Dirt kicks up around us, bark splinters, leaves get hit and fall lazily onto us. So this is what it is like to be under a withering hail of bullets, I think to myself. We are lying flat on the ground. An Afghan soldier several metres away from me has thrown away his weapon, and is lying like a starfish, not even wanting to lift his head.
A bullet hits a patch of earth to my right and sends up a puff of dust. Sinister cracks and snaps have become our world. It is absolutely terrifying. A British soldier to my left swears loudly as a bullet whizzes just above his head. Despite the situation, we laugh. It’s unreal. BOOM! A rocket-propelled grenade is fired, but thankfully misses. A message comes over the radio, two words that nobody in any army ever wants to hear. Man down.
‘Get up and run’
Somebody — we aren’t sure who — in one of the lead sections has been hit. He is in a critical condition, and will die if he is not rescued. We are the reserve section, the casualty evacuation section. We have to move. The platoon commander tells us that we have to go. There are blank looks of fear from both Afghan and British soldiers. We have just been hugging the ground, praying for our lives, and now we have to get up and run through the bullet-infested air. I am shaking, but I resolve not to be the one who refuses to move — I am a cameraman, and for me to delay the efforts to save a wounded man would be unforgivable. Lord, I pray in my head, I ask that you watch over me now and, if I am to die, please can it be as painless as possible.
