One Dog at a Time (7 page)

I had collected some of the old bent and twisted HESCO fencing that had been discarded by the engineers and had asked a couple of the lads to help me straighten it out. Eight foot of it would serve as an ideal fence to seal off the remaining three sides of the derelict building. I figured that by using a large metal coil I could even make a hinged gate so I could get in and out of the run to feed Nowzad.

There was just one problem though: the open floor of the building was covered in small piles of human crap. The ANP refused to use our toilet platform and so this apparently was one of the areas they used. It was everywhere. There was even a pile on a small ledge at waist height that had once served as a window. I had no idea how they had managed to get up there to squat.

Luckily for me I was the current Kilo Company expert in burning shit. Every Saturday we would go through the ritual of removing the toilet platform and burning the waste to stop the thousands of black flies gathering there. It was one of my responsibilities as a sergeant, although I had still to find that mentioned in any recruiting brochure. The best way to get rid of it was by mixing petrol and diesel together and letting the fuel soak into the shit for a while. For some strange reason throwing in the match gave me an immense feeling of satisfaction. It is amazing what keeps you interested when boredom is knocking on the door.

Our fuel container was full at the moment with numerous cans of petrol and diesel. I carried one of each back across to the run.

It was getting hotter, making the smell even worse. It was bad. I put my sunglasses on and pulled my sweat scarf up around my nose and mouth.

‘You’d better appreciate this, lofty,’ I said, looking at Nowzad, snoozing in the shade. I noticed two large flat sand-coloured flies appear through the short crisp coat of hair on his back and then disappear. I had tried to get them
off
him before but the little buggers were too quick. I would have to deal with them later.

I struck the match and threw it from a safe distance. The resulting whooomph as the mix of fuel ignited only managed to rouse Nowzad from his sleep for a second or two.

Nowzad didn’t so much as bat an eyelid as I built his new home during the next half hour or so.

The burnt crap scooped up easily with the shovel. It wasn’t a glamorous job to say the least. I dumped it in a black bin bag and took it for the second roasting of the day at the burns pit. Although I wore a scarf across my mouth I tried my best not to breathe as I toiled away.

The HESCO fencing easily fitted into place once I had driven home two ‘borrowed’ metal stakes that would normally have been used to support defensive barbed wire. They would hold the fencing upright and in place, sealing the open end of the run. The hinged section was just big enough for me to squeeze through and worked perfectly as a gate.

By now curiosity had tempted a few of my off-duty troop over to see what was keeping me so busy. Most knew of my plan to attempt to get Nowzad to a rescue centre. Some of the lads had seemed genuinely supportive; a few others had thought I was completely nuts. I didn’t mind. It kept me busy and I felt I was at least doing something positive.

However, I didn’t have an answer when one marine asked where Nowzad was going to hide the next time we got mortared. I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t actually thought of an overhead protective cover for him. But I didn’t have time to think about that now. It would have to wait.

After two hours of hard work I left a rather confused-looking Nowzad in his newly built run and headed off to the radio.

The duty dragged as it always did when the Taliban weren’t playing. This whole week had been quiet. The radio
crackled
into life as a marine carried out a radio check but that was it.

Our only patrol to the north-west of Now Zad a few days earlier had returned with news of a requested ceasefire from the town’s elders they had met en route. It made sense as our intelligence had suggested that the Taliban were lacking heavy weapons in this area and the news of a wanted ceasefire confirmed it. The town’s elders were being backed into a corner, I imagined. They insisted that we be confined to patrols around the DC, which meant then that the Taliban would be able to resupply unhindered. But we had to let the elders negotiate for themselves at the
shuras
, or local meetings, held with the Taliban leaders. If diplomacy didn’t work then we would have to get involved. I didn’t hold out much hope for debate to win the day.

Currently the elders didn’t want us to leave the compound for a patrol as they felt this could be perceived as hostile action on our behalf and give the Taliban the excuse they wanted to start attacking again. It was annoying that we had to play the game.

I walked back across the silent compound when the duty finally finished, because I needed to get some personal admin under way, but halfway towards our living compound I decided to check on Nowzad and see how he liked his new home.

I stood open-mouthed when I saw what had happened to the run. I had left it with just the gridded fencing in place, but Nowzad was now lying in the shade under part of a desert camouflage net. What really took me by surprise though was the fact that a quarter of the run was now taken up by Nowzad’s very own mortar shelter. It was two foot high and had walls made of filled sandbags and a piece of plywood covered in a layer of sandbags for the roof. A small entrance facing away from the vulnerable fenced end of the run was Nowzad’s way in and out. I smiled to myself and nodded approvingly.

I knew how much the lads hated filling sandbags – I can’t have been the only one with a soft spot for the big dog. As I admired their handiwork, I only hoped Nowzad wouldn’t need it.

The evening scran queue was waiting patiently and the lads were full of jovial banter and gossip from the sangars. For such a small group we managed to create some monster rumours. The latest one was that Gordon Ramsey was coming to cook for us at Christmas.

Our young chef emerged and placed two pots of steaming hot chicken curry on the fold-away table that acted as a serving counter. As we’d been discovering these past few days, the fresh-faced lad had been volunteered to train as a chef. Sadly he had only paid attention to part of the course as he only really knew how to cook a curry.

No sooner had he put the food down than the sky above our heads simultaneously burst into thousands of red streaks as tracer rounds from the hill raced eastwards. The Taliban were obviously back in town.

We didn’t need to scream ‘Stand to!’ But both I and the other troop sergeant reacted together anyway, yelling at the queue of marines to disperse. Most were already on their way.

‘What the hell am I meant to do with this now?’ the chef yelled, just audible above the ‘boom boom’ of the .50 calibres firing overhead. Out of frustration he threw his serving spoon into the yard, just missing my head as I grabbed my weapon and body armour from the doorway

‘Put it in the fridge, we’ll be back later,’ I yelled as I charged off.

I just caught his reply as I raced out of the living section of the compound towards my position in the northern sangar.

‘But Sergeant,we don’t have a bloody fridge …’

*

The explosions were probably only 700 metres away. The blinding split-second flashes as our mortars hit their targets lit up the surrounding buildings as if they had been caught in the white flash of a camera.

I heard over the radio that the hill was taking accurate incoming small arms fire. The Taliban were obviously making up for the quiet of the last few days. The OC ordered our sangars into action and between us we directed fire back towards the enemy position. The sangar to the east of me reported small arms fire being directed at them, too. It was clear that we wouldn’t be eating curry any time soon.

The hill intensified its bombardment of the enemy position but was now split between two reported firing points. The company sergeant major was directing our own mortars within the compound to put up illuminating rounds to help the machine gunners pinpoint their targets.

The noise was deafening. The sky was ablaze with tracer rounds going both ways. We scanned the darkened ground to our front, mindful that it could be a diversion to allow the Taliban to get in closer.

I thought of Nowzad and hoped he would be okay. I was shit-scared myself, so I had no doubts a caged, already nervous ex-fighting dog would also be terrified. I was even more glad and grateful that the lads had built him that mortar shelter. I hoped he would be safe in there. The pack of dogs outside the walls was certainly nowhere to be seen.

As the noise intensified I had to push my headset to my ear to hear the shouted messages over the radio between the hill and our compound. The OC had declared a TIC (troops in contact), which meant that back at Camp Bastion the HQ staff would now focus on our situation and that meant going to the top of the list for any available fast jets that were on call. In other words some heavy ordnance would soon be dropped on any positions we had identified as Taliban.

‘0A this is Hill, widow maker ETA figures 5 over.’ It
always
amused me that one of the fast jet pilots called himself the widow maker.

‘0A, roger, give me the one-minute heads up, out.’

To any non-military person listening in to the radio conversation it would sound like gobbledygook. To us though, it was a short, sharp conversation that conveyed key information. I now knew that in five minutes the big bangs would really kick in.

I tried to ignore my thoughts of Nowzad in his run. I had a responsibility to the lads I was commanding. I felt guilty that I couldn’t tell him it would be okay and lead him away from this madness. But I couldn’t do anything about it; my hands were tied.

Our translator was eavesdropping on the Taliban as they sent radio messages to each other. They didn’t seem to be that bothered by the amount of ordnance being sent their way. I had a sneaky feeling they would be in a minute or so.

‘All stations this is 0A, stand by – 30 seconds to impact.’

The hill had already stopped the mortar barrage to allow the F18 to come in low, ready to drop two 500-pound bombs on the identified targets.

For a split second everything went quiet as we all waited for the impact. The two flashes were blinding. For a moment even the mountains in the far distance were lit up against the perfect black night sky.

Then the force from the blast arrived.

A wave of air radiated outwards from ground zero. It hit our position with an audible oomph that caused the wooden sangar roof to shake.

‘Bloody hell,’ said my GPMG gunner, crouched in the sangar next to me.

The noise was next to hit us and the boom vibrated around the mountains as it faded to nothing.

‘Cease all firing,’ I yelled along the line of my sangar while we waited for the hill to survey the scene and report in.

The translator had been quiet for a while, normally a sign we had hit the right spot. Not that I wanted to be responsible for someone’s death, but the Taliban had been given more than enough chances to settle their disputes around the debating table. And, more importantly, they had started firing first.

Everything was still, quiet. Now Zad was dark again. The air smelt of gunfire, but nothing moved. Two illuminating flares were fired towards the last-known enemy position. They burst into two brilliant floating lights that slowly sank earthward under their parachutes. The shadows danced on the ground as the flares moved with the wind.

‘0A this is Hill, negative movement at the firing points, over.’

‘Hill, 0A roger, keep eyes on. Over.’

For the next half hour or so we sat quietly in the dark waiting to make sure the Taliban we had fired upon were indeed dead. I desperately wanted to check on Nowzad, but I couldn’t risk the Taliban kicking off again while I wasn’t where I should be. Beyond our sangar the darkness was all-encompassing. If anybody was out there then they had had enough. The only chatter on our radio was confirming that all of our call signs were okay. Nobody had been injured.

The OC broke the silence over the net.

‘All stations this is 0A, chatter received. And I quote: “All okay. That was close. Meet back at house.” 0A out.’

We all started laughing. After nearly an hour and a half while there had been a constant exchange of fire we had only managed to scare them into going home.

‘How the hell did they survive that?’ Dave asked from his position in the left-hand firing point of the sangar. ‘No way could anybody get out of that, the jammy bastards.’

Dave was right: it was unbelievable.

I waited another five minutes and then climbed out of the sangar. I still had all the radios on and could hear the hill reporting that nothing was to be seen in the two target areas.

I jogged round to Nowzad’s run.

All seemed as it should. The gridded fence was still in place with the old rope to secure the gate as I had left it. I quickly untied it and squeezed into the run, using my fingers to shield the torch light as I waved the beam across the floor. I didn’t want to be responsible for giving the Taliban a target.

Nowzad must have been petrified; he didn’t come out to see me. Normally I would see his blackish muzzle with its prominent white streak poking out of his shelter. He would then emerge eagerly anticipating the unlimited supply of biscuits that I would bring with me.

But not tonight. There was not a sign of him.

‘Nowzad, come on bud, where are you?’ I crouched down calling out his name as softly as I could.

With still no sign of him I walked towards the back of the run looking for the opening to the mortar shelter. I knelt down and shone the torch carefully into the shelter. It was empty as well.

I stood straight up and double-checked around the run in case I had missed Nowzad curled up in a corner. There was nothing there. I hurried over to the gate again. Had I missed something? It was done up when I got here, wasn’t it? Surely my mind was playing tricks. I tried to remember if I’d definitely had to untie the gate as I entered.