Attack State Red Read online

  There was a sudden burst of machine-gun bullets from the orchard, and again Alexander’s section replied with a barrage of fire. Over the next ten to fifteen minutes, this continued. Every time Alexander shouted ‘Watch and shoot’ there would be a pause, then a resumption of firing.

  Finally, the fire stopped for good – all enemy in the orchard were killed or had retreated.

  7

  Three hundred metres south-east of Alexander’s position, Private Duffy, having left the wounded Corporal Billy Moore with an engineer, moved forward again. The whole place was echoing with the crash of bullets as Corporal Kisby’s men continued to exchange fire with the Taliban a few metres ahead. Duffy reached the depression, sweating, out of breath and anxious. Chris Gray, his best friend, was lying pale and motionless on a field stretcher. Beside him, a stinking, open sewage ditch.

  Sergeant Simon Panter, Second Lieutenant Rose’s platoon sergeant, was bent over Gray. He had stripped off his body armour and shirt and was desperately giving him mouth-to-mouth. Standing beside Panter, Rose was speaking into his radio: ‘Zero Alpha, this is Bronze Three Zero Alpha. Reference my two casualties, one is bad, wait out for nine liner.’

  Blanking out his emotion, Duffy got straight down and grabbed Gray’s wrist. Rapid, faint pulse. Thank you. He’s alive. He put his ear against Gray’s mouth, Shallow, shallow breathing. He thought, He is so bad. But he tried to reassure himself, Chris’s tough, he’ll deal with it .God, I hope he will.

  Duffy examined the bullet entry wound. Left side, just missing the Osprey body armour chest plate. Not too much blood, but a sucking wound. Asherman Chest Seal, I need to get one on quick. From his medpack he pulled out the seal and fixed it over the bullet hole. The one-way valve allows air and blood to escape while preventing the re-entry of either.

  Above Duffy, Rose was again on the radio to the company commander, confirming the helicopter landing point for the medical emergency response team, or MERT, which was already screaming towards Nowzad in a Chinook with an Apache attack helicopter as escort.

  Duffy checked for the exit wound. It was in Gray’s lower back, and there was a lot of blood. He put his fingers in to make sure there was no debris, then packed a field dressing against the wound and tied it off.

  He put his mouth next to Gray’s ear. ‘Chris, Chris. Stop being weak. You’re being weak. Stay with us. You can get through this. Stay alive, Chris. Please stay alive.’

  Rose had given orders to the section commanders to break contact and protect the casualty evacuation party. Sergeant Panter had organized the stretcher bearers, who were waiting for Duffy’s word to start moving Gray back.

  Duffy turned to Panter, ‘That’s all I can do, Sarge, we need to get him away.’

  As they moved off, under continuous hammering from Biddick’s mortars and machine-guns, the Taliban fire had died down, but Corporal Kisby’s section acted as rearguard, to ensure any surviving Taliban didn’t try to follow up. Carrying an unconscious man on a field stretcher across rough terrain at speed in searing heat was torture. Four men at a time carried the casualty, rotating periodically to maintain speed. They were carrying 30 kilos of their own kit as well as the stretcher. Dust filled up their mouths and throats as they ran, breathing hard. It was exhausting. But no one complained. They were desperate to get their mate to the Chinook and on to the field hospital at Camp Bastion – to give him a chance to survive.

  Only Duffy stayed on the stretcher throughout, tying his wrist to one of the corners. He was determined to do everything he could to save his closest friend. All the way back he spoke to him: ‘Chris, stay with us, Chris. You will make it, mate. Do not die. Please do not die. Be strong, Chris. I know you can hear me. Be strong.’

  Duffy feared the worst, but there was no way he was going to give up on him, absolutely no way.

  Rose, navigating towards the RV with the company sergeant major’s vehicles, saw the stretcher bearers were flagging. He tapped the lead right man on the shoulder and took his place. ‘Come on now, lads, pick up the pace a bit,’ he shouted over his shoulder, and they speeded up. Gray was jerked and jolted on the bouncing, sagging stretcher, but the most important thing was to get him back as quickly as possible.

  Finally they reached the RV, a grassed courtyard area in the middle of the village. The company medic was waiting with his Pinzgauer vehicle. Two of the company’s WMIK fire support Land Rovers, which had been working in among the compounds, had arrived to provide protection, bristling with weapons.

  The battle to extract Holmes was still going on less than a hundred metres away. The whole village echoed with the rattle of machine-gun fire, the whoosh and sharp detonation of RPGs and the crack of rifle bullets. The ground shook beneath their feet as mortars exploded around the Taliban positions nearby.

  Private Richard Ranns, the Pinz driver, watched Panter, Duffy and the others load the casualty into the back of the vehicle. He was shocked when he saw it was Chris Gray. Earlier that morning he and Gray had joked together over a cigarette before Gray went out on patrol. Just before he deployed, Gray had said to Ranns, ‘I hope we get into a firefight this time. I just want to make sure I can do my job.’

  There wasn’t much room inside the Pinzgauer, and the injured Corporal Moore said he would stay behind and get into the next vehicle that was going back to base. Ranns jumped back into the cab and gunned the Pinzgauer’s engine, driving fast towards Nowzad DC, escorted by the two WMIKs. In the back, as the vehicle bounced and jolted down the rough tracks and alleyways, the medic worked at mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions, desperately trying to keep the young soldier alive.

  Duffy, feeling as if his arm had almost parted from his shoulder with the constant weight of the stretcher, was utterly exhausted. Anguished, he watched the vehicle speed away with his best friend on board. Will I ever see him again? Then, covered in Gray’s blood, he walked on his own to a compound wall, leant against it and booted it. Until now he had been totally focused on saving Chris Gray. Now his emotions took over. Tears welled up in his eyes but he fought to keep some composure. Did I do enough for him? Is he going to live? I’m sure I could have done something else. Please – don’t let him die. Please. Duffy pounded the wall a few more times with his boot, then took hold of himself and rejoined the rest of the section, ready for the next task on this, the hardest day of his young life.

  Rose told the platoon to go firm in all-round defence at the RV, watching for Taliban infiltration. He walked over to find Major Biddick, who was at a road junction with his Tac HQ a few metres forward. Rose said, ‘Casualty’s gone. My platoon’s ready for tasking.’

  Biddick said, ‘How is Private Gray?’

  ‘Not good, I’m afraid. He’ll be lucky to make it.’

  ‘Who’s your other casualty?’

  ‘Corporal Moore. He’s not too bad. Bullet wound.’

  Biddick looked Rose in the eye, and Rose knew he was checking him out.

  ‘Yeah I’m fine,’ he said.

  ‘OK. Good. I’m extracting the company back to the DC. 2 Platoon will secure the RV and then provide rear guard. Your platoon will move first through them. Followed by 1 Platoon, once they have extracted Sergeant Holmes. He’s still in trouble. I will use a combination of direct and indirect fire to break contact and extract. I’ve got Apaches coming in with the MERT, so we’ll hopefully use them. I will also use F15s to strafe and drop some bombs.’

  Rose walked back to the platoon. Moore was talking to Duffy. Moore said, ‘Matt, you did a brilliant job back there. Both on me and Gray. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well done, mate.’

  He crashed his helmeted head against Duffy’s.

  Rose said, ‘What are you still doing here, Billy, you pussy, why haven’t you gone back with the sergeant major? I thought you were supposed to be wounded.’

  He punched him on the right arm, and Moore yelped in pain.

  ‘Sorry, Billy, didn’t realize that was the arm that got shot,’ said Rose, feeling awful about w
hat he’d just done.

  8

  A hundred metres east of the casualty RV, 1 Platoon commander, Lieutenant Nick Denning, had joined Corporal Brooks in the compound to the rear of Holmes’s position, still under fire.

  ‘Corporal B, we’ve got to get some fire down from here to get the guys back. The mortars and .50 cals on their own won’t do it. The company commander is trying to line up an air strike, but we don’t know whether we’ll get it in time. We need more weight of fire here. We can use the roof of that outhouse in the corner as a fire position. The wall will act as a parapet. We’re about to get another mortar fire mission. That will last four minutes and I want to use it to extract them. It’s risky but there’s no other option. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I can’t think of anything else. Let’s do it,’ replied Brooks, then called out to his 2IC, Private Oliviero, ‘Ollie, I want you, Redford, Hicks and Burgess over here now.’

  The four men doubled over to Brooks and stood in front of him. ‘I want you lot up on that roof, prepare to give fire support to the sarge so he can get out of the hole he’s in. We need to cover him and his lads so they can get across the open ground back to here. Understood?’

  Brooks looked into the soldiers’ eyes and he knew they didn’t want to do it. The building they were expected to scale was being riddled with machine-gun and rifle fire.

  ‘You’ve got to do it. Just get up there, lads. We need to give cover to Larry or he’ll be stuck where he is. He and the others will probably die there.’

  Private Fabio Oliviero led the way up a rickety ladder they found propped against the compound wall. As he climbed, he thought he was going to die. He did not want to do this. But he knew his mates were in deep trouble and he would want them to do the same for him if he was out there. That thought drove him up the ladder, a climb that seemed to take an eternity.

  As they moved up, Denning shouted, ‘When I give you the word, get down as much fire as you can. We will wait till the mortars come in so we get a lull in enemy fire. When the mortars start, you need to give it everything you can.’

  The soldiers crawled across the roof on their belt buckles, keeping as low as they could. Bullets were tearing apart the wall next to the building, which rocked beneath them every time an RPG exploded against the compound.

  Private Dan Burgess moved to the forward edge of the roof. Trying to force his body into the hard-baked mud, he opened up the bipod legs of his Minimi light machine-gun and lined the weapon up on the muzzle flashes and dust he could just make out way across the open, where the Taliban were. Burgess, a PlayStation fanatic, had been in the battalion for six months, straight from training. Bullets were ripping just above his head, and he knew that at any moment one of them could kill him.

  Sweat was stinging his eyes. He squinted down and saw Holmes and his section – his close mates – crouched behind the low wall that was still getting hammered by machine-gun fire. He blanked out his fear. At this moment he wanted only two things – to get his mates to safety and to kill the bastards that were trying to kill them.

  Denning yelled up, ‘Keep down, lads. Two five hundred pounders coming in. Keep down till I give you the word.’

  Burgess had never felt anything like it. The first bomb dropped 200 metres away. It was like being punched hard in the chest. There was a tremendous roaring explosion, almost unbearable. The second bomb followed rapidly. He looked up and saw nothing but clouds of dust and smoke – but seemingly behind the enemy position. They must have missed, thought Burgess, but if the bombs hurt me that much, I wonder what they did to the Taliban.

  The enemy fire stopped briefly and then started again – and it seemed as if the bombs had made them angrier, because the fire seemed even more intense than before.

  ‘Get ready, lads,’ shouted Denning, ‘mortars coming in now. When they start landing, the sarge is going to extract, so get everything you can down.’

  Before he saw the mortars exploding, Burgess heard the whizz as they passed over him, on their way into the enemy position.

  In front of Burgess’s outbuilding, Holmes shouted to his section, ‘Go, move back to Brooksy’s compound. I’ll cover you when you start to move.’

  He turned, and raising himself above the wall, blasted bullets down towards the enemy-held woodline. He looked round. The men were still lying on the ground, afraid to move. ‘Get up, we’ve got to go now. Go. Go.’ Still they didn’t move. He had planned to be the last man away, giving the others cover. But he realized they wouldn’t be going anywhere unless he showed them the example. With this much danger, orders were not enough. He jumped to his feet. ‘Follow me,’ he yelled, and led the soldiers back towards Brooks’s compound, running for their lives.

  As he ran, through sweat-blurred eyes, Holmes glanced up at the outhouse roof. Half-kneeling, Oliviero was thumping high-explosive grenades towards the enemy position from the under-slung grenade launcher on his SA80 rifle. He fired six in forty seconds. The other soldiers on the roof were also firing. But what astonished Holmes was the remarkable bravery of Private Burgess. Unable to get a proper view from his prone position, Burgess had stood up on the front of the roof and was firing burst after lethal burst from his Minimi. As Holmes watched, bullets were zipping all around the rooftop, and he could see tracer rounds screaming past, right next to Burgess’s head. But Burgess didn’t even flinch, he just kept firing.

  Denning was standing anxiously in the compound doorway, praying his plan would work. Between him, Biddick and Brooks, everything possible had been done to get Holmes and his men back to the relative safety of the compound. But would the combination of air strikes, mortar barrage and the withering fire from Oliviero’s team suppress the enemy for long enough? His soldiers could very easily be killed or seriously wounded as they raced back.

  Holmes flung himself against the doorframe, drenched in sweat and exhausted. He was not entering the safety of the compound before the last of his men was inside. He shoved each man through, looked back to be certain, and then followed them in. Denning counted them all in, one to eight. Thank God, he thought, I really can’t believe they actually made it.

  He looked up at the outhouse roof. Oliviero, Burgess, Redford and Hicks were crawling slowly back across to the ladder, bodies pressed tightly against the mud, keeping as low as they possibly could under the rain of bullets.

  Get them down, get them down in one piece, thought Denning. Everything else had come together, but he knew that these four soldiers had been decisive in keeping Holmes and his section alive as they made their dash across the open ground. Because as Holmes moved, all of the enemy fire had been directed at the soldiers on the rooftop. These men had literally been drawing enemy fire.

  Holmes knew it was not over yet, not by a long way. Bullets continued to crack into the compound walls, and RPGs were exploding overhead. But he was grateful to be alive, and not quite sure how or why he was. All he wanted to do was collapse in a heap, to lie down for just a few minutes. But he was the platoon sergeant, and that was the last thing he could do, no matter what he had been through. He got a grip of himself.

  He grabbed Denning. ‘Never thought I’d be so glad to see you, boss,’ he said, taking a lit cigarette from Denning’s mouth and shoving it between his own lips.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Sergeant H, that’s not one of the local ones, that’s a Marlboro, sent from home, you can’t have that. Anyway I thought you gave up years ago.’

  Holmes grinned, ‘Yeah, yeah, boss, I reckon I’ll be chain-smoking now for the rest of this tour so I hope you’ve got plenty more of these Marlboros.’

  Holmes turned to Oliviero, Burgess and the others, now back on the ground. All of them looked as if the last harrowing few minutes had aged them by several years. ‘Thanks, lads. I don’t know what to say,’ said Holmes, ‘you saved our lives. You definitely saved our lives.’

  He walked up to Burgess and put his arm round his shoulders. ‘Burgess, you must’ve been mad standing up like that, you almost
got yourself killed. I saw bullets going straight past you, I don’t know how you didn’t get hit. That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, I promise you.’

  Denning was surprised when Holmes and his men then started laughing, almost uncontrollably: ‘How did we get out of that?’

  But he also saw the horror in their faces.

  A few minutes later, Denning said, ‘Sergeant H, Corporal Brooks, I just got the word from the company commander, the company is extracting back to the DC, we need to get the guys together and start moving.’

  Holmes became angry. ‘We can’t go back now, boss. We can regroup and start attacking this lot. We’re now in a position to smash them.’

  ‘Maybe, but the OC says we’re pulling back, and that’s what we’re going to do.’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Holmes, ‘we’ve got to attack them.’

  Then Holmes realized he was being irrational. He had been deeply frustrated, pinned down and unable to fight back. As an infantry sergeant and a battalion boxing champion, he was only ever interested in going forward, whatever the situation. But he realized there was a bigger picture, this was not just about him or 1 Platoon. The whole company was fighting, and the company commander – whom he respected more than any other military man – had a plan. Holmes also realized that the enemy had almost certainly bugged out by now. Their immediate prey had escaped, and they had taken a battering from the air, from mortars and from the company’s machine-gun and rifle fire.

  Denning went on, ‘Three Zero are now extracting their casualties and they will then withdraw as a platoon, through the position to our west held by Two Zero. Once Three Zero are a bound back, we will also withdraw through Two Zero. The enemy have already flanked us both to the right and left. Everyone needs to stay really on the ball as we go back, because they could pop up anywhere. There’s also a good chance they’ll try and keep us under pressure from behind as we pull back. The company commander has more air assets lined up to hit them if they appear any distance from us. But at close quarters, gentlemen, we’re on our own.’