Ed Macy - Apache

Then I realised the supporting fire into the treeline to our left had stopped. The noise had shifted behind us.

‘There’s AK fire the other side of the wall…’ Fraser-Perry strained to see whatever was going on in there. ‘Sounds real close…’

A few seconds later, an Apache’s 30-mm opened up again 100 metres away, high and to our north. Billy and Geordie. They were obviously in serious trouble; Charlotte must have switched her fire to support them. It left us without any cover, but there was no point in sitting around thinking about it.

I used the momentary pause to change my grip; my arms weighed a ton and my hands were shaking. I rammed one under Mathew’s body armour and out the other side by his collar, then grabbed my own wrist to form a tight noose.

Despair was starting to flood through me. For the first time I thought we might not be able to do it. I didn’t know where I was going to summon the energy for the last few metres.

The Apache’s rotor blades battered the air close by. I needed some Para aggression to get me through this. ‘ Right ,’ I roared. ‘ Come on! ’

At that moment, plumes of soil and sand erupted like a series of mini volcanoes about a dozen metres to the left of us. I stared at them, momentarily transfixed, unable to work out what the hell was going on.

Then I caught sight of at least six bright orange flashes 150 metres away, perfect star shapes spread out along the treeline. Muzzle flashes. Automatic fire.

The earth continued to erupt only two or three metres away now and the air crackled as bullets whipped above our heads. A huge weight pulled on my right side. Mathew’s whole body mass pressed down on my pistol holster, dragging me onto the ground, and then my heel was trapped under his torso and I collapsed back on top of him. Rigg had let go of him entirely. As my head turned, I saw him go down, face first.

I was now pinned to the dirt by Mathew, momentarily powerless to do anything but watch the muzzle flashes approaching through the haze.

And Rigg’s hit. Oh fuck. This wasn’t how I wanted us to die …

I ripped my right arm out of Mathew’s body armour and scrabbled for my pistol. But it was no longer there.

Three minutes and twenty-eight seconds earlier …

Timing the manoeuvre with his usual perfection, Geordie had heaved back hard on his cyclic stick to bring Ugly Five Zero in to land alongside Mathew’s body. Dust billowed ahead of them and rose 100 feet into the air before being sucked back down by his rotors, entirely smothering the Apache. Geordie had flown over 2,000 helicopter hours in his ten years as a pilot and this was the worst brown-out he’d ever been in .

‘ I can’t put down in this shit Billy. Ed and Carl won’t see us; they’ll come in straight on top of us .’

‘ Well anywhere then. Just get us down .’

‘ I’m going into the fort .’

‘ You sure? ’

‘ Just over the wall. It’s another big field; there’s nothing in it .’

‘ Copied mate. Do it .’

A quick jerk on the collective and Geordie’s Apache was ascending again. Some left-foot pedal twisted the gunship ninety degrees to the right, then a push on the cyclic and they were over the wall and into the adjacent field; a rectangle, 100 metres long and 200 wide. A line of trees to their right divided it into two squares .

Geordie pressed on a further fifty metres so his next dust cloud wouldn’t blind Ed and Carl. Billy slewed the TADS to the northern end of the field and lined up his crosshairs on the fort’s outer wall .

‘ Engaging .’

He squeezed the trigger and the cannon threw twenty rounds into the remnants of the watchtower on the far right. Then he raked another twenty along the top of the wall. Rock splinters and shrapnel span off it in all directions as the rounds exploded. If anyone was near the wall, they weren’t going to put their heads above it in a hurry now. It bought Billy and Geordie thirty extra seconds .

Nick was watching their insertion from 2,000 feet above. He hosed down the entire western wall and the canal path alongside it with consecutive twenty round bursts, to discourage anyone trying to flank round and ambush his friends in Ugly Five Zero .

Geordie landed hard at a forty-degree angle to Jugroom’s main building. Hearn and Robinson jumped off and ran to the wall, as they’d been told to do. The wrong wall .

Geordie watched them disappear into the brown-out and immediately began to worry. ‘Do you think they know where we are now, Billy? ’

‘ Probably not. They wouldn’t have seen anything on the wing. We could barely see ourselves .’

It took forty seconds for Billy and Geordie to get back their visibility. Hearn and Robinson had groped up and down the northern wall, looking in vain for Mathew, and were now jogging back to the Apache. Robinson was leading, hands and rifle raised as a signal to the pilots of their bewilderment. Geordie spotted them first from the back seat .

‘ They’ve got no idea we’re in a different field. I’m going to have to show them where to go .’

Billy was the captain and Geordie was the primary pilot, but they didn’t have time to argue the toss about who should leave the aircraft. Geordie was out of his seat and gone, safety-locking the collective lever as he jumped but not stopping to unclip his carbine .

He charged over to Robinson and shouted: ‘Follow me, he’s this way.’

Changing course ninety degrees, Geordie made for the hole in the wall eighty metres to his left. That’s where Mathew was, Geordie thought – around the crater and immediately to the right .

The brown-out had disorientated Geordie too. His mental compass was off by ninety degrees. He led the marines at full tilt to a bomb crater in the field’s west wall instead. Geordie rounded the corner and turned sharp right. The marines dutifully followed – heading north, ever deeper into enemy territory .

Visibility was down to ten metres. Geordie, Hearn and Robinson were in the midst of the 2,000-pounder’s smokescreen. The stench of explosives and burning was overpowering .

‘Come on lads, the others will be up here somewhere,’ Geordie yelled over his shoulder as he pressed on up the canal path. Robinson was ten metres behind him, and Hearn brought up the rear .

One hundred metres along, Geordie still hadn’t found anybody. He knew Ford was just by the wall; he’d seen him from above. Had he regained consciousness and started to crawl away? Down to the river perhaps? Geordie pressed on .

After another eighty metres the black cloud began to dissipate. He was almost at the end of the wall now. The corner had taken a direct hit, strewing rubble across the path. Geordie didn’t remember the wall being hit here. When he’d last seen it, it was still standing. Perhaps Nick or Charlotte had smacked it while the rescue Apaches were at Magowan’s HQ .

He could see round the corner now. Fruit trees loomed over the piles of stone. He didn’t remember fruit trees either .

Geordie slowed to a walk. This wasn’t right. The canal should have been ahead of him. Where the hell was it? It started to materialise through the dust to his left …

So what was in front of him? Just fields, and …

Geordie jolted to a halt. Not more than fifteen metres in front of him, under the spreading branches of a tree, were three men with turbans and beards. One had a PK machine gun slung across his back, the second rested the butt of his AK47 in the dirt, and the third crouched with an RPG in each hand. They were in animated conversation, keeping in the shadow so the Apaches circling above couldn’t see them. Taliban …