Wardogs

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"You ignore me, big lad, you go out of my sight, lose me and I don't know what's happening to you, then we're going to have big fisticuffs. Last thing I need is a cloth-eared dog when there's a great big shitfight about to kick off all around us?

This is the most that I'll ever discipline my dog. It's enough. I see his ears go down further, and that apologetic look in his big, brown soppy eyes.

I glance up and I can see that the Bravo lads have witnessed this moment between us - man and dog. I'm being incredibly intimate with Hunter, and I can tell that they understand, they get it. Hunter and I have been together for five years. I can count the days that we've spent apart on one hand. A lot of people can't understand it, but we've formed a relationship that's closer than I've had with just about any human.

A lot of the Bravo Company blokes have served together for that kind of time too. They understand the bond that forms between soldiers - and in my case, between man and dog - in combat. They know how close you get to your mates, especially when you're daily walking the knife-edge between life and death.

No sooner have I finished admonishing Hunter than I hear a distinctive, muffled crump. It's followed an instant later by the banshee howl of an incoming mortar round. It slams into the patch of river where Hunter was having his bath, hurling water and mud and debris high into the air.

If I'd hauled him out seconds later they'd have got him: that mortar round would have made mincemeat out of my dog.

An instant later all hell breaks loose. Mortar rounds start screaming through the air, and there's the sharp staccato beat of gunfire as rounds smash into the terrain all around us. The bush has erupted with fire, shredded undergrowth and chunks of blasted dirt raining down to every side.

The Bravo lads start running hell for leather, charging through the undergrowth and making for the nearest solid cover.

The platoon commander turns and screams at Hunter and me: 'You coming with us or what!'

My dog and I join the mad scramble as the Taliban hammer rounds into our position. For several seconds we charge about like headless chickens, before the adrenalin kicks in and we're taking proper cover. Hunter and I are down in the dirt, and still there are rounds cracking and snarling past our heads.

We're being hosed down by an enemy in a compound some two hundred metres to the east of us. I get my body - and my body armour - between Hunter and the enemy bullets, to shield him. No way is anyone shooting my dog.

Most K9 blokes aren't infantry-ready. They're dog handlers first and foremost, and they're the best in the world at what they do, but they've got little combat training or experience under fire. It just so happens that I was infantry before going for K9.

In an instant my training kicks in and I'm returning fire with my stubby SA80, pumping rounds into the enemy target. Hunter's down beside me on his belly and he's got a pained look on his face: All this noise - let me know when you're done.

I see spent shell cases from my Stumpy go flying through the air, glistening and glinting in the sunlight. A couple of them land on Hunter's back, where his hair's still gleaming wet from the river. He shakes them off irritably. They come out of the burning hot and I can tell that he's not best pleased. What you trying to do, Dad, singe my fur off? weapon

Hunter's jumpy and I can tell that he's well spooked. But still he's holding it together, which is how I was hoping he'd react to being in combat. We've had the dogs out on the ranges in the UK to try to get them used to loud explosions and gunfire. Plus we've had them out on exercises under simulated war-fighting condi tions, trying to rehearse what it would be like to sniff out the bombs on the front line. But there's nothing like being in your first fight for real.

Hunter and I are positioned right next to Bravo Company's machine-gunner. All morning he's been hauling a big, heavy general purpose machine g*n plus ammo through the bush, and he's keen to ad some of it on the bad guys. He opens up, the pounding percussions letting rip next to our heads. Hunter's ears flap like mad, and he jumps right across me, landing on the opposite side to the gunner.

He gives the bloke an evil stare: What d'you do that for? And right in my ears!

It's fair enough in a way. A dog's hearing is anything up to fifty times more sensitive than a human's. Intense noises - like a machine g*n going off in a dog's earhole - can cause serious trauma. A dog experiences the world in a totally different way to us: our senses are dominated by what we see. But from a dog's point of view, smell is by far the more dominant way that they perceive the world around them, followed closely by sound.

As far as Hunter is concerned right now, his senses are being besieged by the hot, peppery firework smell of burning corditefrom the weapons going off all around him and the deafening wall of sound that's hammering in waves across us with each burst of machine-g*n fire. It's hardly surprising that he's freaking out.

He keeps trying to pull away from the machine-gunner, so I drop my weapon and grab his harness. I start stroking him and talking to him: calm down, lad, calm down, it's all going to be OK. Gradually he settles, although he's still flashing the whites of his eyes as the bursts of the big machine g*n ripple and flare, and the enemy rounds howl past us.

The Viking armoured vehicles have been shadowing our progress from the main road, and they start putting down covering fire from their big, thumping 50-cal heavy machine guns. The rounds go tearing into that compound, smashing it apart. The Bravo lads call for air power, and an Apache heli copter gunship comes buzzing in high above.