Sniper in Helmand: Six Months on the Frontline

by James Cartwright

  Lieutenant Seal-Coon went forward with Teddy to link up with Corporal Parker’s section and get some fire down on the enemy, leaving me with Private Mclure and a few other guys under my command. Meanwhile, I could hear on the radio that 5 Platoon was now rushing over to our left flank to give us fire support. By this time, I had crawled up the eastern side of the drainage ditch from where I saw three Taliban running across another treeline some 300 metres away to our flank in an attempt to outflank us. I immediately took my safety catch off and fired at them, at the same time shouting, ‘Enemy 300 metres, in treeline! Rapid fire, rapid fire!’ My guys scrambled up the side of the ditch and opened fire on them. After around ten or fifteen minutes, Stevie came splashing back, completely exhausted and out of breath after evacuating Gilly and I briefed him on the situation before leaving him and pushing forward again to try to find Teddy.

  I moved around a bend in the ditch, laughing to myself because, throughout all our training out on exercise, no matter where we were, be it the Brecon Beacons, Galloway Forest in Scotland, Salisbury Plain or wherever, we could guarantee we would end up wading through water. Never in a million years did I think that I would end wading through water waist-deep in the middle of a desert in Afghanistan under fire. At least they got something right in the training!

  Reaching the end of the ditch, I found Lieutenant Seal-Coon with his map out, giving a full sitrep (situation report) over the radio. I kept flat as I emerged out of the ditch, crawling forward to ask about Teddy. Lieutenant Seal-Coon pointed over his shoulder to where I could see Teddy with his .338. Just as I reached him, he fired a round. A lifeless body fell out of a tree and Teddy, being half-American, whooped and yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Yeah!’ I tapped his right foot to let him know I was there. He turned. ‘Did you see that? Did you see that!’ To which I put my thumb up and said, ‘Good shit man, you rock!’

  I could see quite a thick, dense treeline to the left of the bridge near an old shack and started putting down fire into likely enemy positions while nearby Thrumble did the same with his GPMG, laying down excellent fire support. Josh Lee was also there, firing 40mm grenades from his SA80’s UGL to the left and right of the bridge. Meanwhile Corporal Stu Parker was giving constant sitreps on the radio, reporting on everything including ammunition states. Watching him made me think that all those hours on training and exercise were being used to good effect, which is one of the reasons why the British Army is so professional.

  I was observing the enemy who were only 60 or 70 metres away, when something caught my eye to the left of the small building. A head popped up and Teddy saw it – Bang! It was a head shot and a confirmed kill. Another Taliban swung around with his AK-47 on seeing his fellow fighter have his head blown off. Teddy moved his rifle across and once again – Bang! He looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression and said, ‘What a twat!’ He had clocked up three kills in the space of around five minutes.

  Inspired by Teddy’s performance, I was determined to find some targets of my own and began firing into likely enemy positions. Then out of nowhere three bullets whistled really close over my head. I glanced immediately through my SUSAT sight and observed a Taliban wrestling with his weapon, which had jammed. He sorted the problem out and, standing up, was aiming straight at me when I fired three rounds into him. He dropped straight down, a small plume of pink mist where each of my rounds hit him. Everything happened in slow motion. I grinned across at Teddy who had seen this happen and he gave me a thumbs-up.

  At that point a bullet whizzed past literally centimetres from my face. I crawled back a bit and saw Private Thrumble putting a fresh belt of ammunition on his GPMG and yelled, ‘Thrumble! Give me some covering fire!’ He yelled back, ‘Where?’ I replied, ‘Any f...ing where!’ He grinned and slapped shut the top cover of his GPMG and then, with a wild stare in his eyes, just let fly, putting down heavy fire into the treeline to our left and allowing me to crawl out of there as fast as possible. I found Lieutenant Seal-Coon who was still there with his radio and maps, and reported that we were beginning to notch up some serious enemy kills. I asked him about the plan of action and whether we were going for the bridge. He relied, ‘No, negative. We’re pulling out.’ He told me that we had achieved our objective and taken the fight to the enemy, and that the Vikings were now arriving to extract us. He ordered me to make my way back to Stevie Veal and double-check that he was ready to move. With that, I began splashing my way back through the drainage ditch.

  Over the radio on my earpiece I suddenly heard, ‘Man down!’ On reaching Stevie I learned that it was Macca, the medic who had patched up Corporal Martin’s arm. He had taken a round just below his body armour plate, right next to his belly button. He was a T1 casualty, but was fairly stable which was a relief.

  I was telling Stevie about my first confirmed kill and Teddy’s three kills when the Vikings appeared, their GPMGs laying down fire as they raced up towards us. Stevie’s fire team had been ordered to move on. As they began to do so, I started to move forward and bumped into Lieutenant Seal-Coon who said, ‘Where are you going, JC? We’re mounting up and getting out!’ I replied that I was not leaving without Teddy. Lieutenant Seal-Coon told me that Teddy was already with Corporal Parker and that he had just watched him get into his vehicle, so he was safe and well. With that I turned on my heels and jumped into the back of the Viking. It was chaos inside with everyone diving in as fast as possible because bullets were literally pinging off the sides of the vehicles. Within around thirty seconds they were moving again, stopping en route to pick up more guys en route during the withdrawal. We ended up at the medical point where we saw Macca lying doubled-up over on his side, being administered morphine and oxygen.

  We were now on high ground and away from the contact, but the Vikings were moving back in and out of the area to ferry the other guys out. The Medical Officer told us that there was a Chinook helicopter coming in for Macca, so we all stripped off our kit, put our rifles and kit to one side, and manned the stretcher to get him aboard and away for proper medical treatment. The Chinook came in through the valley and over us, kicking up a massive amount of dust. As it landed, a protection team deployed and took up positions around the aircraft. The loadmaster came out and waved us forward, and we ran towards the paramedics standing at the end of the ramp. They took over and the protection team ran back on board, and within seconds the helicopter took off. From the time Macca had been shot to the point where he was in the hands of the medics at Camp Bastion was about thirty-five minutes so well within the ‘Golden Hour’ which is critical for the treatment of casualties.

  At this point I still had not actually seen Teddy and was growing more than a little concerned as we walked back towards the Vikings. Shortly afterwards, I spotted him and along with everyone else we were soon rabbiting on about our experiences.

  It was then time to mount up once again and move out to the middle of nowhere in the desert and set up camp. We cleaned our rifles, took on fresh ammunition and ate a decent amount of food. We then sat around the camp. If we had been in a non-tactical situation we would have lit a fire, but that of course would have been like someone shining a spotlight on us. So we sat in darkness checking radio batteries, cleaning weapons, loading up with new magazines, grenades and everything else we needed. Afterwards, we lay there with sleeping bags draped over us, because it was just too hot to climb into them, chatting and reflecting on what had happened that day. I remember feeling like a proper soldier now that I had been shot at for a sustained period and achieved my first confirmed kill. Teddy meanwhile kept the details of his kill to himself as he felt it was personal, between him and his target. It was a lot more of a ritual for him, one that he kept very much to himself.

  We broke camp on the following morning and headed north and to the next village. I’m not sure whether it was a relief or an anti-climax, but the next few villages proved largely unoccupied, almost like ghost towns as we went through and cleared them. The plan was to continue driving
the Taliban northwards towards Musa Qaleh, which was the last major city where there was still a degree of Taliban control existing. There was no intention of us going into battle there, as we did not have sufficient manpower, so the objective was to ensure we cleared the Taliban along the Helmand River and continued pushing them north. At this point, it was early May and the heat was stifling with temperature of 40 degrees during the day, dropping to around 20 degrees at night.

  Initially we were to stop off at FOB Robinson and carry out patrols around Sangin itself, which was where A Company was now located. As mentioned previously, the area around the FOB was heavily mined. The inevitable happened as we drove across country towards the FOB when one of the vehicles towards the front went over a mine. Fortunately no one was killed but there were a few casualties. One of them was Sergeant Keith Nieves, along with a Fijian lad called Private Nadriva, who pulled Sergeant Nieves out the vehicle, and the Marine driver. Whereas Teddy and I were travelling together, Deano and Scotty were with this convoy but in separate vehicles. It was Scotty’s misfortune to be in that particular Viking; although he was unharmed, he had strapped his sniper rifle to the roof of the vehicle which burst into flames. Forced to abandon his kit, he walked away with nothing apart from his pistol. His laser rangefinder and the rest of his sniper kit was now gone, leaving him ‘combat ineffective.’ In the event, he was fortunate in that he was due his mid-tour R & R break in eight days, so he was flown to Camp Bastion where he was employed helping B Company’s headquarters to forward mail and kit to us on ops before being flown back to the UK.

  This led to some reorganisation. Our section commander, Deano, and Teddy, a shooter, had to be the obvious pairing, leaving me with two real options. I could either carry on with them, so we would have two spotters and a shooter, or I could backfill into B Company temporarily for the three weeks that Scotty would be away and then depart on R & R. In the end we all agreed that it would actually be easier if we kept to the normal two-man operation.

  I slotted into 5 Platoon, whose platoon sergeant was Sergeant Chris Caneper, the guy whom I met in the Snake Pit at FOB Robinson when we first arrived. He was from the Gibraltar Regiment and had volunteered for the tour, replacing Sergeant Nieves. The platoon’s 51mm mortar man was Private Nadriva – the very same who had nearly blown up Teddy and me during training at Camp Bastion at the beginning of the tour. Nadriva had been wounded and so I was to replace him. I was really chuffed about this because I would get my hands on a different weapon system, my role being to provide support for the platoon by firing high explosive, smoke and illumination bombs.

  We camped in FOB Robinson, unfortunately not in the nice cushy buildings that we had occupied previously as these were being occupied by 2 RTR which was now based there. We were to live in the Dust Bowl and there was a good reason for it being dubbed that – it was very, very dusty. The stuff actually came up to our ankles and, with the consistency of flour, it penetrated everywhere. If someone walked through it, you would see this massive trail of dust kicked up everywhere. It was a nightmare at the best of times, but we had no option but to live with it. The best answer was to take a large bottle of water, move away from the vehicles and then tip it all over our heads and wash our hair and faces or otherwise we just looked like ghosts. We had to do this because our mouths and nostrils were parched and our tonsils on fire because they had been so dried out by the dust. Along with fighting a continual battle to keep ourselves clean, our number one priority was to make sure that our rifles were always spotless and lightly oiled. The chance of anyone attacking a fortified army camp was unlikely, but we had to at least be ready just in case. That said, we eventually took to leaving our weapons in the vehicles, the only alternative being literally to clean them every half an hour.

  On the first morning in the Dust Bowl, Pete Tointon came down looking for Teddy, Deano and me. He had gone to talk with the Canadians and had succeeded in coming away with some their rations which were not dissimilar to those of the Americans. That day, I enjoyed the best boil-in-the bag meal I have ever tasted and probably ever will – it was veal steak in a mushroom sauce and they had not skimped on the steak, with beautiful large chunks. I can still recall it now, a taste sensation.

  We had been in the FOB for about two days when the call came in for us to move out as we were going to be moving into Sangin. Due to its large size, it was decided to break the convoy down into two main elements. The leading element would leave around mid-afternoon and the second an hour or so later.

  As I was about to move out in my new role as the mortar man, I was going through last-minute reminders because I had not touched the 51mm mortar since my 9 Platoon days some three years previously. An indirect fire weapon, effective use of it is about finding the correct angles for different ranges. Sergeant Caneper and Corporal Thorn went over and over the drills with me until I could do them all without any prompting.

  I had to repack my day sack because in place of my laser rangefinder and other tools of the sniper’s trade, I would be carrying mortar bombs. The guys in the platoon would also be carrying extra bombs for me to help with the load as they weigh quite a bit. I was carrying five HE and three smoke bombs as well as my rifle ammunition, water and all the rest of my equipment, which would make up a total load of 70 to 80 pounds.

  The lead element of the convoy mounted up and headed off. During the following hour, we all sat waiting and after a while saw a large plume of black smoke rising up from Sangin in the distance. We all joked that the locals were probably having a massive barbecue while at the same time praying that nothing had gone amiss. Sure enough, ten or fifteen minutes later the lead element’s Viking vehicles came scrambling up the road towards us and through the front gate of FOB Robinson. There were in a bad way with bullet holes in them, bits of bar armour hanging off and smashed windows.

  They had been ambushed just inside Sangin, near an area that was sort of a local reference point or landmark that people called the ‘Chinese tea shop’ or something similar. When the guys arrived, one of them had sworn blind that he had seen a child come close with a mobile phone doing what we called ‘dicking’, a term coined in Northern Ireland which meant reporting on the movement of troops and their whereabouts.

  As the convoy came up the road Deano was on top cover, standing up in a hatch in the roof of the Viking vehicle in which he and Teddy were travelling. Just behind him, strapped to the roof, were jerrycans of fuel and other items of kit. At that point a Taliban fighter launched an RPG from a nearby rooftop and scored a direct hit on the roof of the vehicle, detonating on one of the jerrycans and causing a huge fireball that totally engulfed Deano in burning fuel. He dropped down back through the hatch of the vehicle, desperately trying to put out the flames and ripping off his helmet and body armour. Teddy meanwhile placed his hand on the handle of the rear door, readying himself to open it, but could hear the sound of rounds pinging off the armour the outside. The Taliban had learned where our doors were and created a choice for those inside: either stay inside and burn to death or open the doors and get riddled with bullets.

  At this point Deano jumped back up into the hatch of the vehicle, with no helmet or any body armour, and began to return fire with his SA80 rifle. At the same time, there was a lull of a few moments in the bullets hitting the rear door, so Teddy threw it open and, armed only with his 9mm pistol, leapt out and headed for a nearby an alleyway. There was deafening noise and dust all around him as bullets rained down and RPGs flew in all from all directions. As he scrambled into the alleyway, he came face to face with a Taliban fighter shooting rounds in to the air and screaming, ‘Allahu akbar!’ Teddy shot him dead on the spot before turning his attention back to the Viking. Realising that there was no movement from it, he ran back to the vehicle where he found Deano lying unconscious inside, having been knocked out by the blast of another RPG hitting the roof.

  Deano was in a mess. Severely burned from the blast and injured by shrapnel, he was losing blood and rapidly losi
ng consciousness. He needed emergency medical treatment and quickly as he was in a really bad way. Teddy got into the vehicle and dragged him out of the vehicle, all the while under fire from RPGs and automatic weapons. He then had to carry him whilst continuously getting shot at with machine gun fire. Somehow, he succeeded in reaching another Viking, throwing open the doors and heaving Deano inside. There was no room for him so he had no choice but to run back another 50 or 60 metres, still under heavy fire, to another vehicle where he took cover in the back of it

  All the while the FSTs were bringing fire down on the enemy, but there were buildings all around and it was a relatively built-up town, with high buildings all around that area which made manoeuvring almost impossible. The convoy was still under very heavy fire as it drove out of Sangin. As soon as it reached a safe area on the way back to FOB Robinson, a Chinook arrived to collect Deano and the other casualties who were flown to Camp Bastion. Deano made it there within twenty-five or thirty minutes, again well within the Golden Hour, which we all still believe saved his life. Apparently four different surgeons worked on him all through the night in order to stabilise him initially and then keep him alive. It took a lot of work to bring him back.

  When I heard what had happened my first concern was for Deano, but I also worried about Teddy. The guy had done us all proud. I found out that he was at the medical station where he was being treated for shock rather than wounds. Both can be equally serious though and I do not want to underplay the physiological effects of war, especially when you realise what Teddy had taken on and beaten.

  I bumped into Hughesy, who was part of the FST team, holding a first field dressing to his face as I asked what had happened to him. He pulled it away and there was a graze the same width as a 7.62mm bullet right across his cheek. On contact, they had leapt out of the vehicle as it had all kicked off, but his day sack had been caught on the door. As he leaned down to free it, he had felt a violent blow to his face which knocked him flat. He instinctively curled up expecting another blow. It turned out that a bullet had come very near to taking his head off, close enough to take layers of skin from his face. He just sat there, saying really slowly, ‘Yeah, I know, I know.’ All of the guys were in varying degrees of shock, no matter how they dealt with it and all had what I can only describe as the ‘thousand yard stare.’ Being in and around the guys that had come back from the ambush reminded me of watching a television documentary about soldiers from the past or even seeing old photographs of soldiers from the Seconnd World War, only here it was in full colour and with modern kit, but they had the same look in their eyes. We subsequently heard that a couple of Apache helicopters were swiftly deployed over Sangin and destroyed some of the Taliban fleeing the scene on mopeds.