Terrified and tearful in Helmand, in a conflict that grows more painful each day
Tuesday, 26 June 2007
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The colour sergeant took his men back out on patrol yesterday, but one man was missing. Drummer Tom Wright, 26, it was revealed, had been killed in an explosion in Helmand Province, taking the number of British personnel killed in Afghanistan over the past six years to 61.
He was killed when his armoured Land Rover was caught in a blast the previous day. When asked how he was coping with the loss of the popular young soldier, the colour sergeant's hard image faltered for a split second. "Broken man," he said, and he spoke for all the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters.
Some of the men were at school together. Little wonder, that the loss of Drummer Wright, from Ripley, Derbyshire, was so devastating. Four other soldiers were injured - two seriously.
Just over a fortnight ago, the regiment lost L/Cpl Paul Sandford in battle. But the others had to return to duty yesterday, because these are men in the front line of an increasingly chilling conflict that is bringing death to soldiers, militants and civilians.
"I am terrified. My heart is beating so fast," L/Cpl Les Barker, 24, told me. "I was always in the wagon behind Tom and would see him wave. And now he is not there."
Silently, laden with body armour and helmets, soldiers from the 1st Battalion, The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters also struggled into their Land Rovers, their heads poking out, knowing full well it was the position "Wrighty" had been in when his vehicle had been hit.
"We were all nervous," Cpl Ethan Beardsley, 24, said later. "We are such a tight-knit team. As soon as you take them out of the team, you feel weak."
L/Cpl Chris Dono, 22, added: "I didn't want to leave camp. It was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life."
Drummer Tom Wright had been an extraordinary young man in the truest sense of the word. In an army that strictly dictates military haircuts, he had managed to hide a mohican for months under his beret. In his home town, he had stunned the locals by turning up to the local fair in a skeleton suit.
He was a man, who in the words of his closest friends, "never kept himself to himself" and he had kept them all entertained endlessly. "He was unique. You would have to look far and wide to find someone like that," Cpl Beardsley said.
When it looked like their home leave was about to be cancelled recently, it was "Wrighty" who had kept everyone buoyant. He was a walking slice of morale. However, yesterday, when they needed him most, he was gone. Just 24 hours earlier L/Cpl Barker had been chatting to the corporal about how much he missed his pregnant "Mrs" as they prepared for the patrol.
The patrol had been six kilometres south of Helmand's capital, Lashkar Gah, escorting a military team surveying the site for a new road project linking Afghan villages, when the explosion rocked the group. "There was this tremendous bang and dust. I could just see the wheels pointing up," said L/Cpl Barker.
In the mayhem of the immediate aftermath, Medic Cpl Kellie Long, 29, battled to treat all five of the wounded soldiers with the help of the other soldiers, but Drummer Wright never recovered consciousness. Cpl Beardsley watched as a soldier he had long learnt to respect lay terribly wounded.
"He is such a strong person that I am used to looking up to and there he was on the floor so frail and in such pain," he said, adding: "But he didn't want any pain relief, he just wanted a fag. I watched him being carried off on a stretcher with a fag in hand. In the middle of all the chaos, this normalcy."
He added: "It was such a hard thing sitting in between the two [most seriously injured] but they were both talking to me and cracking jokes. I felt this tremendous sense that we hadn't done enough and a great feeling of self blame."
As they fought to save their friends, the patrol suddenly noticed two motorbikes speeding towards them. They shouted, fired coloured flares and aimed warning shots, before shooting and killing one of the men and wounding the other.
Despite local claims that the men were civilians, the British military was adamant last night that they had been militants.
The incidents came at a time when suicide bombings in the region are rocketing. In all, attacks and military operations have killed nearly 2,700 people across Afghanistan this year.
Drummer Wright's body was taken back to camp and, at sundown on the day he died, 15 of his closest friends stood together and toasted him, unashamedly sobbing at their loss.
Pte Iain Melrose had to break the news to his sister, Claire, 25, who was Drummer Wright's girlfriend. "She asked if he felt any pain. I said, 'no, he was unconscious'." Yet as each day passes in Afghanistan, this conflict becomes more painful for all those involved in it.
