by Richard Kemp
He went on: ‘Concept of operations. 10 Platoon will conduct the initial assault into Mazdurak.’ He looked at Lieutenant Sam Perrin, the platoon commader, who nodded. ‘Once 10 Platoon has secured the first few compounds, 11 Platoon will echelon through, and we will continue to leap-frog into the town like that as far as we can get. Sam, for that initial echeloning, you will have to make the call when to start 11 Platoon moving through you. Give them the word direct on the net and make sure I am aware. I’ll be right behind your platoon with Company Tac.
‘9 Platoon will remain on the peaks, providing observation and fire support.’ He looked at Lieutenant Clarke. ‘Tom, I want systematic observation of Mazdurak and the approaches to it from now on, until the operation is complete. I want to know, on the radio, anything and everything that happens in and around the town that could possibly affect what we are doing.’
He glanced at Captain Mark Taylor. ‘The FSG will deploy on to Essex Ridge and provide close support from there. You will only have about a forty-five-degree angle, but at least your positioning will allow the peaks to continue supporting us as well – without any chance of them hitting you. Mortars will provide fire support from here. We have no air support specifically allocated for this operation, but we will call it in on first contact.
‘Now it may be that we don’t get very far into the town. I’ve already said we can expect stiff resistance. We must obviously take risks to get the information we want, and to deal with the enemy we encounter, but I do not intend to get involved in a full-on battle at this stage. Remember this is a raid, not a ground-holding operation.
‘Now I’ll go through the detail…’
4
After a few hours’ sleep the company were up at 0130 hours. They had prepared everything before they went to bed. Using kettles in their accommodation, They had a brew and a boil-in-the-bag meal from their ration packs, to sustain them through the long hours of exhausting marching and fighting, carrying 36 kilos of equipment in what would become very intense heat as the morning wore on.
At 0230 hours Perrin led 10 Platoon out of the base and through the eerily still dirt streets among the densely packed compounds of Tangy village. Barking dogs shattered the early-morning peace as the company patrolled out of the village and into the open country towards Mazdurak.
They were moving through hilly terrain, rocky under foot, and could just make out the blackness of the mountains many kilometres ahead. They passed several small, deserted compounds as they made their way down towards the wadi in front of Mazdurak.
The company moved in a long snake. Single-file, about 3 metres between each man. It never left any soldier’s thoughts that Matt Woollard had been blown up in this area only hours before. Every man was even more wary than usual that he ran precisely the same risk now. There was no moon but plenty of starlight, which allowed each soldier to see the man in front and to try as hard as he could to step in the same footprints. As always, the 10 Platoon point man, Private Kennett Facal, who had no one’s footsteps to follow, needed nerves of steel.
Forty minutes after they had set out, the leading elements of 10 Platoon arrived in the section of wadi that Messenger had designated as their FUP, for entry into Mazdurak. They spread out into all-round defence, waiting for the rest of the company to close up behind them. The men were tired and sweating after their brisk march carrying so much equipment, and grateful to take the weight off their shoulders, backs, feet and knees for a few minutes.
Messenger arrived in the FUP and took up a fire position behind 10 Platoon. He was surprised that so far they had heard no chatter from the Taliban. Normally the radio would be alive from the time they left Tangy, with talk such as ‘They’re coming, get ready to shoot them all.’
This silence is good, thought Messenger, as he looked into the blackness, just making out the silent movement of soldiers moving into position. Maybe we’ll take the Taliban by surprise for once.
11 Platoon, under Lieutenant Manie Olivier and Sergeant Matt Waters, now arrived in the FUP. At the rear of the platoon was the medic, Corporal Matt Boyle, whose selfless courage had saved Woollard’s life the day before. Boyle had not been scheduled to come out on this patrol. But the medic who was supposed to deploy had developed severe diarrhoea and vomiting during the night, and Boyle had volunteered to take his place. Somehow he had managed to get a new pair of trousers out of the system, but all the rest of his gear was still covered in Woollard’s blood, which he had been unable to remove.
As dawn began to break, Perrin whispered into his radio, ‘Hello, Two Two Charlie this is Two Zero Alpha. Move now.’
‘Roger out,’ hissed Corporal Andrew Brown into his mike. Inevitably nicknamed ‘Bomber’, Brown had left the Army in 1999 but re-enlisted for this tour. A tough and aggressive boxer, he was very calm under pressure and a supremely confident leader.
‘Go on then, Gibbo,’ he said, and his point man, Private Gibbs, jogged across the open ground, with Brown hard on his heels – a 200-metre dash of death, hoping that Taliban fighters were not lying on top of one of the compounds, machine-gun sights set on that very piece of ground. They moved fast through the poppies, but even 200 metres seems like a mile when there is only a sliver of luck between you and a hail of bullets.
Brown’s men hit compound 518 and moved straight in. No need to break down the door, the walls were crumbling in several places. Good thing. They didn’t want to blast their way through, they wanted to be as silent as possible for as long as possible, retaining the element of surprise while they could. Brown waved for the next section to come forward, and then he and his men went from room to room, going through the well-practised drill of clearing the compound. No one and nothing.
Perrin came forward with Corporal Pindar, one of the other section commanders. Standing beside Brown, Perrin quickly took stock. The next compound was 15 metres ahead. The ground was overlooked by Ant Hill, 150 metres away and a firing point the Taliban often used. ‘Corporal Pindar, clear the next compound. Corporal Brown will cover you.’
Pindar called his section forward and led them across the gap. Brown’s men were on the walls, weapons in shoulders, fingers on triggers, peering intently through their sights, ready to fire at the slightest movement.
Brown thought, Covering fire is all well and good, but if the enemy knows his stuff – which he does – they will take out several men in that open ground before we get the chance to give any ‘cover’. Open ground was the infantryman’s worst nightmare. But Pindar made it without interference and positioned his men to provide cover as the rest of the platoon dashed across to join them. It was not yet too hot, compared to what it would be like in a short time, but they had been sprinting around with their heavy kit and were breathing hard and pouring sweat.
Behind Perrin’s 10 Platoon, Messenger with his Tac HQ and 11 Platoon had now moved into the first compound, 518.
Perrin quickly pushed his third section, commanded by Corporal Tim Ferrand, through Brown’s section and into the next compound. That was clear too. It was 0545 hours. The sun was coming up. Perrin was relieved. They had gained a substantial footing in this Taliban stronghold, which had never before been entered by Coalition troops. He thought, So far so good. But this can’t last much longer.
Brown now led his section forward into Ferrand’s compound. Ferrand had pushed his men up on to the roof to give all-round coverage, ready to fire on the enemy as the rest of the company moved further into the town, 10 Platoon left and 11 Platoon right. Brown sent his GPMG gunner, Private Phil Wright, on to the roof to bolster up Ferrand’s fire teams.
Brown looked back and saw Perrin duck into the compound through a small door. As the platoon commander straightened up, the silence was shattered by a long, loud burst of automatic fire. Brown thought, That must have been a full mag of AK47, thirty rounds. Then he heard a piercing scream.
Outside, Private Craig Gordon, the platoon radio operator, following behind Perrin, had taken a wrong turn. As he moved down
the alleyway, an enemy sentry, half-dozing and startled by the unexpected noise of Gordon’s feet on the gravel, emptied a magazine at him from a compound door 8 metres away. Gordon was hit twice. One bullet punched into his shoulder blade, the second shattered the radio on his back. Knocked backwards by the impact, he regained his balance, instantly brought up his SA80 and fired back into the doorway. The fighter went down. But a second gunman emerged from the darkness, firing. Gordon was hit a third time. A 7.62mm AK47 bullet caught him in the stomach and spun him round. He fell into the dirt, shouting, ‘Man down!’ As he crawled in agony towards the shelter of a nearby wall, from behind two more fighters came out of the doorway and rushed forward to drag him away.
When they heard the shooting, Brown’s gunner, Phil Wright, and one of Ferrand’s gunners, Private Wayne Alden, crawled as fast as they could across to the edge of the dusty roof. Seeing the Taliban running towards Gordon, they blasted down withering bursts of fire, cutting down the fighters just feet away from their comrade. They then swung their guns over and started firing through the doorway of the compound where the men had come from.
All over Mazdurak heavily armed enemy fighters were yelling at each other as they woke, realizing that British troops had entered their village. Within seconds they had dashed to rooftops and pre-prepared machine-gun positions within the dense and ramshackle complex of high-walled compounds and narrow alleyways. RPG gunners carrying bags of missiles hurriedly slung over their shoulders ran to firing points, and Taliban commanders barked out orders. The fighters had been caught sleeping by the stealthy approach of C Company. It was just after dawn, and the Taliban were not early risers. But it was rare for them to be surprised like this.
Brown said calmly to Perrin, ‘I’m going out to get Gordon.’ He called his section to him and led them to the doorway.
Perrin spoke into his radio to Steve Armon, 11 Platoon sergeant, who was in a compound 20 metres back: ‘Hello, Metal Two Zero Charlie this is Metal Two Zero Alpha. Enemy in compound three hundred metres north-north-west of your position. Hit them with fifty-one. Over.’
Armon took less than a minute to fire an accurate volley of ten high-explosive bombs from his hand-held 51mm mortar. He dug the metre-long metal barrel’s base plate into the ground and pointed it upwards at an angle towards the target area. He adjusted the elevation, checked the spirit level and pulled the lanyard at the base of the barrel. There was a thump as the bomb shot out of the mortar. He heard a loud muffled crump, and smoke and dust rushed up from the compound. Bang on target! Armon reloaded immediately and fired again. The mortar was rudimentary but effective, its technology little changed in 100 years. And Armon was using it to devastating effect, dropping shells behind the towering compound walls and blasting the enemy within.
Corporal Ferrand, on the roof, saw a flash of movement in the compound next to him. He couldn’t see the enemy to shoot at, but this was a threat to Corporal Brown’s rescue mission. Ferrand and Private Cooper flung high-explosive hand grenades over the walls and into the building. The explosions inside were deafening, and the grenades flung up clouds of dust. At the same time Private Kennett Facal, the man who had led the company from Zeebrugge to Mazdurak, a Filipino member of Ferrand’s section, punched in a volley of 40mm HE grenades with the UGL on his SA80 rifle.
Several RPG rockets swished low over their heads and exploded in a wall beyond, again hurling up clouds of dust. Private Cooper saw one of the RPG gunners in a doorway and fired a long burst of 5.56mm at him with his Minimi. The bullets splintered the door frame and dug lumps out of the hard mud, but the man ducked back into the compound. Cooper shouted to Facal, ‘My gun is on that door. If he comes out again I’ll shoot him. You fire your UGL.’
As Cooper spoke, the fighter was reloading his RPG inside the building. He suddenly leant out of the door and fired at them, almost in a single movement. With the missile in the air, Cooper held his finger on the trigger, sending a stream of tracer into the doorway. Kneeling up, Facal, quickly reloading after each shot, fired six UGL grenades in rapid succession. Intent on their task, neither soldier took any notice of the RPG missile that shot past, just a couple of feet above their heads.
They were being engaged from every direction, bullets and RPGs criss-crossing overhead, impacting around and below them – dangerously close. Facal saw two fighters in the distance, on a roof 800 metres away across the M1 wadi. He shouted to Private Pritchard, a sharpshooter, ‘P, can you hit him?’
Pritchard levelled his L96 sniper rifle and fired. Watching eagerly through his SUSAT, Facal yelled, ‘Missed!’
Pritchard fired another shot and Facal saw the man jump down from the wall, out of sight, as the bullet splashed at his feet. Pritchard switched to the second fighter and fired twice. The first round missed, but Facal saw him fall from the roof as the second tore into his body.
Looking down, Facal shouted excitedly to Corporal Ferrand, ‘We’re getting outflanked. Taliban moving down the side of the compound.’
Despite all the shooting, grenading and shouting, this group of enemy fighters hadn’t identified Facal’s rooftop position. On Ferrand’s word, he, Facal and two other soldiers dropped grenades down on to them, following up with automatic fire, ripping them to shreds as they tried to get round behind the forward C Company positions.
Moments later Ferrand’s gunners had a group of Taliban fighters pinned down, but protected from the bullets by a compound wall. Facal saw that they were still firing at something from behind the wall, possibly towards Corporal Brown or Gordon. ‘Give me grenades,’ shouted Facal breathlessly.
‘You won’t reach that far, mate,’ said Cooper.
‘I will,’ said Facal.
Facal laid his rifle down beside Cooper. He ran across the roof, bullets zipping close around him, and flung a grenade towards the wall. It fell short. He threw another and another. Both straight in behind the wall. He forgot to take the pin out of the fourth. When the sixth and seventh exploded behind the wall he heard the enemy’s screams and knew he had done the job. He grabbed his rifle and jumped back into a fire position. The other soldiers were astonished he had managed to throw the grenades so far and wondered how he hadn’t been shot.
‘Battalion cricket team next season,’ shouted Cooper, laughing.
Below, Brown led his men out of the compound and through a small orchard to a gateway leading into the alley where Gordon lay bleeding and in agony. Brown opened the door and looked out. Bullets were hitting the wall left and right of the doorframe, just inches from his face. He glimpsed Gordon, 4 metres away. He looked bad, very bad. Brown spotted a sewage ditch, a couple of feet deep, just beside where Gordon lay. He shouted out, ‘Gordon, get in that ditch, get in that ditch.’
Gordon rolled in, slightly safer – but only slightly – as bullets continued to zip wildly all round the alleyway. Brown slammed the compound door shut and turned to his young soldiers, wide-eyed behind him.
‘If we don’t go and get him he is dead. We’ve got to go out there now and get him back here or he will be shot again and he will bleed to death. You can see the blood on him. Listen closely. This is how I want it to roll.’ He pointed to two of the men. ‘You two go out the door and left and secure that side.’ He pointed to two others. ‘You two out and right, go past him and secure that way. Me and Brace will go out and straight to the casualty. 2IC, you stay here in case. No time for questions, just go.’
With that Brown booted open the door, and they all rushed out, firing from the hip. Private Harris shot two shocked Taliban fighters as he moved into position.
Crouching down, Brace got hold of Gordon under the arms, ready to drag him to safety. Brown hurled a grenade 8 metres through the door of the Taliban compound. It exploded inside, shredding everything with a storm of steel fragments. He calmly winked at Gordon. ‘What a shot! Are you all right?’
Without waiting for an answer, Brace and Brown, pouring sweat, dragged Gordon back up the alley and through the door into the orchard.
Firing in every direction as they ran backwards, the other men followed close behind, relieved to be alive.
5
While Brown and his men were getting Gordon to safety, Armon, outside the second compound the platoon had cleared through when they entered Mazdurak, noticed movement in a smaller building to his right. Looking over, he saw a hand emerge from a loophole in the wall and slowly brush down the sill. Next an AK47 muzzle was pushed through the window.
Armon, a twenty-eight-year-old Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan veteran from Cambridge, had a reputation within the battalion for staying calm no matter what. He whispered to Lance Corporal Thomas, crouched beside him, ‘I’ll destroy that position. You bring your men straight out, go right and clear the compound and the one beside it.’
He thought, Don’t want the boss to think I’m attacking his compound. The last thing we need now is a blue on blue. He hit the radio pressel switch and whispered hurriedly to the platoon commander, ‘Enemy in small compound directly to the north of your position. Am attacking. Out.’
Armon crept up to the loophole, hunched down so the fighter wouldn’t see him. He knelt below the opening, pulled the pins from two high-explosive L109 hand grenades, reached up and dropped both of them through the hole. As the grenades clattered to the floor he heard the fighter panicking inside, his AK47 crashing to the ground. Armon heard two muffled explosions inside the building in rapid succession as his grenades went off and smoke and dust poured out through the loophole. There was no further movement inside.
Smashing their way through the compound door, blasting bullets all round the walls inside, Lance Corporal Thomas led his section into the compound to take care of any remaining Taliban.
This whole section of Mazdurak, a compound-filled area the size of several football pitches, was now the scene of a huge battle, the air filled with gunfire and explosions. The Taliban were firing machine-guns and assault weapons from dozens of firing points, and RPGs were bursting over the heads of the C Company soldiers, raining in from every direction. Then they started taking fire from Khvolehabad, another village a few hundred metres away.