‘Rigg, you okay?’
‘Yeah. Just tripped. Sorry.’
‘You’re not hit?’
‘Don’t think so. Can’t feel anything.’
I was astonished. They’d missed all of us.
I holstered my pistol and lunged for Mathew too. I grabbed hold of his webbing, Geordie latched onto his right leg, and summoning every last scrap of energy we headed for the aircraft.
Fraser-Perry and Robinson suddenly materialised too; one grasped a sleeve and one Mathew’s other leg. Last to break through the dust cloud was Hearn, his face red as a beetroot.
We were three minutes behind schedule and had been on the ground for over four. Yet suddenly – and I had no idea how – the plan was working.
‘Where the fuck have you lot been?’ I hollered above the engine’s whine.
‘Sorry, bonny lad,’ Geordie yelled. ‘Detour.’
As gently as we could, we lowered Mathew beneath the aircraft, placing his head below the step in front of the right wheel.
‘Anyone got a strap?’
Robinson’s immediately appeared in my hand.
‘Okay, back to your aircraft guys. We can manage from here.’ I turned to Fraser-Perry. ‘You get on, too.’
The marines sprinted off, but Geordie hung around. He needed to see it through.
‘Honestly, Geordie mate, we’re almost there. Last one back to Bastion is Piss Boy, eh?’
‘That’ll be you then.’ He smiled and set off.
Rigg lifted Mathew’s shoulders while I wrapped the strap around his back, under his arms, through his body armour and out by the top of his chest. Bollocks. It wouldn’t quite reach the step. We heaved him forward another six inches. But the strap was as taut as a bowstring and I was worried we would garrotte him in mid-flight.
‘Give me yours.’
I repeated the process with Rigg’s strap and fastened it to the step above his helmet. Now at least he would hang steady and straight.
‘Okay, mate, jump on. And hold tight.’
‘Roger…’
Robinson and Rigg were going to have to follow Fraser-Perry’s example and just cling on. Rigg leapt back onto his Hellfire rail and hauled himself onto the wing as I clambered back into the cockpit.
I moved my harness buckle away from the cyclic so Carl could lift safely. A quick check on Rigg and Fraser-Perry, then I raised both thumbs and screamed above the din: ‘Go, go, go…’
We’d well overstayed our welcome at Jugroom Fort, and Mathew desperately needed a crash team: 10.43 and forty-five seconds. Fuck me, five minutes and ten seconds on the ground. It had seemed like five years…
Carl pulled power and the canal disappeared from in front of us as we whipped the dust into a frenzy. He was flying blind, with only the symbology in his monocle: heading, height, torque and velocity. The hardest flying in the world. We began to wobble.
I fastened my harness, clipped the monocle to my helmet and connected my microphone lead. ‘Five One lifting. Give us cover.’
I took a firm hold of the two grab handles either side of the cockpit roof. Not to brace myself for a crash – it was the only way to suppress the screaming urge to take hold of the flying controls at a time like this. I wished I was in the back. Trust your symbology, buddy.
I felt the Apache move through the seat of my pants, but God only knew where. My monocle told me that we’d swung ninety degrees left, pointing the nose back towards the river. The whine of the engines increased as he pulled more pitch. I checked our height, thirty feet, and torque, 85 per cent. Carl was giving it some serious welly. I checked the airspeed: we were moving forward at five knots. Another five seconds and I looked at the height again, still only thirty feet, same speed and the torque was up to 90 per cent. We’d stopped lifting, and were still not clear of the brown-out. We should have been well away by now. There was a problem.
‘Ed, the power is much higher than it should be. Is Mathew tied to the bloody ground?’
‘Maybe it’s recirculation from the wall…’
‘No way. We should have bags of power. I’m topping out.’
The wobble became an uncomfortable sway. Jesus, we had a fifty-three knot tailwind. That’s what was destroying Carl’s lift. It was blowing away his purchase on clean air.
‘Can’t be right,’ Carl said. ‘It’s been five knots all morning.’
It was up and down like a yoyo. We had a squall on our hands. It could last for minutes. Afghanistan was full of them, but we’d never faced one on takeoff before. At this height the emergency drill was to turn into it, down the aircraft immediately and wait for the squall to pass. We didn’t have that option. Our truckload of luck had finally run out. Our height began to drop.
‘Twenty-five feet, and forty-two knots downwind…’
Carl called up more power, taking the torque to 95 per cent. He was doing all he could to get some translational lift. Increase the speed and you increased the airflow over the blades; then you were up. But we were downwind, so it wasn’t happening.
‘Twenty-one feet and thirty-seven knots downwind…’
We were sinking. Carl pushed the torque all the way to 100 per cent. He had nothing left to pull. The velocity vector was off the scale so we were moving forward fast, but still reversing into the wind. Any more and we’d be in serious danger of trashing our escape plan.
‘Nineteen feet and thirty knots downwind. Watch your torque, Carl. We’re dropping.’
Come on, fly, you bastard. I still couldn’t see a thing.
‘Fifteen feet, twenty-six knots downwind. Mathew’s too close to the ground, mate.’
Carl was going to have to turn back towards the fort to get forward airspeed or we’d ditch in the Helmand River.
‘I’m going over 100…’
With a mighty heave on the collective, he pulled the torque to 115 per cent. It was our last chance. Six seconds at that level and he’d twist the transmission permanently out of shape. The aircraft would be toast.
Fucking come on. Do it NOW…
I felt a small waver in the tail.
‘Eighteen feet, nine knots downwind. The squall’s dropping. Twenty-two feet, eight knots forward.’
‘Got it! Sylvia’s flying!’ Carl dropped the torque to 90 per cent. We were away.
‘Top flying, mate. Thank God for that.’
My guardian angel was looking after my lilywhite arse that morning…
Height and airspeed continued to climb for five more seconds and the torque remained constant.
Then we burst out of the dust, straight into blinding sunshine and a crystal blue sky. It was a beautiful day; I’d forgotten after so long in the Jugroom underworld. It was mind-blowing, unlike anything I’d seen before, or will see again.
As we soared towards the berm, a myriad red and orange light pulses streaked past the cockpit windows. It felt like Han Solo taking the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace. The marines at the firebase had seen our dust cloud, and were giving the Taliban every last bullet they had to cover us out. Thousands and thousands of rounds winged past us. Some of them were frighteningly close, but the marines knew exactly where they were shooting. It was an awesome display of firepower.
Charlotte and Tony’s Apache flew right in front of us, 200 feet above the firebase. The moment we emerged, two Hellfires shot off her rails with their arses on fire and buried themselves deep into the eastern treeline.
Nick and FOG had kept their best till last. I caught a glimpse of them in our two o’clock, running into the village from the desert. Then they let rip instantaneously with every single one of the sixteen Flechettes they had left in their launchers. They came out in pairs, the left ahead of the right – left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right – each leaving a vivid jet of flame in their wake. It was the biggest rocket launch I’d ever seen, and at the end of it, angry clouds of propellant vapour shrouded their entire aircraft.