Lt Rupert's first involvement was "Contact – wait one"
The Fire Team 1, on the extreme left, was still not in position to provide a base of fire for the assault team so hopped over the mud baked bricks of the walled field. In their haste no-one had taken a deco to ensure that the area was free from potential hazards. A failed throw on a D10 revealed not goats, not dogs but a number of very agitated Taliban and a fierce hand to hand melee quickly developed.
Lots of Talib started to appear both in the target compound and in the other vine drying building putting up lots of small arms fire that stalled the paras planned assault.
Fire team 2 were ordered to counter the Talib moving from the Vine drying building to out flank the assault while the HQ section and Fire team 3 concentrated their firepower on the target compound. Cpl Target, the lead sniper, was managing to keep the black turbaned heads down but there was a growing amount of fire coming from the compound.
The FAC made contact with the Dutch F16.
Fire team 2 stopped the enemy outflanking manoeuvre but had to retreat into the ditch under the growing weight of the fire coming from the Vine drying building. The fighting in the walled field was still going on with and Lt Sheppard had no visual on the situation.
Just as the fire slackened from the target compound and Lt Sheppard quickly briefed Fire team 3 to ready itself for the assault the Fire team 2 Leader came on the net "T2 and T3 casualties, Boss" after dealing with all the Taliban in the walled field.
Sheppard immediately redirected Fire team 3 to help extract and evacuate the casualties while the HQ team and Fire team 1 put down as much fire as possible.
Fire team 3 very rigged up a stretcher for the T2 while the FAC requested the F16 do a low fly over to cover the evacuation.
When everyone was in ready and after a count of 1,2,3 – smoke was popped and everyone retired from the field while the Taliban admired the underside of a Dutch F16 travelling at 600mph from 50ft.
After successfully disengaging from contact it became clear that the T2 – Pte Pagett – had just suffered a nasty cut from a very thorny bush and was unceremoniously dumped out of the stretcher. Sgt Hard was not impressed.
Lt Sheppard turned to Lt Rupert and smiling said "Another day in paradise"
Lt Rupert had a lot to think about on the trek back to base.
Thanks for looking.
Phil FB @tinnedfruit