Fire Strike 7/9

Amazingly, Private Graham was still conscious as the medics worked on him. He even asked Andy, the press photographer, to shoot pictures of him as they casevac’d him out of there. Andy had one problem. As the ambush was sprung and Davey had been hit, Andy had dived on to the deck, snapping the lens off his top-notch camera.

He’d flung the broken bit of camera kit at the enemy. Then he and John, his fellow reporter, had hunkered down as the bullets and grenades, and then the 20mm strafes and the big bombs had rained down all around them. Somehow, unbelievably, everyone had got out of there alive.

Sergeant Major Peach popped a green smoke grenade, to mark the landing zone, and I cleared the Chinook in to land. The massive helicopter came swooping in, banking hard and low across the river, the unmistakeable thwoop-thwoop-thwoop of the twin rotors beating out a powerful rhythm on the air.

It took nine men to lift Davey’s makeshift stretcher, with one holding up the drip. They rushed him out to the Chinook, clambering through flooded irrigation ditches and hauling him over treacherous mudbanks. The two other injured lads had nasty shrapnel wounds, but even so they tried to refuse to leave their mates, and the battlefield. The OC had to order them on to the Chinook. He told them that for today at least their war was over. Once they’d been patched up at Camp Bastion, he’d get them straight back out to the Triangle. We got that Chinook in and out without it being hit, and the wounded en route to the best medical care a British field hospital can offer.

With the heavy in the air, I got the call from the F-15s above.

‘Widow Seven Nine, Dude One Three: low fuel, we’re bugging out. Stay safe down there.’

‘Roger. And look fellas, absolutely fucking fantastic. You saved our fat arses today, ’cause we were right in the proverbial. Top job.’

‘That’s what we’re here for, Widow Seven Nine. It’s not us who’s down there taking the hits — we’re just up above y’all.’

‘Aye, and we owe you guys a good few beers.’

‘Affirmative,’ the pilot laughed. ‘Meantime, we’ll drink a few for you at KAF.’

KAF is Kandahar Airfield, where the F-15s were based. And from that day on if ever I had an F-15 check into my ROZ, I’d always have a ‘how’re you doing’ passed down for Widow Seven Nine, from those two pilots who’d fought above us that day. The pilot of Dude One Three was a Captain Tabkurut, or at least that’s what his name sounded like. A lot of the 2 MERCIAN lads — not to mention us lot — owe him and his wing our lives.

An hour later we were back at PB Sandford. Ugly Five Zero had stayed with us all the way up Route Crow, shadowing us in until the gates clanged shut on the last man of the patrol.

I glanced around me. There were lads everywhere slumped against the walls, wiping the sweat and shit and blood off their faces. Every man was a picture of shattered exhaustion. The looks in the eyes said it all: How the hell did we get out of that lot? With the last of their energy, lads struggled out of body armour and helmets. The adrenaline was pissing out of our veins now, to be replaced by a crushing, leaden fatigue. The OC had ordered all men on foot patrols to wear full body armour and helmets: today’s action had proven his decision 100 per cent the right one.

Had the bullets that had hit Davey Graham been an inch or two higher, the breastplate would have saved him. As it was, the enemy gunner had sneaked the rounds in beneath the lower edge, tearing apart Davey’s guts.

The newly-qualified 2 MERCIAN medic had done the emergency first aid on him. But in spite of her best efforts, barely a soldier amongst us doubted that Davey Graham was a dead man.

Private Davey Graham was a fresh-faced lad with a ready smile and a pair of piercing blue eyes. He was known as being a bit of a joker. Earlier in the morning I’d seen him holding up his helmet on the end of a stick, in a mock gesture to draw enemy fire. Graham was the kind of bloke you’d have trusted with your life, and he’d more than likely volunteered to take point on the lead platoon. After the shock of fighting so hard to save him, the idea that we could lose him was hitting us all bastard hard.

I loosened my own body armour, and went to heave it over my head. As I did so, I felt a stabbing, jabbing pain deep in my left shoulder. It was only now that I remembered the violent thump to my back that had sent me flying face-first into the ditch.

I craned my head around, and I could just about see this huge spreading purple-red bruise where my left shoulder met my neck. Something big must have hit me, and cannoned off the top of my body armour. I didn’t dwell on it for long, or breathe a word to anyone. I was alive and in one piece: others hadn’t been so lucky.

In any case, there was barely a man amongst us who hadn’t taken a lump of frag here or there, or a blast of flying rock and grit, in their body armour. Until those jets had got to work hitting the enemy with their five-hundred- and eight-hundred-pounders, we’d taken a right malleting.

A couple of the 2 MERCIAN lads came up to me.

‘Nice one, like, Bommer,’ said the one.

‘Yeah, cheers and all that,’ said the other.

‘Cheers for what?’ I asked.

‘For saving us necks out there,’ one said.

‘With the airstrikes and stuff,’ said the other.

‘Aye, well, get the kettle on, will you lads. Time for a brew.’

As they wandered off, I heard one say to the other: ‘We got second place today. Runner-up prize. Bommer’s right — better get the tea on.’

It was 1030 when the OC gathered us together for a chat. I’d seen him giving a couple of the lads a fatherly slap and a hug, and I knew we were all feeling it.

‘I’ve just had word that Davey Graham made it back to Camp Bastion alive,’ the OC announced. ‘He’s been badly shot up, and will be evacuated to the UK just as soon as that is possible. He’s in a very serious condition, and will need to be operated on. But we got him out of a massive enemy ambush, and we got him back to Camp Bastion. And for that, every man amongst you should feel justifiably proud.’

We drifted off, each trying to find our own little patch of personal space. Not easy to do, in a mud-walled compound crammed full of fifty-odd soldiers. In spite of the OC’s words, we knew that we’d been smashed. The enemy had had the upper hand, and it was only the air, and a shedload of good luck, that had saved us.

I grabbed a brew before the rush, and headed for the stairs leading up to JTAC Central. I knew I could get some headspace up there. At the ammo-box staircase I got collared by the OC. He fixed me with a look, and for a second or two he said nothing.

Then: ‘Cheers, Bommer.’

That was all. Butsy was the type of bloke who didn’t give praise easily. But you knew from the expression in his eyes if he was happy or not, and by Christ his eyes had said it all. Cheers Bommer. That was enough for me.

Up on the roof I took a slurp of my brew. I’d ladled in the sugar to give me some energy. All I kept thinking was this: Please do not give me any more air. All I wanted to do was to get on the blower and speak to Nicola. Today was our wedding anniversary, and I’d not been able to wish her a happy anniversary.

Down below I could hear this thick Cockney voice going: ‘Fucking ’ell! Fucking ’ell!’ Over and over the same phrase, in turboclip mode. It was Andy, the press photographer. He and his reporter mate kept laughing and laughing. They’d been with 2 Platoon in the heart of the ambush, and they were fried.

‘Fucking ’ell,’ Andy kept repeating. ‘I can’t believe that’s what you guys go through every day. Fucking ’ell.’

‘You’re fucking lucky, lad,’ ‘Mortar’ Jim, 2 Platoon’s mortar-operator replied. ‘That’s the worst we’ve ever had it.’

I finished my brew, came down from the roof, and got on the satphone to Nicola. I wished her a happy wedding anniversary, and asked her what she was doing for the day. She told me she was having a nice meal with the nippers, Harry and Ella.

‘What’s your day been like?’ she asked me.

‘Well, nowt much’s been happening,’ I lied. ‘We’ve had a bit of a boring one.’

‘Paul, what’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘You don’t sound like you normally do. What’s wrong with you?’