Paul Grahame - Fire Strike 7/9

We returned to the high ground, and radioed a request for a team from the Special Investigations Branch (SIB) of the military police to attend the scene, plus the bomb-disposal boys. We needed the Ammo Technical Officer (ATO) lads to check that the bodies hadn’t been booby-trapped. Prior to that, we couldn’t begin to bag them up or move them.

We went back to the Vector, parked on the brow of the wadi. There was nothing for it but to get a brew on. Sticky threw some boil-in-the-bag meals in the ammo tin, and we had an early tea. It sounds harsh, but what else were we to do whilst awaiting the arrival of the specialists?

An hour later I got a call from an Apache gunship. The Ugly call sign was inbound to our position, escorting a Chinook transport helicopter. I got the gunship to fly a couple of recces around us, to check for enemy, as we were only five hundred metres from the Green Zone. Nothing was seen, and the Apache brought the big, twin-rotor helicopter in to land.

By the time it was dark the ATO and SIB lads still hadn’t finished doing their stuff. On the original mission tasking we were supposed to have been back in FOB Price hours ago. Instead, we laagered up in the desert for a third night running, so we could finish dealing with the bodies come morning.

With our mission officially over I had no more air controls, which was a massive relief. Sticky, Throp, Chris and I were laid by the side of the wagon, with the dead bodies not more than twenty metres from us. But I couldn’t let that unsettle me. I got my bracket down by the side of the Vector, and fell into a deep sleep.

I jerked upright to the sounds of an almighty explosion echoing through the night. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I noticed the white-hot blasts lighting up the skyline. It was 2300 hours, and all hell had broken loose some thousand metres to the east of us. There was the juddering crackle of gunfire, the thump of heavier weapons, and the thunderous roar of repeated explosions rocking the desert air. I shook the sleep out of my head and tried to focus on what was happening. At first I presumed we’d been ambushed, but there didn’t seem to be any of the fire hitting us.

For an instant I picked out the rhythmic thwoop-thwoopthwooping of rotor blades, and the unmistakeable shape of an Apache gunship flashed in silhouette against the angry red of an explosion, as it banked around. What the hell was going on?

I grabbed my TACSAT: ‘ Widow TOC , Widow Seven Nine . Sitrep: we’re laagered up in the desert at Adin Zai. One click to the east of us there’s a massive contact. There’s an Ugly call sign in action and explosions and gunfire. What the hell’s happening?’

‘ Widow Seven Nine , Widow TOC . No idea, I’m afraid. Wait out.’

Whilst Widow TOC asked around, I put out a message requesting any ground call signs to respond. No one answered. Next I tried this.

‘This is Widow Seven Nine making an any-stations call. We’re on the ground visual with a massive contact, and this is our grid: 90236784. I repeat: this is an any-stations call, Widow Seven Nine .’

There was a moment’s echoing silence, then: ‘ Widow Seven Nine , this is Spooky Two Zero . Sir, we’re in the middle of an op, and you need to keep the traffic down.’

Spooky was the call sign of a specialised US airframe, one reserved for covert operations requiring immense firepower. That aircraft alone had the firepower to take out our entire convoy, and yet there was a mission going down that no one had bothered to warn us about.

‘ Spooky Two Zero, Widow Seven Nine , stop fucking about,’ I rasped. ‘We’re laagered up less than a click away from your op and we need to know what the fuck’s going on.’

‘Well, I have this message for you, sir, just in: “Bommer, what the fuck’re you doing out at this time of night?” Sir, that message is from Nick the Stick.’

Now I knew what was happening.

I’d befriended Nick the Stick back in FOB Price. He hung out down the American end of the base, and my main reason for going there was the grub. The US Army cookhouse would serve lobster, followed by ice-cream gateau, all washed down with chilled soft drinks. In the British mess tent you’d make do with bangers ’n’ mash and a plastic cup of warm water.

Like most of the guys in the American base, Nick the Stick was a giant of a bloke. You could’ve fitted two of me into one of him, and still had room to spare. I guess his nickname — ‘the Stick’ — had to be a pisstake. All the US operators went by their first names only, and it didn’t take a genius to work out what units they were from. But as all their operations were strictly classified, I wasn’t about to go asking.

I had one card to play to blag my way into their mess tent: Operation Silver . Nick the Stick had heard all about that mission, and how I’d taken out a cadre of top enemy commanders in the one hit. I’d been on my first combat mission in Helmand, as the JTAC embedded with 42 Commando. We’d been ordered to take Sangin town on foot. My airstrike on the enemy commander’s compound had earned me a certain kudos.

Nick the Stick was a JTAC newly arrived in theatre, and he’d wanted to know all about it. I was more than happy to fill him in, as long as the chefs kept piling my plate with lobster. I left the US mess tent with my combats stuffed full of scram — cans of Coke, Mars bars and the like. I didn’t give a damn about the looks I got off the other American operators — you sad, scruffy British bastard .

Nick the Stick and I had bonded over the lobster, and after that we’d become good mates. And now I knew what the contact was to the east of us. It was a classified US operation going in, and Nick was calling in the airstrikes. I got on my TACSAT and made the call.

‘ Nick the Stick , Widow Seven Nine . Sitrep: we’re a click to the west of you laagered up in the open desert. We’re here retrieving the bodies of ten Afghan policemen murdered by the enemy. Now, what the fuck are you lot up to?’

‘ Widow Seven Nine , this is Nick. We’re doin’ a lift op, to the west of Adin Zai. And buddy, we got to keep the traffic down. I got your position, and we’ll keep the fire away from your guys.’

I snorted. ‘Cheers. And thanks for the early warning, mate.’

I briefed the OC and Chris. The US forces were doing an op under cover of darkness to snatch a high-value target — that’s what Nick the Stick had meant by a ‘lift op’.

Then I got another call from the aircraft above us. ‘ Widow Seven Nine, Spooky Two Zero . It’s going to get very noisy on the ground there for a while now…’

‘Thanks for telling us,’ I cut in, sarcastically.

‘Roger that, sir. And sir, if you’re that close to the contact point you might want to have your men stand by to help our team extract, that’s if we need you.’

The bloody cheek of it. First they’d launched a covert op right on top of us, and didn’t bother to warn us. And now they were asking for our help, in case it all went to rat shit.

I told the OC what the pilot was suggesting. Butsy radioed the CO, who cleared us to assist. And so the entire company was placed on immediate notice to move, in case Nick the Stick and his buddies needed us to get them out of the shit.

The pilot then relayed a request from the task force doing the snatch operation. They were stood off in the desert, and they wanted us to launch a feint into the Green Zone. They were asking us to draw enemy fire, so they could sneak in and out again.

I briefed Butsy, and he passed it up to the CO. Having got clearance, Butsy now had to come up with an instant plan of action. From being exhausted and laagered up, it was flash-bang into launching a full-on combat assault to support the snatch operation.