Fire Strike 7/9

friendlies. Repeat: friendlies are eighty-five metres to the south-west of target, danger-close at night.’

‘Affirmative.’ A pause. ‘Widow Seven Nine, I’m visual with the leading edge of your platoon. Plus I’m visual on the IR with three heat sources in the enemy position, plus…’

The last words of his message were lost as an RPG round tore through the bush above me, exploding with a massive boom. It sounded horribly close, as the walls of vegetation threw back the raw crunch and slam of battle clatter in a deafening wave of sound.

‘I repeat,’ came the pilot’s voice, ‘now visual five heat sources in enemy position. Tipping in.’

‘Roger. Nearest friendlies eighty-five metres!’ I yelled. ‘Nearest friendlies eighty-five metres west of target!’

Above the battle noise I caught a few scrambled words of Chris putting out an all-stations warning about the strafe, and then the pilot was radioing for clearance. I couldn’t see him through the crush of vegetation, and I sure as hell couldn’t hear him. I’d have to clear him in blind.

‘No change friendlies!’ I yelled. ‘Not visual your attack! Not visual! Clear hot! Ground Commander’s initials SB.’

‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Engaging.’

Above the staccato roar of the battle, there was a new noise now — the howl of the diving jet, and the purr of its Gatling gun pumping out the 30mm shells right above us. The instant it had finished firing Sticky had the lead platoon commander on the air.

They could hear screams coming from the positions to their front, where the A-10 had hit. That had to mean there were enemy wounded.

‘Hog Zero Eight, good strafe,’ I yelled. ‘We hear screaming from that enemy treeline — their wounded. I want immediate re-attack, same position, same line of attack, no change friendlies, and danger-close.’

‘Roger. Banking round.’ A pause. ‘Tipping in.’

The A-10 put in a second, much longer strafe, for several seconds the awesome throb of the seven-barrelled cannon drowning out the battle noise. His confidence had been boosted by the first strike being smack-bang on target. This time he had a BDA for me: two pax confirmed dead. Fucking great news: we were starting to win the firefight.

The patrol had gone firm in its positions, awaiting further orders from the OC. I got the A-10 pilot searching in the treelines to the north of where he’d strafed, scanning with his IR scope for heat sources. Within seconds he came back to me with this.

‘Visual six pax north of the treeline targeted, and to the east of an L-shaped compound. Visual muzzle flashes from out of that position.’

‘I want immediate attack with 30mm,’ I told him. ‘I want both Hog call signs shooter-shooter, on a north to south run.’

‘Shooter-shooter’ meant the aircraft would be coming in sixty seconds apart, with the first A-10 strafing, and the second doing a follow-up strafe as soon as the first was off target.

‘Negative, Widow Seven Niner. I need Hog Zero Seven to keep a watch on my wing. I’ll do two runs at the same time: one at altitude, and one as I’m closer in.’

This was fast and furious now. I was asking the pilots to do repeated danger-close strafes at night — the most challenging and risk-laden airstrikes possible. The pilot was going in more or less blind, over a dark and confused battlefield. He needed his fellow pilot — his wing — to watch over him, guiding him in as he did two strafes from altitude.

‘Happy with that,’ I confirmed. ‘Friendlies eighty-five metres danger-close.’

I cleared him in. Chris put out the warning of a double-strafe, and for all the lads to get their bloody heads down. The A-10’s dive was a long one, and the first 30mm strafe rumbled through the dark night like a distant, rolling peal of thunder.

A few seconds later came the second, the long throaty roar of the cannon closer and more threatening. But as the Gatling gun ceased firing, I could hear the coughing of the A-10’s big jet engines, set high and ugly on the aircraft’s tail. I knew in an instant what had happened. The kick back from the two strafes had caused the A-10’s engines to stall. As the aircraft plummeted earthwards the pilot was having to try to restart his engines in mid-air. For a second or more I held my breath, and then the reassuring jet-whine cut through the night again. The aircraft picked up power, howled out of its dive and thundered low and fast across the valley.

Phew. Thank fuck for that. As the scream of the A-10 died away, I realised that all around us the bush had fallen silent. After those two mega-strafes, the firefight had died away to nothing. I breathed easily for a moment, then dialled up the A-10 pilot.

‘Hog Zero Eight, awesome strafe. Requesting BDA.’

‘BDA: lots of tiny heat sources in the treeline, but no further movement. Six pax dead. And Widow Seven Niner, BDA almost included one US pilot. I pretty much lost my engines for a second there.’

‘I know, mate. I heard it. Thanks. It was class. It was the best strafe of the tour.’

Alan was on to us now about the radio chatter. The enemy were going bananas. There were repeated calls for various units to check in, but no answers. After those four monster strafing runs from Hog Zero Eight, I wasn’t particularly surprised.

I glanced upwards. The sky to the east was lightening with the first rays of dawn. I caught a glimpse of the stubby silhouette of an A-10 circling above. I said a quick ‘thank you’ to the pilots. They’d smashed the enemy in a danger-close battle at night, and in the midst of a murderous ambush on our patrol. It was a top job, to put it mildly.

Butsy gave the order to move out. We were pushing onwards towards our objective, four hundred metres further into enemy territory.

Twenty AMBUSHED, SURROUNDED, TRAPPED

We moved off on foot into the bush. It was 0500, and all around us the terrain was lightening, as the sun clawed its way over the hidden horizon. We’d lost the cover of darkness.

The A-10s got ripped by a pair of F-15s, call signs Dude One Three and Dude One Four. Alan was warning us that the airwaves were going wild. Enemy commanders were yelling at their men that we were ‘coming in on foot’.

‘Hold your positions!’ they were ordering. ‘Hold your positions! Do not attack yet!’

For forty-five minutes we pushed onwards into alien territory, in tense silence and alert to the slightest movement around us. One patch of bush looked pretty much like any other, but we were acutely aware that none of us had been this far east before.

Butsy called a halt at a deserted compound, so we could take a breather and orientate ourselves. I grabbed my map and checked my GPS. We’d pushed east as far as Golf Bravo Nine Five, and our final objective was no more than two hundred metres further on. I was dying for a smoke. I stuck a fag between my lips and sparked up.

A few metres away from me one of the 2 MERCIAN lads was busy re-bombing his mag. His fingers fumbled and he dropped a bullet. He bent to pick it up, and as he did so this flaming projectile came roaring through the window where he’d just been standing. It screamed over his back, tore across the space in front of me and slammed into the back wall. The RPG warhead buried itself in the mud-brick structure, exploded and smashed the compound wall to smithereens. As the choking cloud of smoke and dust cleared, the 2 MERCIAN lad was left sitting by the window, completely unharmed. As for me, my fag was in the dirt at my feet still smouldering away, but other than that I was perfectly all right.

I picked it up with shaking hand and clamped it between my teeth.

‘Fookin’ hell,’ I muttered. ‘Dropped me tab.’

The 2 MERCIAN lad shook his head and gestured at his ears. He was totally bloody deafened. But if he hadn’t stooped to pick up that bullet, the RPG round would have torn his head off and exploded right in front of me. He