Wardogs

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Well that's it, as far as I'm concerned. It's the 'dog unclean' bit that's really got to me. Hunter and I are going to give his stall a thorough turning over, if it's the last thing we ever do. There's no stopping fourteen stones of pissed-off Dave Heyhoe - by the way I keep having to tighten my belt, I figure I've lost a good stone already - especially when someone's insulted my dog.

'I don't give a damn what you say, I announce. "The dog's coming in to find, kill or to capture!'

'Dog not allowed! Dog not allowed!' he keeps screaming.

'Mate, you've got your job to do and I've got mine,' I tell him. 'Now stand aside, 'cause my clever, handsome, devilish rebel of a dog is coming through.

I take Hunter around the entire place, the stallholder gnashing his teeth, tearing at his beard and wailing. The Labrador side of Hunter makes a beeline for the nearest food - a pile of fresh-baked Afghan flat bread. Before I can stop him he's flicked his tongue out and got a loaf pinned between his jaws. He raises his head and with a look of wild abandon starts to swallow the lot more or less whole.

'No!' I yell at him. "Hunter! Put the bread down, lad!'

I'm about to try to rescue a few crumbs when I hear a voice

in my radio earpiece. It's Speedy, and he's calling to check we're OK. 'Dave, what's going on in there? We heard you yelling like a

madman...

'Sorry, dog eating bread in shop. Repeat: dog eating bread in shop. I emerge from the stall with Hunter l*****g his lips and his nose

dusted with baking flour. The guys on patrol are rolling about with laughter, but if looks could kill the Afghan stallholder has just murdered us all. There's an unbridgeable gulf between us. The Afghan hates me because I'm a white-eye infidel dog-lover; I hate him because he hates my dog. It's not great for hearts and minds on either side. But it is what it is.

We move on to JDAM Central, Hunter's gut doing these happy rumbles as we go. It's rare for him to get some fresh scoff - as opposed to his Eukanuba dried food and that bread's gone down a treat. I just hope it comes out the other end the same way. After weeks of dried rations, fresh food can seriously screw with a dog's digestion, which was the main reason I wanted to stop him eating that bread. It certainly wasn't so I could return the half-chewed loaf to the Afghan stallholder.

We pause on the roadside, at the location where the IED was detonated a few days earlier underneath that Land Rover patrol. I search the crater, trying to pick up even a hint of the roadside bomb's scent so that my dog can trace it from here. But there's nothing. Either the entire device was utterly obliterated in the blast, or the Taliban have been in to remove any evidence from the scene.

I spend a while observing the wrecked JDAM building, trying to figure out how best my dog and I should approach the search. The key feature of the place is the piles of sharp rubble and war debris scattered all around. It presents no problem to the Rangers, with their heavy Army boots, but if I send Hunter in there he'll get the delicate pads on the underside of his feet cut to shreds. Infection could seep into the wounds and he'll be out of action for an age.

I dig Hunter's protective dog booties out of my rucksack. They look like tiny reef shoes, with a ribbed rubber sole and a Velcro strip that fastens around the ankle. It's a real struggle to get Hunter to lift each paw so I can slip them on. I know how much he hates them. Hunter stands there with all four paws booted up, and he gives me a dark scowl: I feel like a kid dressed in some dumb party suit. You're making me look like a right i***t!

Hunter thinks of himself as one cool dog, and rightfully so. He's solid, dark and handsome, plus he's classy and heroic, and he's got an ego to suit. He hates being made to look uncool. His normal stance - legs together and standing tall and proud - has gone to pieces. Instead, he's got his feet splayed apart awkwardly, like he can't stop staring down at those god-awful booties. He didn't much appreciate it when I sprayed him with that fluorescent gunk from the light-stick, back when we searched the tank park. But as far as Hunter's concerned, this is a whole different league of humiliation. I can't help myself - I start laughing at him, and that only serves to make it worse.

Listen, big fellow, they're for your own safety, I tell him. I gesture at the rubble all around us. 'You don't want to cut your pawsies on any of this lot, do you? You cut yourself and you'll be no use to your dad then, will you?'

But I'm still laughing fit to burst, and Hunter absolutely hates

it.

There's another problem with the booties. A dog releases heat by sweating via the pads of his feet. In hot weather Hunter will lie belly-down on a cool surface, all four legs splayed out, to further cool himself. The booties lessen Hunter's ability to release sweat via his pads, and so the heat proves doubly debilitating. It's approaching high summer, and its pushing fifty degrees or more come mid-afternoon.

I turn to JDAM Central and scrutinise it some more. I figure the only way to do this is to allow Hunter to have a totally free search. That means sending him in off-leash and with no guidance from me, leaving him free to follow his nose wherever it takes him. It's such a maze, there's no way that I can methodically cover the entire building. It's better to let my dog have his head.

I release him and give him the magic command: 'Seek on, lad, seek on. He edges forwards but he's got a real hangdog expression about him, and I can tell his heart's not in the search. He reaches the first pile of rubble and starts trying to sniffle around it, but all the time he's gazing down at his feet and trying to use one of his paws to lever free a bootie.

This isn't working. If he's more concerned about those booties than he is about the search, it's pointless us being here. Worse than that, it's dangerous. My dog might blunder into something because his mind's not on our life-or-death mission. I turn to the bloke behind me, who happens to be Ranger Cupples.

I fix him with this look. 'Hey, Cups - or should I say "Sir Cupples", you bleedin' chancer - get one of your spare mags for your SA80 and hide it under that rubble. But make sure Hunter doesn't see you doing it.

Ranger Cupples does as I've asked. I can't use one of my own mags of ammo because Hunter would recognise my scent right away. I call my dog back to me and point him in the direction of the hidden magazine. He catches the scent, perks up a bit, and makes a beeline for it. He finds it and I pretend that I'm ecstatic. I give him a whole world of praise, and we have a quick play with his ball.

All of a sudden Hunter's forgotten his booties, and the fact they make him look so idiotic, and he's tuned into the search. I pretend I've thrown his tennis ball into the rubble of the building and he's off, nose chuffing away like a steam train. I follow on his heels, checking everywhere for craters, or chunks of rubble waiting to fall and trap my dog.

We reach the centre of the building, and it's a blast-scarred concrete skeleton, one that reeks of human faeces. There have been people here, and recently. The central staircase rises like the backbone of some long-extinct dinosaur - battered, skeletal, and covered in dust and debris. I guide Hunter up it, carefully feeling our way over each step and navigating around gaping cracks and fissures.

At one point I have to call my dog back: 'No! Back here - good lad. Not that way...

I scoop him up and place him onto my shoulders, and we squeeze past a massive hole that's been blown clean through the concrete underfoot. We reach the roof to find it scattered with empty food wrappers. Hunter quickly sniffs out some bullet casings, which are the calibre used by the Taliban. The enemy has been up here all right, and they've been using this space as some kind of fire platform. The only thing we can't find is anything that identifies it as a trigger point for IEDs.

It's taken three hours to clear the place, and in a sense we've found nothing. But on another level we've gained vital intel. I discuss what we've discovered with Speedy and Ronnie. They figure it makes sense to keep a permanent watch on the place. It's visible from the high points of our base, and we'll get a Ranger with a spotting scope zoomed in on it, waiting to catch the enemy next time they put in an appearance.

As we exit the building I realise we've achieved something on a deeper level too. The Seven Platoon lads have seen how my dog can do just about any search asked of him. It doesn't matter what kind of terrain or structure it is, we'll find a way. I can see a new-found sense of respect and camaraderie in the young Ranger's eyes. We're starting to build the unbreakable bond of brother warriors at war.

Major Shannon decides to adopt Hunter and me as two of his own - as Rangers. He sends me down to the Ranger Company stores and I get kitted out with every piece of equipment the Rangers have, including my own set of NVG. I've worn out my British Army-issue boots during the few weeks that I've been here, what with all the leg work that I've been doing and the weight that I'm carrying. The Ranger Company storeman issues me with a brand new pair.

But more importantly, we need to score a shamrock. I've noticed that the Ranger lads have this green shamrock flash on their helmets. It's regimental tradition, and of course it's for good luck. I'm superstitious by nature, and I need one for my dog.

I score Hunter a flash from the stores. It's a square of tough canvas material with a bright green shamrock - which looks similar to a four-leaf clover - set within it. I superglue it onto Hunter's harness, on his left-hand side at shoulder height, which is about as near as I can get to where the Ranger lads wear theirs.

Little do I know how much we're going to need its luck in the days that lie ahead.

The Rangers have been on the ground long enough now for Major Shannon to decide it's time for a real show of force. He wants to get the entire Ranger Company out on patrol, in an effort to saturate the area and deny it to the enemy. This is a direct and deliberate provocation, and Hunter and I will be embedded with Seven Platoon for the entire duration of the op.

We head out at first light, and it sure is a splendid sight to see some two-hundred-odd Rangers fanning out from the base to take possession of the whole of Sangin town. Immediately we're out the Talinet starts going crazy. We've got Sly, our regular terp, translating for us what the Taliban commanders are saying.

"They're coming out in force! Can you see them? How many are there? Can you attack?'

Word is passed from Sly down the entire length of the patrol, so that every young soldier knows exactly what the enemy is saying. Every time they up their chat and start yelling that they're 'poised to attack, the tension is raised an extra notch amongst us. For most of the lads of Seven Platoon this is only their fourth or fifth time out, and the fear is still very fresh and raw and real.

It takes a while to learn to accept that you're up against a hidden enemy, one that deliberately hides amongst the civilian population. They can hit you at any time, and that's just how it is. It takes a while to develop the state of mind to deal with it. You have to accept that the enemy will hit you when they choose to hit you, and it's only when they open fire that you can ID them as the bad guys and take the fight right back to them.

You learn to take the enemy fire when it comes, and that what matters is how you react when the bullets start to fly. But there are some kinds of attack that no amount of training or experi ence can ever prepare you for, or safeguard you from. The Taliban are about to hit us with something new and extra nasty today - but right now we've not got the faintest idea what's coming.

Hunter and I are out front as usual. We've been here for hours, clearing a safe path for the patrol to move through, and delib erately poking the hornet's nest. It's mid-afternoon, and there's not been a sniff of enemy action for us lot. But the Talinet's still going wild, and right now the enemy commanders are urging their men to hit us now, 'before it's too late.

We reach the limit of our patrol arc and turn to head back to base. Hunter's off-leash and he's forwards of me some twenty metres. We're about an hour out from home and heading down this back road when Hunter stops dead in his tracks. He airs up, checks step, and suddenly he's staring straight ahead of himself at this Afghan male, a good thirty metres to his front.

Hunter's that much closer to the Afghan, and I'm unsure as to what he's sensed here that's so grabbed his attention. I see him glance my way and I can read the confusion and indecision in his clever, intensely focused gaze.

'What is it, boy?" I ask of him. What is it got there?" you think you've

Maybe it's an Afghan drugs dealer, and it's the smell of the opium that's got Hunter stumped. He glances back at the Afghan male, then fixes him with his unmoving, laser-eyed stare. I'd know that expression anywhere. Hunter knows exactly what scent he's detected here: it's explosives. But the weird thing for my dog is the source of that smell: it's a human.