I was told the call was all about the Sangin op, and that it was urgent. Captain Balm was the US ‘CJOC’ based at Kandahar Airfield, whatever a CJOC might be. I called him on the secure line from the FOB Rob ops room.
‘Sergeant Grahame, calling for Captain Bouff Balm,’ I announced.
A voice came on the line. ‘Sergeant, I just want to ask you some questions about the Sangin mission. You were the JTAC on that op, right?’
‘Aye, I was.’
‘Why did you start with a thousand-pounder and end up using CRV7? It’s normally the other way round.’
‘I used the thousand-pounder to get through the building’s roof and flatten it,’ I told him. ‘The CRV7s were fired after and into the compound grounds, in response to movement around it. That’s why I started big and went small.’
‘Who was the nearest call sign to the compound when the strike went in?’
‘I was.’
‘Why did you say on the radio that nearest friendlies were three hundred metres away, when you clearly weren’t? You were half that distance.’
‘I was the most forward call sign. I had three walls between me and the target. If I’d made a mistake it would have been me who got flattened.’
‘That answer’s not good enough, Sergeant. If you lie to the jets on how close you are, you’ll get someone killed.’
‘But I was the most forward call sign, and I didn’t really give a shit.’
‘If it happens again I will take your qualification from you, Sergeant. And that comes all the way from a two- star general. Now, I want to talk to you about that thousand-pound drop.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, it’s come down from Intel that this is who you killed: Mullah Abdel Bari, Mullah Qawi, Mullah Hafiz and his bodyguards. That’s three top enemy commanders. So fucking well done. That comes from the general — it was an excellent strike.’
I stared at the receiver for a second in sheer amazement. ‘Hold on a minute, mate: if it was that good a drop why are you going on about taking my qualification away?’
‘You’re new on your tour. We’ve got to bed it into you how to operate. Don’t say you’re a distance away when you’re not. And don’t mess around with gettin’ danger-close to your own drops.’
‘Fair enough,’ I told him.
Captain Bouff Balm seemed to think 150 metres was too close for comfort. By the end of my tour I’d be dropping bombs at a fraction of that distance, on a daily basis. It was the only way to keep myself and the lads alive.
Fourteen
OPERATION MINE STRIKE
The AIDS test in Norwich Hospital was a negative, which was a massive relief. Whilst awaiting the result I’d gone to see Nicola and the kids. I tried telling her as little as I could about what I’d been up to in theatre, but she’s a canny lass and she knew I’d been busy out there.
‘So, have you killed anyone?’ she asked me, eventually.
‘A couple,’ I lied. In truth I’d lost count.
I then proceeded to do exactly what the kids wanted every minute that I was home. But the hours passed in a blur, and it was a total headfuck being back in the UK and trying to act as if everything was normal.
Everything wasn’t normal. The lads were out in the Green Zone embroiled in the fight of their lives. And I couldn’t help but think that’s where I should be, bringing in bombs on the enemy to smash them. Before leaving I tried explaining to Nicola the importance of what I was doing out in Helmand.
‘I’ve done all right out there, trying to look after the lads,’ I told her. ‘The air’s a massive part of the picture. And that’s what matters — looking after the lads. Not killing people.’
‘I know. I know.’ Nicola was all teared up. ‘Just don’t take any stupid risks, OK? I know what you’re like, Paul.’
That was the great thing about Nicola: she never said ‘don’t go’. She knew what I did for a living, and she never once tried to stop me. Every time I went to war we both knew it might be the last, but she never once tried to stop me. What a top girl.
I made her a promise. ‘When I’m home, we’ll go to Disney for Ella’s second birthday. Soon as I’m home. I reckon we’ll have earned it.’
Three days later I was back in Camp Bastion and ready to rejoin the lads. I was also itching to catch up on all the news. Major Butt had taken B Company through the enemy positions, driving them out of the Green Zone. Rahim Kalay and Adin Zai were now owned by our boys, but it had taken days of intense close-quarter fighting to secure them. One of those actions had already passed into 2 MERCIAN legend.
The OC had sent a fighting patrol into the Green Zone at night, to winkle out the enemy. At around 0200 they had been challenged in Arabic. The enemy opened up with a barrage of RPGs and machine-gun fire. Using a drainage ditch full of human faeces as cover, the platoon withdrew from the firefight. But in the confusion of doing so one of their number, an eighteen-year-old private, had gone missing.
The patrol was led by Sergeant ‘Jacko’ Jackson. Jacko had called the young lad repeatedly on his radio. Finally he’d answered. He was lying in a ditch with his leg shot up. He’d put tourniquets around it, and was clutching a grenade in either hand. As the enemy got ever closer he’d pulled the pins out with his teeth, and was holding the release levers closed. He was going to blow himself and them sky high if they found him.
The patrol couldn’t see where he was, so they asked him to throw an IR Cyalume — an infrared light stick visible only by night-vision — into the air. That would give them a fix on his position. The trouble was the private had a grenade in either hand with the pins out, so how was he going to throw the light stick? He opted to jam one of the grenades between his knees, and use the free hand to hurl the Cyalume.
It was at this stage that the private said he was visual with the platoon ten metres away. He presumed the lads had come to rescue him. In fact, the platoon hadn’t moved out of their shit-filled ditch, so it had to be the enemy. Sergeant Jackson ordered the wounded soldier to cease talking on his radio, for it was leading the enemy to him. The private replied that he was going to blow the grenades, if that was the enemy so close to him. Jacko managed to talk him out of it, and promised that they were coming in to get him. He then decided that they needed a feint, both to distract the enemy from the Cyalume throw and the rescue attempt, and to draw their fire.
Sergeant Jackson opted to lead a lone assault on the flank of the enemy position, so they would think they were being surrounded. He set off into the darkness, crossed the terrain and charged the enemy with assault rifle blazing, and chucking in some grenades for good measure. As Jacko had gone mental with his weapons, the rest of the platoon saw the Cyalume go up and rushed in to the rescue. They got their wounded man out, and Jacko managed to extract without being killed or captured. A week later the lad was back in hospital in the UK, with his leg patched up and trying to chase the nurses.
Jacko had tumbled over at one stage during the attack, as something powerful smashed him to the ground. The following day the OC had been giving him a bit of a bollocking, ’cause he couldn’t raise him on the radio. Jacko had shown the OC his radio kit, and pointed out that the green light was on, proving that it was working. In response Butsy had pointed to a bullet hole that went straight through Jacko’s radio, his backpack and into his body armour. No one had noticed it up until then.
‘Look, Jacko, that’s why your bloody radio’s not working,’ he’d remarked.
But in taking Rahim Kalay and Adin Zai we’d sadly lost another of the lads. Guardsman Daryl Hickey had been part of Somme Platoon — the same bunch that had got blown up in the 107mm rocket strike on their Vector. The Somme lads had been providing covering fire, as B Company assaulted an enemy position. Guards-man Hickey had taken a gunshot wound. He was evacuated by Chinook, but was dead on arrival at Camp Bastion.
I couldn’t help but wonder if I could have saved him, had I been the JTAC on the ground during those battles. It was an irrational thought, and there was no reason to think my replacement was any less capable than me. But I
