Combat Camera (19 page)

“It was just over three kilometres south-west of us,” said Colour Sergeant Fisher. “Must be the Marines.”

It was most likely 42 Commando, the unit hosting Virginia Wheeler. If she was out with a patrol, she would’ve been at the back, theoretically the safest place. We’d only heard a secondhand-contact IED report at this stage. There was no word as yet on any casualties.

We all left the compound at just after 5 p.m. We had about another kilometre to get to CP Salaang. By now the sky had started to cloud over, and a gentle breeze had returned. We made good time across the open fields, keen to get into Salaang before nightfall.

Salaang was a checkpoint that was in the process of being upgraded into a patrol base. Ordinarily it was home to a platoon, but right now there were around seventy British troops and almost two hundred Afghans. Everywhere you looked, soldiers were trying to make themselves comfortable, sitting on their kit, drinking water, smoking cigarettes and cooking rations. We eventually found some space on the edge of the vehicle park, close to a JCB digger that was emptying gravel into a line of Hesco containers. It was dusty and noisy, but at least it was somewhere to lie down. We marked out
a sleeping area with glow sticks – hoping that no one would drive over us in the middle of the night – and then got a small fire going.

We had another impromptu briefing that evening. Foot-Tapping was busy on a separate tasking with the ANA, so another officer from the Brigade Advisory Group, Captain Chris Ball, took us through the main details.

“It’s thought the insurgents have been overmatched in our area,” he told us. “We think they’ve pushed out towards the south and the west.”

“What happened with that IED?” asked someone.

“Two dead from J Company, 42 Commando,” he said. “Three injured.”

There were no sentry duties for us that night. We laid out on our roll mats and drifted off to sleep under the stars, grateful that none of us had been blown up.

The next day we built a sun shelter out of stakes, wire mesh and tarpaulin. At a push, a dozen of us could squeeze in underneath it. It wasn’t the greatest piece of engineering in the world, but it stopped us from burning up. We sat in our priceless shade and chatted, read books and smoked. Someone appeared with a twenty-four-can pack of iced tea, and it all felt remarkably civilized.

I was reading a book called
Chickenhawk
by Robert Mason. It was about the experiences of a US helicopter pilot in the Vietnam war. Each page I turned fell out in my hand, the glue in the spine having melted. I’d promised Ali she could read it after me, so I had to fold up every loose page and keep it in my pocket.

Mid-afternoon, news came through that J Company had hit another IED, very close to the scene of the previous day’s explosion. There was no word yet on casualties. Meanwhile the commanding officer of 1 Rifles, Lieutenant Colonel James de la Billière, had
come under fire while driving alongside the Nahr-e Bughra Canal. His party – consisting of four armoured vehicles – had only been travelling for a few kilometres, but they still managed to draw small-arms fire on four separate occasions.

At just after 5 p.m., with the sun low in the sky, the Royal Engineers started to build the eagerly awaited bridge outside Salaang’s back gate. All the ground overlooking this section of the canal had been cleared of insurgents in the first few days of the operation, allowing the engineers to work in relative safety. It was the first time they’d ever tried to erect a forty-four-foot unreinforced bridge in an operational theatre, making it a historic occasion. There were about a dozen of them, crawling all over three huge vehicles parked up on the bank. They had to extend a launch rail slowly across the canal from one of the vehicles, establishing a platform on the opposite bank (it looked like a giant fishing rod, with a metal stand on the end). They could then start sliding into place the main parts of the bridge, which consisted of lengths of aluminium alloy weighing two tonnes each. If all went according to plan, the entire structure would be up and ready in less than two hours.

Russ and Ali moved among the engineers, recording their progress, while I chatted to their commander, Major Ralph Cole.

“This bridge is vitally important,” he said. “It’ll mean our troops can easily move north of the canal and disrupt the insurgents up there. It’ll also open up a trade route for the local Afghans.”

“Once the bridge is nearly done, I’d like to interview you in front of it,” I said.

“Of course,” said Ralph. “It shouldn’t take too long.”

By now the end of the launch rail was resting on its stand on the far side of the canal. The engineers were starting to manoeuvre the first lengths of aluminium alloy into position. We watched as
two of them stood over the middle of the canal, balancing on the metalwork. With the threat from insurgents kept to a minimum, the only real danger came from the canal itself. The two men still had to wear their body armour and helmets, which meant a fall into the water could easily result in them both drowning, weighed down by the very kit designed to save their lives.

Suddenly the stand on the far bank buckled and collapsed under the weight of the launch rail. Tonnes of metalwork bounced violently up and down. The two men on the rail bounced up and down with it, but somehow managed to hang on. They inched their way back towards the safety of the near bank as the rail’s originating vehicle creaked and groaned, threatening to flip over.

“I’ll do that interview another time,” said Ralph tersely. “Excuse me.”

He hurried over to join his men on the bank. They were running around frantically, trying to work out what the hell had gone wrong.

Russ was still filming, so I went over to join him. He had managed to record the whole debacle, standing less than twenty feet away.

“Should make for a good training video,” he said.

A breathless sergeant ran towards us. For some reason, he’d only just noticed the camera.

“You can’t show this,” he blurted. “It’s a massive fuck-up.”

“It’s OK,” I said. “We’re Media Ops.”

“We’re not here to make anyone look bad,” said Russ.

By now it was gone 7 p.m., and getting too dark to film anyway. Russ, Ali and I walked back to the vehicle park while the engineers continued to work into the night, securing the launch rail so they could have another go in the morning.

The vehicle park was teeming with life, most of it Afghan. They’d set up a huge cooking pot over a fire, throwing in countless
chopped onions and chunks of chicken. The smell from the pot drifted across our sleeping area, making us all yearn for a good curry. Our rations were good, but not that good. A dozen Afghans stood around the fire, their faces lit up by the flames, waiting for the feast.

Captain Chris Ball came over and gave us another brief, mosquitoes flitting in and out of his torchlight as he went through his notes.

“As you may already know, J Company hit another IED today,” he said. “They’ve got two down, injured. Another IED went off near PB5. That was the ANA. A group of them left the base to get some food from a nearby village, taking a vehicle down a short cut that was known to be unsafe. None of them are dead, but the vehicle is a write-off. The ANA at PB5 are refusing to recover it, so our guys are having to get it.

“We’ve been having a few problems with the ANA,” he went on. “Some of the Afghans with J Company are now refusing to soldier because of the IED threat. Here, you may also find there’s some drug use going on. There’s not a great deal we can do about it. Just be aware of it.”

After the brief, we stretched out on our roll mats, chatting about home. It was always a good time to reminisce just before bed. You went back to your happy place, got nice and relaxed, and drifted off. Before long, a sweet-smelling smoke hung over the sleeping area, helping us all to unwind. It came from the Afghans over by the cooking pot, relaxing after their feast.

“Can you smell ganja?” I heard Chris Ball say.

“Yep,” someone else murmured.

We all slept well that night. Without any sentry duties to worry about, most of us got at least seven hours. We didn’t start getting up until 5.30 a.m., by which time it was broad daylight. Ali got a
little fire going, and we all had some coffee and heated up some boil-in-the-bag rations.

The engineers had to wait for spare parts to arrive from Bastion, and weren’t due to resume work on the bridge until 8 a.m. To fill the time, Russ and I interviewed two brothers from the Brigade Advisory Group. Lee Swain was a rough-hewn sergeant major who was helping the Afghans with their logistics, while his younger brother Paul – a slightly more fresh-faced staff sergeant – was passing through the base with another
tolay
.

“Having a brother out here gives you that reminder of being back home,” said Lee. “It means you can talk to someone that’s very close to you about the situations you’ve been through. It’s very helpful.”

“It’s good to work alongside him,” added Paul. “I don’t get to see him all that often, but every few weeks we meet up. It’s good to have a chat and see how he’s getting on. That side of it makes life a little bit better out here.”

“And how does the rest of your family feel about you being out here?”

“They’ve got mixed feelings,” Paul said. “There’s the worry that we’re serving in a country like Afghanistan, but they’re also quite proud that we’re both out here. We’re fortunate to be in touch with family and friends on a regular basis, so it’s nice to let them know that we’re OK.”

Russ filmed them working alongside each other, unloading ration boxes from the back of a lorry. It was all staged, but we had to get them doing something together in the same shot.

“That’s fine,” I said after a couple of minutes. “Thanks for that. Have a safe tour.”

“Cheers, sir,” said Lee. “You too.”

By now the engineers had gone back to work, so Russ and I joined Ali at the bridge. The launch rail was back in place, and the whole thing was taking shape. We took some more footage of the engineers in action, then I interviewed Major Cole.

“Have you deleted that footage from last night?” he asked me.

“No, I’ve put it on the Internet.”

He looked horrified. “What?”

“I’m joking. It’s not going anywhere.”

“Thank God for that.” He gave out a long sigh, then had a thought. “Actually, could we get a copy of it?”

“Of course.”

With the bridge filmed and photographed, our work on Omid Haft was done. We walked back into the base, picked up the rest of our kit and said goodbye to the Mercians. They were sorting out kit themselves, getting ready to go out on patrol.

“Can’t sit around here all day,” said Colour Sergeant Fisher. “Work to be done.”

We managed to get a lift over to Patrol Base 2 with the Commanding Officer of 1 Rifles. He’d come to Salaang for a meeting, and was now heading back to his headquarters. His four vehicles were covered with bullet marks. We climbed into the Mastiff at the back and waited for the rounds to start pinging off the armour.

We got to Patrol Base 2 in twenty minutes – no one shot at us. From there, we got a lift to Patrol Base 5, which was almost deserted, save for the inexplicable presence of Mikkel. We saw him coming out of the gym, dripping with sweat.

“Christian, good to see you again,” he said, wiping his brow.

“Mikkel, what are you doing here?”

“I’m trying to find the Afghan Combat Camera Team.”

We had dinner with him. The cookhouse was near empty – most of the Marines on the base were out on patrol – but the chef knocked up some beef stir fry. After five days of rations, it tasted superb.

“The Afghans, I don’t know,” said Mikkel, picking at his food. “They keep disappearing. They went off yesterday to film a meeting of elders. I don’t know when they’ll be back.”

We all had an early night, going our separate ways before 8 p.m. I was sharing a tent with Russ. He watched a DVD on his laptop, while I tried to sleep. A group of Marines were sitting outside the next tent, just in from a patrol. They chatted and laughed in the moonlight. Morale seemed pretty high.

At about 9 p.m., yet another IED went off. Impossible to say how far away it was, but it was loud. The Marines stopped laughing, and to a man they all said the same thing:

“
Fucking hell
.”

There was a pause, then the Marines carried on chatting. We’d know soon enough how close it was. The Ops room would send word, and the Marines would be put on standby.

No word came from the Ops room. The IED must’ve been far, far away. The Marines started playing cards and laughing again.

* * *

We flew back to Bastion the next morning. Harriet was waiting for us at the helipad. We threw all our kit into the back of the minibus and she drove us to the JMOC.

“Phew,” she said. “I think some of you might need a wash.”

I didn’t make it into the office for another hour, needing no extra encouragement to have one of the longest showers of my life. Russ and Ali still had all their footage and imagery to edit, but I just needed to write up a few press releases. We had three and a half
hours on the UK anyway, with our material bound for local stations and papers in the West Midlands (following the Mercians) and South-West (the home of 1 Rifles and 42 Commando). We were also targeting the national stations, although the lack of combat footage would make it a tough sell.

I checked through all my emails before starting on the press releases. My inbox was filled with all the usual flotsam, although one message did stand out. A US Media Operations officer had asked TFH for any footage and stills showing transition and progress in Afghanistan. Colonel Lucas had copied me in to his reply, which started as follows:

Apologies for the late reply. I have just been out on the ground doing a media-escort job with one of the UK’s national newspapers. They wanted to get into a “contact” with the insurgents and I managed to get them into several.

I pondered the remarkable irony of Colonel Lucas’s email for a short moment, then read through Virginia Wheeler’s coverage of Omid Haft. She was the only UK journalist covering the operation. I soon found her report in the online version of the
Sun
, posted a day earlier: