Wardogs

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

On that basic premise you build layer upon layer of further training. The dog never knows that he's in any danger; that he's searching for this deadly killer device. Once I send Hunter into the Afghan bush, to him this will be just a game. he could talk hed probably be saying to me, Jesus, Dad, where've you brought me - don't you think it's a bit too hot to play out here? The sun's not fully up yet but I can feel the cold sweat drip ping down my back, and the thrumming, juddering, pounding heartbeat of fear - fear for myself, but fear mainly for my dog. My stomach's knotted tight as a fist, and my legs feel like they're going to jelly.

I unleash my dog to let him have his head. I take the first step, Hunter stepping out beside me.

I whisper: 'Seek on, boy, seek on? And so we start the walk.

Hunter's off, his stumpy tail flicking from side to side, his nose suspended a few centimetres above the earth swinging this way and that as he scans for the killer scent. I guide him with hand signals and sweeping arm movements, plus the occasional whis pered 'get over, to bring him back to where I want him.

'Heel', 'sit down', 'stay', 'come', 'leave' and 'no' - those are the basic verbal commands we teach the dogs. We add in the search specific stuff later. But over the years Hunter and I have developed our own special language known only to the two of us. Much of our communication is instinctive and unspoken, but I guess that I'm also a bit of a dog whisperer.

As we step out leading the patrol I'm nattering away to my dog: 'Come on lad, this way; good lad, up and over that ditch, mind your pawsies as you go...

I'm talking to him as if he were my best mate, because that's exactly what he is to me. To me, such behaviour is all perfectly normal. It's just the heat and the crushing fear that I'm not used to, knowing that we'll be first onto the Taliban guns or their bombs. But I can sense the stares from the Commando lads behind me as I mutter and chatter to my dog.

'Good boy, keep going, get on then - good lad!' I tell him, as I guide him to the left and right of the path.

My constant, good-natured mutterings give Hunter the confi dence he needs to keep pushing on in either direction. If I detected the slightest hint of danger up ahead, he knows that I'd reel him in.

'Good laaaaad, I tell him, as he swings his muzzle this and that above the hard-packed earth, hoovering up the scent in great, greedy gasps. I elongate the 'lad', so it lasts three or four times the normal length, which is all part of the special language we've built between us. way

I'm hyper-alert to Hunter's slightest change in behaviour: a pause, and his stubby tail going rigid for an instant, or anything that might indicate he's onto the scent of a bomb. I keep telling myself that this is what my dog and I came here for - to save lives. Yet at the same time I know that if we mess up it could cost the lives of the Marines on this patrol, not to mention my own.

One wrong move, one tiny lapse of concentration, and that could lead to myself and those Bravo Company lads getting blown to bits. I do not want that on my conscience, not even posthumously.

But worst of all I know that if I let Hunter put one paw wrong, it could so easily be his last.

We've pushed ahead for a good hour along a confusing maze of narrow pathways and alleys that thread between mud-walled compounds. Each patch of terrain we cross is a completely new and nerve-racking experience, especially since the Bravo Company lads keep issuing warnings that the Taliban are shad owing us, waiting for their moment to attack.

I've seen no visible signs of the enemy, and in any case I'm the search dog handler, so I've got to concentrate 100 per cent on my task. But it's a horrible, eerie feeling that the enemy are out there, watching our every move, and knowing that I can't afford to look out for them, or ready my weapon for an attack. In spite of my nervousness, nothing seems to faze my dog. Just about every compound that we pass seems to have an Afghan fighting hound tethered in it. As soon as they can smell Hunter they start barking. He glances up, gives a shake of his coat, then glances back at me: So, it's some dumb dog. Big deal.

Then he's got his nose to the ground again, moist nostrils soaking up the scent all around him. He doesn't seem bothered in the slightest, and especially since he knows he's got Jihad out there riding shotgun for him.

Jihad's running a constant security cordon around the patrol. A fighting dog starts barking and she's there, fronting up to it and barking right back in its face. She's providing a fine early warning system, one that enables Hunter and me to box around any dog-based threat. We won't see her for twenty minutes or so, and then she pops her head out of the bush, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed: All right, guys?

Hunter took to Jihad from the very start. In part it's because she's a good-looking girl but there's something more to it now. It's like Jihad's saying: Hey, pal, you're in my patch now and I've got your back. It's as if they're working as a team, and coordin ating between them how best to search and clear this area of any threat.

Jihad returns from having faced down a particularly noisy fighting dog, and Hunter gives her a thanks for that you're a doll look. His little black stump of a tail is wagging furiously. She flashes him a cool, laid-back smile, revealing a perfect set of canines: Any time, handsome, any time.

Hunter's only got a stump for a tail because I had to get it docked. On operations in Northern Ireland he used to wag it so hard that he'd bash it against walls, and on several occasions he actu ally broke it. Each time I had to bandage and splint it, keeping him off work for several days until it was healed.