Ed Macy - Hellfire

‘Widow Seven Two, this is Wildman – can you see the firing point?’

‘Stand by to watch our tracer.’ The mayhem I could hear through my earpieces was outrageous. Why couldn’t we see anyone firing at them?

‘Standing by.’

I told Nick and Jon to watch out for the tracer indication.

I could see a couple of our guys firing through holes in the wall but couldn’t see a hint of tracer. Those that weren’t firing were down on their belt buckles, some in the foetal position.

I suddenly realised why we couldn’t see the tracer. They were less than 100 metres from the orchard. Tracer started to burn at 110.

‘Widow Seven Zero, this is Wildman. I cannot see your tracer or any enemy. Can you see the firing point?’

‘It’s 100 metres to our west.’ The sound of incoming was as ferocious as ever.

The orchard frontage was a few hundred metres long and we were running out of fuel. I still needed a clearer description. If we could pinpoint the Taliban position we could deal with it. If we simply hosed the place down our boys could be targeted again as soon as we broke station.

‘From the bottom of the wall…’ I said, ‘go 100 metres across the field with a couple of bushes in it…there’s a low wall on the forward edge of the wood…where’s the firing point from this wall?’

‘That is the area of the firing point.’

‘Gunner – Target – HMD.’ I brought Billy’s TADS into position.

Billy slaved to the area and quickly identified the wall. It was deep in the shadow of the trees and the enemy could have been hiding behind it. We asked Jon and Nick to keep eyes-on as we fired onto the target.

We were happy with the cannon’s accuracy but really concerned about the proximity of our lads. Any rounds that failed to explode could ricochet from the wall and the frag could also hit them at ninety. We decided to fire from behind our lads’ right and over their heads. All the rounds would be travelling away from them, blowing any frag or rock in the opposite direction. Or so I hoped…

Billy needed to make sure his range was stable and accurate; any miscalculation and our rounds would fall short. We were about to do what I had nixed in the simulator – unless there were absolutely no other options.

Without hesitation, Billy called firing and I broadcast the call.

‘Firing now… confirm splash.’

We were about 1,200 metres away as the cannon ramped itself backwards and the first few rounds pumped from the barrel. From this point onwards it was in its optimum position. The remaining seventeen HEDP rounds exited without pause and streaked towards the wall.

At the bottom of the MPD image by my right knee I could see the wall and our lads hiding behind it. The wall Billy was aiming at was at the centre of the screen; the top half of it covered the sunlit trees. I stopped breathing as the rounds flew in towards the target in an untidy conical pattern, in what looked like slow motion, each maintaining exactly the same distance from the next.

They exploded bang-fucking-on, hurtling rocks and soil twenty metres into the air.

The radio burst into life. ‘One hundred metres north, 100 metres north.’

As we followed the JTAC’s instruction Billy adjusted and opened up at the tree line with another twenty-round burst. The wall had stopped further south.

‘Firing now.’

By the time the nineteenth and twentieth rounds were reverberating through my feet the first were impacting the dry soil and dirt at the edge of the orchard.

A dust cloud mushroomed out of the trees at the edge of the field.

‘Fifty metres further north, fifty metres further north, that’s where the firing point is.’

Jon came up on the radio, the pitch of his voice higher than normal: ‘We’ve picked up the Taliban firing point, just north of your last burst.’

I barked, ‘Put down a burst and I’ll confirm with the Widow that you’re in the right area.’

This was getting better. The Widow and Jon were talking about the same place. I looked down at the boys. They hadn’t moved and the wall was still being blown to bits. Whoever was in this wood wanted protection and had the means to do it.

Billy moved his sight fifty metres further north and Nick and Jon’s rounds impacted right over his crosshair.

‘Good rounds,’ The Widow shouted back. ‘Good rounds.’

‘Wildman Five Zero, Wildman Five One, we’re going to fire into the same area with you.’

I had the fleeting image of two men lying in the shadows behind the shit Nick had just kicked up, then Billy and Nick opened up in a coordinated attack. They took it in turns to pound the target, with no let-up between bursts-one, then the other.

My eyes darted between the devastation and A Company’s 2 Platoon. They weren’t going anywhere fast but I made out some movement between bursts onto the target. I counted four individual movements in the same vicinity before the dust storm closed in; they were either rolling or trying to crawl.

It dawned on me that we hadn’t updated Ops on our mission.

‘Saxon Ops, Wildman Five One. Both callsigns engaging Taliban in tree line as troops withdraw, out.’

After spitting 120 bundles of hell into the tree line, both Billy and Nick stopped when Billy transmitted, ‘Watch and shoot.’

The entire field and wood had disappeared under a dust cloud a hundred feet high. But the lesson we identified earlier was now a lesson learned. No one down there would live to crawl away this time. There would be no rescue party to drag them to safety.

I looked towards the end of the wall, expecting the worst.

‘Look at that!’ I pointed my crosshair at the lads as they got up, brushed off the dust and began to saunter back up the track. I couldn’t make out any stretchers, but I couldn’t see everyone from this angle.

Jon and I kept our orbits tight around the orchard so Nick and Billy could look for leakers – Taliban trying to escape – but we were hampered by low fuel.

‘Widow Seven Zero, this is the Wildmen. We’re going to have to RTB to get some gas. We’ll be back as soon as we can to assist in your withdrawal.’ I thought they might want to hang fire until we got back, considering what happened last time the Apaches left.

‘Widow Seven Zero, good shooting. Thanks, but we’re bugging out and look forward to your return.’ Jesus, these men were made of stern stuff.

‘No problem. Were there any casualties from that contact?’

‘No. Thanks to you we all got out okay.’

‘Thanks, we’ll stay on this frequency to relay any messages on our way back and will call you inbound later.’

‘Copied, safe flight.’

I was wondering how on earth the young soldier had survived. He must have been a bloody acrobat; those legs were upside down. Lady Luck must have been on our side.

The Taliban could not have escaped north or south because we would have picked them up. They had not egressed through the orchard. The rear of it was too open and they would have been easy to spot in the light cover. They must have died where they were hit, but we couldn’t wait around long enough to find out.

Our troops were safe.

Billy and I only had 510 pounds of fuel left and needed to get back asap.

We turned for home.

I flicked the MPD onto the performance page: ‘RANGE SPEED 117 KTS’. The computer had calculated the optimum speed to maximise our remaining fuel. I set our speed to 117 knots, put Bastion on the centre of the heading tape, triggered the height and attitude hold and let her fly us back home. As Scottie had taught me on my CCT course, she was a much better pilot than I was.

On our approach, we were confronted by the sight of the 3 Flight Apaches still on the ground. I confirmed with Ops that they wanted us to return to Now Zad. We were told to return asap.