Ed Macy - Apache

Blair was on a two-day trip to the region according to a Sky News report I’d caught a glimpse of in the JHF. He’d already met Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf in Lahore. After us, he was going up to Kabul to meet Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

The Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, had already beaten his rival to it; he’d come out to see us in July. Helmand had been a new and sexy war at the time, so the new and sexy politicians were all over it like a rash. They didn’t go to Iraq any more; can’t think why. True to form, Billy had elbowed his way into giving Cameron a tour of the Apache’s cockpit. He’d even strapped on his flying suit especially for the occasion, badges, sidearm and all.

Tragically for the Face, there was no chance of a one-on-one bore-athon with this bigwig. Tony Blair would say a quick hello to all of us and that would be it. Each of the brigade’s sub-units had been instructed to stand in semicircles down one long line, with samples of our kit on display to give the press photographers a nice backdrop. For most of the boys that just meant rustling up a WMIK Land Rover, a Viking tracked armoured vehicle, an ambulance or a row of sniper rifles. For our unlucky Groundies, it meant having to get up even earlier than us to push an Apache 200 metres from our runway to the Hercules strip. Then they’d have to push it all the way back again.

It was a really nippy morning – overcast, with just the odd ray of sunshine bursting momentarily through the cloud to give us some warmth. Without the sun, first thing in the morning and at that altitude, Bastion wasn’t a great place to be at that time of the year. December – only a few days away – and January were the only months that Helmand saw any proper cloud or rain.

Billy was one of the last down to the flight line.

‘Oh you prize arse,’ Geordie greeted him.

Most of us had turned up in our camouflage smocks – which were clean, uncreased and unfaded as they were seldom used and rarely washed. But not Billy; desperate to show off his wings, he was standing there shivering in his flying suit. In case any passing head of state was in doubt, he was an Apache pilot.

It was 7.09am and there we all were – a sizeable chunk of the Helmand Task Force’s firepower – lined up like prunes with nothing to do for the next fifty-one minutes. Only Nick and Charlotte were missing, air testing in Kandahar. It would have been valuable experience for Nick; he would probably be Prime Minister one day.

‘Come on Ed.’ Billy gave me a nudge. ‘Let’s check out the croissant tent.’

‘The what?’

‘Over there. I spotted it on my way down.’

A posh-looking marquee had been erected at one end of the runway. Its front flaps had been pinned open to reveal an urn of piping hot water, tea bags and jugs of filter coffee on a wooden picnic table. On a second table was the biggest tray of croissants I’d ever seen: hundreds of them, with mouth-watering fillings, steaming in the early morning air.

A couple of senior officers stood in the tent’s entrance, so a frontal assault was never going to work. Billy and I tried our luck round the back.

‘Sorry guys,’ said the master chef. ‘Definitely no one allowed in here.’

‘Come on mate, give us a croissant.’

‘I can’t. Nobody’s allowed any until Tony Blair has been in there.’

‘Why, is he going to eat all 300 of them?’

‘Look, it wasn’t my idea… Oi!’

We left him to apprehend a pair of marines trying to sneak in behind him. One was holding up the far corner of the tent while his mate tried to slide underneath it.

Back at the squadron’s place in the line, Geordie and Darwin had opened a book on who could get the longest handshake with the PM. It would mean holding on for as long as you could, even if he tried to tear himself away. They were also challenging the rest of the team to see who could ask him the oddest question and still get an answer.

‘Just make sure it’s all respectful, please. I still want a career in the army.’ The Boss hated every second of this.

‘I’ve got a belter,’ said Darwin. ‘Who’s got a camera?’

A few of the boys had brought one down.

‘Right, here’s what Geordie and I are going to do. We’ll ask Mr Blair if he doesn’t mind a picture. When he says, “Yeah, sure, chaps, where do you want me?” we’ll say, “Just there’s fine thanks, sir,” and hand him the camera. I bet he’ll be so embarrassed he’ll take the picture anyway.’

The PM’s Hercules arrived a few minutes early and he emerged from the pilot’s door to be greeted by the brigadier. A forty-strong travelling circus of TV cameramen, photographers and reporters poured off the rear ramp and glanced around, looking a little confused. Our desert wilderness wasn’t the Afghanistan of the Tora Bora Mountains you saw on the news.

The entourage of senior brass and clipboard-wielding subordinates led him to the end of the line furthest from us. The PM insisted on stopping and chatting to every group while the TV cameras did their stuff. Finally, he reached the marine mortar team alongside us. A balding bloke in a suit with an A4 pad strolled on ahead.

‘Gentlemen, before the Prime Minister gets to you, I could do with a few details. What do you all do?’

The Boss turned to him. ‘Who are you?’

‘Oh, I’m Bob…’

‘Bob who?’

‘Bob Roberts. From the Daily Mirror .’

The revelation provoked all-round merriment; we’d thought the guy was some kind of Downing Street flunky.

‘Fuck off, baldy,’ and ‘Get out the way, will you?’ the Groundies chorused from behind us.

The poor bloke scampered off in the other direction, looking quite hurt.

‘Hi guys.’

And there was Tony Blair, standing right in front of us. We’d been so busy hurling abuse at the man from the Mirror that most of us hadn’t seen him approach.

‘Gather round the Prime Minister please,’ the RSM instructed.

Tony Blair was in official Prime Ministerial war zone kit: blue slacks, a navy blazer and a dark blue shirt, open at the neck. He looked tired and old. The famous blue eyes still twinkled, but huge crow’s feet spread from each corner of them and his hair was more salt than pepper. He was a different man to the one I remembered walking into Downing Street nine years before.

The squadron wags had gone quiet now; everyone was a little bit star-struck. Trigger must have breathed a sigh of relief; it was immediately obvious that all the big talk wasn’t going to come to anything.

Blair thrust his hand forward to each of us. There was no chance of holding onto it, even if someone did have the balls. We were given a quick, forceful shake, up and down, a momentary fix of the eyeballs and then it was onto the next bloke. Two seconds each, max. He moved incredibly quickly, clearly well drilled in how to avoid the ‘I’m going to hold onto his hand the longest’ game. No surprises there; he’d been shaking squaddies by the hand for years.

‘Prime Minister, this is 656 Squadron, Army Air Corps. They operate the Apache AH Mk1.’

‘Ah yes.’ The trademark grin stretched from ear to ear. ‘So you must work with the locals.’

None of us knew how to answer that, so none of us did. That kind of killed the conversation.

Someone did ask for a photograph, but instead of pulling Darwin’s cheeky prank we all gathered sheepishly round Blair instead – Darwin included. The most rebellious we got was slipping the odd thumbs-up to the camera behind Blair’s back as we posed up for the group snaps.

Then, just as quickly as he’d arrived, he was ushered away to the medics, the next group in line.

Billy couldn’t conceal his disappointment. ‘I thought he might ask us one question about the aircraft. He did buy the bloody thing, after all.’