Apache

The JTAC took over with an almighty artillery barrage on the village as we departed.

Colonel Magowan’s Command Post was located in a wadi six kilometres into the desert, due west of the fort. Vikings, Pinzgauers and the UAV detachment’s Scimitar were corralled alongside large canvas tents from which the signallers worked. Everybody else sat around portable desks. Loudspeakers broadcast the mission net traffic. Colonel Magowan put down the radio handset and asked for four volunteers.

His Ops Officer and his JTAC stepped forward immediately, but were indispensable where they were. Captain Dave Rigg, the battlegroup’s Royal Engineers adviser, insisted on going. He’d been watching the Nimrod feed for the last ten hours, knew the exact location of Lance Corporal Ford and every inch of the fort.

The colonel called for the Landing Force Command Support Group’s regimental sergeant major, WO1 Colin Hearn, the only member of the command staff who hadn’t heard his radio conversation. Nineteen-year-old Zulu Company Marine Chris Fraser-Perry and Magowan’s twenty-six year-old signaller, Marine Gary Robinson, were also selected.

When the RSM appeared, he was asked to get his weapon, body armour and helmet, and told he was going on the side of an Apache to retrieve Lance Corporal Ford. Colin Hearn chuckled to himself and marched off to pick up his gear. He was well used to the CO’s sense of humour by now.

Magowan’s CP was the nearest place we could land out of Taliban mortar range, which was why it was there. The rolling desert sands thundering by 1,000 feet beneath us made a pleasant change from the intensity of battle at the fort.

Tusk may not have been able to hunt and kill the bad guys like we could, but he could tip in and shoot straight any time. The Desert Hawk UAV controlled by Magowan’s HQ, Predator and Nimrod were also watching Mathew like hawks. But I still didn’t like leaving Mathew Ford. I just hoped the Taliban didn’t catch up with him while we were away.

I looked at the clock: 10.16am. We’d been over Jugroom for the last hour and forty-five minutes and every second of it had been ferocious. I rubbed my eyes. I was starting to get an Apache headache. I hadn’t had one in six months.

Carl and Geordie were jabbering away, going over their fuel states again and double-checking each other’s HIDAS self-defence systems. While they talked, I tried to rehearse my brief to the four volunteers.

First, I was going to have to show them how to strap themselves onto the aircraft. I reached involuntarily for the black karabiner that clipped mine to the front of my survival jacket. Then I was going to have to tell them what to do if they get shot on the wing. What would we do if they got shot? Just press on. What if two of them got hit? Badly hit, and before we even reached Ford? We could cope with two.

What happened if we crash-landed on the way down there, or even in the river? What if they were blinded by the dust during the flight and couldn’t see shit? What happened if they ran into the Taliban? Could we cover them from the ground? What if they got shot when they were on the ground – or if they turned around and saw their aircraft getting blown up behind them?

There were a million what ifs. I had the answers, but they weren’t going to like them one little bit. A three-day planning conference to iron out all the potential mishaps would have been nice. I only had three minutes. Bollocks. I’d just have to wing it.