Hellfire (2 page)
I aimed the Target Acquisition and Designation Sight (TADS) crosshair between them. Holding it steady I squeezed the laser trigger and pushed a switch.
T10 appeared at the bottom of my MPD screen, below the thermal image.
I now had the position stored, but the fear of an inquiry forced me to double-check it. I knew Jake would be doing the same a hundred metres further north.
We discussed looking for mortar base plates and heavy machine gun positions to give the Taliban something to talk about then lased and stored our firing positions in front of the 100 metre tree line on the LS.
T11…
‘Wildman Five Two this is Wildman Five Three,’ I called. ‘I have detected Taliban hiding in the buildings to the south of the DC.’
I hoped they’d assume I’d located whoever was waiting.
T12-right in front of Macy House.
‘Wildman Five Two,’ Jake said ‘I have Taliban in both tree lines to the south-west of the DC. Stand by.’
Neither of us had so much as begun to look for the Taliban.
We called the JTAC and he confirmed that the Taliban commanders were telling their men to stand their ground and fight.
It was now 0330 local.
The bluff and counterbluff had continued for the best part of twenty-five minutes-but they knew our ROE better than we did, so we just had to sit tight until the time was right.
Jake decided it was time to raise the stakes.
‘Wildman Five Three this is Wildman Five Two. Fireplan: we will engage the Taliban in the trees to the south-west of the DC with Apache rockets. Copy?’
‘Copied.’
‘Then we will use the Apache guns. You shoot at the buildings to the south. I will shoot at the trees. Copy?’
I copied.
‘We will fire from the south on my order. Kill all of the Taliban. Read back.’
I read it back as Simon banked us gently towards the south.
It was beginning to get light, but not light enough to bring colour to the silhouettes of trees, the canal that ran from Bridge Two or the rooflines of the town.
Four klicks to the south of the DC Simon and Jon turned back in a perfectly obvious and synchronised manoeuvre. We were nice and high so we stood out against the rapidly lightening sky.
We began to run in at forty knots.
Simon made the call we’d been waiting for on the secure inter-aircraft radio. ‘I have two rotary icons on the FCR in the desert to the north-west. The Hardwood callsigns are inbound to Sangin and on time.’
‘Widow Seven Six this is Wildman,’ Jake called the JTAC on the secure frequency. ‘Chinooks inbound; confirm we are clear to engage.’
I felt our nose dip and level again as Simon increased to ramming speed. A quick glance left with the naked eye confirmed Jon was 500 metres away and on level-pegging with us. We were in full view of the Taliban.
‘This is Widow Seven Six. Pegasus. Clear hot. Clear hot.’
I pressed T10 and called ‘Come Co-op’ to Simon after I actioned the rockets.
‘Co-op,’ Simon replied.
The MPD confirmed everything I needed to know: co-op bottom right and T10 bottom left. My crosshair was smack in the middle of the field and I was hands off. The Apache would hold the TADS on the position without any help from me. More importantly I could see where Jake was supposed to be firing.
Please be dead on. Please hit the target…
‘Running in to engage Taliban positions with rockets,’ Jake said. That should encourage them to look south.
The range was counting down above T10.
3.5KMS…3.4KMS…
‘On Jake’s executive word of command, Simon: match and shoot.’
‘Match and shoot with Jake,’ Simon replied.
The crosshair was static and Simon lined up the rocket steering cursor by adjusting our flight path. We were a hair trigger from firing.
‘Engaging with rockets,’ Jake called on the secure radio before switching back to the Taliban frequency.
3.0KMS…2.9KMS…
‘Wildmen engaging in five…’ Jake paused to allow the JTAC a final opportunity to call off the firemission.
Nothing…
‘Three…two…one…’
2.8KMS…Rockets peeled off both sides of our gunships with a whoosh.
I couldn’t bring myself to look out of the cockpit window…
Their time of flight (TOF) crept down on the MPD.
TOF4…
Four seconds to impact and they were far too high on my screen to judge if they’d hit.
‘Hardwoods have about three klicks to run…’ The tension was getting to Simon too.
TOF3…
The rockets were still too high and fading fast to a pinpoint glow.
‘Engaging,’ Jon called, for the benefit of the boss back at Camp Bastion.
TOF2…
They began to drop down the screen, but far too slowly for my liking. Then they disappeared entirely.
What the fuck…?
TOF1…
Two huge dust clouds blossomed right under my crosshair.
My focus shot up the screen; Jake’s rockets had also landed bang on the button.
‘Get in…’ I punched in T11.
Both sets of rockets had landed safely.
The TADS jumped right in front of the 100 metre tree line. I deslaved the lock because the rockets were so accurate. I moved the crosshair to a gnat’s knacker away from the foliage and called to Simon to match and shoot again.
A gentle right bank followed by a roll out, then another set of rockets rippled off our gunship and landed with pinpoint accuracy. They too disappeared just before impact as their thermal signature matched the surroundings. A confirmatory glance told me Jake had matched us shot for shot. Simon and Jon were doing a storming job.
‘Hardwoods have about a klick to run,’ Simon said.
‘Switch to guns,’ Jake responded.
I had already slaved the TADS to T12.
I pushed up the weapon select button and the rocket symbology on my MPD was replaced by 300 rounds of cannon.
With the crosshair twenty metres in front of Macy House I let rip with a ranging burst. Ten white hot pins of light dropped down the screen. My heart started to pound as they passed through my aiming mark and headed towards the building. They ploughed into the ground with a metre to go, kicking up a column of earth and dust fifty metres high—enough to screen the LS from the sniper’s positions.
‘Fuck…that was close…’ I changed the burst limit to twenty.
‘Not close enough for my liking, but I’d still aim off a bit if I were you,’ Simon replied before updating us on the secure radio. ‘Hardwoods are about to cross the river and come into view of the Taliban.’
I deslaved the TADS from T12, adjusted the sight, lased and fired a twenty-round burst. I felt every one of them through my calf muscles as they poured off the gunship like steel rain.
I switched to the field south of the LS and ripped up the ground in front of the trees with a series of twenty-round bursts of HEDP bullets.
‘They’re over the river,’ Simon called.
It was getting lighter by the second. I could now see that the south was well and truly blocked from view.
I switched my fire to the right, next to the canal bank.
Jake switched his left, further up the tree line.
We opened up in unison, providing a clear avenue for the Chinooks. Cannon rounds stitched their way along the edge of their approach path as they flared to land. The dust rolled south as the monstrous machines hit the ground. I fired fifty metres to their south-east and Jake did the same to their south-west-far closer than we had considered safe twenty-four hours ago.
No sooner were they down than they had lifted again.
We kept on ploughing up the LS until they were over the river and in the sanctuary of the open desert.
‘Checkfire,’ Jake ordered.
I stowed the M230 cannon.
The entire field was a dustbowl with a lone building in the north-east corner. A succession of Paras made their way over the bridge like ants in the pale dawn light. As the dust cloud drifted further south the last of them crossed into the DC.
‘Wildman this is Widow. That’s us all across safely and not a single shot fired.’
‘End of firemission. You’re clear back to Bastion. Thanks for the support-and stay on this freq for a Taliban update.’
We were only a mile from Sangin when he called back to explain what he’d meant. One of his interpreters with a radio scanner had heard a senior Taliban commander asking why they’d failed to shoot down the cows and the mosquitoes.
Their reply said it all: ‘The mosquitoes were firing at us and we couldn’t shoot…’
‘Wildman copied,’ I said. ‘I don’t think we’ll get away with that twice…’
OCTOBER 1989
Aldershot, England
The echo of voices…
The whisper of tyres on wet tarmac…
A burst of blinding sunlight…
The Royal Artillery (RA) instructor stood with his hands on his hips. A hint of a smile suggested he knew something we didn’t. ‘To be an effective anti-aircraft gunner, you have to be a very good judge of speed and distance.’ He paced up and down in front of us like he was Captain Mainwaring. ‘You cannot afford to waste shots. If you miss first time and adjust quickly, you may, if you’re lucky, get a second chance, but only if the pilot’s below par. If he’s not, if he can fly half decently, like some of the Argies in the Falklands, he’ll manoeuvre unpredictably and then it’s spray-and-pray time. Spray, because that guy’s jinking all over the sky and you’ll never hit him in a month of fucking Sundays; pray, because by now he’s seen your tracer and he knows where you and your little pop-gun are hiding.’
He tapped one of the four pintle-mounted general purpose machine guns (GPMGs). ‘Now which of you sad, sorry bastards is first up?’ He rubbed his hands and blew on them.
I pulled myself to my feet and squinted against the cloudless sky. Behind me, my 2 Para mates gave me some low grunts of encouragement. Behind them, I swore I could hear the sniggers of the RA captain’s support team, but I didn’t let that put me off. I expected nothing less. In the eyes of a young Para the British Army was divided between those wearing the coveted red beret and the rest-the crap-hats.
I’d been given a fifty-round belt of 7.62 and told to fire twenty-to twenty-five-round bursts at the bright red remote-controlled drone that would appear over the frost-bitten ridgeline any second now. Two posts set ten feet away at eleven and one o’clock determined my arc of fire. Outside them, my rounds would land in the nearby village. As a Para marksman, regimental honour weighed heavily on my shoulders, but how difficult could it be? The propellerpowered drone had a wingspan of a metre and a half; at this range it would be the size of a barn door.
The drone would be flying right to left, straight and level. Bang, bang; I’d collect my prize and we could all go home.
I heard a sound like a buzz-saw and pulled the butt of the GPMG hard into my shoulder. There. A bright red cross, its bulbous engine glinting in the sunlight, a hundred feet or so off the deck.
‘Air Attack, Air Attack,’ Mainwaring screamed at the top of his voice.
I placed the drone squarely in the centre of the sights.
Three, two, one…It passed the right-hand post and I gave it a sustained burst. The drone beetled on and disappeared over the ridgeline. I couldn’t believe it. There was a chorus of wolf-whistles from the crap-hats as I breathed in the smell of burnt gun oil. I flushed with embarrassment.
Captain Mainwaring was in my face quick as a wink. ‘Not so easy is it, son? Trouble is, you can’t actually see where your rounds are going, can you? So this time, we’re going to help you.’
A RA bombardier gave me a fresh belt of ammo.
‘We’re loading you up with 1BIT; now you’ll be able to
see
where your rounds are going.’
(1BIT: one standard 7.62 mm ball round for every one tracer round (1Ball1Tracer = 1BIT).)
I’d be able to adjust my aim and walk the bullets onto the target.
The drone appeared again, nice and steady. With the belt of ammo draped over my left forearm I tracked it and pulled the trigger, spitting out red streaks the very moment it crossed the right-hand post.
Every single glowing round passed behind the stupid fucking thing by yards. I was so stunned I was unable to get in a second burst. The drone wobbled off and the catcalls intensified; some of them this time from my mates.
Mainwaring told me where I was going wrong. I needed to ‘lead’ the aircraft-at this distance, I had to aim a second in front of it and let it fly into the bullets. I should have known about this from the Saturday afternoon war movies I used to watch with my granddad; the ones where the Spitfire pilots talked about ‘deflection shots’-firing at an angle ahead of a crossing enemy aircraft, taking its speed and distance into account.
Round three. This time, my lead was perfect, but for some reason all my bullets disappeared below the drone.
Next time, Mainwaring said, be aware of distance, then fire. Cheeky bastards had flown it further away than last time, catching me out. My lead had been good, but because of ‘ballistic drop’, the bullets had fallen well below the target. I’d show him this time!
Round four. My bullets passed behind it again. The drone-operator had increased its speed. Watch your range, Mainwaring told me, but don’t forget the speed of your target.
Round five. It came screaming in from the left, jinking up and down as well as accelerating and decelerating. The dodgy bastards were taking the piss. I wasn’t even close.
The laughter behind me grew to a cacophony.
‘Am I right in thinking, Para-boy, that you’re an SAS wannabe?’
I said nothing. I didn’t like the way this was going.
‘Didn’t I warn you,’ Mainwaring shrieked, ‘that if you miss, the enemy aircraft will see your tracer and your position will be compromised? Stand by for incoming—’
I began to run.
I ran as fast as I could, legs pounding the rock-hard earth, arms swinging, as I made for the nearest cover, a concrete pillbox around 200 metres away. Over the whistles and catcalls behind me I heard the buzz-saw signature of the drone. The louder it got, the faster I ran. Cary Grant running for his life in
North by North-west
had nothing on me…