Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan With Britain's Elite Bomb Disposal Unit (19 page)

Woody asks, ‘What does the charge look like? What size is it?’ Hunt makes a shape with his hands and says, ‘It looks about this big – the size of a shoe box.’

‘We can get the ANA to stop the traffic while you’re working on the bomb. You should also be aware that we’ve been hit on a few occasions from that tree line over there,’ says Lance Sergeant Hunt, pointing to a clump of trees around 400 metres to the north. ‘What we can do is push some of our guys into that wood line because that’s the only area not covered from the sangar, that’s the only vulnerable spot around here.’

‘OK,’ says Kev, staring at the wood line in the distance, ‘I think we’re going to need that covered. If they [the Taliban] move into the wood line we are going to be sitting with our arses exposed.’

After the briefing I ask Woody how he feels, sensing that something is niggling him. He tells me, ‘I’ve given up trying to get the information I need off a ten-liner because everybody ends up missing some stuff off. That’s fairly normal. I always feel much happier when I can get out and have a look. It’s relatively straightforward but there may be a bit of an issue when I get in the compound. That is always a threat. If you have an IED on a road, that’s straightforward. But with this I’m going in on a route that they [the soldiers] haven’t been in yet, so I’m the first one going in, so I’ll have to clear my own way through that compound, which, depending on the ground, could be tricky. There may be more than one in there, something the Taliban might use which I wouldn’t necessarily expect, so I have to outthink them. It’s just like chess – you always play two or three moves ahead and never let yourself get boxed in.’

Back on the ground, Kev gives one of the searchers a minor bollocking. ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been calling you on the radio. Didn’t you hear me tell you to come up here and see what’s going on? Right, get a fucking grip, stop pissing around, and get the lads together.’

I can feel the tension rising in my stomach at the prospect of leaving the safety of Blue 17 and heading into the field where the Taliban have booby-trapped the isolated compound.

The final briefings are conducted and the soldiers prepare to leave. They lift their CBA from the floor and get ready for action. Radios and Vallons are checked once again. Before we move out, the soldiers wait for the traffic to be stopped by the Afghan troops. I can feel the tension rising. Everyone just wants to get out and get stuck in and I can empathize with that feeling. Get in, clear the device, and get out – no dramas.

Woody thinks it will take around twenty minutes to isolate the compound and to check for the presence of command wires. The ground is pretty flat and the terrain is uncomplicated. ‘But it depends on what we find in the compound,’ he adds. ‘You never really know what you’re going to find until you are face to face with the device, so you need a clear plan, but you also have to remain flexible.’

In the two months that he has been in Helmand, Woody has already defused around thirty bombs, but he is experienced enough to know that no device, no day, is ever the same in Helmand. ‘Start thinking like that,’ he tells me, ‘and you’ll be going home in a body bag.’

Woody is 28, with close-cropped hair which is beginning to recede at the temples. He is about 5 ft 8 in. tall and does not have an ounce of fat on his small, wiry frame. He is blessed with a naturally happy face and a slight gap between his front teeth which adds a hint of mischievousness to his otherwise wholly sensible personality. Woody spent almost eight years learning how to be a bomb hunter, longer than a vet or a doctor’s training, and if he is to survive his six months in Afghan he will need both skill and luck.

Kev spells out the order of march, but the search team are already aware of what is expected of them. A soldier manning the entrance to Blue 17 pulls back a rudimentary gate and we patrol out in single file across the road and a bridge into the wheat field. The soldiers who remain in the compound look on silently with unsmiling faces.

I immediately feel hopelessly exposed but the rest of the soldiers appear calm, which offers some reassurance. The Taliban have been pushed back out of the area, but the reality is that an attack could come at any time. We will be in the same location for at least two hours, and that makes us vulnerable.

The wheat harvest is still many weeks away and the lush field affords a beguiling sense of calm. I am reminded of the fields and natural beauty that surround my home back in England. Compound 23, where the bomb is located, is 300 metres away. Up ahead I can see Sapper Richie Pienaar rhythmically swinging his Vallon in a 180-degree arc from left to right, leading the way.

The green, young wheat sways like a wave as a gentle spring breeze brings a few seconds of respite from the midday sun. I hear birds singing and the distant voices of children playing. It doesn’t feel like a war zone.

Everyone in the patrol diligently follows exactly the same route. It is vital that we all stay in the safe lane, so I try to walk in the footsteps of the soldier in front of me, but after about 70 metres it becomes impossible.

My heart is now thumping in my chest and the adrenalin is coursing through my veins. I can feel the sweat running down my face and soaking my shirt beneath my body armour. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in all my life and I’m convinced that we are all about to be flattened by a huge explosion. I’m doing exactly what I promised my wife and family I wouldn’t after Rupert was killed.

Richie alone is responsible not only for his safety but also that of every member of the patrol. It is an enormous weight to carry for such a junior soldier but he does not seem to be the least bit burdened by the task. If he misses a bomb the chances are that either he or another member of the team could be injured or killed. We move through the wheat field so fast that it feels like a sprint. Inside my head I’m shouting, ‘Slow down! Slow down!’ I can’t see how they can possibly detect a buried bomb going at this pace – it seems almost suicidal.

The search team halts in the area which Kev had previously designated as the incident control point. My legs are shaking from a rush of adrenalin, then I’m suddenly overcome with an enormous sense of relief. I have been on patrol many times before – as a professional soldier with the Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland and as a journalist in Iraq and Bosnia. I have been under fire and I have learned how to cope with fear, but nothing compares to what I have experienced in the past few minutes. For the first time since I arrived in Helmand I am beginning to understand just how powerful a psychological weapon the IED has now become, and how vital the bomb-disposal teams are to the success of the whole mission in Afghanistan. The IED is a weapon of terror. It is the ultimate weapon in asymmetric warfare and its use on the scale now deployed by the Taliban was completely unpredicted by British commanders and NATO alike.

There is a few minutes’ pause before the isolation search of the compound. Those remaining in the ICP drop their packs and take up fire positions, and those who smoke quickly light up. It dawns on me that I’m not the only one who is sensing the danger of the task.

Once again Richie leads the way as the isolation search starts. Woody follows him closely and begins eyeing his target. The soldiers are looking for wires or pieces of string leading into the compound as well as buried pressure-plate IEDs. The Taliban know that an IED operator is at his most vulnerable when he is working on a device and when possible they will always try to kill him. Classically, the insurgents will bury a bomb near to another device which can be detonated either by pulling a command wire or detonating the device by means of a power source, such as a battery. Command wires running up to hundreds of metres have been found in Helmand and several soldiers have been blown up while conducting the isolation. Some of the command wires found in Helmand have been almost too thin to detect. To assist them in this most dangerous of tasks, specialist searchers are equipped with a special detecting device.

I look around, still feeling slightly anxious that the field could contain one or more IEDs. Kev seems to sense my nervousness. ‘This is one of our easier jobs,’ he tells me. ‘Ten-liners tend to be easier because you know where the device is. We’ve been told that the Taliban once occupied this compound and used it as a firing point but when they got pushed back they left a device there, hoping to take out either us or the ANA. I think they were probably targeting the ANA because hopefully no British soldier would ever enter a compound once used by the Taliban through the front door. They normally leave them in doorways and this what they have done here, so it should be relatively straightforward. Saying that, most guys tend to get killed or injured on the routine jobs.’

Kev sits down, rests his rifle between his legs, and begins chewing on a piece of green wheat. He loosens his chin-strap, while another member of the search team establishes radio communication with the main base. ‘Is this area secure?’ I ask Kev, armed with the knowledge that just a few weeks ago a member of the battlegroup was blown up and suffered a double amputation while crossing a similar field.

‘I’m very confident that there are no devices near us now,’ Kev says calmly. ‘The middle of a field is one of the least likely places they will put anything.’ I’m tempted to tell him about Lance Sergeant Cumberland, but I’m reminded of Kev’s fearsome reputation and decide to keep my thoughts to myself. Kev has been with the search team for only three months, having been sent out to Helmand to replace another RESA who had to return to the UK, but it is clear who is boss.

One of the soldiers has been chatting to one of his mates about compensation. The team were blown up a few weeks ago and the soldier is complaining about ringing in his ears. He asks Kev whether he will be entitled to any compensation when he returns home. ‘Dunno, mate,’ says Kev. ‘The compo rules have changed. It depends how bad the injury is and whether you are going to recover. You’ll have to wait until you get back to the UK, then go and see a doc.’ Kev is clearly the ‘daddy’ of the team. The soldiers are his responsibility both in the field and during downtime on base. He is expected to have an answer to every problem, no matter how small.

‘Have you had a tough tour?’ I ask. ‘It’s had its moments,’ Kev replies. ‘These lads have had a tougher run than me. We got blown up in a Warrior ten days ago. We were going up to Patrol Base Pimon [a small British outpost on the edge of the desert]. It was just a routine job, nothing exciting. We were the fourth vehicle in a convoy and you would think you were pretty safe. We were moving along a track, one that we had used before, and bang! we hit an IED. The Taliban must have been watching for a while, reckoned it was becoming a well-used track, so they put an IED in the ground and we drove over it. It blew the track off the Warrior and dented the rear of the vehicle. The blast lifted the whole vehicle off the ground. We all got stiff necks but we got off quite lightly. If it had been something like a Viking I think that would have been it. The blast would have taken us all out. The device was only about 15–20 kg of HME but that’s enough. If it can do that to a vehicle, imagine what it can do to a body.’

Boonie, the IED team’s No. 2, who is sorting out the equipment he believes Woody will need later in the task, chips in. ‘You would get the same effect from about 1.5 kg of military explosive. So 20 kg of their stuff will have the same effect. You don’t need much to immobilize a vehicle. Twenty kilos of HME, which they can knock up pretty quickly, will give you an M-Kill on an armoured vehicle and then you have got another job on your hands to recover the vehicle and that will make you vulnerable to ambush. These guys know what they’re about. I think some people forget that they have been doing this for a long time. They’re not scared of us, they will take us on whenever they can. The Taliban will always find a way to counter our drills. They have low-metal and no-metal content bombs – they are always evolving. Sometimes they have the advantage, and sometimes we do.’

Boonie is fair-haired and his skin is yet to be burnished by the Helmand sun. He looks more like a fresh-faced sixth-former than a front-line soldier, an observation he is used to, so he takes no offence when I mention it. When I ask him how he ended up in Afghanistan, he replies, ‘I always wanted to join the Army and I did quite well in my GCSEs and so when I went to the recruiting office I was told about being an Ammo Tech – it sounded great. You get quick promotion, and you get to do some really interesting stuff, so I went for it. I’ve been in four years and I’m already a corporal and I will become an IED operator providing I pass all the courses. This is my first major deployment. We’ve done two months but it feels like two weeks, we get bounced around so much, which is good but exhausting. We are working pretty much every day, going out on jobs. We’ve had some hairy moments, but I feel pretty safe much of the time. We come in from one job and go straight back out. That’s OK at the moment but I should imagine we’ll be pretty tired by the end of the tour. Our workload is a bit higher at the moment because our ECM operator, Corporal McCluggage, known as “Baggage”, is sick at the moment.’

Our conversation is ended by the arrival of Woody, who has completed the isolation search. He looks happy and relaxed. He breezes over to where I’m sitting and, slightly out of breath, says, ‘The search team and myself have conducted a search of the area,’ he explains in between gulps of water from a plastic bottle. He then bends over and pours some over the back of his head. ‘That’s better,’ he says, then stands upright and continues, ‘I’ve also cleared a safe area for me to work in. From what I can see there are no wires running into the compound. I’m pretty confident we would have picked up any if there were. What we’ve also decided to do is move the ICP just over there.’ He points at an area of the field some 10 metres from where we are standing. ‘The guys will clear a safe lane to it and then clear the ICP. Moving the ICP will make it easier for me to work – there’s no point in being uncomfortable when you’re working. Also the guys are pretty well protected here because if anything does go wrong when I’m working the blast will be confined within the compound. Which is good news for them but not so good for me.