"...like something out of Apocalipse Now"

It is interesting to follow up Guardian's features on British front line in Afghanistan. Declan Walsh presents six-page photo special from the two weeks he spent with British troops in Helmand, Afghanistan.

"I curled into a ball as an Afghan fighter tried to blast open the jeep I was travelling with a rocked-propelled grenade. I interviewed a corporal from Newcastle as he soaped himself in an outdoor shower. I played touch rugby on a helicopter landing zone. And I watched life of ebb from the chalky limbs of a wounded young British soldier as sweating medics desperately tried to save him."

Walsh's description paints very real picture. The photographs in the feature are brilliant too showing troops in action as well as the time of relax. As the main British base Camp Bastion reminds more of a pub, soldiers sitting inside enjoy wide screen TV, wooden furniture, but not the beer. All what is missing is beer. Instead they suck on warm Pepsi or "brew" and tuck in some "scoff". Quickly kicked out from the base, they travel across the desert to join artillery positions under Taliban fire. The ground shudders under heavy artillery weapons killing even some more of other kind of deadly enemy of any soldier: tarantulas, scorpions and camel spiders.

Click here to read the whole feature.