospital, it looked as if this was going to be the end of his war. And as for the quad bike, it was a write-off.
‘“Fuckin’ ace quad-bike driver, me.” Fuckin’ idiot, more like it,’ Tom remarked under his breath, as they waited for the casevac chopper. ‘Tragic, wasn’t it, mate?’
‘The bloke’s a numpty, mate,’ Mat said, nodding at Gobbler’s prostrate form. ‘Reminds me of that time in Norway. You was there, weren’t you, mate? The CSM trashed his OSV [over-snow vehicle]. Remember? Now that was a bloody classic.’
‘Nah, I didn’t make it, mate,’ Tom replied, shaking his head. ‘Stayed behind in Poole – can’t remember why now.’
‘Well, it was on Arctic exercises, a couple of years back,’ said Mat. ‘The CSM was that really hard fooker, Bob Wort, tiny and wiry and bloody hard as nails. We were all in white camo and had the skidoos with a trailer on the back loaded up with ammo. We was following old Worty in line astern, and every time he stopped, the OSVs’d go crashing into each other.’
‘Yeah, we were following the tracks of the man up ahead,’ Jamie interjected.
‘The throttle wasn’t up to much on the OSV – it was really all or nowt,’ Mat continued. ‘You’d be hammering along when suddenly the bloke in front would put on the brakes and you’d slam on the anchors. Then there’d be a smashing of plastic and crunching of metal all along the line, and there’d be half a dozen smashed brake lights and crumpled snow guards. Anyhow, Worty finally blew his top.’
‘Steam was coming out of his ears, mate,’ said Jamie.
‘Yeah, he was honkin’ angry,’ Mat agreed. ‘“Now listen up, you twats,” Worty yelled, his face red with anger. “Treat these fookin’ machines with some fookin’ respect, like you would your wives or your girlfriends or sommat. They’re ten grand a piece and I don’t want you fookin’ smashing them up any more. You hear me? Treat them with some fookin’ respect. Next bloke who smashes one up will be returned to unit. Got it?” With that, Worty spun around on his OSV, gunned it full throttle and shot off. We looked at each other, shrugged and headed off after him. Then his OSV just disappeared from view. One moment it was there, the next gone. We all slammed on the anchors. “Where the fuck’s the CSM gone?” we’re all asking. We started searching around when suddenly there was a yell and someone had found him. Worty’d managed to find the one part of the snowfield where there was a crevasse. Admittedly, the light was bad, but even so … Worty’s OSV’d gone plunging down some fifteen metres. He’d had a trailer on the back towing a GPMG, and it’d gone smashing down on top of the OSV, totally wrecking it.’
‘Bit like Gobbler’s quad bike, then?’ Tom asked. ‘Smashed to fuck, was it?’
‘Yeah. For a second, we’d all stood there on the edge of the crevasse. Then someone spotted Worty’s legs, wiggling wildly … He’d been catapulted off the OSV and landed head first in a snowdrift. He must’ve been suffocating in there. Couple of us roped down and pulled him out fast as we could. But the rest of the lads just couldn’t help themselves, they were standing up there on the rim of that crevasse pissing themselves laughing.’
‘So, which was the biggest fuck-up then, mate?’ Tom asked. ‘Worty’s on the OSV, or Gobbler’s on the quad bike?’
‘Dunno,’ Mat replied, taking a few seconds to think it over. ‘Probably Worty’s, cos he was the CSM and all. “Treat these machines with a little fookin’ respect.” Bloody classic. He didn’t need casevaccing to hospital, mind.’
‘“Fuckin’ ace quad-bike driver, me,”’ Jamie said, indicating Gobbler’s figure prone on the stretcher in front of them. ‘Talking of which, where the hell’s that casevac chopper?’
After the disastrous quad-bike training, Mat went and found a quiet corner in the SBS quarters. He wanted to write a letter to Suzie, his girl back at home. He’d met her just a few months back, but he knew already that she was the one. She was an educated woman with a degree, and sometimes he felt a bit unequal to her because of that. But she told Mat that she loved him and he believed her. He’d even started thinking about what it’d be like to have some kids. But whether he could stick with the SBS if he had a wife and family was another matter.
Honey, I can’t tell you nowt about where I am or what I’m doing or how long I’m going to be here, Mat began his letter. Sorry, love, that’s just how it is and you know that. What I can tell you is that I’ve got the ring you gave me and it’s now tied round my neck with the morphine and dog tags. That’s about as romantic as it gets, especially as I know the ruperts will be reading this letter …
A couple of hours after Gobbler had been air-evacuated Mat heard back from the military hospital that his condition was stable. But, as predicted, it was the end of Gobbler’s war in Afghanistan. It was also the end of any quad-bike training at Bagram, as the lads had lost al
l enthusiasm for it. That evening, Mat and his team were to receive news of another of the C Squadron operatives being taken out of action. And this was to prove far more serious for them.
Mat, Tom and Jamie were sat around in their makeshift quarters, moaning on about the fact that they didn’t have any of the normal luxuries of deployment. There wasn’t even a TV on which to show DVDs of their favourite war films (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket) and the odd porn movie. Not surprisingly, Mucker had one of the best porn collections of anyone in the SBS, and he’d brought a load of DVDs with him. But now they had nothing to play them on. Officially, there was no beer allowed on the base yet, as operational security meant that the men were on high alert at all times. But some of the lads had managed to smuggle a few beers in, although only in limited quantities. Just as Mat, Tom and Jamie were bemoaning this shocking lack of beer, war movies and porn, Geoff, one of their C Squadron mates, came barging in.
‘You blokes not heard?’ Geoff announced, as soon as he laid eyes on them. ‘The Hobbit’s deep in the shit.’
‘What?’ said Mat. ‘What’s that silly fooker Mucker been up to now?’
‘Reckon he’s on his way out of here, mate,’ Geoff replied. ‘He’s fucked up fucking big time.’
‘What the bollocks d’you mean?’ Mat asked.
‘Well, it’s to do with all this opsec. Security’s so tight just about all you can write home to your missus is something like you’re missing her and the kids, and how’s the dog? And that’s hardly going to put her mind at rest, is it? Well, rumour has it the Hobbit wasn’t satisfied writing a letter home, specially as he knew that the head sheds would read it. Apparently, he had some real personal stuff to deal with. So the silly fucker made a call home on his mobile phone, didn’t he? To his missus. Anyhow, the phone call was traced and Mucker’s deep in the shite.’
