Authors: Pen Farthing
Eventually the ’chutes would be loaded back to Bastion for another day.
‘Meet up round by the vehicles, lads – it’s cake time,’ I called out as I wiped the dirt and sweat from my eyes.
The cake went in a flash as mud-stained hands snatched it up. The steaming hot mug of sweet tea washed the cake down a treat as we worked out the sentry roster for the remainder of the day. With no operations planned, unless the Taliban had a Christmas surprise of their own, it should be a quiet day.
I quickly heated up some water using the old ammo box that served as our hot water tank and filled the shower bag. Five minutes later I had shaved and dressed in fresh underpants and clean socks. I still wore the same pair of trousers that I had worn for the last week; I had no choice there as my other pair was still trying to dry from the wash two days ago. I had brought back from R & R a bright red barbecue shirt that came out only on special occasions. Lisa hated it, which, of course, encouraged me to wear it more.
Watching it being packed into my day sack for the return to Afghanistan Lisa had suggested I leave it behind for the Taliban when I came home for good.
My mother had sent me some Christmas reindeer antlers and a flashing red bow tie. They finished off my Christmas Day outfit quite nicely. I pulled out the variety box of chocolate biscuits from under my bunk that had also come back from R & R and, in body armour, wandered off to check on the lads manning the sentry positions. Everybody looked tired as I did the rounds, but we had no choice except to keep plugging away at it. We couldn’t very well stand the sangars down just because it was Christmas.
By the time I finished my rounds the biscuit box was empty and I felt quite stuffed. I had managed to munch a sickly chocolate biscuit in every sangar. I couldn’t let the lads eat on their own, could I?
As I walked back to the galley, Dutchy was already clad in his apron, peeling potatoes into the cooking pot. I walked through the doorway and then stopped and reversed back out into the muddy yard.
‘Wow, when did they do that?’ I said, staring in disbelief at the home-made oven the Gurkhas had knocked up and which was now placed tight against the outer wall of the little kitchen.
‘While you were out jollying around the desert,’ Dutchy said, looking at my outfit with a shake of his head. ‘Their corporal heard about the problem with the turkey and offered his services.’
It was certainly an impressive piece of engineering. The oven was made from an old discarded oil drum that had been cleaned out and propped on top of two old bricks and packed tightly against the wall with sandbags. The Gurkhas had cut a small A4-size hole in the front that they hinged on one side. Inside they had welded on four brackets that acted as rails for the two baking trays they had fashioned.
The whole drum had been caked in about two inches of wet mud. I could see a rubber gas hose snaking through the wet mud, which disappeared under the oven. I took two steps back and peered around the corner. The rubber hose was connected directly to the six-foot gas cylinder that was propped there.
‘How the hell have they connected the gas?’ I asked, slightly bewildered.
‘Don’t ask,’ Dutchy replied. ‘Just get your arse in here and give me a hand.’
It is a long-running tradition that the lower ranks are served their Christmas dinner by their sergeants and officers. Dutchy and I were perhaps taking it a little far by actually cooking the food as well.
For the next two hours, with help from the engineers officer, we prepared and cooked as much of the Christmas goodies as we could on the hob and in the home-made oven.
The
Gurkhas’ oven produced a surprisingly hot blast of air every time we opened the door to check on the slowly roasting turkeys inside. We had to use a cleaned metal piquet to move the turkeys round as we had no oven tongs.
The smell of the turkeys as we carved up was enough to stir the hordes. They were soon rapidly flocking to the serving tables. The company second in command came over and duly served and wished the lads Merry Christmas as they filed past.
‘No way, look – there is even bacon wrapped around the sausages,’ said one marine as they drooled over the steaming plate in front of them. The rain had held off, thankfully, but the queue that had formed in the ankle-deep mud resembled a picture from a music festival.
‘Quite proud of those bacon-wrapped sausages,’ Dutchy whispered to me.
‘Yeah, not bad mate, although I think they like the fried potatoes I prepared better,’ I replied with a grin. I was still wearing the stupid antlers and the bright red shirt.
The CSM wandered over to get his share of the food. ‘Good effort, fellas. I’ll be recommending a change of careers when we get back.’
‘Bugger off,’ Dutchy shot back through a mouthful of turkey hot off the carving plate.
‘Between the two of you, sort the lads out so we can have one troop at a time in the HQ building for two o’clock and then at three, all right?’ he said.
‘What’s happening?’
‘Santa’s coming,’ he replied as he walked off.
I looked at Dutchy, who just looked back at me with a confused expression. We were none the wiser.
As I entered the HQ building with my lads shortly after 2 p.m. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. The company second in command and the CSM had decorated the room with left-over decorations and laid out the welfare Christmas
Day
parcels that had slowly been arriving over the last few weeks.
The Royal Marine Association, especially the Tavistock branch, had been doing us proud with the shoeboxes packed with goodies they had been sending. They had been filled with things like razors, toothpaste and sweets, items the military didn’t supply. But that wasn’t the reason I was laughing along with the other lads.
There, sat in the middle of the carpeted area on a chair, was Father Christmas – drinking a can of beer.
Of course it wasn’t the real Father Christmas but ‘Scouse’, our medical assistant. Being a member of the Royal Navy he had been allowed to grow a beard. And a fine one he’d grown too. It now formed a black bushy clump covering his lower jaw up to his ears. Not quite Father Christmas grade, but good enough. Combined with the red Santa outfit he was wearing,
voilà
– a Santa Claus of sorts had arrived in Now Zad.
‘Yo ho ho,’ he shouted, unable to hide his strong Liverpool accent. ‘Come and sit on my lap, little boys, and tell Santa what you want.’
‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind Santa,’ I shouted back, ‘but Tim will.’
I volunteered the youngest member of our troop and without protest Tim walked over and plonked himself down on Santa’s lap.
‘Bloody hell,’ Scouse Santa groaned as Tim’s body armour dug in. ‘Have you been a good boy?’ he asked as he reached down to a large box just behind his chair.
‘Certainly have,’ Tim replied, smiling as he played along. Well, I hoped he was playing along and didn’t really think it was Santa.
‘In that case, have a beer on me,’ Santa said as he held out a can of cold beer that he had just retrieved from the box.
‘I’ve changed my mind – me next, Santa,’ I shouted as I led the charge to form a queue for Scouse’s lap.
*
Santa was also issuing the red military Christmas Day boxes. It didn’t matter where in the world you were serving at Christmas: if you were deployed on operations on land or at sea, then as a member of the British Forces you would receive a small Christmas box. We sat with Santa savouring the lager while we rooted through the collection of miniature Christmas puddings, Santa hats, catapults and assorted other bits and pieces inside.
We had asked the Gurkha section to join us as a thank-you for their extreme hard work to make life more comfortable for us all. They giggled away like small children as they entered the room to loud cheers and a shouted rendition of ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’. Their thrilled faces said it all. They couldn’t stop grinning and talking excitedly in Nepalese as they each took it in turn to receive their beer and goody box – while sat on Santa’s lap, of course.
The small room soon became a hubbub of noisy laughter and high-pitched screams as another victim of the catapults was hit by bits of Christmas cake. In another corner there was lots more excitement as some of the lads were challenging each other with the small plastic racing snails they’d found in their boxes.
Wearing your Santa hat was compulsory, as was a salute to the Queen, who looked out from the small gilt-framed pictures that were found at the bottom of every box.
We all stood up and saluted our pictures before sitting back down in fits of giggles among the crumpled paper, discarded boxes and wrappers.
I looked across and saw two of the lads attempting to cram as many of the small Christmas puddings as they could into their mouths all at once. Instead of telling them how stupid they were being some lads were eagerly donating their own puddings to encourage the record-breaking attempt. It
ended
with both competitors choking and spraying dried Christmas pudding over all those in range.
We enjoyed a good hour of jovial banter. It was a unique moment. No one really spoke of what they were missing back home; they hadn’t been expecting the Christmas dinner and they definitely hadn’t been expecting to see Santa bringing beer.
I looked around the room and felt proud of the lads. They didn’t complain at being away at Christmas. They just got on with it. And they deserved to have some fun.
The day had been non-stop; I hadn’t really been able to see the dogs much except to feed them quickly in the morning. I had sat in the sangars for a few hours in the late afternoon to give a few of the lads an extra hour’s downtime; it had passed slowly and I felt the lack of sleep for the last 24 hours taking its toll. I had my down jacket pulled up tight, but the cold wind felt extremely bitter as it pushed through the open gun port of the sangar. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which meant that it would drop well below freezing again as the night drew in. Through the binoculars the view was the same as it had been since we had arrived. The cold was beginning to bite and the locals had obviously retreated to the warmth of their fires.
I let my mind drift to thoughts of Lisa back home and what she would be up to. I had left a present hidden under our bed, which I would tell her about when I called later that night. As a couple we weren’t that keen on Christmas Day but it would still have been good to be back with her.
I was surprised that the Taliban hadn’t hit us; maybe they had given a time out as they were respecting the fact it was Christmas Day, but I doubted it. More likely they had suffered a serious setback in yesterday’s encounter, at least I very much hoped so.
As it was getting dark I walked back over to feed the dogs. I carried with me four thin slices of turkey that I had carved from one of the joints. It was Christmas, after all.
I could hear all four going crazy as I entered the run area, barking and jumping up and down. As usual Jena was rooted to the spot closest to the door, her high-pitched whines echoing around the little courtyard as she shivered with excitement.
Dave had beaten me to it and was preparing some food, squeezing it from the packet into the bowls. The Christmas tinsel that we had tied along the tops of the fencing was looking battered and had lost its dazzle.
‘Just finished sentry, thought you was busy,’ Dave said as he carried on dishing out the pork and dumplings.
‘Yeah I was, just finished in the northern sangar,’ I replied, adding the cuts of turkey to the bowls.
‘They will love that, but better not tell the lads, eh?’ Dave said.
‘Yeah, probably not.’
‘Better give Jena the bigger portion, I think she is going to need it,’ Dave said, nodding towards her.
I could see what he meant. Her belly was vastly swollen now. It probably wasn’t going to be long before those pups of hers would be making an appearance.
‘Happy Christmas, dogs,’ I said to the patiently waiting audience of four as we finished serving up the food and stepped away from the bowls.
The hounds of Now Zad were soon hungrily tucking into their first Christmas dinner.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
No More
DUCHY AND I
were back in the galley, cooking a Boxing Day dinner of pasta with chicken and white wine sauce when there was a sudden, thunderous explosion.
‘0 to all stations. What the hell was that, over?’
‘0 this is Sangar 1. A bloody rocket just missed my position. Over,’ a shocked voice shouted back over the radio.
‘0 this is Hill. Roger that. That sounded like it was a rocket. Over.’
Oh shit, what are they up to now? I thought to myself. The Taliban had learnt to fire 107 rockets, which were old artillery shells adapted to fire from a home-made wooden launching ramp. This made them quick and extremely easy to hide once the rockets were fired, but the improvised weapon’s range and accuracy left a lot to be desired, unless, of course, the Taliban firing team got lucky.
The ‘stand to’ shout went up around the compound as Dutchy turned the gas off in the galley. The pot of boiling pasta would have to wait.
Running to the sangars I was shocked to see the all too familiar rising plume of smoke was coming from just the other side of the outer compound wall by the gate.
‘That was too close,’ Dutchy yelled as we went our separate ways.
The roar of another rocket flying overhead had me
ducking
as I ran, but this time it was nowhere near the compound. Instead I watched as it arced skywards towards the hill. Luckily again, the unguided missile exploded harmlessly in a ploughed field away to the south.
I climbed the metal ladder as fast as I could and threw myself into the safety of the sangar’s sandbags. Hutch was already bringing the gunners on to a position far out towards Taliban central.
‘Making up for having Christmas off,’ he shouted over, raw adrenalin glinting in his eyes as he scanned the distance and called corrections for the young gun team.
Apart from Christmas Day the Taliban had now attacked us every single day since I’d returned from R & R. And they were getting closer. It wouldn’t be long now before they scored a direct hit on the compound.
As December struggled to a close I had almost lost all track of real time. My days had been blurring into one big repetitive, Groundhog Day routine. Every 24-hour cycle consisted of quick dog feeds, morning meetings, visits to the sangars, patrols, stints sitting uncomfortably in the sangars while the Taliban attacked, cleaning weapons, cooking for the troops, feeding the dogs again, sleeping when time allowed and taking a duty on the radio before starting the whole process all over again.
Keeping an eye on the dogs was becoming even more of a diversion. RPG would keep me amused by chasing AK around the run for most of the day. By contrast, Jena was getting so big and heavy that she just sat waiting for me to make a fuss of her.
The dogs had almost eaten the entire stockpile of unwanted pork casserole and dumplings. Luckily, during his daily water drop-off John had come across three large boxes of unused halal rice and chicken packets that had been delivered for the ANA. They’d headed back to Bastion just before Christmas and not been replaced. The brown rice and stodgy-looking chicken pieces tasted incredibly bland.
‘None of our lot will eat this,’ Dave said.
‘Roger that,’ I replied, pulling a face as I chewed on the last mouthfuls. ‘Well, why waste it?’
That evening we watched happily as all four dogs devoured their new dish. As John and I cleared away the bowls I remembered what I had been meaning to ask him all afternoon.
‘Did you see that white dog today?’
‘What dog?’ he said.
‘I was walking across from the north sangar to the HQ building when this skinny mad little dog ran out of the shadows by the ammunition containers,’ I explained. ‘It ran around my legs a couple of times before running off like an idiot through a small gap between the gate and the wall. No idea how it managed to squeeze through the gap though; it had to be no more than five inches wide. I stuck a piece of wood in there to stop it coming back in. I think we have enough dogs, don’t you?’
‘No, I haven’t seen it,’ John replied, ‘and we definitely don’t need any more.’
Jena was going to give birth any day now. I had no idea what we were going to do when her puppies arrived and I was still none the wiser about getting the dogs to the rescue.
The emails and phone calls had dried up. Lisa had had no joy trying to get hold of the rescue for quite a few days now.
I could hardly complain of a lack of customer service from the rescue centre. Sometimes in my frustration I forgot that it wasn’t a real rescue but a few Afghans who were willing to look after the dogs and other animals that found their way there.
They were prepared to treat the waifs and strays with a kindness that was hard to find elsewhere in this part of the world. They didn’t have a dedicated office and almost certainly weren’t paid very well for their time, if at all. Most
importantly
of all they were putting their lives on the line by associating with Western agencies.
As I walked back over towards the galley, the air was still and calm but the temperature was dropping fast like the sun. I needed to get my down jacket on. It was going to be cold one again.
The sudden thud of the explosion as a mortar landed somewhere nearby shook me. From the way the sound was reverberating around the compound wall I could tell it had been close, really close.
The radio burst into life immediately.
‘0 this is Sangar 4. A fucking mortar just landed next to my fucking sangar, over.’ The animated Liverpudlian accent was instantly recognisable. Scouse was the only lad from Liverpool that we had in the company.
‘Sangar 4 this is 0, are you okay? Over.’
‘Eh. Only fucking just, yeah. It landed right next to my fucking sangar. Over,’ he repeated in a fast babble of words, clearly alarmed at just how close the mortar had landed.
‘Eh, eh Sangar 4. This is 0. Eh, just calm down, eh,’ came the reply in a mock Scouse accent.
It turned out that Scouse had been extremely lucky. The torrential downpours of the past weeks had softened the flat mud-roofed buildings around his south-west-facing sentry post. Even though it had landed just four feet away from his position, the explosive head of the mortar had punched straight through the sodden roof without detonating, exploding instead when it hit the hard floor below. As a result, the full impact of the explosion had been contained inside the empty building and its thick mud walls.
If it had exploded on the roof Scouse would not have been playing Father Christmas again.
It had been close, too close.
As I climbed the ladder into the sangar ready for another dose of Taliban entertainment I couldn’t help thinking about the dogs once more. Things were getting quite crazy and at
times
scary although we didn’t admit it to one another. I hoped the dogs were well hidden away in their small storerooms.
For them there was no running away from the constant soundtrack of battle; it was always Guy Fawkes Day. And, no doubt, it was even more frightening for them than it was for us. At least we knew what was causing these big bangs even if we did have no control over them.
A few days earlier I had watched Nowzad’s reaction when a fast jet had flown overhead as a show of strength to the Taliban. The noise of the plane directly over the run had sent him running for cover in the cardboard box inside the old storeroom. No amount of offered biscuits had been able to persuade him to venture out while the noise of the plane raged overhead. Curled tight in a small ball with what was left of his ears pinned back, his wide eyes had stared out at me as I tried for all I was worth to tell him it was okay and not to worry. But nothing I could say reassured him. He looked like he was on the edge, which perhaps wasn’t surprising given that most of us in the compound were as well.
The night was quiet and lit by a brilliant moon so I decided to take Nowzad out for what was becoming a regular after-dark walk around the compound.
I’d become a bit worried about him over the past few days. Nowzad had nobody to play with now that he was in a run on his own. This arrangement made it easier for me to feed him and it also kept the other dogs safe in case he decided to turn nasty, especially at feeding times. But I had a feeling it wasn’t good for him to be isolated like this.
I knew he needed exercise otherwise he would spend the entire day lying out on his cushion, getting up only to go for a wee. But as he was getting so unpredictable around more or less everyone in the compound, I could only take him out safely at night.
It was frustrating. It wasn’t that he was naturally a vicious dog; it was just the training and the treatment he’d been given in his previous life. I hadn’t had the time to retrain him, but I couldn’t risk him biting someone so I had to keep him on a tight leash, literally.
I’d made a thick strap I’d cut from one of the ripped resupply parachutes as a lead. Even with it around his neck he would still lurch forward and attempt to rear up at strangers. It was so dispiriting. It didn’t matter what I said to him or how firm I was, he just wouldn’t stop with the evil guttural growl and the snarling teeth whenever anyone walked within ten feet of us.
I understood what was at the root of his aggression: he wanted to protect me. I knew I could cure that. It would just take time. Time I didn’t have.
Of all the dogs, Nowzad was the one whose future most worried me. Even if I got him safely to the rescue, I guessed that nobody would choose to take him as a pet. The result would be that the rescue staff there would unfairly be lumbered with a fighting dog that was set in his ways. They would then probably be left with only one option.
That didn’t bear thinking about.
John was at the water pump, topping up the jerry cans. I turned to walk towards him; even though he was a young lad we got on well and I enjoyed passing a few minutes while we chatted about whatever was on our minds. It dawned on me that I had never asked him where he was from or even how old he was. Now seemed as good a time as any.
‘All right, Nowzad?’ he said, turning off the tap as he turned to face us approaching.
Suddenly, without warning, Nowzad lunged at John’s legs and let loose his most evil-sounding bark. Luckily John was too quick and moved away before Nowzad could sink his teeth in. If he hadn’t been so sharp, he would almost certainly have been badly bitten.
‘Bugger, what the hell was that about?’ John shouted.
He couldn’t understand it and neither could I. It wasn’t as if he was a stranger; John fed Nowzad occasionally, for Pete’s sake.
Somewhere deep inside me a switch flipped. The frustration of being target practice for the Taliban, the days and months of sleep deprivation, burst to the surface. I had had enough.
‘
Nowzad!
That’s it! No more,’ I shouted as I yanked back hard on the improvised lead, almost forcing him back on his haunches with the force of the pull. I then dragged him towards the gate. ‘Nobody will want you at the rescue; you’re a total pain in the arse,’ I yelled.
John stood there slightly shocked before heading back to the well.
As soon as I got the gate open wide enough I pushed Nowzad’s thickset body out through the gap. He tried to resist at first by digging in with his front paws, but I had the upper hand. He wasn’t making a noise at all. I think he was in a state of shock as I shoved him out into the night.
The moon was particularly bright, and the frost-covered ground sparkled as I watched Nowzad wander away from the gate, heading off across to the far corner of the next compound and the open spaces on the east side of town.
As he reached the corner he stopped and turned to look back towards me for a split second before disappearing into the night.
I took two deep breaths and realised what had just happened. After all we’d been through together, I’d kicked Nowzad out. It was over.
I felt a pang of guilt. But there was nothing I could do now. It was done.
I walked back across to my bed, the now useless lead in my hand. I needed to sleep. I felt tired.
I had been beaten. The last two months, all the time I had spent desperately trying to convince myself that I could look after an Afghan fighting dog, had been a waste. It wasn’t
Nowzad’s
fault; it was just the way it was. Again I told myself I had done the right thing. I sat down on my bed in the ice-cold room and removed my boots. I couldn’t be bothered with getting undressed. I had only three hours’ sleep before I was on watch again.
I tried not to think of Nowzad as I drifted off to a better world.
I woke to the sound of my alarm piercing the darkness. I had ten minutes until it was my turn to man the ops room and the radio. Almost three in the morning and all was well.
Well, not quite all, I thought to myself as I quickly laced up my cold boots and stamped my feet around to get some warmth while I slipped on my down jacket and hat.
I walked outside. The moon was still crystal-clear and everything was laced in an icy sheen. The ground crunched softly as I made my way over towards the ops room.
It was then that I heard the sound quietly floating on the still early-morning air.
It wasn’t a howl or the werewolves’ cry of the movies, just a low, whimpering cry for help, a dog’s cry.
I knew who it was.
I had a few minutes to spare and I could always pretend I had overslept so I headed for the home-made wooden ladder that leant against the wall, then climbed up and popped my head over the top so that I was looking down into the open space immediately to the front of the gate.
‘Oh shit.’
I felt numb inside.
There was Nowzad propped against the gate, looking lost and rejected. He was waiting to come in, waiting to come back to what he regarded as his home. The home I had created for him.
‘Don’t do it,’ I scolded myself climbing down. ‘He’ll get tired soon. He’ll find shelter soon enough; just leave him be. There is no other way.’
I had to fight against myself to keep walking towards the ops room.