Emma Cowing: Tour of duty

As 1,200 Scots soldiers head to Afghanistan, Emma Cowing finds out what it means to the troops and their families

• Sgt Maj Stephen Devlin with his wife Jacqui and daughters Brogan and Abby Photograph: Ian Rutherford

FUSILIER Garry Watt bounces his baby daughter Leah on his knee as she reaches up towards the distinctive white hackle on his cap. At just six months old, Leah does not know that this feathery plume marks her 26-year-old father out as a member of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland. Nor does she realise that he is about to disappear from her life until next March. Her mother Yvonne, however – also 26 – understands only too well.

"You don't know how you're going to feel until it does happen," she says, looking at her husband while their six-year-old son Taylor cuddles into her. "I'm dreading it to be honest, left with two kids back home. But that's part of his job."

Over the next three weeks, while the rest of us settle into the rain and wind of a Scottish autumn, Watt and more than 450 other soldiers will leave Glencorse Barracks in Penicuik, Midlothian, for the heat, dust and clatter of Afghanistan. As part of 16 Air Assault Brigade they will, along with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders 5 Scots, who are based in Kent, make up among approximately 1,200 Scots soldiers embarking on a six-month tour of the world's most dangerous war zone.

It is the largest number of Scots to be deployed there in two and a half years.

No wonder then that today, as departure draws ever closer, Glencorse is a hive of activity. In the officer's mess, busy junior officers troop past a portrait of a dour looking Winston Churchill – who commanded the battalion for a short stint during the First World War – breaking in pristine pairs of desert boots. Over in the Regimental Sergeant Major's office piles of kit, ready for battle, sit precariously behind the desk. And in his airy office Lieutenant Colonel Dougie Graham, the 42-year-old commanding officer of the battalion, tries to make sense of it all.

"It's been pretty relentless," he says of the nine months training the battalion has undergone in readiness for the tour. The 2 Scots RHF Battlegroup will be based in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, operating in the town itself as well as the surrounding districts. "There's a very difficult job to be done, so the training needs to be equally demanding."

Graham is the very image of a modern lieutenant colonel. He surfs Facebook and listens to Biffy Clyro, and follows football with a passion. In the five months since he took over the commanding officer's spot at 2 Scots and in the run up to deployment, he has pioneered a new initiative to try to, as he calls it, "cocoon" the men he commands while they are on operations.

Appropriately named White Hackle, it is a project designed to keep the soldiers in touch with their families and give them an idea of the support they have back home. There is a specially-designed wristband, an active Facebook page, and plans, once the battalion has been deployed, for regular blogs, tweets and updates on day-to-day life on the front line – an attempt, he says, to "give people a feel for the reality, that it's not all fighting, it's not all bombs and bullets."

Keeping morale up is, he says, crucial. "What I've tried to do, in that six months while we're away and the soldiers are working extremely long hours in demanding conditions, is allow them to feel this bubble, this cocoon of support which will help them with their morale. I want them to feel that they are being firmly supported from the home base," he says.

One suspects Churchill, who ingratiated himself with his battle-worn Scots soldiers by ordering dry socks for sentries who had been standing in the rain in the First World War trenches, might also be impressed.

The battalion has also, along with its intensive training schedule, been raising money for a White Hackle fund. Although everyone on base uses careful language when talking about what the money raised – now around 25,000 and available to soldiers and families from any battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, not just 2 Scots – will be used for, it is clear that it has been started as a cushion for those whose lives may never be the same again after a six-month Afghan tour.

"We wanted to try to create this small fund which could be used for whatever eventuality may occur," Graham says. "For where there's a need to support a soldier affected by the deployment."

Up at the family centre, on the other side of the road from Glencorse Barracks and at the foot of a development of modern army houses, welfare officer Captain Walter Barrie is waiting for the walking school bus. A former regimental sergeant major of 2?Scots, the battalion he has been with for 23 years, he knows almost every soldier on the barracks, and most of their families too. For the first time in his career, he will stay behind when his battalion deploys.

"I've never been the guy who stayed back before," he says. "I've always been the guy who's been deployed on operations. It's made me realise there's an awful lot of pressure on the people who are left behind. It's difficult seeing people go out the front gate."

A total of 335 UK troops have been killed in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. Of those, 103 have been killed this year. The reminders are never far away. Last Sunday, 26-year-old Lance-Corporal Joseph Pool from Greenock, who served with the Royal Scots Borderers 1?Scots, died during a rocket-propelled grenade attack in Helmand. On Friday, his coffin was driven through Wooton Bassett where his seven-year-old son laid a rose on the hearse. His battle-hardened comrades wept openly at the sight.

Barrie's job is to keep the families informed as much as possible. He uses a text message system so that any vital piece of information can be immediately zapped to the mobile phones of wives and mothers, and he will be in constant contact with his colleagues in Afghanistan. Information will go both ways.

"The biggest pressure for me is making sure I provide the support that's needed for the families," he says. "The most important thing is that there's trust between (the army] and the family. They've got to be confident in the support we provide them. If we don't get that part right we're going to lose the trust of the families."

Some family units have got used to the state of flux involved when husband or father is a soldier. Sergeant Major Stephen Devlin, 38, has been on tours of Iraq, Northern Ireland and Bosnia. This however, is his first tour of Afghanistan, and the first time he has been away from wife Jacqui and daughters Brogan, 11 and Abby, six, for a six-month stint.

"It's like the way you would prepare soldiers for a deployment, you have to prepare the family," he says. "I'm not one for keeping secrets from them, the best thing is to be candid and to be honest with them."

At 11 years old, Brogan understands more than most. "I'm quite upset about it but I'm also kind of just used to it because he's been away to Iraq," she says. "I'm OK with it really."

Operation Herrick 13, as this deployment of troops to Afghanistan is known within the armed forces, is the first of the new coalition government. David Cameron has made it clear that he wants British soldiers to stop fighting by the time of the next general election in 2015 and that the government wants troops to begin withdrawing in July next year, the timetable first set by Barack Obama for US troops in Afghanistan. But how does that change the view on the ground?

"We are deploying in an evolving political situation where people are making decisions about an end state," says Graham, whose last tour of Afghanistan was in 2006. "I think things have changed. There is a belief that the work with the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police is getting to the point where we can pass on a lot of the responsibility that we had taken on for security. I think you'll start to see a feel for the partnership with the Afghan security forces delivering tangible effects, and our work can be redundant."

From the start, Graham has been particularly keen to instill in his men an understanding of the country to which they are being deployed.

"The soldiers have spent a lot of time learning about the Afghan culture, learning the language, so that when they meet someone they are able to say hello to them and to understand the cultural norms of a country several thousand miles away with a different religion and a totally different way of life," he says.

It sounds like soft soaping but Graham is convinced that it is the only way to bring about change, and, ultimately, departure. "We can't become a solution if we're being viewed as part of the problem," he points out. Ultimately, though, Graham is realistic about the progress that can be made in a six-month deployment.

"I would love Lashkar Gah to be a little bit better," he says. "It might sound unambitious but by that I mean the army and police being a little more professional, there being less corruption, better equipment, being better trained. I'm clear that in six months' time I'm not going to be delivering (a place that's like] Midlothian. But there's a steady progression. And as long as you're aiming for a steady progression you just try to consolidate what you've done already and make things slightly improved.

"Do no harm, don't do anything which leads us to take a step backwards, if it's small steps I'm happy to take small steps. I'm not trying to take giant leaps, I'm not trying to run, I'm just trying to, in the six months that we are there, make that place a little bit better."

Certainly, on the barracks there is much talk of working with the Afghans as much as possible. Down in the sergeants' mess, a group of "Jocks", the nickname often given to 2 Scots infantry soldiers, are discussing Afghan culture. "It's about trying to gain an understanding of the Afghan people," says Lance Corporal Michael Miller, 25. "If you can go out there and understand their traditions and treat them with respect you can look at the bigger picture."

For some it's their first time in the country. Fusilier Robbie McCutcheon, 24, has mixed emotions about deploying to Afghanistan. "You hear all the different stories and sometimes you get worried, but obviously you know you're well enough trained to do it," he says. "I'm kind of excited to go and do my job."

Others were in the country during the battalion's last tour in 2008. "It'll be interesting to see the progress," says Corporal Gary McCann, 24. "To see that it's gradually getting better."

All are convinced that a tour of Afghanistan changes a young soldier. "You'll see this young 18-year-old Jock and you see him progressing and he becomes this young man when he comes back," says 24-year-old Lance-Corporal Stuart McGregor. "It's not a choice. If you're a wee boy, out there you'll grow up."

For the Watt family, the minutes are still counting down until Fusilier Watt's departure. "We've all accepted it's going to happen," Watt says, as his baby daughter gurgles at him. "Until then, you spend as much time with them as you can."

• To learn more about White Hackle or donate to the fund visit www.whitehackle.com