Apache

She wanted to know what happened, so I told her. I tried to keep it as concise as possible as she hung the cross on my left breast pocket. The Queen patted it flat for me and stepped back slightly, lifting her eyebrows as I spoke and nodding gently. After twenty seconds I realised I was rabbiting on a bit, so I ended my story quickly.

‘You must have been very proud of what you tried to do,’ she said.

‘Today is my proudest day ever ma’am,’ I responded.

‘Not because I’m meeting you…’ No I didn’t mean that… ‘because I’ve been given the chance to bring my family to meet my Queen.’

Her polite smile widened into a grin and then in to a delightful chuckle. I must stop chatting…

‘This is my last day in uniform ever ma’am. It’s the greatest day of my life.’ I knew I was losing it, and she did too.

The Queen started to laugh and thankfully placed her hand in mine for the final shake. It was soft but firm and before I knew what was happening she’d thrust it forward, forcing me to take a step back – a well-practised manoeuvre to signal that the audience was over, and it was Geordie’s turn in the limelight. As I walked backwards away from her, the Queen continued to chuckle.

Billy, Geordie, Nick and I and our families went to a hotel round the corner to celebrate.

There was no hiding what had happened from the kids. Mine wanted to know why the Queen only spoke to the four of us and, more importantly, what I had said to make her laugh. My daughter guessed it straight away. ‘I bet she asked you a question and then regretted it. She did, didn’t she, Dad?’

I officially left the British Army in January 2008 after twenty-three years’ service and 3,930 helicopter flying hours, 645 of them in an Apache. I was a born soldier and fighting from the cockpit of an Apache helicopter on operations was the pinnacle of my career.

It was also the last straw. As much as I love the army, the machine and the amazing years it gave me, sooner or later, being away from your family and the worry they go through gets to us all.

The squadron looks very different now; I wasn’t the only one to leave after that tour. Now, eighteen months on from the second tour, none of the original Apache pilots are serving with 656 Squadron.

Very shortly, Trigger and two of the four that joined us at the end of 2006 will take thirteen new pilots back out to Camp Bastion for the squadron’s third tour of southern Afghanistan. They are lucky people: no pilot could ask for a better leader in the field than the Boss.

Charlotte is his Ops Officer, but plans to leave the army after one final tour of the Helmand to ‘make some money’. She will.

Nick went over to 664 Squadron as their Ops Officer and did a third Helmand tour in the summer of 2008. He plans to stay in and I hope he goes as far as we all predicted; the Army Air Corps needs heroes.

FOG left the army at the same time as I did, to fly MD Explorers for the Police.

Darwin, Geordie and Carl were promoted to WO2; Darwin completed his instructional courses and now teaches students to fly Apaches at Middle Wallop; and Geordie was posted to a specialist military unit to fly civilian helicopters. The two are still incorrigible whenever they are together.

Promotion came too late for Carl and we lost him to the Australian Army. He emigrated to fly the Tiger attack helicopter for the Australian Defence Force and the shrewd Aussies promoted him to captain too.

Billy took a commission and is now a captain, serving as the Assistant Regimental QHI of another Army Air Corps regiment. It’s one more step closer to his ultimate dream – to be the most senior pilot in the Corps. He deserves that too.

Because of what we did in Afghanistan, we were told there would always be a threat to us back home in the UK. The more we do, the more the Taliban and their sympathisers hate us; it’s the price of success. It’s why the MoD affords Apache pilots the same protection as Special Forces; our real names or photographs are never publicly released without our signed permission.

I take sensible but not overly paranoid precautions to protect myself and my family. All my post goes to a special PO Box, I don’t vote, and I don’t have any contracts. My name doesn’t appear on any register or bill and I don’t even own my own home – I’m pretty much invisible. To anyone who wants to find me, I’m untraceable. Which does make getting a residents’ parking permit a pain in the arse.

But I’m not the sort of person to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder or worrying if some radical extremist will wake me up in the middle of the night with a 9-mm silenced pistol. Truth be told, I rarely give it a second thought. The one thing my service taught me is that life’s too short to worry.

PLATES

^{Photo credit: Lt Col Felton}

^{The Apache AH Mk1 en route to Afghanistan.}

^{Photo credit: Lt Col Felton}