How men became legends: The extraordinary story of British soldiers who endured a living nightmare trapped for hours in an Afghan minefield

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When I got home from tours of duty in Afghanistan and Lebanon in the summer of 2006 I thought my days in the desert were over.

At last I could marry my fiancee Dawn, the mother of my little boy. That was on a Saturday. We began our honeymoon on the Sunday. I got a phone call on the Wednesday and by Friday I was back in Afghanistan.

I’d been deployed to Kajaki, a village in the north of Helmand Province, which in all honesty I regarded as a bit of a resting post. My sergeant major was trying to help me out, knowing I’d worked my arse off on previous tours. So he thought he’d send me down to Kajaki for a bit of R&R, because there wasn’t much happening there.

The base was on top of a hill, looking down on the Taliban so we had a good overview. I used to get up every morning and go with a couple of the boys down to the dam, where we’d wash a bit of doby [laundry], have a bit of a swim.

Lance Corporal Paul ‘Tug’ Hartley served with 23 Air Assault Medical Squadron in Afghanistan

But there was something inside me that told me not to go that morning, September 6.

It was good I didn’t, because at around 11 o’clock Corporal Mark Wright came running in, saying a landmine had been detonated on the far side of the neighbouring hill.

I remember grabbing my T-shirt, webbing, medical kit and rifle.

It was about a kilometre and a half down our mountain, up the next hill and down the other side. Going up that hill was probably the most physical and demanding thing I’ve ever done.

I did fall behind the rest of the pack. They moved like machines, knowing that one of their blokes was injured, but my Bergen medical pack weighed about 70 pounds, and I was carrying rifle and webbing as well.

As we reached the site of the explosion, some of the guys had already set up cordons around the mines. I could immediately see Stu Hale, a sniper, had lost his leg and had damage to one of his fingers. Jarhead, one of the Paras, had done an excellent job with the tourniquets.

I believe he saved Stu Hale’s life. We went into the minefield to Stu and I administered morphine, re-attached the tourniquets and put some dressings on him.

The guys from 3 Para were amazing: they were all assisting me and did a real good job. Meanwhile, Mark Wright, Sgt Stu Pearson and Jarhead were making a plan.

I was trying to get a cannula into Stu’s arm and as I struggled to find a vein I remember looking around and seeing anti-personnel mines on the surface, some partially dug in.

As I composed myself, my good friend Alex Craig, another medic, came running down the hill to help. He had heard the first call on the radio and thought it was me who was injured. He had actually run through a minefield to assist us. 

Between the two of us, we got Stu bandaged up and stable, on oxygen; I’d even written up my report — it was stuffed down the front of my shorts — and we were literally just waiting for a helicopter with a winch to come and airlift us out to Camp Bastion Hospital.

Mark Wright served in the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment in Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan and took part in the rescue of a fellow para, who lost a leg in a minefield

Time went on and more people started to notice the other mines around us. Mark and I decided we had to move Stu to a safe location from where he could easily be winched out without the downdraft from the helicopter causing any further problems by setting off more mines.

Stu Pearson got a couple of guys to clear a safe path through the mines using bayonets and their own eyes. It took them a while in the blistering heat, but they plodded away, with no fear or emotion showing. The guys just got on with the vital job they had to do.

Eventually, a path was cleared and Stu Pearson walked back to make sure it was all OK. Some of us picked up the stretcher and carried it to the safe location.

Mark and I decided that, with four others, I would stay to load Stu Hale on to the winch and everyone else should pull out. A lot of the guys walked straight back across the safe marked path and Stu Pearson was the very last man to go across it.

He got about ten to 20 metres away from us, and then he just detonated on the path.

As he detonated, I remember looking and thinking: ‘I have just walked from there.’

Medic Alex Craig and Mark Wright jumped straight in to help. Alex told me to stay where I was and he would manage Stu Pearson. Again, it worked. We now had two guys who’d lost legs, but it wasn’t the first time we’d dealt with these kinds of things. It was OK. It was all right. Both guys were stable.

Time dragged on. I was shouting to Mark: ‘Where is this helicopter?’ We kept getting told, ten minutes, ten minutes. Ten minutes turned into 30 minutes and 30 minutes turned into hours, and the hours just went on and on.

In the film 'Kajaki: The True Story', Paul Hartley was played by Mark Stanley. He was wounded in the incident

Eventually, we could hear a helicopter in the distance, a Chinook. It flew in over the top of us and round the back of the hill then came in a second time, low.

It was 70 metres away from me when it started to touch down, landing on its back wheel and ramps.

The loader came to the door and started waving to us to come on. I stood up and gave him the finger. ‘Not a f***ing chance!’ Two of the boys had already got blown up — I wasn’t going to risk carrying the two casualties 70, 75 metres through a minefield for anybody. Over the deafening noise of the Chinook’s engines, we started using hand signals to warn him about the mines. But the loader didn’t understand and eventually the helicopter took off again.

It caused a total brown-out. I couldn’t see anything — eyes and mouth full of sand and dust. It turned into a scene from Star Wars, with people shielding themselves from the dust and suddenly the inevitable happened — mines started going off all around.

I remember lifting my head up, looking over to where Stu Pearson was — and seeing a blast go off around waist height. And then it all went quiet.

The dust settled and the helicopter disappeared. I looked at Alex, my fellow medic — the colour had gone out of his skin and he had small wounds across his chest. I looked at Mark — he had a severe injury to his torso and an injury to his face. I could see Stu Pearson had been hit again.

Then the shouting and screaming started. People were begging for help. I remember thinking: ‘It’s ten metres away. I can’t go across to them. It’s the day before my son’s first birthday.’

I looked down and saw my rifle. I bent down and felt the coldness — the part of the rifle between the trigger housing and the magazine housing, and for a split second I was going to execute Alex Craig, Mark Wright, Stu Pearson.

It was a split-second, but it seemed like an eternity to make the decision. Thank God I never did.

Stu Hale, the very first casualty of the day, had my medical pack under his leg. I remember grabbing it and thinking, ‘F*** it, I’ve got to do something.’

A young Fusilier, Andy Barlow, stepped on a mine, instantly losing a leg. He is depicted in the film 'Kajaki'

I threw it. It didn’t go bang, so I jumped on it and slid it out from underneath my feet.

I repeated this, trying to cross the minefield to get to where they were. I remember falling off it at one point and everyone panicking — nobody more than me.

If I had fallen backwards, I would have got hit by a mine. If I went forward, I would probably get hit, too, but I had to risk it for the boys. I pulled the pack out again and threw it. Nothing went bang, so I jumped on it. I was about a metre and half away.

Young Andy Barlow, a Fusilier kid, was in there trying to give first aid. He was in a state; he had never seen anything like it.

Someone threw a bottle of water to Andy and he caught it. Then he was thrown a second bottle, but he missed it and when he turned to pick it up, he stepped on a mine, instantly losing a leg. The blast lifted me up and dumped me on my arse.

Again it was a brown-out. I couldn’t see anything and I thought: ‘This is it, this is what it feels like to be dead. It’s not that bad. There’s no pain or anything, just silence. Not as bad as people make out.’

Then, all of a sudden, I had a burning pain in my chest and I sucked in a big breath and it hurt like f***. And I knew I was alive.

I was bleeding heavily from my left shoulder. My chest was killing me. At that point I accepted that I was going to die. And when you accept that, things get easier.

But if I was going to die, I was going to die doing the best I could for the other guys. I picked up my medical pack and simply walked the remainder of the way.

I went straight to Mark, who was hammered — he’d taken by far the most direct hits. I threw a tourniquet to Andy who, in spite of losing a leg, was still able to assist others. I told him how to apply a tourniquet to his badly injured leg.

I gave Stu more morphine and checked his tourniquet. I grabbed a bandage to try and dress the wound on Mark’s chest, but it was too small, so I took off my T-shirt and packed it into the wound.

His arm was barely hanging on, from just above the wrist the inside of his bicep and tricep had been blown away. His face was damaged, his teeth partially gone, burns down his throat.

I remember Andy screaming that the morphine wasn’t working, then Mark laughing and telling me I was going to get a VC for being crazy and crossing a minefield.

Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment drive a Jackal vehicle providing security along a convoy route in Kajaki

Time dragged on. I kept shouting: ‘Where’s this helicopter?’

Ten minutes, they said. Ten minutes never came.

It seemed like a lifetime, with the pain in my chest and the blood I was losing from my arm and my shoulder. I kept wanting to pass out but the boys kept shouting, stimulating me to keep me awake.

Mark said some inspirational things. You wouldn’t believe someone with injuries that severe could come up with it. But he did, to keep everyone else stimulated and awake.

Dave Prosser, another young lad, spoke to me — he’d caught a little bit of shrapnel on the chest earlier on. He went on about it being his birthday, so I got the boys to sing ‘Happy Birthday’, for me to check people’s levels of consciousness.

And then Mark was talking about getting married to Gillian, so we talked about what it would cost, would she still recognise him, things like that.

Stu Pearson was shouting that he wanted more morphine. But I’d run out of everything.

Mark started to complain he was thirsty, but I’d got nothing. The water that had been dropped in had been blown up with Andy. I remember looking down and seeing an old bag of saline.

It’s not the best thing to drink, but I moistened his lips, got rid of some of the sand and rubbish inside his mouth.

I cut the corner off and as I poured it into his mouth, I watched it come out the side of his neck.

He saw my reaction and I think he knew. But he didn’t give in. He kept cracking on with his jokes, making inspirational comments, keeping everybody motivated.

Eventually we were told there was a helicopter coming in ten minutes again. Within two minutes we could hear the rotor blades of a Black Hawk. There were two of them; again they flew past and around the hill.

I was shouting to the guys who were in communication with them, telling them to look for the fat bloke in the blue shorts, meaning me.

The film showed how soldiers tended to their wounded comrades in the minefield

I started signalling to them which casualties needed to go first.

The Black Hawk came in, and one of the Para rescue men fast-roped down with a six-foot stretcher. Everyone was shouting at him: ‘It’s a minefield, it’s a minefield!’

Mark grabbed my hand, saying to me: ‘If I die, please tell Mum, Dad and Gillian that I love them.

‘Tell my uncle, who is Regiment Sergeant Major in Special Air Service; tell them I died being a good soldier, and a good paratrooper.’

He made me promise. I told him not to be silly, I was going to see him again and he made me promise him I would come and see him back at Camp Bastion.

As they winched him up, I remember our hands separating and as he got up into the air, I remember being rained on with his blood.

Everyone else got taken out of the minefield, I was the last one there. I was thinking: ‘When they lift me up, I’m going to be on a mine and I’m going to bring this helicopter down with me’, but at least I knew I’d done my best.

I remember getting into the back of the Black Hawk. We just put our arms around each other and no one spoke, no one said a word.

I remember a tear rolling down my cheek, tears rolling down the other boys’ cheeks. Still no one said a word.

We got back to the helicopter landing site and the boys all got off.

I went to climb in the back of a Land Rover and as I grabbed on to the frame to pull myself up, blood squirted out some of the little holes that I had, but nothing massive.

I remember being picked up by the scruff of my neck and thrown back on the Black Hawk with this bloke shouting to the guys to take me to Bastion.

I remember getting off the helicopter and getting an oxygen mask on. I was burnt, I was dirty, I was bleeding.

I walked into the field hospital and in my hand I had a T-shirt that I had pulled from the minefield. The wings on the T-shirt were different from what the Para Reg wore. I knew it belonged to Alex Craig, one of my best friends and fellow medic.

I walked to the ward and I could hear Alex screaming. They were putting a chest drain into him and I pushed them all away and I gave him his T-shirt.

He just threw his arms around me; I put my arms around him. Again without saying a word, we shed a few tears.

Corporal Mark Wright was posthumously awarded the George Cross for his bravery

I walked across to the other ward to see Stu Pearson lying there. He was unconscious, tubes hanging out of him. There was a bed sheeted off and I could hear someone shouting and screaming.

I pulled the curtain back and it was Dave Prosser. He was shouting: ‘He’s dead, he’s dead.’ I said: ‘Who’s dead?’ He said: ‘Mark’s dead.’

That feeling left me empty. Like my whole life had been sucked out of me. If anyone was going to die that day, it was going to be me.

But it wasn’t: I was alive and Mark was dead. I’d promised him I’d see him back at Bastion. I had failed my promise.

I was treated for my wounds. Nothing too serious. Someone there said it had come across the radio that a medic had died; everyone presumed it was me.

So when I walked in, they all thought they had seen a ghost. But it was Mark who was dead. He’d gone unconscious on the Black Hawk and they revived him. And once he was on the Chinook with the Medical Emergency Response Team, he asked if everyone was on. The doctors said yes. And he just closed his eyes. He timed his death to perfection. He made sure everyone was saved.

Mark Wright is by far one of the most heroic men I’ve ever served with. His determination, his selfless sacrifice, his sense of humour is what kept everybody else alive that day.

As the Paras say, every man is an emperor. Every man who was in Kajaki was an emperor that day and more people should have been recognised for the service that they gave.

Because of Mark’s leadership and dedication and heroism, I wanted to make true the promise I made him that I’d see him back at Bastion.

So when the Chinook came to take Mark’s coffin back to the UK, I pulled a few strings and managed to ride in the ambulance with his body.

I remember lifting the lid of the coffin and putting my hand on his chest and thanking him. I know I probably sound a little bit emotional right now telling it, but I’m not emotional thinking of the badness, the horror or anything like that. I’m emotional because of the heroism, the dedication, brotherhood and bond that was formed that day. I thank all of them for what I witnessed, what they demonstrated, what I saw.

Mark received the George Cross posthumously. For the rest of us, young boys became men, and men became legends in that minefield. And that will live with me for ever.

Lance Corporal ‘Tug’ Hartley was also awarded the George Medal for his courage.

Adapted from The Paras: From The Falklands To Afghanistan In Their Own Words by Max Arthur, published by Hodder at £25. © Max Arthur 2017. To order a copy for £20 (offer valid to December 2, 2017, p&p free), visit www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640.