Wardogs

Chapter 21

Chapter 20

The Royal Marines are scheduled to rotate out of Sangin in less than two weeks. Their replacement unit is from Ranger Company, of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Irish Regiment. Over the past few days they've been trickling into Sangin on what ever flights are available, in preparation for their takeover.

I've already had the pleasure of meeting their OC, a Major Shannon. The major's reputation goes before him. He's spent years soldiering at the coalface in Northern Ireland, before working closely with US forces in the bitter and b****y Iraq conflict. He's been around the block and seen a great deal of the rougher end of war, and I can tell that he knows his onions.

I go and have a quiet word with Major Shannon about tonight's mission. He's a smartly dressed, crisp Irishman, and he looks to be in his late thirties, which makes him around the same age as me. His men act as if they would follow him into the very jaws of hell itself if he asked. He's a natural born warrior and leader of men, and I sense already that I can relate to him.

I tell him how the Bravo Company OC is trying to send my dog and me out on a night mission with no NVG and no light. I point out that my dog is jet black in colour, and how in the dead of night I'll not be able to see him work. Major Shannon offers to go and have a quiet word to get it sorted.

Via Major Shannon's good offices we settle upon a compro mise that works for both parties. We'll go in using night vision equipment - although Muggins here still isn't being issued with any - and once we reach the tank park the patrol will put up an illume round (a flare suspended beneath a parachute) so that I can see Hunter at work.

I return directly to the kennels to prepare for the mission. I spend a good twenty minutes talking Hunter through the entire thing. The whole time he's got me fixed with this beady-eyed stare, his eyes twinkling like stars in the light of my head torch, his little stubby tail going thud-thud-thud against the frame of my cot.

By the time I'm done talking he's practically bouncing off the walls: Oh goody! You know, Dad, I just love these night ops. The air's all cool and silky, the smells are richer and more concentrated at night, and those dumb Afghan fighting hounds are locked in their compounds. So, when can we get started?

At midnight we gather at the base gates. Just before we'd left the kennel I'd gone through my moment of dark, clawing fear and dread. I'd had the look from Hunter: Hey, Dad, come on, there's nothing to be worried about.

I can tell he's up for a new adventure and raring to go. He's done that half-his-body-wagging thing - wherein he shakes the whole of his rear in time to his wagging stub of a tail - just as soon as he's realised we're setting off into the brooding dark ness.

I know how funny he finds it that I can't see in the dark: So tell me, Dad, why is it you need that flashlight thing to see where you're going? A dog's natural night vision is far superior to a human's. The canine eye is built to see at night, with a larger pupil to suck in ambient light - the kind thrown off by moon and stars - plus a concentration of rods and cones arranged to amplify it. Hunter finds my night blindness almost as funny as my need to lace on my boots anytime we go walkabout.

There is a quiet nervousness and tension in the air as the lads gather in the muggy darkness. The night is black as pitch and it's boiler-room hot, even at this hour. It's especially sticky, what with all the kit we're carrying. As the Bravo lads snap their night vision goggles down over their eyes, I sense a hunger to get out there. As for me, I'm cursing under my breath, for right now I'd kill for a pair of NVG.

The gates to the base creak open. The atmosphere is electric. We are about to venture into the heart of Sangin town on foot and in pitch darkness, knowing the enemy are all around us. Bravo Company have had good men killed and injured fighting for control of this territory, and we are about to walk into the fire.

We form up and I have to place a hand on the shoulder of the guy in front, so he can guide me as I walk. I've got Hunter on a short leash so he can help steer me, but all I can see of him is a pair of eyes glowing like silver coals in the faint moonlight whenever he glances my way.

I know what he's thinking: Come on - let's get this show on the road!

We file past the front sangar - the sandbagged position at the gate - and thread our way into the wall of black. We set off, the silence and the tension rippling back and forth along the patrol. As I shuffle blindly forward I'm trying not to trip over any hidden obstructions.

I'm acutely aware of how this is supposed to be a silent, covert night operation, one designed to catch the enemy unawares. If I stumble into something, that'll be our mission blown wide open. I'm also conscious that if the patrol gets hit and the lads go to ground, I'm going to be fighting blind. And then the worst of all thoughts hits me like a speeding truck. If we get hit, I'm going to be battling to save my best mate, my black dog, when I can't even see him.

No sooner have we exited the base than our radio intercepts start going wild. The Talinet - the Taliban's radio network - is buzzing big time. We have Sly, our regular terp with us, and we have the ability to listen in to what the Taliban commanders are saying.

Sly starts translating. 'Wake up! Wake up! They're coming out on foot!'

I feel a shiver of fear running up my spine. Apart from the scrunch of boot soles on gravel, and the suck and blow of our breathing, we aren't making the slightest sound. And aside from the faint fluorescent glow thrown off by each soldier's night vision, we are invisible to the n***d eye. As I alone have no NVG there's no way that I can see anything, the enemy included.

We're twenty minutes into the silent night march when the patrol commander calls a halt. The dark closes in on us, preda tory and menacing. A Bravo guy drops to one knee right on my shoulder, his weapon levelled at the wall of shadows. Another provides cover in the other direction, with a string of lads to the front and the rear. But I've got not the slightest idea what they're aiming in on, because I've been led in here blind.

The word gets passed along the patrol in whispers: Dog team, this is where you start the search. I move forwards to link up with the patrol commander, a corporal, and I ask him to put up the illume round. He gives me this look, like it just doesn't compute.

'When do me and my dog get our light?' I prompt, in a hushed whisper.

'What light? No one told me a thing about any light. "You're supposed to put up an illume round so we can see to do the search.

'Well, no one told me. I haven't got any, so it's not happening. He's not being particularly aggressive or unhelpful. He's just telling it like it is. It's a typical SNAFU: Situation Normal All f****d Up.

I can't do the search if I can't see my dog working,' I tell him. The corporal offers me a try with his NVG, but I soon realise that even via the faint fluorescent green glow of the night vision I still can't see my dog properly. I need to be able to detect his slightest change of behaviour, to know when he's onto some thing. Otherwise, I might let him blunder onto a pressure-plate IED and get my best buddy blown all to hell.

We're at a major impasse here. The entire raison d'être of this mission is to get the tank park cleared of IEDs, yet it's looking like we're going to have to abort. The corporal's all out of sugges tions, and for a long moment so am I. I know we can't afford to delay. The resupply convoy is coming in at first light, and we've got to get the tank park cleared.

I'm not a can't-do kind of a person. Never have been. Hunter and I are both can-do kind of blokes.

'How about this, I suggest. 'I get a cyalume, break it in two, and pour the contents over his harness. That way it'll glow and I should be able to see it clear as day with the NVG.

The corporal breaks into stifled laughter. 'What are you, a a dog handler or Harry b****y Potter? But if it works for you, mate, it sure as hell does for me?

I've never tried this before. I've never trained for it. I've never once even thought of it. No one's ever suggested pouring the chemical gunk that fills a cyalume light-stick over my dog, to make him night-visible. As with every patrol before, we're making it up as we go along.

Of course, my attempt to get the chemical goo onto Hunter's harness alone fails dismally. In no time I've got it all over his thick hair as well. By the time I'm done my dog has been transformed from this black shadow to this giant fur ball that glows in the dark.

He glances down at his fluorescent green coat and sniffs at it: What the hell ... ? In spite of our situation, which is a totally s**t one, I can't help but smile. Likewise, I can hear the Bravo Company lads behind me desperately trying to stifle their own laughter.

Hunter gives me this scowly look: Ha-ha, Dad. What's so b****y funny?

But after the initial shock of the thing, he doesn't really seem to give a s**t any more: So, I look like a giant version of my tennis ball. So what? Let's just get in there and get it on.

The cyalume goo makes Hunter stand out like a glowing beacon. Via the night vision goggles I can definitely see him work, and I can see enough of the terrain to know where he's at. But if I can see him so can a Taliban sniper, or an IED team waiting to trigger a bomb. I hate sending him in there when he's so visible and so vulnerable, but there's no other way to do this.

I show Hunter his beloved tennis ball, which is worn ragged from his chewing. We step into the eerie, abandoned silence of the tank junkyard. There are the silhouettes of Soviet hulks all around us, like giant bones in some dinosaur graveyard. Need less to say, any one of them represents the ideal place to conceal an IED.