Fire Strike 7/9

my HQ element in the Green Zone being hit hard. Friendly coordinates are: 62903781. Readback.’

The pilot confirmed the details. I explained that I had enemy forces one-four-zero metres to the east and north of the OC’s position, and asked the pilot to smash them.

‘I want immediate attack using GBU-38s, on a north-east to south-west run. You’re danger-close to friendlies. Ground commander’s initials are SB.’

‘Roger that,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Programming one GBU-38 to drop on each of the enemy positions. Banking around. Call for clearance.’

I watched the pilot tear about in a screaming turn to bring the F-18 on to my line of attack. I was urging him to get a bloody move on. What a shit state we’d be in if the OC and his lads got killed or captured on the day after the battle — especially as all he’d been doing was having a chat with the locals, to win some hearts and minds.

Suddenly, the F-18 pilot was back on the air. But all I could hear was the horrible rhythmic wailing of warning alarms blaring away in his cockpit.

‘I got big problems up here,’ the pilot yelled above the racket. ‘Breaking off my attack. Returning to base. Wicked Three Four on task and awaiting your call.’

That was it. He aborted the attack run and signed off the air. It was fair enough. From the sound of those alarms it was like his jet was about to fall out of the sky. I radioed his wing, and repeated the attack instructions. The pilot said he needed a minute to get into a position. I was cursing to myself as I counted down the seconds to clear him in.

There was a squelch of static and I knew immediately that something was wrong. The pilot was in the midst of a screaming turn, and he couldn’t be calling with any good news.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Wicked Three Four — I’ve got a total weapons computer malfunction. I am unable to attack. Repeat: unable to use any weapons.’

That was both F-18s out of action, and still the OC was deep in the shit. This was getting desperate. I asked Wicked Three Four to fly a show of force over the enemy positions at fifty metres altitude, firing flares.

‘I want repeated shows of force,’ I yelled at the pilot. ‘And as low as you can make them.’

‘Affirmative,’ the pilot replied. ‘Starting shows of force now.’

‘Wait out.’

I flipped frequency on my TACSAT, to bring me on to that of Stoneage. Stoneage, based at Kandahar airfield, is the top dog in terms of all air missions in southern Afghanistan. As JTACs we were only ever supposed to call Stoneage in an emergency. With two F-18s out of action and the OC deep in the shit, this was it as far as I was concerned.

‘Stoneage, Widow Seven Nine, d’you copy?’

As I waited for the reply, I felt like I used to when waiting to see the headmaster after causing trouble at school. But fuck it, this was dire and I had to do something.

‘Widow Seven Nine, this is Stoneage,’ came the gravel- voiced response.

‘Sitrep: I’ve got my HQ element surrounded and at risk of being overrun in a danger-close contact. I have two Wicked call signs out of action with systems failures. I need immediate G-CAS. Repeat: immediate G-CAS.’

‘Widow Seven Niner, I have pilots running for the fast jets to launch G-CAS now,’ came the reply. ‘I’ll radio in time-to-target once they’re in the air.’

G-CAS stands for Ground-launched Close Air Support. It was the quickest emergency air cover available when no other fast jets were free and in the air. The main advantage aircraft like the F-18s, F-16s and F-15s have over the Apache — apart from the heavy ordnance they can carry — is their time from launch to target.

With a top speed in excess of Mach 2 at altitude, and a rate of climb of some 17,000 metres per minute, an F-18 could reach us in the fraction of the time it would take an Apache gunship. It made them worth every dollar of the $30 million it cost to build one.

By now Wicked Three Four had flown three shows of force. From the open turret of the Vector, I’d seen the last go in at what looked like twenty-metre altitude. But it was having bugger-all effect on the enemy. Their commanders had obviously learned the lesson from yesterday’s battle: shows of force meant little, and they were to keep attacking.

The OC reported eight enemy kills, but still he was being hit by a murderous barrage of small arms and RPGs.

‘We’re in the dirt, well isolated and it’s not looking good!’ he was yelling on the radio, to Chris. ‘Tell Bommer we need something now!’

Where the fuck was that G-CAS? As if in answer, there was a squelch of static as the big man came up on the air.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Stoneage. You’ve got two Uproar call signs scrambled, inbound to your position.’

Just as soon as the pair of F-18s had checked into my ROZ, I passed Uproar Two Three the coordinates of the enemy positions and cleared him in to attack. The F-18 pilot zoomed in his optics to the coordinates, and immediately he was back on the air to me.

‘Visual enemy position. Visual ten to twelve pax in the woodstrip, with muzzle flashes.’

‘I need immediate attack with an airburst munition on the centre of mass of enemy. Attack line north-east to south-west run.’

‘One minute out,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Tipping in. Call for clearance.’

I cleared the F-18 pilot to attack, and he released a GBU-38 airburst. The explosion ripped apart the air above the enemy position, and tore into the woodland below, hurling branches and chunks of earth high into the air.

‘Get in!’ I yelled. ‘I need BDA,’ I radioed the pilot, hoping to god I hadn’t smashed any of our lads.

‘BDA: seven pax KIA in the treeline,’ the pilot replied. ‘I can see survivors fleeing their positions, and running away from your forces.’

There were seven killed in action (KIA) that the pilot could see, and probably a whole lot more that he couldn’t. The enemy were on the run and had been broken. There was no need for a follow-up attack. Butsy and the men of B Company had survived again, and it was time for them to get the hell out of there.

We regrouped at the laager and the convoy began forming up for departure. But this was when it all went totally warped. Before we could set off, the Mortar Company Commander came to have an urgent word with the OC. He had with him one of the terps, and as we gathered around they related a simply incredible story.

At the start of the previous day’s action, a young Afghan male of fighting age had blundered in to the Mortar Company’s position. The young man was shouting like a madman, but being a mortar company they had no terp with them. They threw the guy in the back of the ‘greeny wagon’ — the Mortar Company truck — until a terp could be found to talk with him.

Apparently, that had just happened, and this was the young man’s story. He claimed to be one of ten Afghan policemen who had been stationed at Zumbelay, a town to the east of us across the Helmand River. Six days ago the Taliban had kidnapped him, and nine other policemen, from the local cop shop. The Taliban had taken the ten men to Adin Zai. There they were stripped of their boots and uniforms and held captive in the village mosque. Three days later us lot had pitched up on the desert horizon, massing to attack Adin Zai.

The mosque was four hundred metres from our line of departure, and it was from there that we’d received the fiercest resistance as our initial assault went in. The enemy had concluded we were trying to rescue the kidnapped policemen. They’d bundled the ten men out of the mosque and driven them into the desert.

The Taliban had taken them to a sunken wadi, and ordered them to make a run for it. As they’d sprinted for their lives the Taliban came after them in pickups, hunting them down. I guess that was their idea of a bit of sport — gunning down unarmed policemen. In the ensuing mayhem the young man had escaped.

He’d run across the desert for two hours solid, before blundering into our position. The poor guy’s feet were torn to shreds. What gave his story added credibility was this: we’d heard about the kidnap already. Four days prior to the start of the present mission it had been the main item of interest in the Intel brief at FOB Price.

The question was — what did we now do about it? The OC put a call through to the Commanding Officer of 2 MERCIAN, Colonel Richard Westley. Butsy and the lads were totally shattered, and looking forward to returning to