Ed Macy - Apache

‘My gun. Firing.’ Slaving the cannon to his right eye, Carl looked straight down at the back end of one of the buildings hit by Billy. ‘I’ve got movement in the village.’

He was right; as his first rounds flashed and exploded on the stone, eight Taliban sprinted from the other end of the building. He gave them three more bursts of twenty before they reached cover.

‘Good shooting, bonny lad,’ was Geordie’s verdict.

We were back on strike now, so I sent a Hellfire straight into the building that the lone escapee had just reached. They didn’t like our rockets, so I slammed eight Flechettes – containing 656 five-inch-long Tungsten darts – into the village centre. The darts could penetrate armour, so they’d get through those walls. Flashes of bright orange light erupted on each side of the aircraft as we came in again.

‘Long-range missile launch,’ Bitching Betty announced. ‘Six o’clock.’ The flares continued to pour off. My neck cracked as I threw my head rapidly back and to the right. I could see Carl follow suit.

‘Ugly Five One, missile launch six o’clock.’ Carl’s voice sounded laboured. He pulled as hard as he could on the cyclic to throw the Apache onto its back. ‘Billy and Geordie are chucking flares too.’

We’d been locked on at exactly the same time, but no missiles had passed our windows. The two pilots compared notes.

‘Geordie, we’ve just had a long-range missile launch from the south-east. Confirm the direction on you.’

‘South-east. Long range too.’

‘Where the bloody hell is it then?’

All four of us craned our heads round. There were no telltale smoke trails to give away the firing point.

‘Maybe it was the sun. Our systems could be playing up.’

‘On both aircraft? You’re the Ewok, Carl.’

‘Yeah, I know. That’s bollocks. I don’t like it.’

Did the Taliban have a SAM down there now? They’d certainly had enough time to ship one in. Apaches had been scrapping over the fort for six hours now. If it was a SAM, it must have misfired. There was definitely something down there, but God knew what. Widow Seven One had more bad news.

‘Be advised Ugly Five One, Zulu Company will be a further thirty minutes. Keep suppressing for their assault.’

Billy was livid when Carl relayed. ‘ What? For fuck’s sake… How much time do they think they’ve got?’

It was now 9.48am, and we’d been on station for an hour and eleven minutes. We’d prepped the area for a rescue now , not in half-an-hour’s time.

‘We’re not going to be able to do this for much longer you know, Ed. I’m down to one Hellfire, sixteen Flechettes and 120 thirty Mike Mike.’

‘Copied. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we slow down on ammo, we lose Mathew. If we continue at this rate and they’re not ready, we lose Mathew when we run out of ammo. I’ve only one Hellfire, eight of each rocket type and 80 thirty Mike Mike,’ I reported in return.

I got back onto the JTAC.

‘Widow Seven One this is Ugly Five One. We’re depleting our ammunition. We could really do with some fast air on the village.’

‘Affirm Ugly Five One. Still no fast air on station. I’ve requested it three times. I’ll request it again.’

We had to keep the pressure up. We swapped over again, and Billy launched his last Hellfire and eight more Flechettes into the village. Rather than swap again, Carl launched our last missile whilst I kept eyes on Mathew, and Billy gathered it with his laser and guided it down onto the roof of a building that posed a direct threat to him. We’d never done that before in combat. We’d never had to. A bolt of blindingly white light shot straight up into the air.

‘An alleluia missile.’ Billy sounded impressed.

Even though it now resembled an ancient ruin, battered by endless battles across the centuries, the JTAC reported outgoing fire from the village yet again. We were hammering them, but they kept on coming.

They couldn’t possibly have been there all along. There wasn’t a building that hadn’t been dropped by five million-lb-per-square-inch of Hellfire, smashed to pieces by HEISAPs, torn apart by Flechettes or torched by the M230’s High Explosive Dual Purpose cannon rounds.

The Taliban must have worked out the Mathew Ford situation by now. Why else would two Apaches be pummelling a shitty little village when there were no ground troops in sight? And why else would they have kept coming into our thunderous shower of lead, frag and fire? It was pretty obvious now: Zulu Company weren’t ever going to get back in there without fatalities.

Geordie got a second missile lock. His Apache pumped off another eight flares. ‘Long range, from the south-east again. No smoke trails. I’d love to know what the hell that is…’

We tried to ignore it. It was going to take more than a Taliban SAM to make us abandon Mathew. But whatever it was, flying around smack bang in the middle of the SAM belt was now getting spooky.

Carl and I ploughed sixty more cannon rounds into the one building left that could afford a firing solution onto Mathew. The main wall collapsed on the second burst and the rest followed suit. The village was burning and we still couldn’t see any Taliban moving between buildings.

It wasn’t just our ammunition that was running out. At 10.02am, Carl called ‘Bingo’. Bingo meant we were running low on gas. It was a call for the squadron commander’s ears – it was the last moment an RIP could be ordered and launched, because in thirty minutes’ time we’d only have enough fuel left to get back to Bastion.

‘Yeah, I’m Bingo too,’ Geordie chimed in.

The Boss acknowledged.

Our own clock was ticking down too. That made Billy even more impatient. He told Geordie to loop over the firebase on their way round for an attack run on the village so he could take a peek at Zulu Company. Now Billy really did his nut.

‘Ed, I can’t believe it. They’re still sitting on their Bergens. Their helmets are off and some of them are smoking. Nobody’s even told them to mount up.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘Nope. They look like they’ve been told to wait.’

‘But the JTAC said they’d be assaulting in ten minutes.’

‘Those lads are going nowhere.’

Billy’s voice rose an octave. ‘We’re going to lose Ford, you know. He went down at what, 7am? That’s three hours ago.’

‘I know, mate.’

‘He’s just not going to…’

‘WIDOW SEVEN ONE, THIS IS TUSK.’

Billy’s voice was drowned out by a new voice on the air net. American, and professional.

‘Widow Seven One, Tusk is now on station and ready for trade.’

An A10 Thunderbolt. Top news. A fast jet with serious strike power that could do the enemy some real damage. It could also protect Mathew; it packed a Gatling Gun. Carl relayed to Billy and Geordie. Then more good news, this time from the Boss.

‘Ugly Five Zero and Ugly Five One, 3 Flight en route. They’ll be with you in figures Two Zero minutes.’

Billy heard that one himself. That was it. Billy’s waters broke.

‘Right Ed, that’s it. We’ve got our air cover coming, and Tusk can watch Mathew while we’re gone. I want to rescue him with Royals on the wings, and I want to do it now. We need to do it now. Get on the net and make it happen.’

‘Okay, stand by.’

I knew he was right. We had an A10 here, and Nick and FOG, with Charlotte and Tony, on their way. We had about twenty-five minutes of combat gas left, and the Taliban were getting stronger by the minute. The stars would never be better aligned for an Apache rescue attempt. We had one shot at this, and that shot was now. My blood was up too. Mathew was now kipping in the Last Chance Saloon.