While I was listening to everyone’s versions of events amid what seemed to be endless chain smoking, Teddy appeared from the medical area. He was really very quiet and staring at the floor as I went over and put my arm round him, saying, ‘Nice one mate, you did brilliantly from what I’ve heard.’ He was almost lost for words and just kept saying, ‘Hope he makes it, hope he makes it.’ I replied, ‘Me too buddy.’
After my prompting him for a while, he told me what had happened but even then would stop and stare into space as if he was re-living the experience or replaying things in his head. I put this down to the shock. As the next few hours went by, he distanced himself from the group and wanted to be left alone, so Colour Sergeant Snow asked me to keep an eye on him and report anything I thought was not great. Of course I would have done this anyway, because he was my oppo and I was going to look out for him. In addition, with Deano now injured, that now made me section commander.
Teddy and I now had no kit at all, absolutely nothing. Much had been destroyed, not only by the Taliban but also by the Apaches which had ensured that the Taliban did not benefit from the situation. I was left with the clothes I stood up in; for the next few days, I even had to clean my teeth by eating about three packs of chewing gum each morning. We managed to get a bit of a whip round going and obtained a few items. The whole unit had not been back to Camp Bastion for quite some time so nothing was washed and, no matter how desperate, I was not going to start wearing other men’s sweaty boxer shorts.
On the weapons front, Teddy managed to acquire an L96 which was a sharpshooter’s rifle and had a different scope to ours. It was not much use to us because all our shooting data was for the .338 as opposed to a 7.62mm calibre weapon. This rendered me useless because my role was to spot everything and give ranges. Teddy, on the other hand, was a qualified sniper and more than capable of using this weapon so he joined Corporal Parker’s section in B Company.
I meanwhile continued as the 51mm mortar man within my group. This meant that we lived in the Dust Bowl for another four days, sleeping by the vehicles and going through the same mundane daily routine. People were even putting up ponchos and making little walls out of anything available. That said, the camaraderie was just excellent but we were still bored, so I was sent on a mission to try and acquire some American MREs (Meals, Ready to Eat) which I am relieved to say was successful. Teddy was also bored and went across to the shooting range on the northern side of the FOB, an area next to a mound near the wall on which you could stand and fire over it into a big area of basically nothing. We would pick out prominent rocks and there was even an ISO container which you could target and just practise our marksmanship. We simply told the boss that we were off to the range to check zero and we would just practise and fire off rounds. The ammunition on the .338 rifle was in really low supply, but there was no shortage of 7.62mm or 5.56mm so we spent hours up there shooting off rounds, talking and sharing a smoke.
A few guys came to test their GPMGs and even some Americans came over with an M4 carbine on a bi-pod, so we swapped and they had a go on the L96 while we did likewise with their weapon. I remember one of the Americans asking, ‘You’re a sniper?’ As I nodded, Teddy zapped a road with the laser rangefinder and measured that it was exactly a kilometre away. The American said, ‘Betcha can’t hit that road, man.’ We realised that he wanted us to land a round on the track 1,000 metres away. Also, we only had an old scope but we accepted the challenge anyway.
Both Teddy and I held our breath and a few seconds later were whooping and doing high fives, because we both did it first time. The American smiled broadly, shook his head and said we British snipers were crazy. It was nice to have the praise that all the American guys gave us and we ended up going over to their area to play American Touch Football, which was really amusing because we were still in the Dust Bowl. With all the dust thrown up, it was total chaos because we could not see anything and at times might as well have been running around chasing a ball blindfolded. The amount of times people would blindly run into each other was countless. We did this kind of thing for the next four days and I read the same magazines over and over again. I also used the opportunity to send letters home to Annie while receiving some very welcome mail. It was really good to hear from back home.
Eventually we received the call that we were to move out and into Sangin, so we began to prepare ourselves and pack things up. We also heard that Ross Kemp was on his way out to us and would be appearing soon with his film crew. He arrived at the FOB, which broke the monotony, and I remember meeting him, saying hello and shaking his hand. It was quite late at night when he turned up, so we all got our heads down shortly afterwards.
CHAPTER 10
Sangin
We moved into Sangin from FOB Robinson for our next deployment, Operation LASTAY KULANG. Our arrival was uneventful, the streets being busy as we drove past the vehicle from which Teddy had rescued Deano, now just an empty burnt-out shell. Having settled in, we took advantage of the nearby river. At this point, we had been away from Camp Bastion for a number of weeks and, having been unable to shower at all, were understandably keen to get into the water and wash ourselves properly. The current was very strong and you had to be careful to avoid being dragged downstream. The water was icy, its temperature bliss after the scorching heat of the day.
We remained in this area for the day and then began preparing to move out on patrols. We headed towards the northwest, approaching a wadi which led to Musa Qalah, the last major town the Taliban held in our region. We were under orders not to touch it. Previously, the Paras had gone in there, cleared the town and held it before leaving after the signing of a secret truce in late 2006 under which British forces withdrew in return for the Taliban not attacking the region. At the beginning of February 2007, a force of up to 200 Taliban attacked and captured the town, imprisoning all the tribal chiefs who had agreed to the truce.
We moved around the perimeter of Sangin and some of the built-up areas which were quiet. One minute you would be moving through a treeline or open countryside and the next be surrounded by houses, compounds and alleyways. We would arrive in a new area and sometimes be surrounded by people all staring at us. The majority of the time they were hostile and stared at us intimidatingly, but we could not allow that to happen and simply stood our ground and stared straight back. If they smiled and waved then we would of course reciprocate because winning hearts and minds was essential. We continued patrolling through the markets and then back into the alleyways where kids would be playing, running around screaming and yelling, before we emerged once again into the surrounding fields. Meanwhile, we were well aware that we were being watched closely and followed all the time.
At one point, we rounded a corner and saw a young boy a little way off, sitting on his own with his knees drawn up to his chest, hugging his legs. As I drew level with him, I glanced at his face and saw that it was totally devoid of expression. I then observed the needle laying near him and recalled the serious problem of heroin addiction in the region. I put a small bottle of water on the ground next to him and carried on.
We were out of the main area now and continued past loads of smashed up buildings with no one around at all and by this time had gone for around a kilometre without seeing a soul. In the distance I saw Sangin DC coming into view and realised that this was the area that I had seen on YouTube where the Paras had gone in with all guns blazing and firing from rooftops. This meant that it was only a year previously that the Taliban had been stood here fighting our boys as they came in. I imagined the firepower and the bombs that would have come in, realising that anyone in these buildings would have stood no chance at all. We saw the bombs go in on film, but then the cameras stopped and we did not see the after effects.
On the following day we were called to a briefing, following which we all stood behind the main building housing the headquarters element where there is a courtyard with a memorial listing the names of the guys that had died in that area. T
here had been a Dane who had died recently, so we gathered around the memorial to pay our respects to him. Immediately after this, a large amount of mail arrived.
The next day, we left at 3.00 am and patrolled for around four or five hours, mostly under the cover of darkness. Instead of moving north into the middle of nowhere, we headed south and into the built-up areas of Sangin that were largely deserted at that hour. We arrived at a sort of over-pass that ran above a canal where, as the sun rose, we packed away our night vision scopes. It was fascinating to watch the city come alive as the sun came up, in front of our eyes, the voices of the mullahs echoing from the tops of mosques as they called the faithful to prayer.
We continued to patrol through a maze of streets and alleyways, sometimes with roofs over us and sometimes finding ourselves in wide open spaces as if the city had simply disappeared. We walked past an alleyway where there were some really deep scratches or grooves in the wall running away from us, and it became obvious that these had been made by small arms fire during what had clearly been a pretty intense firefight.
As we moved back through to the market area, with everyone still staring at us, a minibus screeched around a corner and sped directly towards us. Sergeant Chris Caneper decided he did not the look of it and, raising his rifle, fired a round in front of the vehicle, the bullet ricocheting up and smashing the windscreen. The driver leaped out of the vehicle with his hands up, shouting, ‘No, Mr! No, Mr! No Taliban! No Taliban.’ Chris shouted back, ‘Slow down!’ We continued the patrol, returning to our base at around 7.00 am.
On one occasion, we went across to a location on the outskirts of Sangin called Patrol Base Waterloo, which was occupied by an operational mentoring liaison team (OMLT) whose role was to train ANA units to secure areas and fight the Taliban. On the way, again quite early in the morning, we stopped in an alleyway and I checked a doorway to my right which led towards a door to a compound. I knelt down next to this doorway and lit a cigarette; as I did so, I heard a rustling coming from behind me. Dropping the cigarette, I spun around with my rifle to my shoulder, safety catch off, and saw a little old man who looked a bit like Gandhi, but wearing a turban, sitting there looking at me.
We remained in this alleyway for a while, waiting for the rest of the patrol to meet us from the other direction and move into position, but they were delayed by the horde of kids that was surrounding them and asking for sweets or water. I remained in the alley and once again heard some rustling from the same direction, so I slowly moved my head around the doorway again to see the old man walking towards me, saying something in either Pashto or Dari. I put my hand up to tell him to stop, but he kept walking, pointing to his chest and then pointing to the alleyway and repeating this gesture. I put my hand up again and asked him in slow deliberate English, ‘You want to come out here?’ I pointed to the alleyway, receiving enthusiastic nods of agreement. I told the guys that a civilian was coming through and waved the old man through as he put his hand up to thank me and disappeared on his way.
By this time the others had got themselves in to position, so we continued on our way to Patrol Base Waterloo. When we arrived, we could hear the sound of mopeds, something we had registered earlier during the patrol. It appeared that two Afghans had been following us, appearing at the end of alleyways and then vanishing, only to reappear a few minutes later. We were clearly being followed, but we had not spotted any weapons or observed the use of any mobile phones. We knew though that it was more than likely that they were working for the Taliban, counting us and seeing which direction we were heading. There was not a great deal we could do, because we could not see any weapons or actual evidence of a direct threat, so I guess the only thing we could have done was to pursue them and arrest them. In any case, they were on mopeds while we were on our flat feet with over 60 pounds on our backs. We entered the patrol base over whose walls we could clearly observe the two guys on mopeds sitting out in the open watching us. We let off a few warning shots off in their direction and they disappeared.
After that we began patrolling from the base, our task being to draw the Taliban out for a fight, As we patrolled down a steep hill through the Green Zone, amongst the fields and towards the low ground on the edge of Sangin, we had ANA behind us. Eventually, we reached an area with around four or five buildings. We were approaching the left hand side of one of them when I suddenly heard one of our guys screaming, ‘Get down! Get down!’ I instantly crouched low as I looked in his direction. It turned out that he had seen in the corner of his eye a boy of around fifteen years old with something in his hand, so he had automatically spun round with his rifle pointing towards the youngster’s face. Terrified, the lad had dropped the radio he had been holding and was holding his hands in the air. Our guy apologised to us, saying that he thought the boy was a suicide bomber with a detonator in his hand.
We carried on patrolling towards the buildings, but as we did so we all heard a loud crack as someone fired a round at us, followed by more. I instantly looked for cover, sprinting forward towards the end of the building where I saw a few of our guys dart around the corner. I took cover and listened to the sporadic firing, unable to see where it was originating. I looked around and saw our guys moving in trying to find where the fire was coming from, while others were putting down covering fire with GPMGs. There was a large metal door behind us, which creaked open. The lad next to me and I spun around, weapons raised, and saw a woman covered from head to toe in black, with just her eyes showing. Despite our being unable to understand a word she was saying, we realised she was attempting to shoo us away. I was pretty pumped up with adrenaline after being shot at and wanted her to just get back inside to safety, but she wasn’t listening and continued to gesture towards us. We had to be really careful not to overstep the mark and had been briefed to tread carefully, because in Afghan culture it is easy to offend by even making eye contact with a woman without permission. I clearly could not physically move her back into safety, so tried to intimidate her by moving forward stamping my feet loudly as I did so, but she wasn’t having any of it and continued her stream of verbal abuse. I could see there were children and another woman inside the door, so in the end I took another step forward and shouted, ‘Get inside and lock the door!’ With this, she finally got the message and rushed inside and I heard the door being bolted.
By this time the firing had completely stopped, so we pushed forward to a small stream where Sergeant Caneper positioned me to the left of a bridge. I unpacked the 51mm mortar and a few HE bombs while the guys in 5 Platoon spread themselves out along the stream area. We then called in fire support and I dropped some bombs into the area where we expected the Taliban to be but with no result. Absolutely nothing happened, so we moved back along the stream and through the fields towards a dried-up river bed which was under the cover of trees which provided welcome shade from the heat. We continued along this route under the trees for quite some time until all of a sudden we took a left turn and headed up a very steep hill. We had been patrolling in the heat for several hours and the hill was sandy and rocky, proving to be a nightmare to climb. Our kit was bloody heavy and we would get up about four paces before losing our footing and slipping backwards. My legs were burning and I could hear ringing in my ears.
We eventually made it to the top where we found the WMIKs providing over-watch and ready to give covering fire as we made the ascent. From there, we made our way back into Sangin DC where we were told to clean our weapons and do our post-patrol admin before getting our heads down for a bit. I did this and then stripped down to just my trousers, before stepping into my Viking vehicle and grabbing a copy of Maxim. As I sat down and relaxed, I heard a single gunshot and thought, ‘Oh, for f...’s sake!’ As an NCO, when a negligent discharge happened, I would have to charge whoever the offender was. As I got out of the vehicle I saw a stretcher being whisked past by four Marines and a medic. It was Lance Corporal George Davey who subsequently died of his injuries, leaving a wife and two daughters. In due
course the inquest determined that, ‘He died in a tragic firearms incident.’ He was a really good guy and was in fact a Christian man who, although not being the hard-core bible thumping type, had a real belief in God. It was so tragic and affected morale, leaving all of our spirits really low.
Along with this, Corporal Darren Bonner had been killed after his Viking had been hit by a mine and these two instances had happened within eight days of each other. It was around this time that I remember calling, texting and writing to Annie quite a lot, but although we had all hoped we would be moving back to camp Bastion, we received orders that we were to be moving out to the north of Sangin. We had not been back to Bastion for six weeks and had totally forgotten what air conditioning felt like, that’s for sure.
I had at least managed to acquire a sleeping bag and had the toothbrush and toothpaste my family had sent out, but was still waiting for replacement socks and underwear for which I was desperate. It makes me laugh now to think of my limited kit, which had been lent to me or sent from my family, strapped to the Viking vehicle in a black bin bag, wedged between two bergens to stop it flapping around.
Sniper in Helmand: Six Months on the Frontline Page 9