the enemy. Golf Bravo Nine One was the front line from where they kept hitting Alpha Xray. By blowing the treelines, we deprived them of cover via which to sneak up on our base. Alpha Xray was getting whacked pretty much on a daily basis, and we didn’t want to make it any easier for the bastards.
The following morning Alpha Xray got hit just after first light. Maybe we’d needled the Taliban by blowing up their greenery. Either way, there was a barrage of small arms and RPGs smashing into the base. I couldn’t get any air, so Chris called in fire, pounding the enemy with the 105mm guns and our own 81mm mortars.
But none of this was the big one, and we knew it. Something nasty was brewing. We kept having walk-ins warn us that the enemy were reinforcing and rearming for a big push. They planned to overrun one of our bases, and we guessed it had to be Alpha Xray.
The OC decided to push out a foot patrol to the east of Monkey One Echo, and into the Golf Charlie codenames. The aim was to get a rise out of the enemy around Bin Laden’s Summerhouse, so we could pre-empt their big push by forcing them into a fight. We reckoned the Summerhouse was ‘the Mosque’ that the enemy commander kept calling their men to for pre-battle briefings. If the Summerhouse and the Mosque were the same place, and our foot patrol could provoke them into opening fire, we could smash it from the air.
We pushed east and crossed the enemy front lines, creeping deep into their territory. I had two A-10 Warthogs in support. I had one watching to the front of our patrol, and the other with eyes on the Summerhouse/Mosque. We hit the Golf Charlie One Seven area, and a lone RPG went sailing over our heads. It smashed into the bush twenty metres beyond us. No one could see the firing point, and apart from that it was dead all around us. Not a soul was to be seen.
We got back to PB Sandford without another shot being fired, the A-10s shadowing us into base. It all confirmed what our walk-in sources were telling us: the enemy had pulled back to resupply and rearm, in preparation for the big one.
The following day was Born Naked Day, or at least it was for the Czech Army unit. The Czechs had claimed their own corner of PB Sandford, where they kept their Mad Max Toyotas parked up between two massive mud ramparts, like blast walls.
It was Saturday, 11 August and the Czechs intended to spend the entire day naked, no matter what. They’d bloody fight naked if they had to, or so they told us.
They erected a sign at the entrance to their domain:
The World Famous Czech Born Naked Day.
Make Love Not War.
All proceeds to the Children of Chernobyl Fund.
Then there was a list of rules.
Get Naked.
Stay Naked.
Extreme nudity.
No clothing ever.
It wasn’t exactly our sense of humour: that was more of the Get Snoopy kind. But maybe we were just repressed when it came to getting our kit off. And for sure we had some bizarre traditions of our own in Britain — like chasing cheeses down mountains, or peashooter contests, or bog-snorkelling. In comparison, Born Naked Day was a no-brainer, especially if there were some Czech girls involved — which I guess there would be when doing it back home in the Czech Republic.
The Czech unit were a massive bunch of lads. They made Throp look positively weedy. Each looked as if he’d been fed on an intravenous drip of steroids during infanthood. If they wanted to sit around with their tackle hanging out, none of us were going to argue. Anyway, it was all for a good cause. We dug deep in our pockets and chucked a load of our hard-earned spends into the Born Naked Day bucket, trying not to get an eyeful of any Czech tackle. One look could give you a serious inferiority complex.
At midday we had an Afghan elder walk-in. We steered him away from the naked Czech monsters, and grabbed Alan, our terp. The word from the elder was that the enemy were moving back into the Triangle in big numbers. They were reinforced and rearmed, and their intention was to hit us hard and drive us out of here.
The OC decided to pre-empt them. He was a man who believed in fighting on the terrain and at the time of his own choosing. We’d push out a patrol on foot past Alpha Xray, then hook north parallel to Route Buzzard, probing north of the area in an effort to force the enemy’s hand.
The morning of the patrol I had a bit of a problem. I didn’t know about it until I broke wind, and then I had it all down my legs and in my boots. There were several cases of diarrhoea and vomiting in the base, and now I’d got a dose. I had two more bouts that morning, and eventually I had to accept that I wasn’t going anywhere.
I perched in the back of the Vector, from where I was in sprinting distance of the shitters. I had another attack, but failed to make the bogs in time. I stripped off and crouched in the wagon in my undies and flip-flops. It wasn’t a pretty sight and I smelled rank, but I was more concerned about controlling the air, and making sure the lads on the patrol were all right.
They left PB Sandford at 1345, and pushed down Route Crow towards Alpha Xray. Just as they neared the base there was an eruption of small arms and RPG fire. The enemy were in the sawn-off trees at Golf Bravo Nine One. I got on the air and requested immediate Close Air Support (CAS).
As I did so, there was a massive, punching blast from the direction of Monkey One Echo. I glanced at Sticky, who’d opted to stay with his JTAC, despite the fact that I’d shit myself. He was hanging by the door of the wagon, where I guess the smell was a little less lethal. He was on his radio immediately, calling for a sitrep from MOE.
‘They got a man down!’ Sticky relayed to me. ‘A lad’s been hit by an RPG!’
‘
‘
My mind was fucking racing. If a lad had taken a direct hit from an RPG, he was more than likely spread across several acres of desert. So we’d more than likely lost another one. I felt the rage sweeping over me. In spite of my compromised state, I felt this irresistible urge to grab my SA80 and go out and smash some enemy. Even from inside the Vector, the crack and thump of battle from both our bases was deafening.
‘
The call from Widow control brought me back to my senses. I was hardly in a fit state to go out fighting. I got Sticky to get the casualty in to PB Sanford. We’d then do the casevac from an LZ just to the north of the base in the open desert. The Harriers came on station, and I got them flying an immediate low-level show of force, screaming over the walls of Monkey One Echo.
The casualty was loaded into a Vector, which hurtled across the high ground to us. The RPG had impacted a metre away from the injured lad. It had ploughed into the wall before exploding, which had kept the frag down. He was in a bad way, but the medics reckoned we could save him, as long as the Chinook got him out in time.
I got Apache
The lads came back from patrol, but once they heard that we’d had one smashed by an RPG they went wild. They wanted to get right back into the Green Zone in full battle rattle, and find the enemy. They calmed down a bit when they learned that the medics reckoned he’d make it through all right.
I got allocated an Ugly call sign for the following morning. It was unprecedented to be given an Apache without a TIC. I soon found out why I’d got it. We had a convoy coming in on a resupply, and there was a Sky News
