Fire Strike 7/9

‘Nice work, Dude One Three: keep hitting ’em.’

There was a cry from Alan, ‘Enemy commanders are ordering their men to hold their positions, and to press home their attack!’ He glanced at Chris and me. ‘We have to get out of here! We have to get out of here…’

There would be time to deal with a traumatised terp later. Right now, it was our injured that were on my mind, plus getting us lot out of here without a horrible friendly-fire incident. We were still being hit from all sides, and there had to be more of the enemy we could kill.

‘Dude call signs: tell me what you can see,’ I yelled. ‘I want targets.’

‘Dude One Three: I see enemy fighters bugging out with wounded to the north of you.’

‘Dude One Four: roger that. Enemy pax hauling out bodies to your north- east.’

Fucking smashing job. Maybe we were beginning to win this one at last.

‘ Dude call signs: do not engage enemy with dead or wounded. Find those still firing at us, and smash ’em.’

‘Roger. Stand by.’

The F-15s did several more bombing runs, putting in GBU-12s danger-close to the north and south of our column, and pounding the enemy to either side. Each time, I was shitting myself that we’d get it wrong, and kill and injure our own men. But with each bugsplat we threw the blast away from our positions, and into the faces of the enemy.

It was 0630 by now, and we were forty-five minutes into the maddest hour of our entire combat tour. Those two American pilots above us were the very best. Without that pair of F-15s on station a lot of us would no longer be breathing, and I knew it. As for the lead platoon and their injured, they’d have been killed or in the hands of the enemy by now.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Ugly Five Zero.’ I had an Apache checking in to my ROZ. ‘I’m two minutes out with the IRT heavy, request LZ.’

We didn’t have a fucking LZ. We didn’t even have our hands on the wounded, to extract them. But we sure could use that Apache.

‘Ugly Five Zero, get the heavy to hold off to the western tip of ROZ Suzy, out in the desert. Unsafe to land as we are in GZ, in midst of contact.’

‘Roger that.’

‘Ugly, this is our lead platoon’s grid: 59368219. Can you get your gunship smack-bang above it looking bastard-ugly, to deter the enemy.’

‘Roger. Moving over grid as given now.’

‘Dude call signs, push up to 5,000 feet. I’m bringing Ugly in low to deter the enemy.’

‘Roger. Pushing up to 5,000 feet.’

‘What’s the heads-up with the LZ?’ I called over to Chris, Peachy and the OC.

‘There’s a big open field to the south-west of Alpha Xray,’ Peachy yelled back. ‘Get the Chinook down there.’

It was a bloody risky plan, but what else were we to do? I knew that field well, and Qada Kalay was just south of there. If the enemy were out in force at Qada Kalay, they could use their 107mm rockets, or even an RPG to blast the Chinook out of the sky.

Chinooks rarely if ever went into the GZ to extract casualties, and for good reason. Wherever possible the casevac was done in the open desert, where an iron cordon of security could be thrown around the LZ.

‘Ugly, ask the heavy if he’ll put down in the GZ,’ I radioed the Apache. ‘We don’t have an alternative.’

‘Stand by: I’ll speak to the pilot.’

‘Roger. And Ugly, stay slap-bang where you are above us.’

‘Roger that. I’m not moving.’

I could hear the throb of the Apache’s rotors thumping through the air, like the reassuring heartbeat of some friendly beast of prey. Above that, the scream-hum of the F-15’s jet engines was letting the enemy know that I still had those warplanes on station.

We had three men down, and we had no idea how bad they were. Plus we didn’t know how many of the other lads had taken injuries, and were keeping it quiet. It was amazing what damage the boys could take, and remain in the fight alongside their fellow warriors.

With the air stacking up above us, the contact died down to just about nothing. The OC gave orders for all platoons to extract, with 2 Platoon moving back through us as a protective screen. We threw smoke grenades, and under their cover those most-forwards began to fall back.

A circle of figures bent double came hurrying through the trees. For a moment I felt physically sick. They were hefting a poncho between them, weighed down with the body of a man. Carrying that weight in a makeshift stretcher over such terrain in the furnace of the Afghan heat was hellish, let alone doing so after hours of extreme combat. Whoever that young lad was in that poncho, he had to be in a bad, bad way. Or, in the time it had taken us to smash the enemy from the air, one of our injured had died of his wounds…

‘Widow Seven Nine, Ugly.’ The Apache pilot’s call tore me away from my dark thoughts. ‘Visual three pax with weapons fifty metres east and moving in on you.’

‘Roger. Stand by.’

I relayed it to the OC, and he told me to hit them.

‘Ugly, Widow Seven Nine: hit them with 30mm. Nearest friendlies our position fifty metres south-west.’

‘Roger. Engaging now.’

Thump-thump-thump-thump… the 30mm cannon of the Apache’s turret spat out a long, twenty-round burst of pinpoint accuracy firepower. I felt the air around us judder and shake as the shells thumped into the bush.

‘Ugly: BDA.’

‘BDA: two killed, one on his heels and running away from your direction. I’ve lost him.’

‘Top job, Ugly. I want you to do two long strafes to the east of our position, as we extract, to deter any pursuers, on a north to south run.’

‘Roger. Standing by.’

I glanced at the OC. He gave me the nod, and put the order out on the net for the last platoon — us lot — to withdraw.

‘Ugly, extracting now,’ I told the Apache. ‘Fire when ready.’

We began to edge our way backwards, following the route we’d come in on. As we did so, the Apache started malleting the positions we’d abandoned. With a wall of 30mm cannon rounds to our backs, we headed west for Alpha Xray.

We reached AX, and I got the Apache to move south over the Helmand River. I wanted it flying low and fast up and down the water, looking very capable of extreme violence. That way, it would provide a block between Qada Kalay and the Chinook, as it went in to extract the casualties.

The OC got a ring of men thrown around the LZ — an open field of thick green crops, fringed with woodlines. With the lads out in force surrounding the landing point, it was about as secure as we could make it. Still, all it would take was one lucky RPG fired from beyond the range of our lads, and the Chinook would be toast.

On the deck our worst casualty, Private David ‘Davey’ Graham was being worked on by the company medics. He had a bloodstained bandage strapped around his middle, to keep his guts in, where a burst of AK-47 fire had torn into him. Plus he had drip-bags pumping fluid in to replace all the blood and liquids he’d lost.

Eighteen-year-old Davey Graham was a Minimi-gunner, and having that drum-fed light machine gun at the cutting edge of the patrol had made perfect sense. Davey had taken point, leading 2 Platoon into the enemy terrain.

The ambush had come from out of nowhere, at five metres’ range. Davey had taken three rounds under the breastplate of his body armour, and as he’d twisted and fallen a fourth had hit him in the backside. The enemy gunman had stepped around a tree to finish Davey off, levelling an AK-47 at his head.

Before he could open fire, the soldier behind Davey had rushed forward and shot the enemy fighter twice, in the face. He’d then grabbed Davey’s body under fire, and dragged him back into the safety of the main body of troops.