Fire Strike 7/9

completely. I needed something bigger. I had a pair of Harriers stacked up above the Apache. I gave the pilot a call.

‘Recoil Four One, Widow Seven Nine; we’ve got a build-up of pax in the compound at the target that Ugly’s just hit.’

‘Widow Seven Nine, Recoil Four One: I’ve been listening in to you and Ugly Five Three. Aware of the situation. Aware of the target.’

‘What munition d’you recommend?’

‘Due to the size of building and wall thickness — a one-thousand JDAM, with a ten-millisecond delay.’

It was a good call. A thousand-pound bomb with that delay would go through two floors before it detonated. I got the Apache to bank around north, so I could bring the Harrier right down on to target.

‘Recoil Four One, friendlies are three metres to the west of target, behind hard cover. I want an east–west attack run, to keep the blast away from our troops.’

‘Roger: an east–west attack run,’ came the pilot’s reply. ‘I’ll need two minutes to set up for my run. Stand by.’

I didn’t have a great view of the target. I wanted to be dead certain if we were unleashing a thousand-pound JDAM. Our lads were danger-close. It was my third live drop, and if it had to be danger-close, I wanted eyes on target. I also wanted to lase the target, so the JDAM could home in on my laser beam.

‘I’m going forwards,’ I told Chris.

He nodded. ‘With you.’

‘Going forwards to get eyes-on!’ I yelled to the OC.

‘Right,’ he yelled back. ‘I’ll hold the company stationary until the jets are done.’

I scuttled ahead, crouching down as much as I could under forty kilos of kit. Chris was right behind me, sticking close to my shoulder. There was a shallow alley that sloped away before us, rising up again to the target building. Hugging the walls for cover I pushed onwards, passing our line of forward troops. I was sweating like a pig and breathless. I could feel rivulets running down my back. I was also nervous as hell. I was in the middle of a warren of alleyways and mud-walled buildings. The clock was ticking, and I had to get this drop dead right.

I checked my watch. Fifty seconds to the Harrier starting his attack run. I crouched behind a compound wall that gave a little cover, and struggled out of my pack. I started chucking stuff out, as I scrabbled around for the Laser Target Designator. The LTD was about the size of a shoebox, and took up one hell of a lot of space.

Finally I had it. As I went to line up the target there was a burst of static on my TACSAT.

‘Tipping in. Call for clearance.’

I grabbed the TACSAT. ‘Roger.’

I went to lase the target, lining it up in the LTD’s eight-times magnification sight. At the same time I was trying to double-check the map, making sure I hadn’t missed any friendly positions, and keep an eye out for any enemy. The bloody LTD was getting in the way. It was just too bulky for this kind of fast-moving work.

We were a 150 metres short of the target, I could see the building clearly, and the pilot was only seconds out. I made the call to bring the drop in by visual means only.

‘Clearance,’ the pilot called.

‘No change friendlies. I’m visual the target,’ I confirmed. ‘Clear hot.’

‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Stores.’

A couple of seconds later there was an ear-piercing scream, as the munition howled in. It came over our heads like a thunderbolt, a dark arrow shape streaking through the air at ninety degrees. It punched a hole clear through the roof of the target building, as if it were paper.

A split-second later came the massive detonation, the entire building erupting in an explosion of shattered concrete, flying bricks and dust. A vortex of smoke and debris blasted out in all directions, pluming a hundred metres into the air, and then a rain of stones and debris and shrapnel started crashing down all around us.

Chris and I locked eyes. ‘Fucking hell.’

I got on the TACSAT. ‘Recoil Four One, Widow Seven Nine. Nice work. Send BDA.’

‘Roger. BDA: anything that was in there alive is now dead.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Correction: I’ve got movement to the north-east of the compound.’

Before I could respond I got a call from the second Harrier. ‘Widow Seven Nine, Recoil Four Two. I can do immediate follow-up attack with CRV7 rockets.’

We checked with the OC that there was no change to the friendly positions. I cleared him in to attack. Recoil Four Two wasn’t messing around. He unleashed eighteen CRV7 rockets, which saturated the entire compound in devastating explosions. Both Harriers did a follow-up BDA: there was nothing left moving now.

The battle for Sangin continued for that entire day, during which I did attacks using Apache, Harriers and A- 10s. The enemy fought back with mortars, sniper fire, RPGs and small arms. By nightfall we’d set up position on the roof of an abandoned hotel in downtown Sangin, and most of the town was in our hands.

On the morning of the second day I was down in the hotel basement with Chris and Throp. It was like a bloody heroin refinery down there. There were big cauldrons full of brown gunk, and used needles everywhere. We’d heard stories about the enemy jacking themselves up on heroin, prior to battle; here was the evidence. One of the Marines had told us about an enemy fighter who’d taken a whole mag from an SA80 before he went down. He’d been high as a kite, and not registering the bullets as they tore into him. We were under sniper fire in the basement, and I’d just got into position to return fire with my SA80, when I felt a sharp prick to my leg.

I glanced down, and there was a used syringe sticking out of my thigh.

‘Fuck me!’ I yelled. ‘I’ve got a fucking used needle stuck in me!’

Chris went and fetched the company medic. He took a look and told me there wasn’t a lot he could do. I’d have to be tested for every kind of disease known to man, and — most importantly — for HIV-AIDS.

I was gutted, to put it mildly. I’d known when I deployed to Afghanistan there was a risk of getting shot or blown up. But I’d never even dreamed of catching HIV off a Taliban druggie’s used needle.

That evening we got relieved by the 82nd Airborne. I handed over to their JTAC in the midst of a massive firefight. I had Missip Two Five and Missip Two Six — a pair of F-15s — doing an airstrike on an enemy mortar team with five-hundred-pound airbursts. I had them coming in ‘shooter-shooter, swept right’ — sixty seconds apart, both dropping ordnance, before banking off to their right.

At the same time Chris was calling in the 105mm field guns, which were pounding the enemy positions, plus we had rounds being lobbed in by the Marine’s mortar unit. This was what an FST was designed to do — airstrikes, guns and mortars all at the same time — and the 82nd Airborne’s JTAC had his eyes out on stalks.

I did a swift handover brief, then passed him control of the jets. ‘Missip call-signs, Widow Seven Nine coming off station. Handing over to Jedi One Six.’

‘Missip call signs, Jedi One Six: I’m now the ground controlling station.’

And that was our handover in contact. We did an eighteen-hour night drive back to FOB Robinson. En route Chris, Throp and I talked about what we’d say to Sticky. We felt sure we’d just been involved in the biggest battle of our tour (how wrong we were). The last thing we wanted to do was make anyone in the FST feel like an outcast. We agreed to play it down as much as we could.

I had a lot of time to think during that long drive. I had fifteen confirmed enemy kills, and I’d done a boatload of controls. I didn’t feel like a veteran JTAC just yet, but I’d found my feet. Most importantly, I hadn’t let any of the lads down. But it had all been spoiled by that bloody needle prick. It was preying on my mind. I was worried about that AIDS test. I couldn’t even get checked right away: it would take months to develop in the body. The worst part of it was I’d have to go back to the UK to get tested.

Cuff — Corporal Grant ‘Cuff’ Cuthbertson, the JTAC who’d trained me — was out in the Afghan theatre. He’d listened in on the radio during my controls over Sangin, and he’d been all teared up at hearing me doing my thing.

‘It was like teaching a kid how to ride a bike,’ he told me, once I was back in FOB Price. ‘Then seeing that kid go cycling off all on their own.’

I hadn’t slept for four nights straight, and I couldn’t wait to get my head down. But Sticky woke me around midday. Some American captain needed me to call him on a secure telephone. The guy’s name was Captain Bouff Balm, or at least that what it sounded like. What kind of name was that for a soldier, I asked myself?