by Kemp Ross
Even from the outside wall of Mazdurak, it was clear that the village had been bombed to hell. The wall was littered with shell holes and we entered through a massive gap in the wall that had simply been reduced to rubble. The thought passed through my mind as I ran into the village that no matter how hard you try, you're never going to make yourself popular with the local population if you destroy their towns and villages like this, no matter what your justification. The bombsite around me used to be people's houses; indeed, it had been people's houses for the last 200 years. Now it was a scene of devastation.
Our orders were to clear Mazdurak and then push on to the town of Kavalabad, the Taliban front line. In order to do this, we needed to clear every single compound. I thought back to the few days I had spent on Salisbury Plain with B Company as they underwent their training exercises in preparation for their tour. No one could have said that their FIBUA training was an unqualified success – truth to tell, it had been a bit shambolic. What a difference six months makes. The troops around me went about their business as though they'd been doing it all their lives. They knew the Taliban could be hiding in any of the compounds we were entering – every corner or doorway we approached could be a Taliban firing point; and we knew their sniper was somewhere in the area. It didn't stop 6 Platoon clearing each compound with a rigorous efficiency. They used bar mines to blast their way into the compounds. Once an entry point had been made, fragmentation grenades and smoke grenades were used to ensure that the compounds were empty.
What followed was an hour of high-intensity house clearance. They call it ‘going red’ – using maximum force to clear every compound. Bar mines and grenades exploded constantly; the air was full of smoke, dust and the urgent shouts of the soldiers performing this dangerous but necessary work. I was jumping out of my skin. The further we penetrated into Mazdurak, the clearer the extent of the devastation in that village became. I found, embedded amongst the rubble, a sharp, twisted piece of shrapnel. This was the casing from one of the bombs that had been dropped on the place. The idea of this wicked-looking hunk of metal spinning through the air and crashing into a compound was a pretty sobering one – it gave a good idea of the kind of damage these bombs can inflict. It could easily have ricocheted off a wall and split someone in two. Maybe it had.
After an hour of this high-octane manoeuvring through the village, it became clear that Mazdurak was deserted. And it was hardly a surprise – we had burned through a lot of ammo in that hour. Any Taliban who had been here had retreated and we were now only a couple of hundred metres from Kavalabad, where the enemy were holed up. From this new position close to the enemy's front line, 6 Platoon were able to identify enemy positions. The situation changed immediately. No longer were the soldiers focused on house clearance: now they were focused on assaulting the enemy front line, and they were going to use everything in their arsenal to achieve that.
The crew and I were told to keep our heads down. We didn't need telling twice. Just over the wadi we could see Kavalabad. The Fire Support Group, from their position up on the hill, started raining down fifty-cal fire on to the enemy positions while Tony Borgnis called in another fast air strike. Two bombs were dropped. The boom of the second ordnance was 6 Platoon's signal to join the attack. They did so with gusto. Climbing up on to the roofs and walls of the compound we were in, they unleashed an awesome number of rounds into the Taliban positions in Kavalabad.
The enemy were behind a tree line about 300 metres away. When 6 Platoon added their fire to the party, the Taliban were forced to take action. They started a flanking manoeuvre, moving to either side of the line of trees in an effort to divide 6 Platoon's fire. Ben Browning, the Platoon Sergeant, ordered the fire to be redirected. It continued with the same blistering intensity and the flanking manoeuvre was suppressed.
Now, though, we had a different problem. Every soldier's worst nightmare. The rate of fire over the last couple of hours had been so intense that 6 Platoon were running out of ammo.
The order came to slow down the rate of fire. But the weapons were starting to overheat – smoke was pouring from a few of them – and the platoon's arsenal was almost depleted. There was no more ammo coming up the line, so there was only one option left. Ben Browning ordered a ‘fast extraction’. Or, to put it another way, we were told to get out of there. And quickly.
We sprinted back through the decimated remains of the village. We needed to get back to the riverbed from where we had watched the fast air bombing Mazdurak. But in order to do that, it was necessary to cross back over the open ground. This left us dangerously open to a counterattack and so, despite the 45-degree heat, I ran as fast as my little legs would carry me. It was knackering, and I wasn't even carrying a weapon system or a camera. Eventually we reached the security of the riverbed, where we were able to catch up with Tony Borgnis and find out from him how he felt the operation had gone.
Despite the sudden need for a fast extraction, he could barely contain his delight. ‘Extremely successful,’ he told me. Not only had they scuppered the enemy's ambush: ‘We also engaged a number of firing points, heavy machine gun and mortar positions, as well as snipers. It doesn't get better than that in terms of operational success.’
As we stood in that dried-up riverbed, Tony flashed us a charming smile. ‘I've got to go, lads,’ he told us, and off he ran.
Which left three of us – me, Fred the cameraman and John the director. We looked around for the rest of the soldiers and suddenly realized that everyone else had disappeared. We stared at each other as the penny dropped that we were the last ones left.
You've never seen a bunch of guys move so quickly. We absolutely legged it until the rest of 6 Platoon came into view.
‘Thank fuck for that,’ I muttered under my breath as we joined them and walked back in the midday heat towards the safety of the British base at Kajaki.
12. The Knock on the Door
The Royal Anglians' six-month tour of duty was nearing its end and the time had come for me to say goodbye to Helmand Province once more.
I approached my departure with mixed feelings. There were plenty of things I wouldn't miss: being shot at, living in hot, sticky, dirty conditions, eating army rations. The soldiers, of course, had more reason than me to look forward to their return. After all, they'd been shot at a whole lot more; they'd lived in bad conditions for longer; and they'd eaten a hell of a sight more army scoff than me. Josh Hill and Ben Browning spoke almost dreamily of tucking into fish and chips when they got home and I knew what they meant.
But there were things I knew I would miss. The camaraderie for a start – I had forged strong friendships with some of the guys, friendships that I hoped would last for a long time. And I had come, in a strange kind of way, to forge a bond with Afghanistan itself. It is, of course, a highly dangerous, deeply troubled place and I wouldn't want to express any misplaced bravado or naivety about going there. But it is also a truly beautiful country. A place that can take your breath away, despite the ugly nature of what's going on there. As if to highlight this, one of the last things I did before I left Kajaki was take a swim with a few of the guys in the cooling waters of the lake above the dam. It's a treat only those stationed in this northern outpost of Helmand Province can look forward to and there's no doubt that, in the midst of the intense heat of the Afghan summer, it was the best swim of my life. Immersed in the clear, chalky blue waters of the lake, you could almost forget that the craggy slopes all around you are littered with mines, and that you are swimming under armed guard. It almost seemed like a metaphor for something, a reminder that when you're surrounded by danger and death, the small things become of great importance.
Sergeant Ben Browning echoed that feeling. In the time since he had been away, his little boy had learned to talk. A momentous time in any father's life, but doubly so for a father who has been absent in a foreign land, knowing that there is a very real possibility that each day could be his last. ‘I'm definitely going to appreciate
things a little more,’ he said. I hoped that the same would be true of me.
It was also clear to me in that summer of 2007 that the ISAF forces' involvement in this war-torn country would last for a long time to come. Men like those I had come to know in the Royal Anglians would be facing similar dangers to the ones they had faced while I was with them tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. The remit of the soldiers was to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, but while they were involved in a fight against an intelligent, determined enemy willing to die for what they believed in, this was an almost impossible task. They were there to improve the infrastructure of Afghanistan, and they wanted to do this; but all I witnessed was destruction. The end of the road, if indeed the road was ever to end, was a long way off. The journey would continue to be hard.
My own journey was almost over. The day before I was to leave Kajaki a few of us were sitting around outside, drinking tea, smoking cigarettes and chewing the fat. On the ground around us there was an expanse of tough, straw-like grass. One of the guys decided to clear this grass away by burning it, just to neaten the place up a bit and make it a nicer environment to hang out in. He sprinkled some petrol over the ground and set it alight. This was an area where unused rounds were emptied out of the weapons systems, especially the FSG's fifty-cals. Out of the blue, the air was filled with the sound of rounds banging off all around us, some whizzing over our heads. We hit the deck as this discarded ammunition burned and exploded randomly. It was a miracle nobody was hurt and highlighted that for a soldier, surrounded by the lethal tools of your trade, you sometimes don't even need an enemy to come to mischief.
Like, I imagine, many of the soldiers at the end of their tour, I was feeling demob happy. But as I took my final journey back along the Helmand river towards Camp Bastion in a Chinook, I was reminded that in Afghanistan you can't let your guard drop even when you're going home. From the back of the chopper, flares erupted into the air, their trails twirling and spiralling impressively. This wasn't a bonfire night display, however: it's standard procedure for aircraft traversing Helmand Province. The flares act as heat sources. If a heat-seeking missile is aimed at the chopper and locks on to the hot engines, the flares are there to confuse it.
As the Chinook carried me away from Kajaki, I remembered what Ian Robinson had said to me only a couple of weeks before. ‘For the enemy, each day's the same as the next and they don't mind whether they kill us on day one of the tour, day thirty of the tour or the last day of the tour.’
The Royal Anglians had already lost nine men. I hoped and prayed that they would have lost no more when I saw them next.
The banner, carried by two excited-looking children, was large, colourful and festooned with balloons. It lit up the drab surroundings of Pirbright Barracks, Surrey. England. Back where my association with them had all started.
The message emblazoned upon it was simple: ‘Welcome Home Daddy’.
There were a lot of kids congregated to welcome their daddies home the day I travelled to the Anglians' base, and a lot of wives and girlfriends too. It seemed a lifetime ago that the lads had left and I imagined that their families and friends must have scarcely dared think about this moment for fear of tempting fate. Bunting surrounded the parade ground. As we waited for the guys to arrive it struck me how different this was to the environment in which they had been living for the past six months. Bunting and balloons are in pretty short supply in Helmand Province. The guys would have had a couple of days' decompression in Cyprus to help them acclimatize, but it was going to take a lot more than that for them really to become used to no longer having to live in a war zone.
You could feel the thrill as the coaches trundled into view. Conquering football teams are given open-top buses and streets lined with cheering crowds. None of that for these young men who had risked their lives on our behalf; nor, I imagine, would they have wanted it. Just plain white coaches bringing the boys home from war. The cheers from the families, however, as the guys spilled out on to the tarmac in their desert gear, were enthusiastic and, for me, highly emotional. The sheepish grins on the faces of the soldiers told their own story. I stood and watched as children ran up to their dads and allowed themselves to be embraced. Six months is a long time for a soldier in the field, but it's even longer for a young child. It must have seemed to them half a lifetime ago that their dads went off to war. I felt something of an intruder as tearful wives embraced their husbands. Few words were spoken. Sometimes that sort of relief and joy can't easily be expressed. I had seen many of these men turn into experienced and efficient fighters; but today I was witnessing a side of them that barely had the chance to reveal itself in Helmand Province: they were family men, people like you and me, just glad to be home.
And then, among the crowd, I saw a familiar face. Familiar, but different. Corporal Stuart Parker had been on the roof in Mazdurak when the blue on blue incident had occurred. His body armour had been destroyed, his clothes blown away, his ribs broken. But he had been one of the lucky ones. Unlike Foster, Thrumble and McClure, he had survived. As he put it, he had fallen asleep in Helmand and woken up in Birmingham and he joked, with a spark of his old humour, that the two places didn't look a lot different. I could tell, however, that his repartee masked his feelings about the severity of what had happened to him. Stu was thin and drawn. He looked pale and walked on crutches. I told him I was expecting to see him in a wheelchair, but he brushed off anything that sounded like sympathy. That wasn't what he was there for. The sight of him standing there with Sergeant Woodrow, the man who had helped him off the roof in Mazdurak, dragged him from the rubble and probably saved his life, was a poignant one. Woody, of course, would never ask for or expect a word of thanks, but it seemed to me that there was a bond between these two men that would never go away.
‘We went through a lot, didn't we, mate?’ Woody said. His voice was full.
Stu agreed. ‘A few short months took a long time to get through.’ I didn't doubt that there were plenty of men surrounding me who would agree with that sentiment.
As overjoyed as everyone was to have returned home, nobody forgot that there were nine families for whom this day was not one of celebration. Nine families for whom the worst had happened. Nine families whose young men had not come home alive. For them, the aftershock of the war in Afghanistan would be felt every day, most probably for the rest of their lives. They say that the Royal Anglians are a family regiment so they too would be feeling something akin to the loss of a family member. It was important to everyone involved that the deaths of the fallen were commemorated in an appropriate way. A month after their return from Helmand, a service was held. It seems a small thing, but it was a ceremony of immense importance to everyone.
I was unable to attend because I was filming abroad. The first I saw of it was on the screen when we came to edit the last episode. I saw the wide eyes of the men I knew so well. They looked confused, as though they were trying to make sense of it all. They looked as if they were trying not to cry. I saw children and the elderly there to honour their loved ones. I heard the heart-rending swell of ‘Nimrod’ from Elgar's Enigma Variations. I heard Ian Robinson read lines from Laurence Binyon's ‘For the Fallen’: ‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.’ I watched families light candles in memory of their loved ones.
I wept. And I defy anybody who watches it not to do so.
I was invited into the home of Private Robert Foster. In many ways, meeting a bereaved family is more difficult than being with the men on the front line. As always, I was amazed by the quiet dignity with which Robert's parents, Lisa and John, and his sister Lauren conducted themselves. Lisa's account of hearing the news was heartbreaking. ‘As I was walking down the stairs, putting my dressing gown on, I was thinking, Please, let it be the police. Something's happened in the road. Let it be the police. But as soon as I opened the door, I knew. The officer standing there introduced himself and he didn't have to say any more. And m
y first words were, “Just tell me it's not the worst.” And he said, “I'm afraid it is.” I said, “Now tell me you've made a mistake.” He said, “I'm afraid I haven't.”’
Somehow she managed to hold back the tears as she spoke. Or maybe she had just cried them all.
The feelings that must have surged through the family at that moment are unimaginable. Now, every time I hear of a death in Afghanistan, I remember Robert Foster's family and their description of that knock on the door. It seems to me that it's being repeated too often.
Back on the parade ground at Elizabeth Barracks on the day B Company returned, Stu Parker had attempted to draw a line under their tour of duty. ‘Everyone's back now,’ he had said gruffly. ‘That's it. Over and done with.’
Well, up to a point. The tour might have been over and done with, but the after-effects weren't. Nor was the battle for Helmand Province. The Royal Anglians had returned, but other young British men had taken their place in the field. They would continue to fight the Taliban, come what may, and they would continue to die for their country.
The war wasn't over by any means.
PART TWO
Herrick 8
13. The Jocks
I had seen only one small part of Afghanistan. To be more precise, I'd seen only one small part of one province in the southern part of the country. But I felt drawn to it. Drawn to its beauty and other-worldliness. And drawn too, I suppose, to its danger. When your life is at risk, you appreciate it all the more. No doubt I would feel differently as a real soldier, stuck in the middle of a real tour of duty and having to undergo major firefights on a daily, and sometimes twice-daily, basis. But I'm not a real soldier. I'm just an observer, and in the year that followed my first major excursions to Afghanistan, I knew that I wanted, at some stage, to go back. Maybe I was addicted to the thrill of it. Maybe, when you've been to a war zone, the rest of your life seems a little bit bland.
