Combat Camera (20 page)

The
Sun
has seen the true hell of war in Afghanistan at close range – patrolling with hero Royal Marines as a massive Taliban bomb killed two legendary commandos.
*

The report focused on the deaths of Marine Sam Alexander and his troop commander Lieutenant Ollie Augustin. They had been patrolling in Loy Mandeh, a Taliban stronghold. Lieutenant Augustin was
leading his men through a village compound when the IED detonated. Embedded with Colonel Lucas in a separate troop, Victoria had heard the blast from a mile away. As the news of casualties came over the radio, she noted the reactions of the Marines around her:

One commando, on his second tour in Afghanistan, sat with his head in his hands, shuddering: “Please let this not be another Sangin.”

No sooner had I finished reading the article than Virginia herself walked into the office, carrying her laptop. There were no spare Internet connections in the crowded reporters’ tent. Dougie had suggested she come into the JMOC. She took a seat at the spare desk and got to work.

We all spent the rest of the day in the office, although the work tempo started to drop off around mid-afternoon. Virginia didn’t say much about Omid Haft, but her presence did inspire a certain amount of debate about newspapers, with Faulkner leading the way. He monitored the British newspapers for stories about Afghanistan, and had just spotted a story in the
Daily Telegraph
about fears for the mental health of bomb-disposal experts.

“People die all the time doing IED clearance,” he said. “Let’s do a mental-health survey of bomb-disposal experts. Are they a) all right or b) mentally fucked up?” He shook his head. “Can someone take a common-sense pill?”

Virginia smiled at his little outburst. “You heckle us journalists, don’t you?” she said. “How high am I on the list?”

It was good to have her in the office. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but that didn’t matter. She was a beautiful, articulate war reporter – she could go anywhere she wanted.

She was back in the office the next day, this time for a phone interview with Michael O’Neill from the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) at Lashkar Gah. As the Head of Mission, he oversaw many of the local reconstruction projects, leading a 200-strong team of civil servants and service personnel.
*

The interview lasted about twenty minutes. Virginia said goodbye and then hung up with a sigh.

“How did it go?” asked Faulkner, leaning back in his chair. “I noticed you didn’t do much talking.”

“It’s the third time I’ve interviewed him,” she said, shaking her head. “You cannot get a word in edgeways. He likes to talk, and he likes to talk very fast. And I just can’t get him to talk to me in plain English. If I was writing for the
Guardian
, it would be fine, but I’m writing for the
Sun
.”

The readers of the
Sun
, it seemed, were a tough sell when it came to stories about transition and progress.

“Your average Brit will say: we’re building this entire country, we’ve got massive economic problems, unemployment through the roof, the life expectancy in Glasgow is less than it is in Haiti. Against that background, it’s hard to write stories about breast-feeding programmes in Afghanistan. Michael said, ‘It’s all about Afghanistan.’ But if you publish that comment, even in the
Independent
, you’ll still get comments like ‘What about Britain?’”

She flicked through her notes. “I need to make a link between breast-feeding programmes in Afghanistan and security. How am I going to do that? The British public struggle to disconnect the military side from the advanced level of infrastructure building.”

“It’s not sexy,” Faulkner said. “A guy with a rifle is sexy.”

“Well no, it’s not that. It’s just that it’s hard for them to grasp the finer points of government policy in a country they see as a huge problem.”

Dougie tried to help by emailing Michael O’Neill’s office and asking for some more concise quotes that the
Sun
could actually use. Some more quotes duly came back, but they still weren’t up to the required pithiness.

“They just don’t get it,” Dougie said, staring forlornly at his computer screen.

While this little drama was being played out, I took a call from Captain Luke Price. He handled press matters for the Brigade Advisory Group.

“Did you do an interview with two brothers from the Brigade Advisory Group?” he asked.

“Yes, I did,” I said. “We’ve just started the editing.”

“Could I ask you to stop?”

“What’s happened?” I sat up.

“One of them got hit by an IED.”

“Oh my God. Is he OK?”

“He’s going back to the UK with his brother,” he said. “Minus his left arm.”

“Christ…”

There was a pause, then Luke spoke again.

“We do have other brothers in the unit,” he said. "We’ve got some guys in B Company.”

“OK,” I said slowly. “I’ll get back to you on that one.”

It was Paul who’d been injured. We saw Lee in the coffee shop a couple of hours later. He spoke to us for about five minutes. He seemed relieved to be able to talk about it to someone. He’d been cooped up inside the hospital for hours.

“It’s a depressing place,” he said. “We want to get out of there now.” They were due to fly back to the UK at midnight.

“I agree,” said Ali. She’d recently spent a day in the Emergency Department, taking clinical photographs at the request of the hospital. “Two hours is enough.”

I’d never really thought of the hospital at Bastion as a depressing place, but then my reasons for being there had never been that depressing. It was a shining beacon of hope and civilization from one angle, and a meat house full of maimed soldiers and bloodied civilians from another.

The
Sunday Mirror
had just published extracts from a short diary written by a surgeon who’d recently served at the hospital. Lieutenant Colonel Mike McErlain had been working as a consultant orthopaedic and spinal surgeon. He was back home now, so the content had been cleared UK-side. The paper’s headline was pure tabloid, referring to Bastion as “Camp Hell”, but the diary itself was quite powerful. Just the first week sounded bad enough, and he was on duty for two months straight:

DAY THREE

An Afghan soldier has been blown up by an IED. His leg is so badly injured it can’t be saved. It is a grim task. An American surgeon puts on rock music in the background of the operating theatre. There’s no room for emotion as you fight to save as much of them as you can.

DAY FIVE

My first double amputation. The sight is pretty shocking. We all try to do as much as we can for him and keep him alive.

DAY EIGHT

Three amputations from three separate incidents make this one of the hardest days of my life.

I am exhausted afterwards as I struggle with the adrenaline coursing round my system. I sit and think it is such a shame. One is a dad who’ll never play football with his kids again. But keeping these guys alive is important.
*

* * *

I went to the hospital the next morning for less traumatic reasons – I needed some anti-malaria tablets. I’d run out weeks before Omid Haft and forgotten all about them. Foot-Tapping had been loudly reminding his men throughout the operation to keep taking the tablets (although I found it hard to imagine Colour Sergeant Fisher worrying about malaria), so now I was back at Bastion, I thought it best to get some more. I followed the signs to the Primary Healthcare department – just down the corridor from the operating theatre, but really a million miles away – and made myself known to the nurse on reception.

“When did you last take your tablets?” she asked.

“About a month ago.”

“Have you been out in the field since then?”

“Yes.”

She looked horrified.

“Only for about a week,” I added.

“You should still have taken your pills.”

“I also drank stream water, but I used a Lifesaver bottle.”

“The Lifesaver bottle won’t stop malaria.”

She left her desk and went into another office, then came back and told me that the doctor in charge was astonished by my stupidity. She handed me a box of Paludrine tablets and a box of Avloclor tablets. She also gave me a Malaria Warning Card, which I was supposed to carry in my wallet for the next two years. It said I might have been exposed to
MALARIA
, which must be considered in case of fever.

“I do spend a fair bit of time here at Bastion,” I told her.

“Bastion is non-malarial,” she said. “We’ve had about one case in the last ten years.”

“Great.” That sounded more like it.

“There are seven types of malaria in the field, and these pills protect you against two of them.”

“OK.” So pretty useless then.

I went back to the office. It was quiet that morning. Virginia and her photographer Andy were packing up their kit, getting ready for their flight back to the UK later that afternoon.

“She’s a bit upset,” Dougie said. “TFH have told her they’re not happy with one of her stories.”

Virginia had been chasing a story about one of the search dogs on camp, a Labrador called Fizz who’d swallowed a plastic duck. The duck hadn’t come out, so Fizz had gone under the knife. A surgeon had freed the bird, and Fizz had been able to return to duty. It was a funny, feel-good story, offering an alternative to all the misery coming out of Afghanistan. What made it perfect was the X-ray picture of Fizz’s stomach, clearly showing the duck trapped inside. The
Sun
readers were going to love it.

Unfortunately, TFH didn’t like the story. Someone in their office thought it made the search dogs at Bastion look incompetent. Because TFH had originally coordinated Virginia’s visit, they
were responsible for clearing her stories rather than the JMOC. According to Dougie, they weren’t prepared to clear this one unless Virginia dropped the X-ray picture.

“If you take the funny picture out, what’s the point?” he said. “The
Sun
won’t run it.”

The
Sun
never did run it. TFH wouldn’t budge. They were happy to clear a report on Omid Haft that raised the prospect of “another Sangin” and never once mentioned the ANA. That was fine. Not a problem.

But a short item about a duck-swallowing Labrador? No way. Not a chance.

That would make us all look incompetent.

PART THREE

The Retreat to Kabul

Two days after Omid Haft, we flew to Kabul to film the launch of the ANP’s District Commander’s course. The top police officers in Afghanistan were starting five weeks of specialist training, led by officers from across the UK. A diplomat called Scott met us at the airport and escorted us to the British Embassy, our home for the next two nights.

“Have you eaten?” he asked. “I can order you some pizza.”

It was 10.30 p.m., and we were all hungry.

“Sounds great,” I said.

We sped through the empty streets of Kabul, listening to Scott put in an order for three large margheritas on his mobile phone. The usual traffic that stymied the route from the airport had died away for the night. Only the pavements showed any signs of life: men of all ages loitering in the doorways of grimy eateries, chatting and smoking.

“Is sixty dollars OK?” said Scott.

“Sixty dollars?” said Ali. “Are these pizzas coming from Italy?”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll get these.”

I didn’t want to upset Scott, because I was hoping he’d be able to rustle up some booze as well. The Embassy was famous for its relaxed stance on alcohol, and I hadn’t drunk anything for almost three months.

“You got any beer, Scott?” I asked.

Twenty minutes later we were sitting on Scott’s couch, drinking Heineken and eating pizza. He lived in a villa in the leafy grounds
of the Embassy compound. Eight other staff lived there, sharing a large lounge and kitchen. It was like a student hall of residence, but with a better-stocked fridge.