Michael's Dispatches
Night Into Day
- Details
- Published: Wednesday, 29 July 2009 03:52
Soldiers not on guard were trying to sleep because good infantry soldiers never miss a chance to fill canteens or sleep, and they already had filled canteens. At 0835 there was a brisk salvo of something bigger than RPGs, sounded like 105mm howitzer. Whoever had fired went straight to FFE (Fire For Effect) and skipped any adjustment, indicating the fire came from a fixed base onto a pre-registered target. At 0837 another salvo popped off and though I was half-asleep, it sounded like about 35 rounds, but I lost count and it might have been mortars. A radio call said our guys were trying to cut off some Taliban and trying to push them into a different area that favored our side, so that they could be hit by ambush or air strike.
Off and on we could hear “Green Eyes,” a UAV, buzzing like a lawnmower overhead. I got up and at 0842 the guard on the roof again spotted “two geezers” moving about 50 meters from us. The fields were completely dead. No farmers, nobody. By 0900 it was starting to get warm and bright so I switched the clear Oakley lens to the amber. It’s important to wear ballistic eyewear because eyes are more expensive than Oakleys. Plus it will be harder to write if my eyes get blown out. The British NCOs are strict that the young soldiers wear the glasses and gloves. There continued sporadic fights from various directions, but we were uninvolved, though a bullet zinnnged overhead (sounded like it came from many hundreds of meters away). At 0921 a proper firefight broke out and the radioman relayed saying ANA was in a big fight, which was doggone evident. Other than that, I didn’t realize it was ANA; some shooters seemed to be controlling fire and some weren’t. There were some explosions and the firefight seemed to subside after a mere three minutes.
By 0925 all of us are sweating in the shade. My water inventory: 2.5 liters gone, 6 liters to go. The soldiers who are awake are in good spirits, as if this is just a picnic that they do every day. I try to go back to sleep as the firefight resumes at 0930. I look around the sad compound and realize that even birds make better homes. There is a large explosion and I have no idea what it is, and at 0935 more explosions, and between 0936 and 0937 more explosions—maybe mortars—while I try to sleep, and by 1015 it’s quiet but the cloudless day is growing hot. At 1104 an Apache comes overhead then flies away. The soldiers on the roof must be cooking, but not nary a word of complaint from anyone about anything.
The animals needed to be fed and watered, but what were we to do? The Afghan man of the compound sent his three children to another compound, where another British section waited in ambush and where Grieves waited to be extracted with his messed-up ankle. The kids, a boy and two girls, were trying to say something to Captain Nick White, who pulled out his notepad and a child drew the picture above. Captains Nick White and Aaron West realized that the kids wanted to feed the cows, and told the kids it was okay to come back to our compound. The kids gave the sketch to Diggs who let the kids in.
