Painting the Sand

by Kim Hughes GC

  I took a great deal of satisfaction from knowing that with every bomb removed from the ground we were potentially saving one of our own from death or injury and also beating the Taliban at their own game. Despite the dangers and hardships I faced, I also knew that elsewhere on the battlefield British soldiers were fighting and dying, a fact I was keen to remind my team of whenever they started to whinge. I slept soundly that night beneath the stars.

  The following morning I was up at 6.00 a.m. and as the air around me warmed I was about to learn the full extent of the challenge confronting Brimstone 42.

  Rom appeared fresh-faced with a huge grin and was sipping from a piping-hot mug of coffee.

  ‘Morning, Kim. Did you sleep well?’

  I nodded and smiled.

  ‘That’s good because when you were working yesterday my guys found another twenty devices. I think you are going to be here for a while,’ he laughed and walked off to the makeshift toilet.

  I did the maths. It now meant that there were around forty to sixty bombs in the area. Nothing in my training had prepared me for anything on such a scale – in fact no one in Army Bomb Disposal had ever faced such a daunting IED task.

  After breakfast, I called the team together and gave them the latest news from Rom.

  ‘Fellas, we have got a shitload of work to do here. It’s far larger than I thought. There are at least forty bombs in the area but the figure could be as high as sixty. That’s more than some teams have done in six months.’

  Everyone’s eyes were fixed on me.

  ‘The threat will be complacency. There are no Taliban in the area and we’ve got the Danes watching our backs. We have to be methodical and remember our training. We’ll smash this shit together. Let’s be ready to work in thirty mins.’

  One bomb followed the next, all identical pressure-plate IEDs, only the size of the main charge varied. The explosive was mainly HME but occasionally we would come across a Russian anti-tank mine or old artillery shells. The Taliban’s ingenuity and resourcefulness seemed to be endless. The older veterans had probably fought the Russians but back then they were regarded as allies of the West and were called the Mujahideen. The guerrilla warfare skills of turning anything on the battlefield into a weapon had obviously been passed on from one generation to the next, given that they’d even managed to turn British-made illume or smoke shells into main charges. Illume rounds are basically shells that contain a flare pot and a parachute. When the shell reaches a certain height it would kick out the pot and chute. The empty shell would fall to the ground and the Taliban would pay local farmers and children to go out and collect the shell cases, which they would fill with HME – an instant improvised metal-cased charge.

  Throughout the day, Dave gave a running commentary of the battle raging in the British sector a few miles away. The Taliban were launching hit-and-run attacks almost every hour, sucking our guys into IED minefields, watching as someone stepped on an IED and then attacking the casualty evacuation. It was a brutal, almost cynical tactic, but it was very effective.

  The fighting in the other sector was so intense Oz’s team were actually involved in more firefights than clearing IEDs and I counted myself lucky that I could practise my trade in relatively safe surroundings rather than fight as a makeshift infantryman.

  Meanwhile, I was faced with the problem of what to do with the huge number of main charges we were collecting. Blowing them up in situ was a non-starter because of the problems with dust, yet the HME couldn’t be left in the ground because it would be reused by the Taliban and there were too many to take back to Bastion. The only alternative was to pull them out of the ground and empty the mixture of ammonium nitrate and sugar into the Helmand river.

  With the end of the day approaching I cleared a path from the compound to the river so that we could enjoy a refreshing swim. I followed the safe route back to the compound, headed over to where my kit was stashed, grabbed a towel, kicked off my boots, put on my flip-flops, my one piece of comfort clothing I carried with me everywhere, and announced that I was going for a swim. The rest of the team followed close behind and on reaching the water’s edge, I dived in fully clothed.

  The cool, crystal-clear water was instantly reviving and I suddenly felt energised and refreshed. It was enough to just float, eyes closed, feeling my body cool down second by second, letting the life flow back into aching limbs. I ducked my head down and washed the dirt and sweat out of my hair. The current was quite strong and I noticed I had floated away from the compound and had to put in a few powerful strokes to get back to where the rest of the soldiers were watching me from the bank.

  ‘Come in the water’s lovely!’ I shouted while noting it was the last thing I had expected to say in Afghanistan.

  One by one the soldiers jumped in while others kept watch, rifles at the ready. For the next hour or so we frolicked like carefree children playing in an undiscovered river, laughing and joking and for a just a few minutes forgot about the war, IEDs and those who wanted to kill us.

  Reluctantly, as the sun began its journey towards the horizon, we left the river and returned to the compound, our pace quickening as swarms of mozzies began their evening feast.

  Over the next few days our lives took on a slightly groundhog-day routine. The team would wake, have breakfast and then hit the bombs early, pausing when it was too hot for a reviving dip in the river, which had become as important to us as it was to the Afghans. It was instantly morale-boosting and a late-evening swim was always the best part of any day.

  Every evening before we settled down to cook our rations Lewis and I would total up the number of devices cleared, carefully noting every detail – from the approximate size and composition of the main charge, the layout of the bomb to the design of the detonator. It was a laborious process but a vital one. Every pressure plate would be photographed and forensically bagged and tagged. Any improvised detonator that hadn’t been seen before was also photographed and retained for further examination.

  With only a day or so left to go I was just finishing up on a device that I had rendered safe. I’d decided to leave the main charge in situ because there was another device close by and blowing both wouldn’t cause me any problems. I’d just recovered the pressure plate and battery pack and had returned to the ICP to brief the team on the next move.

  ‘Right, that’s that one done. I’m leaving the main charge in place as I’m gonna blow it in the ground. The second device isn’t far away, so I’m going to go back down, reload the needle and move my kit to the other device and work on that one. Everyone happy?’

  Everyone nodded. I thought my instructions were pretty clear but Lewis had heard something completely different.

  ‘Kim, where’s the needle?’ he asked.

  ‘On target, next to my man bag.’ I thought nothing of it at the time.

  A minute or so had passed before I heard Chappy screaming at the top of his voice: ‘Lewis! Stop. Stand still.’ I instinctively spun around to see what was going on. Everyone was staring at the area where the majority of the IEDs had been located and cleared. In the middle of the danger area was Lewis, standing by my man bag holding the needle, with a look on his face telling the world he had just realised that he had fucked up big time. He had re-entered the danger area with no metal detector, or a searcher. He had broken all the rules. Lewis had assumed the route was clear because I had been walking up and down it all day – but as we say in the EOD world, ‘assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups’. The device was safe but what if there was another bomb close by which hadn’t been found? I was furious.

  ‘Chappy, Malley, go and get him.’

  The two searchers who had spent the best part of the week swimming and sunbathing went straight into action and made swift work of clearing to Lewis. Lewis returned with his head bowed, preparing for the inevitable bollocking and knowing that after all the months of training he’d made the most basic of mistakes.

  ‘You lunatic, what are you playing at?’ I
shouted at him half annoyed but at the same time amused that someone could be so stupid.

  ‘Sorry, boss – I thought you said go and reload the needle.’

  ‘Why would . . .?’ I stopped myself. There was no point in losing it.

  Lewis had some great strengths. He was meticulous and usually completely reliable but so focused that he occasionally forgot the wider tactical picture.

  When we got back to the compound I decided to call the team together.

  ‘Good soldiers, soldiers more switched on and more experienced than us lot are being killed or losing their legs every day because they switched off for a moment. This is Afghan. Look what happened to Sam. If we are going to make it to the end of the tour without any more casualties we’ve all got to keep our focus. From now on when you walk anywhere on operations it’s behind a metal detector. A path is only clear when you’ve personally cleared it. That’s the last warning. Lewis, that was ridiculous.’

  There were a few moments of silence before near-hysterical laughing erupted and the piss-taking began. Being a soldier is a human endeavour and none of us is perfect. Soldiers train to minimise mistakes and mistakes are a part of army life but it was the magnitude of Lewis’s error that made it so comical. After that incident I declared work over. Everyone was a bit tired and with the temperature nudging 37°C the river looked too inviting.

  One of the Danes volunteered to clear a route to the part of the river that had become our preferred choice for a swim. He led us through a hole in the outer perimeter wall, swinging his metal detector like a pro, while the entire Brimstone 42 team followed on behind walking the fifty metres or so of open ground to the river. While the Brits were wearing shorts with towels over their shoulders, he was dressed in his boxer shorts, helmet, body armour and boots. All I could think about was jumping in the cold water, having a moment to myself and chilling out, when I heard the faithful double tone of the metal detector.

  The Danish soldier froze for a second. ‘It’s probably just some shit in the ground,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’ll just check.’

  After a quick check he turned and looked at me, slightly concerned.

  ‘What we got?’ I asked.

  ‘A pressure plate,’ he responded nervously.

  ‘You are taking the piss,’ I said and lowered my head in disbelief.

  I looked over at the cool river and my mouth was almost salivating as if I was staring at a delicious steak meal at a fancy London restaurant. Talk about so close but so far.

  ‘Leave it,’ I said to the Dane. ‘You lot, back in. Lewis, kit.’ The rest of the team filed back into the compound, shoulders slumped and looking pissed off.

  The process started again. I went chin down to the device and began painting the sand, forcing thoughts of swimming in the river to the back of my mind. I could feel the sun beating down on the back of my head like a hammer while large black flies feasted on the dried salt on my face. But nothing could break my concentration. A pressure plate, another one for the record books and another main charge. I wasn’t going to rush. I took my time and cleared the bomb in just over an hour. As the sun dipped below the horizon and another stunning Afghan sunset unfolded in the western sky, the team had one last swim in the river, washing away the dirt and sweat.

  By the end of the week we had pulled over forty IEDs out of the ground, more than many other teams had defused in an entire six-month tour, and no doubt there were many more hidden that hadn’t been found. But while the operation had been successful for Brimstone 42, I couldn’t help worrying about the level of threat the British Army was now facing. If the Taliban could put forty or more devices in the ground to protect a couple of relatively unimportant compounds what else were they capable of? There were just five British Counter-IED teams in Helmand but the number of bombs being produced by the Taliban was just too many. My team could have easily spent another week in the area pulling bombs out of the ground but what would happen when we left? The chances are the Taliban would return and plant them again and so you couldn’t help but wonder what was the point. The war was changing and at that point the British Army was behind the power curve and on the back foot. Simply clearing IEDs was only part of the answer and not the solution on its own. Even as a lowly staff sergeant it was clear to me that NATO needed to go after the bomb-makers, the bomb factories and then hold the cleared ground. But that would require a lot of troops the British Army didn’t have or were unwilling to send.

  With the operation complete the battlegroup headed back to FOB Price in a journey that took a less agonising and uneventful twelve hours. Fortunately the Ops Room back at Bastion gave us a twenty-four-hour period of grace in Price to get our kit sorted out, before the entire team along with forty-odd pressure plates, a handful of detonators and battery packs were flown back to Bastion.

  The mission had been long and tough and the forty-eight hours in the back of an armoured vehicle remains one of the most gruelling experiences of my life. At times we had been pushed to the limits of our physical endurance but at the same time we learned a lot about ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses and those of the Taliban.

  9

  God Complex

  Nothing could touch me – I was bomb-proof. Invincible. Two months into the tour and I had developed a certain swagger. I’d broken all the records for defusing IEDs and was strutting around like I was God’s gift to bomb disposal. But I was actually being a right twat. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance and if I’m honest I crossed that line on a lot of occasions. Bomb disposal is all about confidence. If you don’t trust yourself no one else will – it’s that simple – and if you don’t, you’re in the wrong line of work.

  Taliban IEDs weren’t difficult to defuse providing the basic rules were followed and lady luck was on your side. The real risk came from their number and the lack of build quality. One loose stroke of a brush, an exposed wire caught by a gust of wind, a faulty detonator that just happens to go bang and it could all be over. They were the odds ATOs faced every day so my action plan was to say that’s not going to happen to me, I am too good. That attitude or arrogance, if you like, is really something that developed in my character while I was in Afghanistan, although as my Army career progressed I was becoming more self-assured anyway.

  By the time I arrived in Afghan of course I was no longer the thick kid with the girl’s name. I was the High Threat Bomb Disposal guy, the person who had the answer to everyone’s problems, or so I thought. But during one brief encounter with the Taliban I realised my self-confidence had grown into a God complex.

  The realisation that things were getting out of hand came while Brimstone 42 was located at Patrol Base (PB) Argyll, a small, dusty, dirty outpost very much on Helmand’s front line and home to around sixty British soldiers. It was one of those days when nothing was going on and I was bored rigid. A few of the lads were sweating away inside one of the small buildings watching a recorded football match on TV, while outside beneath the blazing sun other team members had fashioned a makeshift punch bag out of a hessian sack and a piece of old rope and were having a competition to see who could hit the bag the hardest.

  It was too hot to drink tea and just as I was wondering whether the day could get any more tedious a young soldier appeared in front of me.

  ‘ATO?’ he said, slightly out of breath.

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘You’re needed in the Ops Room,’ he said looking slightly concerned that he was giving someone with a more senior rank an order.

  ‘Cheers, pal. At last something to do.’ I grabbed my notepad and headed to the Ops Room.

  ‘Hi, Kim,’ said the duty officer, a young lieutenant who had taken to calling all senior NCOs by their first names.

  ‘Hello, boss. What’s up?’

  ‘A Mongoose call sign has reported an IED find on a patrol earlier this morning and needs it to be cleared. Your team has been given the task.’

  ‘At last,’ I said out loud.
r />   The IED had been found by Mongoose 42A, an Estonian unit based at PB Pimon around fifteen to twenty minutes flying time from Argyll. They had discovered what they believed to be the main charge while clearing a piece of ground known as a vulnerable point (VP). A VP can be any location where troops are channelled into a specific area such as a T-junction, crossroads or a slow-down point of a road. The standard operating procedure when approaching a VP was to stop short, debus from the vehicle and conduct a search of the area.

  I was now like a kid with a new toy and almost ran to where the team had been watching their match.

  ‘We’ve got a job, lads. We can finally get out of this place and get some real work done.’

  Within the hour we had been picked up and flown by Chinook across the desert to the vast, desolate base of PB Pimon. It’s sheer size, equivalent to a couple of football pitches, made Argyll seem quite small by comparison. Pimon was a strange base and lacked the intimacy of the small PBs and checkpoints. It was austere and isolated and I always preferred leaving to arriving.

  There was no arrival party at the HLS. The lads found a quiet corner to relax in for a few minutes while Lee and I went to the Ops Room for a briefing. I bounded in enthusiastically all smiles and offered a hand to a huge, stony-faced captain with piercing ‘don’t mess with me’ eyes. He stood up from his desk and just stared at both of us. The atmosphere in the room was icy cold. There were no welcoming smiles, no gestures of soldierly solidarity. It was as though our presence had insulted them. Through their military exploits in Afghanistan, the Estonians had developed a reputation for being as hard as nails. They might have been the smallest military force in NATO, but they made up for it by being ruthless fighters.