Flanked by deep green orchards on one side and by a gently curving hill on another, the British patrol base looks innocuous enough at first sight — its thick, mud-brick walls much like any traditional building on the outskirts of the troubled town of Sangin. Yet inside it, behind sand-bagged guard posts and sheltering from the fierce sun beneath mud and straw roofs, live a few dozen men of Recce Troop, 40 Commando, Royal Marines. For the past three months, their entire existence has been confined to this dusty half-acre compound and the few hundred yards beyond it where heavily-armed patrols can venture with a reasonable prospect of making a safe return.
Their mission is to help secure a stretch of Route 611, the key artery that links Sangin to Gereshk, Helmand’s economic hub — their base is one of many originally Afghan-built British forts around this fractious town to ensure that the road is free of limb-taking Taliban bombs.
Outside the base, hidden explosives may be planted anywhere, while sharpshooters hide in the trees and orchards to the west, or aim their rifles through slim “murder holes”, chiselled slits in the walls of neighbouring compounds that overlook the patrol base.
The terrifying reality for the men is that, of those who first arrived there three months ago, one is now a triple amputee, another was evacuated with three gunshot wounds, a third has been lacerated by a teenage suicide bomber, and a fourth, lucky man survived being shot by a sniper.
“Austere” is the official military term for their desperately uncomfortable life in this corner of Afghanistan which earns those serving there a few extra pounds a day. Yet the constant risk of death and mutilation helps bind the troops together.
Inside the base, despite the ever-present threat of a grenade being lobbed over the wall, there are unexpected and sometimes incongruous sights: the marine sunbathing on a camp bed while his comrade sits cleaning a gun; the makeshift gym, where marines lift weights made of iron bars and stone-filled ammunition boxes; the young man in shorts and pink Crocs, grinning with pleasure as he makes his weekly 30-minute satellite telephone call home.
“I’m sweating through my eyeballs,” says Marine Tim Jones as he pounds the dusty courtyard before unleashing a series of boxing punches into the pads held by a comrade.
“It’s pretty relaxed here, to be honest — apart from the obvious. Everyone is on first-name terms, we all know each other inside out and because everyone in Recce Troop is that much older, there are no real dramas; we all pull together.”
The daily routine begins around 6.30 am, an hour or more after the sun rises over the ridge they have named Cemetery Hill, as those not on guard duty drift into the kitchen area known, in naval tradition, as the galley. Breakfast might be muesli with sterilised UHT milk, or a boil-in-the-bag ration of sausage, beans, bacon and scrambled egg.
The marine will patrol for up to four hours at least once each day, and must prepare for this by checking weapons, attending a briefing and then putting on their hot and heavy body armour that can weigh 100lbs.
Outside, they can proceed only painfully slowly: it takes 15 minutes to cover just 100 yards as they check for hidden explosives and guard against ambush, tense at all times against the danger of a sniper.
In the distance, both to the north and south, you can make out the sandbagged guard posts and flags of bigger British and Afghan bases, but for the troops of this particular Patrol Base in Sangin they might be 100 miles away. The white pennants of the Taliban flutter contemptuously nearby, almost certainly booby-trapped.
It is a relief finally to return through the corrugated iron gates of the compound, throw off helmets and armour and attempt to cool off from the searing heat — which could prove overwhelming were it not for the miracle of icy cold water, hand-pumped from a well driven 160 feet into the ground. Sinking their burning heads into buckets of chilled water or hosing each other down if there is water to spare is the closest to bliss that these marines can get.
Life inside is a strange combination of liberation — from the fear outside — and incarceration. The gym is the fulcrum of life on the base: perhaps, as in a jail, enabling the men to release the stress, aggravation and anger that can build during days when, within the four walls of the compound, the war can feel futile.
Outside in the compound, in the relative cool of morning or evening, men in shorts train by running in an absurdly small circuit within the walls, where a lap takes barely a minute to complete.
© The Daily Telegraph
