expect the British to contribute to their campaign to decapitate the Taliban leadership. They would be leant on by Britain’s ally, President Karzai and his representative in Helmand, to expand the government’s authority into the badlands.
It seemed to the Paras themselves, as they made their preparations, that the fact of their presence in Helmand was bound, sooner or later, to provoke a fight with the Taliban. Will Pike emphasised to his company that ‘we were there to enable development, to enable reconstruction and that the military arm was not the decisive thing, but winning the hearts and minds of the people’. When the Paras talked among themselves, however, Pike said, ‘we all knew that it was easier said than done and we were very aware that this operation was probably going to be the most significant thing we had done as a battalion since the Falklands and it was going to involve fighting on a scale we hadn’t seen since then’.
Pike knew Afghanistan from a previous tour – he had served in Kabul with 2 Para in the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11. As he understood it, Helmand was something of a sanctuary for the Taliban. The international military presence was sparse – some Americans engaged in targeted counter-terrorism operations – and the central government weak. The place was essentially run by the same people who ran the narcotics trade. ‘We knew that people were going to oppose the strands of development that we wanted to try and secure,’ he said. ‘So whilst the ferocity of the fighting came as something of a surprise … I don’t think we were under any illusions.’
In their pre-deployment training 3 Para hoped for the best and prepared for the worst. Study days were organised and visiting experts gave lectures on the people, history and customs of Afghanistan. Several soldiers were sent off on crash language courses and everyone was taught a few Pashto phrases for basic interaction with the locals. There were bouts of intensive tactical training but it was hard to recreate the conditions they would be operating in amidst the cold and wet of a British winter.
Early in 2006, however, 3 Para were sent for a month’s training to a much more useful environment – the stony hills and wadis of Oman. ‘Much of the training involved going to mocked-up villages, establishing relations with the locals and displaying a culturally aware attitude to the people they would be dealing with,’ Martin Taylor remembered. ‘Much of it had already been learned in Iraq. We were rehearsing the less aggressive “hearts and minds” side of things.’ But at the same time they were ‘always, always rehearsing what would happen if we came under attack. We trained with helicopter gunship and air support. Among the exercises was a live firing exercise in which the scenario is that you are out patrolling and come under attack from the Taliban who are firing from a strongpoint and you have to go and attack that. The blokes trained really hard and were very fit when they came back.’
While they were in Oman, news trickled down to them of what was going on in Afghanistan. It seemed to confirm their instincts that there was trouble ahead. The reports mainly concerned the Canadians who were in charge of the Kandahar area of operations, the sector next to the Paras’. ‘I was responsible to brief the blokes up,’ said Craig Mountford,
so every night in Oman I would sit down with the company commanders then pass it down to the lads. There were regular reports that someone had been killed in Afghanistan. But it wasn’t the fact that people were being killed. It was how they were killed. I heard one particular story about a Canadian officer who went to one of these “meet and greets” with the locals. He went in, took his helmet off and sat down on the floor to take tea with them. He had a bodyguard with him. But someone came in and stuck an axe in his head. That brought it home to quite a lot of people, I think. People began to step back and think, ‘Bloody hell, this might be something of a fight.’
The question of how to distinguish friend from foe, gunman from civilian, played a large part in preparations. The Paras were taught some likely indicators that would alert them to an approaching suicide bomber: heavy sweating, an absence of body hair, the mumbling of prayers and a refusal to respond to warning shouts were all signs to set alarm bells ringing. In the towns and villages they would be working in there would be many opportunities for making catastrophic errors that could deal fatal damage to the effort to win consent and trust.
Everyone dreaded shooting the wrong person. But they were also extremely uneasy about what would happen to them even if they had made an honest mistake. The spate of judicial actions against soldiers who had got into similar trouble in Iraq had created cynicism and a belief that justice was being bent by political considerations. Tootal gave reassurance that no one would be hung out to dry. ‘The CO was very, very clear about what his approach would be if someone was deemed genuinely to pose a threat,’ said Martin Taylor. As long as a soldier ‘was acting in all honesty and was not misusing his power in any way he would be supported’.
On the other hand, Tootal also left no room for doubt that anyone who abused the local population could expect harsh punishment. He spelled out the difference in a talk to the troops, asking them to imagine that they were patrolling into a village at dusk. Unseen assailants had been shooting at them and they were tense and nervous. Suddenly a boy walks out of an alleyway, holding a shepherd’s crook. In the failing light it looks just like an AK-47 rifle. Someone makes a split-second decision and shoots him dead. Tragic though it is, it is a consequence of the friction of war. In the circumstances there would be an investigation. But if it was shown that the soldier was acting with honest intent he could count on his CO’s support.
If, however, the soldier had seen the boy and was about to shoot him, subsequently recognised his mistake but took him into the alleyway ‘then kicked the shit out of him because he’d been given a good scare, then I’ll have that soldier court-martialled,’ Tootal said.
By the beginning of April 2006 the theorising was over and the practice was about to begin. After years on the sidelines, 3 Para was ready to take to the field. The thought was both alarming and exciting. ‘There is one test that a parachutist wants to take,’ said Nick French, ‘and that is how do you react under fire. Are you going to flinch, are you going to hide or are you going to pass that test? If you do you will leave the army happy.’ In the months ahead they would have many opportunities to try their courage.
Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads, published in 1892, contained a poem, ‘The Young British Soldier’, which was much quoted by those predicting the dire consequences of getting mixed up with Afghanistan. One verse ran: ‘When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains/And the women come out to cut up what remains/Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains/And go to your Gawd like a soldier.’
To the Paras arriving at Camp Bastion, in the arid flatlands north of the Helmand provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, it was heat and dust rather than the bloodthirsty attentions of fierce local women which seemed the main hazard. ‘A’ Company were the first to deploy, arriving on 15 April with the battle group’s tactical headquarters and the Patrols Platoon. They had also been the last to leave Iraq and had less time at home than the other company battalions. There was some whingeing among the soldiers, but the logic of the decision was accepted. It was, in its way, a compliment. ‘A’ Company had the most recent operational experience and the longest-established command structure. Going in first confirmed its members’ belief that they were the best.
First impressions of Bastion, though, did not raise spirits. To Corporal Chris Prosser, a machine-gunner from Support Company who was attached to ‘A’ Company, it came as ‘a complete shock’. The Paras were used to roughing it in the field but expected a few basic comforts back at camp. Instead, ‘there was nothing there. Inititally we were living in twelve-foot by twelve-foot tents with no aircon and nothing on the floor. We were living on ration packs for the first two weeks. Sandstorms came in every afternoon and swept through the tents so your kit was always covered in dust.’
‘Bastion when we arrived was just