Combat Camera (26 page)

This incident had made it into the news, with the BBC putting the death toll at twenty-seven, making it the worst attack against a medical facility in Afghanistan since 2001. A member of the Logar provincial council told a reporter: “It is no less than a Doomsday. The government and its intelligent agencies should have been able to prevent this. To the enemies of the people and Islam, I say, what do you get from a bloodbath like this?”

The next day was very much the same – more boredom and more horror. The 9th/12th Royal Lancers got hit just before lunchtime, an insurgent throwing a grenade into one of A Squadron’s Jackals during a mounted patrol. Luckily, no one was killed. Three Lancers were classed as Cat C, with one of them being flown into Bastion with significant hearing loss, lower back pain and signs of battle shock. According to the report, this was his “third involvement with an explosion/near miss”.

At the brief that evening, Faulkner gave us the number of significant acts for the day – 127
*
– then introduced Harriet’s replacement. Sarah had just arrived at the JMOC and was going to be working alongside Harriet for the next week, learning the ropes. She was one of the palest women I had ever seen, her skin colour much closer to ivory than pink.

“I really don’t like the sun,” she admitted.

My own replacement – a young captain called Joe – was arriving in a week. He worked alongside Russ at the Media and
Communications team at the British Army’s headquarters in Andover. I’d met him once on a trip to see Russ just prior to our deployment, and he seemed like a good guy. He would be landing at about the same time I got back from Kabul.

My flight out to Kabul – due the next morning – was delayed because of technical problems. The long-suffering Hercules needed some extra care and attention, so the check-in time had been pushed back to the evening. With nothing else to do, I spent the afternoon tidying my room, getting it ready for Joe so he could move in straight away. I left my rug that I’d bought from one of the Afghan shops on camp, plus a cheap set of iPod docks I’d picked up at the NAAFI, and moved the rest of my stuff – the kit that I wasn’t taking to Kabul – into a spare bed space in the transit tent.

Mick drove me over to the Passenger Handling Facility later that evening. I was carrying an improbable amount of kit, weighed down with the camera and tripod in addition to all my usual clobber. The holding area was busy, but not uncomfortably so. Most of my fellow passengers – a mixture of soldiers, civil servants and reporters – filled a bank of seats in front of a large flatscreen television that was showing one of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon. I threw my kit down near the back of the room and watched the match over the top of their heads.

We eventually left at just after 10 p.m., the good old Hercules creaking and groaning through the skies at 30,000 feet before landing at Kabul Airport at 23.30, coming to a halt alongside a gleaming-white private jet that was parked right outside the terminal. Obviously someone very important was either just arriving or just leaving. Four security guards in dark suits were standing by the jet as we walked past, ensuring none of us got too close.

I had my own security detail waiting for me on the other side of the terminal. Two guys from G4S threw my kit into the back of their Land Cruiser and sped me to the Embassy. There was no Scott tonight – he was back in the UK on leave. Instead I got Joshua, a lean, bearded diplomat in his late twenties, waiting for me at the front gates.

“The graduation ceremony is now taking place on Wednesday,” he told me as we walked through the gardens to my villa. “You’ve got tomorrow off.”

He showed me to my room. It was on the ground floor, right next to the kitchen. One side of it was taken up with a huge window that looked out onto the garden. A door in the window opened onto a small terrace, separated from the garden by a four-foot wall.

“It’s perfect, Joshua.”

“I’m fairly busy at the moment, but I’ll catch up with you at breakfast on Wednesday.”

As soon as Joshua left, I went into the deserted kitchen and checked the fridge for beer. There were a couple of bottles of wine, but no lager. I had been really looking forward to an ice-cold Heineken hitting my lips. I went round the kitchen, checking all the cupboards, but found nothing. Out of desperation, I checked the fridge again, this time looking in the vegetable compartment.

I found a can of Stella inside a bag of carrots. Not a bad hiding place, really. It was already fairly cold, but I put it in the freezer section anyway – standard operating procedure – and went for a shower.

After my shower – which was glorious – I padded through the kitchen in my towel, extracted the Stella from the freezer, and returned to my room. I switched on the TV and flicked through all the channels. On one of them,
2001: A Space Odyssey
was
just starting. I lay on my bed and watched the apes going at it for twenty minutes, just about finishing my beer before I fell asleep.

I woke at 6.30 the following morning. A large tree shaded my window, but I could see the garden already bathed in sunlight. I went over to the window, my towel slipping from my waist as I stepped through the door onto the terrace. There was no one about, and I liked the feel of the cool, morning air all over my body. I yawned loudly and stretched up my arms.

“Good morning, sir.”

A Gurkha with a machine gun was standing in front of me, right on the other side of my little wall. They patrolled the gardens in their smart blue uniforms and caps.

I cleared my throat. “Good morning.”

I stepped back into my room and drew the curtains. It was good to know the Gurkhas were out there, but they didn’t need to see me naked. No one benefited from that. I climbed back into bed and went to sleep again.

I woke up two hours later. It was 8.40 a.m. I had just enough time to shave, put on my uniform and walk over to the canteen. The staff were already clearing the hotplates when I got there, so I settled for a bowl of Weetabix, a plate of fruit (melon, apple, kiwi) and a glass of pineapple juice.

After breakfast I walked over to the Embassy shop – it was a well-stocked Portakabin outside the canteen – and bought twelve cans of Heineken, plus a can of Stella to replace the one I took. I went back to the villa, put the beers in the fridge and changed into my grey hooded top and shorts. Then I headed for the pool.

The next eight hours were taken up with sunbathing and swimming. I had the pool to myself for most of the day. The odd diplomat
came in for a dip or to catch some sun, but they didn’t stay long. They had work to do, clearly.

I didn’t see any sign of Joshua at dinner. I ate my rump steak on my own, watching Wimbledon on the big flatscreen at the back of the canteen.

I walked back to my room after dinner to the faint sound of sirens. This was Kabul’s soundtrack, wailing through its chaotic streets three or four times a day. Somewhere in the city, yet another very bad thing had just happened.

In the villa I took a Heineken from the fridge and sat in the empty lounge. I still hadn’t seen any of my housemates. I flicked through the movie channels on the TV, before settling on a DVD box set of
Generation Kill
.

I slept soundly again that night – safe inside the Embassy bubble – then went to breakfast for 8 a.m., ready to do some filming. I bumped into Joshua just as he was coming out the door.

“The graduation ceremony is tomorrow now,” he said. “I’m really sorry. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Not really, no.”

I ate my breakfast, then spent another day by the pool.

* * *

During my peaceful mini-break, the Intercontinental Hotel, about twenty minutes’ drive down the road, was attacked by insurgents. It happened on the Tuesday night, around the time I was returning to my villa after dinner. Although the attack was widely reported throughout the world, I knew nothing about it until the Thursday morning, when I was chatting to Steve, one of the G4S guys who were taking me and Joshua to the Staff College.

“We’ll be going past the Intercontinental Hotel this morning,” he said. “It’s right next to the Staff College.”

“I’m quite curious to see that,” said Joshua. “See what the damage is.”

“The damage?” I said. “What happened?”

Steve explained. A suicide bomber had run into the lobby and blown himself up. At least five insurgents had then run in, firing AK-47s. Ten civilians – mostly hotel workers – died in the attack. Afghan security forces, helped by members of the New Zealand SAS, surrounded the hotel. The ensuing firefight had lasted several hours before the remaining insurgents were killed.

“It’s the standard way the insurgents do it now,” said Steve. “Send the suicide bomber in, then follow it up with small-arms fire.”

At least two of the insurgents made it up to the hotel roof, only to be blown to pieces by a NATO helicopter. This started a fire that was captured on film and broadcast by countless international news outlets. We saw the damage from the road as we drove past, the flames having gutted one half of the top floor.

The Staff College, at least, was untouched. We arrived there ten minutes before the graduation ceremony was due to start, but the guards on the gate, still jumpy over the hotel attack, kept us waiting for fifteen minutes while they ran a number of pointless security checks. By the time we got into the main headquarters, the ceremony had begun. All the officers on the course were sitting at their desks in the largest classroom on the top floor, listening to a speech by one of their senior commanders. He looked as old as the hills, his white beard and rumbling voice giving him the air of an Afghan Moses. I had no idea what he was saying, but I set up the camera on the tripod at the back of the room and started filming.

Following the speech, each officer was presented with a certificate. They had to march to the front of the room and shake hands with the course instructors, all of whom had gathered under a portrait of the Afghan President Hamid Karzai. I took the camera off the tripod and filmed them from a number of different angles, always trying to frame each officer in the same shot as the British instructors I’d already interviewed. The plan was to put together a series of pieces for regional TV, each centred on a British instructor local to that region.

After the ceremony, I tried to get an interview with the senior commander who’d given the speech, but he left almost immediately, apparently suspicious of the media. I’d already interviewed a number of officers on the course, but I still needed something from a senior Afghan figure to give an overview of the training. As well as British regional television, I was hoping to send the footage to some of the stations in Kabul in an effort to strengthen our links with the Afghan media.

“The best man to interview is Major General Patang,” said Joshua. “But he tends to be quite busy.”

Major General Patang was the head of the Afghan National Police Training General Command. In other words, he ran the whole show. If I could get an interview with him, the Afghan stations would come knocking.

“Can we get him?”

“Not today,” said Joshua. “We’ll have to come back again. What’s your schedule like? You could be stuck at the Embassy for a few days.”

I interviewed Major General Patang three days later. In the meantime, I just did what you do when you’re stuck at the Embassy for a few days. I drank all the Heinekens, drank some Carlsberg,
watched a lot of movies, ate some nice meals, swam many lengths of the pool and got very brown. As holidays in Afghanistan go, it wasn’t that bad.

The day after the Patang interview, I was supposed to catch my rescheduled flight to Bastion – which, however, was cancelled due to technical problems. I waited at the airport for an hour before the announcement came through. The Hercules would not be flying for another twenty-four hours, which meant I would be spending another night in the Embassy. A G4S team came back to pick me up.

“You might get to see the big man,” said the driver. “He’s just arrived at the Embassy.”

“Which big man?”

“The Prime Minister.”

“Our Prime Minister?”

David Cameron was in town, preparing to make an announcement about a planned withdrawal of British forces. His original timetable was supposed to take him to Lashkar Gah, but the mysterious disappearance of a British soldier in Nahr-e Saraj had thrown out his schedule, every available helicopter being pulled into the search. The Prime Minister had flown straight into Bastion, met some of the troops, then flown up to Kabul for a night at the Embassy.

I did not get to see him by the pool the following morning. He went straight to the Presidential Palace for talks with Hamid Karzai, before flying back to the UK in the evening. The next day he gave a statement to the House of Commons, announcing that British troop levels in Afghanistan would drop from 9,500 to 9,000 by the end of 2012.

* * *

I finally got back to Bastion on the afternoon of Tuesday 5th July, leaving me just eight days and a wake-up until my flight home. My replacement, Joe, had by now arrived at the JMOC and settled into my old bed space. I’d planned to spend my last few days conducting a handover with him, but he had other ideas. He’d brought a civilian cameraman with him from the British Army’s Media and Communication Team, and was shooting footage and interviews for a BBC series called
How to Go to War
. I would have to fit the handover around his filming schedule.

By this stage, I wasn’t particularly bothered any more. Like most soldiers nearing the end of their tour, I was just focused on going home. To all intents and purposes, I was already sitting on my Tristar, flying away from Afghanistan for ever.

Faulkner went through his usual roll call of death and destruction at the brief that evening, although even among all the carnage there was some cause for optimism.

“Ninety-nine significant acts today,” he said. “Which is forty-five per cent down on what it was this time last year. So although it’s the fighting season, there hasn’t been that much fighting.”

I sat in the corner of the office, wondering whether I’d spent the last four months in some twisted parallel universe. A man at a desk was reading numbers off a page, saying there hadn’t been much fighting. He was not wrong – the summer had been quieter than recent years – but it still felt completely fucked up.