Spare (23 page)

Taliban, for sure, we said. Who else would be moving in those trenches?

I went through the Checklist to make sure. Pattern of life, the Army called it. Can you see women? Can you see children? Can you see dogs? Cats? Is there anything to indicate that this target might be next door to a hospital? A school?

Any civvies (civilians) whatsoever?

No. All no.

It added up to Taliban, and nothing but Taliban.

I planned a strike for the next day. I was assigned to work it out with two American pilots. Dude Zero One and Dude Zero Two. I briefed them on the target, told them I wanted a 2,000-pound JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition). I wondered why we used that clunky name. Why not just call it a bomb? Maybe because this was no ordinary bomb; it had radar-controlled guidance systems. And it was heavy. It weighed as much as a black rhino.

Typically, with a smattering of Taliban fighters, the standard request would be a 500-pounder. But I didn’t think that would be enough force to penetrate the fortified bunkers I was seeing on my screen.

Granted, FACs never thought 500 pounds was enough. We always wanted 2,000-pounders. Go big or go home, we always said. But in this case I felt strongly that only big would do the job. The bunker system would withstand anything less. Not only did I want a 2,000-pound JDAM on top of the bunker, I wanted the second aircraft to follow up with a 20-mm, strafe the trenches running from the bunker, pick off guys as they “ex-filled.”

Negative, said Dude Zero One.

The Americans saw no need for a 2,000-pound bomb.

We prefer to drop two 500-pound bombs, Widow Six Seven.

How very un-American.

I felt strongly that I was right, and I wanted to argue, but I was new and lacked self-confidence. This was my first airstrike. So I just said:

Roger that.

New Year’s Eve. I held the F-15s at bay, about eight kilometers, so the noise of their engines wouldn’t spook the targets. When conditions looked to be just right, all calm, I summoned them.

Widow Six Seven, we’re in hot.

Dude Zero One, Dude Zero Two, you’re cleared hot.

Cleared hot.

They went streaking towards the target.

On my screen I watched the pilot’s crosshair settle over the bunker.

One second.

Two.

White flash. Loud bang. The wall of the ops room shuddered. Dust and pieces of stone rained down from the ceiling.

I heard Dude Zero One’s voice:
Delta Hotel
(direct hit). Stand by for BDA (battle damage assessment).

Plumes of smoke rose from the desert.

Moments later…just as I’d feared, Taliban came running out of the trench. I groaned at my Rover, then stomped outside.

The air was cold, the sky pulsing blue. I could hear Dude Zero One and Dude Zero Two way above, tailing off. I could hear the echo of their bombs. Then all was silent.

Not all of them got away, I consoled myself. Ten, at least, didn’t make it out of that trench.

Still—a bigger bomb would’ve really done the trick.

Next time, I told myself. Next time, I’ll trust my gut.

I got promoted, sort of.
To a small lookout high above the battlefield. For quite some time the lookout had been driving the Taliban mad. We had it, they wanted it, and if they couldn’t get it then they were bound to destroy it. They’d attacked the lookout scores of times in the months before I got there.

Hours after my arrival at the lookout, here they came again.

AK-47s rattling, bullets whizzing by. It sounded like someone throwing beehives through our window. There were four Gurkhas with me, and they unleashed a Javelin missile in the direction of the incoming fire.

Then they told me to take a seat behind the 50-cal.
Jump on, saab!

I climbed into the gun nest, grabbed the big handles. I shoved in my earplugs, took aim through the mesh hanging from the window. I squeezed the trigger. The feeling was like a train through the middle of my chest. The sound was locomotive-like as well.
Chugga chugga chugga.
The gun spat bullets across the desert, and shell casings flew around the lookout like popcorn. It was the first time I’d ever fired a 50-cal. I simply couldn’t believe the power.

In my direct line of sight was abandoned farmland, ditches, trees. I lit it all up. There was an old building with two domes that looked like a frog’s eyes. I peppered those domes.

Meanwhile, Dwyer began lobbing its big guns.

All was mayhem.

I don’t remember much after that, but I don’t need to—there’s video. The press was there, by my side, filming. I hated them being there, but I’d been ordered to take them on an outing. In return they’d agreed to sit on any images or information they gathered until I was out of the country.

How many did we kill? the press wanted to know.

We couldn’t be sure.

Indeterminate, we said.

I thought I’d be in that lookout for a long time. But soon after that day I was summoned up north to FOB Edinburgh. I boarded a Chinook full of mailbags, lay down among them to hide. Forty minutes later I was hopping off, into knee-deep mud.
When the hell did it rain?
I was shown to my quarters in a sandbag house. A tiny bed.

And a roommate. Estonian signals officer.

We hit it off. He gave me one of his badges as a welcome gift.

Five miles away was Musa Qala, a town that had once been a Taliban fortress. In 2006 we’d seized it, after some of the worst fighting British soldiers
had seen in half a century. More than a thousand Taliban had been subdued. After paying such a price, however, the town was quickly, carelessly, lost again. Now we’d won it a second time, and we aimed to keep it.

And a nasty job it was. One of our lads had just been blown up by an IED.

Plus, we were despised in and around the town. Locals who’d cooperated with us had been tortured, their heads put on spikes along the town walls.

There would be no winning of either hearts or minds.

I went on patrol
. I drove with a convoy of Scimitar tanks from FOB Edinburgh through Musa Qala, and beyond. The road took us down through a wadi, in which we soon came upon an IED.

The first one I’d encountered.

It was my job to call in the bomb experts. One hour later the Chinook arrived. I found it a secure location for landing, threw a smoke grenade to indicate the best spot, and to show which way the wind was blowing.

A team quickly hopped out, approached the IED. Slow, painstaking work. It took them forever. Meanwhile, we were all totally exposed. We expected Taliban contact any second; around us we heard whizzing motorbikes. Taliban scouts, no doubt. Clocking our location. When the motorbikes got too close, we fired flare guns, warning them off.

In the distance were poppy fields. I looked off, thought of the famous poem.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow…
In Britain the poppy was a symbol of remembrance, but here it was just the coin of the realm. All those poppies would soon be processed into heroin, sales of which would pay for the Taliban bullets fired at us, and the IEDs left for us under roads and wadis.

Like this one.

At last the bomb experts blew up the IED. A mushroom cloud shot into the air, which was so dust-saturated you didn’t think there could be room for any more.

Then they packed up and left, and we continued north, deeper and deeper into the desert.

We made a square
of our vehicles, which we called a harbor. The next day, and the day after, and so on, we ventured out to do patrols around the town.

Show of presence, we were told.

Keep moving, we were told.

Keep the Taliban wondering, we were told. Keep ’em off balance.

Overall, however, the base mission was to support an ongoing American offensive. There was a constant roar of American jets overhead, and explosions in a nearby village. We worked in very close concert with the Americans, engaging the Taliban in frequent firefights.

A day or two after we’d established our harbor, we were sitting on high ground, watching shepherds in the distance. All we could see for miles around were these men and their sheep. The scene looked innocent enough. But the shepherds were getting too close to the Americans, making them nervous. The Americans fired several warning shots. Inevitably, they hit one of the shepherds. He’d been riding a motorbike. We couldn’t tell from our distance if it had been an accident or deliberate. We watched the sheep scatter, then saw the Americans swoop in and pick up the shepherds.

When they’d gone I went out into the field, with a few Fijian soldiers, and picked up the motorbike. I wiped it down, put it aside. Took care of it. After the Americans had questioned the shepherd, bandaged and released him, he came to us.

He was shocked that we’d retrieved his motorbike.

He was more shocked that we’d cleaned it.

And he nearly passed out when we gave it back.

The next day, or perhaps
the day after, our convoy was joined by three journalists. I was ordered to take them into the battlefield, give them a tour—with an explicit understanding that the news embargo was still in effect.

I was in a Spartan, up front of the convoy, the journalists stowed inside. They kept popping up, nagging me. They wanted to get out, take some photos, get some film. But it wasn’t safe. The Americans were still clearing the area.

I was standing in the turret when one journalist tapped my leg, asked yet again for permission to get out.

I sighed:
OK. But be careful of mines. And stay close.

They all piled out of the Spartan, started setting up their camera.

Moments later, the guys ahead of us came under attack. Rounds went sizzling over our heads.

The journalists froze, looked at me, helpless.

Don’t just stand there! Get back in!

I didn’t want them there in the first place, but I especially didn’t want anything happening to them on my watch. I didn’t want any journalist’s life on my ledger. I couldn’t handle the irony.

Was it hours later, or days, that we learned the Americans had dropped a Hellfire missile on the nearest village? There were many injured. A boy was brought out of the village, up the ridge, in a wheelbarrow, his legs hanging over the side. They were ripped to pieces.

Two men were pushing the barrow, straight towards us. I couldn’t tell who they were to the boy. Family? Friends? When they reached us, they weren’t able to explain. None spoke English. But the boy was in a shit state, that was clear, and I watched as our medics quickly began treating him.

One terp (interpreter) tried to calm the boy, while also trying to learn the facts from his escorts.

How did this happen?

Americans.

I was edging closer, but I was stopped by a sergeant on his sixth tour.
No, boss, you don’t wanna see this
.
You’ll never be able to get it out of your head if you do.

I backed off.

Minutes later, a whistle, then a zip. A huge explosion behind us.

I felt it in my brain.

I looked around. Everyone was on their stomachs. Except me, and two others.

Where did that come from?

A few of our guys pointed into the distance. They were desperate to return fire, and asked me for permission.

Yes!

But the Taliban who fired were already gone. We’d missed our chance.

We waited for the adrenaline to fade, for the ringing in our ears to stop. It took a long time. I remember one of our guys whispering over and over:
Fuck me that was close.

We tried for hours to piece it all together, what happened. Some of us believed the Americans wounded that boy; others felt that the boy had been a pawn in a classic Taliban feint. The wheelbarrow thing had been a little charade designed to keep us on the hill, distracted, immobile, so the Taliban could fix our position. The enemy had messed up that boy in the barrow, then used him as bait.

Why did the boy and the men go along with it?

Because if they didn’t, they’d be killed.

Along with everyone they loved.

We could see the lights
of Musa Qala in the distance. February 2008.

Our tanks were in a harbor and we were eating dinner out of bags, talking in low voices.

After the meal, around midnight, I went on radio stag. Sitting in the back of a Spartan, the big door open, I had the desk pulled down and I was taking notes off the radio. My only light was a dim bulb overhead in a wire cage. The stars in the desert sky were brighter than that bulb, and seemed closer.

I was running the radio off the Spartan’s battery, so every now and then I’d start the engine to give the battery a charge. I didn’t like making noise, for fear of attracting the Taliban’s attention, but I had no choice.

After a while I tidied up the Spartan, poured myself a cup of hot chocolate from a thermos, which didn’t warm me. Nothing could. The desert could get so cold. I was wearing desert combats, desert boots, a green puffer, a wool beanie—and still shivering.

I tweaked the radio’s volume, tried to pick up the voices between its crackles and squelches. Mission reports being sent in. Info about mail deliveries. Messages being passed through battle group net, none of which related to my squadron.

I think it was about one
a.m.
when I heard several people talking about Red Fox.

Zero Alpha, the officer in command, was telling someone that Red Fox this and Red Fox that…I jotted a few notes, but stopped writing and looked up at the stars when I heard them mention…C Squadron.

The voices were saying that this Red Fox was in trouble, no doubt about it.

I made out that Red Fox was a person. Had he done something wrong?

No.

Were others planning to do him wrong?

Yes.

Judging from the tone of the voices, Red Fox was about to be murdered. I swallowed a mouthful of hot chocolate and blinked at the radio and knew with total certainty that Red Fox was me.