Ed Macy - Apache

The JTAC was quick. ‘There is a major bend in the river, with a tributary to the east and a canal running north off it…’

I zoomed in closer.

‘Copied. Confirm it’s the one running into the smoke?’

‘Affirm. There’s a track on the eastern side of the canal running north. It is then bordered by a canal on the west and a wall on the east. That wall is the beginning of the fort. Copied?’

‘Copied. Visual with the wall.’ The adobe and stone battlement glowed in the low sun.

‘The furthest our friendly callsigns got was about a hundred metres along that track. Stand by for a grid.’

Grid 41 R PQ 1142 3752 Altitude 2257 feet. I punched the info into the system as he gave it to me then slaved the TV camera to it. The screen showed the fort’s south-west corner, next to the towpath.

I looked for a unique feature to confirm I had the correct starting point for the search; I still needed to be 100 per cent sure. ‘Ugly Five One is visual with a wall at the grid. About fifty metres east, away from the canal, is a bomb crater where it has been demolished. Confirm I am looking at the correct wall?’

‘Affirm. That was their limit of exploitation. We believe they were in the vicinity of that crater when they got contacted.’

‘Copied. We’re searching now.’

Carl relayed to Geordie. We were closing fast now, so I zoomed out as wide as I could on the TADS to get a better overall picture. We were almost at the edge of the desert. The marines’ firebase sat on top of a berm, beyond which the ground plummeted to the river. Dozens of commandos were in position, in WMIKs, Vikings or on their belt buckles, all of them desperate to do their bit to get their mate back. Light Dragoons’ Scimitars were lined up alongside them.

As we passed over their heads, Carl pulled back hard on the cyclic, virtually standing the aircraft on its tail and catapulting me hard into my straps. He needed to go from 161 mph to nothing on a sixpence; if he didn’t we’d overshoot the fort by a mile in a matter of seconds. He banked gently to the left as Billy and Geordie banked right and we began a lazy three-quarter wheel circuit. A white object flew a few hundred feet over the fort and across my TADS screen. We weren’t the only people watching.

‘Keep our height up Carl; there’s a UAV flying around low-level, buddy.’

‘I see it. Don’t worry; you won’t get me low-level over that place.’

Billy and I broke up the ground we needed to search.

‘Let’s start at the last known sighting. Mate, can you take everywhere north of the wall? Carl and I will take the southern side in case he’s crawled down to the river.’

‘Affirm,’ Billy said. ‘We’re on it.’

The radios were going ape-shit now. Even though it had only just been announced, Ford had been officially MIA for thirty minutes and word had spread. Every man and his dog were asking what was going on. Widow Eight Three, a second JTAC working with the gunners, was asking for sitreps to better his targeting. Then there was Nick’s voice calling urgently for more fuel and ammunition on the FM.

I could make out at least three different levels of command on the mission net, including Zulu Company’s OC, Colonel Magowan, and the brigade HQ in Lashkar Gah. It was a given that the CO of 45 Commando would be listening in, and Trigger, who should now be back at Bastion.

A Predator UAV and a Nimrod MR2 circled somewhere way above us. Their downlinks were being pumped into every HQ, fuelling the frenzy. Every rubberneck within reach would be crowded around the feed screens. With an MIA, everyone wants in. Over a hundred minutes had passed since the initial contact; they’d be hanging on every word.

Yup, the mission now bore all the hallmarks of a classic cluster-fuck. The cascade of voices in my ears made it almost impossible to concentrate. They all had a job to do, but I wished they’d all shut up.

I focused the TADS on the corner wall. The image gleamed in the bright sunshine. I moved the camera slowly down the towpath south; in the direction which Mathew Ford would have aimed to withdraw. Carl saw where my TADS was headed in his monocle and tracked east towards the crater.

Twenty seconds later: ‘Ed, I’ve got an unusual shape. It’s about forty metres along the wall, on the southern side.’

‘Okay, stand by.’

I shifted the TADS onto Carl’s line of sight. A large, S-shaped blob lay sprawled on a raised bank about ten metres shy of the crater, two feet away from the wall – exactly where the JTAC said the marines had been contacted.

It looked like a body, lying on its side. I felt a surge of excitement – then got a grip on myself. This wasn’t the time or the place for an outburst of wishful thinking.

Carl continued the wheel turn, bringing us perpendicular to the blob. I swept the surrounding area. There were no more bodies; this one was on its own.

I flicked the TADS’s Field of View button on the left ORT grip with my thumb and magnified the picture nearly five times. It filled a third of the screen. It was definitely a human body. But was it one of theirs, or one of ours? Let it be him. Please let it be him …

‘Good spot, Carl. We have a body. Drop us down to 2,000 feet, mate.’

‘That puts us in RPG range of the fort, Ed…’

‘We can take it. Just twenty seconds at 2,000; that’s all I need.’

‘You’ll have to make it fifteen. Then I’m going to have break right because of the artillery.’

We dropped and I studied the body throughout Carl’s 180-degree turn to the north-west. It was lying on its left side, thighs up at ninety degrees to the torso, feet slightly apart, arms outstretched. It was a natural position to lie in, not contorted, and that was a good sign. The chest looked bulky, another good sign… Osprey body armour and an SA80 rifle? Looked like it. I waited for a better view as we turned. Shit – the camera couldn’t pick it up in the shadow. It was only 8.44am and the sun was still low.

‘Five seconds left, Ed.’

Now square-on to the body, I flicked the TADS into the largest zoom. Final confirmation: trousers and jacket were a similar shade to the ground, and patterned exactly like mine – British DPM.

‘Breaking off, Ed. Sorry. We’ve got to turn out of the guns.’

‘No problem, Carl. It’s him. We’ve got the MIA.’

We’d found our man. But was he still alive? The moment I announced we’d found him the whole world would want to know.

We came round again, higher. I couldn’t detect any dark patches on his clothing; so, no heavy blood loss – as far as we could see. His helmet was on, fastened tight and without deformation. His face was intact, eyes closed and mouth just slightly open. I felt a rush of relief. He looked peaceful; as if he was sleeping. No obvious signs of wounding. Had he collapsed through exhaustion? The marines carried an awesome amount of kit into battle these days.

‘Let Billy and Geordie know, buddy. Ask Billy to use his FLIR for a heat source.’

That would give us a good indication of whether our guy was still alive. It was just five degrees celsius outside, cold enough to chill a dead body in half an hour.

‘Will do.’

At least the Taliban hadn’t got him. Establishing that was our number one priority. The entire brigade’s actions for the next week depended on it. If he was alive, he was unconscious. But why? If he’d been bounced off the wall he could be concussed for ages. I didn’t want him to be unconscious. I wanted him to give us a little wave to tell us that he was pretending to be dead so the Taliban didn’t come for him.

A giant fountain of soil and dirt erupted on the other side of the canal, 100 metres away from the man we now knew to be Mathew Ford. He was Danger Close to the gunners’ nearest shells…