It’s a long way from Birmingham to Afghanistan – and it’s hard to believe, as you tour the city’s newest hospital, with its airy corridors and picture-window views across the urban landscape, that this is the front line in Britain’s battle against Afghan insurgents. But that’s exactly what the work going on at Queen Elizabeth Hospital represents: it may look and feel like an ordinary – if state-of-the-art – civilian hospital, but in a very real sense it’s a battlezone.

The battle that’s being waged here is the battle against lasting damage, and compromised lives, caused by injuries sustained in Afghanistan. Because it’s to this brand new, £545 million hospital, which opened earlier this year, that badly-injured troops – many with amputated limbs and neurological injuries – are brought.

In many ways, says Fr Michael Sharkey, chaplain to the Royal Centre of Defence Medicine based at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, those injured in war zones like Afghanistan are the invisible victims of the conflict. ‘Every time you hear about fatalities in Afghanistan, there have probably been injuries too, in the same incident,’ he says. ‘But it’s the deaths you hear about – the injured men (and occasionally, women) are rarely mentioned.’

The men would sometimes ask what I was there for, if I wasn’t carrying a weapon. And I’d say it’s because I’ve got top cover – and when I’m with you, that extends to you, as well!And yet, for some, this really is the worst possible outcome of being a soldier – many men say they would rather die than end up without limbs, their lives utterly transformed from what they once were due to the explosive devices used by the Taliban.  ‘It’s very tough for them, there’s no doubt about it,’ says Fr Sharkey, who is one of the first people the soldiers encounter when they arrive at Queen Elizabeth after being airlifted out of the war zone.  ‘These guys are young men, at the peak of their fitness, doing a job they love and with their whole lives ahead of them. Of course it’s going to be difficult to accept that things are going to be very different from now on.’

What he has to do, he says, is help them to realise that the very personality traits that made them a good soldier –tenacity, determination, hard work and a sense of humour – are the ones that will help them to cope now, and in the years ahead. ‘It’s a question of helping them to realise that they can do it, that they can achieve things and have successful, fulfilled lives,’ he says. ‘We’ve had men here who’ve lost limbs and they have gone on to run marathons, to do long-distance swims, and of course to have successful careers. Part of it is just helping them to believe they can do it.’

Fr Sharkey, a Scot, ordained to the Archdiocese of Glasgow,  has been a Royal Navy chaplain for the last 20 years. ‘I was thinking of going into missionary work, and then this opportunity came up,’ he says. ‘And it has been missionary work, in its way.’  He’s a proper serviceman, having completed basic naval training as well the tough Royal Marine training course, and is a bona fide member of the Royal Navy – though unusually he has no rank. ‘I assume the rank of whoever it is I’m talking to,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s an admiral or a rating.’

I’ll be there for men and women of any faith and none – my job is to be with them, to listen to them, to support and encourage them and to pray with them if they want to do thatTwo tours of active duty in Afghanistan, once as chaplain to 42 Commando, and the other as a member of the HQ joint forces support staff, have given him all-important insights into conditions on the ground in some of the toughest fighting the British forces have ever encountered. On his first tour, he sometimes went out on patrol with the men. ‘You’d never go out on a patrol if there wasn’t a pastoral reason, but sometimes there was a reason,’ he says. ‘For example, if there was a team who’d lost a man, or who had been through a tough time, then I might go out with them. As a non-combatant I won’t carry a weapon, though I might carry something useful – a radio, for example.

‘The men would sometimes ask what I was there for, if I wasn’t carrying a weapon. And I’d say it’s because I’ve got top cover – and when I’m with you, that extends to you, as well! It was just a way of bolstering their confidence – confidence is vital, in this work.’

On at least one occasion, he was in a patrol that came under fire. ‘I was in a vehicle with the medics, and suddenly a rocket-propelled grenade came right over the top of us. We threw ourselves out, and I could hear the small fire coming over. I found cover, and then I heard over the radio that there was a man down – he’d been shot in the wrist. I went to find him and to be with him – he was terribly shocked, even though he was going to be ok. It’s a terrifying thing, to be shot – I just stayed with him and tried to help him stay calm while we were waiting for him to be evacuated. It was near Christmas and we talked about the carol concert, I remember.’

Having been on active service is a huge leveller in the work he does, says Fr Sharkey. ‘I wear my army fatigues in the hospital – there are crosses on the lapels to signify that I’m a padre, but otherwise it’s the normal uniform. And it shows the men that I’m one of them...when I tell them I’ve been out to Afghanistan, I’ve done a tour there, that makes a big difference – they know I genuinely understand what the conditions there are like.’

Most of the men he works with are in their twenties – not a group known generally, across the population, for strong religious affiliation. But when you’re up against it in a war, says Fr Sharkey, no-one doubts for a second the merit of having someone prepared to lead a prayer, or to talk about God. ‘I’ve never once been in a situation where I’ve suggested saying a prayer, and anyone has turned it down,’ he says. ‘When you’re in a life-and-death situation – and the men in Afghanistan are, every day – who wouldn’t want to say a quick prayer?’

It’s about solidarity, and being alongside, and it’s about reminding people that there is another, spiritual, dimension to our lives
At Queen Elizabeth, with the injured men and their families, the response is exactly the same. ‘I’m the only chaplain for the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, so I’m not here to minister to the Catholic servicemen and women, I’m here to minister to all servicemen and women,’ he says. ‘Of course if there’s a Catholic man here, I might say Mass by his bedside for him and his family – but nothing I do is exclusive, or limited to the Catholics. I’ll be there for men and women of any faith and none – my job is to be with them, to listen to them, to support and encourage them and to pray with them if they want to do that. It’s about solidarity, and being alongside, and it’s about reminding people that there is another, spiritual, dimension to our lives.’

As well as the injured service personnel, Fr Sharkey is there for the families of those who’ve been injured. ‘They are very well looked-after – they move to live here while their loved one is in the hospital. And of course having a son who’s lost limbs, or been injured in another way, is a life-changing experience for them, and they’re shocked and traumatised by it too. Often my job is just about giving them some space to talk it through, so they can start to work out how they’re going to deal with it from here on in.’