Frank explained that part of the job was to find the opium fields, identify the owners and pass the info up food chain of command. The Afghan government had already given the order for opium farming to be discontinued, but it was going to take more than a law made in Kabul to enforce the order.
Day 2, and my first patrol. Six hours of marching, with care, in full battle armour in the unbearable heat. For me, the conditions were not the worst challenge. When we set out the paras were still blanking me. After they saw how comfortably I could load up my kit and carry it without sweat – if not without sweating – they began to thaw. A couple of hours into our patrol and the jokes were flowing. I’d proved I wasn’t a dick. That was as much as I could hope for.
In that six hours we barely covered a couple of miles simply because of the way we had to work. Throughout the duration of the war, insurgents had used IEDs to great effect. But it wasn’t only the components that were improvised – so was the way the devices were deployed. Frank told me how fresh IEDs would spring up every day, often just around a bend on a track where a patrol was walking. That’s how responsive the enemy was. They would monitor a patrol’s direction – from where, who only knew – then estimate where they’d be after covering another 200 metres. So each patrol went out in single file with the front guy – the point man – carrying a Vallon mine detector to sweep the ground for potential threats. If the rest of us wanted to stay alive, we literally had to tread in his footsteps.
Yet accidents do happen. To minimise risk, the second man marched 3 metres back and the next man another 3 metres behind him, and so on. Sometimes the gap between men would be 5 metres. That way, if a device did detonate it wouldn’t kill or maim more than one man.
Improvised explosive devices were the only things that bothered Frank. At the compound he took me up to a flat roof, the building’s highest point, and stood there, fully exposed, pointing out the rough direction of the other camps.
‘Are you crazy?’
Every bone in my body – every instinct, every ounce of my training – said you never put your head above the parapet, certainly not your whole body. I refused to get further up than a crouch. It must have looked stupid – one standing tall, the other on his knees.
‘Typical marine,’ Frank laughed.
It was then he told me that, in terms of fighting, everything was over now, although they’d gone through Hell on the way. And not just from IEDs. The next day, on patrol, I saw the evidence.
‘Over there, that ruin of a building, that’s where we were attacked,’ he said. ‘Behind you, those destroyed trees are where we took out a team.’ On and on, more and more devastation caused by bullets and bombs. It was eerie. Quiet, as well. Maybe Frank was right. Maybe it was all over.
Each day we visited one or two of the other checkpoints. One of them was riddled with bullet holes and its buildings were rubble, damaged or being rebuilt. Clearly the threat operated at different levels throughout the region. So why was everyone saying it was over?
It certainly looked as though the locals thought so, however. Despite the obvious freshness of some of the devastation there were people in the fields harvesting their non-opium crops. It was a slightly surreal sight.
One of the first camps we went to was Omar, Al Blackman’s watch. On his arrival he’d gone through the same initiation by derision as I had at Mulladad, but by now some of his guys were beginning to arrive so the odds were shifting. Corporal Chris Watson, Marine Jack Hammond and the Canadian medic Kaz were among the first. They were all great guys but Kaz stood out. Always upbeat, great for morale and a medic, so worth being nice to. Al also had the added weight of running an OMLT – an Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team – designed to bring a squad of Afghan forces up to Marine standards, so they were arriving as well.
As my guys began to arrive I got to know the ways of the paras a bit more. It turned out that not all of their stink was accidental. On day 2 I asked a corporal about the shower situation.
He said, ‘I haven’t showered in eight weeks.’
‘Is there a problem with water?’
‘Nah, after a few weeks your body cleans itself.’
I pinched my nose.
‘Are you sure about that?’
It’s just one of those differences between us and them. Marines are absolutely the opposite. The Navy – and the Royal Marines is part of the Royal Navy – shower three times a day, so my wanting to shower daily drew a fair bit of mockery.
It was just as well we had started to get along. On day 7 Frank stepped back. That put me in charge. Not only of my handful of marines, but also of a dozen paras. They wouldn’t even shake my hand when I arrived. Now they had to take my orders.
Well, this is going to be fun …
Actually, it was. The more we learned about each other the more good-natured the ribbing. The fact that I could match the paras in the field, and that I’d jumped out of as many planes as they had in training, helped. In fact – don’t tell them – but of all the units I’ve worked with, aside from the SF units, the paras are the ones I’d most trust to have my back. They’re not marines, but they’re damn close.
Over the next week the rest of my team arrived and the last of the para departed. On day 13 I looked around the checkpoint and thought, Well, it’s my trainset now.
Most of me was glad. Proud, even. But there was another thought.
What the hell have I let myself in for?
CHAPTER EIGHT
WE NEED TO MOVE THE WATERMELONS
Even if I achieved nothing more as checkpoint commander, I had to protect my compound. That was the bare minimum expected of me. It wasn’t straightforward. To do it properly meant creating almost two half-camps. In front of the CP was Dorset, the main road running north-west from Shazaad in an arrow-straight line. It was no more than a dusty track but as it was the only route between the checkpoints – and it was how all our deliveries from the FOB would be made – it was important. The barricaded tower that had greeted me when I arrived stood proud and grey. Called a ‘super-sangar’, it offered protection and a high vantage point for surveillance and returning fire. It was the first line of defence, permanently manned by at least one sentry. Further afield were barbed wire entanglements and a line of flares that would be set off if a wire was tripped. Behind the sangar there was a bridge over an irrigation ditch, a line of trees and then the main compound itself. Inside the CP we had two further sentry positions manned twenty-four hours day. In daylight there’d be one guy in each position, at night two.
Because we were living in and on what had been someone’s private house and land and not a military installation, there were neighbours within a stone’s throw either side. Our visibility was about thirty metres, no more. When I went up the sentry tower I could see the inhabitants going about their business on the other side of the walls that enclosed their own properties. If they were put out by our being there they didn’t show it.
Our own 12-foot wall and the trees outside looked solid enough to keep most things out. An irrigation canal ran parallel to the road out the front and there was another smaller one at the rear of the compound. Beyond that were more trees and a field. Those trees had seen better days. The paras called them ‘The Range’ – because in darker times the Taliban had hidden in the field and fired at the CP, to be met with concentrated fire from the paras in return. We had to cover all of it, a job made easier by some high-definition telescopic CCTV cameras on telescopic mounts that we installed on the super-sangar. The cameras gave 360-degree views of the camp, in crystal-clear colour during daylight and via thermal imagery at night. Sitting in the little ops room at Mulladad I could even zoom in. These were impressive pieces of kit.
Inside the compound walls the checkpoint comprised a series of mud huts. Some of these we kept as storage facilities for the original family’s stuff. Of the other huts, one became our ops room, another our canteen – and another our toilet block. Like everything else the British did, there was
a policy. As there was no sewage system; we just dug four holes in the ground and balanced toilet seats over the top. It was all for show – or policy. Nothing we did ever touched that hole. We had all been issued with a set number of ‘shit kits’, which contained everything you needed. You’d put a hygienic plastic toilet cover over the seat, sit down, do your business, then wrap it up, sterilised wipes, toilet paper and all, then leave it in the sun for three days and the crystals inside the plastic would do something to your waste so that it would be dry enough to be burned.
Bossing the paras around would have been more fun if they hadn’t looked so exhausted. There was fair amount of wisecracking each way but they all pulled their weight, even when it was a ‘hat’ calling the shots. Even so, I was relieved when my guys began to filter in and the last of the soldiers left.
The military brass might not recognise individuals, but in theatre I did. The moment my 2ic arrived I began to feel more comfortable. Mac, a corporal and more importantly a sniper, was someone not only on my wavelength but a real friend. With him there I felt I could begin to relax.
With another corporal, Fergie, I could actually laugh. He had a great personality and was always full of optimism, despite having been shot through the leg during a previous tour in Afghan. He’d been hit in the rear of his right leg by a tracer round, which contains phosphorus; essentially, the bullet is on fire when it strikes. The round passed clean through the muscle but the chemicals remained and burned away part of his leg. He had a large hollow where there was once muscle and so he’d wear a prosthetic filler which he called his ‘chicken fillet’. Once we had got our feet under the table at Mulladad anyone who cocked up something had to drink out of the fillet.
Fergie and Mac were both essential to my sanity, but you couldn’t find two more different guys. They were almost opposites: Mac was straight down the line, no messing, and was engaged to be married. Fergie was covered in so many tattoos that you didn’t know whether to talk to him or read him, and he was never, ever going to walk down, up or even near the aisle. He was colourful – literally – and left-field, but damned good at his job. I can honestly say that without him I would not be here today.
One of the most important components of a patrol, apart from the point man sweeping ahead for IEDs, is the MFC or mortar fire controller. It’s his job when you come under enemy fire to call in mortar support from the CP. The rounds from these would kill anything within 30 metres and injure anyone within 100. So you have to be bloody sure where you’re directing them, and it’s the MFC’s job to know exactly where you are on the map at all times. Every time you looked at Fergie on patrol he had his map and his compass out, ever ready to go. Another lad, ‘Elvis’, had the same gig. He was just as diligent, and just as essential.
The fourth most important person in the CP – although he wouldn’t want to be remembered as that – was another sergeant. This guy was in charge of the mortar line. He would sit in the compound with his weapons – three 81mm tubes each with its own heavy steel base plate – and wait for information from Fergie out on patrol. From that he would calculate direction, elevation and the charge to fire the mortar bomb onto the target. The sixteen men under his command would do the rest. As much as Fergie and Elvis, he really had to know his shit. When you’re firing high-explosive projectiles a kilometre into the air you have to be confident that you’ve got your angles right. We were of identical rank but he ran his team and I ran the CP, which I guess put me further up the command chain. It was never an issue. We were all there with a mission.
As my boys were arriving – Lance Corporals Sam, Snake and Fergie (no relation), Jonathan, Robbie our Vallon man, Duncs, Matt, Adz, Pinky, Dan and Space Cadet – I repeated the familiarisation process Frank had taken me through. When a good number arrived I took them out on a similar patrol, the familiar snakelike order, cascading the information I’d learned down to them. There was a lot to take in, but it did mean that we got to visit the other multiples – Al, Ollie Augustin, Si Jones – so it gave the guys the opportunity to see some of their friends. The mood, I have to say, was pretty good.
It’s fair to say we all started our tour pretty optimistic. We were fresh and we were hungry. The only thing missing was action. When the last of the paras finally left they reminded me again of how they’d already won the war for us. They were still ribbing us as the vehicle picked them up.
‘Enjoy your holiday, hats!’
Annoyingly, the first week was about as active as they had predicted. The only people I saw outside our compound were children. That made me laugh. There we were, out in our armour, walking single file with a 3-metre gap between us, sweeping the earth for IEDs, and all these kids would come running up, oblivious to the dangers. They just wanted to touch us and wave or watch. It was nice.
I noticed very quickly that the only men of working age I saw were in the fields harvesting the crops. And when I say crops, I mean opium. The Afghan government was trying to encourage farmers not to grow the poppies, but it was obvious that the financial rewards were too great to resist. The only other men we saw were village elders sitting outside their compounds chatting, watching the world go by.
Getting to know the populace was part of the ISAF mission. There’s no such thing as a census in Afghan and births and deaths come and go unreported. So we were given these biometric HIIDE cameras – Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment – to try to establish some order by taking fingerprints and retinal scans from everyone we encountered. It is a very long-winded and time-consuming process, and for obvious reasons the locals took some persuading. Working with our interpreter – another essential member of the team – I managed to get the majority of people onside. But every so often there’d be a bit of resistance. That’s when the lads got to assert a bit of authority. In week 1 we found a young Afghan who was a bit nervous of being put through the system.
A couple of the guys stood just close enough behind him to offer encouragement. He went ahead and the machine started pinging (it contains a database for cross-checking details).
‘That’s interesting, Mohamed,’ I said. ‘You’ve already been catalogued and there are some people in Shazaad who would like to talk to you about some fingerprints found on an IED there.’
Said through the interpreter, obviously.
The lad tried to make a break for freedom but that’s hard with six men blocking your path. He was forced, at gunpoint, down onto his knees and cuffed.
The interpreter wasn’t required for that.
Even the ones who did cooperate fully posed problems. It seems almost unimaginable to us in the West, but a lot of these guys didn’t know when they had been born. I had people tell me they were twenty years old when they were clearly no younger than eighty. They weren’t lying. They honestly didn’t know. Birthdays aren’t exactly a priority for those growing up in a war zone.
And as for the names, if I met one Mohamed Mohamed I met a hundred. Often from the same family. It beggars belief, but you could easily find seven or eight people in the same family with exactly the same name. And I thought the military saw us as interchangeable.
We were also charged with continuing the paras’ work of mapping the area. There are no street names or no house numbers, so, using a map, we’d ascribe numbers and names for our own reference. This meant that when we came across someone already in the system the entry might say, this bloke is called Mohamed Mohamed and he is twenty-four years old and lives in compound 136 on Dorset Road.
Once you map the population, then you can police it. That was the point of the mission. That’s what ISAF and the Americans had promised the Afghan government. More proof, as if it were needed, that we were not there to fight. It was all about hearts and minds. Everything we did was focused on preparing the Afghans for self-rule – without Taliban influence.
We put word around that we wanted to have a meeting with as many of the locals as possible. The most influential, a man called Mullah Omar, suggested we host a shu
ra, a word from Arabic meaning ‘consultation’. Such meetings are common in Afghanistan, as they are a means for local people to air grievances or express other concerns to council members.
‘Great idea.’
Outside our compound was a beautiful orchard where there were peaches and pears growing. We bought a load of rugs and set up an area in the orchard where we could all sit down, to speak to the locals and to hear what they had to say. Although it was outside we still set up a perimeter, and anyone who wanted to come in was scanned with a metal detector. This was a gun culture, after all.
I have to say that the shura went well. Through our interpreter, we explained that we weren’t the bad guys. We were there at the behest of the Afghan government to help. We would, we told the assembled elders and others, help build schools, bridges, and if the canals get blocked just give us a shout, we’re on it.
We also said that if anyone suffered damage as a result of our presence – for example, if we trampled crops during a march or maybe killed a cow during a firefight – then the owners would be compensated. And we also told them that we’d pay for intel on Taliban activity – the Americans had given ISAF forces money for such eventualities. I don’t know about hearts and minds, but brains and wallets were won over. Two people immediately put in claims for ruined fields – despite the fact we hadn’t gone anywhere near their properties yet. Another local man was more useful.
‘You should check this compound because the man living there was a bad man.’
Without addresses I got him to point it out on a satellite image of the area. He was a bit shocked that we had access to such a high-resolution image, but he pointed to a compound.
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