Wardogs

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Before deploying to Afghanistan I'd made a point of watching any TV shows I could about the war. No matter what training we did, we couldn't replicate the real-life experience - the heat, the dust, the terrain and the combat. From those films I saw what a compound looked like, the kind of paths and tracks we'd be searching over, what kind of a barrier an irrigation ditch presented and the nature of the Afghan bush. And all the time I was thinking: how will we search to maximise our effectiveness and to safeguard the dogs?

The majority of our handlers had been in the Army Dog Unit (ADU) in Northern Ireland, the forebears of the 104. With peace coming to Northern Ireland the ADU had been disbanded a few years back, and we handlers and dogs had gone on to form the 104. Northern Ireland had been a fine proving ground, but the tasks we'd been given were fairly limited. We'd be sent out to search a specific area, based upon a specific piece of intelli gence.

Afghanistan we knew was going to be completely different. We figured it would involve long patrols searching under fire. We'd be reacting to the dog's senses, plus snippets of intelligence picked up along the way. We had new guys coming into the unit - eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds who we had to prepare to go to war. It was a big old tasking. At times I'd come across one of those young lads or lasses in floods of tears, worried sick about whether they'd make it back from Afghanistan.

I didn't blame them for being worried. There was a fierce debate going on within the RAVC regarding the training; whether we should concentrate more on classic handler-and dog work, or more on infantry skills. Some argued that if a handler had wanted to be an infantryman, they'd have joined an infantry unit. I argued that we needed to give them both skill sets, for there was no point in being the world's greatest dog handler if you couldn't keep your dog and yourself alive.

Hunter and I are barely a week into our Afghan deployment by now, and nothing could have proven more our need for infantry fighting skills. Afghanistan is like Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Iraq all rolled into one. It's all the horrors of all those wars condensed into one patch of territory. I've had the living daylights scared out of me and we've barely started. Only one hundred and eighty days to go.

The older I get the more I notice that I seem to feel fear. I'm trying to use that fear to sharpen my search procedures here in Sangin, and I'm drawing enormous strength from my dog. The fact that Hunter's heading out tirelessly searching alongside me, helps give me the strength to place one boot in front of the other, when every footfall might be my last.

But at the same time I'm having to send my best buddy forwards, and the tension is eating away at me. I know Hunter senses this: one glance into my eyes and he can read my mood and what I'm thinking.

Yet there's another, much deeper and more hidden layer of worry now: it's the fear of not finding something. If I tread on an IED and set it off, most likely I'll be dead or very seriously injured. The same for Hunter. When Hunter and I have moved through a search area I can tell you exactly what we have found. I cannot tell you how many devices we've missed. So whenever we're done with a patch of terrain I've found myself thinking, Was it really all clear?

If Hunter misses something, everything we've done before will be as nothing. The guys coming behind us are already starting to think, OK, the dog's been across it; we're safe to proceed. That leaves them free to concentrate on finding the Taliban, so they can fight them man-to-man. But if we miss something and one of the blokes gets blown to pieces, all of that trust will be gone, and it'll t*****e me for the rest of my days.

I ask myself a hypothetical question. If either of the guys running the 104 at Camp Bastion were put out of action, would I go and take his place? I'm the next highest-ranking soldier, so it would make sense for me to do so. The answer is an emphatic 'no. I feel part of something hugely meaningful here. Hunter and I are going out every day to save lives. What could be better than this?

For years I've searched for some kind of meaning in my life, especially since I lost my father early in my childhood. Basic ally, he walked out on my mother, my sister and me. I was nine years old when it happened and I've spent a lot of my life trying to compensate. I never had a father figure to pat me on the back and say 'well done, and I spent years trying to seek a surrogate

father's approval.

But out here I'm starting to feel as if I'm proving myself as never before. All the thanks that I'll ever need are the same number of boots - and paws - coming in off a patrol as went out. That's the best 'well done' a dog team like us could ever wish for.

My youthful need for approval was coupled with a rebellious, maverick streak. When I was twelve years old my stepfather, Bob, turned up on the scene. At first I was dead set against him and I spun pretty much out of control. It was joining the Army Cadets that sorted me out, and at a time when my mum was about to put me into a home. Bob had spent twenty-five years in the RAF and it was his guiding hand that turned me away from petty crime and absconding, towards a military career.

But because I had to be different I decided to join the Army,

as opposed to Bob's arm of the services. I joined up as a private at sixteen, in the Cheshire Regiment (now 1 MERCIAN). By then Bob had become a fantastic father figure and I decided to take his surname, Heyhoe, rather than that of my birth father. I'd first been deployed with the Cheshires to Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles. British soldiers were being targeted mercilessly, and there was a sniper on every corner, a bomb in every vehicle. I'd been out on patrol in Crossmaglen, and we had an Arms Explosives Search dog allocated to our platoon. I was fascinated to watch the handler and his dog in action; how they worked as one fluid, unbreakable team. They were out front clearing the way, and spreading reassurance throughout the patrol. The dog was a black Labrador similar in appearance to Hunter.

I could tell that he adored his handler and that the handler had ultimate respect for his dog. I'd always been drawn to dogs. I'd been given a black and white collie puppy when I was young, but he couldn't learn his toilet habits and kept peeing on the carpet. Within days my mum had made me send him back to his original owner, and I was heartbroken.

During early days with the Cheshires I'd been sent out to Kenya to do the British Army's basic training in desert survival. We were out one night using the standard Mark One eyeball to navi gate across miles of trackless Kenyan bush. At one point I spotted a glowing green cat-like eye staring at me from maybe fifty yards away. When I found the other to match its pair, I realised how far apart they were. Whatever cat-like animal was watching me it had a simply humungous head.

It was then that I heard a hoarse whisper from behind me: 'Best move on, Dave, it's a lion.

The thrill and the fear of being face to face with nature in the raw really lit me up. But after that I made doubly sure that if only one guy in the patrol went out with live ammunition, then it was me!

I loved the Kenyan bush. The only thing that I was truly petri fied of was the snakes, but every other walking crawling growling beastie had me in raptures. I was drawn to the wild and the wide-open spaces. Each night we'd hire a warrior from the local Masai tribe to sit in camp and keep watch. He'd be hunched over the fire for warmth, complete with his blood-red robe and sharpened spear.

We'd see the Masai during the daytime moving through the bush with their long easy strides, and with nothing more to protect them than their clubs and their spears. With their light sandals and their cloaks they appeared so at ease here, and we developed a strong mutual respect. One evening I sat up late chatting to the Masai on watch, conversing in his broken but usable English, which I figured he'd learned from scores of passing squaddies.

At one point he turned to me and asked: 'Dave, why is it you always light a fire at night?'

'It keeps the wild animals away, doesn't it?'

He laughed. 'You think it keeps them away, but the warmth draws them in. The heat brings them closer. 'Yikes!' I got up and started dancing around, stamping out

the flames.

That had the guy in stitches.

A few days later I was out on patrol and we spotted a herd of elephants. For me this was simply the biggest ever wow. I had to stop and take a photo, and I chose the biggest bull elephant to capture on film. I stepped forwards and framed him up, but I couldn't understand why he kept growing bigger and bigger in my viewfinder, and why I had to keep reframing the shot.

Finally I took a glance over the top of the camera, only to see an enraged elephant charging towards me, ears flapping murder ously. Needless to say I turned and ran; the other lads in the patrol were already on their toes. I only managed to escape t mother of all crushings by diving down a nearby ravine. The the bull elephant came skidding to a halt, stamping and trumpeting wildly. I crawled up the other side, only to be met by a row of lads laughing their socks off.

I was a member of the regimental Corps of Drums and I was also its mace carrier, more formally known as the Drum Major. The Cheshire's mace has a silver eagle mounted atop a twisted wooden shaft. One night my Masai friend asked to take a look at it. After studying it for a while he asked me if I'd like him to carve me a copy. I said that I would. He returned to camp a few days later with this replica made entirely from ebony. I was blown away by the intricacy of the thing.

After that I asked him to carve me all the elephants, lions, zebras and rhinos that he could manage. He even rustled up a couple of three-legged folding leather stools - one with a lion painted on it and the other with a rhino. I ended up with so much stuff that I had to get my Masai friend to build me a wooden trunk so I could ship it all back to the UK.