Lethal Shot

by Robert Driscoll

  Her destination? Afghanistan.

  * * *

  I’ve suffered a load of lonely Christmases during my time in the Marines, but 2001 was the worst. I was with my family, I was with my girlfriend, I was with my friends. But I wasn’t where I wanted to be. C Company, 40 Commando, according to the news, had landed in Afghan and boldly secured Bagram airport for the coalition troops. Whichever way you looked at it, my Decision 4 had been a disaster. Not that anyone else realised.

  ‘C Company?’ Mum said. ‘Isn’t that who you used to work for? You’re lucky not to be there.’

  Thanks, Mum …

  Had I just grown homesick? Is that what my decision had boiled down to? I rang the Canadian. He was as pissed off as me, although more phlegmatic.

  ‘It was a shit decision, we all know it, move on. Just knuckle down for selection.’

  Christmas was frustrating but the weeks afterwards were worse. Every day I’d run and run and run and then run some more. Up hills, down hills, carrying weights, not carrying weights. All of it on my own. It’s not like I had a choice. Everyone I knew had a job. They had somewhere to be during the day. In the Marines you never train on your own. At least in the evenings I could go out and try to obliterate the brain cells that made had such crappy decisions.

  * * *

  Selection for the SBS is another set of tests. A lot of tests. You have the hills phase which is four weeks, two weeks of advanced weapons training and PT, six weeks in the jungle, then two weeks of counter-terrorism training, so about fourteen weeks before you get the chance to start SBS training proper. Deborah wasn’t thrilled that I’d be away that long but at least, she said, ‘You’re only training.’ It’s not like I was in the line of fire.

  Before my selection I hadn’t met anyone who’d passed. As miserable as I was at not being operational, I was confident that I had what it took. If I could just get there.

  I’d already got through the week of aptitude tests to get loaded on to selection. Apparently, there was another hurdle – surprise, surprise! – a horrific fortnight’s physical beat-up down in Poole. We did so much running with backpacks that just putting a shirt on hurt the blisters on my spine. But only then was I allowed to progress.

  Selection, finally. I’d sacrificed so much to get there it was actually an anti-climax to find just another Marines-style horror show at the end of it. We were up in the Brecon Beacons in South Wales, in an environment and climate that fitted the occasion. I’d like to say I that aced everything, but it was bloody hard. And indiscriminate. Crossing a river, men stronger than I were washed downstream because of the terrible conditions and weather. But I got through the first week, the second and the third. And I nearly made the fourth. Test week consists of six marches averaging 30 kilometres a day, with the last being ‘Endurance’. This is a beast: a 68-kilometre run with a full 25 kilos of kit. Not for the faint of heart or, it turned out, the unfortunate. On day 1 I was doing okay, on target for time when suddenly I felt my ankle give. I was running so fast I didn’t see the rabbit hole. As tough as my boots were, with the extra weight on my back, the ankle joint just gave out. It felt as though my foot had been ripped clean off.

  Somehow I made it across the line within the time. That evening, though, my ankle was the size of a melon. Sick bay said you’ve not broken anything so in theory you could start this march. I went back to my dorm and pulled on my boots and 25-kilo pack. I could not even stand. The next morning I tried again. Even worse. Even if I were able to get to the start line, what were my chances of completing a run of something over forty miles miles?

  Regretfully, I had to withdraw. Most of the other hopefuls were crushed on my behalf. Mike Jones, another marine and a great lad, was one of those who said, ‘You have to try out for this again. Promise me, as soon as you’re healed, you’ll apply again. Don’t give up on this.’ Even so, one bastard, an army man, took a different view. ‘They don’t make marines like they used to,’ he said. Luckily for him he said it out of my crutch’s range.

  I was put on a bus back to SBS HQ in Poole, reflecting en route on yet another disastrous decision. When I arrived at Poole the officer in charge admitted that he didn’t know what to do with me.

  ‘Can’t I rejoin C Company?’

  ‘They’re over in Afghan.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, obviously not then.’

  ‘Please?’

  It didn’t matter how I phrased it, linking up again with 40 Commando was not an option. I was left to stew for a couple of days, and then a junior officer handed me a letter with my new posting: HQ & Sigs.

  Oh fuck …

  * * *

  Number 1, I was sick of signals. Number 2: UK Amphibious Group HQ is not even a Commando unit.

  I really thought my decisions couldn’t get any worse. HQ & Sigs is a support group for the big boys. Not only does it not do strike-force operations, it mostly doesn’t even want to. Most of their work is specialist and, although crucial, oh so dull. It includes specialist vehicle mechanics, specialist drivers, specialist logistics experts and, obviously, specialist signallers. There was one section, however, that didn’t smack of suburbia, as it were.

  Almost hidden beneath the HQ & Sigs umbrella is the Brigade Patrol Troop. Now this definitely is not dull. These guys are the surveillance and reconnaissance unit for the whole of 3 Commando Brigade. They sit somewhere between conventional forces and the SF guys, and they are never short of action. If I wasn’t going to go mad at HQ & Sigs, I had to get on board.

  When I turned up at Plymouth’s Stonehouse Barracks, which, if I’m honest, is a fine place to turn up to (known as ‘the spiritual home of the Royal Marines’, the main buildings date from the eighteenth century), I came straight out with my request. The provost scratched his head. ‘The next aptitude test for Patrol Troop is full. Ask me again later.’

  That sounded positive.

  ‘What shall I do in the meantime? Have you got anything similar?’

  He smiled. Never a good sign.

  ‘Just wait over there a minute, would you?’

  Which turned out to be one of those special military minutes. Forty-eight hours later I found myself out on car park duty. Specialist car park duty, no doubt. From potential Special Forces recruit to running a car park, all in a matter of days. I’d say I was gutted, but it was worse than that. I found myself with a lot of spare time to think on guard duty, and I realised a truth that I had been ignoring for too long.

  I’m in the wrong job.

  And I didn’t just mean that car park. The Marines had led to nothing but disappointment. I was conning myself if I thought that would ever change.

  It did change, though – for the worse. A few weeks later they finally worked out what to do with me: stores, or ‘logistics’, as it was euphemistically termed. If you needed a pair of green combat trousers, I was the guy to come to. If you wanted fresh bedding, you would come and see me. I wanted Brigade Patrol Troop and I got blankets. It was so far from what I should have been doing over at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan that it was funny.

  A lot of people would have been offended by my attitude. Luckily for me, the guys running stores were diamonds. The ‘Two Georges’, as they were known. One of them, George, was the commando quartermaster – in charge of issuing all stores. He had served in the Falklands campaign of 1982, and having done his time in the front line was perfectly happy to have it out of his system. The other, George, was in charge of the air defence troop. He had a similar story. Along with another guy, Mark Wicks – curiously, not ‘George’ – they ran my life.

  They could have made it very difficult for me, but all three recognised my frustration. Yes, they all knew that it was my own stupid decisions that had got me there. They also knew that the Marines would treat you like a pawns on a chessboard if you let them. So they were out to buck that. If there was a single opportunity for me to get outside stores and go on a visit, drive a vehicle, fire some weapons, one of the Georges woul
d always put me up for it. They could not have been more helpful to me. I think they recognised a kindred spirit, albeit one quite a few years behind them in the system.

  Yet however great my bosses were, I couldn’t escape the truth: I was a marine not being a marine. A fully trained potential killing machine doing the work of a sales assistant in Topshop. How had it all gone so wrong? Knowing that the answer was because of my own bloody decisions didn’t help.

  I was in such a fug that when George 1 came in one day with news I barely listened.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you got your wish.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘HQ & Sigs – we’re going to Afghan.’

  I think he expected a few cartwheels, or the like. Honestly, though, I didn’t have it in me. By rights I should have been in Afghanistan already. I should have been fighting my way through Bagram. I should have been getting my hands dirty. Not going over to work in a glorified clothes shop.

  ‘That’s great, George,’ I said. ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  I was. So pleased that later that night I posted my application to join the Metropolitan Police.

  Decision No. 5.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

  You can blame my dad.

  I wasn’t fulfilled in the Marines and he knew it. The only part of being at Stonehouse I couldn’t fault was the social life. Plymouth is an amazing place for young people to let their hair down, even when it’s cut to within an inch of its life. I had some great friends there like Mike Jones, good marines, solid people. Away from the nightlife they all seemed to be having more fun than me. All my life Dad’s been the one who’s stopped me walking away from a challenge. So when he said, ‘Maybe you need a change of career,’ I knew it wasn’t me being weak.

  ‘Doing what though? I don’t want to go back to motor engineering.’

  ‘What about the Met? I think you’ll find it’s a lot more hands-on than what you’re doing.’

  And so I started the process, which is almost as laborious as trying to get into the Marines. It would take time. This was the start of 2002. I’d have eighteen months’ notice to work out first, so nothing was going to happen immediately. It was just a relief to set the wheels in motion.

  Some of my mates questioned my decision, obviously, and not only the ones down in Plymouth.

  I sound a right miserable sod sometimes. I don’t think I am. That’s how run down the lack of opportunities had made me feel. I just wanted to do what I’d trained for. And if the Marines wouldn’t let me, then I needed to make things happen for myself.

  * * *

  The problem with contemporary books about Afghanistan is that they’re instantly out of date. Everything I read about the country aboard HMS Ocean seemed like old Pathé newsreels by the time it was announced that HQ & Sigs were heading out there. Things were changing daily. Everything had escalated. Whatever we were going over to do had the potential to be incredibly noisy, as they say in the military.

  The Taliban, their rule over the country ended by the US invasion, were hiding in the southern mountains. The plan was to send a brigade of mountain troops as a show of force, not only to prove that we had the numbers, but to demonstrate how quickly they could be deployed in-country.

  When 45 Commando had mobilised for Kosovo in 2000, we’d had four months to prepare. This time we had two weeks. Telling Deborah was awkward.

  ‘How long are you going for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And I’m just supposed to sit here and wait?’

  She was mad as hell, but she said, ‘At least you’ll only be in the stores. You won’t be in danger.’

  And that was the problem.

  A brigade’s deployment is a big deal. But being busy can’t hide being bored. Even in the maelstrom of activity George 1 recognised I was going out of my mind.

  ‘I’ve got a little job for you,’ he said.

  Vehicles are an essential part of modern warfare. We had dozens of Land Rovers in Plymouth ready to go. They were all what’s known as WMIKs (Weapons Mounted Installation Kit) – in other words, they carried enough weaponry to take on a small army. Which is why we needed to get them up to the RAF’s Brize Norton airbase in Oxfordshire asap.

  A bunch of us from stores left Plymouth at six o’clock in the morning. It was a cold February morning in 2002, and there we were, wearing goggles, driving roofless vehicles designed for desert operation. I can’t say we looked anything other than ridiculous. At Brize Norton we were told to prep the WMIKs for travel. That means dropping tyre pressures, disconnecting radio and batteries, basically hours of work.

  Then a guy said, ‘Have you got your gear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, then, get on the plane.’

  That was it. I was going to Afghanistan.

  Everything happened so quickly it was insane. There were a dozen of us on the plane, us drivers and others from elsewhere in the unit. We didn’t know each other or our mission. Or even our route. We must have changed planes five times, all the same rigmarole. Get the vehicles, move the vehicles, get yourself on board. And we are not talking British Airways business class. Twenty-six hours later, on our third stop – which we worked out was Pakistan; we weren’t told – we were separated from the Land Rovers and put on a Russian plane. At the time, Aeroflot’s safety record for civilian transport was among the worst in the world. This wasn’t civilian transport.

  All of the crew were smoking. Everything was tied together with rope. And I swear where you peed, this hole in the main fuselage, went straight out into the ether. What did it matter, though? I and my eleven colleagues were just equipment being moved from A to B, no different from the Land Rovers. Comfort was never a consideration.

  Nor was information. We weren’t told anything. When we landed again I asked where we were. I got one word.

  ‘Kabul.’

  ‘Is this our final destination?’

  ‘Wait over there.’

  That was it. No explanation. It was pitch dark. Apart from a few runway lights and the glow of a building I assumed to be air traffic control, the only other thing I could see was the Russian plane. Ten minutes after dropping us off it left again. Almost immediately another aircraft landed and taxied to a stop. Its back doors opened and we were told to board.

  Now this was a proper warplane and, judging by the amount of Brylcreem and the number of moustaches and guns, very obviously an American one. The mood among the US troops already on board was exactly as you see in the movies. Loud, brash, gung-ho. We took off again and when, after about an hour, we landed it was like a scene from Good Morning, Vietnam. No creeping into an airport this time. Wheels touched down, the aircraft taxied for a few minutes, braked to a halt, then the party started. The huge tailgates opened, a fierce red light came on and out of speakers that must have been 3 feet tall they started playing Elvis Presley’s ‘A Little Less Conversation’ at full volume. It was surreal. A proper American touchdown. The whole presentation was only ruined by the sight of a dozen totally green Royal Marines, forty hours into serious sleep deprivation, staggering bleary-eyed out into the darkness.

  Talk about making an entrance. But no sooner had we disembarked than the tailgates closed, the plane taxied away and the bunch of us from Plymouth were left, once again, alone and scratching our heads.

  I sat on my bergan, looked up at the stars and thought, What the hell has just happened?

  * * *

  We sat on the end of the runway for hours. As exhausted as I was I couldn’t sleep. No one did. We didn’t talk, either. We had become zombies.

  I’ve never seen such darkness. No light pollution at all. I knew we were on a runway because that was where we had landed, but beyond that, nothing. As morning began to break I could make out vast shapes in the distance. Mountains, in every direction I looked. Memories of the Soviet forces chasing their own tails across that landscape c
ame flooding back. How did people even survive up there? It was cold on the runway. It had to be freezing up there.

  Eventually we heard engines. From the other end of the runway headlights emerged from the gloom and three Land Rovers, identical to the ones in which we’d started our journey, pulled up. Driving one was George 2 from stores, the man in charge of the air defence troop.

  ‘Welcome to Bagram,’ he smiled.

  We drove in silence pretty much in a straight line for a couple of miles until we arrived at a dusty field where a couple of olive-green military tents were waiting for us. I was surprised we didn’t have to put them up. Using head torches, we claimed our own berths. There was no electricity, no utilities. It didn’t matter. We only wanted to sleep.

  What seemed like seconds later we were woken for breakfast. Stepping, blinking, out of the tent, I looked over was the runway we’d driven down. It was like an old war museum. The shells of burnt-out Russian planes, military and civilian, lined the runway, which was itself pockmarked with craters made by heavy artillery shells. Clearly the last invaders had come under serious fire as they fled the country. Decades later, nothing had been repaired or replaced.

  To the east of the runway some aircraft hangars were still intact, and had been claimed by the forces of the various nationalities in situ. The Americans had one, we had one and a few other European countries were in the process of renovating their own. They were in the process of building their own little camps.

  The role of an advance party hasn’t changed much since Roman times. Back then the vanguard would arrive and start erecting tents for the legionnaires. Two thousand years later that’s exactly what we were ordered to do in a large field next to one already claimed by the Yanks. Each tent was large enough to sleep a dozen men and leave them room to live, work and administrate themselves. Behind us came the engineers to wire in generators for electricity. In four days we erected sixty of the bastard things, which in conditions at home would have proved tiring. In Bagram it was torture.