Ed Macy - Apache

‘Let’s do it together, Ed.’

‘What?’

‘Let’s both go down there; then two of us can get out and carry him.’

It was still totally impractical. We’d get cut to pieces if we both went. Every time we turned tail they’d volley-fired RPGs at us.

‘Look Billy, Zulu Company are going to recover him. We have no top cover and the whole place is filling up with Taliban. Sure we’d get in, but we couldn’t get out of there without a massively well-coordinated fire plan and shit-loads of top cover.’

Billy fell silent.

‘Okay, I’ve got a better plan. Let’s go and collect two marines each and fly them into the fort to collect the casualty. It’ll be much quicker. You coord the fire plan and 3 Flight can give us top cover.’

‘Stand by.’

I looked at Mathew Ford’s body. Strapping someone to the side of the aircraft was an emergency drill only ever to be used to rescue downed Apache aircrew. We’d rehearsed it as part of our escape and evasion training, but only on the ground and never with engines on or the rotors actually turning. That contravened MoD health and safety guidelines. In sixteen years of Apache operations, the Americans had never lifted any ground troops on the wings.

However, it was theoretically possible. We were all carrying our emergency straps as routine equipment, and the grab bars were right there behind the canopy. The only other aircraft we had available were the Chinooks, and they’d just set off back to Bastion, low on fuel, after dropping more ammo at the gun line. Besides, a great big flying cow like that would get shot to shit down there. Unlike the Apache it wasn’t designed to take rounds…

We were the only airborne option. It was possible. Maybe it could work…

Billy had the bit between his teeth now. I’d seen him like that before. He was like a bulldozer; nothing got in his way. But this needed serious cool. If it went wrong, we’d lose a whole load more men, and gift the Taliban eighty million quid’s worth of Apaches. It would be enough to make those boys believe in Father Christmas. And it could lose us the whole bloody campaign.

I tried not to let on to Billy that I was coming round to his idea. The truth is, I was. When Billy was this confident, his track record was 100 per cent spot on.

‘Listen Billy, we could only do it if Nick and Charlotte came back to give us top cover…’

That was all he needed. He was straight back onto the Boss.

‘Listen, sir, the ground troops are nowhere near ready to cross. I want to get two men on each aircraft and fly them into the fort to recover the casualty. Ed thinks we can do it too…’

Bollocks.

‘Can you send 3 Flight down to assist?’

‘Billy, listen to me,’ Trigger said. ‘We’ve been on the phone to Lashkar Gah and they have said it will be a ground rescue.’

‘Okay, sir. If I land, just confirm I will be disobeying a direct order.’

‘Affirmative. You will be. You can’t land both aircraft, you have no top cover.’

There was an uneasy five-second silence.

Then the Boss came back on. ‘I am launching 3 Flight to come and assist you.’

He paused, to allow the message to sink in.

‘Don’t do anything until the other aircraft arrive. I have no situational awareness and you have the bigger picture. If you think it will work, you’ll need permission from the ground commander.’

‘Copied, sir. Thank you.’

Billy didn’t need to prompt me. I was straight onto Widow Seven One. He was working out of Magowan’s HQ, and would only have been a few feet away from him.

The JTAC’s response was swift and uncompromising. ‘Negative. That request is denied, Ugly Five One. Zulu Company is going to rescue him.’ He added, ‘We don’t want cowboy missions,’ in case we hadn’t got the message.

Carl began to relay it to Billy and Geordie but I stopped him halfway through.

‘Don’t tell Billy the “cowboy missions” bit. He’ll flip.’

Carl wasn’t going to. Billy was angry enough anyway.

‘Right, well, if the marines are going to do it, they’d better fucking well get on with it. They’re running out of time. This place is filling up like Wembley on Cup Final day. I hope they realise that.’

We were all pissed off. With Nick and Charlotte dealing death and destruction from above us, coupled with a good arse-kicking fire plan, we’d convinced ourselves we could do it. Neither of us had taken our sights off Mathew, but we’d left the village alone for five minutes while the debate had raged. Billy and Geordie began another run in to attack with a Hellfire while Carl and I stayed where we were.

I looked briefly out of the canopy window to see it explode with pinpoint precision. Something caught my attention by the river bank directly south of the fort. Movement? It couldn’t be; the Taliban would have had to cross the canal to get there from the village. Nobody had come out of the fort; we were sure of that. Ditto the trees to the east.

‘Did you see something by the river, Carl?’

‘No.’

Maybe I’d imagined it. Better just double-check. Nothing.

‘Do us a favour, buddy, break off from Mathew for a sec and pull over to the east. But keep your eye on him.’

‘Will do. I have Mathew.’

‘Set a course so it looks as if we can’t see the fort.’

I slewed my TADS down to the river as we banked right and rolled away. Anyone watching would think both Apaches were heading out. I picked up five black rings on the embankment, evenly spaced, ten metres apart, where I thought I’d seen the movement. I’d wondered what they were when we first arrived. I kept scanning the area. Nothing happened. Carl held the Apache so that the TADS was looking backwards.

‘Just keep it on that line a few more seconds, Carl. Let’s try and sucker them out.’

And bang, out popped a black-turbaned head from the second ring to the right, followed by a puff of smoke from behind him then a cloud of dust as he loosed off an RPG at the firebase. Quick as a flash, he disappeared again.

Tunnels . The black circles were part of a fucking tunnel system. Where did they lead to? Had the black turban been in there all along? We’d had no idea about them – nobody had. Maybe he’d shot the five marines from there…

My stomach turned to liquid. Zulu Company had been surrounded the second they drove in there. Black Turban would only have been fifty yards away from them when they got to the wall. And now he was only fifty yards away from Mathew.

‘Billy, Taliban in the tunnels thirty-five metres south of Mathew. Engaging. Watch my strikes.’

As soon as Carl managed to flip us around enough, twenty of my cannon rounds went straight down Black Turban’s hidey-hole. No wonder it was RPG Central at the firebase.

I put another burst of twenty down Black Turban’s hole for good measure, and then another twenty to collapse each of the four other tunnel entrances. There was no way of knowing if any of the 120 rounds had hit anyone, but if we hammered them hard and fast enough, perhaps we could scare them away. At least they’d know we were onto them.

Billy continued to hammer the village with 30-mm HEDP rounds. Maybe there were tunnels under some of its buildings too. It would explain how they were infiltrating so fast.

Billy had used up more than half his Hellfires, so he switched to rockets and planted eight HEISAPs over a fifty-metre radius into the main cluster of buildings. Their charges were powerful enough to penetrate the walls, pelting the occupants with stone and debris, followed by a killer pressure wave. We switched over guard and attack roles.