CHAPTER FOURTEEN

HAVE I GOT EVERYTHING I NEED?

I wish being shot at was the only worry on my mind.

As we sprinted into the unknown across the burial site I was also in contact with Ollie’s 2ic. If we made it over to them in one piece I needed to know what we were going to be met with. It didn’t sound good. He didn’t sound good. The whole patrol had found a gate inside a deep arch in a wall and, with temperatures at 55 degrees, they’d all gone in to escape the sun for a few minutes.

And, of course, that’s where the IED had been hidden.

Someone, he said, had trodden on it. Sam Alexander, Ollie Augustin, JJ Chalmers, an interpreter and another marine were caught in the direct blast. Others, like Kaz, were felled by the shrapnel. Even as we spoke, the 2ic said they were still pulling the injured from the rubble.

‘Have you ordered a medevac?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘First thing I did.’

I just hope you can stay alive long enough to need it.

As prepared as I was when we arrived, breathless, seeing the carnage with my own eyes was something else. While my brain began to slowly digest the scene in front of me, a blur of khaki ran past. It was Jonesy. His medipack was already off by the time he reached the first casualty. The boy was terrific: straight in, no panic, no hesitation. A great addition to the patrol.

‘That man needs a tourniquet – get on it!’

‘Someone, elevate this leg.’

While Jonesy took control of the medical side of things, I went straight into overwatch mode. We knew for certain that enemy eyes had been on us. If they’d followed us here we’d be sitting ducks. All men not helping Jonesy I stationed in a sentry ring around the group. We might not able to stop an RPG, but we might stand a chance of shooting its operator before he pulled the trigger.

It was bloody tense. I was bloody tense. We had trees one way, fields another. Everywhere else was compounds. The threat could come from anywhere, but it was most likely to be from inside one of those buildings. The sweat was pouring down my face, not all of it from the oven-like temperatures. I was aware that just behind me were men in a condition I hoped never to see.

As everyone settled into their roles I allowed myself a chance to look around at the bomb site. Considering that I knew all these men, I was shocked that I couldn’t recognise half of them. Blood was everywhere. On everything, on everyone. Body parts were scattered over the area. It was sickening.

I saw Jonesy leave one of the bodies. He’d been too late. The man had no legs. It must have been him who stepped on the bomb. It took me a significant period of staring to realise it was Sam Alexander. I felt sick. Two days earlier we’d been talking about our luck running out. No one truly believed it would. Certainly not Sam. Yet here he was.

Further round was another mess of missing parts. This was Ollie. He was only twenty-three, already a lieutenant, and destined for greatness. From the way Jonesy was frantically working on him I guessed he was still alive. But it didn’t look promising. Near by, Lance Corporal JJ Chalmers was another one in a bad way. His right arm was in pieces. His left hand had fingers missing. His head looked like it was pointing the wrong way. Everywhere I looked was like a horror film.

Eventually I noticed the wounded man closest to me. The blood made it hard to distinguish who it was. Bloody hell, it’s Kaz! Just eight hours earlier we’d shared a smoke together. Now one of his eyes was looking the wrong way, his face was totally messed up and his right foot was nowhere to be seen. Still keeping a watch in the distance, I knelt down next to him and took his hand. It was pure instinct.

‘Mate,’ I said, ‘…’ But the words just didn’t come. What do you say?

Kaz groaned. At least he was alive. His good eye stared at me. He knew he was in a shit state.

‘Rob,’ he croaked. ‘You’ve got to tell me: have I got everything I need?’

‘Everything you …?’

He was looking towards his feet now.

Oh, I know what you’re talking about.

I glanced at his groin. All intact as far as I could see.

‘Yeah, you randy bastard, you’ve still got everything you need.’

He smiled. At that moment the morphine being pumped into him couldn’t have made him feel better.

‘What about the others?’ he said.

‘You just worry about yourself.’

I didn’t want to tell him that one of the interpreters had not been so lucky. Even from where I was kneeling I could see the man was missing his genitalia and much else. Weirdly, he appeared to be in less pain than Kaz, thanks to the morphine the lads had already pumped into him.

‘How are we doing on that chopper?’ Jonesy called out. Calm but firm.

I made contact with Captain G-side, Steve’s 2ic at Toki, who contacted Bastion.

‘Five minutes,’ I relayed back.

It was the longest five minutes. To make it worse people started coming out of the compounds. With cameras. There we were, surrounded by our dead and wounded friends, and barely 70 metres away from us there were people taking photos.

So many things go through your mind at a time like that.

On a tactical level I’m thinking, Are they recording our responses to see how we operate?

On a cynical level, I’m thinking, Is this just going up on YouTube for the hits and likes?

But on a human level I’m thinking, These ambulance chasers disgust me.

I radioed Sunray a sitrep.

‘Permission to fire warning shots.’

‘Confirmed.’

On my command the few of us guarding the area facing the crowd raised our weapons and fired above the heads of the rubberneckers. At the same time John was yelling through the loudhailer for them to go back home. Some went. Most just backed off. At least the filming stopped.

What really got them moving, though, had nothing to do with me. The sound of two American Pavehawk helicopters – ‘Pedros’, as they’re known – buzzed over us from nowhere. They’d been sent for a reason. British MERT birds – medical emergency rescue teams – aren’t armed. You didn’t have to be a military expert to see that these were bristling with machine guns. After one pass the front chopper hovered over us and rotated, firing as it turned. We were in no danger. It was pivoting on a 50-metre arc. But it bloody cleared those Afghans out of our way.

Job done, the first bird began to land 20 metres from us. I’d already helped get the injured onto stretchers that were part of the patrols’ kit. ‘As soon as the dust settles, we get them out of here.’

As knackered and hot as everyone was, the lads tending the victims found the energy to sprint towards the Pedro. The second it landed I wanted those casualties on board and out of here. The longer they were on the ground the more danger they were in from the assembling Taliban threat.

But it didn’t work out like that.

The Pedro’s rails barely touched down when a paramedic leapt out. He took one look at the men haring towards him with stretchers and said, ‘They’re not going anywhere.’ Then he gave a shout and the chopper just took off again. It barely bounced on the earth before springing back out of reach.

I was straight over there. I proper wanted to smash that guy in the face.

‘What the fuck are you playing at? Get these men to safety!’

I was ready to square up. I was ready to do God knows what, if I’m honest. A combination of the heat, the pressure of running the whole site and seeing my mates badly wounded all burst out. The Yank looked stunned. Somehow, I got myself back under control.

He said simply, ‘That’s not how we do things.’

The British MERT technique is simple: you throw all casualties on board and deal with them on the fly. American medical practice was: send out a doctor, perform triage as best you can and prioritise the evacuation. They both have their merits but what the US system doesn’t take into account is that the threat from local aggressors was only going to get worse the longer we were there. The ICOM was in meltdown. Tons of voices were talking about us. I had barely half a dozen men guarding the site, with the injured, the dead and those tending them. If just half those chattering on the radio appeared with guns we’d be outnumbered. Outnumbered and exposed trying to protect our comrades.

This makes no fucking sense.

The medic flew round the group. Jonesy had done as much as any man could. There was little else the Yank could offer. Except ‘wit’. When he checked Kaz over he said, ‘Is he American?’

‘No, he’s Canadian.’

‘Ah,’ he smiled. ‘Fucking idiot.’

Kaz opened his good eye. ‘Fuck you.’

The American wasn’t finished. He took one look at Kaz’s stump and said, ‘Your dancing days are over, I’m afraid.’ (Which proved to be ironic, because five years later Kaz would win a special Christmas edition of Strictly Come Dancing.)

Eventually the expert had seen enough. He whistled the birds back down and we got the lads on. As they pulled away Steve McCulley and his team emerged from the trees.

‘Rob,’ he said, ‘you look like shit.’

‘I feel like it, sir.’

‘You know this is just the beginning, don’t you?’

‘All too well.’

* * *

It was a relief to hand over the burden of responsibility to Steve. Whatever happened now wouldn’t just be on my own shoulders.

At least, that was the idea.

Mentally I was on my last legs. So many decisions, all those men counting on me. But, as Steve said, it was far from over. We’d only packed off the injured. I still had to maintain the integrity of the explosion site until the investigation team arrived. And, of course, they’d need protecting as well.

By now we’d been on our feet for seven hours. In the blazing sun. We were drained and, I realised, dangerously close to dehydration. When you’re so determined to help others you forget to look after yourself. Luckily, the investigation boys brought a shitload of water with them. One by one I called the lads in to get their fill, then it was back to the day’s work.

Robbie, as usual, was the first to lose any downtime – the curse of being the best at his job.

‘We need to sweep the compound where the IED went off,’ I said. ‘Can you get us a path?’

‘I’m on it.’

Amazing kid.

Suddenly there were four operations going on. The big tidy-up process was the one I liked least. There were body parts scattered around, among the helmets and blood-stained armour. That all needed to be bagged and tagged. The investigators worked the bomb crater for clues as to how it had been caused. Half the available men from both patrols began the search of the compound, while the rest stayed alert on sentry duty. I flitted back and forth, trying to be wherever I was needed. Morale was low, unsurprisingly. The first time I emerged from the compound one of Afghan soldiers attached to Damo’s group said to me, ‘What should I do with this?’

He was holding a bag containing part of a leg.

‘Mate, I dunno. I suppose I’ll take it.’

Before long I had a collection of body parts next to my station. I could identify the owners of some without thinking. Others you couldn’t even make out which part of the body they belonged to.

A couple of hours later and the investigators were ready to evac. They’d discovered that the trigger plate Sam had stepped on had been placed perfectly in the centre of the tunnel-like arch leading into the compound.

‘Why wasn’t it picked up by the mine-detector?’ I said. ‘The Vallon man should have found it.’

You never want to apportion blame, but the question needed asking.

‘That’s the thing,’ the investigator said. ‘The batteries, which is what the detector normally picks up, were hidden in the wall around the corner.’

‘Clever,’ I said. ‘Evil and clever.’

I was relieved to learn it was nobody’s slackness at fault. But suddenly I was worried for Robbie. I quickly radioed him this update.

‘Just another thing to worry about,’ he said.

* * *

As I watched the investigating team’s helicopter disappear into the sky I couldn’t help shaking my head.

So we’re not getting a lift home, then?

We’d found nothing of interest in the compound, we had a collection of body parts, tons of excess equipment and two broken multiples of men dead on their feet. That wasn’t the worst of it. Two of the men who’d worked hardest on the casualties had accidentally injected themselves with a small dose of morphine – easier done than it sounds. They weren’t quite out of action, but they did need steering. How we were going to make it back in one piece I had no idea.

Steve said his multiple would patrol back first to clear the area.

‘Okay, what do you want me to do with these? – I gestured towards the bagged body parts.

He shrugged.

‘White phosphorus then?’

I don’t know if there is a policy for this situation. If there is, no one has ever told me. I didn’t want to ask my guys to carry this macabre collection of pieces back with them. But, if the rumours of what the Taliban did to their captives were true, I also didn’t want my buddies used as trophies to taunt the ISAF troops. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

‘I’m going to burn them,’ I said. ‘No one else needs to see this.’ I just felt it was the right thing to do.

I lit a fire and, while half the guys rested and the others stood guard, I threw all the bags in the flames. As I did, I spoke a few words about the men whose lives I was honouring. I prayed they would all recover, although, for Sam, I knew it was too late. Given the circumstances I tried to make it as decent and dignified as possible. I poured on as much flammable stuff as I could muster to get it over with. I couldn’t wait to get back and wash the stench from my clothes.

With our ceremonial cremation over, it was time to go. Robbie set off, followed by Matt Kenneally – his ‘eyes and ears’. I was getting ready to take my place when Fergie said, ‘Rob, what about all this armour?’

Shit!

Every man evacuated out had been carrying 40 pounds (18 kilos) of protective kit plus their bergans and weapons. It all needed transporting back to Toki or risk it being used as parts for an IED.

A lot of my patrol were carrying various electronic countermeasures (ECMs), the stuff that jams radio signals to neutralise remotely detonated explosive devices. They were already loaded to the brim. I looked at Fergie. ‘I guess it’s up to us.’

Off we went, this ragtag group. There was me, a few Afghan soldiers, a couple of OMLT men, people drawn from all quarters. We’d all been in the field for ten hours. By the time we got home it would be a full twelve.

John was still keeping me updated about the ICOM. I was beginning to feel that the chatter was more bluff and bullshit. For most the afternoon we’d been ripe for the picking. I definitely would have launched an attack if I had been the Taliban.

But I wasn’t ‘them’. I didn’t think like them or act like them. The longer I stayed in that country the more I realised that I never could or would. The Taliban were prepared to do things I couldn’t contemplate. For that reason we couldn’t afford to relax for a second. Any movement at a window, behind a hedge, in a field, was a potential deadly threat.

After a wearisome 3-kilometre march Toki was finally in sight. Just two fields and a bit of track lay between us and safety, probably about 300 metres. We kept to the fields. They were less likely to have been mined. They also offered the most direct route. It meant going near some abandoned farm machinery and towards a quiet compound. But it did keep us away from the road, where, once again, the sight and sound of mopeds bombing along, then stopping, turning round and bombing back, again filled the air. They were all ridden by men with mobile phones or walkie-talkies pressed to their ears.

Fergie radioed from the back of the line.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’

‘You’re not the only one,’ I said. The Afghan soldiers in our group had been twitchy as hell for the last ten minutes. Obviously they knew the people we were dealing with. They could also hear the activity on John’s walkie-talkie.

I looked around us. Where were the women and children? Where were the farmers? Where were the normal people?

‘Full alert, guys!’ I instructed. ‘Something could kick off here.’

No sooner had the words left my mouth than Matt came on the radio.

‘Halt!’

We all dropped instinctively to a kneeling position, weapons poised. Shattered as we were, training just takes over.

‘Talk to me, Matt,’ I said.

‘Change of direction,’ he said. ‘Just looking for the safest route.’

We had been walking predominantly westwards, but the layout of the land and compounds meant that we needed to shimmy through a chicane between two buildings before picking up our route.

‘Did Sunray come this way?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so. Their trail went cold a while back.’

Robbie and Matt set off, me 15 metres behind the front man. When the three of us were through the chicane most of the rest of the lads hadn’t yet entered it. Half our patrol were on the southern wall of the building and the other half had turned at a right angle and were already on the western side of the building. Not ideal.

I was carrying so much extra armour that I barely made it through the alleyway without scraping the sides. When I did emerge I could still see our camp faintly in the distance, about 120 metres away, partly obscured by the tall field crops. I could also see a compound much closer. Matt was standing by its wall outside, next to a farmer and a boy. All three were staring at what looked to me like a big oak tree on a patch of open land bare of crops.

I followed Matt’s gaze and realised there was something in the tree. Objects dangling like Christmas decorations. But decorations don’t usually wear British military camouflage gear.

The more I focused the more I managed to discern the various bits and pieces of armour identical to that on my back. I was faintly amused to make out the unmistakable shape of one of our regulation groin protectors – ‘bulletproof nappies’, we call them – strung up. Yet what was next to it was no laughing matter.

‘Shit!’ I said. ‘That’s not just a uniform. That’s a leg.’

First rule: sitrep. On the radio: ‘Steve, you’re not going to believe this: there are body parts, belonging to one of ours, hanging in a tree. We’re going to be back late.’

‘Do not approach it,’ Steve said. ‘The land underneath could well be mined. We’ve had reports of similar.’

Most of my men hadn’t seen it yet because the patrol snake was still back through the chicane. But suddenly I was surrounded by the Afghan deployment. They weren’t particularly in a mood to follow blindly whatever we did. They were straight over to the farmer, shouting in his face. It was reckless but I admired their instincts.

‘John,’ I said to my interpreter, ‘we need to question this guy before they do something silly.’

I thought I’d met the height of head-in-the-sand liars at that compound earlier in the week. This guy was just as evasive. More so, even.

‘Who hung that up?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is your field?’

‘Yes, this is my field.’

‘You have a tree in your field?’

‘Yes, I have a tree in my field.’

‘Who put these objects in it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where are the Taliban? Which compound do they live in?’

‘There aren’t any Taliban around here.’

‘In that case,’ I said, ‘you’ll be in no danger cutting those things down.’

He knew I meant business. He spoke to the young boy, who then ran over to the tree, shinned up it and started tearing away at the knots until every piece had fallen down. Then he dragged the whole lot over and dumped it at my feet. I thought I’d already experienced the worst thing I would that day, but this was something else. I actually apologised to the lads I asked to bag it up. I’m not sure I could have gone that close.

Fergie was at my shoulder.

‘This is fucked up,’ he said. ‘We need to get out of here!’

I approached the old man. I was about to say that I’d be back later to search his compound when I heard a kerfuffle behind me as one of the Afghan soldiers just cracked the old man on the head with his rifle butt. He’d run from about ten metres back, and the force of the blow sent the old man sideways into the wall and down onto the ground. The boy looked scared for his life so I intervened. If I hadn’t we’d have had a murder on our hands, Afghan on Afghan. That was something I could not allow.

I was shouting at John to order the Afghans to stand down when suddenly there was a loud fizzing noise. I turned, looked to my left at the field next to us. There, a metre from me, fizzing in a small furrow was a round black object.

‘Grena–’

It all happened so quickly. A wall of warm air lifted me off my feet and dropped me face down among the crops. The sound of the explosion lingered long after the blast had died.

I was already dehydrated, weak. Now disorientated. Ears ringing, I pushed myself up and was aware of another noise. Gunfire.

All hell was breaking loose.

Shots were coming from the compound behind us. Robbie and Matt were returning fire. The Afghans had spotted another target, which they were engaging. Another one of my men was staggering, firing wildly in a north-westerly direction.

Directly at Toki.

I wanted to pick up my gun but, as multiple leader, I had one job at that moment. Same one I always had. Get a report off up the chain. Let them know that we were under attack from Compound 49, according to my map, and could require medical assistance. But mainly I had to ensure they didn’t think we were firing at them – even though one of us was! If they got confused and launched one of their heavy weapons we were all toast.

The report was over in a matter of seconds, then I took stock of the situation. I realised that not one but two grenades had landed. Several men were down with shrapnel wounds. Fergie was nearest me. I went to check on him and realised he was just groggy, like me, from being thrown by the blast. Superficial damage only.

The worst hit were the old man and the boy. Each had serious stomach injuries. I couldn’t work out why they were so badly hurt and Fergie and I were scratch-free. We’d been standing directly next to the grenades. Then I noticed a bit of metal sticking out of the extra armour over Fergie’s shoulder.

Of course.

Fergie and I were so laden with the kit from Sam, Ollie and the rest, it had protected us from the blast.

As it should have done for them.

My priority was to rein in the maverick shooter who had risen out of the mud and was firing at the compound. I managed to grab, calm and disarm him and pull him to safety. Then it was a question of getting everyone organised while adding my own weight to the firefight.

Our primary threat was whoever was inside the compound. I manoeuvred the men to where they would cause maximum damage from the safest positions.

We returned fire for thirty minutes with no casualties on our side. The last thing I wanted was for the insurgents to regroup. The constant flow of mopeds from earlier had to be going somewhere.

We need to get out of here.

Normally I’d be straight on the radio: ‘Fire and manoeuvre, lads.’ Ollie’s 2ic was already making it happen.

It was textbook stuff. While we covered Robbie, he ran out, drawing fire. He dropped into a shooting position then opened up. The moment he was in place another man ran 5 metres in advance of him and did the same. We were going to crawl our way out or die trying.

Slowly this weird caterpillar took shape. I was the last to go. I still had the armour, and now we had two seriously injured civilians and the remains of a fallen marine.

Fire-and-manoeuvre is a laborious process, but it ensures the widest coverage against an enemy that won’t let up in its attack. Every step of the way I was in contact with Steve McCulley. When we’d put 100 metres between us and the compound, he said, ‘Be prepared to take cover. I have a Pred on station.’

The beast in question, the Predator, is a drone, an unmanned aircraft designed for, among other purposes, stealthy destruction. Unlike the Mirages and the Chinooks, you don’t hear the Predator. And you definitely don’t hear what it releases.

Not before, not during and – if you’re the target – not after.

‘That is the first bit of good news I’ve heard all day!’

‘Guys,’ I shouted, ‘prepare for an airstrike.’

Hellfire missiles travel faster than the speed of sound and their payload is devastating.

Even from 100 metres the shock wave from the explosions was immense. My ears still hadn’t stopped ringing from the grenades, but this noise was something else. When it cleared I heard a new sound.

Silence.

‘Enemy neutralised,’ I reported. ‘Or near enough.’

That was it. No more engagement. No more insurgent activity. Time to go home.

* * *

We’d left Toki that morning at 5.30 a.m. Twelve and a half hours later we were on our last legs, dragging ourselves and our baggage the final 50 metres along the dirt track to the compound. We were absolutely licked. I think the sentries saw this. A minute later the gate opened and half a dozen lads, wearing shorts and as much body armour as they could sling on as they ran, sprinted over to help us. Someone took the excess armour off me. Someone else saw to Fergie. Others picked up the wounded Afghans and the bags of body parts. Whatever they could do to ease our last few steps back.

I got in the compound and heard the gate shut and saw the sentries move the ballast into place to stop it being rammed. But I didn’t feel safe. The day had changed me. It took a few moments to realise we’d come back with five men fewer than the group had set out with. That seemed like the work of another day entirely.

Sleep, though, wasn’t an option. The sentry points still had to be maintained throughout the night. The old farmer needed to be seen to by a doctor and interrogated, and the boy too needed urgent medical attention. I needed someone to log the body parts from the tree and get them to Bastion for analysis, and Sunray needed a full briefing on what had happened. Perhaps more important, we all needed a moment to reflect on our own.

I remember sitting round the fire to eat. Fergie cooked my dinner. He was the closest I had to a confidant. We ate for a while in silence. Usually one of us would find the humour in the situation. This wasn’t one of those times. Eventually I said, ‘What the hell happened out there today?’

‘We got fucked, that’s what.’

‘That we did.’

‘But at least we’re doing our job.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re the bait, remember?’

‘Well, they’re getting results. I don’t know how long we’ll last.’

The couple of guys I’d borrowed from M’lord’s multiple came over to sit with us. One of them was an RMR – Royal Marine Reservist. Amazingly, he was holding up brilliantly, but then his ‘day job’, if you like, was a fireman. Stress, pressure, hideous odds, terrible injuries – nothing new for him there. Take out the IEDs and the bullets and today was just another shout. His mate was a different proposition. He was younger, much younger than me, and I honestly think he’d seen too much. I actually made a point of finding M’lord after and saying, ‘I think he needs some time away from the patrols.’

Everywhere I looked there were men trying to clean the blood off their kit. Basically just trying to normalise the day. Get back into a rhythm.

The last people I spoke to before turning in were the interpreters. They were all pretty shaken up, even John, who’d remained solid in the field. One of their guys had been among the most serious casualties. I think it brought home the futility of what we were trying to do among their own people.

‘Look how the Taliban treat their own people,’ one of them said. ‘You can’t let them win. Promise us you won’t.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow the Taliban pay.’

Famous last words.