Stephen Grey - Operation Snakebite

Manchip and the ANA headed off to find the Taliban. Intelligence estimates said there were about 100 hardened fighters out there. Leaving the town, they walked towards the cultivated green zone. They were walking to the fields across flat, open desert shingle. The last time this area had been attacked, a British soldier was killed, they had heard. Manchip was mentoring one Afghan platoon on the right. Fraser took the left one. The plan was to leapfrog, or ‘pepper-pot’ as the army called it. One platoon would stop and ‘go firm’ – get into firing positions and be ready to provide cover – while the other platoon would move forward. All the same, it still felt a bit mad. Fraser turned to Sergeant Matty Ling, standing next to him. ‘This is absolutely fucking barking,’ he said. It was just a case of when, not if, the Taliban would open fire.

Fraser heard a bang behind him and turned round and saw a black puff of smoke. ‘Air-burst RPG,’ he thought. There was a moment of silence. ‘Is that it?’ Then things went haywire: AK-47s firing, heavy machine guns firing, mortars landing, and RPGs streaking over. It seemed the mortars were zeroing in. They had to move. By now Fraser and Ling were in a small ditch. His ANA were a few yards in front, in a bigger ditch. Getting into cover meant going forward. Fraser was lying on his left shoulder. Ling was on his right shoulder. They stared across at each other – looking up at tracer going just about 6 inches above them. ‘Fuck, what are we going to do here?’ asked Fraser. And what was happening to Manchip’s platoon meanwhile? The same thought was going through Manchip’s mind as he lay in another ditch. What the hell is happening to Fraser and his men?

Fraser managed to make it to the ditch in front, and they started returning fire. But, camouflaged by the bright sunlight, the Taliban’s firing points were hard to see. All you could do was just guess where they were. The Taliban bullets felt like a mad swarm of bees. Put your head up and they started buzzing all around you.

Manchip decided to get his men out. This wasn’t the moment to start clearing into the green zone on foot. Better to unleash some severe hell, he thought. Taking turns, one platoon opened fire and then the other stood up to sprint. They made it back about 200 yards to a deep wadi and, from behind the cover of its banks, they called in a 500-pound bomb from the air, a barrage of artillery, and more than 150 mortar bombs to ‘smash their position regularly’.

Their enemy, however, did not give up. When they got up to pull back – some three and half hours later – they were chased through an orchard by the Taliban rounds. ‘You could feel the bullets by your face,’ remembered Fraser. ‘It was that close.’ Yet they made it back to the district centre intact.

Next morning, it wasn’t over. Having driven into Now Zad, they now had to drive out. Manchip’s orders were to withdraw to the south-east, but he had to drive out at a snail’s pace with two trucks carrying engineering plant equipment. That meant a top speed of about 5 miles per hour. Sure enough, as they went through the mountains, they drove straight into a prepared ambush. It wasn’t a surprise. They could overhear their convoy’s every movement being described on the Taliban’s radio network.

At that point the ANA appeared to lose it, desperately trying to escape, recalled Manchip. ‘All hell broke lose with the ANA playing wacky races, breaking up the order of march, trying to overtake and using our vehicles as cover while they opened fire around them.’

The fight went on for two hours. Dutch F-16s came over to assist. But they refused to fire, concerned about possible civilians around. The Americans called up some of their own F-16s instead. The pilots said they saw only enemy – and engaged. Manchip led the ANA out of the killing zone while Fraser and three Humvees from the special forces stayed behind to suppress the enemy. Then they noticed one of their trucks had been left behind – right smack in the middle of the killing zone. The driver had simply run away in a blind panic. Fraser picked up a rocket-launcher to blow it up. He wasn’t going to leave it for the Taliban.

Then he heard an American pipe up. ‘Jimmy, that’s our truck.’

He looked again and realized it was the truck with all their ammo, all their food and water and American ammo too.

‘Fuck,’ said Fraser, lowering the rocket. ‘Gotta go ’n’ get that. We can’t leave that there.’

Fraser got into his WMIK Land Rover and sped into the killing zone, with American Humvees riding shotgun. Jumping on the truck, he started up the engine and it seemed to still work, though it moved at a walking pace.

He made it out under fire to where the rest of the patrol was waiting. Manchip moved them on quickly. It was getting dark. As they got over the brow of the hill they looked behind and saw mortars landing, just where they’d been waiting minutes earlier.

Jonno was not happy. He had spent all day trying to fit Kevlar armour plates underneath the cushion of his seat on his Vector armoured vehicle. Everyone ‘bastardized’ their Vectors. It was almost a kit car. But this change did not work, as, with his own helmet and personal kit on, he could no longer fit into the cab.

Soldiers I met in Helmand hated the design of Vectors and many of the other British vehicles too. They had a crucial design flaw which – unlike American Humvees, for example – made the driver or front passenger (usually the vehicle commander) particularly vulnerable to being killed if the vehicle struck a mine. ‘It is an absolute death trap. I don’t feel safe in this,’ said Jonno. ‘You’ve just to get on with it,’ he was told. Everyone knew the problem all too well.

That night, Jonno went to visit Fran Myatt, the 2 Yorks chaplain, and asked for his own copy of the Bible. He placed it beneath his combat armour. Then he sat down and wrote an email, sent at 18.00, to his fiancée, Lisa.

FROM: Lee Johnson

TO: Lisa McIntosh

SENT: Weds Dec 5 2007; 1.30pm (GMT)

SUBJECT: RE:

Well angel, I’m going at 2 in the morning. You might see me on the telly soon or in the Times paper as I have got a film crew with me. This is the biggest thing since D-Day and I am not lying. I am worried…

You must understand this could be my last message to you. So I am going to say a few things. You know I love you with all my heart and always will. And I am sorry truly for all the things I have done… I want you to put the money from the sale of my house and split it…

I know this is a bit upsetting but I need to let you know about this. I really love you and will try my hardest to come home safely. I would like you to play one song for me if it happens and this is Razorlight and ‘really wish I could be somewhere else’. And I want my photos played at wherever the wake is which are all on the DVD marked up ‘Kajaki’ and the footage I got from there which is on my camcorder which you will receive in my box. Thanks please do this because I want people to understand how things were over here and why I love the army so much and the buzz.

I want you to get on with your life and live it to the full… I only ask your forgiveness in my wrongdoing. The thought of not holding you in my arms again is awful and gets me down but your photos are close to my heart and will be with me forever. I love you. Tell my daughter and son I love them. Love you Lisa my angel forever and a day

The convoy set off in the pre-dawn darkness from the Afghan National Army base near Camp Bastion, and headed down Highway One towards Gereshk. Just before the town, it took a left turn on to a desert track, where, as the vehicles started to struggle in the terrain, it began to stretch out into a 12-mile-long column. The vehicles threw up a cloud of dust, and, as the sun rose, it was impossible for the Taliban scouts who were watching to miss it.