by Ed Macy
‘Five seconds left, Ed.’
Now square-on to the body, I flicked the TADS into the largest zoom. Final confirmation: trousers and jacket were a similar shade to the ground, and patterned exactly like mine – British DPM.
‘Breaking off, Ed. Sorry. We’ve got to turn out of the guns.’
‘No problem, Carl. It’s him. We’ve got the MIA.’
We’d found our man. But was he still alive? The moment I announced we’d found him the whole world would want to know.
We came round again, higher. I couldn’t detect any dark patches on his clothing; so, no heavy blood loss – as far as we could see. His helmet was on, fastened tight and without deformation. His face was intact, eyes closed and mouth just slightly open. I felt a rush of relief. He looked peaceful; as if he was sleeping. No obvious signs of wounding. Had he collapsed through exhaustion? The marines carried an awesome amount of kit into battle these days.
‘Let Billy and Geordie know, buddy. Ask Billy to use his FLIR for a heat source.’
That would give us a good indication of whether our guy was still alive. It was just five degrees celsius outside, cold enough to chill a dead body in half an hour.
‘Will do.’
At least the Taliban hadn’t got him. Establishing that was our number one priority. The entire brigade’s actions for the next week depended on it. If he was alive, he was unconscious. But why? If he’d been bounced off the wall he could be concussed for ages. I didn’t want him to be unconscious. I wanted him to give us a little wave to tell us that he was pretending to be dead so the Taliban didn’t come for him.
A giant fountain of soil and dirt erupted on the other side of the canal, 100 metres away from the man we now knew to be Mathew Ford. He was Danger Close to the gunners’ nearest shells …
Being on the raised bank wasn’t so good. It put him in clear line of sight of the enemy in the western village. It was surely only a matter of time before they saw him, artillery barrage or not.
He couldn’t be bluffing the Taliban, could he? Surely he would have done that from the relative safety of the ditch. He must have been concussed …
‘As soon as you can, Carl, I need both of our eyes back on Mathew, in case any of those scumbags make a run for him. I’ll tell the chain of command.’
Carl threw the Apache over his right shoulder and rolled her out 180 degrees, giving us both eyes on again. I gave Widow Seven One the news, and heard it echo repeatedly down all the commands. They were desperate to plan their next move.
‘Ugly Five One this is Widow Seven One. Is he alive?’
I’d already told him we didn’t know, and repeated it.
‘Ugly Five One, please confirm if he’s dead or alive.’
Billy had looked through his FLIR. ‘He’s got a heat source mate. A strong one. His extremities are still hot too. His hands are almost the same temperature as the rest of his body.’
It was the strongest sign of life we could get without actually seeing him move.
‘Ugly Five One can confirm he is warm but has not moved. There are no obvious signs of death; assumption is, he’s alive.’
An immediate response from a new callsign: ‘Ugly Five One, this is Wizard.’
Wizard? It was the Nimrod MR2, 20,000 feet above us. They only ever relayed messages from way up the food chain. That morning, it was the brigadier.
‘Ugly Five One, Sunray says do not let anyone get anywhere near the MIA. Ground troops will re-cross the river and recover Lance Corporal Ford ASAP.’
The brigadier had given the order. The rescue was on.
The big question now was would the marines get to him before the Taliban?
I kept my eyes glued to Mathew whilst Carl described the ground to me. Somehow the western village was still filling up with enemy. It was still almost entirely intact; the night’s bombardment hadn’t touched it. Though the artillery shells had left scorch marks on the walls, they hadn’t brought the buildings down. We’d spotted tracer and muzzle flashes from most of the huts, as the Taliban engaged the marines’ firebase on the berm. Whenever we got too close, they gave us a burst too – and a couple of RPGs for good measure.
The river still only had one crossing point. There was only one way the marines would get to Mathew, and that was right past the village. There was no two ways about it – they’d get another horrible smacking, if they got through at all.
Billy was the first to frame the thought. ‘Ed, we’ve got to take on that village. The marines are screwed unless someone flattens it before they get there.’
‘Not to mention what the wankers in there could do to Ford,’ Geordie chimed in.
I told the JTAC and asked for permission to engage.
He didn’t fuck about. ‘Ugly Five One this is Widow Seven One. You’re cleared hot onto the village. Destroy the position in preparation for the rescue.’
‘Copied. The buildings have multiple rooms and look pretty strong. Hellfire may not be best suited. Request fast air to assist ASAP.’
‘I have called for close air support. Do what you can in the meantime. But do not, I repeat, do NOT let anyone get near the MIA.’
We divided up the workload between the two Apaches. We needed to keep one aircraft pointing at the fort at all times so the Taliban knew we’d shoot them if they went for Ford. Carl and I watched Mathew from a half-moon-shaped orbit in the east while Billy let rip on the village. Then we swapped roles. As I slaved my crosshairs up and down the fort wall, Geordie and Billy began their first run from the south-east at 9.03am.
‘Engaging with thirty Mike Mike.’
I glanced up from my TADS to see his cannon rounds tearing into the first of the fifteen huts and buildings, spitting great lumps of earth and rock out of the walls and igniting the straw roof. Billy got off four good twenty-round bursts before Geordie had to break off. Every ten seconds, another three 105-mm shells pounded down on the village too. Two long, barn-like buildings had good arcs of fire up the towpath and onto Mathew. On his second and third attack runs, he planted Hellfires and raked them with 30-mm, collapsing their stone roofs on the fighters inside.
We swapped over. I could still see a series of holes dug into the eastern wall of one of the barns at ground level – little holes a few inches wide, enough to poke a muzzle through. My bet was that the Taliban snipers had covered themselves with mattresses, to protect themselves from our frag. I smacked a Hellfire into the wall and took it down. My adrenalin was up. With my second, I dropped the roof of a smaller building with three sniping ports, ten metres further north. The mattresses wouldn’t get in the way of those puppies, that was for sure. Widow Seven One piped up as we swapped roles again.
‘Ugly, we are taking heavy incoming fire across here at the firebase. Every time you turn away from the village it’s RPG Central out of there.’
We must have killed a fair few by now, but our pummelling hadn’t distracted the bastards at all. There had to be dozens of them down there, but we’d seen no movement between buildings since we’d begun our onslaught. How the hell were they all getting in? Billy broke in as Carl began our third run.
‘Stand by, stand by; he has moved.’
‘Say again Billy?’
‘Mathew Ford has moved. I say again, he HAS moved.’
‘Stand by. Break off, Carl.’ I shuffled my backside in the seat to get more comfortable. My pulse started to race. Carl turned sharply right back into the fort and I slewed my TADS back onto Mathew. His feet and hands were still in the same position. He looked no different to me.
‘Are you sure, Billy?’
‘One hundred per cent. He has moved. He’s alive.’
If Billy was sure he’d seen him move, that was good enough for me. I told the JTAC. This was big news, and it upped the ante considerably. Another tidal wave of chatter burst over the net. Now the marines knew they had a life to save.
But Billy had been thinking.
‘Ed, I’ve got an idea. Ford needs to be moved now. He
’s alive, but clearly badly injured. He could be dying right now.’
‘Affirm.’
‘Well, we could pick him up …’
‘Say again?’
‘We could rescue him. You stay up, we’ll go down. One of us gets out and straps him to the side of the aircraft. You know, like our downed aircraft emergency drill.’
‘Stand by.’
If he’d moved he was probably badly hurt, because he wasn’t moving a muscle now. Or he was unconscious. Either way, he needed help fast. I thought it through. It was ludicrous; we had no FLIR and they had no access to the mission net. More importantly still, I’d picked up unconscious bodies before. There was no way one person could shift Mathew to the Apache and strap him on alone. I consulted Carl and he agreed.
‘I know what you’re saying Billy. But we’ve got a U / S FLIR and you wouldn’t be able to lift him on your own.’
Billy paused. ‘Okay, I’ll speak to the Boss.’
He called Trigger on the secure FM net. He’d made a beeline for Camp Bastion’s Joint Operations Cell on his return from Kandahar, to follow the battle and sort out a contingency plan.
‘Negative,’ was Trigger’s response.
‘But he’s still hot and we think he’s just unconscious. We can get him back.’
‘NEGATIVE,’ Trigger said, more firmly still.
Billy wasn’t giving up that easily. There had been no word on exactly when the marines we’re going to cross. He was convinced it was Mathew Ford’s best chance. Thirty seconds later, he came back on to me.
‘Let’s do it together, Ed.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s both go down there; then two of us can get out and carry him.’
It was still totally impractical. We’d get cut to pieces if we both went. Every time we turned tail they’d volley-fired RPGs at us.
‘Look Billy, Zulu Company are going to recover him. We have no top cover and the whole place is filling up with Taliban. Sure we’d get in, but we couldn’t get out of there without a massively well-coordinated fire plan and shit-loads of top cover.’
Billy fell silent.
‘Okay, I’ve got a better plan. Let’s go and collect two marines each and fly them into the fort to collect the casualty. It’ll be much quicker. You coord the fire plan and 3 Flight can give us top cover.’
‘Stand by.’
I looked at Mathew Ford’s body. Strapping someone to the side of the aircraft was an emergency drill only ever to be used to rescue downed Apache aircrew. We’d rehearsed it as part of our escape and evasion training, but only on the ground and never with engines on or the rotors actually turning. That contravened MoD health and safety guidelines. In sixteen years of Apache operations, the Americans had never lifted any ground troops on the wings.
However, it was theoretically possible. We were all carrying our emergency straps as routine equipment, and the grab bars were right there behind the canopy. The only other aircraft we had available were the Chinooks, and they’d just set off back to Bastion, low on fuel, after dropping more ammo at the gun line. Besides, a great big flying cow like that would get shot to shit down there. Unlike the Apache it wasn’t designed to take rounds …
We were the only airborne option. It was possible. Maybe it could work …
Billy had the bit between his teeth now. I’d seen him like that before. He was like a bulldozer; nothing got in his way. But this needed serious cool. If it went wrong, we’d lose a whole load more men, and gift the Taliban eighty million quid’s worth of Apaches. It would be enough to make those boys believe in Father Christmas. And it could lose us the whole bloody campaign.
I tried not to let on to Billy that I was coming round to his idea. The truth is, I was. When Billy was this confident, his track record was 100 per cent spot on.
‘Listen Billy, we could only do it if Nick and Charlotte came back to give us top cover …’
That was all he needed. He was straight back onto the Boss.
‘Listen, sir, the ground troops are nowhere near ready to cross. I want to get two men on each aircraft and fly them into the fort to recover the casualty. Ed thinks we can do it too …’
Bollocks.
‘Can you send 3 Flight down to assist?’
‘Billy, listen to me,’ Trigger said. ‘We’ve been on the phone to Lashkar Gah and they have said it will be a ground rescue.’
‘Okay, sir. If I land, just confirm I will be disobeying a direct order.’
‘Affirmative. You will be. You can’t land both aircraft, you have no top cover.’
There was an uneasy five-second silence.
Then the Boss came back on. ‘I am launching 3 Flight to come and assist you.’
He paused, to allow the message to sink in.
‘Don’t do anything until the other aircraft arrive. I have no situational awareness and you have the bigger picture. If you think it will work, you’ll need permission from the ground commander.’
‘Copied, sir. Thank you.’
Billy didn’t need to prompt me. I was straight onto Widow Seven One. He was working out of Magowan’s HQ, and would only have been a few feet away from him.
The JTAC’s response was swift and uncompromising. ‘Negative. That request is denied, Ugly Five One. Zulu Company is going to rescue him.’ He added, ‘We don’t want cowboy missions,’ in case we hadn’t got the message.
Carl began to relay it to Billy and Geordie but I stopped him halfway through.
‘Don’t tell Billy the “cowboy missions” bit. He’ll flip.’
Carl wasn’t going to. Billy was angry enough anyway.
‘Right, well, if the marines are going to do it, they’d better fucking well get on with it. They’re running out of time. This place is filling up like Wembley on Cup Final day. I hope they realise that.’
We were all pissed off. With Nick and Charlotte dealing death and destruction from above us, coupled with a good arse-kicking fire plan, we’d convinced ourselves we could do it. Neither of us had taken our sights off Mathew, but we’d left the village alone for five minutes while the debate had raged. Billy and Geordie began another run in to attack with a Hellfire while Carl and I stayed where we were.
I looked briefly out of the canopy window to see it explode with pinpoint precision. Something caught my attention by the river bank directly south of the fort. Movement? It couldn’t be; the Taliban would have had to cross the canal to get there from the village. Nobody had come out of the fort; we were sure of that. Ditto the trees to the east.
‘Did you see something by the river, Carl?’
‘No.’
Maybe I’d imagined it. Better just double-check. Nothing.
‘Do us a favour, buddy, break off from Mathew for a sec and pull over to the east. But keep your eye on him.’
‘Will do. I have Mathew.’
‘Set a course so it looks as if we can’t see the fort.’
I slewed my TADS down to the river as we banked right and rolled away. Anyone watching would think both Apaches were heading out. I picked up five black rings on the embankment, evenly spaced, ten metres apart, where I thought I’d seen the movement. I’d wondered what they were when we first arrived. I kept scanning the area. Nothing happened. Carl held the Apache so that the TADS was looking backwards.
‘Just keep it on that line a few more seconds, Carl. Let’s try and sucker them out.’
And bang, out popped a black-turbaned head from the second ring to the right, followed by a puff of smoke from behind him then a cloud of dust as he loosed off an RPG at the firebase. Quick as a flash, he disappeared again.
Tunnels. The black circles were part of a fucking tunnel system. Where did they lead to? Had the black turban been in there all along? We’d had no idea about them – nobody had. Maybe he’d shot the five marines from there …
My stomach turned to liquid. Zulu Company had been surrounded the second they drove in there. Black Turban would only have been fifty yards away from them w
hen they got to the wall. And now he was only fifty yards away from Mathew.
GIVE ME FOUR VOLUNTEERS
‘Billy, Taliban in the tunnels thirty-five metres south of Mathew. Engaging. Watch my strikes.’
As soon as Carl managed to flip us around enough, twenty of my cannon rounds went straight down Black Turban’s hidey-hole. No wonder it was RPG Central at the firebase.
I put another burst of twenty down Black Turban’s hole for good measure, and then another twenty to collapse each of the four other tunnel entrances. There was no way of knowing if any of the 120 rounds had hit anyone, but if we hammered them hard and fast enough, perhaps we could scare them away. At least they’d know we were onto them.
Billy continued to hammer the village with 30-mm HEDP rounds. Maybe there were tunnels under some of its buildings too. It would explain how they were infiltrating so fast.
Billy had used up more than half his Hellfires, so he switched to rockets and planted eight HEISAPs over a fifty-metre radius into the main cluster of buildings. Their charges were powerful enough to penetrate the walls, pelting the occupants with stone and debris, followed by a killer pressure wave. We switched over guard and attack roles.
‘My gun. Firing.’ Slaving the cannon to his right eye, Carl looked straight down at the back end of one of the buildings hit by Billy. ‘I’ve got movement in the village.’
He was right; as his first rounds flashed and exploded on the stone, eight Taliban sprinted from the other end of the building. He gave them three more bursts of twenty before they reached cover.
‘Good shooting, bonny lad,’ was Geordie’s verdict.
We were back on strike now, so I sent a Hellfire straight into the building that the lone escapee had just reached. They didn’t like our rockets, so I slammed eight Flechettes – containing 656 five-inch-long Tungsten darts – into the village centre. The darts could penetrate armour, so they’d get through those walls. Flashes of bright orange light erupted on each side of the aircraft as we came in again.
