Read Online Combat Camera by Christian Hill - Free Book Online Page B

bastard,” he said.
    He didn’t elaborate, but I couldn’t help thinking that I’d be pretty miserable too, living in a place like this.
    We drove back to base, returning in time for an orders group with the squadron commander, Major Rupert Lewis. He was planning a short operation for the weekend, clearing through a couple of local compounds. All his officers gathered in the briefing room inside the base’s headquarters, a small concrete building that faced the squadron’s living area. I stood at the back while Russ filmed a few generic shots of Major Lewis and his men.
    “We’ve seen a fair amount of insurgent activity in this area in the last few months,” he said, pointing at a highlighted section on the map behind him. “So we can expect it to be a bit spicy.”
    I made a mental note to add “spicy” to my list of euphemisms for combat. So far on this tour I’d heard “kinetic”, “interesting”, “crunchy” and “lairy”.
    Major Lewis continued with the rest of his orders, then asked if there were any questions. One of the junior officers raised his hand.
    “What should we do about taking our vehicles through fields and destroying crops?”
    It was a sensible enough question. The compounds were in the middle of a series of fields. It was far safer to plough your Jackal through some unfortunate farmer’s crop than risk taking the obvious tracks.
    “I would rather you drove through a field of wheat,” said Major Lewis, “than a field of poppy.”
    There were puzzled looks all round, so Major Lewis explained his thinking.
    “If we destroy wheat, we’re allowed to compensate the farmer for lost earnings. But if we destroy poppy – in line with GLE – we’re not permitted to give him anything. Which means he’ll get it in the neck – quite literally – from the Taliban.”
    This was the counter-insurgency mindset. Keep the locals happy, if you want to beat the Taliban. It flew in the face of Hamid Karzai’s policy on drugs, but apparently we could live with that. It was all part of the ISAF balancing act, trying to keep all the plates spinning at once.
    The following day was a Friday, the ANA’s day off. The squadron adjusted its routine accordingly, staying on the base to work on vehicle repairs. It gave me a chance to pin down some of the more senior soldiers who’d served alongside Prince William. Army PR in Whitehall had requested interviews with anyone from D Squadron who could reminisce about the royal troop commander.
    I managed to locate four NCOs who’d known him. Each took his turn in front of the camera, recalling time spent with the prince in his cavalry heyday.
    “He was a good bloke,” said his former driver – a lanky, fair-haired corporal. “He made the brews, just like anybody else.”
    There were no earth-shattering insights, just variations on the theme of “he was one of us”. It was fluff, essentially. I even asked each of them to record a wedding-day message.
    “Have a great day, hope it all goes well,” said the corporal. “You’re now well and truly under the thumb.”
    Russ, Ali and I weren’t due to return to Bastion until the following morning, so with the Prince William interviews done, we still had plenty of time to kill. Whenever we were staying in bases like this, we’d sniff around for stories. Ali had already taken pictures of a medic from Port Talbot called Aled, who gave the ANA lessons in first aid. She said he was a good talker, and worth interviewing. Hometown stories about army medics helping the ANA were always an easy sell to local radio stations back in the UK, so I tracked him down.
    He looked exhausted when I first saw him, collapsed in one of the armchairs. “I’ve had one day off in the last six months,” he told me in his soft Welsh accent.
    “Don’t worry, this will only take a moment.”
    I sat in the chair next to him, holding up my pocket-sized MicroTrack recorder, the little stereo T-mic turned towards his gaunt