the times | Thursday October 21 2010 3

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Corporal David Barnsdale waswalkingpast an armouredpersonnel carrier in asmall patch of safe ground surroundedby a minefield when a blast seemed toturn the world white.What happened next was so fast, soloud and so terrifying that it was hardto be sure of the precise order of events.When the dust settled, CorporalBarnsdale was dead, two soldiers wereinjured and I had witnessed — farcloser than I would ever wish to — thegruesome random way that home-made bombs pluck soldiers off theHelmand battlefield.Corporal Barnsdale was less than tenmetres from where I was sitting whenhe took his final step on Tuesday. Theblast knocked me backwards andsideways against tracks of a Danisharmoured vehicle in whose shade I hadbeen resting.Mymouthwas gritty with

debris and the air was thick with dust.As my hearing came back, soldiersbarked orders and cursed. A hailstormof stones and shrapnel fell out of thesky.“Journalist OK?” someone shouted.“OK,” I shouted back. There was a lull,then somebody screamed: “Mandown!” Pause. “F***!”One of the soldiers had been sittingon a porta-potty when the bomb wentoff. One man was on his hands andknees near the middle of the plot,dazed and disorientated with otherstrying to drag him clear. A lancecorporal walked to the edge of the safearea sobbing.There were lumps of blood and clothin the sand. The soldiers were pickingup the debris and putting it in clearplastic bags. Half a flak vest— front orback, it was hard to tell — lay in thedust where it had been thrown at least30m, clear over two armoured trucks.One mournful looking soldier foundCorporal Barnsdale’s Help for Heroeswristband severed in the dust and he

passed it reverently to a colleague.A young soldier, perhaps in his twen-ties, blamed himself. The more seniormen urged everyone “not to think likethat”.The bomb had gone off insidethe safe area. It was just after 11am onTuesday, about 7.30am in Britain.Corporal Barnsdale, 24, had beenleading one of two Royal Engineers

high-assurance search teams, sweep-ing back and forth across with hi-techmetal detectors to clear a strategicmound of Talebanmines.It was part of Operation Omid IV,the largest Afghan-led operation sinceBritish troops were deployed toHelmand in 2006, and senior officershope that is a watershed along the roadtowards transition, which should, theyhope, spell an end to British combatoperations.Their mission was to clear a Talebansafe haven, a few miles upstream ofGereshk, and build two new check-points for the Afghan Army. Difficulttasks, such as mine-clearing high-riskareas for construction, are usuallydone byNato forces.The search teams had already foundone improvised explosive device (IED)the previous day and another twoearlier on Tuesdaymorning.The crude but deadly explosiveswere set inside yellow plastic 20-litrepalm oil drums, wired with whiteelectrical flex to small battery packs

and deceptively clumsy-lookingpressure plates, wrapped in clear, dustypolythene.A massive American mine-clearingtruck had hit a mine on another hill, afew hundred metres to the north, theday before. No one was hurt. Thewreckage of an enormous, six-wheeledBritish Mastiff lay askew in a craterless than 50m to the south. It hadalso triggered an explosion onMonday.Although theMastiffwas immobi-lised — its wheels and part of theundercarriage in pieces — thethree men on board had walkedaway unscathed. The searchteams were based inside a50m square plot, clearedand marked off with spraypaint and plastic glow-sticks.It was access-ible only via anarrow track cleared andmarked the same way. It wassupposed to be safe.Moments before CorporalBarnsdale died, a member of his

team, Lance Corporal Robert Corke,22, had explainedhowheovercame thefear of a detonation. “It’s a high-riskjob,” he said. “But we are the besttrained to do it. I’m confident inmy job,I’mconfident inmy teamand I’m confi-dent in the kit. It’s a dangerous gamealtogether, really.”Moments after the blast theyproved it. Sergeant Hobden was inthe crater looking for clues. On theother side of the square, young sol-diers like Lance Corporal Corkewere trying to clear an area incase a helicopter had to land.Instead, Corporal Barns-dale’s body was carried bytwo of his friends, on astretcher under a camou-flaged plastic poncho, to anarmoured ambulance thathad arrived at the scenewithin minutes. “He was areally brilliant bloke,” saidSapper Simon Kerr, 22.“Top-notch. Just write thatand youwon’t gowrong.”

Final, fatal step of ‘a really brilliant bloke’

Soldiers from a Royal Engineers high-assurance search team after the loss of Corporal David Barnsdale, who was killed in an explosion on Tuesday morning

Another young life waslost in a blinding flashand terrifying roar.Jerome Starkeywaswith himonthe battlefield

Corporal Barnsdalediedwhile checkinga Talebanminefield

PAKISTAN

TAJIKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

IRAN Gereshk

Helmandprovince

KabulHerat

100 miles

PHOTOGRAPHS: JEROME STARKEY FOR THE TIMES