Attack State Red

by Richard Kemp

  ‘The boss’ was Lieutenant Seal-Coon, and ‘Woody’ was 7 Platoon’s sergeant, Michael Woodrow, responsible for providing the men with ammunition and all the other supplies and equipment they needed to fight and to live.

  Parker continued, ‘Make sure you take all your rounds out of your mags and make sure they’re clean and free of grit and dust. I know I don’t need to tell you that, but it keeps me happy, so I will. After you’ve done all that get some scoff down your necks and then get your heads down if you want, although I doubt anyone’ll be doing much sleeping in this heat.’

  He looked at Private Paul Gillmore, temporarily attached to the section from Company HQ, ‘You OK, Gillie, no problems? Don’t worry, mate, you’ll soon be back in HQ when Pingu gets back from R and R.’

  ‘I’m fine, cheers, Stu. I’m enjoying it. Makes a change from what I normally do.’

  ‘OK, well done, then, lads, now crack on and get this all sorted.’

  The men unstrapped their Bergens from the outside of the Vikings and slammed them hard on to the ground. This was necessary to throw off the thick coating of dust that had got into every flap and fold of the rucksacks as the vehicles travelled through the desert.

  Private John Thrumble took out a plastic pouch of corned beef hash and laid it in the sun – it would be red hot in about ten minutes. He took off his boots, laid out his sweat-drenched socks to dry and peeled off his equally soaking T-shirt. His next priority was music. He unwrapped his iPod and his prized speakers from several layers of plastic bags, balanced them on top of the Viking track and switched on the drum and bass music that he could never bear to be without. With a nod to the tactical situation, he turned the volume down well below the eardrum-bursting level that he would have preferred. Next he carefully laid out a plastic sheet on the ground. He stripped down his GPMG, dismantling it to the smallest part. He placed a second sheet over these parts to give them added shade. Then he began to lovingly dust off, wipe down, oil and chat affectionately to each and every piece.

  Private Josh Lee approached, Bergen over one shoulder and fag sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Thrumble leapt up and growled at him, then cursed as his bare feet made contact with the baking-hot, stony ground. Lee sprang backwards. ‘What’s the matter with you, Thrumbles, I’m not going to attack you, mate, don’t worry.’

  ‘Just keep away from the gun. You know no one’s allowed near the gun, especially when she’s undressed. Keep away from her. If you want to touch her you’ll have to ask me. And I’ll definitely say no.’ He spoke to the gas regulator: ‘Did the nasty man scare you? I’m sorry, I won’t let him near you. I’ll protect you.’

  ‘You’ve finally cracked, mate,’ said Lee, an amused half-smile creeping across his face. ‘Not surprising with all that crap music blaring out all the time.’

  ‘Josh, Josh, don’t say that,’ Thrumble hissed in a stage whisper. ‘Mary loves this music. I’m only playing it for her. If you say that sort of thing you’ll offend her.’ He added menacingly, ‘Then you’ll have to answer to me.’

  Thrumble sat down again and picked up the body of the gun. ‘I was thinking of letting Josh look after you when I go on R and R, but he’s just blown that.’

  Lee flicked a Pine at Thrumble. ‘Smoke that and shut up, you idiot,’ he laughed, shaking his head as he walked a couple of paces and dropped his Bergen next to Aaron ‘Troy’ McLure, who had just started cleaning his rifle.

  An hour later Parker had finished sorting out his own weapon, squaring away his gear and checking the section’s equipment. He was lying in the shade, boots off, head propped against his daysack. He had got through a bit more of Winston Churchill’s My Early Life, squinting through the strong sunlight at the dusty pages. Lieutenant Seal-Coon appeared and sat in the dirt beside him. ‘All right, Corporal P? I’ve just had a brief from the OC. I’ll tell the guys what’s happening when we’ve finished our admin. You were saying something on the net this morning about Taliban up in the trees in Pasab. I couldn’t make it out, what was that about?’

  ‘Yeah, that was just after I’d had a face-to-face with you when 3 Section were in contact. When I got back to my section I was sitting up against this wall, and Stevie Veal and Josh Lee were forward of me, and a round went just over their heads and hit the wall near where I was. Chipped a bit of mud out of the wall. Now, as you know, boss, I’m not exactly a CSI investigator.’

  ‘Yes, Corporal P, I had worked that out for myself.’

  ‘Well, anyway, as I say, I’m not, but I figured out it must have come from high up and there were no compounds or anything that it could’ve been fired from. I looked across and I wondered about the trees. I thought they couldn’t be up the trees – bit too risky for them. But I had a good look and couldn’t see anything so I told Thrumbles to put a burst through the trees.’

  Next to Parker, Thrumble started laughing, ‘That was amazing, boss. It was. Mary and me fired a couple of bursts of twenty, and bodies just started falling out everywhere.’

  ‘It wasn’t everywhere, was it, Thrumbles? Don’t exaggerate to the platoon commander,’ said Parker. ‘But two bodies fell out of the trees. It was like some sick comedy show or something.’

  ‘How far away were the trees?’ asked Seal-Coon.

  ‘Oh, a good couple of hundred metres. They were like green deciduous trees, lots of thick foliage, bit like oak trees or something. The funniest bit was as soon as these bodies fell out of the trees this idiot here started singing “It’s Raining Men”. I was cracking up.’

  Thrumble said, ‘Yeah, well, boss, you’ve got to have some morale, even in contact, especially in contact, haven’t you?’

  Seal-Coon said, ‘I bet the guys in the trees didn’t have much morale at that point, though. But with all the jokers in this section I doubt you lot will ever be short of morale.’

  Private Robert Foster, at the other end of the Viking, called out, ‘Hey, sir, that’s not true. Thrumble isn’t funny, he just thinks he is. He forces us to laugh at his stupid jokes. The only people that think he’s funny are the Taliban. Oh, and Boothie, because he doesn’t know any better.’

  He dug his toe into his best mate, Private Booth, who was trying to get some sleep next to him. Foster had a strict rule: if he didn’t want Booth to sleep, Booth wouldn’t sleep.

  ‘Shut up, Fozzie,’ said Parker, ‘and get on with cleaning your rifle. No one asked for your opinion. You’re enough of a comedian to keep the whole brigade amused, and the Taliban as well.’

  ‘Thanks, Parky, I’ll take that as a compliment. Anyway, as I was saying just a couple of days ago…’

  ‘Fozzie, I said shut up. That’s the trouble with you teenagers of today, you don’t know when to listen to your elders and betters. Boys like you should be seen and not heard. In fact, preferably not seen either.’

  ‘Older is right, Parky, you’re really too old to be out here…’

  ‘Fozzie, shut it.’

  Parker turned back to Seal-Coon. ‘You know what, sir, I reckon that’s what some of those snidey little bastards were doing on Silicon, hanging around in the tops of the trees. That’s why most of the time we could never see them when they were shooting at us. I read that in some book as well about jungle fighting – might have been Vietnam. Always look up as well as left and right when you’re on patrol. I’m definitely going to keep an eye on the trees out here from now on anyway.’

  B Company was on the move again by 0230 hours. As so often happens with the simplest military task, it turned into a nightmare come true.

  3

  The journey from the company’s leaguer to Heyderabad was only 6 kilometres westwards across the open desert but it took four and a half hours. In the pitch darkness, and driving through clouds of dust kicked up by the wagons in front, vehicle after vehicle got bogged in and had to be laboriously dragged out of the soft sand. With commanders and drivers trying to work their way round drainage ditches, and searching for crossing points, the column got split up several ti
mes.

  As they crashed on through the desert, Corporal Parker, in the front cab of his section’s Viking, was effectively blind. The windows in the vehicle were blanked out with plastic screens, velcroed into place. In front of the driver, a flat-screen monitor had been folded down and gave him the picture from the vehicle’s infra-red camera. Next to Parker the communications equipment console prevented him from having even a partial view of the screen.

  Above, the Viking gunner was helping to guide the vehicle and warn the driver of hazards ahead, using his image-intensifying goggles. But, as with all night visibility equipment, the driver’s and gunner’s sights do not give an impression of depth, so it was very difficult to avoid depressions, ruts, ditches and banks. This did not make the journey comfortable for the troops in the back and contributed to the many occasions that night when Vikings got bogged in and had to drag one another free.

  Sergeant Tinkler, the 81mm Mortar Section commander, could see nothing from the cab of his Pinzgauer. Trying to get some visibility to guide his driver, he stood up with his head and shoulders out of the top. The Pinz smashed into a berm, and Tinkler was launched out of the vehicle, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground in front.

  Company Sergeant Major Newton, racing round in his Viking to round up the scattered vehicles, arrived just as Tinkler was dusting himself off. ‘Thank goodness you’ve come back for me, sir, that was getting to be a bit of a drama.’

  The logistics vehicles were dropped off in the desert a few kilometres away from Heyderabad. Incredibly the huge Oshkosh tanker, carrying thousands of litres of diesel, had been almost the only vehicle in the column that did not get bogged in. It was an impressive machine, 15 metres long and consisting of a large cylindrical fuel tank towed by a 6x6 all-wheel drive MTVR tractor with an 11.9-litre diesel engine. The troops decided it would be able to make it up Everest without difficulty.

  Aston set up a strong fire support base to the south of the town. Sergeant Major Snow’s fire support group WMIKs, armed with GPMGs, GMGs and .50 cal heavy machine-guns, plus the Javelin missile systems with their excellent observation devices, were deployed to cover the move in of the rest of the company. This fire base would be beefed up by the Vikings, with their machine guns, once the company had been dropped off. Behind the FSG, Sergeant Tinkler set up his three 81mm mortars to provide immediate dedicated indirect fire support.

  At 0600 hours, when the Vikings were 1,500 metres from the village, Aston transmitted over the company net, ‘Dismount, dismount.’

  It was potentially dangerous crossing this open area on foot, even with cover already in place from Snow’s fire base. But it would have been even more dangerous to close up to the outskirts of Heyderabad, where the compounds provided concealment for Taliban RPG gunners, who could cause significant damage to a Viking and the men inside.

  The troops dismounted beyond RPG range, in the flat, open desert, where there was nowhere for an RPG gunner to hide.

  Sniper Lance Corporal Teddy Ruecker was relieved to get out of his Viking and into the air. Even though it was still early morning, the heat was building outside. But it was nothing compared to the sauna of the Viking. As usual the air conditioning wasn’t working, and the seven infantrymen jammed into the armoured box, with all their weapons and equipment plus crates of spare ammo and explosives, had been sweating buckets. Not knowing what was waiting for him, as he clambered out of the vehicle, he and the other soldiers rushed straight towards the nearest piece of cover, at best a slight fold in the ground or a large rock. There was no firing. That was something at least.

  As soon as they were out, the Vikings turned and ground back off across the desert to take up their fire support positions, kicking up huge clouds of dust as they went. Ruecker thought, Glad to be out of those things, but I don’t like seeing them go. To some extent, in the middle of the desert, and with enemy potentially anywhere, the soldiers had come to think of these machines as life support, with their guns, their powerful communications, their supplies on board, their mobility and the armoured protection they provided.

  Looking around, Ruecker saw dozens of Afghan civilians – men, women and children, just sitting outside the village, in the open, in whatever shade they could find. Why have they left? He felt immediately apprehensive again and started scanning the area in and around the village through the sniper scope on his .338 long-range rifle.

  The people had seen the Vikings approach, and there were two possibilities: Taliban fighters were in the village, or they might soon be arriving. Either way they sensed a fight about to break out, and wanted to be out of the way when it did.

  4

  Major Aston sent interpreters to talk to the villagers, ‘Are there Taliban here?’

  The answer was always the same. ‘No, no Taliban. They left a few hours earlier.’

  You had to take it with a pinch of salt. They may not necessarily have wanted harm to come to these soldiers, but they all knew better than to talk to them truthfully about the Taliban. Self-preservation was understandably their top priority.

  5 Platoon pushed out towards the left-hand side of the village first, deployed across the open ground in half attack formation, spread out ready for an immediate assault if necessary, but positioned in such a way as to be ready to deal with enemy in any direction. Aston’s Tac HQ moved close behind, followed by 7 Platoon.

  Ruecker started as he heard shots ring out to his forward right. The platoon’s leading section had seen two men on motorbikes a couple of hundred metres away – possibly Taliban observers, informing other fighters of the British movement towards the village. The soldiers had fired warning shots to send them on their way. The motorbikes veered off and disappeared from view. Ruecker felt tense. The bikes were another sign that they were walking into danger. They were still in the open, and as a sniper he knew more than most how vulnerable that made them to enemy snipers.

  Both platoons had now reached the outskirts of the village. A few dispersed compounds interspersed with foliage and treelines crisscrossing the area. A different type of danger could reside here, but at least there was cover of sorts.

  The unnerving quiet was suddenly broken by a long burst of fire from a lone machine-gun. It was immediately joined by several other automatic weapons, firing into 5 Platoon to the front.

  Aston was immediately on the company net to Seal-Coon, 7 Platoon commander, ‘Three Zero, this is Zero Alpha, close up right behind One Zero, ready to support.’

  With the rattling, piercing sound of constant heavy gunfire ahead, Ruecker and the rest of 7 Platoon sweated their way forward along a ragged treeline. They quickly covered the 200 metres it took to get close enough to attack if 5 Platoon couldn’t deal with the problem.

  Seal-Coon, leading his men forward, could now see 5 Platoon, who had taken cover in a large compound. He dashed forward for a face-to-face with Howes, the commander of 5 Platoon, still under machine-gun and RPG fire. ‘Ben, I’m going to put my guys into that ditch. Can you give us a shedload of covering fire while we move across the gap?’

  As the troops moved forward, Aston said to the JTAC, ‘See if you can get me some air.’

  He turned to the FST commander: ‘Get the guns ready. We’ll use them if we can spot the enemy.’

  Then he heard Sergeant Major Snow’s measured voice: ‘Zero Alpha, this is Four Zero Alpha, we’re taking a fair bit of incoming up here as well. Machine-gun fire. It’s coming from the west. Permission to engage with mortars.’

  Aston always reserved authority to fire mortars, artillery or air for himself. Especially fighting in close country like this, where there was the ever-present risk of a blue on blue, or so-called ‘friendly fire’. He felt that only he would have all the information needed to be certain they would not be firing on their own troops.

  Snow sent grid references of the enemy positions he had identified, and Aston checked them with Corporal Wilsher, his MFC. They confirmed there were no friendly troops in the area of these grids, and then Asto
n said, ‘OK, Will, tell the mortars to fire on those targets.’

  Seconds after Wilsher rattled the fire mission into his radio, to Aston’s horror, he saw mortar shells exploding in and around 7 Platoon’s position.

  As the machine-gun fire kept pouring in, Ruecker and the rest of 7 Platoon had taken cover in a dry ditch bed. Ruecker was just sorting himself out into a solid fire position so that he could scan for enemy in the distance, when the mortars started pounding in. He flattened himself into the ground, knowing that, with jagged lumps of shrapnel scything through the air, just an inch less exposure could save his life. Parker, closer to the first impact, ran down the ditch towards Ruecker, trying to get away from the lethal explosions.

  In that instant, Corporal Stephan Martin, one of 7 Platoon’s section commanders, looked into Seal-Coon’s eyes. Without speaking, the two said: are these our own mortars? The two soldiers leapt forward into the ditch to escape the blasts. As he dived in, landing on top of Seal-Coon, Martin felt as if his arm had been ripped off his shoulder. He looked down and saw blood running down his sleeve. ‘I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!’

  Seal-Coon, terrified that their own mortars would cut his platoon to ribbons, screamed into his radio handset, ‘Check fire the mortars! Check fire. Check fire.’

  Two hundred metres away, Aston was shouting at Wilsher, ‘Stop those mortars, they’re hitting our own men.’

  Wilsher yelled back, ‘They’re not ours. We haven’t started firing yet.’

  7 Platoon were still under mortar fire, but Aston was momentarily relieved. Thank Christ they’re not ours, he thought, and he said, ‘Then get ours firing. On the grids I told you. And make sure of the grid. I don’t want to go through that again.’

  He said to his signaller, ‘Get on the net and find out from 7 Platoon if they have casualties.’