Combat Camera (27 page)

“We killed 164 insurgents across theatre this week,” he said. “Thirty-eight captured or detained.”

He then told us more about a British soldier whose body had been found after he went missing from his base in Nahr-e Saraj. Highlander Scott McLaren from 4 Scots had inexplicably walked out of Salaang on his own in the early hours of Monday morning. The twenty-year-old’s
disappearance had triggered a seventeen-hour search operation involving hundreds of troops across Nahr-e Saraj. His body was eventually discovered in a culvert around 700 metres north-east of Patrol Base 4.

“There’s all sorts of speculation about what happened,” Faulkner said. “But we still don’t know. It’s still under investigation.”

Colonel Lucas had already issued a statement to the media to that effect, which had been reproduced in most of the main British newspapers. This hadn’t stopped the press from coming up with a number of theories about his disappearance and death. The
Daily Telegraph
quoted a “top Afghan commander for the province”, Sayed Maluk. He said that McLaren had been found dead in a stream that ran through his base after apparently drowning, and his body was later shot by insurgents.
*
Meanwhile, the
Telegraph
’s Toby Harnden suggested that Highlander McLaren’s actions were possibly the result of “battle shock”.
^†
Later in the week, the
Sunday Times
claimed to have spoken to one of the insurgents responsible for Highlander McLaren’s death. The paper reported that the twenty-year-old had fallen into the hands of a group of Taliban fighters who had tortured and shot him. It claimed their commanders later rewarded them for their efforts with a motorbike and the equivalent of £180 in cash. “The senior leaders in Pakistan were very happy with us,” one of them apparently told the newspaper.
^‡
On the same day, the
Sunday Telegraph
published the findings of its own investigation, claiming that Highlander McLaren had left Salaang to find a pair of night-vision goggles.
^§

This version of events came closest to the findings of the inquest into his death in December 2011, which recorded a verdict of unlawful killing after he was captured by insurgents, tortured and shot in the head. It heard that McLaren went to retrieve the goggles – considered a vital piece of kit – after they’d been left behind by another soldier at a nearby vehicle checkpoint. However, when he walked out of Salaang at 2 a.m., he was caught on CCTV heading straight past the bridge that led to the checkpoint. The coroner at his inquest said: “Quite clearly, Scott was concerned as regards the missing goggles and talked of going back to the checkpoint on the northern side of the canal where they were last seen. The evidence, in particular the CCTV imagery, points quite clearly to Scott heading in the direction of the bridge. But he never crosses the bridge and heads off in an entirely different direction. It is unclear what Scott was doing that night, and sadly the only person who could help us is no longer with us.”

A Hazardous Environment

On the day I returned from Kabul, four newly arrived reporters were undergoing their Media Induction Package at Bastion. In terms of readiness, they had not made a great first impression on the JMOC. Faulkner shared his concerns about their dress and equipment with the rest of the office the morning after their arrival.

“One turned up in some baggy, low-crotch harem pants,” he muttered. “She insisted they were perfect for hot places.”

He was drafting a lengthy email to PJHQ, calling for a more comprehensive training programme for embedded journalists. Three of the four had attended the MoD-run “Hazardous Environment Course” back in the UK, but apparently it was lacking in useful information.

“They said there was an interesting lecture on how the Chinese recruit sleeper agents,” Faulkner said. “But that was about it.”

It being a war zone, he soon had other stuff to distract him. An RAF Reaper had blown up two trucks in Now Zad, successfully killing two insurgents and inadvertently killing four Afghan civilians. Sky News was running a report on the incident, describing it – not incorrectly – as a “drone” strike.
*

“We don’t say ‘drone’ any more,” Faulkner said, reading back through the MoD’s official statement. “It’s a remotely piloted air system.”

I wondered whether “drone” was such a terrible word. To my ears it spoke of something dull and inert, bringing to mind the ramblings of a dinner-party bore. It certainly wasn’t as disturbing as “Reaper” – the name provided by the US manufacturers – which brought up the classic image of Death himself, scythe in hand, looming over his next victim.

At just after midday a flight lieutenant called Simon walked in. He was the RAF’s media-liaison officer in Kandahar, come to visit us on a whim. His admin sergeant – a squat man with beady eyes – had travelled with him. He’d picked up some “Kill TV” along the way, and thought we might like to see it.

“I’ve got the file here,” he said, holding up a USB stick. “It’s awesome.”

None of us leapt up to join him. He sat at the desk recently vacated by Russ, opening the video file on the spare computer. Only Simon stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.

“It’s from a Tornado using Brimstone,”
*
said the sergeant, unperturbed by the general lack of enthusiasm in the room. “They’d spotted a dicker
^†
on top of a hill. You can just about see his mobile phone.”

Simon leant forward, squinting at the footage. “I can’t see anything.”

“Hang on.” The sergeant mouse-clicked a few times, trying to sharpen up the grainy image of the insurgent. “How about now?”

“What’s that?” Simon said.

“That’s the impact.”

Simon took his time. “I still don’t know what I’m looking at.”

The sergeant clicked again. “When you switch to infrared, you can clearly see blood spurting out of him.”

Again Simon squinted at the screen. “It’s still not clear…”

The sergeant sighed heavily. “Once you establish what you’re looking at, it’s clear. His head and a trail of blood go in one direction, and his torso and a different trail of blood go in another direction. His legs stay where they are.”

Simon grimaced. “Did we release this?”

“No,” snapped Faulkner from across the room. He’d already had enough of the pair. “We don’t do snuff movies.”

We had just one more visitor that day. An Apache pilot dropped off some cockpit footage just before dinner. His clips highlighted some brilliant tactical flying, but alas, there were no kills in the picture.

“We used to kill forty to fifty insurgents a week,” he said casually. “It’s gone down now.”

That was how he talked about it. Like the unexcitable slaughter of insurgents was the norm.

Which it was, of course.

* * *

A day after completing the Media Induction Package, one of the newly arrived reporters – Stephen Bailey – flew out to Patrol Base 2 to join C Company of 1 Rifles. Tom, the huge commando from TFH who normally made the tea for Colonel Lucas, accompanied him. Having learnt of his growing frustration with life in the office, Colonel Lucas had allowed his admin sergeant to try his hand at the job of media minder, escorting the journalist out on the ground.

As a physical specimen, Stephen did not look like someone who would take naturally to a foot patrol in the Green Zone. Skinny
and bespectacled, he seemed almost too human alongside Tom, who looked not unlike a Norse god.

At 16.30, the two of them left the base as part of a joint 1 Rifles/ANA patrol. Stephen was nervous. He’d never been to Afghanistan before, and this was his first time outside the wire. He’d already spoken to Tom about some of his fears, which centred around IEDs, small-arms fire and heat illness.

“He did ask a lot of questions,” Tom told us later, sitting in the JMOC. “I tried to answer them in a reassuring manner.”

The aim of the patrol was to set up a vehicle checkpoint about 600 metres from the base. The ANA would be conducting the checkpoint itself, while the soldiers from 1 Rifles would provide cover. They expected to be out on the ground for about three hours.

The patrol headed out along a tarmac road leading from the base, watched by a number of local women and children in nearby compounds. The area was home to several families, and the patrol had to stop several times to allow traffic to pass. Tom used these moments to check up on Stephen.

“I’m OK,” Stephen said. “Just hot.”

Tom felt this was quite normal – everyone was hot, it was still in the mid-thirties – so they carried on.

After 500 metres the patrol split in two. The Afghans continued along the tarmac road, while the Rifles turned onto a track that led through a series of rundown compounds.

Two hundred metres down that track, the Rifles stopped and carried out a counter-IED drill. Tom noticed that Stephen was beginning to struggle with the heat and told him to sit down and drink some water.

Stephen did as he was told, but he was still having problems. Within a few minutes, it was clear he was experiencing
the initial stages of heat illness: clammy skin, faintness, light shaking.

By now, the patrol had been out on the ground for just over half an hour. Tom spoke to the patrol commander, and the decision was taken for the Rifles to return with Stephen to Patrol Base 2.

They began moving back towards the road, Tom with one arm under Stephen, supporting him. Another soldier also helped. Stephen’s condition was deteriorating: he was very weak and faint, garbling his words.

When they got to the road, Tom picked up Stephen and started to carry him. He managed to cover about 150 metres before Stephen told him to stop.

“I feel sick,” he mumbled.

Tom stopped and stood him up in the road. They were still some distance from the patrol base, but there was a small ANP checkpoint less than a hundred metres away.

“I’ll walk,” said Stephen.

He began to walk towards the ANP checkpoint, Tom and another soldier either side of him. After a few steps, he collapsed and started fitting.

“I was directly beside him and delivered immediate first aid,” Tom recalled. “I rolled him onto his side into the recovery position, which proved difficult because of how rigorously his muscles were contracting. The main concern was his airway, which had fully closed because his neck muscles were pulling his chin down onto his chest, while his tongue had retracted into his throat. He was frothing at the mouth and had not drawn breath for at least thirty seconds while I wrestled to force an airway. At this stage he had gone blue and was clearly in trouble. I forced my knee into the base of his neck and counter-levered his forehead to open his airway. He then proceeded
to projectile-vomit a mixture of blood and water from his mouth and nose. This continued sporadically for about five minutes.”

As this was going on, the Rifles went into all-round defence. They were dangerously exposed on the road, and the atmospherics were not good. Within the last few minutes, all the women and children in the area had disappeared from view.

“The area was not secure,” Tom said. “Further casualties would’ve caused tremendous problems. I was not going to let that happen.”

Tom ripped off Stephen’s body armour. Other members of the patrol started pouring their water over his body, trying to cool him down. They strapped him to a stretcher and carried him the rest of the way to the ANP checkpoint, where a Mastiff from Patrol Base 2 met them.

“When we got into the Mastiff, space was tight. Stephen could not fit into the vehicle comfortably. In order to shut the back doors, he had to be moved as far forward as possible, which caused his head to raise up and his airway to close. I grabbed his belt buckle and pulled him hard towards me, which caused his head to drop back again.”

In the medical centre at Patrol Base 2, Stephen was still fitting. It took several soldiers to hold him down while one of the medics applied an intravenous drip.

“It was a struggle to keep any lines or oxygen in or on him due to his convulsions,” Tom said. “But the medics, who clearly had a lot of experience with heat casualties, were able to help him.”

Stephen’s body temperature began to lower and he started to regain consciousness. A US “Pedro” medevac helicopter was called in, landing at Patrol Base 2 twenty minutes later. The Pedro medics sedated Stephen and flew him straight back to the hospital at Bastion.