We all very quickly became mates – it would be only a month later when Darryl was killed in action, and both Rupert and Phil were at his funeral – that’s how close the bond had become.
Rupert was assigned to my vehicle, Phil shared one with Darryl Gardiner.
Right from the start they were respectful. We thought we knew what they would be like – running around, getting in the way, asking stupid questions, pushing cameras in your face. We were 80 men, living rough together for weeks on patrol, depending on one another, a very close-knit unit, so it was hard enough for any outsiders to come in, let alone at a time like this. The same day they arrived, one of our guys had been killed and two others badly injured, so emotions were running very high, a mixture of anger and grief. Here, Staff Sergeant Matthew Lane, 34, a signaller from Northants, recalls his memories of them both. On the battlefield, and back in the UK afterwards, several of the soldiers became close friends with the journalists who had served with them. The pair were embedded for three weeks with the British Reconnaissance Force. “Photographer Phil Coburn and I sat on the frontline yesterday as Allied forces launched Operation Mar Karadad, the biggest fightback to date against Taliban warlords.” “In the heat and chaos of battle, I watched Taliban bunkers erupt in flames as Allied troops engaged in their most important onslaught yet in Afghanistan,” Rupert wrote. With Mr Sexton still clinging on to the end of the rope, the pair then had an awkward wrestle, with the guard rail in between them, before the chestnut slipped free and took off into the smoke and flames, leaving Mr Sexton just a few metres from Traralgon Creek.One of Rupert and Phil’s toughest assignments was at the front of the assault on the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qaleh, just before Christmas 2007. But he had other ideas, thank god," he says.Īt this point, Mr Sexton says, Jeune Mark pushed his head and neck in further and then jolted up sharply, bumping him over the guard rail on the side of the road. "I just told Jeunes, ‘We're gonna die' - the plain facts. With fire surrounding them, Mr Sexton pulled on the rope, drew his horse in close and outlined the situation. Mr Sexton looked up the hill beside the road and saw more flames coming down the hill. They doubled back, only to face another wall of flames in the other direction, the two walls only about 40 metres apart. They walked out of the gate and soon began trotting along Traralgon Creek Road.Before long they rounded a corner and were confronted by a wall of flames travelling across the road. With most of his picturesque 11-hectare property already alight on February 7, Mr Sexton led Jeune Mark off the property by hand about 6.30pm.
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