Wardogs

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

'Go get your ballsy!' Hunter pops his head up and he looks about excitedly, then he's doggy-paddling madly, his black muzzle cutting through the water like the prow of a battleship, his nostrils blowing and his eyes darting forwards. I've got him clipped onto a length of cord, just to make sure he doesn't get swept away in the current.

I run along beside him keeping pace on the riverbank, and pointing out the faded green ball bobbing along. "There you go, lad, there's your ballsy!"

An instant later he overtakes it, lunges for it, misses once, then grabs it in his triumphant jaws and turns to me proudly.

'You got it!' I tell him. 'Good laaaaaad. Good laaaaaad.

Hunter finishes his swim and his play, and I haul him up the steep bank and unclip him from his lead. He has a good shake, starting with his head and shoulders and running down to his bum and his stump of a tail. That done he finds a patch of soft sand and proceeds to roll in it, backwards and forwards a good few times. He's got grit and twigs plastered all over his fur - from wet nose down to damp stubby tail.

He gives me this happy look from out of dirt-encrusted features: Nothing like a good dust bath after a cold swim, is there, Dad?

Whenever I think that Hunter must be exhausted from the work we're doing here, all he ever seems to need is a quick swim and a play, plus a good chat with his dad, and he's raring to go again. But some things can prove too much even for my dog, and it's the Afghan National Police lot co-located with us at Sangin who are about to prove as much.

The Royal Marines have been gone a week now, and the Rangers are determined to get the ANP out on patrol, to get their measure. There's no way of warning them what the ANP are like. I've rarely been out with them and not had one or more stoned off his face, or stumbling about drunkenly.

But nothing could prepare even my dog and me for today's nightmarish performance.

We gather with the Ranger lads by the headquarters building, awaiting the ANP to join us for a patrol. They're a good quarter of an hour late, and still there's no sign of them.

To get to the ANP part of the camp you have to cross a bridge over the river. We're mooching about trying to hide our frus tration at the delay, when all of a sudden there is an almighty great explosion: KA-BOOOOOOM! The blast reverberates around the headquarters, and we all of us Hunter included - dive for cover. We figure we're taking incoming mortar rounds, or maybe some of those nasty 107 mm rockets.

Word reaches us that it's actually the ANP that have taken the hit. We head over at the double, only to discover a scene of absolute mayhem. One of the ANP blokes has come out of his quarters pissed up and with his RPG slung over his shoulder, pointy-end downwards. He's joined a group of fellow men, and accidentally pulled the trigger.

The RPG has rocketed into the ground, killing two of them outright. The RPG gunner is one of the dead, and he's left total, blood-soaked c*****e in his wake. We take a look at the worst guys and it's clear we need stretchers to get them across the bridge and into the medical centre.

My dog can sense the panic and the trauma in the air, plus the screams of the wounded must sound horrific to his hyper sensitive ears. He's never heard anything like this before. He's glancing up at me nervously, seeking some kind of reassurance from his dad. He's got an expression on his loyal and trusting features: What in God's name has happened?

For once I've got zero time or space to comfort my dog. In a frenzied rush we load the nearest wounded onto stretchers. The guy I'm helping carry has lost both his legs, and blood is spurting everywhere. We pound across the bridge, Hunter's lead gripped in my left hand as my right carries one corner of the stretcher. We're halfway over when Hunter loses his footing- or gets shoved by one of the running figures and he half falls into the river.

Underfoot it's greasy with blood, and for a moment we're all about to go. Somehow we manage to right ourselves and we make it to the medical centre without dropping the wounded guy, who's writhing about in agony. We deliver him into the hands of the medics, and they get tourniquets onto his wounds and start to stabilise him. In no time a helicopter's inbound, and the wounded get airlifted to Camp Bastion, with its top-rate medical facilities.

By the time that's done our patrol is well and truly not going anywhere. It's over. For the Rangers fresh into theatre this is a total eye-opener. They've just been treated to a perfect bit of Afghan National Police theatrics. I can see by the looks on the guys' faces what they're thinking: who needs feckin' enemies, with friends like these?

Hunter and I make our sodden, sticky, dejected way back to our kennel. My uniform is spattered in the Afghan's blood. As for Hunter, he was at a lower level than me and he's taken a right good soaking. His fur's matted with congealed human gore, and his nose and ears are caked with the stuff. If I leave him like that he'll have to lick himself clean, and no way do I want to visit that on my dog.

I spend hours bathing and grooming him, until every last speck of that madness and horror has been expunged. But whilst you can clean a dog's body, that doesn't necessarily mean y cleaned a dog's mind. The last few hours constitute the most gruesome thing that I have ever seen in over two decades of soldiering. It's been proven that dogs can suffer Post Traumatic you've Stress Disorder (PTSD) just like humans, and I'm worried for Hunter.

Troops exposed to relentless combat conditions can suffer lasting psychological damage, just as anyone who suffers intense trauma. It can hit immediately after the traumatic event, or many months later. Symptoms can include repeatedly reliving the event and the trauma that accompanied it, as if trapped in a living nightmare, and erratic and sometimes violent behaviour.

Dogs feel many of the same emotions as we humans, and here in Sangin I've been worried about a clever, perceptive animal like Hunter getting PTSD. If anything's going to start messing with his head, it's what we've just lived through today.

I bed down with Hunter that evening, hugging his powerful form close to me. Thankfully, he falls into a deep, deep sleep. I have him snoring away beside me, whimpering and snorting as he dreams his doggy dreams. He's probably off chasing a rat around our North Luffenham base, which is his most favourite pastime in the world.

I can feel how much weight he's lost since we arrived here. With the relentless pace of operations the fat's been falling off him, and he's a bundle of rippled muscle and honed sinew.

I just hope that all the trauma isn't going to make start losing his mind as well. my dog Hunter and I are next due out with Seven Platoon, those with specialist training in the art of arms and explosives search. They've learned how to get on their belt buckles to do painstaking, fingertip investigations, feeling for wires or pres sure plates or trigger switches amongst the vegetation and the dirt.

They've gained wide experience in Northern Ireland using their bayonets to locate buried IEDs, so that bomb-disposal teams can be called in to defuse and disarm them. If there's one team in Ranger Company that thinks it can rival my dog's nose in terms of bomb-detection work, it's the Seven Platoon boys.

The platoon is run by a Sergeant Trevor 'Speedy' Coult. He's a fiery, red-headed, rake-thin dynamo of a bloke who talks nine teen to the dozen. Speedy won the Military Cross in Iraq and his reputation goes before him. The men of his unit mean every thing to him, and he'll stand up for them no matter what. He's in his early thirties, younger than me, and if I listen extra care fully I can just about understand his machine-g*n-fire, thick Belfast accent.

Speedy outranks me, and he's clearly earned his stripes. But I can sense him looking at me like he's thinking-sure, you look like a wise old bastard. I figure it's going to be a relationship of equals between us, but there's no knowing. I tell Speedy what Hunter and I can deliver. He tells me that whatever protection we need as we search, Seven Platoon will deliver it.

Seven Platoon's corporal is Pere 'Ronnie' Corbett. He looks like he's stepped out of a Lowry stick painting, but he's got the strength and endurance of ten men. Ronnie's a plain-talking, no-nonsense bloke, and he's very serious about his job. He carries all the spare batteries and heavy kit for the platoon's ECM gizmo, plus the EBEX metal detectors.

There's something of Mater from the movie Cars about Ronnie, He's got one of those honest, guileless faces, and I know instinctively that he finds it very hard to lie. He's a fine soldier, and I sense he and I are going to be close.

Seven Platoon's EBEX operator is Ranger Davy Miller. Davy's a cheeky chappie from Belfast who clearly thinks he's as tough as any Royal Marine. He's thickset and built like a donkey, and I sense he's the kind of bloke who would throw himself in front of me and Hunter to catch a bullet. He's got the brash self confidence that comes with youth, and knowing he's good at what he does.

I've got an extra reason to warm to Davy. Hunter has instantly taken a shine to him. Invariably, Hunter tends to ignore new arrivals until he feels he's got their measure. But with Davy, he right away gave him his head-tilted-to-one-side curious, appraising look: So, I guess it's going to be me and you out front, eh? Think you can beat my nose with that EBEX gizmo? Who are you kidding.

There's one other member of Seven Platoon who really digs my dog, only this guy has really pulled one over on me the first few times we've met. Ranger Justin 'Cups' Cupples just can't seem to get enough of Hunter. He's forever popping down to the kennel to share a brew and a ciggie, which is really just an excuse for a play with my dog.

s got this soft American accent that sounds quite posh to He's my ears, and at first I presumed he was an officer. Accordingly, I kept calling him 'sir'? He offered me a ciggie: 'Don't mind if I do, sir, I saw this slight grin pass fleetingly across his features, and I wondered what that was all about. I didn't say anything at the time, because he was a mature-looking officer-sounding type. I'd do my best to enjoy his company, and to let him enjoy some Hunter time.

As Hunter and I set out on our first patrol with Seven Platoon, I'm about to learn the truth about Justin Cupples. Our mission is to check out the old Governor's House, which is known to all as 'JDAM Central. At some time in the past an Allied jet has dropped a JDAM - a thousand-pound Joint Direct Attack Muni tion smart bomb on it, hence the name.

The wrecked building is four floors high in places, although much of it was reduced to rubble by the bomb's blast. The stair well is more or less intact, and it's via there that access can be gained to roof level. It remains a point of high ground from which the enemy can observe, and put sniper rounds into our base. Major Shannon figures it may also be a trigger point for their IEDs.

Two days earlier a Land Rover patrol was hit on the 611. One of the vehicles was blasted by an IED, and an officer riding in it was badly wounded. He was airlifted out of Sangin and back to Camp Bastion for treatment. Major Shannon wants to know if the Taliban had a watcher positioned on the roof of JDAM Central, waiting to trigger that device. Hunter and I are to check especially for any command wires, or any trigger that might still be in place.

No sooner have we set off on the patrol when I hear Speedy yell out an order: 'Cupples, get here!'

'Hold on a minute,' I object. 'You can't speak to the boss like that.'

'You what?' says Speedy.

'Cupples. He's an officer, isn't he?'

Speedy let out this short yelp of a laugh. 'Yer man's a feckin' Ranger, like the rest of 'em. 'Cupples!' I yell. 'Get over here, now!' He saunters over to the

two of us. 'Why the hell did you let me think you were an officer?

Why did you let me keep calling you "sir"?" 'You know, he drawls, 'I kinda figured it was quite funny really?

'Did you now,' I grate. 'Ranger Cupples, you are now so completely and utterly in the s**t. You're banned from the kennel, lad, and I might even get my dog to bite you?

'Hey, come on, not that. This is between me and you, not your

dog...

The little sod has even allowed me to call him 'sir' in front of the other Rangers, who evidently have been having a great time with the joke. But at the end of the day it's a fabulous wind-up, and I had to love them for it.

Cupples is the radio operator for Seven Platoon. He's also fluent in Pashto, the main language spoken here. I can't for the life of me figure out how a mature-looking Yank who clearly has a gift for languages and a brain in his head has ended up being a Ranger - the equivalent rank of a private - in a Northern going Irish regiment. I sense there's a tale to be told here. Once I've tortured him good and proper over his officer prank, I'm g to make a point of finding out.

We patrol out towards JDAM Central on foot, Hunter clearing the way as we go. It's not exactly hard to find our way there, as the building is visible from just about any part of Sangin. En route we pass through the marketplace, and I can see the hatred in the eyes of many of the stallholders, and especially for my dog. The majority of the stalls are selling food, and I reach this one where the guy leaps up aggressively and blocks our way.

'Dog not allowed! Dog not allowed!' he keeps yelling at Hunter and me. 'Dog not allowed! Dirty animal! Dirty animal! Dog unclean!'