Attack State Red

by Richard Kemp

  Brown got on the net to Hicks, who had also seen the amazing spectacle. ‘Zero Alpha, this is Two Zero Alpha. There are at least five hundred. We’re definitely in for a hard fight any time now. That is the most obvious combat indicator I’ve ever seen in my life, over.’

  Captain Ormiston with the FSG was also on the radio, reporting that the leading elements of the refugees had reached the high ground in the desert and were now just sitting on their boxes, cases and bags, settling down to watch the fight unfold. He confirmed Brown’s estimate of at least 500 people.

  Hicks spoke to all the commanders on the radio: ‘All stations, this is Zero Alpha. I agree this looks like a fight ahead. We will continue pushing into the Green Zone. I want to probe to try to find out the scale of the enemy presence in this area. But I want to avoid becoming decisively engaged. All commanders are to do their best to remain balanced and not get drawn in. If we come into contact, we will cause as much attrition as we can and then extract.’

  Brown stopped an old man with a long grey beard. His interpreter showed the man a map and asked, ‘Where are the Taliban?’

  The man couldn’t make head or tail of the map, but pointed a long, crooked, leathery finger at a compound 200 metres away, through a field of maize. He whispered in Pashtu, ‘Allah protect you. Be careful,’ and hurried on his way, following the others into the desert.

  Well into the Green Zone now, Brown pushed his men forward across an open ploughed field, with a crop of high, golden maize to their left. Burdened down by the usual massive weight of ammunition, water and equipment, daysack straps cutting into their shoulders, boots already sodden from wading irrigation channels, the men were alert and poised for action, carefully scanning their arcs, fingers ready to flick off safety catches and blast back fire at the enemy.

  Brown and his radio operator were moving with the second fire team of his point section. The lead fire team, under Lance Corporal Michael Robinson, a sniper now acting as section commander, had just reached a wide irrigation ditch and were starting to wade across.

  No matter how many contacts you have been in, the opening shots always come as a shock, and Brown flinched as he heard the whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh as five RPG-7 missiles zipped above their heads, then exploded loudly just beyond, throwing up clods of dirt.

  As the men dived for cover a torrent of bullets fell all around them. The weight of fire was breathtaking and very, very frightening. Brown had never before, in Kajaki or here in the Green Zone, experienced anything as fierce. Pressing himself into a furrow, his first thought was, How are we not all dead?

  The rest of the platoon, 50 metres back across the field on a compound wall, under Corporal Tim Ferrand, opened fire across the maize field. They couldn’t see the enemy positions from where they were, but fired their machine-guns into the area to suppress. It wasn’t working, and if anything the enemy fire pouring in around Brown and the other five men in the ploughed field intensified.

  There was a sudden lull in the firing. Mag change, thought Brown and, yelling at his men to follow, ran faster than he had ever run before in his life. They dived into the canal and found themselves among Robinson’s fire team, chest deep in water.

  The enemy fire started up again, bullets cutting up the banks on both sides, and spattering into the water among them. Somehow, seeing the criss-crossing lines as bullets torpedoed through the water, passing right by their legs, made this even more terrifying than all the other contacts.

  Brown could hear Ferrand’s men, on the compound behind, rattling down fire. Again and again he called Ferrand on the radio, trying to find out where the enemy were. As always, at the crtitical moment, his radio wasn’t working, and neither was Robinson’s. This time, though, Brown didn’t curse the system that had supplied such unreliable comms equipment – they were deep in an irrigation ditch, and the radios were submerged.

  Brown and Robinson worked out roughly where they thought the enemy fire must be coming from, and ordered the UGL men to start hammering grenades up from the ditch.

  Brown tried to move down to where the ditch bent round, hoping to find a position where he could get eyes on the enemy. The channel was about 5 metres across and very fast-flowing. He moved towards the corner, but the current took him. He was being dragged straight towards the enemy position. Thinking he was almost finished, and would be shot or drowned – or both – Brown just managed to grab hold of a tree root sticking out of the bank and hauled himself to safety.

  Fifty metres back, Corporal Ferrand had pushed a GPMG gunner, Fijian Guardsman Jope Matai, together with Private Ed Garner, up on to the compound roof. The two men saw a group of fighters moving down the treeline towards them and opened fire, cutting them down with burst after burst of automatic fire. As soon as they opened up, enemy from another position began engaging them, and bullets started cracking into the solid earth roof. The soldiers pushed up against a 60-centimetre-high lip running round the roof, trying to get protection. It helped, but they had to raise themselves back up into the teeth of the enemy fire in order to continue engaging.

  Ferrand thought Brown and his men were all dead. He had seen them move into the irrigation canal, but then a mass of enemy fire had poured in on them. There had been no movement from the water, and not a word on the radio.

  Hicks arrived at the back of the compound, and Ferrand briefed him. Straight away Hicks spoke to Lieutenant Manie Olivier, 11 Platoon commander, and told him to move round from his position on the right, to support the extraction of Brown’s men – if they were still alive. He had called in air, which was now screaming towards them, but would not be able to use it or indirect fire immediately, as his troops were so close to the enemy. He needed Olivier to help them pull back and create a gap so that he could pound the enemy from above.

  By now Brown and Robinson had pushed their men up on to the canal bank and were hammering fire down across the maize field in the direction of the enemy. They managed to find covered positions just below the bank and behind a high earth berm next to it. The old infantry cry win the firefight reverberated in Brown’s mind. His men were doing their best to outgun the Taliban, but they were outnumbered, and the enemy were firing from well-concealed, carefully prepared and covered positions. Brown and his men had to move up to fire, get off a few bursts and then change position quickly to avoid getting hit by the torrent of lead that was raining down on them.

  About half an hour after he moved out of the ditch and behind the earth berm Brown’s radio crackled back to life. He called Hicks, who told him that Olivier’s men were on their way to help.

  Ten minutes later, Brown slid back into the canal and met Olivier, who was leading his men through the ditch. The two commanders had a brief discussion, then Olivier led 11 Platoon through Brown’s section and into a position where they could bring the maximum weight of fire to bear on the enemy.

  As 11 Platoon blasted fire into the Taliban positions, supported by Ferrand’s men firing from their compound, Brown and his section extracted, racing back across the ploughed field, keeping close into the maize to give cover from view. They ran as fast as they could, and Taliban fire crunched into the ground all around them.

  8

  Back at Ferrand’s compound, Brown’s men, shattered, soaked by filthy ditchwater and their own sweat, and amazed they were still alive, didn’t have time to draw breath. They clambered up on to the compound wall with Ferrand’s firing line and started to engage the enemy with their rifles and machine-guns to cover 11 Platoon in their extraction under fire.

  Hicks called Brown and Olivier together in the compound. ‘Well done, both of you. God knows how we didn’t get any casualties. There are a lot of Taliban out there. I now want to extract back to the desert. I don’t want to get committed here. The Taliban are still in the treeline leading up to the main canal. We’ve got to deal with them or we won’t get out of here. Manie, I want you to take 11 Platoon and clear through the treeline. Corporal Brown, leave some fire support here,
and move down with the rest of your men and secure a line of departure for 11 Platoon’s clearance. Let’s go.’

  Robinson’s section had just managed to clack a few mouthfuls of water, and then Brown led them back out of the compound, beside a wall and into the irrigation ditch leading towards the Taliban-infested treeline.

  They waded through the knee-deep water, struggling with the oozing mud which was trying to suck their boots deeper and deeper in. With the whole section in the ditch, the Taliban opened up on them from both sides. Brown and his men dived down into the water and hugged the banks, bullets smacking in close to them, closer than ever.

  Guardsman Jones, half-submerged beside Brown, looked at him and shook his head. The expression on his face said, We are going to die.

  Brown agreed, There’s no way out of this one.

  But he was not about to give up. He raised his eyes up to the lip of the ditch. There was maize either side and through the maize, about 7 metres away, he could see the enemy. All he could make out were the legs and flip flops of three or four men on either side. He crouched back down into the water and over the noise of gunfire pouring into the ditch, yelled out to the men. ‘They are just inside the maize, about twenty foot. They’ve got to have a mag change soon. When they do, front four up and fire to the right, the rest of us, fire left. Get ready. Any minute. Give it everything. Just blast them.’

  Just as Brown predicted, a few seconds later the firing stopped, and his men stood up and fired burst after burst of machine-gun and automatic rifle fire straight into the maize on both sides of the ditch.

  The enemy dropped where they stood, and Brown led the section splashing through the water, back to the compound. As he ran, Brown again wondered how anyone could have survived that onslaught – the fire had been even heavier than they had experienced a short time ago in the ploughed field. Not our time, just not our time. No other answer.

  That day was Robinson’s birthday, and as they ran back into the compound, Brown shouted, ‘Robbo, your luck can’t hold, mate. You’re going to die on your birthday.’

  ‘Oh my word,’ laughed Robinson, breathing hard, ‘not my death day as well as my birthday!’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s tidier like that.’

  While Brown had been in contact in the ditch, Olivier had led his platoon along a different route to clear the treeline, but when they got there the enemy had withdrawn.

  Ferrand’s men had seen signs of the enemy moving further into the maize field near the compound. They would need to suppress or kill them as they left.

  The Vikings and FSG, back up on the high ground, had started to fire machine-guns and GMGs into the maize, but Ferrand was horrified when their gunfire started splintering the compound door near his men. Their view into the area was badly obscured by foliage, and Sergeant Major Taylor got on the radio and ordered, ‘Check fire.’

  Hicks said to Brown, ‘11 Platoon are heading back direct out to the desert from where they are now, and we will move out from here. My Tac will go with your platoon.’

  ‘Roger that, sir. We need to suppress that field as we go, I will take care of it.’

  He turned to Ferrand, ‘Tim, make sure you’re ready to move, you take the platoon out, followed by Tac. I will be last to go and I’ll cover your back.’

  As the company got ready to break out of the compound, Brown ordered Guardsman Matai to come down from his position up on the roof with his GPMG. He said, ‘Matai, in a moment the company’s moving out. You and me will be last to go. We’re going to give them cover as they clear the open ground. When I say go, I will boot the door open in front of that field, and I want you to spray the whole field. Just spray everything. There’s definitely Taliban in there and we need to kill them all.’

  The big Fijian shook his head. ‘Bomber, I can’t do it.’

  Brown was incredulous. There wasn’t time for this. But he controlled himself. ‘What’s the matter, mate? Why can’t you do it?’

  ‘I cannot. I have killed too many today. I cannot do it.’

  Brown walked across the room and said to Lance Corporal Thomas, Matai’s section commander, ‘What’s he playing at?’

  Thomas said, ‘Bomber, he’s been up there killing Taliban all day. He’s had incoming all round him. He’s been really brave. He’s very religious and he thinks he has killed too many.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ said Brown, trying to keep calm.

  He turned back to Matai. ‘Here, mate, give me that gun, you take my rifle. You go with Tommo and the others.’

  Private Ed Garner, who had been on the roof with Matai, said, ‘Bomber, I’ll do it with you.’

  Ferrand led 10 Platoon and Tac out of the compound. At the precise moment they started to move, Brown booted open the compound door adjacent to the maize field, and he and Garner jumped out into the field, spraying their machine-guns into the maize. Standing in front of the doorway, each man fired a belt of 200 rounds and then turned and followed the platoon across the open ground and into the wadi that would lead them back to the desert.

  When they were almost clear of the Green Zone, the Taliban opened fire again, from a group of compounds to the right. 10 Platoon and Hicks’s Tac turned in an extended line and started firing back. The FSG and the Vikings also identified the enemy positions and rained machine-gun and GMG fire into the compounds.

  Hicks called in the air he had overhead, and a pair of A10s swooped towards the enemy, peppering them with 30mm cannonfire.

  Within minutes, all enemy fire had ended. The troops continued their movement back to marry up with the Vikings on the high ground.

  Brown again wondered how he and his men had got away with it. It had been without doubt the heaviest and most vicious series of contacts he had ever been in. He thought about Matai. The Guardsman had performed superbly all day, firing belt after belt from his GPMG. And he had worked like that since they arrived in Afghanistan – fearless and strong as an ox – one of the best, most effective GPMG gunners in the company.

  Brown thought, Well, Matai’s human. He did a little bit too much. He just needs a cup of tea and I’m sure he’ll be back in it again tomorrow.

  9

  By the time C Company had got back to Inkerman, Sergeant Matt Waters was there, having just returned from R and R. Waters was platoon sergeant of 11 Platoon, and he had flown back to the UK just as the company moved down from Kajaki. On his arrival back in Inkerman he was told he would be acting platoon commander of 10 Platoon until Lieutenant Sam Perrin finished his R and R.

  Waters wandered across to chat to his 11 Platoon soldiers. Under their cam-net, several of the lads, having shed their soaking uniforms, were dressed in shorts and flip flops, sitting on their camp beds cleaning weapons. As Waters walked under the cam-net, Private Tony Rawson, his arms covered in tattoos, jumped up with a huge grin on his face and shook his hand.

  Rawson was known by everybody in the battalion as ‘Nicey’. He had been given the nickname soon after he arrived in the battalion over three years previously, because he was so friendly, helpful and willing to go out of his way for everybody. Unlike most infantrymen, he would never play tricks on new recruits, but instead did everything he could to help them settle into their new life. He was a man who would do anything for anyone. At twenty-seven he was older than most privates, and he was well respected by all of the other privates as well as the officers and NCOs. A dedicated and professional soldier, he also had the nickname ‘the Colonel’, as after platoon ‘O’ Groups back in Pirbright he would keep all the privates back to give them his own semi-serious briefing. He had a superb sense of humour and was always good for morale, whatever the circumstances.

  After vigorously pumping the bemused Waters’s hand, he said, ‘Sarge, you war dodger, didn’t think we’d be seeing you out here again. Thought you’d find some reason to stay back on the rear party or something. ’Specially now we’re down here at Inkerman, where the proper war’s going on. I thought that was why you conveniently went on R and R ju
st when we moved here. Thought it was all a bit too stressful for you, what with you being a Poacher and everything.’

  Waters, who had started his Army career with the Royal Anglian Regiment’s 2nd Battalion, nicknamed ‘The Poachers’, just stood there shaking his head. Then he said, ‘Finished have you, Nicey?’

  ‘Actually, Sarge, no I haven’t. We were all wondering…’

  ‘Nicey, give it a rest, you twat. If I’ve got to put up with your verbal for the rest of the tour I might just try and get myself back on to the Rear Party. Never been on one in my life, but it would even be better suffering Major Stefanetti’s wrath than putting up with your verbal diarrhoea.’

  Major Dean ‘Stef’ Stefanetti was OC of the Rear Party back in Pirbright. A huge bear of a man, and a tough and professional soldier, he had risen from the rank of private in the battalion and was much feared by all ranks – including sergeants.

  ‘Any old excuse for dodging the war, eh, Sarge?’

  ‘Nicey – I don’t know how you can talk like that, mate. You spend all your time on patrol taking cover when you don’t need to. I’ve never known anyone to spend so much time on the ground in fire positions when there’s no Taliban anywhere near.’

  Rawson had a knack on patrol of always tripping over tree-branches, logs, rocks and anything else that appeared in his path. When attempting to leap even the narrowest irrigation ditch, he almost invariably fell in.

  ‘That’s professionalism, Sarge. At least I get into fire positions. I’m not afraid of getting into the mud or the water. Trouble with you rank is you all think you’re bullet-proof. You’re lucky you’ve got lads like me out here to look after you, eh, Sarge?’

  Waters grinned. ‘How about that time up in Kajaki, then, Nicey, when that A10 strafed right next to us instead of the enemy? The look on your face. I’ve never seen anything like it. Horror. Horror is the only way to describe it. Sheer horror, Nicey. Don’t know why you were worried anyway. Look at the size of you. There’s no way anyone’s ever going to hit you, Nicey.’