Attack State Red Read online

  Moore could see that the dense vegetation opened up a few metres ahead. Aware that the Taliban could be anywhere, he told the rest of his section to go firm so that all eight men would not be exposed at the same time and pushed forward with Gray to clear the open area. They were moving along a grassy track, a dry mud wall with high brambles to the left and an orchard of low trees to the right. They could hear the incessant machine-gun fire to the front, as well as the occasional whizz of RPGs. They were now only a hundred or so metres from Holmes and 1 Platoon.

  The two soldiers headed towards a lone tree and were shocked to see a line of five Taliban fighters, just 10 metres away, walking bunched up from left to right. Dressed in kurtas, carrying rifles and machine-guns, with ammunition belts draped around their shoulders and waists, the men seemed to be laughing and joking. The second he saw them Gray stopped dead, brought his Minimi up and pulled the trigger, firing a long burst of 5.56mm tracer straight at them. Moore, behind him and to the right, brought his rifle up and fired rapid, single shots, emptying his thirty-round magazine. All five fell awkwardly to the ground, dead or wounded, some screaming in agony. Moore saw one of the fighters, carrying a PKM machine-gun and strapped around with two belts of PKM ammunition, eyes wide open in horror and surprise, fall backwards, blood spurting from his chest.

  Bullets started cracking around them. His brain spinning and in overdrive, Moore realized he was being fired at from a gap in the wall to his forward left, where the five fighters had come from. He could not see the enemy. The two took the best cover they could but had to stay kneeling and unprotected in the long grass to be able to observe and to shoot. Not knowing how many enemy he was facing, Moore decided to pull back to the rest of the section and then try to flank round to get at the fighters from a different position. To attempt a frontal assault, especially just the two of them, would be suicidal.

  He tapped Gray with his boot. ‘Chris, we’re moving. You first and I’ll cover.’

  Gray turned to acknowledge, then slumped forward and said calmly in his low voice, ‘Bill, I’m hit.’

  With bullets still scything all round, Moore looked at Gray. He was not moving, and his face was pale. There was no sign of blood, but he had been shot in his left side. Moore had to get him out of here fast. He couldn’t afford to get hit himself and had to do what he could to kill or suppress the enemy before he started to drag Gray back. He emptied another magazine into the enemy position, dropped his rifle and fired a full belt of 200 rounds from Gray’s Minimi.

  Private Terry Croft, a few metres back, realized Moore and Gray were in trouble. They need my help, he thought, and, heart pounding, immediately ran forward towards the enemy machine-gun fire. He hurled himself down on Moore’s left, knelt up so he could see and started blasting down automatic fire with his light support weapon. All around him he saw grass chopped down by gunfire. A bullet whipped into his shirt and tore out the back, narrowly missing his shoulder. He was scared but he was fighting to save his mates and he tried to put his fear aside and focus on killing the enemy. He emptied magazine after magazine into the Taliban position. To his right, a fighter tried to move round behind, towards the rest of the section, and Croft cut him down with a burst of 5.56, firing right past Moore’s head.

  He glanced across at Gray, not realizing he’d been hit. Through the long grass he thought Gray was in a prone fire position and wondered why he wasn’t firing.

  Then Moore said, ‘Chris is down.’

  Gray and Croft were good friends. Shocked to the core, Croft yelled back to the rest of the platoon, ‘Man down, man down.’

  ‘Drag him back,’ said Moore. ‘I’ll cover.’

  Croft crawled to Gray. He was lying on his side, unconscious in the grass, blood lines running from his nostrils. Croft had never had to deal with a wounded comrade before – let alone his mate. He grabbed his shoulders to pull him back into cover.

  Moore continued to engage the Taliban position, trying to suppress them. But as Croft struggled to drag Gray back along the grass track he had to keep throwing himself down as bullets zinged past.

  Moore felt a hard punch in his right arm and swung round. No one there. He looked down and saw his sleeve darkening. A 7.62mm bullet had struck his upper right arm, tearing away most of his deltoid and the top half of his tricep muscles. It should be hurting but it wasn’t. Adrenalin doing its job.

  Moore grabbed an L109 hand grenade from his pouch, popped off the black safety clip, pulled the pin, shouted, ‘Grenade!’ and with his left arm hurled it into the gap in the wall. As Moore shouted, Croft instinctively hit the dirt. There was a loud explosion, and debris rained down.

  Rose, the platoon commander, arrived and quickly took in the scene. Standing, he fired eighteen rounds rapid at the Taliban position and shouted to Croft, ‘Get forward of Gray, get some fire down.’

  Rifle in his right hand, he grabbed Gray’s webbing straps with his left hand and dragged him back down the track. It was a struggle. Gray was carrying 600 rounds of belted 5.56mm ammo, a Claymore off-route anti-personnel mine and 6 litres of water. He was very heavy. Sweating and panting hard, Rose wondered how far he could get him before his arm gave out. Bullets were striking the grass around his feet and hitting the mud wall beside him. But he managed to get Gray back to the rest of the section, and then four soldiers carried him further back to a dip in the ground.

  Rose went forward again. Croft and Moore were still firing. Moore said, ‘Boss, I’m hit.’

  Rose said, ‘Move to the sarge, then. Get going.’

  He called to Lance Corporal Kisby, ‘Get a baseline set up and cover the rest of the platoon.’

  Kisby moved forward with a fire team, just behind Croft. Croft crawled back to join the line, and they blasted into the enemy position. They were desperate to keep the Taliban back, to stop them getting round into the rear of the platoon, where Gray had been taken.

  When the shooting began, Private Matt Duffy, 15 metres back, pushed out to the right, into the orchard, to get into a position where he could support Moore and Gray. As he moved, bullets started zipping all round his feet. Further right he saw a low wall, about a metre high, and behind it Taliban fighters were running off, away from the contact area. Screaming ‘Enemy right – engaging,’ he swung his Minimi round and fired a belt of fifty rounds, killing at least one of the fighters. Adrenalin surged through his system, this was the first person he had ever killed. He scanned the area through his gunsights. He had never concentrated so hard on anything in his life. Are there any more out there?

  Then he heard the cry ‘Man down’, and rushed forward towards the firing. He expected to be hit at any moment and consciously tried to clench his skin tight, almost trying to turn it into armour. A bullet ripped through his trouser leg, tearing open the first field dressing in his map pocket. As he moved, all he thought about was whether his mates were OK.

  Duffy ran into Moore, who was heading back, and, seeing the blood pouring down his arm, dragged him into a ditch beside the track. Duffy was a team medic, an infantryman who had received basic medical training – beyond immediate first aid. This was his first casualty, but he knew exactly what to do. He rapidly checked Moore’s body for other wounds, then tried to carefully remove his daysack. He couldn’t get it off without tearing the gunshot wound, so took out his sheath knife.

  Moore said, ‘Cut off my daysack and I will do you.’

  Duffy ignored him and slashed through the straps. He then ripped off Moore’s shirt, opened up a green first field dressing and pressed it to the bloody gash in his arm, tying it in place.

  Moore said, ‘Don’t you dare give me any morphine, Duffy. I need to stay with it, I’ve got to be able to do my job.’

  Duffy nodded and shoved a second dressing over the first. Then he heard someone say, ‘Chris Gray’s been hit. He’s bad.’

  Duffy felt like he had been punched in the throat. Chris Gray was his best friend. He, Croft and Gray were virtually inseparable. But he and Gray were par
ticularly close. Duffy knew Gray’s family and was hoping to start dating his sister when they got back to England. He called over an engineer who was lying on the track near by, ‘Mate, you deal with Billy, he’s pretty much OK. I’m going to help Chris.’

  6

  Second Lieutenant Rose had just radioed his report of two casualties. Major Biddick was still dealing with 1 Platoon’s problem, with Holmes and his men pinned down. Now he also had to consider the implications of Rose’s casualties. Their evacuation became a priority and was an extremely manpower-intensive task, with troops needed to treat the wounded, carry stretchers and provide protection. Two men down could easily use up a whole platoon’s efforts. The company had anyway reached the limit of exploitation for this patrol, and Biddick made the decision to extract back to the Nowzad District Centre, or DC.

  So far Biddick had not needed his reserve, 2 Platoon, who were positioned among the compounds a short distance to the rear of Holmes’s 1 Platoon. He now ordered them to move back, to clear the company’s route to the west, and secure an RV in the area of the ‘Wedge’. This was a two-storey building with a prominent triangular doorway structure jutting up from the roof.

  The whole company would pass through the RV on the way back to Nowzad DC. The platoons would carry out head-checks to make sure no one was left behind. They might have to fight all the way back to this point from their forward battle positions. It was essential that the area was protected from enemy interference.

  Corporal Ryan Alexander, one of the 2 Platoon section commanders, grabbed his 2IC, Lance Corporal Oliver Penwright. ‘SP, take Okotie and Hof and get up on top of the Wedge. You should be able to get good all-round observation from there. But make sure you keep low. I don’t want any casualties.’

  Penwright led his Minimi gunner, Private ‘James’ Okotie, and sharpshooter Private Neil Hassell up on to the roof while Alexander deployed the remainder of the section into fire positions on the main track, covering an area of orchards to the south. The tremendous noise of fighting to the east and north reverberated throughout the whole village, as 1 and 3 Platoons continued to exchange fire with the Taliban. The occasional bullet and RPG missile whizzed overhead.

  Alexander cursed as yet again his Bowman radio refused to work. This happened all the time, and he hated it, because he was left in the dark about what was happening in the rest of the company. He needed to know as much as possible about what was going on so that he could react when necessary, to support other elements of his platoon or company. And if he ran into difficulty he had no way of summoning assistance.

  The platoon sergeant, Michael Butcher, came over. ‘Radio problems?’

  ‘Yeah. What a shock.’

  ‘Mine seems to be OK. I’ll stay here with you for the moment. The Taliban are everywhere, infiltrating. From what I can hear they’ve been trying to flank both the other platoons. God knows how many of them there are.’

  Alexander called Privates Anthony Glover and Simon Illsley to him. ‘Glovebox, Illsley, set up a Claymore out there, just into the orchard, in case any of them try and get through the trees.’

  Designed for exactly the purpose Alexander had in mind, anti-infiltration, as well as ambushes, the M18A1 Claymore directional mine, in its convex olive green plastic case, fires 700 one-eighth of an inch steel balls at 1,218 metres per second, shredding everything in their path.

  Glover took the Claymore from his daysack. Alexander saw that Illsley, at eighteen the youngest man in the platoon, was shaking and wide-eyed. Illsley was known among the platoon as a committed Christian. Alexander pulled him away from the other men. ‘Illsley. Look at me, mate. Stay calm. You know exactly what you’re doing. You’ve done this a hundred times before, there’s no difference now. We’re all here with you, we’ll look after you. We’re all in the same boat, and we’ve just got to do our jobs. It’s more important now than ever that we all stick together. OK?’

  He clapped Illsley on the shoulder, still nervous but now a bit calmer, and sent him to help Glover position the mine. Once that was done, Alexander appointed Illsley to assist Lance Corporal Mercer’s section, which was short of men for its task of securing the company’s withdrawal route a couple of hundred metres further east.

  Ten minutes later Illsley was lying in a fire position. His task was to cover one of the alleyways leading on to the main withdrawal route. He was holding his rifle loosely in both hands, scanning a wooded area to his front, looking over his SA80 sights. He heard a sudden rustling in the trees to his right. What the hell’s that? None of our lads are over there. Can’t be Taliban. Can’t be. Maybe it’s an animal, a dog or something. He braced his rifle against his shoulder and peered intently into the trees. Nothing. The hairs were already standing up on the back of his neck. Then he heard something move again.

  Illsley was horrified to see a tall thick-set bearded man wearing a black turban and a deep-blue kurta and holding an AK47 assault rifle. He was 20 metres away and moving fast, right to left. Illsley had never shot anyone before or even seen anyone shot. This was a nightmare. His heart thumped into his chest. He knew what he had to do. But could he? Could he? No time to think.

  He flicked off his safety catch and brought the tip of the bold, black arrow in his SUSAT sight on to the man’s upper body. Giving a very slight lead, and tracking the fighter’s movement, he squeezed the trigger. The rifle jerked in his hands, spitting out a 5.56mm bullet that hit the man square in the chest. He went straight down, and Illsley fired twenty more rounds at him in rapid succession.

  Lance Corporal Mercer and two other soldiers, hearing the shots, flung themselves down beside Illsley, then raked the area, and the trees beyond, with burst after burst of automatic fire. When he was as sure as he could be that any Taliban out there were either dead or had run off, Mercer called, ‘Cease fire. Watch and shoot, watch and shoot.’

  This was the order to stop shooting, but be prepared to open up again at will if further enemy was sighted or heard.

  Mercer called to Illsley, ‘Quick reactions, mate. Good shooting.’

  The others patted him on the back, ‘Well done, well done.’

  Every soldier wonders how he will react the first time he comes face to face with the enemy. Some serve for twenty years and never find out. Illsley, one of the youngest Royal Anglians in Afghanistan, had been scared almost witless just a few minutes before. When it really mattered, his training and his personal courage kicked in, and he killed the enemy fighter without hesitation.

  A few minutes later, back in the area of the Wedge, Private Mark Stevens, lying in a fire position facing the orchard, turned to Corporal Alexander and said quietly, ‘Alex, I can hear people moving in the orchard.’

  ‘What can you hear?’

  ‘Just rustling and walking, cracking twigs, and you can see some of the trees moving.’

  Alexander gave the hand signal for enemy – thumb down – and gestured towards the orchard. The signal was passed round the troops, who pointed their rifles towards the trees, fingers on triggers, scanning intently through their sights.

  Moments later they heard the sound of talking and laughter from inside the orchard. Still they couldn’t see anything through the dense undergrowth and closely planted pomegranate trees. Alexander whispered to Butcher, ‘Must be enemy. I am sure – I hope – none of our men would be making that sort of noise.’

  Butcher had been trying to find out on the company radio net whether there were any friendlies in the area that he didn’t know about, but predictably his radio was now not working either. He headed towards the platoon commander, Goodey, to find out.

  Then Stevens saw them, 25 metres away, several men with long beards, wearing turbans and kurtas, carrying rifles. He pulled back the trigger of his GPMG, blasting a long, continuous stream of tracer right into the middle of the group. Alexander and the rest of the section joined in, hurling rifle and machine-gun bullets and rifle grenades through the trees.

  The fighters went to ground, some killed
or wounded. Despite the massive weight of fire ripping into and around them, the enemy somehow managed to shoot back at Alexander and his section.

  Suddenly the enemy fire stopped, and there was no sign of movement. ‘Stop!’ yelled Alexander. ‘Watch and shoot, watch and shoot.’

  Alexander, holding his smoking rifle in front of him and sweating on to the hot barrel, felt an immense relief. They had blasted a group of Taliban trying to get in behind the forward platoons and then move round and attack them from the rear. The fighters had clearly had no idea that he and his section were there.

  Alexander had been feeling increasingly frustrated since first hearing Sergeant Larry Holmes’s frantic radio messages that he was pinned down by heavy fire out in front of the company. Holmes was Alexander’s best mate. They had served together in A Company since Alexander joined the battalion in Londonderry seven years before. Alexander had been beside himself with anguish, desperate to get forward to help his mate. When the shooting started he had tried to do just that, but the platoon commander had stopped him, reminding him that the situation was confused enough as it was, without someone else charging into enemy, or possibly friendly, fire. And of course Lieutenant Goodey had been right. Alexander’s place was in command of his section, and if the company commander wanted him forward he would give him the appropriate orders.