Never Broken

by Hannah Campbell

  Later that day, he came to see me again and for the first time I asked him: ‘What have I done to my leg?’ I was aware there had been a lot of activity down there but I couldn’t really feel any pain as they’d given me so many drugs.

  I was shocked to the core when he said: ‘Hannah, you really need to pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you: there is a chance that we might not be able to save your leg.’

  I refused to acknowledge what he was saying to me. Recognising I was in denial, he gently repeated himself. At this I started shouting: ‘No! No! No! I’m saving my leg. You’ve got to save my leg!’

  There was no way I was going to lose it. He was lovely, listening to me, and I could see him clearly weighing up the options.

  He then said: ‘OK, Hannah, but if we don’t amputate you are going to fly back to the UK and you are going to have a major operation when you get back.’

  And I said: ‘OK, I’m willing to do that’ and that was the end of the matter. I never thought about it again; I just thought I’d fly back to Britain and it would be fixed. In order to protect myself from the horror I refused to consider any alternative – I couldn’t allow myself to comprehend the alternative: becoming a war amputee. If I allowed myself to think about it that made it real, so I refused to think about it or discuss it with anyone further.

  In the hours before I flew home, I was well enough to look at my leg for the first time. I still had a leg and above the ankle was smooth, unmarked skin, but from just above the ankle down was a block of dark, purple swelling which was unrecognisable as a limb. What was once my foot looked like a breezeblock at the end of my leg; it was cut to pieces. They’d cleaned it up by the time I saw it, but still there was blood everywhere and it looked pretty horrendous. It was like I was wearing an ankle boot of disgustingness. Fascinated, I stared at it for ages, thinking: ‘God, that’s really malformed!’ Even when I saw the shocking reality before my very eyes, I told myself: ‘It’s just an op. They can fix it.’ Somehow I convinced myself it was a broken bone. ‘I’ll have six weeks in plaster, have a few plates, and then I’ll get on with my life and forget about all this,’ I told myself. It was at the time an act of self-preservation as I was still unable to comprehend the horror of what I’d gone through. It would take me years to do that.

  As I lay in my hospital bed waiting to be wheeled out onto the tarmac to fly home, I thought the biggest irony of all was I shouldn’t be there. I’d taken someone else’s place: someone else’s destiny. Just forty-eight hours before, one of my friends in Iraq, Corporal John Lewis, had asked if I would take over his shift as guard commander. Nobody wanted to do guard duty. It was an absolutely shit job and one of the most hated on camp. The main guardroom had no air conditioning, you got no sleep for the entire twenty-four-hour shift – unless you snatched an hour here and there on a mattress – and it was the worst duty you could get on camp, apart from cleaning the Portaloos. There was a huge amount of responsibility attached to it as you had to sign for all the live rounds, which were then issued to the guards. You then commanded those under you to ‘load’ and ‘unload’ at the start and end of the duty. Every single bullet that anybody had in their magazine or fired had to be accounted for and the buck stopped with you. Signing for one hundred rounds, any of which could have killed somebody, was a huge weight on my shoulders. If a bullet was lost, there had to be an investigation. Getting away for food and drink was also an issue and the twenty-four hour shift left you utterly exhausted. I hated the idea of it, but when John told me there was a chance he could get a flight a day early to be home with his kids I had no hesitation in volunteering to replace him.

  ‘I’ll do it if they give you a seat on an earlier plane,’ I said. When a seat became available, I was delighted for him. ‘Right, well, pack your bags, you lucky sod!’ I told him. ‘Your tour is over.’

  He hugged me tightly as he was so excited. ‘I owe you one,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I replied. To me it wasn’t a big deal as I was going to be stuck in Iraq anyway, but to him it meant leaving the shithole of Camp Charlie behind and getting back to his loved ones for good. He’d served his six months; he’d done his time. He was fed up and he desperately wanted to go home and see his family and kids. I understood where he was coming from. My daughter Milly had celebrated her second birthday shortly before I was deployed, but during the two and a half months I’d served so far, I’d missed Mother’s Day and I ached to see her and my husband, Jamie. The truth is, as a mum you deal with a lot of guilt for not being there for your child – you miss so many milestones, moments you can never get back. But then so do the dads.

  Before leaving home I told myself that Milly was so young she wouldn’t remember me not being there, but when I got out to Iraq and the realities of war had kicked in, and when I became wise to what war really was about, I felt regret for being so quick to leave her. Although I always knew the time away from her was going to be a big deal, what I hadn’t factored in was that I could lose my life. Also, I hadn’t taken into account the terror on a daily basis. I thought: ‘If I don’t get out of here I’ve robbed my daughter of a mum.’ While I had immediate regrets, it could just as easily have been my husband Jamie in this position and then our daughter might have been robbed of a dad. The same can be said of any of the men and women who served alongside me, so there’s no right answer. Mums and dads are equally important to their children yet we both have a role in our Armed Services. While there’s been a big debate about it, both should be able to serve on the front line.

  That’s not to say they want to be there. No matter how rigorous your training, regardless of whether you are a mum or dad, a new recruit or veteran, it’s virtually everyone’s dream on long-term deployment to get back home and see your kids and family. I wanted to do everything I could to help John do that for I knew had it been the other way round somebody would have done the same for me.

  Guard duty started at 6pm after I’d already done a full day’s work. Staff had to meet at the guardroom and the shift ended at 6pm the next day. The Garrison Sergeant Major came, issued me the bullets, gave me a ‘make sure you don’t fuck up’ briefing and then left me in charge.

  I was really lucky as working alongside me as my second-in-command was Lance Bombardier Karl Croft, who was highly experienced. Originally, he was to have taken the Guard Commander role, as he was more senior than John. But as I wore a higher rank than both of them, the commander role transferred to me. That meant Karl became my second-in-command. Although I knew what I was doing, Karl was level-headed, experienced and a really nice guy, so he was great to have onboard. I also made sure everyone on duty was paired off, as guarding the periphery of camp could be a dangerous place. One of my deep-seated fears was to be stranded alone in the pitch-black of the furthest reaches of the base during a mortar attack and being blown up completely alone, with no one to hear or help me. I didn’t want that to happen to them.

  Just before we started the shift there was some gunfire in the distance. Sometimes shots were fired because there was a celebration in Basra, which you could see in the distance from Camp Charlie, but we couldn’t be sure if it meant there were insurgents (rebel fighters against the new Iraqi government, who also targeted the coalition armies who were helping them) in the area, so we were immediately on heightened alert. Karl helped me organise who would be doing what: pairs in two-hour rotations throughout the night and following day, and each shift was written on a white board just inside the Portacabin where the guardroom was.

  Briefing the lads, I told them: ‘This is where you are supposed to be, and when you are supposed to be doing it. Don’t fuck me around and don’t fuck up. Apart from the first rotation, the rest of you can knock off for an hour, send your emails and make your calls and then come back.’

  Family is everything when you are on tour. The reality is that while these lads do an amazing and courageous job, their families are their lifeline: they want to call their mums, speak to th
eir wives and kids on the phone and pick up their emails or a parcel from home. Anybody who has served in a war zone knows and respects that, from the lowest to the most senior rank.

  When the lads were dismissed I returned to the guardroom alone as we had what was known as an ‘Occurrence Book’. I needed to record the distant gunfire so that the next team on duty would be aware of what had gone on and I also needed to make necessary radio checks. Once that was done, I briefly popped outside to have a cigarette with Karl, where we made chit-chat. I remember saying, ‘I hope we’re going to have a quiet night’. Then I walked back inside and in a split second my life changed for ever.

  The building took a direct hit from a mortar bomb, obliterating it and leaving me alone and trapped underneath, but the next moments are a complete blank. For years I would get really frustrated as I wanted to fill in the gaps of what happened. I know there’s no point in me straining to try anymore as I’m never going to get it back. Even today the only way I can comprehend what happened is through my injuries.

  I left Iraq on an Aero Med plane, which is literally a flying hospital, exactly two days after the blast. All flights left Basra at night as the cover of darkness meant there was less risk of being attacked by a missile. I was pushed out onto the tarmac by a one-on-one nurse, who was to care for me all the way home, just like you’d get in an Intensive Care ward. Lying on my back due to my injuries, all I could see was the stars in the night sky. The air was warm and balmy, with just the sound of voices in the background as they prepared the flight.

  Just before I boarded, my Garrison Sergeant Major came to see me: the highest non-commissioned officer in the camp. I was so off my face on painkillers, the only thing I slurred to him was: ‘It’s a really good job I had my bikini line waxed the night before I got blown up!’ When the nurse told me this later, I was mortified. Apparently he took it well, although understandably he went slightly puce and muttered, ‘Very good.’

  As I was wheeled inside the plane I started crying, saying: ‘What if they mortar us as I can’t get off the stretcher?’ ‘My nurse said: ‘No – you will be OK.’ I felt such profound terror that they decided to sedate me. Halfway through the flight I stirred when the plane’s engines seemed incredibly noisy. Military planes aren’t insulated in the same way as commercial planes. I looked sideways and saw someone with plasters and bandages all over his legs and face: it was Karl Croft. He’d managed to come on as a walking casualty rather than on a stretcher. It was comforting to see him there, even if he did look a bit like an Egyptian mummy.

  My nurse patted my hand and said: ‘Go back to sleep. Everything’s OK. We’re on the way home.’

  As I drifted off into a deep sleep, my thoughts turned to being back home and with my family. My last memory before blacking out is of seeing Milly’s smiling face in my mind’s eye and an overwhelming feeling of relief I was heading home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHILDHOOD AND JOINING THE ARMY

  As I blinked my eyes open several times the pain in my head was just excruciating. At first I struggled to focus, then I saw a bedside table with some flowers. The small picture of Milly I always carried under my body armour close to my heart was propped against the vase and, looking down at my body, I became aware I was wearing a hospital gown and tightly tucked into a bed. After a few seconds the reality set in: I was back in the UK and safe. A wave of relief washed over me.

  A nurse seemed to come from nowhere. She took my hand and said: ‘Hannah, you’re in Intensive Care at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham. You’re safe and we’re going to make you better again. Squeeze my hand if you understand what I’m saying.’ I used all my strength to give her hand a tight squeeze, she smiled at me and with that, I drifted back off into sleep.

  This was the pattern for the next few days in there as I slowly began to recover. I was in a sort of half-state between waking and sleeping, mainly because of the painkillers I’d been given. The times I was awake soon began to increase and it’s fair to say lying in bed gives you a lot of time for reflection. I was in a lot of pain with my injuries, but even then I had decided I needed to find the strength to fight back to good health: I had Milly and Jamie to think of, as well as my family, and I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, let them down. I found my memory drifting back in time to everything that had lead me to where I was that day.

  It’s fair to say that when I first joined the Army I was more Private Benjamin than a serious recruit. But what life in the Army gives you is a grit and backbone that will get you through anything in life and I knew this was what would help me battle back now. Even as a little girl I was made for a career in the Army, although I thought I wanted to be a pharmacist. With three brothers: Hamish, who is three years younger, and the twins, Josh and James, who were born five and a half years after me, it was a male-dominated household and I was very much a tomboy. Pride in those who served in the Military had been instilled in us as both my mum, Ann, and dad, Mac, had met in 1973 at RAF Leconfield, near Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where Dad was an aircraft technician and Mum was a dental nurse. Throughout my childhood I’d spend hours playing ‘Armies’ with the boys at the bottom of our garden at Bourne in Lincolnshire, before we later moved to a village in Cumbria. I’d chase my brothers and friends with plastic guns, rolling around in the mud. Holidays and after school were taken up with adventure games, which more often than not involved plastic guns. Mum and Dad bought me Barbie dolls but I wasn’t interested and instead loved my Knight Rider pedal car.

  Day-to-day, home life was very traditional but Mum loved the outdoors and weekends would be spent orienteering and walking in the countryside, although probably, with hindsight, my parents were desperately trying to tire out four boisterous kids! Dad had a way about him that now I’ve been in the Military I recognise. He never needed to shout at us and underneath he was a big softy and a fantastic father, but when he told you to do something you knew you had to do it. His was a quiet authority that didn’t need a raised voice to make you act on it. Every weekend he would say: ‘Right, go and tidy your room.’ We’d all go and do it and then we’d wait and he would come up and inspect our efforts. The basis of it was personal discipline and taking care of your belongings but ‘room inspection’ is fundamental to Basic Training in the Army, so even as a child I was completing the first stages of my very own training.

  Dad was also incredibly clever with his hands and he made us a go-kart he had fashioned from an old Silver Cross pram, powered by a two-stroke engine. We’d whiz around the local park and were the envy of the kids in our village. Then, one year, we had a flood in our home and the insurance company replaced all the downstairs floorboards and carpets. Dad used the wood to make the biggest treehouse you’ve ever seen, with all mod cons, including the old, ruined downstairs carpet, which he dried out. It was a good eight feet off the ground so I had to climb up to it from a long rope ladder and it was entirely carpeted.

  My parents never pushed me to conform or become more girly, instead encouraging me to be myself, so when I insisted on joining the Boy Scouts at fourteen years old, with two other girls, they supported me completely. My brothers were joining and when I found out all the brilliant things the Scouts did, I said, ‘Well, I want to be a Scout, too.’ I didn’t see why girls couldn’t do something which was so much fun, so I was accepted, along with two other girls from my village, as the first female Scouts in our troop. We kayaked in the Ardèche in France and went rock climbing; I even got a badge for tug-of-war. Back then, joining the Scouts as a girl was very unusual but even as a little girl, I was very much one of the boys and so when I joined the male-dominated environment of the Army I felt totally at home.

  At sixteen I took a job working in Waterstones bookshop following my GCSEs. I wasn’t a nine-to-five sort of girl, though, and I yearned for a more exciting life, beyond the isolated community in Cumbria where my family lived. Desperate to spread my wings, a career in the Armed Forces appealed as a way of seeing the world and g
etting paid for it too. My parents were delighted and really supportive as they’d had great careers in the forces and thought I had exactly the right temperament and personality to do well. Crucially, Britain hadn’t been involved in any conflicts for years; Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t major crisis spots and most people had no idea where they were. So, at the age of seventeen, I applied for all three Services. The first thing you have to do is a BARB Test, which is a psychometric test, but it also looks at your academic ability. This determines if you can join and what job you can do within the Army, RAF or Royal Navy. I passed the test for all three.

  What swung it in the end were two booming, gruff corporals at the Army Careers Office in Barrow-in-Furness. They made the Army sound amazing, just like my childhood camping and orienteering weekends with the Scouts. So just like that I giddily signed on – clueless as to the realities of Army life. The Careers Office held a weekly running club, which I joined to prepare myself for one of the key elements of fitness: running a mile and a half in under thirteen minutes. They’d shout gentle encouragement at us when we were running, and I thought: ‘This is OK, I can handle this.’ How different can Army life be? Little did I know! At the age of seventeen I swore my Oath of Allegiance at Barrow-in-Furness Army Careers Office. I read the words from a piece of paper with a small group of others who were also signing up. Serving my country wasn’t on my mind until that moment, but when I stated the words, ‘I will serve Queen and country’ and it resonated with me deeply. I felt a real pride as I took the first major step into my new life.

  Straight away I was technically in the Army, but I had a month to wait for my Basic Training to start so during that time I carried on with the running club. Now it was a different ball game completely as I was technically a new recruit; they started ordering me about a lot more and beasting me to make the timings on the runs. ‘Oh, this is harsh!’ I thought. Later, I realised they were getting me ready for what was coming next but the truth is, nothing prepares you for what you walk into when you start Basic Training in Winchester. Within minutes of being dropped off by my slightly tearful, yet proud parents, the other raw recruits and me were being yelled and shouted at like we’d never been before. I joined a group of terrified teenagers huddling together, scruffy as hell in our civvies and plastered with make-up. Straight away, we were thrown full-throttle into military training, aimed at making us physically and mentally tough. The privileges we had once enjoyed as a ‘civvie’ didn’t apply anymore as we’d signed on the dotted line.