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?’
‘Yeah, 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.’
‘I just have.’
I stamped my left foot on the floor pressel to operate my radio microphone. ‘Kick right, Geordie. The bomb’s inbound.’
No change. Fuck. The radios were blaring.
I tried a third time to break through. ‘Geordie! Break RIGHT!’
Geordie heard us just before they reached the ridgeline and flared their aircraft hard right. Carl slowed up and banked too, keeping in formation. As soon as our wings levelled, the bomb went off. And it was monumental.
To our left, orange fire raged over the ridgeline into the sky. It was enveloped almost immediately by the biggest cloud of black smoke I’d ever seen. It continued to mushroom until it was 200 feet tall, cancelling out the sunshine. There must have been an ammo dump under there. It was our cue. The fear dissipated immediately and I began to fidget in my seat with the anticipation of what was to come.
‘Widow Seven One, this is Ugly Five One. Check-fire all weapons except Apaches. Check-fire all weapons except Apaches. Read back.’
All the air and artillery needed to be turned off.
‘Widow Seven One is check-firing all weapons except Apaches.’
‘Correct. Give me as much fire from ground callsigns as possible to cover us in and out. They know how close they can bring it.’
‘Stand by.’ There was a five-second pause as the JTAC gave the second order. ‘All ground callsigns supporting now.’
‘Okay Carl, let’s get in there.’ I stamped on the pressel again. ‘Geordie, we’re clear. Go for it.’
The two helicopters veered sharp left and Carl tucked in 150 metres behind Billy and Geordie’s tail – far enough apart so we couldn’t get shot up in the same burst of fire, but close enough to land ASAP after them. Then we were up and over the ridgeline and hard down towards the glint of the Helmand River.
And there in front of us was Armageddon. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. I caught myself humming The Ride of the Valkyries; excitement had replaced anticipation.
The marines were gunning like mad from the ridge with rifles, GPMGs, 50-cals – everything they had. The 30-mm Rarden cannons of the Light Dragoons’ Scimitars were also piling in, and Nick and Charlotte were still blatting away with twenty-round bursts from high above us.
This was it; this was the moment. We were really doing it. The metallic taste of adrenalin began to saturate my mouth. The fight or flight instinct had kicked in. As soon as we were over the ridgeline, I slewed my TV camera towards where Mathew should have been and kept it there in the hope of picking him up. I couldn’t make out much more than the fort’s outer wall through all the shit in the air. The cloud of thick black smoke from the 2,000-pounder was spreading slowly from the village and enveloping the place. Clumps of earth erupted like fountains as our fire poured in, worsening the visibility by the second.
We crossed the river and banked sharp left. Pushing their cyclic levers forward, Carl and Geordie upped the airspeed to eighty knots. It was no place to hang around. To our right was a thick bank of trees – and only Allah knew what joys they concealed.
A quick glance left and right, over my shoulders. Rigg and Fraser-Perry were still hanging on. I looked down at the TV screen, but I still couldn’t see anything. Thick black smoke covered the whole fort now. I couldn’t even make out its walls, let alone Mathew’s body.
Rounds continued to zip backwards and forwards above the fort. The 2,000-pounder had done its job to begin with, but the Taliban were now answering back. We’d entered Tracer Central, and screaming in through the middle of it I felt like Han Solo up against the Imperial Fleet.
We were sausage-side big time, and there was no turning back. My tongue tasted like I’d been licking aluminium and I now needed a piss more than anything in the world. We were 200 metres from the wall. One more turn and we would be over the ploughed poppy field in front of it, wheels down.
‘Ten seconds.’
Geordie kicked left and tipped his tail. He began to flare for landing alongside the fort wall. Carl banked and began to flare too, but he had turned in the nick of time.
‘Shit, incoming from below right…’
A muzzle flash, and a long burst of automatic fire from the last of the trees fizzed past Rigg’s face as he spreadeagled himself as tight as he could against the Apache’s skin. It was game on now. They knew we were here.
‘Come on Geordie,’ Carl hollered.
Ahead of us, Geordie wasn’t landing. He wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing. Dust from the poppy field had swirled up around his rapidly slowing Apache. The thing had been ploughed so many times the top soil was as thin as talcum powder. We hadn’t expected that.
‘Jesus, he’s about to brown out…’
A brown-out was the last thing we needed. If we couldn’t see them, we couldn’t land.
‘Don’t go into the dust, mate; we’ll never make it.’
Carl slowed up hard and pulled on the collective to bring us up. To hover there would be the perfect invite for an RPG to climb right up our arse.
It’s going tits up…
I could feel my heart beat against my chicken plate; things were moving into slow-mo. A huge dust cloud now hung over most of the field, and Billy and Geordie had disappeared inside it. We needed to get wheels down, but neither of us could see shit below. And the Taliban couldn’t be more than 200 metres behind us.