Never Broken (6 page)

The next day I went in to work and told my Commanding Officer, who said congratulations, and life continued pretty much as normal. Jamie took the afternoon off to come to my first scan at three months and it was incredibly emotional seeing for the first time a little peanut on the screen and a heartbeat and knowing it was our baby. I remember he said: ‘It’s so amazing we are going to have a little boy or a little girl of our own’, and I couldn’t wait for us to have a family.

Being pregnant in the Army was hard work, but I was looked after and supported and then something amazing happened, which was a huge help. I was told a new Private was joining my office and as soon as she walked in, I couldn’t believe it. It was Private Nikki Jarvis, my friend from Basic Training. The minute we were alone she gave me the biggest smile and hug ever and said: ‘I couldn’t believe it when I found out I’d be working with you.’ Then she pulled out a photo from her pocket of her daughter Chloe, who was six months old. She had tears in her eyes as she told me: ‘I decided to keep her. Thank you for your advice. It was the best decision I have ever made in my life.’

For me it was an incredible moment to see that not only had she made the right decision, but she was also making it work as an Army mum. Being pregnant with Milly I’d felt a bit scared that my career wouldn’t work out. Now I had the reassurance that if Nikki could do it as a single mum, I could do so too. So I told her I too was now pregnant. She immediately congratulated me and gave me another massive hug – it felt like fate had put her back in my path as from that day on, as an Army mum and Army mum-to-be, we were inseparable. We sat gossiping every day instead of doing our work. It didn’t matter how rough I was feeling, I turned up for work every single day – even when I had the most horrific morning sickness. More often than not, Nikki would say: ‘You don’t have to do that, I’ll cover that duty for you.’

There were a few occasions when I was really bad and when my boss, the Sergeant Major, saw me, he said: ‘Go and get your head down for a couple of hours and if you feel up to it, come back.’ More often than not, if I was ill Nikki covered and without her I’d have really struggled. As well as helping
me at work she advised me on what cream to buy to avoid stretch marks, gave me some of her baby clothes and even felt my baby kick in my tummy in the office before Jamie did. I’d cover for her when she was off having her nails done and she’d do the same for me when I nipped out for fifteen minutes to get my eyelashes tinted by one of the mums on camp who was a beautician. We were always up to something, whether it was dodging work or trying to get out of being the tea girls. When we got sick of our boss asking for cup after cup of tea every day, we even tried squirting washing-up liquid in his tea. Instead of making his own he said our tea tasted so bad, we needed practice and he’d ask us to make even more cups for him.

There were only two big changes once I announced I was pregnant and apart from that my work continued as before. The first was that I didn’t have to do obstacle courses anymore and I only did the PT that I wanted to do. Secondly, because I didn’t get big enough to require a maternity uniform, I was allowed to wear no belt and my shirt un-tucked to cover my little bump. No one was ever negative: if anything, people wanted to look after me more as I was a mum-to-be and almost every rough, tough soldier I knew asked to see my baby scan when I came back to work after having it done.

But I always wanted to pull my weight. Two days before I gave birth I was lugging boxes of paper up and down stairs in the stock room as I was young and fit and it didn’t occur to me this wasn’t what everybody did. It was my first pregnancy and other female soldiers who were pregnant just got on with it. No one was forcing me to lug the boxes up and down the stairs – I did it because I wasn’t ill, I was pregnant.

I breezed through the whole thing, with no problems or complications until I went into labour on 3 April 2005 – dead
on my due date. It began early in the morning and after driving me to the maternity ward, Jamie held my hand throughout, encouraging me when the contractions got stronger and more frequent. But when I got to 10cm dilated, Milly’s heart rate dropped and she went into distress. Immediately, the midwives and doctors went into overdrive and I ended up being rushed in to have an emergency caesarean (C-section) to save her life. Jamie was brilliant and he was my rock all the way through, supporting me and keeping me calm.

As I was still laid up in the operating theatre, as soon as Milly was born at 9pm they placed her in the crook of my arm. Initially she cried noisily, but as soon as I put her against my heart she just looked up at me peacefully. I felt such a massive surge of love and Jamie was so elated he started crying with relief. After she was handed to him, he cuddled her and he started singing her a Scottish lullaby. He was allowed to stay until 11pm, but then he had to leave me on the maternity ward. The next morning he was back at the crack of dawn and he said: ‘I haven’t slept a wink as I couldn’t believe it.’

Although Milly wasn’t Jamie’s first child, he still made the experience incredibly special for me. I felt like I had it all. As soon as she heard I’d had a caesarean, Nikki was round, helping out all the time. Along with Mum she helped me with my washing, ironing and housework until I recovered. I got three months paid maternity leave followed by statutory maternity pay, so as soon as I was well enough to get out and about, Nikki introduced me to the Army wives. There was a great social and support network between them and you could always pop in to see someone for coffee, some advice or just a chat. For me, it was nice to meet the other halves behind the men.

The Army wives are the unsung heroes in many ways. They are the ones who stay behind and hold everything together. Army life would grind to a halt without them. It wasn’t until I had Milly that I truly appreciated how essential they are. Their husbands disappear for six months at a time, they have three or four kids, yet they are the glue that holds everything together. And when the husbands come back, they might not be quite the same as the men who left, especially if it’s been traumatic, and yet their wives support them and pick up the pieces. It’s not easy being married to the Army. I was so grateful when they really welcomed me for it’s an extraordinary support network.

Back at home, Jamie and I had to find our feet as new parents and right from the start, he wanted to be a hands-on dad. Even when I was on maternity leave he said that he didn’t want to miss out so we made a little agreement that he would get home from work, play with Milly for an hour before bath-time and then put her to bed. While he was doing that, I would cook tea. That was his way of balancing things out. He showed me how to do nappies as he’d been there before, and when I was exhausted after being up all night when Milly was ill or teething, he’d tell me to stay in bed and he’d do the feed. Jamie also loved taking her out. He has always been a keen photographer and they’d travel all over the place to go and get photos of a landscape in the middle of nowhere.

I had a lovely six months off before returning full throttle to Army life, but this time with a little one in tow. From day one I had to be on PT Parade at 7.10am after dropping Milly off at nursery. PT usually involved a run or a Tab, which is marching at speed, carrying weights. So to juggle our work and baby
commitments Nikki and I worked out a rota. Without Nikki, I don’t think I’d have survived being an Army mum. Whoever wasn’t on duty would go and pick the kids up from nursery in the evening. Jamie often worked away but when he was at home he’d also do his share. Between the three of us we managed to keep all the plates spinning most of the time and a few months after coming back, I was promoted to Corporal.

Part of returning to work involved ‘Remedial PT’ at lunch-times: the gym or circuit training, which was never easy. Again, Nikki was still completing hers after her baby, so I had someone to go with. I struggled after the baby to get back to full fitness because of my caesarean and it was specifically aimed at people like me. It wasn’t the usual ‘beasting’ – it was aimed at building you back up. There was also a weight-loss clinic, which helped me shed the baby weight, and within seven months I’d snapped back into shape and I was as fit as I was before.

As Nikki lived up the road from me in the barracks we were always in and out of each other’s quarters so our girls grew up like sisters. On the odd days where she or I had been kept up all night with a sick or teething baby we’d cover while one of us had a lie-in, saying: ‘She’s just gone sick to the Medical Centre’, knowing full well the other was probably still in bed. We weren’t an unusual case in the junior ranks. Everyone covers for one another – it’s drummed into you in Basic Training to work as a team. But as fellow mums, we definitely had a special bond. If one of us ran out of nappies, Calpol or just needed to let off some steam, then I was there for Nikki and she was there for me.

Before going to war I didn’t think that anything would change despite being a serving mum. I didn’t even consider
not returning to work – I liked the idea of my daughter having a role model of a mum who worked and was independent. I also liked being a mum in the Army as I’d got to know the Army wives as much as their husbands so I had the privileges of both sides of the world. It didn’t occur to me ever to leave after having her and I managed to balance it – I didn’t always get things perfect but I did the best I could, even though it wasn’t always easy.

One night we were told we would be called up for a training parade at 5.30am to see how fast we could get our kit together if we needed to. We had no idea when it was going to happen, just that it was something that could happen at any time, so because I had Milly to factor into the equation, I forward planned. I always had my kit ready to go in a bag by my bed just in case of an early roll call. It was sod’s law, of course, that Jamie was away and he couldn’t help me get out of the door. So I threw on my kit – my T-shirt was inside out under my Camo jacket but I knew no one would notice that.

Then I realised: ‘Shit, what am I going to do with Milly? Well, there’s no other option, Nursery doesn’t open for hours, and I can’t put her on one of the other mums at this ungodly hour of the morning, so she’ll just have to come to the parade ground with me,’ I thought. So I dressed her in her warmest romper suit and gloves, and grabbed the car chair that we kept by the front door. The whole point was to make sure we could react quickly and so I ran out of the door. I’ll never forget the CO’s face when I marched up, bold as brass with Milly in her baby seat in one arm, and saluted with my other arm, although he was clearly secretly quite impressed as I was one of the first arrivals. Then Nikki quick-marched down, carrying her kit and baby Chloe in a car chair too. Luckily, neither of
the girls started screaming so we popped them down side by side together at the edge of the parade ground with a toy to keep them occupied. Then we did the inspection and when we were dismissed, we picked up our babies, went home, had showers ready for work and then dropped our daughters off at nursery as normal and carried on with our day’s work. My saving grace was that Milly was a good-natured baby. If she’d been bad through the night, I don’t know what I would have done! I still got the odd sleepless night but as it was my first baby I didn’t know any different. Jamie was also a hands-on dad. He never shied from changing a nappy in the middle of the night or doing his bit when she wanted a feed.

For the first year after Milly was born, being a new mum I was protected from deployment abroad. Jamie wasn’t, so at the time I just kept my fingers crossed he wouldn’t be sent away. By the time Milly was two, soldiers had started to frequently go on six-month tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein had been overthrown and, memorably, I’d watched on TV as his statue was toppled from Firdaus Square in downtown Baghdad in spring 2003. At the same time, Afghanistan had a declining security situation and growing insurgency and NATO had agreed to take a leadership role in providing security in and around Kabul.

Slowly but surely, British regiments were being deployed and I knew that sooner or later it would impact on us and that one of us would be called up for a tour. It’s funny, but neither of us wanted to talk about the inevitable, so we just carried on with family life. I was doing all my training exercises and so I knew either Jamie or I would be deployed. It must have been playing on Jamie’s mind as one night he said: ‘What shall we do if one of us is called up?’ ‘We’ll deal with it when it
happens,’ I replied. I just couldn’t face the thought of it so I didn’t want to have the chat, but internally I was dreading the inevitable – that one or both of us would be deployed.

P
rivately, I always hoped and prayed we wouldn’t be called up for deployment in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was like an unspoken conversation between Jamie and myself that I hoped to God we would never have to face. Sadly, that wasn’t to be. On 10 February 2007, Jamie was called in by his Commanding Officer and told that he would be deployed to Afghanistan with his regiment and given the dates. In an awful twist of fate, later that week, I was called by my Commanding Officer and told I had been selected to deploy to Iraq. Because we were parents the Army wanted to ensure one of us would stay at home with Milly, who was still only two years old, so it became a decision as to who would stay behind and who would go. My CO said: ‘Go home, have a chat with your husband and decide what you want to do and come back to me with your plan tomorrow.’

That night, Jamie and I sat down over a cup of tea and
hammered it out. He said: ‘My whole regiment is deploying to Afghanistan so it makes sense for me to go and for you to stay with Milly.’ But I wasn’t having any of it. I said: ‘Well, I’ve been picked up on a trawl and I think I should go to Iraq as there’s less risk out there and Milly needs her daddy as she grows up.’

A trawl is where individuals who have certain skills that are required in the theatre of war are chosen for deployment. This meant instead of going with 47 Regiment, whom I was attached to, I would go by myself and I’d be attached to another regiment once I arrived. Jamie was ten years older than me and I felt he’d already done his time as he’d served in Northern Ireland when the troubles were really bad, as well as Kosovo. He was also ex-Infantry and he had a lot of weapons skills so I felt that if he deployed then he might not be used in his current role, as an admin clerk, but that he would probably be used for other things. We both knew things were tough in Afghanistan. Rumours had spread like wildfire that his old unit, The Argyles, had had to use their bayonets for the first time in twenty-five years, something unheard of in modern warfare. I was terrified that if he went then he would end up being injured or worse.

We were both acutely aware there had been tragic loss of life in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but I felt the right thing was for me to go. My view was that even though I was a mum going to a war zone, it was no different from the hundreds of young dads going out to do their job and serve their country. Some dads are deployed when their wives and girlfriends are pregnant and the women give birth when they are away. They normally get compassionate leave for two weeks to meet their newborn baby.

As a woman, if I was pregnant I would never be deployed, but now I’d had my six months’ maternity leave, returned to work, got back to fitness and it was time to do the job I’d signed up to do. Naively, I was convinced there was much less chance of me getting injured in Iraq, so even though I was desperately torn about leaving Milly, I felt it was the right thing to do for my family and ultimately this was the job I’d signed up for. When I gave birth to Milly and decided to stay in the Army I’d known that one day I might have to leave her and that day had come.

So the decision was made. I’m very single-minded and headstrong and I said: ‘No, I’ll go instead of you as it makes far more sense.’ If I’m honest, Jamie didn’t have much of a choice about it really as I steamrollered him into agreeing. I knew he would have liked to have gone as he’s a proud man and it was hard for him to see his platoon go off and not be with them, but this was something I wasn’t going to budge on. I did it for him and, in my mind, so our child would have a father. Ironically, at that time I believed Afghanistan, where Jamie would have been deployed to, to be far more dangerous than Iraq.

Once the decision was made Jamie did everything he possibly could to support me, just as he always did. I had only two and a half weeks to sort my life out and then go to my first conflict zone. My parents were absolutely devastated when I told them that night. Mum said she couldn’t understand why I was doing it and asked if I’d really considered how hard it was going to be to leave my baby.

For me, preparations were so fast that I didn’t really have any time to think about the consequences. I went to see Nikki, who was gutted that I was going but promised to help Jamie
look after Milly while I was away and said that she’d support him for me.

Within days I kissed goodbye to Milly for the first time as I was placed as a priority case on an OPTAG (operational training and advisory group) course, where they had a town set up in ex-Army quarters. There were people dressed up as locals, playing the enemy; I had refresher training to teach me how to deal with the enemy, the rules of engagement the British Army follow, as well as methods used for clearing buildings and compounds. You don’t just go storming into a building as there could be anyone in there, so I was taught how to check that it is empty and how to deal with the enemy if they are hiding inside, including warning: ‘Stop or I’ll shoot’ before firing a round. You all have your weapon and everyone has to practise and re-practise through role-play. We were shown how to use equipment we might be given in theatre, given presentations on IEDs, showing what they could look like, what to expect and how to deal with them, how to recognise heat exhaustion in people, and there was even a talk on sexually transmitted diseases and protecting yourself over there. It was a pretty intense four days, starting at seven in the morning and ending at seven in the evening.

Every morning before it started I’d ring Jamie and tell Milly I loved her down the phone. I missed her terribly but I knew this was just the start and six long months in the Iraq desert stretched ahead of me. The British Army training is second to none but the fact is nothing can prepare you for the harsh reality of war. Everyone has to do the course, no matter what trade or rank you are.

Life seemed to hurtle towards deployment day and I wrote a will, took out life insurance and wrote a letter that says:
‘Not to be opened until my funeral’. I still have it now and it’s still sealed. In it, I planned my own funeral and I asked for Leonard Cohen’s version of ‘Hallelujah’ to be sung. I also told Mum, Dad, Jamie and my brothers that I didn’t want them to waste their lives grieving for me but instead to channel all their energies into looking after Milly. They weren’t to wear black; instead I wanted them to celebrate my life and be proud of what I’d achieved. I also wanted Milly to have my medals when she was old enough.

Everything was efficient and practical and perhaps I was a bit in denial about the realities I faced ahead of me. As Jamie had eight years more experience than me in the Army he helped me pack my kit as he’d done in his Infantry days. ‘Don’t worry about Milly, I’m going to take care of her,’ he told me. He recognised that that was one of the most important things and he helped me to choose lots of pictures of Milly to take so a bit of home would always be with me.

I also had my eyelashes tinted, my armpits, legs and bikini line waxed and my hair dyed – there are no beauty salons on camp. It’s also impossible to wear make-up when it’s so hot as it just slides off your face. A contraceptive injection was also booked in at the doctors – not for birth control, but so that I wouldn’t have any periods. Every female soldier I knew did that when they were on deployment as it’s one less thing to have to worry about.

One of the more difficult preparations was that your kit had to be marked with a number, made up of the first three letters of your surname and the last three numbers of your military number. You have to write it on the front of all your kit and body armour so that you are identifiable if you are injured or killed. It’s not a nice thing to do at all. Jamie helped me write
on the letters, but as we did it we were both silent, thinking about why we were doing it.

My parents came down a few days before I left. Mum tried to talk to me again about why I was doing this. I told her: ‘Mum, I can’t talk about this now. I just need your support while I’m there. I’m going to a war zone and I need to know you are there for me.’

Because I was going to miss Milly’s birthday and Easter we had an Easter cake and she got to stay up really late. I put on a smile and made a pretence of eating, but inwardly I felt sick with nerves and I had no appetite. When we finally put her to bed I kissed her goodbye and told her I loved her and that I’d be home soon. In my mind I was already counting down the days until I’d be home again and I consoled myself she was too young to understand what Mummy was doing.

It was still pitch black at 4am the following morning when a dark green Land Rover came to pick me up from the door to take me to RAF Brize Norton. My best friend’s fiancé knew how upset I was about going so he volunteered to do it to give me moral support. I said goodbye to Mum and Dad and to Jamie but I didn’t cry – if I’m really honest, I felt numb. It’s like when you wait for a holiday, and you are travelling to the airport and it doesn’t feel real as you have been waiting so long for it. Jamie wanted to hold me and his last words were: ‘I love you, Hannah.’

Anxious, I didn’t speak on the two-hour drive. We stopped and got a McDonald’s breakfast on the way, the last one I’d be able to eat for a while. Driving into the base I felt a knot of nerves twist inside me before I was picked up in a whirlwind of checking in, showing ID and going through all the protocols you have to do to ensure you’ve got all the kit you need with
you before boarding a huge RAF aircraft with one piece of hand luggage. The most important item in my carry-on bag was a photo of Milly smiling in a pink romper suit.

On board, the aeroplane was just like a charter flight inside with seats. It’s anything but a holiday experience, though, as you are all in kit and there’s an air of expectation. It’s not a pleasant feeling – you can sense everyone’s trepidation about what they are flying into. Surrounded by other military personnel there was plenty of banter, but I didn’t have anybody to share my jangling nerves with as I was flying as the sole member of my unit.

Before landing at our final destination in Basra there was a brief stop-off at Kuwait at a military airport. The Kuwait camp was a vast sea of tents. It was the middle of the night, the air was cool but there were unfamiliar sounds, and a silence fell on everyone as we waited to board the second plane. This time it was net seating for the two-hour flight and we had to put on full body armour. The lights were on as we left Kuwait but when we got to half an hour before landing, they were turned off – the mortar threat was very real. I looked around and all I could see was the whites of all of the lads’ eyes in the pitch black. Fear was palpable as everyone was nervous about landing safely.

As we touched down at Basra Airport our nerves were justified as we suffered a mortar and rocket attack, which was quite a welcome. You couldn’t see out to spot the telltale streaks across the sky, so the first we heard was the deafening crash of an explosion, which shook the plane. We disembarked with mortars still flying over our heads and they were strangely beautiful as they traced across the sky like shooting stars.

To be honest, at first I had no idea what was going on.
Then an alarm went off that sounded like a World War II siren you hear in the movies and we were all ordered to lie on the ground. For the second time that night all you could see was the whites of everyone’s eyes, except they were wider this time in the moonlight. Seconds later there was another series of booms. We’d been travelling for twenty-four hours and were absolutely shattered; we all lay, quietly praying for the all-clear. Someone tried to break the tension by saying: ‘Welcome to Iraq!’ but everyone was rattled. Little did I know it but compared to the rest of my time in Iraq, the explosions I heard then were distant ones.

When it finally ended we were all ushered, shaken, into the airport to collect our bags. The staff, who were accustomed to regular onslaughts as a part of camp life, were all very matter-of-fact as they were used to the mortar alarm, but I didn’t even have time to fully register what had just happened and its implications as I was so exhausted. There was a speech about a form we then all had to fill in that checks you into Theatre.

After I had collected my bag, I was greeted by the guy whose job I would be taking over. He led me through the camp, which was as huge as a small town. First, he took me to where I would be sleeping – a shack that resembled a large Anderson Shelter with individual rooms inside. On the mud floor you had some matting and a cot onto which you put your sleeping bag. You were given a laundry sack with a tag with your name and number on it. It was incredibly dusty from the desert everywhere, including the room, and it was stiflingly hot. To try and make it a tiny bit homely I placed a photo of Milly and Jamie above my bed and then managed an hour and a half’s fitful sleep before I had to get up to be briefed about my new job.

My eyes were rolling in my head with tiredness as he explained my role was ‘OPLOC’ or ‘Operational Location’, a largely administrative role that involved checking people in and out of Theatre and briefing new arrivals. This could include full units arriving to individual people like myself coming in. A darker side of the job was checking who had been killed or injured. I started work later that day after a few more hours of getting my head down.

Although my job was initially admin, we were still acutely aware of the risks. The mortar bomb siren became almost a daily part of our lives. The second we heard the warning, dropping to the floor became an automatic reaction. The abnormal becomes the grinding norm and we lived on our nerves, constantly aware of the threat. Just as terrifying was the fact that kidnap and rape became risks. The reason the kidnap threat was stepped up was that someone had stolen some of the camp laundry. The system in place was that you’d stick all your dirty kit into the sack you were given, which was tagged with your name, dump it in a huge laundry bin, they’d take it away and twenty-four hours later, you’d collect it from another bin. Somehow some uniforms had gone missing.

I can only speculate, but I suspect it would probably have been local guys who were threatened that their families would be killed if they didn’t do it. But it meant there was a risk (albeit a relatively small one) that someone might try to enter the camp or trick a patrol. The reality was they probably wouldn’t have got very far as they’d have been stopped at the gate and all patrols were aware of the risk – and no one was taking any chances.