Apache

Normally we’d keep out of their way. But that meant wasting more fuel we didn’t have. A flash of light shot straight across the windscreen, missing us by no more than a few feet. Carl threw the aircraft into an evasive bank, climb and jink.

‘What the fuck was that? Have we been engaged?’

I shot a glance out my window, spotting for an RPG smoke trail. Instead, I saw a solitary bright yellow kite flying above the village compound.

‘It was a kite, mate…’

It made me think of Khaled Hosseini’s novel, The Kite Runner, which Emily had made me read on holiday in Egypt before the tour. The Taliban had banned kite flying. Among other things, we were here to defend the Afghan people’s right to fly kites if they wanted to. But this one had scared the hell out of us. Maybe the Taliban had a point.

I felt for Emily’s angel, but the survival jacket was too tight. It must have shifted position when we were moving Mathew. I desperately wanted to know whether he was alive. There had been no time to check his condition before we left the firebase, and we’d heard nothing over the net. A crash team could have got his heart beating again in an instant, surely…

On another day Carl and I might have put a call into the Ops Room, but they had enough on their plate without our unnecessary questions. We’d find out soon enough.

Ten miles out of Bastion, Billy texted again. SEND FUEL AT BASTION

110. YOU?

90. WE LAND 1ST

Twenty pounds of fuel was eighty seconds more flying time. We didn’t quibble. Unless Geordie kept his aircraft 100 per cent upright, they were now in real danger of crashing. In a few minutes’ time, they’d drop below 100 lb and then the engines could give out on them any second.

We approached the camp side by side. Carl eased off on the power.

‘Don’t slow down too much, buddy!’

‘I’ll formate that close to them you’ll be able to smell Geordie’s arse. Stand by.’

Carl went onto the net. ‘Geordie, land long down the runway, so I can land short at the same time.’ He wasn’t wasting a second more than he had to.

The two pilots kept the same speed all the way in, with us one rotor blade’s distance behind Geordie. As we crossed the tip of the runway, Carl flared the aircraft suddenly and hammered the back wheel down onto the lip, catapulting the front wheels forward and down hard too; it wasn’t the most graceful landing I’d ever experienced, but it was the most grateful. Geordie did the same.

ENG1 FUEL BAR, Geordie texted as we taxied to the refuelling point.

That fuel bar was an emergency warning that pressure was dropping in the port engine and it would cut out automatically in less than five seconds. Geordie shut down the engine then and there on the runway to avoid having to file a lengthier incident signal.

Geordie and Billy took the right fuel point and we took the left, maintaining radio silence. If we were quick about this, we might be able to get away with nobody officially noting our return fuel states. That would save an ear-chewing by a pencil-neck somewhere along the line.

I opened up my canopy and shouted at the boys: ‘Get the fuel in, quick.’

Simon, the Arming and Loading Point Commander, popped his head inside the cockpit as his boys went to work.

‘All right, there, Mr M? How close have you cut it today then, eh? – 400 on the nose, I’ll bet. Sounds like it was quite a morning… fucking HELL…’ His eyes almost popped out when he saw the digital reading: 80 lb.

The next stop was the arming bay. The one and only Kev Blundell was waiting for us, hands on hips, with his usual sardonic expression.

He took a stroll around the aircraft. And for the first time I could remember, he didn’t say a single word. He took his time with the inspection, peering into every rocket hole and having a thoroughly good look at the 30-mm feed chain running to the cannon. He glanced up at Carl or me periodically, then looked right back down again.

Eventually he was finished. He nodded lugubriously as he leaned his gargantuan weight against the aircraft’s wing and plugged in.

‘Not bad lads. I’ve got to admit it, not at all bad.’ He broke into a smile. ‘I hear you were put to shame by a bird, though.’

I caught sight of the Boss, walking straight towards us. Thank God we’d got the fuel in…

A Chinook thumped past over his left shoulder, on its way to the hospital landing site. Must have been Mathew. It was odd that the Boss had come down to the flight line to see us, even today. He was too busy for that. His brow was heavily furrowed and he looked like he had the weight of an elephant on each shoulder.

I gave him a smile, but I didn’t get one back. When he saw my hands he stopped short and stared at them. I looked down too and realised they were still stained with Mathew’s blood.

He nodded at them. ‘You all right?’

‘Yeah, it’s not mine.’ I gave him a big thumbs up as reassurance.