Royal Marines relax by boxing at a forward patrol base on the outskirts of the Afghan town 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, forging friendships and loyalties through experiences which they will never forget.
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." As he finishes the boxing work-out, he chats to another marine and arranges a darts match for 7pm the following day, the only time they both have a break between guard duty and patrolling.
The daily routine begins around 6.30am, 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.
"It's a joke," says one marine over the clatter of dominoes in a nearby room. "Everyone just wants to get out with their legs intact. The population hates us around here." In another room, a game of darts is under way. Strangely, as if not satisfied with the real life combat, many of the troops seem to enjoy gritty war films, perhaps as a fix for the off days when there's no "contact" with the Taliban.
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.
Being so far from the rear, where formality rules, all of those inside the patrol base are on first-name terms, whatever their rank, and any of them may take a turn at the preparing and cooking of food – though if someone is regarded as a good cook, like Corporal Jim White when The Sunday Telegraph visited, they are likely to take turns more often than others.
There is little in the way of fresh food, and an occasional box of apples delivered from a larger base is regarded as a luxury. Lunch and dinner might be pasta with tuna and sweetcorn, spaghetti, or rice with tinned tomatoes.
Once in a while, a few cases of soft drinks might arrive – though it is hard, with just one refrigerator on the base, to get these cold enough to be truly refreshing.
"When the fridge breaks we are sometimes drinking water as hot as tea," says Dutchy, a wiry marine. "The scran [food] can be pretty repetitive and you do get fed up with some of the rations, but they are a vast improvement on what we had before." Recently, Dutchy purchased two egg-laying hens that enable the men to enjoy an occasional omelette – though one vanished in the night, apparently taken by a jackal.
Guard duty, behind sandbags on the four corners of the base, is a regular two-hour chore for the marines – vital if the compound is to be kept safe.
Tiredness can be a problem that they have to combat, for sleep is difficult to achieve with much satisfaction. A handful of occasions when a grenade was tossed into the base by an unseen Taliban fighter outside have put paid to the luxury of sleeping outside under the stars, where a cooling wind would ripple through the mosquito net.
Instead, the troops have been forced back inside the rooms of the compound – and whereas the thick walls soak up the worst of the daytime heat, at night, they release it again, making it too hot for sleep to come easily. Few manage more than three or four hours, so by day they will often snatch an hour when the opportunity comes.
Even urinating can be hazardous – principally because the plastic piping hammered at an angle into the ground that is gracefully nicknamed a "Desert Rose" is close to the spot where grenades have occasionally landed.
Thankfully, there are no longer stinking lavatory pits, but instead a system of "wag bags" in which waste is sealed with a zip lock before being burned.
There is some recompense for the conditions: an extra £2.50 a day for unpleasant living allowance, £3 for wearing body armour for more than four hours or the jackpot of the up to £11-a-day "unpleasant working allowance" for dealing with human waste or worse.
At around 7pm, as the sun begins to go down, the marines eat dinner, their most communal meal of the day, before holding a regular 8pm round-up of the day's events on and around the base. There is little news from outside unless someone has made a call home.
Diesel generators provide some power, but white lights are forbidden at night and by 10pm many are turning in – a few perhaps watching a film on their laptops, taken from the base's small selection of DVDs.
But some are assigned to guard duty or night patrol. Venturing out for a "lurk" at night is a nerve-racking business, but necessary if the marines are to catch the Taliban bombers who use darkness to lay their deadly explosive devices. Lying on the roof deep into the night hours, half lit by moonlight, I was with marines waiting for the shifting shadow that would reveal a Taliban bomb planter. For the third night in a row, he did not appear, but to give up on trying to catch him would be tantamount to admitting defeat.
"We will catch them one of these days," says the marine corporal.
"Bastards." He grips his weapon as he speaks, and it's clear that from him there would be no mercy if a bomber strayed into his sights. Or could there be? Could he pull the trigger on a 10-year-old child that the insurgents use to plant one in five IEDs? It's a question you don't ask.
It is impossible to spend time with such men without being impressed by their courage, their fortitude and their discipline. By the end of their tour in Sangin, they will have endured six months in danger and be desperate for some of the ingredients of normal life – a full night's sleep, an evening of live television, the company of family, wives or girlfriends, or just a cold beer.
They now know that they will be the last British troops to serve in Sangin before the American military takes their place, but they wish that nobody had to.
Ross Wilson, the base's avuncular 38-year-old colour sergeant, who demonstrably holds the seams of the team together, says: "Sometimes, I feel like shouting at the local nationals that their lives would be so much better if they only got off the fence and picked a side.
"Then we could all get on with it, and get away."
Photo: JANE MINGAY
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"Sometimes, I feel like shouting at the local nationals that their lives would be so much better if they only got off the fence and picked a side. Then we could all get on with it, and get away." He is right of course. Unfortunately for our soldiers, the Afghanis have their own way of resolving their disputes and would never side permanently or reliably with outsiders who would be leaving anyway. This has always been their way. Sadly if they are saddled Taliban rule again, it is very much their own mess to clear up.
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