‘Right, guruji bhai haru, if you see any suspicious movement, you’re to let me know. Understood?’
‘OK, guruji. On the PRR.’
‘That’s right, on the PRR. And by the way, have you checked the field telephone recently?’
‘Just now, guruji.’
‘Good.’
The field telephone is a vital piece of equipment. It’s basically just a handset connected directly to Company Tac HQ by Don 10 wire. Because of this direct link, it doesn’t suffer from the faults that radios are prone to when for some reason you just can’t send or receive, even though you’re less than 50 metres from the person you’re trying to contact. It also has the advantage of being completely secure, because it doesn’t use radio signals. You can only hack into it if you attach your own cable. It’s vulnerable to a direct hit, of course, but then again so is anything. In contacts, we used it the whole time.
After reassuring myself that the bhais in Sangar 1 fully under stood what they had to do and were in good shape to do it, I went down to join the rest of the bhais and gurujis off duty. The smell of cooking hung in the air, but first I wanted to check that everything was OK with everyone else. I walked over to the accommodation block. There were two or three men resting – having just come off duty – but most were up, excited to get on with the day, even if it did mean a lot more sandbag filling.
Next I went over to the ammo store. That all looked fine too, so I went and joined the rest of the off-duty group.
Breakfast that morning was the same as for all mornings: a cup of sweet tea and a few biscuits. For some reason Gurkhas don’t worry too much about breakfast. We prefer to save up for a big meal later. If we’re hungry, we’ll eat whatever is lying around – leftovers from the night before usually. Some of the bhais were smoking and there was already a lot of laughter. They were talking about their prospects of growing a beard.
During the first O-group, Rex sahib had declared a no-shave policy due to the water shortage. Everyone was very pleased about this. Although Gurkhas don’t usually grow much beard, and me less than anyone, we liked the idea of looking as much like proper warriors as possible.
‘After three days I’m gonna look like my grandad,’ said someone. ‘He fought in Malaya and he’s got this photo of him in the jungle looking like a real bahaduri.’
The word bahaduri means ‘warrior’.
‘I bet my beard’s going to be better than yours!’ said Gaaz.
‘OK, guruji bhai haru. We’d better get going now,’ I said, looking at my watch.
Our first priority on that second day was to build up our defensive positions. We had to try to get as much done as possible before the sun got too hot. And even when it did get too hot, we’d have to keep going, but the point was we were bound to be more productive early on.
‘Listen in, everyone,’ I began. ‘What we’ll do is we’ll have a competition.’
‘Oh no, not another one, guruji,’ I heard someone groan good-humouredly.
‘We’ll do twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off, and see who can fill the most sandbags in that time. The winner gets a bottle of Coke.’
We must have started around 7.30 a.m. As before, the work was really hard because of the ground. We tried various different places to dig, but it was the same wherever we went. Again there were calls for a party to go outside the compound walls, but I had to remind the bhais that although it was hard inside, at least here we had some protection. Outside we’d be an easy target.
As the morning went on, the Afghans gradually turned out to watch us work. They weren’t early risers, that was for sure. In fact they were so relaxed it was hard to imagine they believed we could be bumped at any moment. Maybe their intelligence was better than ours. Maybe in fact they knew the threat was low.
As had happened yesterday, some of them came up and patted us on the back.
‘Tik hai, dost?’ they asked. ‘Are you fine, friend?’
‘Tik hai,’ we replied. ‘Yes, fine.’
Gaaz always added a few very bad words in Gorkhali afterwards, calling them jatha and other things that I will not mention.
Despite the friendliness, it was clear that while the ANP guys were genuinely interested in us, the local police were basically just pretending to encourage us. It occurred to me that the ANP probably were on our side because they came from elsewhere in the country. The locals, even if they didn’t actually support the Taliban, were much more wary of us. The fact was, when we left, they would still be living here, so it was natural they wanted to play both sides.
‘You look out,’ said one of them, jokingly. ‘If you put any more sandbags up there, the roof will come down.’
While this was a source of amusement to him, I was really worried it was true. The buildings the sangars were built on top of would only take a certain amount of weight before they gave out.
‘He’s right, guruji bhai haru. We’ll have to make sure we put the majority of the sandbags on the strongest parts, along the top of the wall. We can’t put too many on the roof itself.’
All the riflemen nodded in agreement, with one or two making jokes themselves.
‘You wouldn’t want to fall through the floor just when you were about to fire the ILAW!’ said one.
‘Or worse still, go down just as the enemy were getting the ladders up!’ said someone else.
Apart from this reminder, the Afghans did not contribute much. One or two of the ANP picked up a shovel from time to time, but although they were enthusiastic to begin with, they soon gave up. Then, as the morning wore on, some of them went out of the compound on patrol. They looked very unimpressive, with no uniform and nobody actually in charge by the look of things. It was also completely unclear what their intentions might be. The OC had mentioned that the ANP would be conducting their own patrols, which sounded like a good idea, but it was hard to feel encouraged by what we saw.
‘Take a look at that lot!’ exclaimed one of the riflemen as the gates opened to let them out.
‘What do you think, guruji? Do you think they’d make it through selection?’ said Gaaz.
He meant the Gurkha selection procedure, which recruits less than one man from every thousand who apply each year.
After the patrol had gone, the attitude of the remaining Afghans started to get a bit annoying. But although I knew the bhais would have liked me to tell them to go away, I was determined to try to make friends with them. They could give us vital information.
‘Guruji, can’t we just tell them to go and poraja jata?’ demanded Gaaz at one point. ‘These guys should lend a hand or go away.’
I had to remind him and the other bhais and gurujis that one advantage of not telling them to go away was that, as time went by, we might be able to work out which ones were likely to help us, and which were not. One or two in particular did seem sincerely friendly.
At the same time, it occurred to me they could be trying to get information from us just as much as we were trying to get information from them.
‘Are there a lot of Taliban in this place?’ I wanted to know while I waited my turn on the shovel.
‘There are hundreds. All over the place,’ said one of them.
‘Not so very many,’ replied another. ‘They come and they go. We don’t get too much trouble, thanks to Allah the Most Merciful.’
This was totally confusing and only made me more suspicious. I thought it more likely the first one was speaking the truth, however. We knew that 10 Platoon, who we had relieved yesterday, had suffered a big ambush when they launched a patrol in support of 3 PARA. It was a hazardous situation and they had only been able to extract with the help of Apache helicopter gunships, so we knew for sure there must be plenty of Taliban around, even if it did seem quiet today. What was more, they were well armed and highly motivated. They must have had good intelligence too or they wouldn’t have been in position for our arrival. And their fire was accurate if not so disciplined. These were chord ke dusman – quite pro fighters.
I found it impossible to believe that men like this would just disappear without having another go.
It could only be a matter of time.
The Afghans had lots of questions for us too. They asked whether we had been in England. Of course, we all had.
‘What about America?’ they demanded.
They seemed satisfied when we said no and started asking questions about Nepal. As it happened, there were one or two hajira among the ANP. These hajira are hill people from the northern part of the country. They looked a bit like Gurkhas but with beards, and they were really curious to know where we were from. I drew a map on the ground with a stick to show them.
‘Same!’ said one of them when he realised I had drawn the Himalayas. I showed him Taplejung district in the far east of Nepal where I come from, then he took the stick and showed me where he came from in the far west.
‘Same!’ he said again, hugging me like an old friend.
‘If you shave your beard, you will look just like me!’ I said.
‘So how come in British Army?’ this man wanted to know.
‘Because in the British Army you get the chance to do a lot of fighting,’ I said. All the Afghans listening laughed at this. Perhaps they didn’t believe me. Well, they’d only have to try us to find out if I was joking or not.
It’s hard to tell when a few grains of rice become a heap, and it’s hard to say when all the sandbags we were filling started to look like they were making a difference to the sangar positions. But as the morning wore on, we began to notice we were making good progress. There were enough in place to start thinking about putting protection round them. There were some rolls of barbed wire brought in by 10 Platoon and Corporal Santos ordered us to use as much as we could, so I told Nagen and Nani, who had recently come off duty, to get to work unrolling it.
Meanwhile, the Afghans kept pestering us. Mostly they just sat around on their haunches smoking and looking at us with lazy eyes, not saying much. But every so often they would strike up a new conversation.
At one point, they wanted to see our kukris. We took good care to explain that they were easily capable of chopping off a man’s head.
‘Really?’ they wanted to know.
‘Really,’ I said.
Then I told them a story about when Gurkhas were last in this part of the world, during the 1930s when the British were defending the North-West Frontier against the Pashtun tribesmen. There was a time when some of these tribesmen captured a British soldier and decapitated him and put his head on display, so the British sahib gave the order to his Gurkhas to capture a tribesman and cut off his head. They did that, and then the sahib invited the local villagers to watch a football match. When they got there, they saw it wasn’t really a football at all, but their fellow tribesman’s head. Then after the game, this sahib explained to the elders that if ever it happened again that one of his soldiers was attacked like this, he would order the Gurkhas to go out with their kukris and cut the heads off every single male over the age of fourteen.
The Afghans listened to this story in silence. Of course, we weren’t allowed to do that sort of thing any more, but they didn’t need to know that. I wanted them to be frightened of us.
‘So the blade’s very sharp?’ one of the Afghans asked after some time.
‘Gaaz will tell you another story,’ I said.
‘Oh yes,’ said Gaaz, getting my meaning. He could also speak some Urdu. ‘There was once a Gurkha cornered without any weapon except his kukri. The enemy was standing with a gun, ready to fire. The Gurkha slashed at him with his kukri.’
Gaaz made a slashing movement. The Afghans nodded.
‘Ha! Missed!’ Gaaz went on, imitating the enemy.
He now pretended to take aim with his gun before going on. ‘But then the Gurkha said, “Now shake your head.”’
There was a pause as the meaning of the story sunk in. Gaaz laughed and again there was a lot of nodding.
All the Gurkhas were looking at the Afghans at this point. Everyone wanted to see what their reaction was, but they didn’t give much away. I liked to think these stories had a good effect, but I couldn’t be sure.
It was at that moment I noticed one of the local police who had just joined us was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher concealed within his clothes.
‘What’s that for?’ I demanded. It seemed strange for him to be walking around with an RPG hidden like this.
‘When the enemy comes, I will fire,’ he replied.
He’s lying, I thought to myself. As soon as the enemy comes there’s every chance he’s going to use that thing against us.
It was a really bad feeling to have, but I couldn’t shake off the idea that the people who were supposed to be supporting us weren’t really on our side at all. But there was nothing we could do about it except remain vigilant.
By lunchtime, the sangars were beginning to look much more secure, though a lot of work still needed to be done. Now that the sandbags were up to a height of six or seven courses, we could start stretching the barbed wire round the outside. This was potentially dangerous work, as when you aren’t inside your sangar, you are an easy target for snipers.
‘Make sure you concentrate on what’s going on around you, not what’s going on with the wire,’ I told the riflemen on duty in the sangar. ‘You’ve got to keep them covered at all times, OK? Is that understood?’
The reason for putting out barbed wire was to present a further obstacle to any assault party that managed to get close enough to put a ladder up against the position. It wouldn’t delay them for very long, as they would see it there and bring gloves, but even thirty seconds in a combat situation can make a big difference. Enough to swap magazines or pull the pin out of a grenade, for example.
Our other big priority was to put up proper arc markers. Last night, I had put out infrared Cyalumes round each sangar, but today I wanted solid posts in each position, like the ones we had in the sangars at Bastion. I had serious worries about people swinging round in the heat of battle and accidentally taking out one of our own side.
‘What happens if they get right on top of us, guruji? Do we still have to observe arcs then?’ asked one of the bhais.
‘You have to observe them at all times, yes,’ I replied. ‘Obviously, if they get into the sangar with you, you’re going to need to do whatever it takes. But still you need to be aware of what you’re doing.’
I was pleased the riflemen were asking questions like this. It showed they were thinking things through.
Having got the hessian, the barbed wire and the arc markers in place, we covered the whole structure with cam (camouflage) netting. This was particularly important in Sangar 3, as there were actually two parts to the position. The main part which had all-round protection was no more than about two and a half metres wide, two metres deep and a metre and a half high. But outside, at the front, there was a small platform where I instructed the bhais and gurujis to put some sandbags as well.
‘Just build it up three bags high, OK? It doesn’t look like the walls are going to take any more.’
‘OK, guruji. What about the sides?’
‘You can leave the sides. It’s just to give us another layer of protection at the front.’
As it turned out, during contacts I would often go forward to this part of the position, as you could get better situational awareness out there. And it wasn’t long before we put sandbags round the sides too.
As soon as they got the chance to take a break after sandbag filling, the bhais and gurujis turned their attention to our accommodation. They swept it out again, more thoroughly than they’d been able to last evening, and they also cleared the rest of the rubbish out of the rooms. Then they started to make it feel a bit more like home by drawing kukris on the walls and putting up 2 RGR signs.
As I said, the basic duty rota was two hours on, four hours off. But even during rest periods, there was lots to do. A big priority throughout our time in Afghanistan was prepara
tion of ammunition. For the SA80s, we charged up all the available magazines. For the machine guns, we laid the belts out and checked through all the linkages again and again, taking special care when we fitted the belts together. We took it up to the sangars in this ready state and spent quite a lot of time deciding where the best places were to store it. This was critical because of the lack of space.
‘OK, bhai haru, make sure you put it somewhere you aren’t going to kick it with your feet,’ I said. ‘Put the field telephone on top of the back wall and you can pile the grenades there. The jimpy belts can go along the side wall.’
‘What about here?’ Nagen wanted to know, pointing to the front wall. ‘I reckon it would be better here.’
‘OK, if that’s what you think, we can try that.’
I was particularly concerned to have a good number of grenades ready, as I had already decided that if the enemy got really close, these would be our best defence.
‘More,’ I told Gaaz. ‘I want at least fifteen. Twenty if there’s room.’
‘OK, guruji.’
My simple plan in the case of the enemy actually getting ladders up against the walls beneath us was to drop grenades on them.
The standard fuse setting was three seconds. The ideal would be that the grenade exploded before actually hitting the ground – that way you would catch anyone climbing up – but even if it hit the ground before exploding it should take care of the ladders.
As things started to come together in the compound, I had a new concern. I was worried that the bhais would simply get fed up with staring at the same buildings for hours on end. The fact is, it’s almost impossible to keep 100 per cent focused the whole time. I reminded them it was essential to keep in the forefront of their mind what it had felt like to be shot at.
‘And remember to use your sights, OK?’ I said to the bhais when I went to check on them. ‘You’re looking for possible enemy positions, any suspicious movements. It’s tiring on the eyes, I know, but the people who bumped us yesterday are still out there. They haven’t gone away, you know.’
Gurkha: Better to Die than Live a Coward: My Life in the Gurkhas Page 7