Our training was conducted stage by stage, and we carried out day and a half long exercises with rifles that contained no ammunition, so we could simply get used to the feel of them while performing these tasks in full equipment. We then progressed to three-day exercises and then ones lasting up to a week, which I think was the longest at Catterick. I enjoyed the bayonet training which lasted all day, two days being devoted to this in all. I remember it particularly because it was different in the sense that it was adrenalin fuelled training all through the day. We were normally woken up at 5.00 am each morning; on this particular morning we were woken at 4.00 am. This was not a gentle ruffle of the hair and an, ‘OK sunshine, time to wake up.’ On the contrary, it was like a bomb going off in the room. The lights were snapped on and the instructors came in banging things, kicking the bins, punching the doors, throwing the duvets off us and literally dragging us out of bed without warning. I remember all of us leaping out of our beds as the room echoed to shouts of, ‘Stand by your beds! Stand by your beds!’, feeling dazed and not quite with it. Corporal Hindmarsh shouted that we had five seconds to tear apart each other’s lockers.
We really did not want to do that because we all knew just how long it took to making our bedspaces perfect. But we did, following which we were dragged out in to the freezing corridor in our boxer shorts, not permitted to say anything or look at anyone. All the while we were subjected to a constant stream of verbal abuse, being accused of not taking care of our kits and bedspace areas. There were taunts of, ‘You’re nothing! You want to be soldiers? You’ll never be soldiers!’ After that we were sent off to get dressed but not to look at or speak to anyone. Woe betide anyone who was caught even making eye contact, let alone talking to anyone, the punishment being made to do countless press-ups and similar exercises to the point of exhaustion.
We were then marched down to the armoury where the instructors drilled us with shouts of, ‘what’s a bayonet for?’ and, ‘what’s it made of?.’ In return, we would respond with shouts of, ‘cold hard steel!.’ The instructors were winding us up as much as possible. They were successful, and I for one understood the aim of the exercise.
We were running across a football pitch, falling to the ground when a whistle blew and then jumping to our feet when the whistle blew again. It was pouring with rain and the ground was waterlogged, so we were covered in mud and soaked through. It was also very slippery, and running around carrying rifles with fixed bayonets in such conditions was deemed too dangerous; consequently, due to health and safety regulations, we could only run without our weapons. Eventually, utterly exhausted, covered in mud and soaked, we were marched through to a field where the instructors had erected a number of dummies with red paint balloons inside them. We were ordered initially to walk up to the dummies screaming our heads off, ensuring we stabbed them a couple of times. If anyone did not attack the dummies with sufficient aggression or scream vigorously enough, the whole platoon was ordered to run to the farthest tree on the training field and back in the driving rain. While we did this, cursing the man in question but laughing all the same, we had to drop to the floor as the whistle was blown and then jump up again. This went on for a further four or five hours. To finish off the day, the dummies were laid out in a circuit and we were required to crawl along with our rifles, stabbing like mad men each time we reached a prone dummy. When we reached the last dummy, we unfixed the bayonet from the rifle and used it as a knife to stab the dummy.
We finally finished and were marched back to the barracks for something to eat, being allowed to talk again and treated as being human again. Bizarre though this may seem and despite how it sounds, at the age of seventeen it was actually one of the most fun things I had ever done and I really enjoyed it. I must admit to looking back at that day often and, in hindsight with an adult perspective, often chuckle while remembering how at that time I was having the time of my life and loving every minute of it.
At the end of twelve weeks of training, Corporal Hindmarsh left us to do the senior Brecon course to qualify him for promotion to sergeant, before rejoining his battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers because his two-year stint as an instructor at the ITC had come to an end. He was replaced by another Geordie called Corporal Norris, who also proved to be a good guy. At this point I was transferred to another section commanded by a mad Irishman called Corporal Cree whom I also liked and, more importantly, respected. Subsequently, I was transferred yet again to another section because of various injuries that occurred and was required to go through the process of, ‘back squadding’ for failure to make the grade. My last section commander wore the same cap badge as me, that of the Royal Anglian Regiment, but seemed to be prejudiced against those due to go to the 1st Battalion (known as The Vikings) rather than his own unit, the 2nd Battalion (The Poachers). This was disappointing, but I put it down to being all part of the real world and politics.
Our training continued on through all its stages, including the Annual Personal Weapons Test, which we had to pass, and on through more skill at arms training with assessment, including shooting up to 400 metres with our SA80 A1 rifles. I achieved marksman level on this assessment and was awarded the prize for best shot in my platoon, which was a sign of things to come. I still have that little tankard with my name engraved on it to this day. In fact, I always have a pint out of it on Christmas Day as my own little tradition as another member of the family that has been awarded for his marksmanship. It always makes me smile.
Eventually, at the end of twenty-four weeks, I completed my training and on 26 September 2003 I passed out of ITC Catterick with the family there for our passing-out parade. I remember the day as being really nice and sunny, which was a fitting end to an enjoyable period and a great start to my first two weeks leave.
On 6 October 2003, at not quite eighteen years of age, I joined the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment and was posted to No. 9 Platoon, of C Company, which was for me at the time absolutely living the dream.
CHAPTER 3
Becoming a Viking
On arriving at Elizabeth Barracks in Pirbright, Surrey, I recognised the roads from my previous time there. It is a large camp and although I still felt comfortable and at ease, the two suicides at the nearby Deepcut Barracks, which were much in the news at the time and still being investigated, came to mind. I did not really know what to expect of life in the battalion, having heard rumours and people telling me that the first six months is totally bad until you earn your right to be there. There were tales of the training we had just completed being an utter doddle and that in the battalion you would be literally punched in the face if you make a mistake – that is the real Army, so be prepared. I did not dwell on this too much and decided to approach things with an open mind. I have to admit that I was unable to quell my anxiety completely but such feelings are normal in any walk of life, on the first day in school or starting a new job.
As I approached the front gate, what I did not realise at the time was that the guys on duty were actually from my platoon in C Company. I appeared laden with four huge kit bags, containing literally everything, including all of my clothing, boots and helmet, and looking like some military answer to Steptoe and Son. I had decided not to use the internal army postal system, which was notorious for its inconsistency.
On arriving I arrived in front of my new comrades, and being used to the drill at Catterick, I stamped to a halt as if I were on a parade square, shouting my army number and announcing that Private Cartwright was, ‘Reporting for duty, Sir.’ The reaction from the lance corporal and his soldiers was rapturous applause and cheering to which I responded by also laughing. At that moment I thought, ‘Yes, I will be right at home here.’ It is that kind of squaddy mentality that I loved and still do. Inwardly I was calling myself an idiot, but I guess I just didn’t know what to expect and could only put it down to experience.
A guy called Freddy showed me up to meet the Company Sergeant Major and others, and eventually I was introduc
ed to a very short and skinny lance corporal named Simon Pimm who came across saying, ‘Oh, you’re the new bloke then.’ He offered to take me up to the barracks, to which I replied, ‘Yes Corporal’, as this was exactly how we had been taught at Catterick to behave, showing proper respect.
This somewhat stinted conversation continued as we made our way towards the barracks, with me replying, ‘Yes Corporal’ to everything he said. Finally he stopped, turned to me and said quietly, ‘Listen mate, if you call me Corporal one more time, I’m going to punch you in the face.’ I replied, ‘Oh sorry,’ before he simply told me to call him Bog Rat like everyone else did.
I still laugh about my first moments there. It was quite a shock because throughout all my brief Army career up to that point, it had been drilled into me that I must call everyone this and that and ensure that I stood to attention. Everyone had to be called by their rank, unless it was an officer or warrant officer, in which case it would be, ‘Sir.’ Anyway, Bog Rat told me about the people I would be with, who had recently returned from a tour of Northern Ireland and were really quite cliquey, warning me not to expect to fit in and make friends too quickly which, to be honest, filled me with dread. I had visions of them being war hardened and having had a really rough time; in truth, they had actually had quite an easy time with nothing having occurred at all.
There was one guy, Ben Emmett, whom I had known during training who was put into my room. That made things a little easier, but by and large the guys from 9 Platoon were all pretty cool. I soon made friends with a number of them and was given as a mentor, someone with the nickname, ‘Billy Whiz.’ He was a really good lad and was also friendly with another guy called, ‘Webby’ who was the platoon clown, having a reputation as someone who would always be on the piss and a really good laugh. It was decided that Billy Whiz would be my, ‘in barracks’ mentor while Webby would be my, ‘on the piss’ mentor.
As my second mentor, Webby came into his own after a few weeks when a company party was organised and I became so mortally drunk it was almost the talk of the barracks. A load of Skol lager, had been brought by some of the lads which hardly anyone wanted to drink, but Webby of course encouraged me to do so. I think everyone had taken a few cans but, apart from the fact that the lager was largely ignored, not being the company’s desired booze of choice. Annoyed by the lack of people drinking their generous contribution, the lads announced that the bar would not be opening until every last can of Skol had been downed. Needless to say, I being the new guy had been passed literally everyone else’s cans. Nowadays, a large quantity of Skol would not be on my Christmas list but at the time this seemed like a particularly cheap night. I didn’t care that it was Skol, merely that it was free and alcoholic. There were around fifteen or twenty cans left and I put almost all of them away. This made me blind drunk, and I mean properly drunk, to the point that Billy Whiz literally had to hold me up as he took me back to my room at around 1.00 or 2.00 am in the morning, before presenting me with a sick bucket and disappearing.
Before long us new arrivals in the battalion were taken off to the ranges to zero our rifles. There were four of us: Ben Emmett, Ike Smith, Nicky Waite and me. During our training at Catterick we had used the SA80 A1 rifle but were now given the new SA80 A2, which was a very much better weapon. I can still remember receiving mine still covered in the grease in which it had left the factory. There was not one scratch on it and it was literally out of the wrapper and brand spanking new. I was the first person ever to fire this weapon and I appreciated it. I remember thinking how beautiful it was to shoot, being so accurate. I felt guilty even making it slightly dirty.
It didn’t take long before I managed to demonstrate my shooting ability against individuals who had been in the battalion for three or four years and even some of the NCOs. I managed to beat their scores by simply producing better grouping. I think at that point I was achieving a group of approximately 30mm. A bullet from an SA80 is 5.56mm in diameter and so to achieve that kind of score I needed to put five rounds into a 3.0cm group from a range of 100 metres, which took some achievement.
At the end of the day on the range I was walking back to the transport and Sergeant Neil shouted across, ‘Come on then, Cartwright. Get into that truck over there on the left.’ I walked across to the vehicle whose large canvas canopy flap at the rear was down. I lifted this to one side, to be confronted by soldiers all staring down at me with cigarette smoke billowing out around them. At that point one of them shouted out, ‘Ere, does your mum know you’re here?’ Of course everyone fell about laughing as I was a new guy with the particularly baby face I possessed at that time. Everyone was laughing as I jumped aboard muttering, ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ with a big grin on my face. The thought that I had got lost on the way to the chip shop, having been sent by my mother and wandered into the Recruitment Office, induced a grudging, ‘Nice one, guys’ from me as they all fell about laughing.
Despite the relative success of my first shooting experience, it took time to be noticed and it was some seven or eight months before I made my first attempt to be selected for the Sniper Platoon.
The first proper exercise in which I took part was on Salisbury Plain during the first two weeks of December 2003, when the weather was absolutely freezing. I really cannot describe how cold that was. We lived in Copehill Down, which was the FIBUA (Fighting In Built-Up Areas) village and we always referred to it as the FISH Village, which stood for, ‘Fighting In Someone’s House.’ It was where we practised storming houses, jumping through windows, throwing grenades through doorways and generally learning the skills of FIBUA. We lived in this village, which sadly had no glass in the windows and no heating and was utterly freezing.
For the initial period we were out for a day and then for two days as a run-up to the full exercise. My section commander at the time was a guy called Corporal Gary Stewart who was actually quite a decent bloke and a horse of a man. His second-in-command was Lance Corporal Kev Langston who really was a good laugh and could do a thing called the wind surfer which was the ability to transform his nut sack (testicle bag) by almost impossible means, into the shape of a wind surfer which became the stuff of legend. I think there maybe a photo of this somewhere, alongside other miracles like an invention called, ‘the cheeseburger’ which really does amazingly resemble a cheeseburger and strangely uses all of his genitalia. I know it sounds totally juvenile but, when you are within this environment, this really was the kind of silly thing that was really funny and made Army life fun.
I remember the last phase of the final and main exercise was an attack on the village of Imber. The Commanding Officer had got himself into a bit of a flap and we were marched at really high pace into the valley, despite carrying heavy packs and full kit, and consequently arrived around two hours early at 1.00 am, pouring with sweat, but the attack was not scheduled to being until 3.00 am. We lay up in a valley, watching the minutes going by. My combat jacket and t-shirt were literally drenched with sweat and before long the icy wind and freezing temperature, heralded by a mist that rolled into the valley and formed a heavy frost, began to take effect. Having lost so much fluid through sweat, I was gulping water from my water bottle. Eventually we received the order to prepare to move. While readying myself and organising my kit properly, I checked my pockets and the various zip fasteners on my clothing. As I did so, I discovered that, while drinking, I had dribbled on to a couple of zips which had literally frozen solid with ice. You can imagine how we felt, lying there motionless and freezing.
After about an hour to an hour and a half, we were ordered to our feet and marched out and then back into the valley. This was done in an attempt to warm us up because by then three or four of our number had been taken away suffering from hypothermia and the early warning signs of frostbite.
As we marched back in again, we commenced the attack. My section’s role was to provide flanking support for another section as it entered one of the main buildings. However we were subjected to a major counte
r-attack that resulted in everyone in my section being killed apart from me, due to my being positioned on the other side of a large shrub. This was more to do with my becoming separated from my group in the darkness and confusion; to be honest, I probably was not concentrating as much as I should have been because of the freezing conditions. Each of us was equipped with the Personal Role Radio (PRR) and I made contact with the second-in-command of the section, Kev, and asked what was happening. His response was to order me to sneak along the main track towards the main body of the enemy in the area; I should initially throw a grenade and then open fire with my rifle. Preparing a grenade and switching my SA80 to automatic fire mode, I sneaked along the track until I heard voices, thereafter creeping forward and adopting the best possible position. Readying myself, I threw the grenade and, as soon as it exploded, charged out with rifle blazing.
Unfortunately, and I still laugh about it now, I tripped over a root and fell hard and ungracefully on my face. Everyone, of course, fell about with laughter while mocking taunts of, ‘Nice one Rambo, you only killed three people,’ rang in my ears. I did of course protest, saying that, despite my tripping up, I had fired a number of rounds and thrown a grenade that had exploded in the middle of the main group. Despite my embarrassment, I maintained I had killed more than three of them.
Sniper in Helmand: Six Months on the Frontline Page 2