Desert Sniper

Prologue

It was only well after the smoke and dust cloud had blown over me and settled to give me a light patina of grit that I noticed the mortar had detonated just thirty metres away. I had been sitting cross- legged on the veranda of a house on the edge of Manbij, trying to open an unripe pistachio nut, when the bomb went off. I hadn’t eaten in twenty- four hours and my nails were splitting in my attempt to strip what was proving to be a stubborn opponent. A few seconds later I realised I hadn’t even looked up. I’d been shelled innumerable times in the past year, and had become very good at telling where they were going to land, to the extent that my ability to judge a shell’s fall was now subconscious. If you don’t hear them until late, that means they are coming down on top of you.

It occurred to me that perhaps I’d been in Syria for too long, but then I managed to split the pistachio shell and my attention went back to dealing with my hunger. I popped the nut into my mouth, chewed, and then spat it out in disgust. Unripe pistachios are utterly revolting. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.

The dust swirled in the wind, which normally blows strongly across the flat plains and low hills of northern Syria. It is the only relief from the burning heat that bakes the ground into a rock- hard surface during the summer, but the wind freezes you to the bone in the wet winters, which transform the solid dirt into a glutinous muck that bogs down feet and vehicles. I sat and considered the houses around me, not far from the front line. I would like to say I was working towards some great revelation about the meaning of existence, or mankind, or war. But all I was really interested in was that I was away from the unrelenting fighting (mortar shells don’t count), and the gnawing hunger in my belly. My mind was pleasantly blank, though I was completely aware of my surroundings. It is a strange state, a mindset of total focus that I have only found in combat.

It seems an odd situation to be in, especially as fighting in a war wasn’t really on my agenda and I’d never served in the military. But in June 2015 I shouldered my rucksack and boarded the first of a series of aeroplanes that would take me to northern Syria. I would spend the best part of the next year fighting alongside the Kurdish YPG against the Islamic State – otherwise known as ISIL, ISIS or Daesh. This is the story of my experiences.