Trapped and alone in no man’s land, I said to myself: Make sure you die like a man
A Taliban ambush, bullets ripping past his head – and just one way out. A commando officer’s gripping tale of survival
IT’S the summer of 2010 in Afghanistan, and British soldiers are fighting bloody battles with the Taliban in Helmand. Captain Johnny Mercer of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, is on his third tour in four years, his job to call in artillery or air strikes on enemy positions. Returning to base with a patrol of 20 men from 3rd Royal Horse Artillery, they are ambushed and in the chaos he finds himself stranded in an open field, a sitting target for two Taliban positions. The year has already seen an appalling British death toll, and Mercer can only lie in the dirt, convinced he is about to be next…
ICOULD not move. I’d be dead if I had just got up and bolted. The rounds were now coming in single shots from two enemy positions, trying to pick me off. They were kicking up the dirt around me. I hoped death would be painless but I suspected it wouldn’t be. I’ve never been so scared, before or since.
People talk about what comes into your mind when you are about to die. Some mention poignant things like their mother, or their children, some think of regrets. Well, I may be a bit too simple, but I just wondered how much it was going to hurt.
I thought of British troops who had died so bravely at Normandy. I don’t know why I always thought of them. I remember as a boy learning about the war, struggling to understand the commitment required to lay down your life on the altar of your country’s freedom. I thought most of them probably died like this. Not in some glorious charge; not with others watching them sacrifice all they have for their freedom. Just s*** scared. On their own.
I thought to myself, Make sure you die like a man. Don’t embarrass yourself…
I was convinced I would die. I was lying face down in the dirt. I had tried to get up a couple of times, but found myself instinctively ducking down again as rounds ripped past my head.
It took almost all my courage to change magazines and get up on one knee and put some rounds into the enemy position, but this seemed to anger the enemy and their fire increased.
The rounds were ‘bracketing’ me – some landing to the left and some to the right. The Taliban usually had very poor or no sights on their weapons, but if they bracketed the target, they could correct their fire until they hit it. It was clear that sooner or later one of these rounds was going to find me.
I was totally fixed in position, on my own, being used as target practice by the enemy. The only thing that would definitely stop a round was my helmet.
I changed my body position to ensure that my helmet was facing the enemy, and got as low as I could between two ploughed furrows.
We had been conducting a standard doubled-up patrol (about 20 blokes) into an area that had previously been heavily occupied by the Taliban, but was now much quieter after recent weeks of fighting. As we headed out that morning I realised it was the August bank holiday weekend back home.
I thought of The Barbican in Plymouth, which would be a scene of carnage by the end of the day.
We had just begun our extraction back west towards our patrol base (PB) when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) flew straight into a group of Afghan soldiers at the rear of our patrol, and was followed up with bursts of automatic weapon fire into all of us.
I was mid-way across a 500-metrewide field, ploughed and ready for planting. I followed the correct drills as I swivelled to my left in the direction of the lone firing point to the south, and dropped to one knee to start engaging the enemy with my weapon.
After a moment, I realised I couldn’t hear anyone else returning fire, and I looked around me. For reasons I could not fathom then or since, no one else returned fire. The troops in front of me had forgotten all their training and legged it to a ditch about 300 metres ahead. Simultaneously, the troops behind me had run 300 metres in the other direction to a ditch we had passed before entering the field.
I was alone in the middle of a field, now the sole target of enemy automatic weapon fire. As I threw myself to the ground, I could hear that the group behind me were dealing with a Category A injury (immediate transfer to Camp Bastion) to an Afghan soldier; the others seemed to be walking wounded.
The rate of fire from the enemy increased substantially – either because they knew we had taken a casualty, or they could see me alone in the field, I could not tell which. The rounds were getting closer. Finally I spotted some action in the fire team to my front. A young lad had seen me, and he was frantically calling his section 2IC (second-in-command).
The section 2IC just stared at me, mouth agape. It then clicked that the only person who was going to get me out of this was myself; no one was going to do it for me. The guys’ immediate reaction to leaving someone behind was to panic; the patrol commander was busy sorting out the Cat A casualty. I had the radio on my back and the skills to bring down some heavy fire on to the enemy position.
I resolved to blast my way out of this, or at least try.
I pulled my map out of my trouser pocket. I had a good look at where I was and where the gun battery was located. I was so nervous my fingers were damp with sweat. The guns had performed so well for me on this tour. I could bring them to bear relatively quickly and land a couple of rounds of high explosive in the field to my front; that should give the enemy a shock and enable me to run.
I did not want to overplay my situation – was I really cut off? I would hate to cause a fuss for nothing. But I did not want to die.
I calmed myself down and put a call out to the controlling joint fires station.
‘Hello, any call sign, any call sign, this is Witchcraft four-three. Requesting immediate emergency CAS [close air support]. Man isolated on his own in contact.’
A thick American drawl came over the net.
‘Hello, Witchcraft four-three, this is Dealer one-four. I am a Cobra gunship. I am transiting now to you, confirm location of man left behind.’
I gave the pilot a brief, including my own grid position, trying desperately not to sound as if I was as scared as I was. I knew that this was being listened to in head-
I knew that sooner or later, one of their rounds would hit me I realised that, back home, it was August bank holiday
quarters, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself. ‘Roger. Engaging now.’ The sound was deafening. All hell broke loose as the gunship’s Gatling vomited ammo right over my head. The rounds were not going into the target (later I found out there were families in the compounds the Taliban were using as firing points), but were tearing up the ground no more than 80 metres to my south. It was now or never. I got up and ran for the ditch in front of me, where a collection of soldiers was now simultaneously engaging the enemy positions with machine guns. It was the noisiest battlefield I had ever heard.
I’ve never been very quick on my feet, and this was no exception. It was only 300 metres or so, but it felt like a bloody long way. I didn’t feel out of breath but my legs were very heavy indeed and the ground was thick. As I ran I braced for the pain of a bullet ripping through me. I tried not to think about it, but it was tough.
With the terrain and the weight of the kit, it took me about a minute to cover the distance.
I dived into the ditch on my a ***, behind the machine gunner.
‘F***ing hell, boss, that was like something out of a film,’ said a soldier I didn’t recognise.
‘Let’s get the f*** out of here, lads,’ I said.
The Afghan soldier who had been hit in the initial contact was deteriorating fast. The company commander wanted to get a helicopter into the field behind us. I advised him that the medical evacuation and response team (MERT) may well come under contact again. I did not think the enemy position had actually been hit.
The MERT Chinook – accompanied as always by a UK Apache helicopter – landed OK, but almost as soon as its wheels were down a massive volley of shots rang out.
Someone fired off an RPG from right next to me. I could not hear a thing.
In the chaos, I looked back over my shoulder at the Chinook. The boys were running a man on a stretcher out to it. We could not lose the Chinook.
The MERT pilot was ready to lift. He called for clearance on the radio. I was pressing it so hard to my ear that it must have looked as if I was trying to insert it.
‘Stand by to lift. Await my call,’ I shouted. I yelled over at the company commander for an increased rate of fire. The patrol responded, as did the Afghan army unit. I could hear the Apache engaging as well. These enemy were giving it a good go. They wanted to down the Chinook.
I paused. The noise was insane – I could tell by the vibrations around my head more than anything, since the RPG had knocked out my hearing. The Apache was continuously firing above me. The Chinook’s rotors were turning as it waited on the deck some 50 metres behind me. The entire patrol was engaging
into the enemy positions from the berm line I was crouched behind.
‘MERT, you are cleared to lift. Cleared to lift!’ I shouted. In that one moment, I realised why I loved the Army so much. The teamwork was extraordinary. I distinctly remember thinking how brave those pilots were, sitting there with just a Perspex screen for protection, waiting for the command to lift. The lads all had their heads above the berm as they engaged the enemy position, determined to protect the helicopter. The pilot of the Apache gunship was coolly placing himself in harm’s way to protect the MERT. Discipline; control; courage; professionalism; teamwork; sacrifice. The British Armed Forces codified in one moment of battle.
‘Roger. Lifting now,’ said someone very calmly into the radio. The weight of fire increased. The Chinook raised and flared backwards. The noise remained intense. He continued to lift and eventually he was nose down, chugging away from the scene and back to Bastion. As the noise from the helicopter faded, so the enemy fire seemed to dwindle and stop.
By now we were only about two kilometres from PB Khaamar, and we started moving back in that direction, at a quicker pace now that the casualty was gone. I was last man in.
After surviving a heavy contact, the rest of the patrol had an overwhelming feeling of having got away with something, and the boys were understandably quite boisterous. I headed back to the tent, unable to speak. I felt the blood run to my head.
I pulled out my cigarettes. They were soaked with sweat and squashed. I tried to light one, but the sweat from my thumb had dampened the flint on the lighter. I couldn’t get a flame out.
I put my head in my hands and shut my eyes, struggling to get a grip. I couldn’t stop shaking. The stress of co-ordinating the joint fires as a solo effort; the experience of being left behind on my own; the repeated stamping on the monkey of fear in my head and keeping it under control – I think I was beginning to max out with what I could cope with. I could literally feel my head reaching saturation point.
Corporal Shaun Barrowcliff, known as Baz, a junior NCO from the Queen’s Royal Lancers, came in and lit my cigarette. My hand was shaking more than usual; I couldn’t get the butt into my mouth. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the bloody field on my own.
I chain-smoked three or four cigarettes and gently forced my mind to settle down.
I had, by this point, come close to being killed a few times, and my coping mechanism was very simple. The more I thought about it, the worse it got. So I forced myself to think about other things. If I was struggling to get out of the cycle of thoughts about dying, I would get up and do something else – physically move my body, go for a run. Eventually I settled down.
Later, the company sergeant major appeared at our tent door. ‘One of my blokes has just told me that we left you behind today. Were you ever going to say anything to me?’
‘I didn’t want to say anything – it was a genuine f***-up in the fog of combat, and I didn’t want to make a fuss.’
‘OK. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just felt I should come over and apologise. You did seriously f***ing well today. Should never have happened.’
‘No dramas. Move on,’ I said.
I was the senior, most experienced and – given my control of joint fires – the most capable soldier on the ground in this area of operations. If it was going to happen to anyone, it may as well have been me.
And so much of this f***ing war was luck.
A commander will earn his rank in the heavy moments – the moment when someone gets shot, the weapon jams, the enemy is 20 metres away, and the radio isn’t working.
The truth is, it is f***ing scary – we’re all f***ing scared. Seeing someone lose half their body and scream all the way on to the helicopter is traumatic. Seeing someone shot dead is traumatic.
In those moments you just want to run on to the helicopter, go home and be done with it. That, I feel, is when you earn your rank. It’s just a piece of embroidery other- wise. Leadership isn’t all about riding your horse at the head of the parade.
There are some f***ing hard, bloodsoaked, dust-encased, shaking-with-fear, s***-yourself yards you have to find it in yourself to make – you as an individual, not encouraged by others. But everyone has their limit and these guys were being pushed to it and beyond.