Ross Kemp on Afghanistan Page 8

  I tried to hold it together for the camera, which was facing me at a skew-whiff angle and somehow still being operated by John Conroy, who was also clutching the earth; privately I was offering up another desperate prayer. Please, God. Don't let me die.

  A round fell past my arm, just between my shoulder and elbow. It deafened me in one ear and I honestly thought the next round would split me down the middle.

  It didn't come.

  A voice. Urgent. It was Cookie. ‘Ross? Are you alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, and we both started to laugh.

  Return fire had started. I lifted my head up for the first time. Immediately there was more incoming.

  ‘Ross! Keep your fucking head down!’

  I buried my head again.

  It was a proper two-way range now. The air was filled with the deafening sound of rounds – theirs and ours – as SA80s, AK-47s, GMGs, mortars and RPGs were discharged with a brutal ferocity. But we weren't out of the woods yet. The Taliban started to flank our position.

  ‘They're getting closer!’

  Frankly, I thought they were close enough already. But there was now enough covering fire to let us crawl back to the ditch we had left. The ground began to shake – artillery was being brought in to hit their positions. We listened with grim satisfaction as the chugging sound of fifty-cals suddenly silenced the sound of our ambushers. We ran for cover.

  Having reached the safety of the ditch, Sergeant Ben Browning ordered his men to protect the flanks. But that wasn't going to be enough to protect us from the advancing Taliban. They were only 100 metres away from us and the artillery shells that had been launched in their direction hadn't stopped the firing. We crawled to a ditch further back; meanwhile B Company still had an ace up their sleeve. They called in air support, the hope being that some attack helicopters or fast air could drop something big on the men trying to kill us. Waiting for the airstrike, I attempted to salve my parched throat with some water from my pouch but it had split. There was another water pouch on my back but the tube was in my bergen and no one's going to help you out at a time like that. I was going to have to stay thirsty for a while longer. I realized my perforated face was bleeding. Not as bad as the cameraman, who had a corn stalk stuck into his eyeball. Not good in his line of work and with everything that was going on around us we had to find some tweezers to pull it out.

  If I'd expected to feel ambivalent about the air strike, I was wrong. The battle lines had been drawn and it was them or us. One of the Taliban we were facing had been specifically trying to kill me; now I was rooting for the fast air to pick him and his mates out. We all wanted the enemy dead and an airstrike was the best way to achieve that aim. I could almost taste the relief in my parched mouth as I heard the sound of the fast air approaching. Their bombs or missiles would be accurate and deadly. They would get us out of this.

  The sound of the planes grew louder. Louder. But then it faded away. There was no sound of a bomb strike.

  It transpired that the Taliban had sought refuge in a mosque. The rules of engagement were such that the army would not bomb them while they were in there, if only because the battle for hearts and minds would take a severe hit if we started destroying the Afghans' religious buildings and monuments. Now I've no more desire to bomb a mosque than I have to bomb a church, but I couldn't help feeling the Taliban were using the rules of engagement to their own advantage. The tethered goat had brought the lion out into the open; the men had advanced with their spears; but at the last minute the wild animal had earned itself a temporary reprieve.

  In order to draw the enemy out further into the open, B Company needed to go on the offensive. But before they could do that, they had to face a new threat. A lone sniper was trying to pick us off.

  The Taliban do not have superior firepower or machinery. They do have certain other advantages, however. They know the terrain; and most of them wear little more than a dishdash and carry only a bottle of water and a bandolier of ammo. So unencumbered by the weight of a full pack, body armour and communications system, they can move a lot quicker. As a result they are very skilled at flanking manoeuvres and at making it seem that there are more of them than in fact there are. As the sniper moved from position to position, he certainly gave the impression of there being more than one of him. Moreover, he made it much more difficult for us to move from our defensive position to somewhere where we could go on the offensive and draw out the remainder of the Taliban. B Company pushed forward anyway.

  The sniper's shots rang through the air. It was impossible to know where the next one was coming from, but we were exposed and we needed cover. We had no option but to travel across open ground and break into some compounds up ahead. When my turn came to run, I sprinted faster than I had in a long time, all the while cursing the camera batteries I was carrying that weighed heavily on my body and slowed me down. As I ran, shots cracked in the air; I almost expected to be plugged halfway across the open ground, but in the end I reached the objective – out of breath, exhausted, but in one piece.

  There was to be no let-up, however. I heard Mick Aston bark an order. ‘Two packs, get forward. See if you can identify that sniper.’ For myself and the crew, there was another nerve-racking run across open ground as we approached the compound Mick had identified. He ordered his men to break in so that they could use the roof as a firing position. I stuck as close to them as possible and, once Stu Parker and another soldier had kicked the wooden doors in, entered the compound. It felt good to be within the safety of the compound walls, but there was continuous fire all around. The air was full of smoke, radios were crackling. I could hear chopper blades in the air – a good sound, because the Taliban don't have helicopters. Then the sound of an attack helicopter firing thirty-cal rounds on to enemy positions in a different part of Jucaylay. An Apache circled threateningly overhead. I think everyone was relieved to see it – it's a terrifying piece of kit that the Taliban have to respect.

  Mick Aston and his men had set up a firing position on the roof of the compound. The radio operator – or JTAC – was communicating with the Apache's commander; there was a heavy machine gunner and Lance Corporal Teddy Ruecker acted as a sniper. I approached Mick and asked if he had located the enemy. He had, and from his position of advantage he was using his communications system to direct 6 Platoon towards the Taliban. He invited me up on to the roof to take a look. I clambered up the steps that led to the roof and joined the soldiers who were firing across at a compound about 100 metres away.

  I lay next to Mick, facing towards 3 o'clock. From the corner of my eye I saw something moving. I looked up. ‘What the fuck's that?’

  By that time, the RPG had gone past us. It had been travelling slowly because it had been launched so close to us and hadn't been charged properly. If it had hit us, no one on that roof would have survived. Mick and his lads used the incident to their advantage. The RPG had given away the Taliban's exact position. The guys opened fire on them while the Apache above us hit the Taliban compound. It despatched a Hellfire missile and thirty-cal rounds which thundered in our ears as they hit their target. A cheer arose from the lads – a cheer of relief and satisfaction that was doubled when Teddy Ruecker announced that he had just shot the RPG gunner dead.

  At first, with the ambush, it had seemed the Taliban had the upper hand. Now the tide was turning. Mick was eager to capitalize on this new advantage and he ordered his men to take ground closer to the enemy's position. We prepared to leave the safety of the compound and advance once more. As we were about to move off, however, we gained further information about the Taliban's movements, not because of our superior tactical advantage or because we had expert intelligence techniques, but because of our director's swollen bladder. John Conroy had nipped round the corner of the compound for a leak when he observed the Taliban moving across the field to our right. B Company opened fire. Soon the air was once more filled with 556s and the enemy were on the back foot.

  So far the conta
ct had lasted two hours: the longest, most exhausting, most nerve-shredding two hours of my life. We pushed on and approached the compound the Hellfire missile had hit. Its high mud walls bore the scars of conflict: enormous marks in the wall inflicted by the thirty-cal rounds also from the Apache. It astonished me that these rounds – easily big enough to demolish a house in the UK – were unable to pierce the walls of the compound. It was a testament to the strength of those walls, created from little more than mud, straw and water and baked hard by the fierce Afghan sun. I wasn't able to marvel at it too much, however. As we approached the compound there was the sound of more gunfire: we hit the earth as we waited for it to subside, and then gingerly headed for the protection of our destination.

  The Taliban had been forced north. B Company had been on their feet for hours in the blistering sun, carrying full pack and rifle. Everyone needed a rest; what was more, I wanted to talk to some of the lads without the constant threat of enemy fire. I had just survived my first contact, I'd been scared and exhilarated in equal measure and I wanted to hear other people's thoughts and feelings.

  Private Monks was eighteen years old. He had arrived in Afghanistan at the same time as me; as for me, this had been his first contact. We swapped notes. Monks admitted that he had found it a bit scary.

  ‘Same for me, mate,’ I told him. Understatement of the century.

  Monks told me that one of his friends had been running across a field and an RPG had come over his head and knocked his helmet off. Monks himself had seen rounds landing inches from his feet.

  As we were speaking, there was a huge explosion beyond the compound. It rocked the earth beneath us and we nearly jumped out our skin. It was the sound of a Taliban bunker being blown up. Having had my first taste of war, I knew it was a noise I was going to have to get used to.

  It had been quite a morning. And it wasn't over yet.

  7. Splash

  We rested for an hour.

  The compound we were in was typical of the region. The tough external walls formed a square, inside which covered buildings had been built around a central courtyard. Often these courtyards would have vegetable gardens for the inhabitants of the compound; this one had flowers. You quickly get used to the colour of sand and to see these beautiful colours was transfixing, particularly after what I'd been through. The compound was deserted, of course: the inhabitants had fled because they knew what was coming. Now it was full of exhausted soldiers, buzzing from the thrill and the fear of the contact and glad still to be in one piece. I ate some ‘tails and eyes’ (fish paste) on biscuits brown washed down with well water tasting of chlorine.

  The contact may have lasted for two hours, but we'd been on our feet for six. We needed that rest. When the hour was up, however, the order came through that we were to continue our foray into Jucaylay.

  It was as at least 45 degrees. The sun was at its height as we trudged for a further four hours without seeing any sign of the enemy. I was so tired that if we stopped for more than a minute I'd find myself falling asleep where I lay. We drank our water sparingly, wary that it might run out if we gulped it too quickly.

  The green zone itself was full of mulberry trees. Often these trees are used as firing positions by the Taliban as they offer a certain amount of camouflage. They also serve another purpose. The Taliban dig a hole in the ground, then tunnel and groove mulberry trunks as a roof which they cover with mud and camouflage. Once inside, they dig deeper down and that's where they go to shelter from the artillery shells. You might be deaf for the rest of your life, but you'll probably survive.

  As we patrolled this deserted town, however, there was no sign of any hidden Taliban in the mulberry trees and I tried to use them to shelter myself from the intense sun. They didn't do much good: for some reason it was just as hot and humid in the shade of the trees as it was in direct sunlight.

  Even though there was no sign of the Taliban, it didn't necessarily mean they weren't there. So it was that we patrolled to the constant accompaniment of artillery shells overhead; and as we secured the area, some of the lads were ordered to clear compounds using fragmentation grenades – a dangerous process which led to one of the guys putting a piece of shrapnel into his own thigh. At one point we came across an enemy position that had been recently – and hurriedly – deserted. The Taliban had left the head of an RPG, a box of snuff that had been mixed with something, maybe poppy, as well as his sandals. Clearly we'd just missed him. More poignantly, in that same compound, we found a pile of children's books. It brought home to me that these places weren't just enemy positions. They were people's houses. At least, they had been.

  Once it was clear that the area had been secured, that the Taliban truly had left, we started to retrace our footsteps back to the compounds that we had cleared earlier in the day, where the intention was to lay up for the night. I was so tired I could barely put one foot in front of the other. I'd ripped my trousers from the groin to the boot, and was practically hanging out of my pants. We came across a Viking on a resupply and a few of us – myself included – managed to hop on board back up the hill to our destination. I've never been so happy to hitch a lift in my life. It wasn't all roses, however. When our cameraman, Andy, was getting out of the vehicle, he fell over and split his hand open. That night he had to be given twelve stitches, in the dark and without the benefit of a local anaesthetic. It must have been agony, but he was adamant that he would carry on filming the next day.

  And it promised to be another long one.

  The following day – day four of Operation Lastay Kulang – I joined the Fire Support Group. The FSG were located on a ridge above Jucaylay. From this vantage point they could cover the troops on the ground with artillery, as well as keep a lookout around the wider countryside. They also acted as a main mobile base with Vikings, armoured Marines and doctors. It was from the FSG's position that morning that the Taliban were spotted.

  There was movement about 3 klicks away, in a cave system on the other side of the valley. The Fire Support Group believed that the Taliban had retreated to these caves as a result of being forced out of Jucaylay by B Company's operations the previous day. It certainly sounded likely, but David Robinson, Mick Aston's second in command and the ranking officer on the high ground, needed to be sure that it was enemy combatants who had been spotted and not simply locals who had retreated to escape the battle in their village. The caves were carefully surveyed through binoculars and it was eventually decided that this was indeed a Taliban refuge.

  An airstrike was ordered.

  Over the radio I heard the request for ‘some sort of ordnance… or a delayed fuse down in and around that grid’. It was military terminology and I wasn't sure quite how it would translate. What was being requested, I realized a few minutes later, was a big bomb. A thousand pounder. That was going to do a lot of damage.

  The hum of the aircraft seemed to come from nowhere and to disappear as soon as it had arrived. Not before it had delivered its package, though. The 1,000lb bomb found its mark with unerring accuracy. It had a fuse delay so it could penetrate the ground before it went off and create more subterranean damage. It exploded in the distance. There was a devastating flash of orange, like something from a movie, and then a huge cloud of sand and dust mushroomed hundreds of feet into the air. The radio operator confirmed the direct hit with a single word.

  ‘Splash.’

  There was no way anyone who had been in the range of that explosion could have survived it. But the Taliban must have been more widely spaced out than had previously been believed as more movement was spotted. Without hesitation, the JTAC called in a second strike. ‘You are clear for a re-attack on similar bunk system, same nature with a 10-millisecond delay.’

  The hum of an approaching aircraft. And then the second bomb, as awe-inspiring as the first.

  ‘Splash.’

  This time the observers spotted no movement. At least, no movement from human beings. The only survivors, it appeared, from those t
wo 1,000lb bombs were a herd of goats scarpering terrified down the valley.

  As far as we could tell, the immediate Taliban threat had been neutralized. That didn't mean B Company's job was over. Far from it. As the morning turned to afternoon, it started to become clear that the Taliban were not the only people to have been hurt as a result of the fighting in Jucaylay. Bit by bit, a stream of villagers approached. Their children had been hurt on the outskirts of the battle and they were seeking help from the army doctors.

  The help was given, of course. Unconditionally. The children barely made a sound as B Company's doctor removed shrapnel from their bodies and bandaged their wounds. After the exhilaration of watching the bombs being dropped on the Taliban positions, seeing these injured children was a solemn, sobering reality check. Those whom the company doctor could not adequately treat out here in the field were taken back to Camp Bastion in a Chinook for more advanced medical care.

  We kept the cameras rolling as these children's undeserved wounds were patched up. At this time we knew that we would never responsibly be able to show their faces on TV, however. The Taliban insurgents would inevitable return to Jucaylay, and if they were to learn that these people had sought help from the British troops, the repercussions would be severe. The children were given sweets and biscuits; but before they left the care of B Company they took pains to remove the wrappings so that the treats could not be identified as coming from the soldiers.