The OC decided to push out a foot patrol to the east of Monkey One Echo, and into the Golf Charlie codenames. The aim was to get a rise out of the enemy around Bin Laden’s Summerhouse, so we could pre-empt their big push by forcing them into a fight. We reckoned the Summerhouse was ‘the Mosque’ that the enemy commander kept calling their men to for pre-battle briefings. If the Summerhouse and the Mosque were the same place, and our foot patrol could provoke them into opening fire, we could smash it from the air.
We pushed east and crossed the enemy front lines, creeping deep into their territory. I had two A-10 Warthogs in support. I had one watching to the front of our patrol, and the other with eyes on the Summerhouse/Mosque. We hit the Golf Charlie One Seven area, and a lone RPG went sailing over our heads. It smashed into the bush twenty metres beyond us. No one could see the firing point, and apart from that it was dead all around us. Not a soul was to be seen.
We got back to PB Sandford without another shot being fired, the A-10s shadowing us into base. It all confirmed what our walk-in sources were telling us: the enemy had pulled back to resupply and rearm, in preparation for the big one.
The following day was Born Naked Day, or at least it was for the Czech Army unit. The Czechs had claimed their own corner of PB Sandford, where they kept their Mad Max Toyotas parked up between two massive mud ramparts, like blast walls.
It was Saturday, 11 August and the Czechs intended to spend the entire day naked, no matter what. They’d bloody fight naked if they had to, or so they told us.
They erected a sign at the entrance to their domain:
The World Famous Czech Born Naked Day.
Make Love Not War.
All proceeds to the Children of Chernobyl Fund.
Then there was a list of rules.
Get Naked.
Stay Naked.
Extreme nudity.
No clothing ever.
It wasn’t exactly our sense of humour: that was more of the Get Snoopy kind. But maybe we were just repressed when it came to getting our kit off. And for sure we had some bizarre traditions of our own in Britain – like chasing cheeses down mountains, or peashooter contests, or bog-snorkelling. In comparison, Born Naked Day was a no-brainer, especially if there were some Czech girls involved – which I guess there would be when doing it back home in the Czech Republic.
The Czech unit were a massive bunch of lads. They made Throp look positively weedy. Each looked as if he’d been fed on an intravenous drip of steroids during infanthood. If they wanted to sit around with their tackle hanging out, none of us were going to argue. Anyway, it was all for a good cause. We dug deep in our pockets and chucked a load of our hard-earned spends into the Born Naked Day bucket, trying not to get an eyeful of any Czech tackle. One look could give you a serious inferiority complex.
At midday we had an Afghan elder walk-in. We steered him away from the naked Czech monsters, and grabbed Alan, our terp. The word from the elder was that the enemy were moving back into the Triangle in big numbers. They were reinforced and rearmed, and their intention was to hit us hard and drive us out of here.
The OC decided to pre-empt them. He was a man who believed in fighting on the terrain and at the time of his own choosing. We’d push out a patrol on foot past Alpha Xray, then hook north parallel to Route Buzzard, probing north of the area in an effort to force the enemy’s hand.
The morning of the patrol I had a bit of a problem. I didn’t know about it until I broke wind, and then I had it all down my legs and in my boots. There were several cases of diarrhoea and vomiting in the base, and now I’d got a dose. I had two more bouts that morning, and eventually I had to accept that I wasn’t going anywhere.
I perched in the back of the Vector, from where I was in sprinting distance of the shitters. I had another attack, but failed to make the bogs in time. I stripped off and crouched in the wagon in my undies and flip-flops. It wasn’t a pretty sight and I smelled rank, but I was more concerned about controlling the air, and making sure the lads on the patrol were all right.
They left PB Sandford at 1345, and pushed down Route Crow towards Alpha Xray. Just as they neared the base there was an eruption of small arms and RPG fire. The enemy were in the sawn-off trees at Golf Bravo Nine One. I got on the air and requested immediate Close Air Support (CAS).
As I did so, there was a massive, punching blast from the direction of Monkey One Echo. I glanced at Sticky, who’d opted to stay with his JTAC, despite the fact that I’d shit myself. He was hanging by the door of the wagon, where I guess the smell was a little less lethal. He was on his radio immediately, calling for a sitrep from MOE.
‘They got a man down!’ Sticky relayed to me. ‘A lad’s been hit by an RPG!’
‘Widow TOC, Widow Seven Nine. Sitrep: we’re under twopronged assault and we’ve got a man down. We need IRT stood up right away.’
‘Widow Seven Nine, Widow TOC. Roger that: stand by.’
My mind was fucking racing. If a lad had taken a direct hit from an RPG, he was more than likely spread across several acres of desert. So we’d more than likely lost another one. I felt the rage sweeping over me. In spite of my compromised state, I felt this irresistible urge to grab my SA80 and go out and smash some enemy. Even from inside the Vector, the crack and thump of battle from both our bases was deafening.
‘Widow Seven Nine, Widow TOC. Recoil Four One and Recoil Four Two are inbound into your ROZ. Ugly Five Four is bringing in the IRT heavy.’
The call from Widow control brought me back to my senses. I was hardly in a fit state to go out fighting. I got Sticky to get the casualty in to PB Sanford. We’d then do the casevac from an LZ just to the north of the base in the open desert. The Harriers came on station, and I got them flying an immediate low-level show of force, screaming over the walls of Monkey One Echo.
The casualty was loaded into a Vector, which hurtled across the high ground to us. The RPG had impacted a metre away from the injured lad. It had ploughed into the wall before exploding, which had kept the frag down. He was in a bad way, but the medics reckoned we could save him, as long as the Chinook got him out in time.
I got Apache Ugly Five Four inbound with the Chinook. I got the Harriers banked up high, so I could get the heavy in. We got the massive helicopter down on the LZ, the injured lad was rushed aboard, and then the Chinook was on its way again.
Ugly Five Four stayed with me, and I got it hunting for that bastard RPG team. But it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. As soon as the Apache was overhead, it all went dead quiet. On the airwaves enemy commanders were ordering their men to: ‘Remain in ambush positions, then the helicopters won’t see you.’
The lads came back from patrol, but once they heard that we’d had one smashed by an RPG they went wild. They wanted to get right back into the Green Zone in full battle rattle, and find the enemy. They calmed down a bit when they learned that the medics reckoned he’d make it through all right.
I got allocated an Ugly call sign for the following morning. It was unprecedented to be given an Apache without a TIC. I soon found out why I’d got it. We had a convoy coming in on a resupply, and there was a Sky News team on it.
The Apache was to shadow them in.
TWENTY THREE
THUNDERBOX
MAYHEM
Every time you went for a piss you had to do ten pull-ups. That was the law. I reckoned it was a bit harsh on me, ’cause I drank so much tea, but there it was. All the lads at PB Sandford had agreed to it, and woe betide anyone who shirked.
We’d already been hit by something that morning – maybe a 107mm barrage from Qada Kalay. We’d been in the middle of a cricket-off, which the Sky crew were filming. Suddenly, there was a yell of ‘Incoming!’, and everyone went scrambling for body armour and helmets, not to mention some cover.
Now we were at the pull-up bar. We’d cobbled together a gym from old ammo crates, steel pickets and black nasty. It did the job. The pull-up bar was a beam slung between two walls. It wa
s getting a bit competitive, as we had the Sky cameraman filming us.
The pull-up king in the FST was Chris. He wasn’t called Johnny Bravo for nothing. He’d just managed twenty-four. Sticky had followed with a miserly eighteen. The most I’d ever done was twenty-two, but I was determined to beat Sticky. I got on the bar and reached sixteen, when suddenly the lads started going wild.
‘Come on, Bommer! Come on, Bommer!’
‘You can do one!’
‘Come on, you fat fucker!’
I did another – seventeen – and the lads were going crazy. They were doing just about anything they could think of to make me laugh. I was trying not to, but as I went for number eighteen – making me evens with Sticky – I lost it. I gave up and dropped off the bar.
I turned around to find the Sky cameraman filming me. He’d only started shooting when I was on number sixteen, so it looked as if I’d managed just the one pull-up. I have a giant Angel tattooed across my shoulders, and it isn’t exactly a common tattoo. Anyone seeing that on the news would know instantly that it was me. The Sky cameraman was pissing himself. The lads were laughing their rocks off. I waited until they’d calmed down a bit, then tried giving the Sky bloke one of my looks. But I couldn’t help the silly grin that kept twitching at the corners of my mouth.
‘If you put that on Sky News, I’ll batter you and hand you over to the Taliban,’ I told him.
We cut a deal that the footage would never be shown, as long as I pulled in some class airstrikes whilst the Sky crew were with us.
Sadly, that morning we were losing the OC. The resupply convoy was setting off for FOB Price, taking Major Butt with it. He was devastated to be leaving his lads, and before the end of their tour, but orders were orders. He’d done his allotted stretch in command, and a new guy was taking over.
It was hard to see Butsy go: he’d been like a father to us. He did a little speech, which was all about how he didn’t want to leave after all we had been through together. But he had to let the new OC come in and do his job. Major Butt had been fucking brilliant. He was a fantastic OC. As he spoke, a few of the lads were close to tears.
I was gutted to see Butsy go, but I warmed to the new OC quickly. Major Stewart Hill was a tall, dark-haired rake of a guy, and he was to prove himself to be a top bloke. He was the kind of officer who wouldn’t ask his lads to do anything he wouldn’t do – a bit like Butsy, really. We couldn’t have wished for a better replacement in the new OC.
We got orders from Major Hill to push a patrol down to Alpha Xray. The Sky team were going to try a night down at the Alamo. Much that I might want the cameraman to get captured and that tape destroyed, I reckoned I might need some air on hand. After all, we were going to have a High Value Target (HVT) – the Sky cameraman and correspondent – deep in bandit country.
I was told that no aircraft could be spared, not unless we had a TIC. So I put a call in to Widow Eight Seven, a fellow British JTAC who was the nearest to me in the area. A new base – PB Arnhem – had been established to the south-west of us. Widow Eight Seven was the JTAC there, and most days we’d have a chat on the air about what we’d been up to. He told me that he had a pair of F-15s flying air recces for him, but that nothing much was happening. PB Arnhem was about seven kilometres away. If I needed air, I could borrow Widow Eight Seven’s F-15s.
At 1745 the patrol set out. There were sixteen-odd lads, plus the Sky cameraman and the correspondent, Alex Crawford, who looked vaguely familiar from the news. They crept down Route Crow into the dusk valley. A hundred metres short of Alpha Xray, the darkened bush exploded in gunfire and the fiery trails of RPG rounds. In seconds, the patrol was pinned down and deep in the shit. They were being hit from fire points all along Golf Bravo Nine One, the enemy’s favourite point of attack. I radioed my fellow JTAC, to see if I could rustle up some air.
‘Widow Eight Seven, Widow Seven Nine: patrol in contact. Can I borrow one of your Dude call signs?’
‘’Course you can, mate,’ the JTAC replied. ‘Dude Zero Seven, Widow Seven Nine is now your controlling ground station.’
‘Roger that,’ came the pilot’s reply. ‘Widow Seven Nine, Dude Zero Seven: what can I do for you, sir?’
‘I’ve got a patrol down at Alpha Xray in heavy contact. Enemy are firing from treelines running south to north and west to east, forming a cross at Golf Bravo Nine One.’
‘I know your area well, sir,’ the pilot replied. ‘I was with you a couple of days back dropping danger-close to you boys.’
It was one of the pilots from the Saving Private Graham patrol. It was good to have him with us again.
‘I want that enemy position strafed with 20mm, on a north to south run,’ I told him.
‘Roger that. Inbound two minutes. Stand by for sixty-seconds call.’
I double-checked my coordinates on the maps. It was a couple of days since I’d controlled a jet doing a live drop on live targets. Happy that all was as it should be, I turned to the new OC who was standing at the Vector’s open door.
‘Sir, I’ve got an F-15 coming in to strafe the treeline to the north-east of the patrol.’
‘Happy with that,’ the boss confirmed.
‘Prepare to give the sixty-seconds call, sir.’
I was asking him to put out the all-stations sixty-seconds warning. For an instant the OC stared at me, as if to say – How on earth have you managed that? It was barely three minutes since the start of the contact, and CAS would never normally be with you in under fifteen. There was no time to explain.
The pilot came up on the TACSAT. ‘Sixty seconds out.’
‘Give an all-stations sixty-seconds warning, sir,’ I repeated. Then I cleared the pilot in. ‘Friendlies one-twenty metres west of target. You’re clear hot.’
‘Tipping in.’ A beat. ‘Engaging.’
‘Bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrzzzt.’
The strafe echoed across the darkened valley, as the 20mm rounds hammered the north–south woodstrip. Just as soon as the roar of the gunfire had died away, I got the pilot to bank around and do a second strafe to hit the west to east treeline.
‘Tipping in,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Visual two pax with weapons in woodline.’
‘Hit ’em,’ I told him. ‘No change friendlies. Clear hot.’
A second burst of cannon fire echoed across the Green Zone.
‘BDA: two dead,’ the pilot confirmed.
I banked him around again, and did a third run of 20mm. Then I asked him to do a recce of the terrain at Golf Bravo Nine One.
‘Visual three pax with weapons and muzzle flashes in a ditch just north of Golf Bravo Nine One,’ the pilot told me.
‘Bank west, and hit them with a GBU-38.’
I warned Chris and the OC that I was dropping a five-hundred-pounder, and for the patrol to get their heads down. It was a hundred and twenty metres danger-close at night, and a couple of months back I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing such a drop. But I had my favourite pilot above me, and this was the only way to fight the enemy in Helmand.
‘Tipping in,’ the pilot radioed.
‘No change friendlies. Clear hot.’
‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Stores.’
In the thirty seconds it took for the smart bomb to come snarling down on us, I had Chris and the OC yelling over the net for the lads to get on their bloody belt buckles. A hollow thump ripped apart the night as the bomb hit, the white heat of the blast throwing angry red shadows across the walls around the Vector.
‘BDA: three pax dead. No further movement around Golf Bravo Nine One.’
The contact had died down to nothing. I thanked the F-15 pilot, and pushed him back across the river to Widow Eight Seven.I got on the air and sent a sitrep to Damo Martin, in the FOB Price air-planning cell.
‘I’ve just done three 20mm strafing runs, and dropped one GBU-38,’ I reported. ‘At least five Taliban killed.’
‘Good work,’ Damo replied.
Then this: ‘Widow Seven Nine, Wido
w TOC: what platforms were you using?’
‘I pinched a Dude call sign from Widow Eight Seven.’
‘Roger. Wait out. Stay on these means.’
The duty officer at Widow TOC was asking me to stay on this frequency. He’d sounded a bit confused. Maybe even annoyed. A minute later he was back.
‘Widow Seven Nine, what were you doing pinching aircraft?’
‘We had an HVT out on patrol and pinned down in the Green Zone. I needed air.’
‘There’s a set procedure for getting air. You’ve broken every rule you could have broken, as we knew nothing about the contact.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter, ’cause there’s no contact any more: I’ve killed them all.’
‘You are not – I repeat not – to do that again.’ The guy on the other end was fuming. ‘Widow Seven Nine, you are to stick to set procedures.’
That was that. End of my bollocking over the air.
That F-15 control was the fastest I’d ever done in theatre. It was eight minutes, from start to finish. I got a brew on, and then we got a call from Alpha Xray. The patrol had got safely in to the base, and the Sky team were bird-happy. They’d got the whole of the contact on film, and were wowed by the speed and power of the airstrikes. Needless to say, the lads under siege at AX were chuffed as nuts too.
Stewart Hill came and found me. He was fuming at what had happened with Widow TOC. As far as he was concerned, we’d had a patrol plus HVT under attack, and his JTAC had pulled a blinding move to relieve them. And I’d been bawled out for doing so. I appreciated the OC’s support. He was clearly 100 per cent there for his lads. But I didn’t really give a shit that Widow TOC had chewed me out over the air.
I had a brew and a fag, and got to bed with Alpha Xray safe as houses, and the Sky crew well happy. What could be better than that? Enough said.
After stand-to the following morning the patrol returned with the Sky crew in tow. Sticky and I were having a chat, when I felt a rumbling in my stomach. I still wasn’t right after my attack of the runs. I warned Sticky I was off for a crap, and made a dash for the shitters.
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