The Taliban Don't Wave (31 page)

We walked on the road as the enemy continued lobbing mortar rounds at Zangabad. That was one of the longest walks of my life. I had felt like I'd failed the Canadians—horribly, utterly failed them. They were still getting mortared, and the ANA and I were just casually strolling away from where we knew the enemy had their mortar tube. I felt terribly low.

I heard Major Obermann begin to talk over the radio. He was never one to sit still and just take it like that, so he began putting together a plan to get some LAVs out there to kill/capture Timothy. I was ashamed that I couldn't get my guys to finish the job, but at least I could brief the major on our contact point, the lay of the land, and where I thought the mortar pit was hiding. I told Ginge to follow me and took off running back toward the COP. It was maybe a klick away and we had to cover the ground,
rapido
!

I ran into the compound where Sean and Stamps were up on the rooftop. I took a breath and asked Sean about the LAVs. He pointed toward the bottom of the COP, so I took off again. I realized Ginge, like a good fire-team partner, was matching me stride for stride, but I didn't want to risk getting him hurt since the mortars were still falling around the southern perimeter.

“Thanks Ginge,” I panted, “good work today. Go back now and stay with Stamps and Captain Sean; get them off the roof, now that we're back. Grab some water, scrounge me some Aspirin, and get into hard cover. I'll be back in a minute.”

“Okay, roger that, sir,” he said. “Good luck.” I turned to start running again when I heard him say “Sir . . . ”

“What is it, Ginge?” I spun back around. “Quickly, I've got to brief the major.”

“Are you okay?! I mean . . . ” He looked very concerned for me.

“Ginge,” I started off seriously, but then broke into a wide grin, “though I was raised by humans, my heart is Klingon. My
blood
hears the warrior's song!”

“Okay,” he laughed. “Um . . .
ka'plah?
” He said the Klingon word for
success.

“
Ka'plah!
” I shouted back and started running again.

I heard the chorus of Iron Maiden's “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” play in my head as I rounded the corner, and right where Sean said the LAVs would be there was nothing but a completely empty field.
Awww
,
sonofabitch! Where the hell . . . ?

I looked to the south and there they were, moving to the road I'd just left, about to push on without the OMLT's timely, highly accurate, and hard-won int!
Dig deep Rob, dig deep!
I shouted to myself and started running again. I looked to my left as mortar rounds continued to fall near the perimeter, but they were a good hundred metres away, so I'd be fine.

I overheard Major Obermann call his commanders over to his LAV for a final Frag-O (quick set of orders) before they pushed on. As the commanders dismounted and began to slowly jog over to the major, I ran past them at full sprint shouting, “Imperial walkers spotted on the north ridge!” They just shook their heads, probably thinking, “There goes that crazy OMLT bastard!” I found the major's LAV and quickly climbed up onto it. And that was no small feat since I was packing close to a hundred pounds of kit. I groaned and struggled but finally, after some good exertion, managed to pull my bulk up onto his LAV and smiled triumphantly.
I made it!

The major popped out the back hatch of his LAV, looked up at me, and said, “Hey, Rob. We're going to do it down here. C'mon down.”

I shot him a terrible stinkeye. Did he have any idea how hard it had been to climb up the damn thing?
Awww, motherfu—
I trudged back over to the side and grabbing a hand guard, lowered myself down onto the wheel, and then thudded onto the dusty ground. The major looked me over as I jogged up to him; I think my nose had started bleeding again.

I took a knee by his map and grabbed a dry blade of grass to act as my pointer. I showed him on the map where we'd heard the mortar tube, and I apologized for not being able to mentor my ANA effectively to neutralize the threat. He was about to say something, but I asked him his planned route; he quickly showed me, and then I warned him that the road became dangerously narrow at certain spots.

Then I warned him to watch his six as he travelled down that road in particular, because that was where we had fired on the three Taliban. I finished up by showing him the direction in which they'd fled and then asked him if he would like me to come along as the local area expert. I'd said the last part with a smile, although I didn't feel like smiling. As far as I was concerned, our patrol had been a top-to-bottom failure.

Major Obermann thanked me for the ground briefing and heads-up, and then kindly told me I had done my part, I could stand down now. I imagined I looked like I'd swum over the river Styx to get back in time to brief him. He clasped me on the shoulder and told me to go and find cover; I wished him luck and turned to leave. The incoming mortars were landing a couple of hundred metres away and I felt pretty done in, so I took off at a light jog back to the rooftop where I'd last seen Sean, Stamps, and Ginge.

I walked through the gate and was agitated to see them still up on the roof.
I thought I'd told Ginge to get them down—hadn't I?

I shouted up to them, “Hey! Is there any reason you guys are still up on a rooftop during a mortar attack?”

They looked at each other and Sean finally said, “No.”

“Then come on down,” I said. Sean climbed down and walked over to me.

“Why are you so pissy?” he asked.

“I took an RPG backblast square in the fizzog, and it's left me a bit prickish. But that's no excuse,” I said. “Sorry about that. I owe you
my life
, Sean. So does Ginge. That mental FOO/FAC would've killed us all if it wasn't for you!”

“Hey,” he said. “Who would I make fun of, if you weren't around?”

“Fair one. But seriously, thanks. So I guess Major Obermann's off to clean house and we just hang out, eh?”

“Sounds about right. You look like hell. I'll call the doc.”

“Do you have any Aspirin?” I asked.

“I don't personally, but Laddah might.” Sean walked off to find our OMLT medic. I looked at Stamps, who'd just come down off the rooftop.

“Howdy, sir,” he said. “Am I ever glad I'm not your fire-team partner!”

“Well, Ginge isn't staying with us in Mushan, so the position will soon be vacant. If you send me your CV, I'll have a look at it. Put it on top of the pile and whatnot, but I can't make any promises,” I said.

“Yeah, I think I left my fire-team partner CV at home, sorry.”

We found some shade and hunkered down. Laddah walked over to me and handed me some Aspirin. He took out his flashlight and shined it in my eyes, which immediately started my head pounding all over again. He told me I was lucky, and walked back to his RG.
Thank you, Captain Obvious!

One of the major's LAVs had gotten stuck in the narrow roadway and the boys had to spend some time extracting it. Timothy could easily hear the rumbling LAVs as they came down the road, so they quickly hightailed it to safer climes, but the major got him to stop shooting at the COP, so mission accomplished.

The OMLT boys walked back to the RG and our LAV and made some lunch. No one had eaten yet because Sean didn't want to miss any critical comms relaying while he was stuffing his face. I was glad he didn't. His self-discipline had saved all of us a gruesome death.
Team first—gotta love it!

Sean could tell I was still fuming over what the FOO/FAC had done.
Nobody gets away with trying to kill me and my men. I demand satisfaction!

Sean patiently told me I was too ugly, too angry, and too well-armed to go over and have a little heart-to-heart with my new best friend.

“Cool down. Have a poisonous coffee. Chillax for a while,” he said. I asked myself,
WWDCD? Indeed . . . what would Don Cheadle do?
I decided Sean was right so I dumped my kit and hung out with the boys, getting caught up in the banter. But there would be a reckoning. . . .

Thanks to Major Obermann, the engineers could now work in peace, and in short order, they had completely ripped down COP Zangabad. Nobody around me was really quite sure why it was being torn down. Rumour control had it someone in higher headquarters had finally decided the experiment of putting up COPs Hajikan, Zangabad, and Talikan between Mushan and Sperwhan had failed. But instead of closing down the westernmost COP (at Mushan) and keeping the nearest COP (at Hajikan) open, they had done the opposite. Which, to me, didn't make a whole lot of sense. If Hajikan was in trouble, they were only three klicks away from Sper. Help could get to them quickly. Now if FOB Mushan was in trouble, Sperwhan was over twelve klicks away, through heavily contested ground.

Once at Mushan, we would be completely surrounded, and during Captain John's stint as OC of Mushan, they had been in contact with Timothy almost daily. They got shot at so many times that Zangabad, the next COP in line to the east of Mushan (before it was closed down) would radio Sperwhan on their behalf and say, “We think Mushan is in contact.” Then the command post at Sperwhan would radio Mushan and ask if they
were
in contact, and John would say, “Mmm, not really. Well, maybe . . . ”

Major Obermann's 2 I/C would then lose his nut and say, “Well, are you or
aren't
you? Make up your mind!” I heard those conversations a number of times myself, and they were always hilarious. John explained to me later that sometimes they were being engaged from so far away, they weren't sure it was
their
FOB being shot at. So he wouldn't even bother reporting it as a contact. But on other occasions, they'd been shot at from up close.
Too
close.

What was decidedly not funny was the fact that FOB Mushan had been mortared every day in a row for the last five days. The rounds had started falling four hundred metres out, but every day they were getting walked-in by a spotter, closer and closer, until yesterday they were only about fifty metres away from the FOB's big protective Hesco walls. Fifty metres was getting scary. You could hear shrapnel whistle over your head, and it was still lethal at that range.
How close will they be when I get there?

John had been trying to mentor the ANA captain to hunt down Timothy, but the Afghan had developed a searing case of the heebie-jeebies, and had decided there was really no point in going after them. Although everyone knew that, for their mortar to remain accurate, they would have to fire from pretty much the same spot every day so one of our patrols should be able to find the spot and set up an ambush, especially since Timothy was mortaring us at the same time of day, every day.

But nuttin' doing! The ANA captain's only concern was in diverting all of his troops to keeping the local bazaar open. He wasn't overly concerned about his men getting mortared. I understood the necessity (in a hearts-and-minds war) of putting troops in the market to keep the Taliban away so it could stay open, but you couldn't really help the people if you were
dead.
And because Timothy knew every day the ANA would set up on the market roofs, he started trying to pick them off there. No, in a counter-insurgency war, you had to be unpredictable, pop up out of nowhere—make it so the enemy never had a clue as to where or when you would turn up.
Keep him on edge, all of the time.

We spent that night at Zangabad, and the next morning we kitted up and hatted out. The long convoy began to make a new road back to the dry Arghandab riverbed, and we started all over again. As we pulled away we all looked back to see the massive pile of munitions and
matériel,
which couldn't be brought with us, blown up in place. The standard mushroom cloud began to form over the smoldering pile of abandoned kit. It was another information operations victory for the Taliban, who would now tell the locals how they had chased the Canadians out of COP Hajikan, then Talikan, and now Zangabad. Of course, that only left FOB Mushan. Timothy knew that attacking Sperwhan was a suicide op, so he would naturally shadow us to the west, to Forward Operating Base Mushan, all on its own.

I was pretty sure he'd be waiting on us there, and we'd meet him again shortly. . . .

Chapter 16

Our convoy entered the riverbed and made its way west for another seven klicks before turning south to Mushan (or “Moosh,” as we called it). Again, the tail-end Charlies in our convoy were in shooting contact with Timothy the entire time. Thankfully there were no more IEDs, and our massive convoy slowly passed to the east of Mushan, drove underneath it on a small road, and then began to form a huge leaguer in the middle of a large, open plain just to the west of the FOB. Sean, Ginge, Stamps, and I dropped off our LAV and RG and walked over to Mushan as the long line of vehicles made its way in. The ANA had abandoned the convoy once the FOB was in sight, and began to form up in a small compound only fifty metres away to the northeast of Moosh.

We entered the FOB and greeted Warrant Duceppe, or “Big Joe,” as he was affectionately known. In Captain John's absence, he was the acting OC of FOB Mushan. I had worked with him at 3 RCR, and like me, he had come across to help out 1 RCR man its OMLT positions. We shook hands like old cowboys and I felt his iron grip crushing my tiny little hand. He was a colossus. He was a jolly green giant, walking the earth, and although he was an all around great guy and enjoyed a good laugh, you didn't want to make him angry. Once aroused to the weaker passions he was like a cave troll out of
The Hobbit.
I had once seen him pick up a grown man off the ground using only one arm. I always told him I didn't want him angry at me because I was scared he would eat me.

We ran into Warrant Smith, my new 2 I/C, who quickly gave us a tour. We had a CF .50-calibre heavy machine gun in the watchtower (or sangar) in the northwest corner. From that emplacement we had really good eyes-on, almost 360 degrees around the FOB. We had a LAV in a run-up position against the high protective Hesco wall facing due west. The wall then ran twenty metres south and then turned due east, forming a square. There was a gap to let vehicles in, and then the Hesco continued another ten metres, until it turned north, continuing the square. In the bottom southeast corner we had an ANA PKM 7.62mm machine gun in another sangar. From there, they had eyes-on from one o'clock to eight o'clock.

South of that wall, about twenty metres away, was a smaller Hesco wall that ran from one o'clock, forming a half moon down to eight o'clock, with a dozen ANA bunkers and their kitchen between the two walls, which were connected with concertina razor wire. On the outer Hesco wall, the ANA had set up some machine gun bunkers that were manned 24/7. From the southeast sangar the main inner wall continued twenty metres north, where it turned due west and continued on until it completed the square.

Inside the compound we had two ISO living containers (long, rectangular boxes with steel sides and a thin layer of sandbags on top to try and protect us from incoming rockets or mortars) for the Canucks, and two locked ISO containers to hold equipment, food, and water. Next to those containers, in the extreme northwest corner, was our CP, a low-ceilinged building about fifteen feet wide by thirty feet long, its roof covered in protective sandbags. We had all of our radio equipment and maps against the south wall, along with some picnic tables, a deep freezer and fridge, a coffee corner with a toaster and microwave, and a flat-screen TV with an Xbox and a DVD player. Outside our CP against the eastern Hesco wall we had our large diesel generator, which provided electricity within the FOB. Of course, the ANA had spliced into it and were stealing from our electrical grid at an alarming rate.

South of our CP and the ISO containers, the ANA had built a small mosque, a storage container, and a makeshift workshop, and they'd erected a few tents and a mortar pit in the middle. In the extreme southeast corner was their CP, a small two-man room surrounded by a few bunkers for the ANA leadership to sleep in. Above their CP was the southeast ANA-manned watchtower.
All in all, not a bad little set-up. It would do.

Between the inner wall and outer wall to the east, a dozen Royal Marines mortar men had set up shop to support a joint Royal Marines/Canadian/ANA operation to the north of the Arghandab River. They'd been firing mortars in support of the op for the last couple of days.

I found out later that Rich, the Wizard, and some ANA from Sperwhan had done a helicopter assault into that op. And it seemed Rich's curse of the mummy had followed him, because they were in the shit right from the start. Rich said on one particularly nasty day, they'd had a three-hour-long TIC and were getting hit with mortars, RPGs, and rockets. Then Rich became uncharacteristically serious. He put his hand on his heart and swore that the Wizard had literally dodged an incoming RPG warhead by inches. It was coming straight for his head and, like Neo in
The Matrix,
he used bullet-time technology to make time slow down, and at the last possible second shifted his head and body out of the way as the incoming warhead singed his eyebrows. Only his magic and ninja-like reflexes had protected him. I laughed and then asked Rich what it had been like doing a helo-assault into an enemy stronghold with the ANA.

He didn't smile—at all—and merely replied, “What do
you
think?”

Back in Moosh, Sean and I climbed up into the ANA sangar in the southeast corner. We wanted to see how the ANA had positioned themselves in the low-walled compound to the FOB's northeast. They were about fifty metres away and getting their kit offloaded and set up. They would be staying there until Captain John's outgoing ANA stole the proverbial kitchen sink and fled into the night, sometime in the next few days.

Sean, always the switched-on cat (although I would never say that to his face), had been walking around with a PRR so he could communicate with the Canadian OMLT command post. He didn't have comms with the battle group convoy, but the CP could relay messages to them if necessary.

POP POP POP POP POP!

Suddenly we heard a long blast of incoming machine-gun fire. Sean and I ran to the edge of the watchtower and looked to the north, where it seemed to have originated from. I looked down at the ANA, who had taken cover behind a long wall in their compound that ran east-west.
If they were taking cover, the rounds must've smacked close to them.
It wasn't like the ANA to take cover if not absolutely necessary.
Unmanly, don't you know.

Some of the ANA popped up and began returning fire toward a two-storey compound surrounded by high walls, about a hundred metres to their north.

“That's official,” I said to Sean jokingly. “It's a two-way range.” Sean just looked back at me. “Well don't just stand there, numpty,” I chided. “Call it in:
contact.
The ANA are in contact. Honestly Sean, I'm not going to be around forever to hold your hand.” Sean may have had his PRR like a good stormtrooper, but I had my map and compass, so I laid them down on the sandbags to find a grid on the map for the ANA, and my best-guess grid for the Taliban.

“Sean,” I said to get his attention. “I put the enemy at grid 1785 8380; sounds like one times PKM currently engaging our ANA forces, which are located at—”

Sean interrupted, “We don't tell them where
our
ANA are located!”

“We do if we
don't
want the Canadians to engage our ANA and kill them because they think they're Taliban!”

“Right, right . . . okay.” Sean clicked his PRR and began to pass up the contact report to the CP.

BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Sean and I both jumped as our eyes were drawn to the southeast corner of the FOB, where on the southside of the outer Hesco wall, a long line of explosions had just strung out in the sand. They were only small explosions, about ten feet high. My brain began to race.
What the hell was that? It wasn't RPGs—they couldn't fire five of them that accurately and make a grouping that tight! Besides, there's no contour trails from the warheads. What could've . . .
My eyes slowly tracked from the settling explosions back to the ANA position. I saw an ANA soldier desperately waving to the northeast.
Why the hell would he . . . Oh crap!
My eyes rapidly tracked over the ANA as they cowered behind their wall, to the northeast, where I could just see a Canadian LAV breaking cover from behind a treeline, its turret pointed toward the ANA!
The Taliban don't wave! I'd just taught them that yesterday! Shit, they're being engaged by that LAV!

“Stop!” I shouted. “Sean, get the Canadians to
stop
shooting!”

“What do you mean? They're not shooting, they're coming down the—

“
Don't argue!
Get the CP to order all the Canadian call signs to stop shooting! Tell them to stop shooting at whatever they're shooting at! They're engaging our ANA in the compound!” I felt like a role reversal had just occurred. Sean had just become me and I had become Rich in Helmand, when Rich was trying to get me to stop everyone from shooting and I was arguing with him!

“The Taliban don't wave! The ANA are waving at that LAV, trying to get him to stop shooting at them!” I shouted.

Sean followed my pointing finger to the ANA soldier who was waving to save his life as his friends hunkered down lower than rattlesnakes under a top hat, hoping the Canadian LAV gunner's aim wasn't about to dramatically improve. His first rounds had fired over the wall, and exploded just outside our FOB. Their luck wasn't going to hold forever.

Sean twigged and immediately began ordering the CP to get the Canadians to stop shooting. I looked back at the LAV. Its turret was moving, tracking the wall.
I'm too late; they're all going to be killed.
I began waving like a lunatic, thinking maybe the LAV gunner would see me in the background up in the sangar, trying to get his attention. But the radio message must've been passed at record-breaking speed because the LAV came to a full stop, and then quickly swung its turret back in line with its hull. Sean and I each let out a long sigh as we began to grasp how close our ANA had come to being made full believers (
holy, full of holes
). The ANA were dusting themselves off and it didn't seem like any of them were hurt.

I take a lot of responsibility for that one, though. No doubt about it, I should've radioed the battle group to let them know the ANA were setting up in a compound, off the reservation. The LAV gunners were on edge from being shot at repeatedly over the last few days, so it was a “blue-on-green” friendly fire incident waiting to happen, and I should've seen it coming.

Sean looked at me incredulously. “Is this what it's always like, working with your ANA?” he asked.

“This?” I began folding up my map. “This was nothing. This was so minor it doesn't even register. But you know what they say: ‘Never a dull moment!' But since this is your first time outside the wire, allow a seasoned veteran to explain, to the great unwashed and uneducated, what just happened.”

“Fuck you,” Sean snapped.

I continued with my play-by-play. “You see, my young fellow, the Taliban knew they had a great opportunity, so they took it. They set up in that compound to the north of our FOB, knowing full well the ANA were to the south, and the Canadians in the convoy were to the east, at right angles to each other. So the Taliban fired on the ANA, knowing they don't take kindly to that sort of thing and would fire back. Timothy then turned ninety degrees to his left, now facing east for the directionally challenged amongst us, and began firing on the LAVs, knowing damn well that wouldn't do any harm against those metal monsters. But that wasn't his goal.”

“And just what exactly was his goal, Mr. Holmes?” Sean asked with his arms crossed, unimpressed with my battlefield synopsis.

“Hey, if you don't mind, I'm trying to explain modern Taliban deception tactics to the small children present in the sangar. Now, if I may . . . where was I? Ah, yes, they knew that once the Canucks cleared the wood line, all they would see were the muzzle flashes of the ANA engaging Timothy to their north, and the crazy Canucks would assume, incorrectly as most assumptions are, that they were being engaged by Taliban from behind their long wall. So they began to fire at our ANA. Only their poor marksmanship, the waving ANA, and your timely radio intervention saved the day. So, well done to you, good sir. I'm putting you in for a nice gong right after we take tea.”

Sean was shaking his head, smiling. “You are easily one of the most idiotic, piss-poor excuses for an officer that I have ever had the
dishonour
of meeting.”

I countered with, “First off, the sooner you freely admit that it just kills you that a two-month captain figured all of that out so much faster than say, oh, I don't know, the twenty-six
year
captain standing next to him, the better off we're going to be. You've created a poisonous work environment, and one day, Sean, your misery and hate will kill us all. But there's still hope for you, because it's like
The Simpsons'
Jebediah Springfield always said . . .” I trailed off.

Sean was grinning like a chimp. “Do tell.”

“‘A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.' Now, if you're finished showing off, let's go make sure our ANA are okay.
After
you re-send their locstat to the battle group, that is. It doesn't
do
to be fired on, by one's
own
side, twice in the same day, what what! It's just not
cricket.
”

Sean walked into the CP and made sure the map grids had been successfully passed, and then we jogged over to the ANA. They looked like they were in a mild state of shock. Omer translated as an ANA soldier pointed out a gap in the wall to us.

“He says he was standing here when the rounds passed in front of his face,
through
the hole in the wall, and out the other side.” The ANA was shaking his head in disbelief.

I looked at the soldier and smiled. “
El hamdoo la'lah.
Allah must love you very much.” He nodded in agreement, so we left him to find Company Sergeant Major Shamsallah, who didn't look overly impressed.
Can't say I blame him. Almost lit up by Canadians twice in the last two days; not a good omen for future ops!
But when I explained to him what had happened (minus the bragging tone and insults I treated Sean to), he understood completely and just said, “
El hamdoo la'lah.
”
Thanks be to God
.