Six Months without Sundays E-Book

Max Benitz

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 576

Beschreibung

Max Benitz reports from the frontline of a highly controversial war in a perceptive and revealing account of several months spent in Afghanistan with this world-famous infantry battalion. Training with them and living amongst them as they undertake their tour in Helmand province, Benitz gives a unique insight into the pressures faced by those who risk their lives every second of the day in one of the most dangerous places on earth. Fascinating and illuminating; The Scots Guards in Afghanistan reveals new insights into the war raging in Afghanistan and the men and women who bravely serve there for the British forces.

Leseprobe

SIX MONTHS WITHOUT SUNDAYS

Max Benitz was born in London in 1985. He read Modern History at the University of Edinburgh and South Asian History at the University of Calcutta. After graduating in 2008 he took a local media job in Kabul and then worked at the Royal United Services Institute where he focused on the British Army’s role in Afghanistan.

He is best known for his leading role in Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

First published in 2011 and this second edition published in 2012 by Birlinn Limited West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QS

www.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright © Max Benitz 2011, 2012

The moral right of Max Benitz to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 84341 056 0 eISBN: 978 0 85790 095 1

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

MOD Disclaimer: Any individual contributions of a political nature are those of an individual and are not representative of the Secretary of State.

Typeset by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

For the fallen and the wounded

and

All the men and the women of Combined Force Lashkar Gah,

Operation Herrick 12,

Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2010

If we turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold despotism in the centre and weakness in the extremities, the collection of revenue or the administration of justice enforced by the presence of an army, hostile barbarians established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects inclined to rebellion though incapable of freedom.

Edward Gibbon,

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

I used to get big bunches of Canadians to drill: four or five hundred at a time. Spokesmen stepped forward once and asked me what sense there was in sloping and ordering arms, and fixing and unfixing bayonets. They said they had come across to fight, and not guard Buckingham Palace . . . I told them that when they were better at fighting than the Guards they could perhaps afford to neglect their arms-drill.

Robert Graves (Royal Welch Fusiliers,

First World War),

Goodbye to All That

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Maps

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Introduction: ‘Getting it’

1. Three hundred and sixty-eight years, 1642–2010

Playing FTSE with Insurgents

2. ‘Are there tigers in Afghanistan?’

Homecoming

3. ‘Troops, keep your heads down’

Range days

4. ‘It was nice at times to get out and just go for a wander about’

How you get to command 1st Battalion Scots Guards

5. ‘These are diplomatic skills I’ve never had to use before’

R&R

6. ‘We’re promising, the insurgents are demanding’

Hard landing

7. ‘Horror Ubique’

Mission rehearsal exercise

8. ‘The fight for intelligence always starts in your own headquarters’

Visitors

9. ‘Like it never even happened’

Conclusion: ‘A necessary job’

Postscript: St Andrew’s Day 2010

Epilogue: ‘An Aspect of Realism’

A Note on Sources

Appendix I Operational Honours and Awards

Appendix II Command Structure of Combined Force Lashkar Gah

Appendix III Command Structure of Left Flank

List of Illustrations

Salisbury Plain in a blizzard – ideal training for a summer tour of Helmand

Lance Sergeant Jamie Simeon rushes to treat an ‘Amputee in Action’, Otterburn Ranges, February 2010

1 Platoon, Right Flank line up in Camp Bastion prior to the first heli-assault into Sayedebad

Lance Sergeant Davey Walker

Sergeant Colin Kirkwood, 1 Platoon, Right Flank, commanding his multiple through the ditches around Sayedebad

Lance Corporal Mick Little and Guardsman David McHugh look out over Sayedebad

Basic conditions in Mr Miyagi’s Compound

Major Rupert Kitching in conference with Sergeant David Jones, Stabilisation Adviser to Left Flank

Sergeant Tony Gibson, 11 Platoon, Left Flank on the quad he used to pick up so many casualties

Lieutenant Will Tulloch, 12 Platoon Commander

Guardsman Ritchie Carr in the sangar at Checkpoint Said Abdul

Lance Sergeant John Thorpe, Afghan National Army Adviser to Left Flank

Lance Sergeant Tom Morris

Lance Corporal Paul Ramsay holds court at Vehicle Checkpoint Rabiullah as Lance Sergeant Steve Wood smiles on

Patrol Base Nahidullah under attack at night

Guardsman Ryan Gowans, Lieutenant Charlie Pearson and Guardsman Steven Fuller fix bayonets as they enter Popolzai

A local boy stares down the barrel as gunfire ripples out over Loy Adera

An Explosive Ordnance Operator on a live IED on Route Mars

Lance Corporal Izzy Henderson treats a dying member of the Counter Narcotics Police

Piper Fraser Edwards takes a smoke break

Platoon Sergeant Major John Lilley and Guardsman John Lilley meet up on Fathers’ Day

Colour Sergeant Alan Cameron

Lance Sergeant Dale McCallum

Corporal Matthew Stenton, Royal Dragoon Guards

Lance Corporal Stephen Monkhouse

Padre Colin MacLeod at the Mullah shura on Route Elephant

Sergeant Andy Jones, Royal Engineers directs the men of 1 Troop, Fondouk Squadron, Queen’s Royal Lancers in a spot of sandbagging

Trooper Andrew ‘Steptoe’ Howarth, Fondouk Squadron, Queen’s Royal Lancers keeping his rifle clean, Checkpoint Dre Dwahl

2 Platoon, Right Flank and their police partners on a joint patrol near Checkpoint Yellow 14

Mayor Daoud cuts the ribbon declaring Stabilisation Bridge on Route Trident open

Colonel Satir and Major Hugo Clarke conduct a shura at Checkpoint Attal

Taj Babi, aged three, is carried by her father to a waiting casualty evacuation helicopter

Colonel Kamullidin talks the Commanding Officer through his men’s successful operation

A happy cow and a happy boy after a vet engagement in Basharan

First night back in the Officers’ Mess and Lieutenant Tulloch is in high spirits, as Major Martin French looks on

Guardsman Rab McClellan back on the Bucky, St Andrew’s Day

Major Kitching leads Left Flank to triumph in the Tug o’ War

1st Battalion Scots Guards on parade to collect their Operation Herrick medals, St Andrew’s Day

List of Maps

Afghanistan and surrounding countries

Helmand Province

Overview of Combined Force Lashkar Gah

Loy Adera and Basharan

First Sayedebad Mission

Second Sayedebad Mission

Events of 21 July 2010

Acknowledgments

If there is one thing the Scots Guards taught me, it is the importance of giving credit, rather than taking. Hence the length of this list.

This book focuses on the young officers, non-commissioned officers and junior ranks of Combined Force Lashkar Gah, especially the Scots Guardsmen. It is you whom I most wish to thank. Without exception you treated me with kindness, humour and patience. Having a civilian whose admin resembles a burns pit thrust on you when you were trying to get on with the much more important business of staying alive meant that you bore the majority of this project’s burden. Whether it was squaring me away with a bedspace, scoff or kit, making time to answer stupid questions or watching out for me on patrol, I owe you all a great deal. If this book goes some way to repaying that debt, then I will have done my job.

Having said that, this project would never have happened without the say-so and encouragement of a number of more senior men and women, some of whom took considerable risk in giving me the space and time I needed to get the job done. Lt General Sir John Kiszely KCB MC, Colonel Alistair Mathewson OBE, most especially Colonel Lincoln Jopp MC, who first called my bluff; Brigadier Mark Van Der Lande OBE, Colonel Huw Lloyd-Jones, Lt Colonel James Carr-Smith, Tim David and the Wider Contracts team, Sarah Yuen and Captain Jon Gilbody from the Media Ops world; Majors Martin French, James Leask and Guy Anderson; my friend Captain Malcolm Dalzel-Job (who, by rights, could be the focus of a whole other book), Captain Graham Brady and Regimental Sergeant Major Ali Mackenzie all know how important their contributions were. I thank you all unreservedly. Apologies and thanks to Will MMC, Hamish Barne and Simon Ramsay for putting up with someone who eventually realised he’d be more use outside than in – I hope this book is adequate atonement. Thanks also to Rab for the bum-facing, and to Shrek for calling me a ‘ballbag’: two uniquely Scots Guards rites of passage.

Thanks to the superb Anna Power and Francesca Barrie at Johnson & Alcock for much valued guidance. True thanks to Hugh Andrew, Neville Moir, Jan Rutherford and all at Birlinn for embracing this project from the outset and sticking with it through a few dicey moments. I owe a considerable debt to Andrew Simmons for turning a stream of dispassionate jargon into a book with, I hope, a soul. Michael Munro did a meticulous job with my copy.

I am grateful to Olivier Grouille, Dr Terence MacNamee, all at Military Sciences and beyond at RUSI; Professor John Mackinley for warning me about how hard this would be. Sir John Keegan gave me a start in writing, and since then James Fergusson, Jon Boone, Jerome Starkey, Tom Coghlan, Miles Amoore, Celia Walden, Rob Corbidge, Geordie Grieg, Amy Iggulden, Helen Lewis-Hastely and many others have all helped guide a youngster into print.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles and Alex Cartwright are owed much for their wisdom. Personal thanks to Martin Tyrrell for telling me to write and to Peter Weir for showing me what an artist is.

I owe my many great friends a great deal indeed and thank you all for putting up with me. Most of all, thank you to my brilliant siblings without whom I’d be nothing and my parents to whom I promise to dedicate the next book.

For their assistance with the paperback, I would particularly like to thank Air Commodore David Prowse OBE, Lieutenant Colonel Crispin Lockhart MBE and Commander David Gordon at DMC, and Charles Heath-Saunders and Tracy Harrison from Army Headquarters and Wider Markets. Lieutenant Colonel Robert Howieson was most gracious in allowing me to conduct further interviews with members of 1st Battalion Scots Guards, and Captain Graham Brady was very helpful and diligent in facilitating these. As ever, I am indebted to those of all capbadges who agreed to be interviewed, my agent, and everyone at Birlinn.

Glossary

Entries in capital letters are spelt out phonetically in speech – IED, GPMG; those in lower case are pronounced how they are spelt – Mert, Casevac – with a few exceptions where acronyms match existing words – MIST, TRiM. I acknowledge that this is unusual and ask readers to allow flow to beat formality in this work.

1 SG 1st Battalion Scots Guards

4th Mechanised Brigade brigade deployed on Operation Herrick 12 of which 1 SG is the armoured infantry element

.50cal half-inch calibre Heavy Machine Gun round, usually vehicle mounted

5.56mm standard calibre Nato rifle round

60mm MortarCompany level mortar that fires high explosive, smoke or red phosphorus rounds

7.62mm calibre for AK-47 variants and British GPMG

A-10 tank-busting jet armed with 30mm cannon capable of firing dozens of rounds per second and missiles for strafing runs. More trouble than they’re worth

Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) paramilitary Afghan force bridging the gap between police and army. Usually drawn from outside Helmand

Air any support from the air – jets, Attack Helicopters, drones, as in ‘Where’s the air?’

ANA Afghan National Army

ANP Afghan National Police. Usually locally recruited

ANSF Afghan National Security Forces. Umbrella term for Afghans in uniform

ApacheAttack Helicopter extensively used in Helmand. Excellent and far-ranging surveillance capability coupled with 30mm cannon and Hellfire missiles. Terrifyingly able

Arcs the range a weapon can sweep left to right unhindered by physical or visual obstruction. A broad arc would be 180 degrees, a narrow one five degrees, and so on

Area of Operations the patch of a map that a grouping is responsible for

Armoured InfantryWarrior-borne unit such as 1 SG

Attack Helicopters (AH) usually, but not exclusively, heavily armed Apaches

Banging ugly

Battalion infantry unit. In the case of 1st Battalion Scots Guards, 550 strong in three rifle companies, a support company and headquarters company

Battlegroup a battalion plus the attached arms (engineers, etc.) that make it semi-self-sufficient. Replaced with Combined Force on Herrick 12

Bergen large backpack

Break Contact end a fight, typically through use of overwhelming firepower to kill or supress the enemy and cover a withdrawal

Bund embankment

Casevac Casualty Evacuation. From stretcher to Mert to Birmingham.

Cash for Works paying locals to improve their surroundings, thereby influencing them. Schemes include irrigation ditch clearances and culvert repairs

CF LKG Combined Force Lashkar Gah. 700 British soldiers and their 2,000 or so Afghan partners spread across Lashkar Gah District and headquartered in the city

Checkpoint smaller than a Patrol Base, and usually a platoon-sized base

Chinook heavy lift, twin-rotor helicopter

Chippy incapable of running a chip shop; inept. Not in the civilian sense of harbouring a resentment based on perceived slights or social insecurity

CNP Counter Narcotics Police

Cobra US Marine Corps gunship helicopter

Combined Force a British battlegroup plus its Afghan partners, e.g. Combined Force Lashkar Gah

Company sub-unit to the battalion or Combined Force. Usually consisting of three platoons and roughly 140 strong. Holds some assets (small drones, mortars) but relies on higher control for most. The intensely local campaign in Helmand is fought at the company level.

Contact interaction with the enemy, typically through small-arms fire or IED. Shouted when encountered. Verb or noun, e.g. ‘They contacted us with small arms and I shouted “Contact!” ’

Counter-IED Counter-Improvised Explosive Device. Any drill, capability, device or specialist used in fight against IEDs. Specialist counter-IED teams may consist of: an IED disposal team, Advanced Search team, dog handler and Weapons Intelligence Specialists as required by the tactical situation

Counter Insurgency military thought has been a Laocoon enveloped by Counter Insurgency since about 2005, with much wailing and gnashing about its nature at Staff Colleges. There are Counter Insurgency Academies, Counter Insurgency Centres and a sprawling network of defence analysts spending an indecent amount of time defining and studying it. Basically, the principles are: ‘wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyeth much good’ (Ecclesiastes 9:18) and do whatever works best in your Area of Operations.

Drone Army vernacular for a Remote Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS). Sometimes armed with Hellfire missile, usually just observing. They range in size from hand-launched Desert Hawk to Predator and Reaper

EOD Operator Explosive Ordnance Disposal Operator. A senior non-commissioned officer, warrant officer, or officer trained to dispose of IEDs

Fire Support Group a mobile heavy-weapons team

Fire team four-to-five-strong half-section commanded by a Lance Corporal. Two to three per multiple.

Firing Point identified origin of hostile fire. Examples could be a murder hole, a clump of trees or other cover

Foot Guards five regiments – Grenadier, Coldstream, Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards in order of seniority – make up the Foot Guards. They are the senior infantry regiments of the British Army. Together with the Household Cavalry, they are the Household Division and wear a distinctive Blue-Red-Blue shoulder flash.

Forward Line of Enemy Troops the frontline

Gimpy see GPMG

GPMG 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun. Each platoon carries three GPMGs – often referred to as gimpy in speech – and besides the gunner, men will carry spare link to keep this primary weapon going in a firefight. Also vehicle-mounted. Superb

Grenade Launcher for the British, a tube under the barrel of a rifle that fires 40mm high-explosive and red phosphorus grenades several hundred metres

Grenade Machine Gun fires 40mm high-explosive or red phosphorus rounds 500 metres with accuracy. Surprisingly quiet as it fires, louder if you are the target, one imagines.

Guards see Foot Guards

GuardsmanFoot Guards equivalent of a private soldier. Also, umbrella term for all members of a Guards regiment, as in: ‘Once a Guardsman, always a Guardsman.’

Hazara separate ethnic group who are predominantly Shi’ite Muslims living in central Afghanistan. There are pockets of Hazaras throughout Helmand.

Helicopter Landing Site/helipad anything from a fully modern concrete airfield with refuelling pens to a patch of dirt rapidly Valloned in the middle of a firefight.

Herrick/Op Herrick codename for ongoing British operations in Afghanistan since 2001. Numbered sequentially, each Herrick lasts six months and is led by a particular brigade. Herrick 4 in 2006 was the first in Helmand. This book focuses on Herrick 12.

Hesco brand name for the ubiquitous four-and-a-half-foot high geotextile sacs supported by a steel mesh and filled with earth. They protect against bullets and blast and have largely replaced the sandbag.

Hexamine/Hexy Hexamethylenetetramine (a solid fuel resembling Kendal mint cake that burns without smoke)

IEC Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan

IED Improvised Explosive Device

Illumination hand-launched or mortar-fired flares for lighting up the battlefield at night

Insurgent catchall term for those hostile to Isaf and Afghan National Security Forces at a particular moment. Without conducting interviews with each and every one of them, it would be impossible to deduct their motives for resistance and label them correctly. ‘Taliban’ has a specific meaning and should not be used as a catchall phrase. While many, perhaps most, of those who fight Isaf and the Afghan Government in Helmand are members of or identify with the Taliban (Afghan and Pakistani), to call them all Taliban would be as incorrect as referring to all members of Napoleon’s Grand Army of 1812 as revolutionaries. Amongst those who shoot, bomb and spy there are undoubtedly Pashto nationalists; foreign-born Salafists; the young, intimidated and bored poor; criminals connected to the drugs trade and opportunists settling tribal disputes. I acknowledge that this term can be used to rob an armed political movement of its identity

Isaf International Security Assistance Force. Multinational grouping primarily but not solely consisting of Nato members. Present in Afghanistan under rolling UN Mandate and at invitation of the Afghan Government

Jack, jacking when one soldier, through laziness, drops his performance, leaving others to pick up the slack. A ‘jack bastard’ can ‘jack’ on the rest of his platoon by being ‘jack’

Javelin or Jav anti-tank missile used extensively in Helmand

JChat Brigade-wide instant messaging system

Joint Afghan and British, as in joint patrolling

Kalay hamlet. Typically a number of different families’ compounds gathered around a mosque. A more substantial settlement will just have its name, e.g. Sayedebad.

Kandak Afghan battalion

Light Machine Gun 5.56mm belt-fed section weapon that bridges the gap between rifle and GPMG

Light Order stripped-down fighting kit, keeping weight to a minimum to enable mobility

Link ammunition for belt-fed weapon

Local Nationals Afghans

Lurk a patrol, typically at night, that stays in an area watching for enemy activity, which can then be disrupted

Main Charge the bit of the IED that goes bang. Typically a 25-litre yellow palm oil container stuffed with home-made explosive.

Main Operating Base the MOB in Lashkar Gah houses Brigade and Combined Force Lashkar Gah Headquarters, alongside the Provincial Reconstruction Team, contractors and a cast of hundreds. Known as ‘Lash Vegas’ to the soldiers outside the razor wire-topped walls.

Mastiff large armoured six-wheeled battle taxi. Crew of three, carries another eight and armed with either a machine gun or Grenade Machine Gun

Mert Medical Emergency Response Team. Chinook turned flying hospital

MIST Report Method [of injury]; Injury [sustained]; Signs [and symptoms]; Treatment [given]. A brief report to get an evacuation helicopter launched, giving the doctors an idea of what to expect. Also includes the Zap Number, sex and age of casualty. Pronounced ‘Mist’ rather than spelt out

Monging switching off during a task, usually due to exhaustion – especially on exercise. See Jack

Multiple roughly half-platoon-sized tactical grouping. Sections were found to be too small to independently foot-patrol in Helmand,and as not all of a platoon can get out of camp at once, the multiple bridges the gap. Commanded by Platoon Commander or Sergeant. The tactical building block of the Afghan war, as the platoon was in the First World War and the brick was in Northern Ireland

Murder Hole opening hacked into a mud wall, typically inside a compound, and used to fire from

Net radio network. There is a Battlegroup net; each Company has its own net, each vehicle has its own net and there are various other nets for emergencies or to talk to air support

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

Op/Ops Operation/s

Op Minimise After a British soldier is killed or seriously wounded, all civilian communications back home are suspended to ensure next of kin find out the news through the appropriate channels

Ops Room Operations Room. Nerve centre of a unit from which operations are planned and monitored. At Battalion Headquarters level, a large room full of signallers, staff officers, flat-screen TVs, radios, computers and the Battalion Colours. In a Vehicle Checkpoint, a radio and a hexamine stove with a kettle perched on it

Patrol Base a large garrison, typically a Company Headquarters

Patrolman Afghan National Police rank equivalent of a British Police Constable

PAX private insurance scheme for soldiers on operations to top up MoD compensation allowances

Pedro American Blackhawk helicopter converted for casualty evacuation

Platoon 30-strong group of soldiers commanded by a junior officer and made up of three sections or two multiples further broken into fire teams and a small headquarters element. Three platoons form a company

Positively Identify (PID) ascertain without doubt from where you are being shot at. Without a PID, British soldiers cannot usually engage under their Rules of Engagement

Pressure Plate method of initiating IED through the pressure of the victim or vehicle’s weight completing a circuit and detonating the main charge

Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) civilian-led and owned group consisting mainly of Department for International Development and Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials. The lead for governance and development in Helmand

Q Bloke Company Quartermaster Sergeant

Quick Reaction Force group ready to move at a moment’s notice to assist in an unforeseen eventuality. A fairly relaxed job until it isn’t

R&R Rest and Recuperation. Each British soldier gets a fortnight away from Afghanistan during their six-month tour

RDG Royal Dragoon Guards

Replen replenishment of supplies: usually ammunition and rations

RPG Rocket-Propelled Grenade. Standard Afghan forces and insurgent direct fire weapon with a range of approximately 900 metres. An airburst round provides an indirect fire capability. Plentiful and loud

SA80 5.56mm standard rifle of British Army. Much upgraded for Herrick, it carries a 4x sight and holds a 30-round magazine

Sangar watchtower

Sapper engineer

Scran food

Section three to a platoon, commanded by a Lance Sergeant. Largely replaced by the multiple

Shalwar kameez long, night-shirt-length garment worn over loose pyjama-style trousers. Much the most sensible order of dress in Helmand

Shura meeting, frequently between Isaf commanders and local elders in a neighbourhood. Can be hours long and fuelled with tea, watermelon and pistachio nuts. A collective decision-making forum.

Smoker all ranks night out, usually by platoon

Solar Shower black bag filled with water and left in sun to heat up

Squared Away or Squared ship-shape, sorted

Stabilisation/Stabilisation representative men from the Military Stabilisation Support Team work alongside the rest of the Battlegroup to deliver steadying effects to the district. This ranges from cash-funded building projects to more subtle events such as Koran-reading competitions and medical engagements.

Staff Officer those who command paper rather than men and ensure the administrative side of soldiering doesn’t break down on operations

Stag/stagging on sentry duty

Tac Tactical Headquarters, normally Company or Battlegroup Tac. While the bulk of personnel and kit remain at a permanent headquarters, Tac, either on foot or in vehicles, can head out to command the situation on the ground.

Tashakor thank you

Trident British Army-planned route that links up the Patrol Base line between Nad Ali and Gereshk. Designed to be IED-resistant and ostensibly built for the Freedom of Movement of Afghans.

TRiM/TRiMed/TRiMing Trauma Risk Management. System of on-the-spot mental health counselling conducted by junior commanders trained to provide a judgment-free environment for traumatised soldiers to discuss recent experiences. Pronounced ‘Trim’ rather than spelt out

United States Marine Corps by June 2010, there were approximately 20,000 US Marines in Helmand and the British Task Force Helmand came under the command of a Marine Major General heading up Regional Command South West, and Marine attachments and equipment, especially helicopters, were a frequent sight in a British patch

Vallon ubiquitous metal detector used to find IEDs. Has become a verb meaning to check a route for IEDs: ‘Have you Valloned that track yet?’

Vehicle Checkpoint (VCP) smaller version of a checkpoint sometimes with as few as four British soldiers plus their more numerous Afghan partners. Situated on a main road, the garrison of the Vehicle Checkpoint search cars and passengers for anything suspicious.

Warrior Armoured Fighting Vehicle armed with 30mm cannon and chain gun. Carries a section of infantry into battle, drives them to fixed enemy position, where they dismount and assault. Crewed by commander, gunner and driver.

Zap Number rapid identification system for soldiers consisting of the first two letters of last name followed by final four digits of soldier’s service number, e.g. MA4219. Marked on items of clothing along with blood group and allergies to assist doctors in Bastion with treatment and identification for the next of kin process.

Zero headquarters on a specific radio net (Blackjack Zero being Combined Force Headquarters, Blackjack One Zero being B Company Headquarters, etc.)

Rank Structure of 1st Battalion Scots Guards, less Attached Personnel

•  Lieutenant Colonel – the Commanding Officer

•  Major – Second in Command; Company Commanders; Quartermaster; some senior Staff Officers

•  Captain – most Staff Officers; most Late Entry Officers; Company Second in Command; senior Platoon Commanders

•  Lieutenant – Platoon Commander with at least a year served

•  Second Lieutenant – Platoon Commander fresh from training

•  Warrant Officer 1 – Regimental Sergeant Major

•  Warrant Officer 2 – Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant; Drill Sergeant; Company Sergeant Major

•  Colour Sergeant – Platoon Sergeant Major; Company Quartermaster Sergeant; individual appointments such as Signals Warrant Officer and Pioneer Colour Sergeant

•  Sergeant

•  Lance Sergeant – equivalent to Corporal

•  Lance Corporal

•  Guardsman – equivalent to Private

Afghanistan and surrounding countries

Helmand Province

Overview of Combined Force Lashkar Gah

Loy Adera and Basharan

INTRODUCTION

‘Getting it’

June–December 2009

The ideas surrounding this book were brought into sharp relief by a walk through Trafalgar Square in November 2009. News had come through that morning of an incident in Helmand that appeared to sum up the war in Afghanistan. Five unarmed British soldiers had been shot dead by an Afghan policeman they had been risking their lives to train. There is a mantra in today’s campaign that runs: ‘Where’s the Afghan face in this?’ The answer this time was: ‘On a motorcycle, heading for an insurgent stronghold.’ The afternoon headlines screamed and news websites ran stories of how the incident brought into question the entire British strategy in Afghanistan.

Looking up, there was a Spitfire. Looking down, there was a crowd. They filled the square to honour a war hero – Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park. His statue was being unveiled amidst a flyby. His generation’s war, still a fetish in our society, was one of national survival. Leaves and not bombs fell around the drizzly square in 2009 but in 1940 the British people, who just two years previously had been fervently against the idea of a war with Germany, endured random and violent death. Seventy years later, the deaths of five professional soldiers threatened to upend a military strategy and revise Britain’s primary foreign policy commitment. Appetites had changed.

By November 2009, a YouGov/Channel 4 News poll found that 57 per cent of the population thought victory in Afghanistan no longer possible and 35 per cent advocated immediate withdrawal. Government and military resignations over the war had begun to trickle in and prevarication was rife in Washington. The mood inside the British Army was also getting nasty. A low grumbling was emerging into the public domain.

In June 2009, Patrick Little, a recently retired infantry officer, wrote a searing criticism of the Army’s inability to assimilate lessons. ‘All is not well in the British Army and has not been for some time,’ he warned. Hubris, a lazy instinct to blame the government for failings, the toleration of ‘toxic commanders’ and the absence of meaningful internal debate were all deemed by Little to have hindered the Army’s performance in the field. Only a ‘long and painful journey’ of self-criticism would rectify these problems, he argued. Little was not alone. In a frank exchange of views at a conference I attended in October 2009, a slew of mid-tier officers and external experts laid into the generation that commanded. The oft-repeated line was: ‘They just don’t get it.’ Unfavourable comparisons were made with the American military. Facing the possibility of defeat in Iraq in 2005, they had opened themselves up to a process of far-ranging internal chastisement. Colonels called out Generals and Field Manuals were ripped up and re-written. After becoming US Secretary of Defense in 2006, Robert Gates, the British officers noted approvingly, fired a few four-stars.

As an outsider with no military experience these structural arguments at first seemed bewildering – what is ‘it’ and how is it acquired? Slowly, though, the debates on ‘institutional rectitude’ and ‘constructive dissent’ seemed to boil down to a generational shift in military thought. The young Lieutenant Colonels and below who had won medals directing mini-campaigns in Basra and Sangin were standing up to their elders and telling them that South Armagh was not where doctrine ended.

At the time, Britain was also planning an overdue look at her place in the world through a Strategic Defence and Security Review. It was set against the backdrop of the financial crisis. As I sat in conference rooms listening to ‘stakeholders’ discuss Britain’s future, an underlying assumption emerged: Britain’s inexorable decline and the need to do some cutting. The people in control were setting the rules of a game that my generation was going to have to play. In an increasingly unstable world, tools were being taken away from us. We were going to be caught between the Scylla of the long-term debt thrown up by our parents’ financial recklessness and the Charybdis of defence cuts. The demographically bloated generation that we were going to have to defend and sustain was giving us an empty bottle of whisky and an unloaded revolver and telling us to get on with it.

After the unveiling of the statue of Park, I caught a bus home in time for the evening news. All channels led with the latest from Helmand. Phrases like ‘turning point’ were invoked. More than one anchor raised an editorial single eyebrow. The uncle of one murdered soldier performed stoically for the cameras: ‘It was his job and he loved doing it . . . it’s what he wanted to do. That [going to Afghanistan] was part of his job and he knew that.’ In order to connect more fully with the audience, people who had never met the man were then interviewed in the street. Words like ‘awful’ and ‘appalling’ cropped up. One network then switched to its second story: a student in Sheffield who had decided to drunkenly urinate on a war memorial.

This juxtaposition summed up two threads in British life today: admiration coupled with misunderstanding for a man who considered the possibility of a violent death ‘part of his job’, then a story about ‘Broken Britain’s’ youth. The civilian–military gulf and then the self-disgust.

I believe that there are several reasons for these trends. First, there is a growing gap between civilian and military life, meaning that we are unable to understand war. This is partly because we are inured to risk. Simply put, there are more passenger safety notices on a London bus than on a Chinook helicopter in Helmand. Second, the perception of a general breakdown in society means we are unable to accept the desire of our forces to risk their lives on our behalf. Lack of understanding translates into lack of support. This will fatally undermine our military’s ability to conclude long-term campaigns successfully.

And through this, my generation was the one doing much of the fighting and plenty of the dying in Helmand. The popular image of Britain’s youth is probably more aligned with the Sheffield war-memorial pisser than with soldiers who are killed on action before reaching their twenties. To summarise conventional opinion: we are feckless, feral, binge-drinking, ASBO-courting, hooded knife-wielding hooligans. We are united by attention spans that can be measured in the time it takes to change channels and we spend our time twiddling our thumbs on PlayStations.

And yet, thousands of Britain’s young are going to Helmand and some of them are not coming back alive. They accept the risks and do their job. How can this be? These young men and women emerge from a society that believes itself to be broken. It blames much of this decline on the generation it sends to an unpopular war to do a job it can no longer understand. A political class that gamely starts wars but cannot articulate war aims directs a riven military. And yet they go and fight and sometimes die. Who are these soldiers and what is the Army achieving in Afghanistan?

*

A few days later, I was in a post office with a letter in my hand. I had decided to try to go and answer some questions that Spitfire over Trafalgar Square had brought to mind. Most of all, I wanted to ‘get it’. I also wanted to see if I was up to war – stupid, naive boy. The letter was addressed to the Commanding Officer, 1st Battalion Scots Guards. My father’s regiment, the Scots Guards were preparing to go to Helmand in 2010 for their first tour of Afghanistan as a battalion. The house I grew up in was plastered with prints of pipers and Guardsmen and my father wears a Household Division watchstrap – this, fifty years after leaving the regiment he spent five years with. I’d always wanted to have something to do with the Scots Guards but am barred by temperament and constitution from the British Army. Instead, I would go to Helmand with them as a witness to what they did in today’s war – a subtle but important distinction from the journalists who must always keep their distance and find that headline. It was, perhaps, a rather complicated and potentially lethal way of telling my father I respected him. In the post office, I paused a while before dropping the letter. Part of me never expected to hear back. Part of me wondered where it all might lead.

Aside from these arguably questionable personal motivations for going to war alongside the Scots Guards, there were strong reasons why they, and the wider campaign, deserved study at that time and in the way I intended to do it. Given the unpopularity of the war it seemed clear, even in 2009, that the summer of 2010 would be the zenith, or near enough, of military involvement in Afghanistan. While the annual announcement that X will be the most vital year yet in Afghanistan has become as predictable as ‘Auld Lang Syne’, there was a potent case for 2010. General McChrystal’s Commander’s Initial Assessment, calling for more troops, had been backed up by Nato’s acceptance of the strategic concept for Phase Four of the campaign – the transition to Afghan control. After a lengthy pause for thought, President Obama pledged an additional 34,000 troops on 1 December 2009; the rest of Nato said they would send another 7,000 to complement this surge. The coming year, especially the sadly named ‘fighting season’ that summer, would be the campaign’s moment of maximum effort and perhaps maximum risk. If 2010 went wrong, the war went wrong. The British part of this near-final chance to succeed would be in Helmand Province.

The British Army had broken into this rural backwater in 2006 and the campaign had followed an irregular beat of fatalities, gallantry awards, offensives and policy announcements. The nature of the campaign had taken a lot of criticism. From the regrettable pre-deployment misquote of the then Defence Secretary about ‘not a bullet fired’ to the 24-hour period in July 2009 when eight British soldiers had died, the British in Helmand had been fighting a tenacious insurgency on the ground and public opinion at home. They had to get it right in 2010. Strategic imperatives dictated from the capital cities, such as the utter minimisation of civilian casualties and the delivery of a popularly legitimate local security sector would be addressed in dusty outposts by young British soldiers. Enduring success would only come if their officers could construct a coherent campaign alongside other British Government departments and, of course, the Afghan Government: no one was arguing that foreign military force could do it alone or provide the eventual solutions for Helmand and Afghanistan. Alongside a few pockets in the east of Afghanistan, Helmand is perhaps the hardest task assigned to any Isaf force. While some argue that one could lose Helmand and still win in Afghanistan, if Isaf could begin to crack Helmand in 2010 then this would be a strong indicator of the campaign’s direction.

I was determined to get to Helmand that summer. I had spent a few months in Kabul immediately after graduating from university in 2008 and then worked at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall in 2009. These experiences gave me some grasp of the strategic stresses felt by the ministers, diplomats and soldiers at the top. Now I wanted to get down to the tactical level: to see if they ‘got it’. The battalion is where the campaign is fought daily and where decisions made at the top have the most impact. I felt I would be much more comfortable here, surrounded by men of my generation, doing what the young do in times of war. The Guardsmen, sergeants and junior officers were, to a 25-year-old, much more noteworthy than the brigadiers and generals – fine officers though I’m sure they all are. There has been plenty written about Ministry of Defence cock-ups, helicopter numbers, strategic errors and political missteps, and all those whys and wherefores. Most reporting of the war has been couched in these wider terms – as is correct in a functioning democracy. However, there was a risk, I felt, that the basic realities of the war (what happens to 18-year-olds when they go to Helmand) could be lost. I wanted to write a book about soldiers in 2010 before this important piece of history was lost. As a civilian, I wanted to discover what was happening in Helmand and hoped this narrative would help other civilians develop their picture of that demanding place; to help bridge that gap between us and those in uniform. For military readers, my intent would be to provide an example of what a Battlegroup did at this stage of the campaign. Mostly, I hoped to provide a lasting testament to and for the men and women of the Battlegroup. A few weeks after I posted that letter, the Commanding Officer got in touch. I found a publisher and the Ministry of Defence approved the project.

The next eighteen months were, essentially, a kidnap. A tribe initiated and trained me, took me to war and brought me home. I watched them fight and kill, love and hate, laugh and cry; I was witness, anthropologist and, occasionally, friend. I spent more time with a single unit – in and out of Helmand – than any other British author, journalist or artist has done during this war. As a result, this book is ‘all for the boys’ and they speak for themselves. There are 550 of them and not all can be mentioned between these covers. My sample is random but representative and what follows is portrait as well as photograph – not every aspect of this group’s experiences could be captured in absolute detail. In what follows, I strike out for the larger picture only where it is important to do so or where some context helps explain an event. Another decision was not to examine the soldiers’ families. They had enough to deal with and I did not wish to intrude on anxiety and grief. I suspect many of them felt the year more keenly than those who went to Helmand. Their sacrifice and support is the bedrock always mentioned by soldiers and it is right that it is acknowledged here.

During the kidnap, I was only ever given two direct orders. The first was from the Commanding Officer, who simply told me: ‘You’re not allowed to get killed.’ The second was Company Sergeant Major Stretch Halliday, who said, ‘Max, remember the plan. Dinnae write a shite book.’ I endeavoured to obey them both.

CHAPTER ONE

Three hundred and sixty-eight years

1642–2010

In the Operations Room, in a tent in Lashkar Gah in 2010, two crossed silk flags looked out and silently judged men rushing from phone to computer to radio as they managed the day’s battle. These were the colours. On certain anniversaries, a Guardsman would adorn them with a laurel wreath and history’s whisper would remind you that men had weaved the silk with blood.

The Scots Guards were raised, as any Scots Guardsman will tell you today, in 1642 – 990 years after the proselytising Arab invasion of the lands we now know as Afghanistan and 65 years before the Act of Union made the Scottish and English Crowns one.

Charles I, King in name of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, was playing golf outside Edinburgh when he heard that the last of these kingdoms had risen in rebellion. Under letters patent issued to the Marquis of Argyll on 28 March 1642, ‘one Regiment of our Scottish Subjects consisting of the number of Fifteen hundred men’ was raised to fight in Ireland. Charles wanted to lead the expedition, so styled the men ‘a Guard for his own Person’. The English Parliament was reluctant to see Charles acquire a standing force. They refused consent and banned him from going to Ireland. Argyll’s men still sailed and fought a bloody campaign. Meanwhile, the fractures between King Charles and Westminster turned to Civil War. The English Parliament then refused to pay the Scots for their service in Ireland. The Regiment sailed back across the Irish Sea, not for the last time, in 1645.

Religious and political factions turned to fighting in Scotland and anarchy in England. The Regiment found themselves fighting for the Scottish General Assembly and then Charles II after Westminster had cut off their founder’s head. The men of Argyll’s Regiment were appointed ‘his Majestie’s footte regiment of his Lyffe Guardes’ in 1650. They fought and lost to Cromwell and Monck’s men at Dunbar. They scattered at the interregnum.

In 1660, Charles II returned from the continent and reformed his Foot Guards. For the next century, the Regiment that became known as the Scots Guards in the 1680s negotiated the religious skirmishes that continued to dog Scotland, came out for the Protestant William of Orange (who rewarded them by founding a Second Battalion in 1689), guarded the Monarch in London, besieged Namur and were with George II at Dettingen. Names that are found in today’s Regiment began to appear on lists of officers. They took no part in the ’45, save screening the north of England, and were ordered ‘not to laugh’ at the Militias raised in panic at the Young Pretender.

With Jacobites crushed, the British Army was employed on the continent and in the colonies. Some 3rd Guards, as the Scots were now referred to, having lost precedence to the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards, always remained at Court. Here they could establish such Standing Orders as those of 1783, which banned double-breasted waistcoats from the Officers’ Mess and ordered other ranks to be ‘well dressed and in Black Gaiters’ when visiting other regiments. In four months in 1793, the 13 or so Guards officers eating daily at the table at St James’s Palace managed to get through the vast sum of £5,500 of food and drink.

The wars begun by the French Revolution saw the 3rd Guards engaged heavily across Europe and then in Egypt in 1801. The 1st Battalion fought at Talavera, Fuentes D’Onor and Salamanca, and then headed home on Napoleon’s abdication of 1814. The 2nd Battalion went to the Low Countries to show intent as the Congress of Vienna convened. Napoleon escaped Elba before Metternich, Talleyrand et al, could establish a settlement that would keep the Scots Guards from the continent for 99 years.

The 2nd Battalion woke up soaking on 18 June 1815 in and around a Belgian farm named Hougoumont. Along with the Coldstream Guards they would hold this position that long day at a cost of at least 239 killed. Sergeants Fraser, McGregor and Aston, with Private Lister, helped shut the famous farm gate.

In 1831 they became Scots Fusilier Guards and were given bearskins. In 1854 they sailed for the Crimea to join an army that was underequipped and poorly led, thanks to decisions made in Horse Guards. Their Colour Party stormed the redoubt at the Alma, won the first four Victoria Crosses ever awarded and were immortalised in Lady Butler’s painting. It hangs in the Officers’ Mess today. They fought at Inkerman, then froze and died of want that winter. Once home, they appointed their first Pipe Major. They were not involved in the Afghan Wars. In 1877 Queen Victoria finally returned the Regiment to its old styling as Scots Guards.

Two companies of Scots Guardsmen in the Guards Camel Regiment rode to rescue Gordon on camels; 1st and 2nd Battalions fought the Boers. A 3rd Battalion was raised and disbanded. In 1910, some 215 years after the event, a Select Committee awarded the Regiment a battle honour for the Siege of Namur. The next year, a young Home Secretary named Winston Churchill called them out from the Tower of London; they fired on anarchists at the Siege of Sidney Street in the East End.

In 1914 they crossed the Channel. Four years later they returned, 2,841 men short. Little names from France and Belgium – Ypres, Loos, Somme – made their way onto the colours. The Privates of the Brigade of Guards were renamed Guardsmen by George V.

Between the wars life was becalmed and focused on the ceremonial. 2nd Battalion went east of Suez for the first time in 1927 for a garrison tour in China. They brought a Dragon Boat back to startle the rest of the Guards Boat Club with. The Officers’ Mess became a staging post for the Scottish aristocracy in London. Men like Lord Lovat, who would go on to wade ashore in Normandy with his piper and commandos, served a few years.

War with Germany resumed in 1939. The 5th (Ski) Battalion was formed with a vague idea of supporting the Finns against the Russians. The unit never deployed, to the chagrin of Lieutenant David Stirling, who went off to join the Commandos, then formed the Special Air Service (SAS). Between them the 1st and 2nd Battalions fought through Norway, North Africa, Italy and Western Europe on foot; the re-formed 3rd Battalion were put in tanks and landed in Normandy.

A remarkably varied generation of Scots Guardsmen served in that war; amongst them a future Archbishop of Canterbury, Deputy Prime Minister, Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, chief ballet critic of the Sunday Times and David Lean’s special effects guru – Oscar nominated Guardsman Eddie Fowlie, who died in 2011.

The 2nd Battalion were sent to the Malayan Emergency in 1948. The Guardsmen went after the Communist insurgents with ferocity in the jungle. In Britain, the varied interests of the Officers’ and Sergeants’ Messes were shown when Major Petre won the 1948 Grand National and Company Sergeant Major Rioch beat off all challengers for his title of Imperial Services Champion at Bayonet Fighting. The event was discontinued in 1956 by which time he was 44.

Years of skiing and exercise in Germany were broken up with tours of Cyprus, Malaya and Borneo, Kenya, Belize, Oman, Hong Kong and Northern Ireland, as the British Government decided where to hold or disengage.

Occasional shocks arose. The 2nd Battalion headed to the Falkland Islands in 1982 amidst cries from much of the Army that a battalion who had been on the forecourt at Buckingham Palace for two years were the wrong men to send. They stormed Mount Tumbledown at the point of the bayonet, losing eight men to well-dug-in Argentine Marines.

In 1991, 1st Battalion helped the liberation of Kuwait, while 2nd Battalion lost out in the MoD’s ‘Options for Change’. The battalions merged in 1993. The rest of the 1990s passed in the Balkans and more tours of Belfast and East Tyrone.

The events of 9/11 meant two tours of Iraq for the Scots Guards and then the warning order to deploy to Helmand in the spring of 2010.

If the above account appears long, then that is because the history is long. It is also important. It still informs what the Regiment does in an age of unmanned drones and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). It is a recruiter, a unique selling point and a reference. Guardsmen slap the Ever Open Eye sticker of the Guards Armoured Division on anything that’s nailed down, non-commissioned officers tattoo the capbadge on their shoulders and officers wear their divisional blue-red-blue ties. Old boys wearing blazers with buttons in threes (3rd Guards) come to funerals of serving soldiers they never met. This shows the young that they are part of something much larger than today. No one bores on about the history now but it is there, a silent hand on the shoulder. It is no better or worse than any other regiment’s history, but it is the Scots Guards’.

*

The Book of Judges describes how one tribe caught out imposters: ‘Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right.’ 1st Battalion Scots Guards (1 SG) has a network of shibboleths seemingly impenetrable to the outsider. They have no CO, Adj, RSM, CSMs, Sarjs, Screws (full or half) or Privates. They do have the Commanding Officer, the Adjutant, the Regimental Sergeant Major, Company Sergeant Majors, Colour Sergeants, Sergeants, Lance Sergeants, Lance Corporals and Guardsmen. In speech, the ‘Lance’ in front of Sergeant or Corporal is not mentioned. This gives the men a verbal promotion to go with the extra chevron they wear in gift from the Monarch. Full Sergeants are marked from Lance Sergeants through a shiny capstar and a red sash on parade. As neither is much worn in Helmand, telling the difference is impossible unless you know every man in the Battalion, which about three people do. Making head or tail of where brevity is welcomed, as in changing Company Quartermaster Sergeant to Q Bloke, and where it is not, as in shortening Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant to RQMS, is another verbal minefield. Some of this had filtered through to me in unknowing osmosis from my father but I still made howlers. When I called Company Sergeant Major Johnstone ‘Sergeant Major’ one day, he turned on me and said with genuine disappointment: ‘Come on, Max. How long have you been here? You should know by now that there’s only one Sergeant Major – the Regimental Sergeant Major. Honestly.’

Battalion insults also follow a strict gradient of rank. There are belters, ballbags, bangers, mutants and, finally, the electric. Belters are generally a bit too by the book and just give off the wrong impression. They generally sit above you in the rank structure. Officers make up a healthy percentage of the Battalion’s belters. Ballbags (scrotums) are people who screw up on occasion and are told so to their face, as in: ‘Eh, Ballbag – get the fuck over here!’ If someone is doing something wrong, then he’s a ballbag. It’s a transitional term rather than a label for life. Everybody has been a ballbag in the past and has the capacity to be a ballbag again. One of the moments when I knew I was on the right track with Battalion was when a Guardsman on Salisbury Plain called me a ballbag – a genuine baptism. Try as I might, the publishers of this book wouldn’t go for Eh, Ballbag! as a title, much to the disappointment of the Guardsmen. Bangers come next and are just out-and-out wankers. Mutants are the youngsters (officers and men) who unwittingly mess up situations and who might take a while to learn from their mistakes. There is still hope for a mutant. At the bottom are those classified as electric. These are the men who no one believes made it through training. Having a few electric Guardsmen around can be a bonus in certain situations. Anyone new is a crow. Not really an insult, just a way of telling an officer or a Guardsman that he’s new, as in: ‘Eh, crowbags, how many operational tours have yooz done?’

*

Like many rivalries in the Army, the inter-company one in the Scots Guards is probably as ancient as anything between siblings. Competition is used to encourage professionalism, as letting the platoon, the company or the regiment down in front of their nearest rivals (who constantly pick over each other’s performances) is a cardinal sin.

In Battalion, Right Flank is a breed apart. They are named after their position on the parade square and on the old pitched battlefields. As the senior company, ‘The Flank’ takes the pick of the taller Guardsmen and has a reputation for groupthink and hardheadedness. Known to the rest of Battalion as ‘the Borg’ after the ruthless race of Star Trek villains who claim that ‘resistance is futile’. This feeling of separateness was reinforced in 2007 when they were detached from Battalion and sent to Helmand for Operation Herrick 6/7, while the majority of Battalion went to Basra for Operation Telic 11. Right Flank pioneered the use of Warrior Armoured Fighting Vehicles in Afghanistan and the insurgents named them ‘Desert Devils’. This experience meant that they were the natural choice to act as Armoured Infantry Company on Herrick 11/12. As there is only one Warrior-borne company in Helmand, the rest of 1 SG got out of their wagons and trained as Light Role infantry. Right Flank would leave months before Battalion and the expectation was that they’d not be seen for the duration of the tour.

Alongside the Reconnaissance Platoon, B Company provide heavy weapon support with a platoon each of mortars and anti-tank missiles. The Company attracts more seasoned soldiers – ‘the old sweats’ – who have earned the right not to be micro-managed as many are in rifle platoons. The weapons platoons would conventionally be split into small detachments amongst the rifle companies. For Afghanistan, some would split to a Fire Support Group role while others were down to act as Police Mentoring teams.

As the central rifle company in the line, C Company traditionally took the smaller Guardsmen, known as ‘rabbits’. The uncertainty of what Battalion would do in Helmand led to the Company being split to the Flanks.

Headquarter Company keeps the show on the road. A 250-strong group of men and women across 16 departments, they range from clerks to cooks. Many are in 1 SG on attachment from other parts of the Army. For instance, as an Armoured Infantry battalion, 1 SG retains a platoon of men from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. Scots Guardsmen to their very skilled fingertips are the Pipes & Drums. These soldier-musicians have the enviable task of slaking the seemingly unending thirst the rest of the world has for bagpipe music. In recent years, they’ve toured Ghana, Bermuda and North America. All that is put away come tour time. The men are split around Battalion to earn their keep as riflemen, drivers and intelligence analysts. Most found room for their pipes when they flew to Afghanistan.

Left Flank was the junior rifle company. With the demise of C Company and Right Flank’s detachment from Battalion for the tour, they would be the largest sub-unit. Whether a result of a few characters in key appointments or of a long-standing ethos, the Company had a welcoming but professional attitude.

*

After their first farewell to Mother on the steps of their prep school, the majority of Scots Guards officers learn about the gradual privileges accrued by rank and seniority. Ten pence a week in the tuck shop becomes 50p by the age of 13 – a whole pound, perhaps, if a monitor. At public school sugar rationing ceases. Alcohol and tobacco are the new illicit substances. Entrance to the Sixth Form permits the occasional beer. Heads of House may visit local pubs. The shock of university – girls, cooking, laundry – can be vast. Some never recover. Many make straight for Sandhurst and then the Officers’ Mess – the finest boarding house devised and one in which you are paid to live. Unlike school, there is an honesty bar and always someone to have a beer and a fag with. Unlike most universities, there is a team of friendly staff that mothers, cooks and serves decent food. There’s even a charming lady who cleans bedrooms and places a four-leafed clover on the pillows of young men heading for war. And that’s the catch.

It’s jacket and tie at supper each night, except for the Piquet Officer, who wanders round camp afterwards in Mess Dress – forage cap, cane, and worsted red-and-blue jacket – checking the armouries are locked. The number of officers with double- and even triple-barrelled names means following conversations in the Mess can be impossible for outsiders:

‘DH, have you seen MMC?’

‘MMC? I think he’s with DJ. Where are you off to?’

‘To see KHC. Have you heard LG’s been posted to Australia?’

The fact they mostly went to the sort of schools that fascinate the press informs their behaviour in the Mess – they have the relaxed ease and immaculate manners that system can breed. More important is that most hold degrees from Russell Group universities. Many have deep family connections to Scotland but all the Sandhurst entry officers have English public school accents. All, though, have the wit to realise that being aggressively posh just isn’t clever or cool today. Many are the sons and grandsons of Scots Guards officers. Some are the sons and grandsons of Scots Guards generals. A few may go on to be generals. Whatever their background, it stops on the walk to work in the morning. Accents and attitudes aren’t hidden but soldiers won’t abide a snob, especially an incompetent one. A bad relationship with ‘the boys’ kills a career in Battalion stone dead.

Lieutenant Jimmy Murly-Gotto was like the player in the card game ‘Hearts’ who ‘shoots the moon’ and picks up every card going. He’d followed the Eton, Oxford, Guards trajectory beloved of 20th-century high-flyers. This was combined with attractively vulpine features and skilled athleticism. I have met many who hold just one of these assets and are stained with arrogance. Murly-Gotto, 25 and from Dorset, was not. He would lead 1 Platoon to Afghanistan.