Ross Kemp on Afghanistan Page 7

  For three hours we stayed there. Three long, hot, nervous hours. Eventually we saw the dust clouds in the distance that meant A Company were catching us up. The convoy came to a halt and the Regimental Sergeant Major, Ian Robinson, approached us. He wore a serious expression: the kind of face that instantly told us he had bad news.

  In fact the news was more than bad. It was the worst. The operation had claimed its first T4.

  One of the Vikings had been involved in a mine strike. Corporal Darren Bonner, A Company's lead signaller, was dead.

  Darren Bonner – ‘Big Daz’ to his mates – was thirty-one years old. He had been in the army for fourteen years and was engaged to be married. I was later to see footage filmed by the soldiers of A Company of the damage that had been done to Corporal Bonner's vehicle. It was genuinely shocking, a bleak scene of devastation.

  As soon as I heard the dreadful news, a riot of emotions passed through my mind. Sorrow, obviously, for the death of this young man I didn't know but with whom everyone in the regiment felt an attachment not only because he was one of them but also because he was a popular guy. Sorrow for his family. And the sense of unreality there is whenever someone dies: it didn't seem possible that one of the lads setting out from Camp Bastion that morning had seen his last sunrise, that his life had been brought to such an abrupt halt. There were more selfish reactions too, if I'm honest. Reactions like: A Company's convoy were travelling over the same ground that we had just covered. We must have just missed the mine. But for the indiscriminate hand of fate, that could just as easily have been us. And then there's the anger. I could sense it in everyone. The enemy had killed one of our men and every member of that convoy wanted to make them pay for what they had just done.

  Ian Robinson, as the NCO in charge of battlefield casualties, was clearly affected by what had happened. But as I spoke to him I could tell that the events of that morning had not weakened his resolve or distracted him from his duty. ‘We're going to push on as normal,’ he told me. ‘We've still got a job to do, we've got all these boys to get to their assembly areas, their lines of departure, and that's what we're going to do. It's difficult for those blokes that were there but unfortunately it's the reality of what we're here doing.’

  There was not a cloud in the piercing blue sky, but there was a metaphorical one hanging over the convoy as we started moving again. Quite by chance, the remnants of Darren Bonner's Viking were towed by the vehicle in front of us: a very obvious and poignant reminder that this was a most dangerous journey.

  It felt less like a military convoy and more like a funeral procession as, three hours later, we approached our destination for that day: Forward Operating Base Robinson. It had taken us fourteen hours to travel the 75 kilometres from Camp Bastion to here and we were emotionally and physically exhausted. This was just the beginning of the operation, however. The following day we were to push north into enemy territory. So far Lastay Kulang had been tiring enough, and for myself and the crew the operation hadn't even begun.

  We needed some sleep. Putting the camera away, we tried to get our heads down and not contemplate too much what the following days would bring.

  6. Tethered Goats

  Morning took a long time to come in that godforsaken place. FOB Rob is like a shit sandwich without the bread. It's a piece of mud with a load of shit in the middle and a piece of mud on top. It stinks of diesel and is surrounded by Hesco and barbed wire. It derives its name from an American soldier, Staff Sergeant Christopher Robinson, who was killed nearby in 2006. It regularly comes under attack by the Taliban and in truth it is little more than a small area that ISAF forces are able to defend in order for troops in the region to be restocked with supplies.

  We weren't allowed to make any fires that night because of the large amount of diesel that had been spilled over the ground. We ate cold rations – some kind of unappetizing lamb stew that did little to cheer us after the strains of the day. I tried to spend a bit of time by myself. I needed it. One person dead already, and the dread certainty that this unwelcoming place in the middle of the Helmand desert really wasn't for me. What the fuck, I wondered as the stars started to emerge, had I got myself into?

  And of course I thought about Darren Bonner. If the rest of us had had a bad day, what sort of day had he had? That put things into perspective somewhat.

  I couldn't sleep. We rose early and by 06.00 FOB Rob was hot, dusty and full of activity as the soldiers of A and B Companies prepared to make the journey to the town of Sangin. It wasn't far, but the route had been the scene of some of the company's fiercest fighting to date. And Sangin itself had seen more than its fair share of fighting. In the summer of 2006, 3 Para had responded to a distress call from Afghan officials and were Chinooked into Sangin to deal with the Taliban who had overrun the town. They took up positions in a compound which became their home during a prolonged siege. Outnumbered and on the verge of being overrun, the soldiers had to call in repeated air strikes at great risk to themselves to keep the enemy at bay. They renamed this siege ‘The Alamo’.

  It was here that Keith Nieves's Viking had hit a landmine – indeed as we slowly made our way towards the outskirts of Sangin, we passed the scarred remains of that vehicle. After the mine strike an Apache attack helicopter had launched a Hellfire missile into the Viking to deny it to the enemy. It's very important that none of our military kit falls into the hands of the Taliban: they can't be allowed to parade it in front of the locals and make it seem as if they are winning the war; nor can they be allowed to gain intelligence about the weaponry and other equipment. There was no chance of that happening now: the Viking was little more than a metal casing, the sort of thing you'd see at a scrap yard. It looked to me like some kind of voodoo sign, warning us to keep the hell away. Unfortunately keeping away simply wasn't an option.

  The outskirts of Sangin were like a ghost town. We were told by Tim Newton that the previous day when we arrived at FOB Rob the streets had been full of locals. Our appearance had encouraged them to leave. It looked as if they had just dropped everything and scarpered. Clearly they knew our advance was a prelude to something and I couldn't help wondering what that augured for the battle for hearts and minds. Certainly, if the ISAF troops were in Helmand Province to aid reconstruction, one look at Sangin would suggest they weren't having much success. For a kilometre around Sangin DC – the military base there where we were to lay up for the remainder of the day before preparing for a dawn attack – the town appeared to be totally destroyed. It was apocalyptic, nothing but an expanse of rubble, on account of the many thousands of pounds of explosives that had been dropped on the area. Buildings had collapsed in on each other; concrete reinforcing rods pointed dramatically up to the sky. It looked as if the whole town had been bulldozed. We might not be able to see any actual people, but just one glance at the devastation around us made it quite clear that this was a very, very dangerous place.

  We came to a halt at Sangin DC, a grim fortification surrounded by Hesco and huge, winding tunnels of barbed wire. The air temperature had risen back up to its usual 50 degrees. Even though the journey from FOB Rob had been a relatively short one, we were all hot and tired. Near our base there was a section of river where the lads and I were able to strip off and cool down – the first wash some of them had had for four weeks. A very kind soldier lent me a pair of his desert shorts (sorry, mate, I've still got them – don't lend me anything…) so that my modesty was preserved and any unseen Taliban snipers were denied the temptation of playing target practice with a different kind of privates on parade. I strode gratefully into the cool river with the rest of the guys.

  We had to be careful: the water was fast moving and if you allowed the current to wash you downstream you would very soon end up in the heartland of Taliban territory. And if that happened, you could bet your boots that they wouldn't throw you a rubber ring. No doubt it was not the cleanest, most hygienic stretch of river in the world; no doubt there are safer places to go for a dip, an
d more picturesque ones too; but in that scorching midday heat I relished every minute.

  The water was refreshing but there was nevertheless a pervasive smell in the air. It didn't take the lads long to find out where it came from. Not far from the river there was a pit of sorts that had been dug for some reason – probably to bury rubbish. Don't ask me why or how, but it seemed to have been filled instead with human piss. You can only imagine what the smell in that burning heat was like when you got up close. Astonishingly there were frogs living in that malodorous lake of urine – how they managed to survive there I simply do not know. The afternoon's sport, once the guys had had a dip and a bit of a scoff, was to collect rocks and hurl them at the frogs swimming around in the pond of piss. Ribbit, ribbit. Splash. Simple pleasures. There was an unpleasant foam of scum over the top of the pond and of course there were certain lads among our number who couldn't resist throwing the rocks in such a way that they splashed their mates with this foamy soup. Not the most sophisticated of pastimes; but then I guess they couldn't just kick back and watch the telly. It was the sort of thing bored kids might do, and of course a lot of the regiment still were kids.

  Their orders were as follows. A and B Company would separate. A Company would lay up above the village of Putay; B Company would head east and lay up in the hills above Jucaylay for the night. There was no doubt that the Taliban knew we were coming, and even roughly where we were, but we didn't want to reveal our exact location – which was about 5 klicks, or kilometres, outside Sangin – so, as we pitched camp in the darkness of the desert, all lights and fires were forbidden and we were ordered to keep noise to a minimum. Our vehicles formed a protective circle, while the Fire Support Group used night vision from their vantage point at a distance from us to make sure we weren't attacked or mortared. Mick Aston came and gave us a brief outline of what would happen the next day. He was calm and reassuring.

  The silence of the desert closed in on us. There was a low hum of voices all around as last-minute preparations were made for our dawn attack. But after a while there was nothing anyone could do but wait.

  And wait.

  As I sat there in the desert it occurred to me that what we were doing was something that had happened from time immemorial: men, sitting round their wagons, waiting to go to war the next day. The Greeks had done this at the walls of Troy; the English and the French had done this on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. It wouldn't do for me to compare myself with those soldiers, but in one way, at least, I now knew something of what they had gone through. I understood something of the unnerving sensation a man feels the night before he's going to come under fire.

  The lads sat around in little groups. I could hear some of them cracking jokes and I could tell that for others there was a sense of false bonhomie. Of nervousness. And of excitement. I understood how they might feel that. Half of me wished dawn was upon us; half of me wished it would never come. It's a weird feeling, knowing that you are willingly going to war, that in the morning you're going to be shot at and possibly killed. I knew, as I waited for the time to pass, that this was a night I would never forget for the rest of my days.

  I tried to distract myself from the prospect of morning's inevitable arrival by lying on the stony earth, resting my head on my backpack and gazing up at the spectacular canopy of the stars. It was breathtakingly beautiful: in the absence of any ambient light the constellations shone like beacons and it looked almost as if there was less darkness than there were stars. It was a rare moment of stillness. Of peace.

  It was the quiet before the storm.

  In Africa, if you want to catch a lion that has been killing all your animals, this is what you do. You hammer a stake into the ground and to the stake you tie a goat. Around the goat you make a ring out of whatever bush happens to be available, making sure that there is only one way in. Then you hide. The lion will hear the goat in distress and come to investigate. It will attack. And while it's feasting on its prey, if you're brave enough, you spear and kill the lion.

  It's called the tethered goat strategy but its usage is not limited to Africa. It's not limited to goats either. It's a common military tactic and it was this strategy we were about to embark upon. In this case, however, the lion was the Taliban; the bush ring was the green zone of Jucaylay; and B Company were the goat. The hope was that by engaging the Taliban we could bring them out into the open so that our ‘assets’ – heavy artillery, attack helicopters and fast air – could act like the African's spear and hopefully kill the enemy. It sounded to me like a dangerous way to pass the time, so it was little wonder that I woke nervously just before dawn on day three of Operation Lastay Kulang. I had been woken by the ‘pre-barrage’ – the whistle of artillery shells being fired from FOB Rob into Putay before A Company's attack on the village. It set the tone for the rest of the day.

  We got dressed in the dark, packed our kit away in the dark, put our body armour away in the dark. As the sun rose we were allowed to boil a brew and cook some beans and sausages on a Hexi stove and then I felt the urge for a pre-battle crap. I padded down into a nearby ravine and started to do my business. Of course, that meant it was time for everybody in B Company to come and take a photo of me squatting. I started throwing stones at them but to no avail: my posterior was recorded for posterity.

  It was just after dawn that we entered our vehicles and started to approach the outskirts of Jucaylay. The convoy kicked up a massive dust cloud, so we knew there was no way the Taliban would not realize where we were or that British soldiers were on their way. They knew we were coming. And they knew, too, that we hadn't arrived to shake their hands and make them a cup of tea. All around us were poppy fields and as we made our approach I caught glimpses of the green zone, the fertile area around the river where the Taliban would be congregating in force. We wouldn't be able to use our vehicles, however. The green zone was too boggy and soft for that. It meant leaving the relative safety of my Pinzgauer and, along with everyone else, walking to the green zone.

  Major Mick Aston was in command of the attack. As our convoy came to a halt and we prepared to continue on foot, he ordered the camera team to join him as we moved down into Jucaylay. We were instructed to walk 6 metres from each other. This was important: bunch up and we would present an easy and obvious target for the Taliban.

  It was still early, but already hot. We walked for about a kilometre until we hit the edge of the green zone. It's amazing how sharply this area of irrigated land is delineated from the surrounding desert: you go from stony sand to lush, verdant vegetation in a matter of a few paces. Or, to put it another way, from safety to danger in the blinking of an eye.

  Ordinarily, the green zone would be bustling with activity. There would be adults working in the fields, children playing. But as I stood there, sheltered by a high mud wall, it became clear that the area was almost deserted. This led us to believe that the Taliban had ordered everyone to get out. They understood that there was going to be a contact; hence the unnatural, spooky silence.

  The silence wouldn't last long.

  Lieutenant George Seal-Coon interviewed an old boy we passed with a dog. He said he hadn't seen or heard anything. I couldn't help feeling he might not be telling the truth. His dog started barking, along with all the other dogs tethered in the nearby compounds. If the dust storm we'd kicked up hadn't given away our position, these barking dogs certainly had.

  We knew the Taliban would be hiding in the trenches and irrigation ditches of the green zone. We knew, as we walked in, that this was the perfect place for an ambush.

  We followed the line of soldiers across poppy fields and other wide expanses that made me feel uncomfortably vulnerable. We walked past a compound in the cover of an irrigation ditch. From the ditch we had to step out into a raised cornfield that had been harvested and was now simply an expanse of stubble. Ahead of me was a soldier called Cookie; in front of him was the forward observation officer (FOO). Behind me was sound man James and cameraman Andrew. Though
we knew the Taliban were close, we didn't know just how close: in fact they were crouched on the opposite side of the cornfield and it was from here that the first RPG was launched. It went straight over my head.

  I'd never been shot at before, so I didn't know what to expect. I heard the sudden whoosh of the air pressure – imagine a football the size of a garage flying in your direction. I felt it too. Instinctively I hit the ground, allowing my feet to kick backwards before falling into a kind of face-down crucifix pose. That reflex movement saved my life: if I had fallen too far forwards, I would have nutted the round. My first contact would have been over before it had even begun.

  The opening salvo of an ambush had been launched directly at us. It was almost as if that one RPG had been a signal. All of a sudden the air was filled with five or six of them. Some of them were starbursting – exploding in mid-air – and shrapnel rained all around me as I pretended to be dead. Whether the Taliban thought that the camera was some sort of weapon system, or whether we were simply the most exposed, the RPGs seemed to be aimed in our direction. It was more by luck than judgement that we avoided them: they skimmed over my head and exploded against the wall of the compound behind us. All around me there was shouting as everyone hit the dirt and AK-47 rounds started coming.

  When I had hit the ground, corn stalks had perforated my skin and I was bleeding. I felt a moistness round the top of my trousers. The jury's still out on whether it was because I had burst my water pouch or pissed myself. You know what? I don't really care. The smell of cordite was everywhere. I kept my eyes tightly shut but managed to call to James, ‘Are you recording this?’

  A castrato voice replied, ‘Yes!’

  I prayed that the Taliban couldn't see me, but in fact I knew they could simply because their rounds were hissing over my shoulder. You can hear the bullet cutting its way through the air – lead in a steel jacket. It's on its trajectory and there's nothing you can do about it except try and get the ground to suck you up. The rounds were so close they felt as if they were burning the backs of my legs. I knew at that point that somebody had definitely V'd me out: they had me in their sights and were doing their level best to put a bullet in me. It's a strange moment in your life, when you first realize someone is looking down the barrel of a gun and trying to kill you, like I used to do with an airgun and a tin can; when you realize it's only the other guy's inability with his gun that's making him miss. It's not a feeling of which I would grow particularly fond.