Attack State Red

by Richard Kemp

  ‘All right, Matty, shall I carry your Bergen up to your apartment, the bed’s already made for you,’ shouted one wit.

  ‘See you in the bar for a pina colada – that’s what you lads drink up at Kajaki, isn’t it?’ said another.

  After he had dumped his gear, set up his basha and checked on his men, Willan went to see who he could find from the FSG. The first person he bumped into was one of his best mates, Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, ‘Stephen, mate, how are you? Haven’t seen you for months.’ Willan always called Hawkins ‘Stephen’, after Professor Stephen Hawking.

  Even though they hadn’t seen each other in ages, there was little outward emotion in their greeting. Both were quiet, deliberately spoken men from rural Norfolk: easy going and understated in their day-to-day lives; but when they needed to flick the switch, they would turn instantly into fiery, hard and aggressive fighters. Both had demonstrated these attributes back home when their mates were in trouble in the pubs and clubs of Woking, Guildford or Norwich; and they had done so on a rather more serious level during numerous firefights in Helmand.

  The two men had joined the Army and the battalion at about the same time. As boys they were even Army Cadets together, and attended the same training camps, but had not known each other well. The two were very keen on maintaining the highest standards of physical fitness and back in Pirbright had often worked out together in the gym. They had also been students on the same Potential NCOs’ Cadre in Pirbright. The NCOs’ Cadre is a critical step for a soldier with aspirations to climb the promotion ladder in the battalion. It is an old adage that the rank of Lance Corporal is the most difficult to gain and the easiest to lose. They were both in agreement on the first part of this saying. The NCOs’ Cadre had been a testing six weeks, and the two had helped each other not only to pass, but to excel, by giving mutual encouragement during the arduous endurance battle tests, and helping each other revise before the important practical and written examinations.

  ‘How was Kajaki then, Matty?’

  ‘Good. We had our moments. Attacking the Taliban most days. We pushed their FLET back a fair way. I got quite a few rounds down myself. Blokes did brilliantly. All of them. And before you say anything, Steve, yes. Zeebrugge was like a five-star hotel.’

  ‘Bollocks, I was up there myself for a bit. The camp wasn’t that great. A lot better than this, though, I must admit. But you lot were always on the go, never stopped from what I could see. I reckon the time I spent up in Kajaki was about the busiest of the tour. That was my first kill, up at Kajaki.’

  Hawkins was a battalion sniper. After returning from the Iraq tour in 2005, he had volunteered for the sniper course. It was a tough course to pass, but Hawkins succeeded and in 2006 was awarded the coveted sniper badge.

  The two continued to chat under the red-hot sun, both pouring sweat even though Hawkins was clad only in running shorts and trainers – plus a thick layer of the ubiquitous Inkerman dust, broken up by rivulets of sweat. The conversation, as always, turned to home and to love life. Willan’s girlfriend was looking forward to qualifying at the end of her midwifery training at Barts Hospital in London. Hawkins updated Willan on his plans to marry his girlfriend, Louise, after the tour. He told Willan how he was trying to figure out whether marriage and his aspirations to undergo selection for the SAS would be compatible. As devoted as Hawkins was to the idea of joining the SAS, Willan knew him well enough to realize that, if both could not be achieved, it was going to be Louise who came out on top.

  3

  C Company’s first week at Inkerman was uneventful. The platoons patrolled each day, getting to know the area and learning the pattern of life. One major difference from Kajaki was that there was actually a civilian population here – the whole area around Kajaki was empty of civilians, with all the villages and compounds deserted except for Taliban.

  The troops were surprised at the lack of enemy activity after all the stories that had filtered through to them in Kajaki. They had heard about the vicious and high-tempo fighting in this area with A and B Companies. But they welcomed a bit of a break – it was an opportunity to draw breath after the frenetic time they had spent at Kajaki. Some of them joked that the enemy had pursued B Company up to Zeebrugge.

  Early on 24 July, Messenger received a secure email from Captain Phil Moxey, the battle group operations officer, based at Bastion. The message told him that, according to intelligence, Taliban fighters were going to be moving down the river on the west side from the north, crossing, and then heading south to Sangin.

  Carver and his staff in battle group HQ had been watching for signs of a counter-attack by the Taliban after they were driven out by Operation Ghartse Ghar. They had been surprised nothing had happened yet and were wondering whether this intelligence indicated the start of a reinfiltration, which could signal renewed attacks against Sangin and perhaps against Inkerman. Was this the start of the Taliban fightback, which was as certain to come as night was to follow day?

  Moxey requested that Messenger get eyes on to the crossing point, attempt to confirm whether the enemy were trying to move across the river, and if so to interdict them.

  The crossing area could not be observed from Inkerman, and Messenger needed troops close by in any case. He could call in air strikes, but at night he preferred to have direct, close-up visibility, and a capability to react immediately. As the intelligence contained no detail on likely timings, he decided to move a force to the crossing area as quickly as possible to get the best chance of intercepting the enemy fighters.

  Messenger quickly made a plan. Leaving the ANA platoon to guard the FOB and the FSG in reserve, 10 and 11 Platoons and Company Tac would deploy, establish observation on to the crossing point and be prepared to react if enemy were identified.

  The company patrolled out of Inkerman in the late-morning heat. After patrolling for two and a half hours through the grass and the maize fields, using irrigation ditches and treelines for cover, the troops arrived, sweating, tired and covered in dust, in the area of northern Jusulay, 500 metres from the crossing. Deep in the Green Zone, they took up overwatch positions in two compounds at a bend in the river. From rooftop positions, 10 and 11 Platoons watched a kilometre length of the river and saw nothing suspicious during the afternoon. This looked like another uneventful patrol.

  Around dusk, Sergeant Major Taylor arrived in a column of Vikings with a resupply of water and rations. Ormiston had accompanied the sergeant major in two FSG WMIKs and a Vector. They had brought a twoman surveillance team with Javelin command launch units.

  The CLU was the most powerful piece of observation equipment Messenger had available. The size of a portable TV and weighing 6.4 kilograms, the CLU was held with two handles and contained a thermal imager capable of turning night into day. Its optics had x4 and x9 magnification. Normally used for guiding a Javelin missile, for this task Messenger required the CLUs only for surveillance.

  The CLU teams were deployed to the platoon observation posts. The company sergeant major and his Vikings headed back to Inkerman, and Ormiston’s FSG vehicles moved out of the compounds to provide rear protection for the company.

  Later that night, Corporal Willan moved back to the FSG position to collect some new batteries for the CLU that was deployed with his platoon. In the dark he could make out the figure of Lance Corporal Hawkins sitting on the ground beside his Vector, eating from a ration bag. Willan squatted beside him. ‘How’s it going, Steve?’

  ‘Pretty boring. Anything happening up front?’

  ‘No, not a thing. I reckon this is another wild goose chase. Doubt we’ll be seeing anyone tonight. But you never know.’

  Wishing his friend a good night, he moved round to the back of the vehicle, collected the batteries and returned to his rooftop observation post, sweating from the exertions of his 200-metre round trip in the night-time heat.

  Later, Willan’s CLU operator showed him four black dots in his eyepiece. Four figures, heading down the hill towards the r
iver. He roused the platoon commander and told him, but no weapons could be identified, so it was impossible to know whether these were Taliban or local farmers. Willan continued to monitor their movement until they disappeared from sight.

  No other activity was identified during the night, and at first light the men packed their equipment into daysacks. The CLU teams returned to Ormiston’s vehicles, and the FSG headed back along the Jusulay track, which weaved its way across fragile mud bridges over the network of irrigation canals and ditches up to Inkerman.

  Messenger led the company in the opposite direction, intending to patrol down the river and beyond the crossing before eventually working their way back during the morning to Inkerman.

  The men had been walking for ten minutes when a huge, echoing boom rang through the valley, making them hurl themselves to the ground to get cover from what they thought must be a mortar or rocket attack.

  There were no further blasts. Messenger looked back in the direction of the explosion. A huge black smoke plume was rising above the eerie quiet of the Green Zone. He knew instantly that the smoke was coming from the area of the Jusulay track – at just about the spot the FSG vehicles would by now have reached.

  Messenger leapt to his feet. He took a deep breath and yelled into his radio, ‘Two Zero Alpha and Three Zero Alpha, this is Zero Alpha. Move towards the explosion.

  ‘All callsigns, move as fast as you can.’

  He shouted to the men of his Tac HQ, still lying on the ground, ‘On your feet and follow me! Let’s go!’

  As he ran he yelled into his radio mike, telling Captain Dave Hicks, the company 2IC back at Inkerman, to be aware of possible casualties and to start to stand up assets back at Bastion.

  4

  Fifteen hundred metres away, Private Harrison McCabe had been battered against the sides of the Vector as it was forced upwards by the explosion. Shocked, disoriented and deafened, he didn’t know what was happening. The Vector’s top hatch had been forced open by the blast. McCabe managed to stand up and shove his head out of the hatch to see what was going on. But the vehicle was engulfed in black smoke, which was now filling up the rear compartment where McCabe stood.

  He could see nothing, but he could hear Private Patrick Henning’s screams. He pushed open the back door, jumped out and ran round to the front, through the thick smoke and the acrid smell of burning. With him was Private Michael Smith, clutching his cracked ribs. Henning was still sitting in the driver’s seat, hands bleeding, engulfed in smoke, screaming, ‘Where’s Alex? Where’s Alex?’

  McCabe looked into the commander’s seat, where Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins had been sitting. He was not there. They dragged Henning out of the vehicle and then ran round to the other side to look for Hawkins.

  He was lying splayed out through the door, feet still in the foot well and his head under the chassis. McCabe and Smith pulled him clear and carried him away from the immediate danger of the smoking vehicle. Shaking and dazed himself, McCabe started to check Hawkins over. He looked bad. Blood was coming out of his mouth and nose, there was a bad wound to his neck, and his legs were bleeding. His jaw was swollen and looked broken. He was unconscious.

  McCabe and Smith put him into the three-quarters prone position. Drummer Jonathan Cucciniello and Lance Corporal John King, from the WMIK in front, raced back to help. McCabe put his fingers into Hawkins’s mouth to make sure his airway was clear then put his ear to his mouth. Hawkins was breathing – but very slowly. McCabe wanted to check for a response and started screaming at him, ‘Alex, Alex, can you hear me? Alex! Alex!’

  Hawkins seemed to murmur something, and his hand jolted.

  McCabe applied a field dressing to his bleeding neck, and then checked for his pulse. His own hands were shaking so much from adrenalin that he couldn’t find it.

  Messenger, an extremely fit soldier and natural runner, struck out fast in the direction of the smoke column. He called back at his Tac to keep up, but the gap between him and them was opening, with Messenger focused totally on getting himself to the FSG. As he ran, he heard the urgent voice of Captain Ormiston on the company net, ‘Contact. Explosion. Wait out.’

  It was 0530 hours. The sun was still coming up. Ahead of him the column of thick, black smoke was building and rising higher and higher. He ran between two racks of maize, head height. Tac was following, but they were way behind. He was isolated and hoped he wouldn’t encounter any Taliban. He didn’t know the ground well. He had no time to look at a map. He oriented himself on the hills to his left and the smoke plume ahead and just kept running – and wondering what he would find when he got to the track. Was it a mine? An IED? A mortar? Were there any casualties?

  His last question was answered seconds later when Ormiston again came on the radio: ‘Casualties. I have casualties. One times T One.’

  Messenger stopped. He was halfway to the explosion. He was soaked with sweat and breathless, but he didn’t care about that. He had got his platoons moving to the explosion but he hadn’t given them any direction beyond that. He needed to.

  What’s happening at the FSG? Ollie will be dealing with the casualties. He has team medics but no fully qualified medics. He will need security. We need CASEVAC.

  He rapidly fired out instructions on the radio: ‘All stations, this is Zero Alpha. Two Zero, you are to continue moving towards the explosion and you are to go north and provide security from there. Three Zero, you are also to continue moving to the explosion. You are to go south and secure. Both callsigns are to move your medics forward. Get them to the site of the explosion as quickly as you possibly can. All callsigns to be aware of the risk of secondary devices. Ensure you carry out full checks when you arrive. Two Zero and Three Zero, roger so far over.’

  One after the other, panting hard into their radios, the two platoon commanders answered, ‘Roger over.’

  Messenger continued, ‘Zero, this is Zero Alpha. Confirm MERT has been tasked and is on the way.’

  From the makeshift ops room back in Inkerman, Captain Hicks spoke calmly into the radio: ‘Correct. MERT tasked figures three ago. I will confirm when they are in the air.’

  Messenger was already on the run again, Tac closed in behind him, as he impatiently yelled back, ‘They better be in the air now if you tasked them figures three ago. Get a grip of them!’

  Hicks, a consummately professional and totally dependable operations officer, was fully in control of the CASEVAC efforts and didn’t need additional pressure from Messenger. But he was used to bearing the brunt of his company commander’s short fuze and knew how much pressure Messenger was now under. He replied, ‘Roger, will deal with it now. Out.’

  To Messenger’s flanks, 10 and 11 Platoon were going through an ordeal they would never forget. There was not a cloud in the sky, and even this early in the morning the heat was becoming intense. Underfoot the ground was uneven, broken up and often boggy, and chunks of thick, heavy mud clung to their boots. They had to leap or wade through ditches that were waist- and chest-high, and fight through maize fields and scrubby undergrowth. As always, they were weighed down by weapons, radios, helmets and body armour.

  Every man was carrying a heavier load of ammunition than usual, as the company had deployed ready to ambush Taliban fighters crossing the Helmand River. GPMG gunners were each carrying at least 1,500 rounds of 7.62 link and platoon sergeants had daysacks stuffed with twenty 51mm mortar bombs, alone weighing almost 18 kilos. They had just taken on more water, and each man carried 5 to 6 litres, weighing another 6 kilos. They had 1,500 metres of unrelenting Green Zone to cross, and they had to do it fast. The men did not know what lay ahead of them. But they knew there were casualties, and they knew that it was a life-and-death situation in which every second would count.

  At one point Willan thought he was running through a vacuum as the air was so thin, and he could hardly breathe. As he ran on and on, clambering over or crawling under felled trees, battling through boggy grassland and oozing mud, wading ditches, it remin
ded him of nothing more than the ‘steeplechase’, a gruelling physical test that every infantryman goes through during his basic training at the Infantry Training Centre, Catterick, in the moorlands of North Yorkshire. But he knew this steeplechase had an outcome even more serious than a possible bollocking from the platoon sergeant for not making his cut-off time and ‘letting down the whole platoon’. Willan knew that whoever was lying bleeding around the FSG vehicles, it would be one of his mates, because he had been in D Company for three years and he knew all of them. They were all his mates. But he didn’t dare to think about who the casualties might be.

  Messenger waded through a deep canal and dragged himself up the bank on the other side. He moved through the treeline and broke into open country. He had reached the Jusulay track and was astonished at the scene that confronted him.

  Beside the track were two compounds, one destroyed, rubbleized by an air strike. The other damaged but largely intact. In front of him was a WMIK, abandoned on the open track. Fifty metres ahead of it, just where the track began a steep rise, was the FSG Vector. It was buckled and smashed up. The smoke had dispersed, but fumes still rose from the vehicle, and there was a strong smell of burning. The front left-side wheel had clearly struck a mine and had been driven straight up into the passenger compartment. There was no one in sight and Messenger couldn’t hear a sound apart from his heavy breathing. Where the hell are they?

  Then soldiers were running everywhere, as the platoons started arriving and the medics moved forward to deal with casualties. Messenger walked past the vehicles and up the rise in the ground. The track turned ninety degrees, and there, behind a high bank, were Ormiston and the men of the FSG.

  Hawkins, covered in blood, was lying face up on the track, the ground around him strewn with medical wrappers. Kneeling astride him, dripping with sweat from the exertion, Corporal Andrew ‘Bomber’ Brown was thrusting his hands up and down on Hawkins’s chest. On his knees next to Hawkins’s head, rifle discarded beside him in the dust, Sergeant Steve ‘Spud’ Armon was breathing into his bloody mouth. They were giving him CPR – cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Brown pushed down on his chest thirty times, Armon breathed twice into his mouth. Again and again and again and again.