Ed Macy - Apache

The Taliban’s drill was always the same. They set up their weapons, gave our boys on the mountain a good pounding, and escaped like rats up a drainpipe into three or four old tunnels on its western edge as soon as we turned up.

I hoped the marines were getting it from the Shrine because it was safer ground for us to attack: no buildings, so no collateral damage. If the Taliban were on Falcon, too, it would be trickier.

Falcon was our codename for the peak immediately west of Arnhem, less than 400 metres along the same ridgeline. The enemy used to climb its blind side and our guys would only know they were there when the rounds started tearing up the ground beneath their feet. Unless we got our munitions spot on when engaging Falcon, they’d overshoot and spill onto Arnhem, especially if we were firing from the west.

From the brief sitrep Trigger had received, it sounded like the enemy were on the Shrine and Falcon. It sounded like they were everywhere.

‘Widow Seven Eight, this is Ugly Five One. How do you read me?’ As the mission commander for the sortie, the Boss got on the net to the JTAC at Arnhem.

‘Ugly, Widow Seven Eight. Lima Charlie. You me?’

‘Lima Charlie also. We are two Apaches carrying 600 thirty Mike Mike, forty-eight rockets and four Hellfire. Callsigns Ugly Five Zero, Ugly Five One. Requesting update.’

‘Copied Ugly Five One. We’re taking machine-gun and RPG fire from Falcon. They’re massing there and trying to move across to assault our location. We think they’re going to try to over-run us. Confirm you know that location.’

‘Affirm.’ I’d taken the Boss up to Kajaki on our second attempt at a familiarisation flight.

‘Also, Ugly Five One, be aware I’ve got a Harrier GR7 on station: callsign Topman…’

Good. The marines were getting the heavy artillery as well as the cavalry.

‘He is going to drop a 500-lb bomb on the top of Falcon. I’d like Ugly callsigns to follow up and kill any leakers after Topman drops.’

‘Ugly Five One, copied all. Have you any other further targets for us?’

‘Widow Seven Eight, affirm. Are you familiar with the area of the Shrine?’

‘We are.’

‘The enemy are shooting rockets at us from somewhere near the top of the Shrine. Firing position as yet unidentified. Can you locate and prosecute Taliban there too please?’

‘Affirm.’

‘Roger. One more thing, Ugly: can you give me your time on target?’

A loud burst from a heavy machine gun echoed across the JTAC’s radio microphone and we could also hear curt instructions being issued in the background. Our JTAC was very calm for a man about to be overrun by a highly trained guerrilla force. But they nearly always were. It was a testament to their training, professionalism and, above all, courage.

‘Ugly Five Zero, we’ll be with you in figures eight minutes.’

We divided up the workload.

‘I’ve spent ages up at the Shrine, Boss. If we take that, Billy and Carl can go for Falcon.’

Trigger detailed the tasks to our wingmen.

‘Copied all. Happy with that.’

All we needed to know now was when the Harrier’s bomb would impact. I hoped for the marines’ sake it would be soon.

‘Ugly Five One, Widow Seven Eight. Confirm time on target for Topman.’

Topman replied himself. He was a Brit – RAF – even better news.

‘Time on target… six minutes…’ I could hear him demand oxygen from his facemask every few words. He sounded like a public school version of Darth Vader. We’d be there only a minute or two behind them. Less, if Carl and I could squeeze any more power out of our beasts.

The Boss tapped in the Shrine’s coordinates, and our lenses shot towards it. Billy did the same for Falcon. From that distance we could already make out the shape of the loaf, but we were too far off to see heat sources. Not long now though; maybe only a couple of minutes. Then we’d be amongst it. Bring it on.

‘Topman… Impact one minute…’

Now we were heading north over the Green Zone, with four klicks to run. I could see the Falcon and Arnhem ridgeline clearly now in our one o’clock, as jagged as a dinosaur’s back.

My right eye flicked back and forth from the ridgeline to the clock, keeping count of the seconds. Carl and I had bought us some time. The other Apache was right in behind us, 500 feet lower and to our right. At four klicks a minute we’d be coming level with Falcon almost as the bomb went off. If we got too close we might catch a bit of the blast.

‘Ease up a touch, Carl. Drop to 100 knots – that should do it.’

‘Copied mate. Just what I was thinking.’

The Harrier came on one final time.

‘Topman’s pickled the load… Impact in Two Zero seconds.’

‘I better have a look at this.’ The Boss slewed his TADS across to Falcon. He didn’t want to miss the fireworks, and the Shrine was still some way off.

White light erupted on Falcon’s pinnacle and a crown of orange flame curled up around its epicentre, enveloped a second later by a vast dust cloud that mushroomed high into the sky. At 2,000 metres off, we had a grandstand view.

‘Okay, moving the TADS back to… Wait; hang on, I’ve got a runner…’

I glanced down at my right MPD screen. A Taliban fighter was shifting it down the western side of Falcon, right out in the open, around 150 metres below the crest. He was going like the clappers, leaping from one rock to the next. If Trigger didn’t get him, the hail of stone splinters from the explosion would.

‘I’ve got him in my crosshairs… engaging with cannon.’

Trigger was preparing to go into Top Gun mode. Two bursts, angled seventy-five degrees right of our nose, from no more than 1,500 metres. The runner disappeared in a cloud of dust and flame. The air cleared and he was nowhere to be seen.

‘Wow. Good shooting, Boss.’

‘Tally one dead fighter,’ Billy said. ‘I was lined up ready to engage.’

Too professional to say so overtly, he was clearly pissed off.

‘Topman… Negative playtime remaining… Top shooting, Ugly…’ With that, Darth broke station for Kandahar.

It was Billy’s target, no question. But we were a few hundred metres ahead of our wingmen and there was no escaping Trigger. Now he wanted to pay his respects at the Shrine too.

‘FLIR should pick up the residual heat from the rocket motors. Come on Elton, where are these tunnels I’ve heard so much about? Let’s nail them before they bolt.’

Tracking the Boss’s FLIR image on my MPD, I talked him onto the tunnel entrances at the western edge of the Shrine. One large heat source appeared to the right of the screen – where the rockets must have been launched – then two more melted away down a blowhole nearby.

‘See those heat sources, Boss?’

‘Yeah, visual.’

‘Widow Seven Eight, I have two men at the top of the Shrine, western end, dropping down a shaft. Is that where you were taking fire from?’

‘Affirm. You are cleared to engage.’

Only a weapon with pinpoint accuracy could do the job.

‘Copied. Engaging with Hellfire.’

The AGM-114K SAL Hellfire II missile landed precisely where we pointed the laser beam projected from the TADS on the Apache’s nose. A Hellfire climbed after leaving its rail whilst a seeker in its head searched for the coded laser energy. Once found, it locked on, lined itself up and screamed down onto the painted target at 475 metres a second. The missile was so accurate we could post it through a letterbox.

But the shaft entrance was still going to be a hell of a shot. Every Hellfire we had was programmed to hit the target from above because that’s how tank armour was best penetrated. We were 1,500 metres south of the Shrine and 3,000 feet above it. If the Boss banged the Hellfire in from here it would explode on the lip of the shaft, blowing the Taliban’s ear drums and showering them with rock splinters – but if they’d got ten metres or so down from the surface, it probably wouldn’t kill them. The missile’s forte was penetration; its 12.5-lb warhead propelled a molten slug at thirty times the speed of sound through up to three feet of solid steel. It wasn’t the explosion that did the killing, but the pressure wave that followed.