Ed Macy - Apache

‘Nineteen feet and thirty knots downwind. Watch your torque, Carl. We’re dropping.’

Come on, fly, you bastard . I still couldn’t see a thing.

‘Fifteen feet, twenty-six knots downwind. Mathew’s too close to the ground, mate.’

Carl was going to have to turn back towards the fort to get forward airspeed or we’d ditch in the Helmand River.

‘I’m going over 100…’

With a mighty heave on the collective, he pulled the torque to 115 per cent. It was our last chance. Six seconds at that level and he’d twist the transmission permanently out of shape. The aircraft would be toast.

Fucking come on. Do it NOW …

I felt a small waver in the tail.

‘Eighteen feet, nine knots downwind. The squall’s dropping. Twenty-two feet, eight knots forward .’

‘Got it! Sylvia’s flying! ’ Carl dropped the torque to 90 per cent. We were away.

‘Top flying, mate. Thank God for that.’

My guardian angel was looking after my lilywhite arse that morning…

Height and airspeed continued to climb for five more seconds and the torque remained constant.

Then we burst out of the dust, straight into blinding sunshine and a crystal blue sky. It was a beautiful day; I’d forgotten after so long in the Jugroom underworld. It was mind-blowing, unlike anything I’d seen before, or will see again.

As we soared towards the berm, a myriad red and orange light pulses streaked past the cockpit windows. It felt like Han Solo taking the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace. The marines at the firebase had seen our dust cloud, and were giving the Taliban every last bullet they had to cover us out. Thousands and thousands of rounds winged past us. Some of them were frighteningly close, but the marines knew exactly where they were shooting. It was an awesome display of firepower.

Charlotte and Tony’s Apache flew right in front of us, 200 feet above the firebase. The moment we emerged, two Hellfires shot off her rails with their arses on fire and buried themselves deep into the eastern treeline.

Nick and FOG had kept their best till last. I caught a glimpse of them in our two o’clock, running into the village from the desert. Then they let rip instantaneously with every single one of the sixteen Flechettes they had left in their launchers. They came out in pairs, the left ahead of the right – left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right – each leaving a vivid jet of flame in their wake. It was the biggest rocket launch I’d ever seen, and at the end of it, angry clouds of propellant vapour shrouded their entire aircraft.

A fraction of a second later, 1,280 Tungsten darts tore into each and every one of the huts, barns and compounds within a 100-metre radius – turning the village into a giant pin cushion.

Geordie lifted thirty seconds behind us. It was perfect timing. With two final cannon bursts he and Billy broke west and then sharp south down the canal. Tony unleashed all his and Charlotte’s Flechettes into the fort and as he pulled hard out of a low-level dive, Nick squeezed off four HEISAPs into the treeline.

I was mesmerised by the sheer ferocity of the attacks. Anyone waiting to ambush us on our way out had been rewarded with a very nasty surprise.

We were over the middle of the river. My excitement vanished and my stomach churned. The straps holding Mathew had never been tested. I looked out for him, but the fuselage blocked my view.

‘Mate, I hope Mathew’s still on. Just keep it nice and slow.’

‘Forty knots. Look right, Ed.’

I looked down through the Perspex and there on the mirrored surface of the water beneath us was the shadow of an Apache helicopter gunship with a man hanging beneath it. A feeling close to euphoria began to pulse through my veins. I felt the tension ease from my shoulder muscles.

‘I can’t believe it, Carl. We’ve made it…’

‘Don’t,’ he grunted as we reached the far bank of the river. ‘We’ve 100 metres to go…’

The hillside rose steeply ahead of us. Five seconds later we crossed the ridge, and the Royal Marines’ firebase was spread out below us. We’d saved ourselves. Now we had to save Mathew.

‘Mate, let’s take him into the desert, to the Casevac LS.’

‘We don’t have the fuel, Ed.’

‘We must have; it’s only a couple of miles.’

‘Trust me, we don’t have the fuel.’ Carl was adamant. ‘We’re putting him down right here.’

He’d already begun to bank right and turn the aircraft 180 degrees into the wind to land. He picked a spot just behind the Light Dragoons’ Scimitars where he could see Viking vehicles and a red cross. There would be medics and basic life support equipment to keep Mathew going until the Chinook arrived. Carl went into a hover as dozens of marines rushed to our impromptu landing site.

‘Keep bringing it left, mate…’

If Carl went down hard, seven tonnes of aircraft was going to squash Mathew flat.

I opened up my door to get a better view; Rigg was already leaning off the side of the aircraft signalling to Carl with his hand. With extraordinary deftness, Carl lowered Mathew gently to the ground, feet first. Next, he eased the aircraft left until Mathew was in a sitting position, and then very gradually laid him down. As his helmet touched the ground, Carl pulled the aircraft back a fraction to ensure that his now prone body was well clear of the wheel as he gently touched down.

‘Right, get him off quick, Ed.’

Rigg and I didn’t need a second invitation. Carl had done a neat job. Mathew was lying on his back, in exactly the position I had left him. I knelt down and pulled hard on the straps to relieve the pressure on the karabiners. As I spun the locking gate, his dust-caked face was a foot from mine. The blood on his right cheek was still damp; perhaps his heart had started to pump again. The slight crow’s feet at the side of eyes made him look as though he was smiling.

I unlocked the second karabiner, then we stepped back and let the marines and medics take over. My hand didn’t feel quite like my own as I offered it to Rigg. We shook quickly and turned to watch Mathew being rushed to the waiting armoured ambulance.

‘Ed, get in,’ Carl shouted. He was flipping a track about the fuel now.

I looked quickly along Sylvia’s bottom to see if she was leaking; she had no holes that I could see. Rigg and I found ourselves still facing each other.

‘Thank you.’

‘No, thank you .’

I jumped back in and the second my door closed Carl pulled power and took off, sand-blasting everyone below us.

‘Check the fuel burn rate,’ Carl snapped, as we left the dust cloud behind. Billy and Geordie had been holding for us over the desert. Now they moved alongside and Carl and Geordie main-lined it back to Camp Bastion by the straightest possible route.

I looked through my monocle. We had 515 lb of fuel and sixty-two miles to fly. Not good. The minimum legal fuel allowance for landing an Apache was 400 lb. Below that, heavy manoeuvring could cause fuel starvation to the engine and a shut down. Below 200 lb, there was just whatever was left in the pipes and pump; the two fuel tanks were empty. At 100 lb the engines cut out altogether.

Carl was keeping the aircraft at 117 knots, the most economical fuel burn speed, and just thirty-five feet off the desert floor. Any higher and the wind from the north-west would have slowed us down. Every second counted.

I pulled up the engine page on the MPD and tasted acid in my throat. We were burning 900 lb an hour, 15 lb a minute – and it was going to take us twenty-seven minutes to get home. I punched 15*27 into the keyboard, then Enter… 405 lb … We’d have 110 lb of fuel left when we landed. Bloody hell . I gave us 50 / 50 at best.