Ed Macy - Hellfire

Our Apache woke up in a good mood but Jake was experiencing comms problems again. I checked in with Pat’s patrol to make sure mine were working. They were. I kept the door open. Normally you’d close it to keep the cab air-conditioned, but there was a strong breeze from the east, making it an unusually cool morning on the flight line.

3 Flight lifted on time while Jake and Jon got their comms sorted. We sat on the APU. There was no way we would close down now. If something happened en route to the drop-off point or they had a problem we would need to get there asap.

We led the taxi out five minutes early, turning left to the top of the HALS. We lined up on the right; Jon and Jake forward left. We started to roll. Exactly two hours and thirty minutes after 3 Flight departed our wheels lifted off the metal runway. We took off south this time because of the wind.

‘Saxon Ops. Wildman Five Four and Five Five…airborne…’ I called. ‘Zero Seven One Zero hours. Out.’

We took a left and climbed to 5,500 feet. Jon and Jake went up to 6,000. The visibility wasn’t anything to shout about, but it’d do. It wasn’t a particularly long flight to Musa Qa’leh, but we knew our kit was working so we could relax for a moment or two. On our IRT/HRF stint we’d been setting stuff up on the way, so things had been more fraught.

Flying north-east across the desert, we needed to establish the gun line. We knew our guns were south-west of the town. If they were operating, we didn’t want to fly through them. We didn’t want to restrict their fire or end up with a shell up our arse.

My MPD had the gun icon marked on the TSD – Tactical Situational Display – page, and a line from the guns to the point where the convoy track went through the Green Zone. That was roughly where the guns should be firing. I flipped the radar from air to air to ground targeting mode.

The radar immediately identified the guns so I flipped onto the TADS. Exactly where they said they’d be.

We now needed to locate 3 Flight. We didn’t want to route north of the guns to find out they were south of the gun-to-target line. That would mean backtracking west, turning south around the guns and back to the east to do a RIP.

‘Wildman Five Two, this is Wildman Five Four-routing in, five minutes to run, send sitrep.’

‘Wildman Five Two. The gun line is active. Guns are registering. The LS has changed to grid Forty-One-Sierra, Papa-Romeo, Six-Four-Six-Zero, Eight-One-Two-Nine and active.’

Jake read the grid back to confirm.

‘Stand by,’ Pat said. ‘Come north of the gun line. We’ve got people fleeing north. Come to my position and maintain overwatch.’ Pat and Tony were north of the gun-to-target line.

As we headed north-east past the guns Chris and Carl’s Apache should have been operating at the same height and hopefully in the same area. The Longbow radar picked them up and confirmed their position from five miles away. We climbed to 6,500 feet. If they were in a battle we didn’t want to be below them. Visibility was still hazy, but TADS was on the case.

There was no action yet or they would have given us a target. The boys were on the ground and the LS was active. The second wave had just landed and the new LS was a mile north-west of the choke point where the track entered the Green Zone. Our concerns were for Taliban moving into the area, and combat indicators of people moving out of it.

‘Wildman Five Five, this is Wildman Five Four,’ Jake called. ‘Five Four will concentrate on the immediate area where the troops are. Can you check out those movements to the north and let me know as soon as you know the convoy’s position, and that it’s still safe?’

‘Wildman Five Five, copied.’ Jake always thought of the big picture and never got bogged down in detail that didn’t concern him.

Jon kept tight in to the gun line. We moved steadily further north, away from them. Billy had the radar spinning to detect the convoy. I set up my acquisition source for the FCR ready for when he found them. They were supposed to be north-west, so we would have to pass them at some point.

‘Gunner – Target – FCR – Tracked and wheeled vehicles – Stationary – Range five point nine klicks,’ Billy reported. No sooner said than done.

I hit slave on the ORT and before Billy had finished reading out what the FCR had detected I was looking at a group of LAVs, Scimitars and trucks. They’d formed a big corral for all round defence, just like the wagons in the Wild West movies I used to watch on a Saturday with my granddad.

They were on the western side of a south-pointing spur between two huge adjacent wadis that joined to form a Y. This was a great place to hide and gave them access to the major wadi system leading down to 3 Para and the choke point between the urban area and the Green Zone three klicks south-east. I offset the laser to prevent any eye damage and lased their position.

Up flashed 41S PR 6332 8226.

I sent it to Jake over the IDM, giving him details of the convoy’s set-up.

We had a good look around the main wadi leading north from Musa Qa’leh to make sure no one was heading west to intercept it. Several groups of women and children were heading north up the wadi, but no males. They were 2.5 klicks north of the choke point already. All the combat indicators I’d learned in Northern Ireland were telling me that something was going down and the locals knew it.

I spotted our first three males – two in dark robes, one in white – heading south. They seemed to be ignoring everyone rushing to escape on donkeys and on foot, clutching their bags and possessions. They didn’t seem to be carrying weapons and I couldn’t see any unusual bulges in their dishdashes.

Saxon called. The boss had intelligence that Taliban were to the north.

‘Wildman Five Four, this is Saxon Ops. We’ve got an intelligence grid. Grid, Forty-One-Sierra, Papa-Romeo, Six-Three-Eight-Seven, Eight-Triple-Three. Read back.’

Jake read it back and I checked that what I’d punched into my keyboard was correct then hit Enter. I’d stored it as a red icon – so it came up on my MPD as enemy.

‘Correct. Taliban are in that area. Zero Alpha would like you to look.’ Zero Alpha was Major Black, back at base.

‘Wildman Five Five, Wildman Five Four. That’s to the north. It’s your area. Can you investigate?’

‘A-firm,’ I said. ‘Stand by.’

Jake was in the south over the LS. The grid was just over a klick and a half north-west of me but – alarmingly – just a fraction over a klick north-east of the convoy.

We didn’t need to move and we weren’t about to advertise to the Taliban that we knew where they were, so we stayed over the fleeing civilians. Billy was watching for anyone heading south and I slewed the camera to the intelligence grid with a push of a button. It was a small cut-out in the ridge on top of a wadi wall, but there was nothing there. It was a great vantage point to look south-west towards our convoy, but they were on the reverse slope of the spur and out of sight.

A hundred metres north-west, however, was a house and a compound; a little farmstead. Just north-west of that were four large tents, with cooking pots still over a fire pit. I couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.

These tents were huge, not at all your traditional nomadic arrangement. Nomads kept all their shit in one sock. These things were black tarpaulin palaces, about five metres by eight, held up by poles and pegged down by lengthy guy ropes. The place seemed deserted. The fire was still smoking, but it looked like someone had just dropped the pan and run. I shifted the radar down to see if I could pick up any vehicles. There were none hiding under cover and the radar would know. All I could see in the entire area was the convoy.