Helmund

CHAPTER 1 – THE PROLOGUE

JONES. ’We were a platoon of Royal Engineers surveying the approaches to a village in Helmand, in order to build a road, when we came under fire. Of course it happens quite a bit. The infantry go in and clear an area and then bugger off back to base for tea, and then the Taliban crawl back in and give us trouble.’

NARRATOR. The corporal, a young woman with cropped blonde hair, fetchingly attired in army fatigues, was telling us the story. We were sitting round a table in the dining room of a hotel in the Galician town of Sarria, in Northern Spain, the most popular starting point for those wishing to walk on the Way of St James.

JONES. ’Bomb disposal was making safe areas available slowly. Rex, their Alsatian sniffer dog, was just developing an interest in an area of disturbed sand when he fell to the ground, blood pumping from a hole in his rib cage. At first we had no idea what had happened, because the bullet had travelled faster than the speed of sound, but then we heard the shot. The sniper was hidden somewhere in one of the houses on the edge of the village. We took cover and returned fire with our SA80s, but we had the disadvantage of not knowing exactly where the shooter was holed up, while he could see us attempting to hide behind our Land Rover.
‘Poor old Rex was lying there, whimpering. I don’t know whether you’ve seen that film, Full Metal Jacket?’

NARRATOR. She looked round at us. I nodded as did Julia, our CEO. We were hanging on her words. The corporal continued, slightly encouraged.

JONES. ’So one of the Americans is shot down by a sniper in the open area in front of a building. He lies there screaming. No-one steps forward because they know that the next person out there will be shot dead.’

NARRATOR. We both nodded again. She carried on with the story.

JONES. ’But we were not too surprised when, without waiting for us to lay down covering fire, the dog handler, Private Anderson, moved forward out to try to recover him. He took a round in the chest and fell to the ground over the dog. The boss…,’

NARRATOR. She nodded at Major Strachan who was sitting next to her,

JONES….‘dashed out to pull Anderson back, and stepped outside the safe area. Blam, that was it. He was lying there bleeding to death with no left leg below the knee. Fortunately for him, we’d seen the flash from the sniper’s rifle, and had collectively put about 300 rounds into the ruin where he had been operating from. This action gave Private White a minute to prepare our Heckler and Koch grenade launcher. He lobbed a kilo of high explosive into the building, which disintegrated, spreading cement, breeze block, blood and bone all over the landscape. The shooting stopped.
‘Even before we had recovered the major and Private Anderson and Rex, the medic had put in a call for a helicopter to evacuate the wounded, so within minutes the air was vibrating as a Chinook eased down onto the sand beside us. We loaded the three of them in to the aircraft and it took off, while the rest of us got into our Land Rovers and drove back to base. After that, the major and the private were evacuated back to the army hospital in Birmingham. Rex died on the operating table and we buried him in the sand outside our perimeter.’