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 when they got to the wall. And now he was only fifty yards away from Mathew.
16. 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.
‘Long-range missile launch,’ Bitching Betty announced. ‘Six o’clock.’ The flares continued to pour off. My neck cracked as I threw my head rapidly back and to the right. I could see Carl follow suit.
‘Ugly Five One, missile launch six o’clock.’ Carl’s voice sounded laboured. He pulled as hard as he could on the cyclic to throw the Apache onto its back. ‘Billy and Geordie are chucking flares too.’
We’d been locked on at exactly the same time, but no missiles had passed our windows. The two pilots compared notes.
‘Geordie, we’ve just had a long-range missile launch from the south-east. Confirm the direction on you.’
‘South-east. Long range too.’
‘Where the bloody hell is it then?’
All four of us craned our heads round. There were no telltale smoke trails to give away the firing point.
‘Maybe it was the sun. Our systems could be playing up.’
‘On both aircraft? You’re the Ewok, Carl.’
‘Yeah, I know. That’s bollocks. I don’t like it.’
Did the Taliban have a SAM down there now? They’d certainly had enough time to ship one in. Apaches had been scrapping over the fort for six hours now. If it was a SAM, it must have misfired. There was definitely something down there, but God knew what. Widow Seven One had more bad news.
‘Be advised Ugly Five One, Zulu Company will be a further thirty minutes. Keep suppressing for their assault.’
Billy was livid when Carl relayed. ‘What? For fuck’s sake… How much time do they think they’ve got?’
It was now 9.48am, and we’d been on station for an hour and eleven minutes. We’d prepped the area for a rescue now, not in half-an-hour’s time.
‘We’re not going to be able to do this for much longer you know, Ed. I’m down to one Hellfire, sixteen Flechettes and 120 thirty Mike Mike.’
‘Copied. We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we slow down on ammo, we lose Mathew. If we continue at this rate and they’re not ready, we lose Mathew when we run out of ammo. I’ve only one Hellfire, eight of each rocket type and 80 thirty Mike Mike,’ I reported in return.
I got back onto the JTAC.
‘Widow Seven One this is Ugly Five One. We’re depleting our ammunition. We could really do with some fast air on the village.’
‘Affirm Ugly Five One. Still no fast air on station. I’ve requested it three times. I’ll request it again.’