Apache

by Ed Macy

  UNLUCKY 4 FORD … SAD, Billy wrote.

  UNLUCKY 4 ZULU … HELL HOLE

  AFFIRM

  At 10.24am Nick and Charlotte checked in with the JTAC.

  ‘Ugly Five Two and Ugly Five Three, on station.’

  That sealed it. We had been relieved.

  BREAKFAST TIME … MY LEAD, Billy texted.

  But he couldn’t hear the mission net. A brand new voice had just come on it – an officer’s voice, older than the others, and extremely authoritative. Brigadier Jerry Thomas spoke slowly and clearly, so everybody could hear. And he made sure everybody knew where this order came from.

  ‘All stations, from SUNRAY …

  ‘Option One is a recovery of Lance Corporal Ford by the Apaches. Option Two is a recovery by Zulu Company. Option One has been approved.

  ‘Repeat, Option One is APPROVED. Prosecute ASAP.’

  It was an extraordinary message. The phone lines between Lashkar Gah and Kandahar must have been red hot. I didn’t care about that now. We’d lost five minutes of precious fuel sitting with our thumbs up our arses. It was going to be tight now. Painfully tight.

  ‘This isn’t funny, Ed,’ Carl muttered.

  ‘Buddy, do we have enough fuel to do this now?’

  Carl had crunched the stats as soon as he’d heard the brigadier’s voice.

  ‘No, but yes.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Legally no, because we’ve only got 890 lb left. Direct to Bastion from here at endurance speed is twenty-six minutes using up 390 lb of gas. Take off the 400 lb Minimum Landing Allowance we must land with and we have 100 lb of Combat Gas – or just over six minutes’ flying time. It will take you longer than that to brief them. I’m prepared to bust the limit and land with 200 lb. That gives us twenty minutes from now and perhaps a minute or two extra when we’re on the ground. So, illegally, yes. We’ll just get away with it. But you need to be very, VERY quick.’

  Brief, strap ’em on, fly six klicks, rescue Ford, fly back six klicks … Twenty minutes? Jesus … We’d have to make do.

  ‘You’re a genius, Carl. Grab the stick.’

  The rotors were turning but I was already halfway out of the cockpit. The rules didn’t mean much now. Carl leaned out to pass me his strap.

  ‘Ed, I mean fucking quick. If we’re not pulling pitch for home in twenty minutes we’ll end up in the desert.’

  ‘Okay, relay the lot to …’

  ‘I have via text, while we were talking. They’re up for it. Don’t waste a second. Go.’

  The first man I reached was Dave Rigg.

  ‘You know what’s going on?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve seen the Nimrod feed.’

  Good.

  He extended his hand. ‘Hi, I’m Dave Rigg, I’m the –’

  ‘Sorry, we’re mega low on time. Follow me.’

  I grabbed Rigg and pulled him up to the right side of the aircraft while I pulled out my strap. The other three followed. I asked for their surnames. The rotors were thumping so hard I had to shout.

  ‘Right …’ I held up the strap. ‘You’ve got to strap yourself on because if you get shot while you’re on the wing, you need to stay on it. Lots of things might happen out there. I’m not going to go into them all.’

  I pointed to the grab bar beside Carl’s door.

  ‘This bar here is what you’re going to strap onto.’

  I demonstrated.

  ‘Okay, with that?’

  Three of them nodded, wide-eyed and hanging on my every word. But RSM Hearn didn’t appear to be paying much attention. Instead, he just grinned. I hadn’t the time to ask what he was finding so funny. I thought that perhaps he was nervous; I would have been, in his position.

  ‘Right, this is what’s going to happen …’

  I drew a line in the sand with my finger in front of the Apache, and put a small pebble beside it. ‘That’s the wall, and that’s Mathew Ford. Both aircraft will land in the field here, with the wall on our right. As soon as the pilots give you the thumbs up, go. Run to the wall. When you find the big hole in it, Mathew is just to the left. Grab one limb each and go to the nearest aircraft. Strap him onto the foot step in front of the right wheel with one of your straps.

  ‘Get back on the aircraft you got off, in the same place. If you don’t have a strap left, just hold on tight. Don’t run round the back of the aircraft or the tail rotor will chop your head off. If we go down, stay with the aircraft. The crew will guide you. If the crew are dead, make for the river. The firebase will cover you across it.’

  Was there anything I’d forgotten to mention? Yes, loads; but we didn’t have the time.

  ‘You.’ I pointed to Rigg, the bloke nearest to me. ‘You’re going to sit on this flat side here, in front of the engine air intake. Wedge your back against the aircraft by jamming your feet against the empty Hellfire rail.’

  I took the remaining three round the other side.

  ‘Fraser-Perry, you’re going here. Same drill. I’ll be back with some straps. You two, follow me.’

  We sprinted the 100 metres to the other Apache. Billy and Geordie’s canopy doors were open, ready for me.

  ‘Give me your straps, guys.’

  Billy threw his down. Geordie just looked embarrassed and put up his hands.

  ‘I haven’t got it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My jacket’s in for servicing. This is a spare, like. Sorry.’

  Bloody hell. Geordie was the squadron’s Combat Rescue officer. Of all the people to forget a strap … He’d be ribbed mercilessly by the lads for this when we got back. Someone would just have to go without.

  ‘Geordie, you lead, we’ll follow. Make sure you stay out of the gun line; they’ll be firing all the way in to cover us.’

  ‘No problem mate.’

  I dished out Carl and Billy’s straps to Robinson and RSM Hearn – who was still grinning at me – and ran back to my aircraft.

  How the hell do I choose who gets the last strap? Shit – is this going to be a life or death decision? It had to be Rigg. He knew where Mathew was, he was marginally more mission critical. I threw it up to him then went back round to see Fraser-Perry.

  ‘There’s no strap for you.’

  He looked at me in disbelief.

  ‘Put your arm through the grab bar and then force your hand in under your body armour. That way you won’t fall off if you get shot. Do you understand what I am saying?’

  He took it well.

  ‘Yes, yes …’ He nodded frantically and cracked on.

  ‘Tuck it in.’

  The tall marine in shirt sleeves was waiting for me at the front of the aircraft. Now I recognised him. Colonel Magowan. His brow was painfully furrowed, and intense concern was etched over every square inch of his tanned face.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said, and we shook hands. It sounded like he meant those words more now than he had in his whole life.

  I clambered back inside and plugged in as Carl was completing his last checks.

  ‘Guess who didn’t bring his strap.’

  ‘Not the SERE officer was it, by chance?’ He grinned. ‘Who drew the short straw?’

  ‘Young guy, left-hand side; name’s Fraser-Perry. The one on the right’s called Rigg.’

  I slammed my door, buckled up, pulled down my visor and tried to catch my breath as the air conditioning kicked back in.

  ‘I gave them the fullest brief we had time for. At least they all know exactly what to do when we get there.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Okay, Geordie, your lead.’

  ‘My lead,’ Geordie replied.

  Carl pulled on the collective and we began to lift steadily into our own swirling dust cloud.

  Magowan looked up. The loneliness of command was stamped onto his troubled face. I felt for him; whatever the outcome, he would be judged. I wanted to shout, ‘Fortune favours the brave!’ but I didn’t want to count my chickens yet either.

  It was not for some hours
that I found out that our four passengers had barely heard a word I’d said.

  INTO THE LION’S MOUTH

  We flew directly east, and very low – just ten feet off the desert floor. Only the odd opium runner’s tyre tracks punctured the sea of sand beneath us.

  ‘We’ll be over the ridgeline at 10.38, Ed.’

  ‘Copied, buddy.’

  The ridge was our cover. As long as we kept low, the enemy wouldn’t see us until the precise moment we crossed it. And by then they’d have other things to think about, if Widow Seven One had done his job. I needed to know that everything was set up right for us.

  ‘What’s happening with the fire plan, Carl?’

  ‘The JTAC was sorting it while you were out of the aircraft. We’ve got a B1 on station now; callsign: Bone One One. He’s been tasked to drop a 2,000-pounder bang in the middle of the village at 10.37, just as we approach the berm.’

  That was good news. It would give us a far bigger dust cloud to hide behind than the A10’s 500-pounder.

  ‘So he’s called off the A10.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tusk said they had to deconflict. Otherwise the B1 could drop on him. We’ve got to go with the B1 mate. They say they’ll be there.’

  ‘They’d better be.’

  The B1s were good but their equipment took an age to get bombs on target.

  The rest of the fire plan was simple. Nick and FOG would suppress the enemy to the north of our landing position, the main body of the fort, and Charlotte and Tony would hit them in the east – the treeline that ran down to the river. The A10 Thunderbolt had already strafed the tunnels to the south of us.

  That just left the west – and all those lunatics in the village that just wouldn’t die. The B1’s 2,000-pounder should kill most of them, and stun the rest. More importantly, the mess it made would block the Taliban’s view of us just long enough for our smash and grab.

  In any fire plan there is always one critical moment. Bone’s drop was it for us. And even if he dropped on time, we’d have no more than two minutes on the ground.

  I tried to visualise the marines unclipping the straps, hitting the dirt; how quickly they could shift Mathew. Thirty seconds to get to him, a minute to get him back, and thirty seconds to tie him onto the aircraft.

  Yes, it was doable – but in two minutes, tops. Any more than that, and the Taliban would be onto us big time, and not just from the west. They’d go ape-shit from every point of the compass.

  What about Fraser-Perry?

  Shit.

  My stomach lurched. I twisted as far as the confines of the cockpit would allow, and craned over my left shoulder. The young marine was exactly where I’d left him, one leg jammed hard against the weapons pylon forward of the wing, the other against the Hellfire rail. I could see his teeth clench and his knuckles white against the grab handle. If he gets hit, he’ll fall off; his hand should be tucked into his body armour.

  ‘Just remember to keep it at fifty knots, buddy.’

  Carl hadn’t forgotten. But I was sure Fraser-Perry would have thanked me for reminding him. Fifty knots was a pain in the arse; this low it made us sitting ducks. Our normal attack run was three times that. But these boys had a job to do when we got to the fort, and they had to be firing on all cylinders if we were to come out alive. The thump of the rotors and whine of the jet engines would already have half deafened them. Any faster and we’d have blinded them as well, with all the dust and shit in the air.

  I focused my TV camera on Billy and Geordie’s Apache, 500 metres to our left and just ahead, to check on their two marines. They were both there, one perched either side of the cockpit. I wondered if Hearn had lost that grin.

  Jesus. Were we really doing this?

  I just knew there was going to be something about this tour … All those promises I’d made Emily … I couldn’t bear to think about them. I couldn’t bear to think about her and the children. My hand moved to my pocket. I could feel my angel under my survival jacket.

  It’ll be okay. Just as long as the B1 drops on time …

  Billy and I had agreed we’d loop south of the firebase so we wouldn’t obstruct the marines’ arcs onto the fort. We’d duck down over the river and swing up north when we hit the sandbanks on the far side. Then we’d charge the final 200 metres and wheels down right in front of the fort’s ten-foot outer wall, where we’d last seen Mathew. I prayed he’d still be there.

  ‘Two minutes to target,’ Carl said.

  Jugroom Fort was only two-and-a-half klicks away now, still hidden beyond the ridgeline. Double the amount of orange and red tracer now arced high above it before burning out in the bright morning sky. The marines at the firebase had upped it from suppressive to rapid fire, and were giving the Taliban everything they had.

  Tony cut in. ‘Ugly Five Three has had a long-range missile launch from the south-east.’

  ‘Ugly Five Two has also,’ FOG echoed. ‘We’re chucking out flares too.’

  Whatever it was, it was still there. And there was still nothing any of us could do about it. But soon they would have four helicopters to aim at instead of just two. A lazy southern US drawl came on the air net. It sounded familiar.

  ‘All callsigns, this is Bone One One. Bone is running in.’

  Excellent news.

  ‘Ugly Five Zero and Ugly Five One; be advised, our coordination for the 2,000-lb strike will take seven minutes. Dropping seven minutes from now.’

  Appalling news. We didn’t have seven bloody minutes. Bone was the weak link in our master plan and that link had just snapped. We didn’t have the fuel to wait. If he wasn’t there, we’d just have to go in anyway. Otherwise Ford wasn’t coming out. And landing in full view of the west village was unthinkable. We were starting to feel like sitting ducks. Carl was even unhappier than I was.

  ‘Ed, Bone needs to get on this sharpish. Bloody tell him.’

  ‘Negative, Bone. We are inbound with the rescue team now. Repeat: we are running in NOW. You must drop at one zero three seven hours.’

  That reminded me: time to make ready my own personal weapons. A loaded weapon was the Number One No-No in an Apache cockpit. A round going off would ricochet around the Kevlar until it found me. But the rule book had already been thrown out of the window. If we went down, my SA80 carbine and 9-mm pistol were going to be my only life support systems.

  The carbine first, clipped into the bracket on the right of my seat. I fished a full mag of thirty tracer rounds from the ammo bag wedged in next to me, clipped it on, pulled down the cocking handle and clipped it back onto the seat. Red tracer was the emergency signal for downed Apache pilots to get help from the other gunships; you put a burst into where you wanted some suppressing fire, so your mates above could keep you alive until someone picked you up.

  The 9-mm Browning next. I unfastened the Velcro straps of the holster on my right leg, pulled back the top slide then let it go with a metallic click and re-holstered it – this time without the Velcro. Both weapons with a round in the chamber, ready to go. Screw the rules; it made me feel better.

  ‘Sixty seconds to target, Ed. Where the hell is Bone?’

  Time, fuel. Time, fuel. Carl was doing his nut. We were just 1,100 metres from the fort now, and within enemy range. Better push Bone for a …

  An ear-splitting metallic blast on the right side of the aircraft.

  ‘What on earth was that?’

  Jesus. Please don’t tell me Rigg has been shot …

  Our heads shot right and I scoured the airframe for damage. ‘Christ knows. Are we hit?’

  ‘Can you see anything?’

  There was no damage. Rigg grinned sheepishly, pointed to his SA80 rifle and gave us the thumbs up.

  ‘Rigg has let one go by mistake!’

  ‘No, it was probably on purpose.’ I remembered my conversation with Rigg at the RV. ‘He said he hadn’t had a chance to test fire his weapon in theatre.’

  ‘He hadn’t what?’

  ‘Yea
h, I know. He wanted to let one off to make sure it worked.’

  ‘Oh, right …’

  What a time to check-fire your weapon. But I couldn’t blame him.

  I looked forward again and started to get my first visuals of the air above the target area. FOG was over the lip of the ridge, at altitude on his first gun run, Nick’s cannon already spitting flame. Tony circled on a wheel directly opposite him and kept silent. Charlotte was waiting for us to come in on her eastern flank. She didn’t want to do anything to risk giving away our plan of approach. Good girl.

  Fresh smoke and dust spiralled up from the last salvo of artillery shells that had exploded on the Taliban village. The three 105s were going like the clappers. They’d stop the second we landed and came in range of their shrapnel.

  Again, that’s why we needed Bone. For Christ’s sake, we were almost on top of the firebase. Widow Seven One just had to sort him out.

  ‘Widow Seven One, this is Ugly Five One. Confirm Bone’s time on target.’

  Bone didn’t even give the JTAC a chance to reply.

  ‘Break, Break … This is Bone. Bomb in the air. Impact in Five Zero seconds, sir.’

  Yes. Bone had come up with the goods after all.

  ‘I bet that’s the longest gliding bomb he’s ever dropped.’

  ‘Thank fuck for that.’ Carl’s relief was so strong I could touch it.

  But we were still going to get there a fraction too soon. The ridge was only 600 metres from the fort and the village, and the Danger Close distance for a 2,000-lb bomb was 590 metres. We didn’t want to be anywhere near that thing when it went off.

  ‘Carl, tell Geordie to slow up a little and come right. We’re going to be ten seconds too early now.’

  ‘Okay. Ugly Five Zero, Ugly Five One: kick right.’

  We banked gradually right. But something was wrong. Geordie hadn’t changed course.

  ‘Carl, tell Geordie to come right now.’