Ross Kemp on Afghanistan Page 17

  Nick stood in front of the men and indicated a large military satellite map of Musa Qala. You could clearly see the convergence of the two wadis, and the DC where we were stationed. Every compound in the town, and there were several hundred of them, was individually numbered so that they could be easily identified, especially by fast air when the necessity arose for a bomb to be dropped accurately.

  Nick explained that the four-day op was the longest they had yet embarked upon. The going would be difficult: the green zone would be filled with fields of maize a couple of metres high and in certain areas the soldiers' vision would be restricted to 5–10 metres. It would give the Taliban ample opportunity to hide and ambush. The enemy would definitely be in the vicinity, so we could expect what Nick called ‘a considerable amount of activity’. I'd been in the green zone enough to know what that meant. ‘Hopefully,’ Nick concluded, ‘we can give them a good bloody nose by the end of the four-day op.’

  Hopefully indeed.

  I took the opportunity to grab some one-on-one time with Nick Calder. I wanted to know how soon after leaving the DC we could expect to come under fire from the Taliban. Within about 2.5 klicks, he estimated. Not a huge distance, although I knew it would take a long time to walk. Not only would the patrol have to zigzag through the town, but in the rough terrain of the green zone you can hardly walk a few paces without twisting your ankle. The going can be both painful and painfully slow. Nick predicted that we were going to get dicked from the moment we left the DC, and that the Taliban would have a good idea of just where we were at any given moment. As we headed north, the contacts would be sporadic but frequent.

  He was right about that.

  Delta Company were four months into their tour of duty. Before I went out with the men, I wanted to get to know a few of them. They were incredibly welcoming to us – this was largely down to the fact, I think, that most of them had watched the first series. Some of the lads had put up a Queen Vic sign, and they'd got hold of a promotional picture of me which they'd stuck on to a Page three girl. So now, instead of reading Ross Kemp on Gangs it read Ross Kemp on Porn. Pretty basic humour, but well meant and we hit it off immediately. As we sat round together, I was shocked by how thin they all looked. Too thin, some might say, to be fighting. Nearby there were seventy or eighty Americans, separately billeted. They were buff – well fed and fit as you like. Every week or so, a couple of Sea Kings would fly in and deliver fresh food for the US troops. It was maddening to see how much better treated the Americans were. That was something that hadn't changed in a year. I would soon learn, though, that even if the Jocks – as 5 Scots refer to themselves – weren't the biggest men in the world, they were some of the toughest in a fight.

  The youngest of their number, Private Nigel Campbell who looked like a young Gordon Brown, was eighteen. He had the bearing of a much older man. He spoke with pride about the fact that when he'd gone home on R and R, he was the only one of his friends who was actually doing something with his life. I wondered how the lads felt about the Taliban. They spoke in terms of respect. They were a good enemy, hard fighting and brave to take on the ISAF troops, especially with the assets they had at their disposal. Sergeant George McCafferty told me a story of Taliban being attacked by Apache helicopters overhead and taking them on with RPGs. Either brave or stupid, but certainly formidable. The Taliban were well organized, I was told, and trained. One particularly worrying example of this was that they had started putting anti-personnel mines and IEDs in the ditches that criss-cross the green zone. They had learned that when a soldier is under fire, he will dive for the nearest cover and the ditches served that purpose. In order to warn the local population about the presence of the IEDs, the Taliban would leave markers nearby. But these were difficult to see in the heat of battle; moreover, the enemy normally placed them on the opposite side of the IED to the direction from which they expected our troops to approach. It added a new sheen to the whole business and I was beginning to think that the enemy's skills had come on a bit since I was last out here.

  But, as ever, what struck me most was the soldiers' camaraderie. Sergeant McCafferty stated that his platoon were the best soldiers he'd met in his fifteen years in the army; he knew that when they were ‘in the shit’, which they had been a lot lately, each could rely on his mates. I came away thinking that 5 Scots had had a particularly brutal time of it; and I was starting to become even more concerned about the wisdom of going out on patrol with them the following day.

  In the event I got a stay of execution. Temperatures the next day were nudging 50 degrees and it was decided that we should stay at base for a while longer to acclimatize. So it was that I watched Delta Company step purposefully out of the DC, tooled up with their weapons systems – the GPMGs, Minimis and SA80s. Even though they looked like they were carrying too much lead for their thin bodies, they were a formidable-looking force and I knew from having spoken to a few of them that they were ready to meet whatever was thrown their way.

  I would follow the next day when they were resupplied, and would spend the next three days with them while they were doing their job: fighting the Taliban.

  Delta Company's foray into the green zone was dubbed Operation Cap Fox. I was to join them on day two, but word came in before we left that they'd already had contact with the Taliban. It was an apprehensive Mr Kemp who donned his body armour and helmet in preparation for the trip.

  The men of 2 Scots were to drive us north in their Mastiffs. The Mastiffs would resupply Delta Company and drop us off, and the joys of war would begin. 2 Scots – the Royal Highland Fusiliers – are an infantry battalion, but for their deployment in Helmand they had been turned into an armoured vehicle unit. As I'd noticed before, in the army you get what you're given and you do what you're told. They had adapted to their new role amazingly well, given that their pre-deployment training involved driving Land Rovers around Salisbury Plain. It was a relief to know, however, that they would be transporting us to our positions in Mastiffs, rather than the Vikings so common during my last visit. There had been Mastiffs last year, but not enough. This had changed and rightly so: these vehicles had made a huge difference to the troops, as their V-shaped undercarriages were designed to deflect the blast of mines and IEDs. The Taliban were adding more explosives to their devices; but in any case, having seen the damage a mine could do to a lesser vehicle – not to mention the men inside it – I was very pleased to have the benefit of this extra protection.

  Just after 14.00, and in the relentless, burning heat, our convoy trundled north along the dried-up wadi under the protection of fifty-cals and grenade machine guns, kicking up dust as it went. Inside the Mastiffs, little monitors displayed camera footage of the surrounding area. There were very few people, at least in eyeshot. In the distance beyond the town rose the craggy peaks of what the British had dubbed Mount Doom. Occasionally we stopped and the guys brought out the metal detectors to sweep the wadi for mines. Soon enough, though, the time came to disembark. It's always a dangerous moment: no doubt the enemy had watched the convoy approach. While we were moving, we were encased in steel; but as soon as we stepped outside, we were vulnerable. Admittedly we had a guy on top with a fifty-cal machine gun but that, as I well knew, wasn't always enough to stop the Taliban having a pop.

  On RV'ing with Delta Company, the plan was to zigzag further north until we reached an area known as the Garden. Here the vegetation was so thick that spotter planes simply couldn't see into it, which meant that it was an ideal place for the Taliban to congregate. They couldn't just artillery the Garden because there were also Afghan nationals living there, whom the Taliban used as cover. The only way to identify the enemy was to go in on foot and draw them out.

  First, though, we had to make contact with Delta. They had taken cover in a compound on the edge of the wadi, and it was here that we caught up with them. Nick Calder described to me the circumstances of their contact with the enemy that morning: there were two confirmed enemy deaths and another
had been seen limping away. He grinned at me almost cheekily. ‘A reasonably good day,’ he observed.

  But the day wasn't over yet, as the Icom chatter confirmed. Icom chatter can be a blessing and a curse. No one would want to be without it, but the Taliban, who know we listen in, are cute enough to plant red herrings and try to obscure what they're saying. The melons are ready. A phrase like that can play on your mind. What does it mean? Has an IED been planted? Has an ambush been set up? Or are, in fact, the melons just ready, and the Taliban are taking the piss? Interpreting the Icom is a skill in itself.

  On this occasion, the chatter suggested that the Taliban knew where we were and at that moment were preparing to attack us with RPGs. Delta Company's compound wasn't safe any more. We were a marked target and it was time to get out.

  We stepped gingerly into the fields of maize, acutely aware that an ambush could happen at any time. These fields are particularly treacherous. Anyone or anything can hide in those high crops; the Taliban would be able to hear us coming and they would be able to see us too on account of the antennae from our lads' comms equipment. The enemy could just spray rounds indiscriminately across the field and have a pretty good chance of hitting a soldier. I expected to hear the burst of AK fire at any second.

  We reached the Garden. More Icom chatter: the Taliban still knew exactly where we were and they were preparing to attack. Sweat poured from my body; my mouth went dry with that familiar feeling of terrified excitement.

  I'd only been on the ground for a matter of half an hour and already I could sense that a contact was minutes away…

  14. The Garden

  We crept through the Garden. Ahead of me was Sergeant Danny Carter; behind me was the cameraman and Stevie Rae. The TAC were to our right. Sweat dripped from my nose. You could tell it was about to go off because of the silence.

  No one spoke unless it was necessary, and even then only in a tense, hushed whisper. Danny Carter relayed some intelligence. ‘The Taliban are in the Garden.’

  My pulse rate increased.

  ‘They know we're walking into their line of fire.’

  Silence. The calm before the storm?

  We pushed forwards along an irrigation ditch on the side of a maize field. There wasn't much cover.

  And then it came.

  I hadn't missed that sound, the noise of a round whizzing over your head, dangerously close. ‘Get down!’ I shouted at the cameraman, but I needn't have. Everyone around me hit the dirt, though the soldiers did not hug the ground quite as enthusiastically as me. That first round was like a trigger: in an instant the air was filled with the firecracks of weaponry.

  A boom.

  ‘IDFs!’ Danny shouted. Indirect fire. We all pressed ourselves further against the earth as the Taliban's mortars flew randomly into the Garden. And then…

  ‘RPGs!’ I heard the whoosh as they went over us. ‘Fuck!’ someone shouted. ‘That was close!’ And when a soldier says that, you know it was.

  The Taliban were no more than 30 metres away and we were pinned down. I knew that the enemy had their sights on us in particular because I could hear the sound of their AK-47 rounds cutting the maize 7 inches above my head. My pack was so big it was being used as a target, so I rolled over onto my side so that the plates of my body armour were facing the incoming fire. Rounds zipped over my hip, which flinched from the air pressure. It was perhaps the closest I've ever come to being shot. The FOO was shouting, ‘Enemy there! Enemy there!’ We were caught between the flanks of an L-shaped ambush.

  Staying put wasn't an option. The longer you sit still during an ambush, the greater your chance of being scoped out. Danny decided that we should advance through the enemy's fire. We started to crawl along a small trench that divided the maize field from a compound wall. For a moment it felt that the firing was no longer aimed at us. Then two rounds came very close. We couldn't move. ‘Fuck, that was close!’ We started to laugh – a way, I suppose, of releasing the tension that had been building up over the past few minutes. The laughs didn't last long. Another AK round whizzed above our heads again. We were once more in somebody's sights and needed to keep moving. ‘Keeping fucking low!’ came the instruction. I did as I was told.

  The air was full of lead and it was almost a fluke that we hadn't been hit. Danny made the decision that we should get into the ditch itself which meant making ourselves that little bit more exposed as we climbed out of the cornfield and into it. By now it was a two-way range but that didn't help us. The ground shook as the IDF grew closer. I felt my pack weighing down on me as we crawled through the marshy bog of the irrigation ditch. My clothes and boots were soaked with warm mud, and something else too: human shit, putrefying in the heat. Not something I'd have chosen to crawl though, but frankly that was the least of my problems. The pungent smell of fresh mint hit my senses – a delicious, fragrant smell but one that created a strange counterpoint to the turds and to the battle raging all around me. Roast lamb will never be the same again. The enemy were still on two sides of us, rounds were still flying, getting closer. I turned to camera. ‘Here I am again,’ I said, ‘in Afghanistan, in a ditch.’ A round whizzed close by my head again. ‘Oh, fuck off!’ I said in a slightly camp voice.

  We had to keep pushing on, despite the fact that we were clearly in the sight of their snipers. More than once the call came to get down, either because of a burst of AK fire, or because of mortar or RPG attack.

  On TV, it looks like we were in that ditch for five minutes. In fact it was more like 35 as we slowly crawled on our hands and knees. The ditch ended with a small bump which we had to go over, so making ourselves momentarily more exposed. We reached a place where two compounds joined and there was a covering wall where we thought we could take cover. Other members of Delta had made it there and it represented safety, for a while at least. But in order to reach it we had to cross several metres of open ground: a dangerous operation when Taliban snipers know where you are. But there was no point waiting. I pushed myself to my feet and ran like hell.

  It's hard to describe the relief of getting to those walls, or the thrill of knowing we'd made it through an ambush alive. We were still surrounded, of course, but with the high walls of the compound we had better cover. A chance to get our breath and wipe the sweat from our faces.

  It had been quite a welcome back to Afghanistan.

  I asked Danny to give us a sit rep. The Taliban had four different firing points, but Delta had advanced towards their positions nonetheless. To the east, another platoon was under mortar fire. As I tried to light the cigarette – a real Afghan lung-gasper – of Private Govern, who was crouched against the wall next to me, the Taliban opened fire on our positions. An AK round ricocheted off the wall and passed inches from my outstretched hand. Jesus. Even the safe places weren't safe. We had to change our position and take refuge in the cover of a nearby wall.

  It was while we were here that the word came through to expect an artillery strike. Forward Operating Base Edinburgh was about 7 klicks away on the other side of the wadi. Delta believed, thanks to the Icom chatter, that they had located the compound from which most of the incoming fire was originating. More importantly, observers believed that the Taliban commander who was directing the rest of the forces was stationed here. Take him out, and it would leave the men on the ground without any instructions. We braced ourselves for the sound of artillery shells being rained into the compound.

  I looked around me. The men were exhausted. I saw one of Delta Company's snipers. He was used to being in a fire support position, away from the actual thick of the fighting. No less a soldier, of course, but practised at a different job. This was his first time on the ground. He had what is known among the men as the ‘1,000-yard stare’, an unfocused gaze of shell-shocked disbelief common to anyone new to the stress of close combat. It wouldn't be helped, I thought, by the whistle and boom of the artillery shells. They slammed into the Taliban compound with a crash that shook the whole ground. We waited for the
last of them to hit their target and then, inevitably, we continued moving forward.

  For a while there was silence as a whole group of us crept along the wall of the compound. For a short while. It was punctured by the blistering noise of what sounded to us like mortar fire. We were under attack again. Urgently we took cover in the nearest building. Only when we were under shelter did the word come through: the boom had not been mortar fire at all but American F-16s, dropping bombs on another Taliban compound. ‘Calm doon!’ Danny's broad Scottish voice rose above the nervous chatter of the soldiers. ‘Calm fucking doon!’

  We took the opportunity to rest and listen to the F-16s and the continuing artillery strikes. Each time they hit the target, I felt my whole body shake, my bones rattling against my body armour. Not the guys around me, though. They hardly blinked. You could tell just by looking at them as they sat louchely on the ground, smoking cigarettes with their backs against the walls, that this was something they dealt with every day. That isn't to say, however, that there weren't a few more 1,000-yard stares. Maybe it was something to do with the adrenaline rush of the contact: it makes your eyes bulge, your eyesight better and your senses more acute – the human body's natural reaction to danger.

  19.00. The Taliban guns had fallen quiet. Darkness was approaching. Nobody was complacent stuck out here in the green zone; there was a general expectation that the Taliban were less likely to attack after nightfall, although Nick Calder said – as calmly as though he were discussing a game of bowls – that there was the possibility of a small contact before sundown so that the Taliban could make it clear that they knew where we were. So that was something to look forward to, then. Nick did not seem remotely fazed by what had gone before. Tomorrow, he said, they would try to outflank the Taliban and continue pushing north. Such relentless, ruthless professionalism: when most people would be begging to go home for tea and buns, Nick was plotting how to continue the scrap and win.