Painting the Sand

by Kim Hughes GC

  ‘Dave, I’ve found a wire.’

  ‘What does it look like?’ he replied.

  ‘It looks like a wire!’ I shouted back, laughing.

  I reached into my man bag for my ‘needle’, an EOD weapon, used to disrupt IEDs. The needle consists of a barrel, ten inches long and an inch in diameter, with an explosive propelling charge at one end and a set of scalpel blades, known as a flying scalpel, at the other. A wire is attached to the barrel and then unrolled all the way back to the ICP where it can be fired electronically from a safe distance.

  I placed my needle as close to the IED as possible without touching it, slowly stood up and started to gather my kit.

  ‘Dave, I’ve placed the needle, prepare to move.’

  I retraced my steps towards Dave, swinging my metal detector as I went along the path I’d already cleared but this was the standard operating procedure (SOP) – never assume anything. By the time I’d reached Dave he was standing up and ready to go.

  ‘Ready? Follow me.’

  ‘Roger,’ he replied.

  The two of us slowly and carefully made our way back along the cleared lane to the vehicles where the rest of the team were waiting.

  ‘All OK?’ Lewis asked as we approached.

  ‘Yep. Prepare to fire the needle. Lee, get your team into the back of the vehicles for some cover.’

  I was trying to act cool but excitement surged through my body and I had to consciously slow myself down to ensure I didn’t make any mistakes or short-cut the process.

  ‘Dave, let the Danish soldiers know there’s going to be a controlled explosion. Lewis, are we ready?’

  With everyone safely under hard cover, Lewis prepared to fire the needle. There was always the possibility that the IED might detonate, showering the ICP and everyone in the area in earth, stones and anything else kicked up by the blast.

  ‘Standby! Firing!’ Lewis shouted as he fired the needle, which emitted a bang, like a shotgun firing at the target end.

  Next, I grabbed my metal detector and retraced my steps back down to the IED, dropping off Dave on the way, all the time searching the ground again just in case something had been missed on the first approach.

  A quick examination showed that the device was partly disrupted.

  ‘Dave, needle worked. I’ve got exposed wires. I’m going to tape up the ends and continue clearing.’

  ‘Roger.’

  Down on my chest again, I put the needle back in my man bag and retrieved a roll of insulation tape attached to the front of my body armour. I carefully taped up the exposed ends of the wire to prevent them touching, which would allow the current to flow if the pressure plate was inadvertently stepped on. My face was now just inches from the pressure plate with the main charge possibly buried just beneath my chest, which can only be described as an odd feeling.

  Bomb disposal is all about following the rules, the standard operating procedures that had been established forty years earlier when the IRA began building IEDs to target the British and attack city centres. For example, not repeating an action, find another way to do something that’s not the same as what you have just done. Follow the rules and the chances were that I would live longer.

  The bomb was now ‘safer’ but not completely safe. I had disrupted the circuit and effectively added my own switch. But until I had a full understanding of how the device was meant to detonate caution was required.

  Time passed quickly and unnoticed. I was like a sculptor, probing, digging and prodding, searching for inspiration. I continued fingertipping around the pressure plate and then came across another section of wire, not what I had been expecting.

  Pausing for a few seconds, I cast my mind back to the High Threat course, searching for answers but there were none. Rather than confuse the issue by over-thinking the problem I reverted back to the SOPs.

  ‘Dave, I’ve found a shitload more wire. Going to have to attack it again with the needle.’ I recharged the needle and placed another set of flying scalpels next to the device and again carefully withdrew. I followed the same route back, collecting Dave and searching our way back to the ICP. Lewis shouted his warning and fired the needle a second time.

  It was the same procedure again: tape the ends of the severed wires and continue probing. I had now been out in the sun for a couple of hours and could feel the back of my neck burning. I took my helmet off and ran my fingers through my hair, which was dripping with sweat. I drank some water and poured half a bottle over my head. The cool water was instantly reviving, like a cold shower on a hot day.

  The High Threat course took place over the winter, in the rain and snow, where my fingers were often numbed to uselessness by the cold. Then I dreamed of working in the sun but the heat on that day was unlike anything I had previously experienced. I began taping up the wires again when some sand gave way next to my arm exposing even more wire.

  ‘I’ve got even more wire – this is taking the piss!’ I shouted over to Dave.

  ‘Don’t get angry,’ I said to myself, rebooting my focus. ‘Work the problem.’ Being methodical was crucial. The instructors back at the school warned us that we’d face some problems that superficially appeared baffling; the solution, they said, lay in remembering having confidence in our SOPs. The constant reference to the SOPs was like a comforting, trusted voice in my head.

  The whole process was repeated again: setting up the flying scalpels, returning to the ICP and remotely firing the weapon. On the third attempt I managed to uncover the entire pressure plate and the battery pack. I took a deep breath, I was halfway home. Images of the Taliban bomb-maker carefully burying the IED in the ground and hoping to kill or seriously injure a British soldier flashed across my mind. I felt controlled anger but a sense of satisfaction that this time we were the winners.

  Eventually, after another ten minutes digging, one complete side of the device was uncovered providing a clear view of the layout. At the top was the pressure plate, directly underneath was the battery pack and lastly the main charge, still perfectly preserved in the ground. The charge was housed in a 20-litre yellow palm oil container (YPOC) filled to the brim with some form of home-made explosive. It then became apparent that all of the wires I had encountered were the same piece of wire, which had just been bundled together and buried in the ground for no apparent reason.

  ATOs never lift or pull bombs out of the ground by hand, none of that Hurt Locker bullshit. Lines and hooks are attached to the bomb or parts of it, which are then pulled out of the ground from a safe distance. If the bomb detonated or there was an anti-handling device attached, there would be a large explosion but no one would get hurt.

  The main charge was destroyed in situ so there was no need for it to be removed from the ground. The firing cable was strong enough to drag the pressure plate and battery pack out of the ground and to a safe distance from the explosive charge. After attaching the hook to the firing cable and then extremely carefully resting it next to the pressure plate, I gathered my kit, collected Dave and returned to the ICP.

  ‘Lewis, we’re gonna pull the bomb out of the ground, the firing cable’s attached. Get ready and I’ll give you the nod when to pull.’

  ‘OK, boss.’

  ‘Everyone in cover?’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Dave replied.

  ‘Lewis, go for it.’

  Lewis took up the strain and the firing cable lifted off the ground. He began to gently tug away, gradually increasing the pressure while I monitored what was going on at the target end through my rifle scope, controlling the rate of pull. A few seconds later the plate and the battery pack broke free. Lewis stepped back to steady himself and continued pulling until pressure plate and battery were dragged a metre or so from the hole.

  ‘Stop there, it’s worked, we’ll give it twenty minutes and then head down and sort out the main charge. Lewis get a demolition charge ready and Dave make sure we have some forensic bags with us when we head back down.’

  While my team wa
s excited at successfully defusing our first bomb, the Danish guys looked bored to death and I couldn’t blame them. We had been on the ground for over two hours and as far as the Danes were concerned little had happened.

  ‘Almost done,’ I said encouragingly to them, now relaxing with shirts off in the sun and smoking cigarettes and listening to their iPods.

  ‘Take your time, we have nothing else to do,’ one of the Danish soldiers casually responded in excellent English.

  As we approached the target end I smiled inwardly – first bomb in the bag and it couldn’t have gone better. As we reached the target, Dave was already holding a large forensic bag in his hand, grinning like a dog with a bone.

  But the job wasn’t over. Every piece of the bomb, apart from the main charge, had to be forensically bagged so it could be analysed further down the chain. A database of forensic material had been created that was pored over by teams of intelligence specialists trying to determine any patterns emerging in the different areas of Helmand. Fortunately, the Taliban weren’t very forensically aware so strands of hair, fingerprints and sweat often contaminated various parts of the IED, all which were collated and stored. The forensic material could then be compared with fingerprints or even DNA material with any obtained from captured or even dead insurgents. A positive match would lead to the suspect being prosecuted in the Afghan courts.

  During the process of pulling the bomb out of the ground some of the sand had caved in and recovered the main charge. I dropped back down onto my belly, peered into the hole and used my paintbrush to sweep away the sand and dirt and slowly uncovered the palm oil container, which had been slightly distorted by the mass of explosive crammed inside. I searched for the detonator, the final piece of the bomb, which could provide forensic clues. The det is the explosive item that provides the energy necessary for the main explosive to detonate.

  Despite all the hard work the bomb was still not safe. Dets are electro-explosive devices, which means they can be susceptible to radio frequency (RF) interference. If RF passed through the wire there was an extremely small chance it would impart current and cause the detonator to go bang and cause the main charge to explode.

  After a few minutes of peering into the hole, I found the detonator attached to the main charge via a small piece of orange commercial detonating cord. Det-cord looks like washing line but it’s filled with a powdered explosive and used to link explosive charges.

  The Taliban bomber had knotted the det-cord and placed it in the main charge container before filling it with their home-made explosives (HME). The lid of the container was pierced and the det-cord was threaded out through the hole, leaving a short length exposed to which the detonator was attached with a piece of insulating tape. I was now nearing the end game and allowed myself the briefest of smiles as I reached into my man bag for a scalpel. It felt mega, I had beaten the enemy. Not in a heroic firefight with bayonets fixed, but on another level. They were using years of cunning, their knowledge of the land and their incredible ability to build bombs out of almost anything, but not on that day. No British or NATO soldier would be killed or injured by that bomb. That day belonged to us.

  ‘Fuck you,’ I said out loud.

  ‘All OK, Kim?’ Dave asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve found the detonator and I’m cutting it away from the main charge.’

  I sliced into the tape and carefully peeled it back with my scalpel. Taking the detonator in my left hand I slowly cut the remaining tape away freeing it from the det-cord. The improvised detonator was made from part of a Bic biro and filled with home-made explosive.

  Like much of what the Taliban built, the improvised detonator was primitive but effective. I put the detonator in a small tin to screen it from any RF and packed it away carefully in my man bag. The mission was almost complete.

  ‘Smacking the main charge in situ, ready to move in two!’ I shouted over to Dave.

  I pulled in a little slack from my firing cable and reached into my bag for one of my own Army-issue detonators and carefully attached it to the end of the cable and set it aside. While I kept a lot of my bomb disposal equipment in my man bag, plastic explosive or Charge Demolition 8oz No.4 Plastic Explosive (PE4), known within the trade as ‘bang’, was kept in my ammo pouches.

  Each pouch was big enough to hold two 8oz sticks, which I always taped together to prevent plasticiser within the explosive from sweating out in the heat. Each stick provided 16oz of bang to ensure the job was done correctly the first time, every time. In the EOD world there is a saying that goes ‘There is no job that can’t be fixed without the right application of high explosives.’ Basically if all else fails blow it to shit. In this case ‘P’ definitely stood for plenty. I took my knife from the front of my body armour and made a hole through the insulation tape and into the explosives. The plastic explosive had a consistency very similar to marzipan and was easy to cut with a knife. I sliced through the PE and inserted the detonator before placing the explosive charge on top of the palm oil container. The position of the PE meant that the explosive wave should travel downwards and away from the ICP.

  ‘Got all your kit?’

  Dave nodded.

  ‘Sweet, then let’s move.’

  Back at the ICP, Lewis and the Danish commander were waiting patiently.

  ‘Right, guys, we’re all sorted. As soon as everyone’s in cover we’re gonna smash it. Lewis, get ready.’

  I turned to the Danish officer: ‘There’s going be a lot of shit kicked up from the explosion so make sure your guys are well in cover.’

  ‘Kim, ready,’ Lewis informed me.

  ‘Wait one.’

  I had one final look about to make sure everyone was underneath hard cover when I noticed a Danish soldier sitting in the open, with his camera at the ready hoping for a few happy snaps.

  ‘Mate, get yourself down into your vehicle. There’s going be a huge explosion in a minute!’ I shouted. But despite my warnings he refused to move.

  ‘Get fucking down!’ I shouted louder. The Danish soldier looked at me but was unresponsive as if to say ‘I’m taking this picture.’

  Fortunately a Danish officer appeared, looking slightly irritated that a very long day in the sun was being lengthened unnecessarily.

  ‘That idiot won’t get into his vehicle. We’re not smacking this until he does,’ I said unapologetically.

  The Danish officer shouted an order and his soldier disappeared. I turned to Lewis and gave him the nod.

  ‘Standby. Firing!’ Lewis yelled.

  The blast was immense. Twenty-odd kilos of explosives detonating was loud and a massive plume of smoke mushroomed into the sky. Seconds later debris from the blast began to rain down on our positions giving rise to a series of tings, bangs and twangs. An echo, like rolling thunder, rumbled around the plateau before giving way to an outpouring of laughter from the Danish soldiers, often the response to a massive explosion. It was almost like a release of pent-up tension.

  After allowing the dust to settle, Dave and I headed back down to assess the damage. The explosion had left a crater one metre deep and three metres wide. The Taliban were shrewd and resourceful fighters so it was vital to check that all of the home-made explosive had been destroyed because anything usable would be collected by the insurgents and fed back into their bomb-making network. But the explosion had worked, nothing was left.

  Back at the ICP, exhausted by the hours in the sun, I collapsed against the side of one of the armoured vehicles, slid down onto my arse and took off my helmet, allowing my sweat-soaked head to breathe for the first time in hours. Everything had gone to plan, just the way I had hoped and, momentarily, I couldn’t help but wonder why this operation had gone so well and the last mission, which ended in Sam fighting for his life, had ended so badly. Telling myself the incident was down to luck just made me angry, it seemed too simplistic. The answer, I decided, was that there was just no answer, it was just Afghan.

  Once our equipment had been packed away a
nd all of the forensic material had been correctly labelled we returned to PB Armadillo and waited for our flight back to Bastion. The team gathered in the shade of a compound wall and began the age-old Army practice of brewing-up to fill a few empty minutes. Lee, who I hadn’t spoken to since bollocking him earlier in the day, made a beeline for me, and I sensed that he wanted to pick up where we’d left off. But he was a true professional and instead broke the ice by telling me to get a brew on.

  ‘Come on, Kim – look after your RESA. Where’s my tea? I’ve had a long day lying in the sun,’ he said with a broad smile.

  ‘Tosser,’ I responded, laughing.

  ‘So how was it? Your first IED. Looked good from our end.’

  ‘Yeah, it was OK, but it took ages, way too long. There’s no way I can take that long in the Green Zone.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, mate,’ Lee said encouragingly. ‘You’ll get faster, we’re all on a steep learning curve and everyone’s taking extra care after what happened to Sam.’

  As Lee and I chatted the rest of the team went into full banter mode, ripping the piss out of each other for being either too fat, too thin, too short or too tall. Their heads were back in the game. The team were in a good place.

  Forty minutes later, we were airborne, slicing through the cool evening air towards Bastion, landing within the hour. The Ops Room barely acknowledged my presence as I entered, perhaps hoping that I might be greeted like the all-conquering hero given that I had finally arrived in the world of High Threat bomb disposal. But the warm glow of self-congratulation didn’t last long.

  ‘You took your time over that one,’ the SAT said, looking up at me as I stood by his desk. It was a typical piss-take, designed to bring me back down to earth, but I also knew he was right. There was no way the Taliban would allow any operator that much time on land they owned.