Spare

I felt strongly that I was right, and I wanted to argue, but I was new and lacked self-confidence. This was my first airstrike. So I just said:

Roger that.

New Year’s Eve. I held the F-15s at bay, about eight kilometers, so the noise of their engines wouldn’t spook the targets. When conditions looked to be just right, all calm, I summoned them.

Widow Six Seven, we’re in hot.

Dude Zero One, Dude Zero Two, you’re cleared hot.

Cleared hot.

They went streaking towards the target.

On my screen I watched the pilot’s crosshair settle over the bunker.

One second.

Two.

White flash. Loud bang. The wall of the ops room shuddered. Dust and pieces of stone rained down from the ceiling.

I heard Dude Zero One’s voice: Delta Hotel (direct hit). Stand by for BDA (battle damage assessment).

Plumes of smoke rose from the desert.

Moments later…just as I’d feared, Taliban came running out of the trench. I groaned at my Rover, then stomped outside.

The air was cold, the sky pulsing blue. I could hear Dude Zero One and Dude Zero Two way above, tailing off. I could hear the echo of their bombs. Then all was silent.

Not all of them got away, I consoled myself. Ten, at least, didn’t make it out of that trench.

Still—a bigger bomb would’ve really done the trick.

Next time, I told myself. Next time, I’ll trust my gut.

16.

I got promoted, sort of. To a small lookout high above the battlefield. For quite some time the lookout had been driving the Taliban mad. We had it, they wanted it, and if they couldn’t get it then they were bound to destroy it. They’d attacked the lookout scores of times in the months before I got there.

Hours after my arrival at the lookout, here they came again.

AK-47s rattling, bullets whizzing by. It sounded like someone throwing beehives through our window. There were four Gurkhas with me, and they unleashed a Javelin missile in the direction of the incoming fire.

Then they told me to take a seat behind the 50-cal. Jump on, saab!

I climbed into the gun nest, grabbed the big handles. I shoved in my earplugs, took aim through the mesh hanging from the window. I squeezed the trigger. The feeling was like a train through the middle of my chest. The sound was locomotive-like as well. Chugga chugga chugga. The gun spat bullets across the desert, and shell casings flew around the lookout like popcorn. It was the first time I’d ever fired a 50-cal. I simply couldn’t believe the power.

In my direct line of sight was abandoned farmland, ditches, trees. I lit it all up. There was an old building with two domes that looked like a frog’s eyes. I peppered those domes.

Meanwhile, Dwyer began lobbing its big guns.

All was mayhem.

I don’t remember much after that, but I don’t need to—there’s video. The press was there, by my side, filming. I hated them being there, but I’d been ordered to take them on an outing. In return they’d agreed to sit on any images or information they gathered until I was out of the country.

How many did we kill? the press wanted to know.

We couldn’t be sure.

Indeterminate, we said.

I thought I’d be in that lookout for a long time. But soon after that day I was summoned up north to FOB Edinburgh. I boarded a Chinook full of mailbags, lay down among them to hide. Forty minutes later I was hopping off, into knee-deep mud. When the hell did it rain? I was shown to my quarters in a sandbag house. A tiny bed.

And a roommate. Estonian signals officer.

We hit it off. He gave me one of his badges as a welcome gift.

Five miles away was Musa Qala, a town that had once been a Taliban fortress. In 2006 we’d seized it, after some of the worst fighting British soldiers had seen in half a century. More than a thousand Taliban had been subdued. After paying such a price, however, the town was quickly, carelessly, lost again. Now we’d won it a second time, and we aimed to keep it.

And a nasty job it was. One of our lads had just been blown up by an IED.

Plus, we were despised in and around the town. Locals who’d cooperated with us had been tortured, their heads put on spikes along the town walls.

There would be no winning of either hearts or minds.

17.

I went on patrol. I drove with a convoy of Scimitar tanks from FOB Edinburgh through Musa Qala, and beyond. The road took us down through a wadi, in which we soon came upon an IED.

The first one I’d encountered.

It was my job to call in the bomb experts. One hour later the Chinook arrived. I found it a secure location for landing, threw a smoke grenade to indicate the best spot, and to show which way the wind was blowing.