FOG was flying Nick low on a northerly axis over the treeline to the east, scanning the fort for any movement.
‘My gun.’ FOG slaved the cannon with a flick of his right thumb, aligned the crosshair and loosed off a twenty-round burst.
‘Engaging with cannon, Billy,’ he bellowed. ‘Watch my strikes.’
Great chunks of adobe flew off a long building in the centre of the compound. FOG moved his eyeball swiftly left and shifted the impact zone. A second wave ploughed into the neighbouring courtyard, shredding paving stones and slicing along the wall Billy was being engaged from.
FOG spotted movement inside the far end of it. ‘Talibs escaping; firing.’ His third burst blasted away the section of wall alongside where Geordie was overtaking RSM Hearn…
Geordie was blown a metre sideways by the pressure wave four feet above his head.
More explosions, some on the other side of the wall, others on the canal bank to the right of him. Red-hot shrapnel whipped across the path, centimetres behind him, through a waist-high, metre-long shell hole. Geordie’s ears rang and his mouth filled with grit.
Jesus, what the hell was that? An RPG? Ten RPGs?
Sound travels at 343 metres per second. So it took Geordie just over three seconds to hear the pounding of the Apache cannon a kilometre away. Shit, the guys are firing on us.
‘What the fuck is that?’ screamed Hearn.
‘Just fucking run,’ Geordie shouted.
Geordie didn’t know it was possible to run faster than they already were. But he did it then.
‘Delta Hotel, FOG. Delta Hotel,’ Billy said. ‘Good shooting mate. Keep it up.’
Billy was doing mental cartwheels. He checked the clock: 10:40 and fifty-five seconds. Jesus, almost two-and-a-half minutes on the ground. Time up. They needed to get out of there now. The next Beirut unload from God knew which direction couldn’t be far off. The Taliban would have given their eye teeth to get their hands on one of the feared mosquitoes. And now they had two of them, gift wrapped, and delivered to their door.
Where the hell was Geordie? He should have got back by now. He’d been out there for a minute and forty seconds. Maybe they needed a hand. Maybe he should lift and start putting some fire down… But if he moved, he’d brown the place out again, and Geordie and the marines wouldn’t be able to see where he was. He couldn’t leave them behind, no matter what.
What if they’ve been hit, and can’t get back? They hadn’t discussed Actions On for that. Billy tried to flush the disaster scenario from his mind. Of course they were coming back.
Lifting and firing was going to be his last resort if ten Taliban came running round the corner. He wrapped his hand around the collective’s grip. It was locked. Geordie must have done it on his way out. He could only take-off in an emergency and fly by wire. Shit. Please don’t let anyone come round the corner. At least Carl and Ed were in the right place. He stamped on the pressel again.
‘Ed, it’s taking too long. What’s going on? Is Ford strapped onto you yet?’
‘Billy, it’s Carl. Ed’s outside. They’re having a really tough job moving him.’
‘There are four of them…’
‘No there aren’t.’
‘What’s Ed doing out of the aircraft?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There aren’t four of them; just our two marines and Ed. Where are your marines?’
‘Can’t you see them?’
‘Negative.’
‘What about Geordie? Is Geordie not there either?’
‘He’s with you, isn’t he?’
‘Negative.’
Silence.
‘Fuck.’
Geordie swept past the entrance to the field where his Apache was as their third minute on the ground began. He turned to check Robinson and Hearn were still following him and snatched a quick glance at the aircraft, eighty metres away through the haze. He couldn’t make out his co-pilot. He hoped to God he hadn’t been hit.
Geordie was in pain now. He’d run more than 500 metres at a full sprint and his lungs were full of smoke. His throat rasped as he tried to suck in more oxygen. The battle still raged around him, but at least nobody was shooting directly at him now.
The southern end of the west wall was just ten metres away. A left turn and he’d hook up with Mathew and the two other marines. Then they could all get the hell out of there.
Geordie rounded the corner to see Ed and Rigg heaving Ford towards the Apache and Fraser-Perry in position to give covering fire. Muzzle flashes sparked up at the far end of the field. Bullets tore up the furrows, their points of impact careering ever closer.
Rigg and Mathew went down like a sack of shit. Ed went down right after him. Geordie had got there too late.
19. ESCAPING JUGROOM FORT
The bastards are not getting me alive. I need my pistol.
I glanced back across the field, and there was Geordie, thirty metres away. The Taliban bullets cracked through the air around us.
‘Geordie, put some rounds down!’ Then I saw he didn’t have his carbine with him either.
Got to move Mathew out of the fire. Get him behind the aircraft… The fuselage was only seven metres away; we were very near the blades. My eyes dipped as I grasped Mathew more firmly and tugged my foot free. My pistol poked out from underneath him. I grabbed the grip and spun round on my knees, preparing to return fire towards the muzzle flashes. As I did so, the sound of the Apache’s rotor pitch changed. Oh no…
Carl started to pull power. Dust and grit smacked me in the face as I turned to see the aircraft begin to wobble. The blades coned upwards. I got straight to my feet. I could just make out Carl speaking fast into his microphone and monitoring our every move. He didn’t want to hit us when he took off.
‘No Carl, get down!’
He couldn’t hear me. The suspension struts lightened as he began to lift. I threw both arms out and flapped them vigorously downwards. He finally got the message and powered down. I didn’t know whether he was leaving or just turning to engage the treeline, but I wasn’t having any of it.
The dust cloud he’d thrown up was so thick I couldn’t see my own hands. I stumbled about, trying to regain my bearings.
With an ear-piercing screech, a Hellfire came in to the east of us and exploded with a mighty flash. A quarter of a second later, the pressure wave passed through my clothing. Ten seconds later I heard two deep booms, then the sound of branches splitting and plummeting to the ground. HEISAP rockets. Charlotte and Nick were taking care of the treeline. Thank fuck, they’re onto them. Carl must have called them in.
The brown-out was still all-consuming. But it was now rippling slowly away from the aircraft in concentric rings, leaving us with a few metres of visibility inside it. The enemy gunfire from the eastern treeline had now dwindled. If we couldn’t see the Taliban, they couldn’t see us. Carl’s brown-out and the pounding from Ugly Five Two and Three had bought us a few crucial seconds. Got to move right now. I turned to check how badly hit Rigg was. To my amazement, he was crouching over Mathew and preparing to lift him again. Geordie was with him now.