Apache

The PM’s Hercules arrived a few minutes early and he emerged from the pilot’s door to be greeted by the brigadier. A forty-strong travelling circus of TV cameramen, photographers and reporters poured off the rear ramp and glanced around, looking a little confused. Our desert wilderness wasn’t the Afghanistan of the Tora Bora Mountains you saw on the news.

The entourage of senior brass and clipboard-wielding subordinates led him to the end of the line furthest from us. The PM insisted on stopping and chatting to every group while the TV cameras did their stuff. Finally, he reached the marine mortar team alongside us. A balding bloke in a suit with an A4 pad strolled on ahead.

‘Gentlemen, before the Prime Minister gets to you, I could do with a few details. What do you all do?’

The Boss turned to him. ‘Who are you?’

‘Oh, I’m Bob…’

‘Bob who?’

‘Bob Roberts. From the Daily Mirror.’

The revelation provoked all-round merriment; we’d thought the guy was some kind of Downing Street flunky.

‘Fuck off, baldy,’ and ‘Get out the way, will you?’ the Groundies chorused from behind us.

The poor bloke scampered off in the other direction, looking quite hurt.

‘Hi guys.’

And there was Tony Blair, standing right in front of us. We’d been so busy hurling abuse at the man from the Mirror that most of us hadn’t seen him approach.

‘Gather round the Prime Minister please,’ the RSM instructed.

Tony Blair was in official Prime Ministerial war zone kit: blue slacks, a navy blazer and a dark blue shirt, open at the neck. He looked tired and old. The famous blue eyes still twinkled, but huge crow’s feet spread from each corner of them and his hair was more salt than pepper. He was a different man to the one I remembered walking into Downing Street nine years before.

The squadron wags had gone quiet now; everyone was a little bit star-struck. Trigger must have breathed a sigh of relief; it was immediately obvious that all the big talk wasn’t going to come to anything.

Blair thrust his hand forward to each of us. There was no chance of holding onto it, even if someone did have the balls. We were given a quick, forceful shake, up and down, a momentary fix of the eyeballs and then it was onto the next bloke. Two seconds each, max. He moved incredibly quickly, clearly well drilled in how to avoid the ‘I’m going to hold onto his hand the longest’ game. No surprises there; he’d been shaking squaddies by the hand for years.

‘Prime Minister, this is 656 Squadron, Army Air Corps. They operate the Apache AH Mk1.’

‘Ah yes.’ The trademark grin stretched from ear to ear. ‘So you must work with the locals.’

None of us knew how to answer that, so none of us did. That kind of killed the conversation.

Someone did ask for a photograph, but instead of pulling Darwin’s cheeky prank we all gathered sheepishly round Blair instead – Darwin included. The most rebellious we got was slipping the odd thumbs-up to the camera behind Blair’s back as we posed up for the group snaps.

Then, just as quickly as he’d arrived, he was ushered away to the medics, the next group in line.

Billy couldn’t conceal his disappointment. ‘I thought he might ask us one question about the aircraft. He did buy the bloody thing, after all.’

Geordie was still as confused as the rest of us.

‘Hang on, did you hear what he said to us, like? “So you must work with the locals.” What the fuck does that mean?’

It was obvious Blair had no real idea of who we were or what we did. Sadly, scaring the locals half to death was about the closest we ever got to working with them. Since we spent most of our lives 3,000 feet up, he couldn’t have been further from the mark. Maybe he’d offered everyone down the line the same catch-all remark. I suppose it saved having to think of twenty different ones.

The procession finished and, 200-odd hands shaken, Blair was whisked across to the croissant tent. A dais had been erected at the opposite end of it, with a loud speaker on either side. After Blair had downed his coffee, we were ordered to gather round for his speech.

A bank of raised platforms had been thrown up for the travelling media. They offered the best view, so Billy and I jumped up on one of them. It earned us an evil look from its occupier, a man with thick black glasses later identified to me as the BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson. He didn’t seem totally thrilled about sharing his platform with us. Billy and I gave him a grin.

‘Here, in this extraordinary piece of desert, is where the future of the world’s security is going to be played out… The only way we can ensure security is being prepared to fight for it… We will beat the Taliban by having the determination and courage to stand up to them… You defeat them not just on behalf of the people here in Afghanistan but in Britain, and the wider world… People back home are very proud of the work you do, whatever they think of the politicians who sent you…’