Fire Strike 7/9

‘Roger. Banking to the south now.’

I gave Peachy the thumbs-up, and he set off in one of the WMIKs down Route Crow. He had a volunteer at the wheel, and was himself manning the 50-cal in the rear. I got the F-16s to stand off six nautical miles away, so around a minute out from target. I was up on the roof with eyes on, and Peachy was down around Alpha Xray.

‘You ready?’ Peachy queried over the radio.

‘Aye,’ I replied.

‘Right, I’m off,’ said Peachy.

And that was it — he set off like the charge of the Light Brigade. From JTAC Central I could see the WMIK bucking and kangarooing over ruts and ditches, as it careered towards Golf Bravo Nine One. Fifty metres short of the target the bunker just seemed to erupt, as fighters swarmed out and opened up on the WMIK.

‘FUCKING CONTACT!’ Peachy screamed into his radio. ‘ENGAGE! ENGAGE ’EM!’

As the WMIK slammed to a halt and began a crazed retreat in reverse, Peachy was crouched over the 50-cal malleting the bunker.

I dialled up the F-16. ‘Rammit Six One — I need you to hit that bunker now!’

‘What about your vehicle? Is it a safe distance?’ the pilot queried.

‘Don’t fucking worry about that, worry about the drop!’ I yelled.

‘Tipping in. Thirty seconds,’ the pilot warned me.

‘Thirty-second warning!’ I screamed at Sticky. Then at the pilot: ‘Friendlies sixty metres west of target — those lunatics in that WMIK. You’re clear hot.’

‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Stores.’

The GBU-38 five-hundred-pounder was on its way. It was now a race against time as Peachy’s driver gunned the WMIK, and the bomb came howling in. Just as the vehicle careered behind the HESCO wall at Alpha Xray, the JDAM slammed into the roof of the enemy bunker.

There was a massive, blinding flash as it detonated, and an instant later the treeline erupted in a fountain of smashed walling, splintered tree branches and flying dust and shrapnel. The blast wave tore across the roof at PB Sandford, and as the smoke cleared at the target we were all eyes on the point where the bomb had hit. There was nothing left of the enemy bunker but a massive smoking hole. It had been completely obliterated. I didn’t need a BDA, but I did pass up a heartfelt well done to the Dutch pilots. With that Peachy drove back to PB Sandford.

‘Job done!’ I yelled at him, as soon as he was back with us. ‘Done ’n’ dusted. A fucking beauty, mate.’

‘They must be fucking wounded,’ Peachy grinned. ‘One moment they see the jets disappear, then there’s this lunatic suicide driver coming towards them, and they think — Fuck me, this is it! The next, out of nowhere they get splatted!’

Peachy, Chris, Sticky, Throp and I were just congratulating each other on a job well done, when Sticky’s Brother came dashing over to us. He was so excited that he could barely get the words out.

‘New item on the intercepts,’ he announced. ‘Everyone keeps asking for Commander Hadin to check in.’ Sticky paused for dramatic effect. ‘No one is answering. No one!’

Peachy and I locked eyes. Fucking hell. I could see why Sticky’s Bro was excited. It looked as if we’d just smashed the top enemy commander in the Triangle, the guy who’d replaced Jamil.

And if we had, then Jason’s mad mission had been a proper peachy one.

Twenty Six BAD NEWS FROM PIZZA PIE WOOD

From that moment on the attacks from Golf Bravo Nine One ceased completely. There was a deathly hush over the Triangle. I guess the enemy had to be licking their wounds.

Sticky’s Bro had heard Hadin speaking on the radio, so Peachy’s mad mission hadn’t killed him outright. But the Intel was that he was wounded, so we were halfway there. Plus the veteran Taliban fighters were twisting on about getting replaced. Like us, the enemy had a system of posting fighters for an allotted time, and then relieving them. I’m not too sure where they went for their R&R: probably the alcohol-free seventy-two Virgins Theme Park, across the border in Pakistan.

It was a couple of days after Peachy’s mission when things started to get busy again. It was an oven-hot boiler of an afternoon, when one of the lads spotted an Apache coming out of the haze to the east of the valley. I got on the TACSAT and dialled up the pilot. We had a foot patrol halfway down to Alpha Xray, and if nothing else I wanted to make sure he didn’t mistake them for the enemy, and blast ’em.

It was two American Apaches — call signs Arrow Two Three and Arrow Two Five — and they’d just been flying air recces over PB Arnhem. They asked me what I’d been up to, ’cause word was getting around that my call sign, Widow Seven Nine, had been busy. Then they offered me thirty minutes’ playtime.

I got the pair of Apaches flying recces over the silent valley. For twenty minutes nothing was seen, so I asked the pilots if they’d do a low-level fly pass at PB Sandford. We wanted a cheesy photo of the FST with the gunships in the background. The American pilots seemed more than happy to oblige.

We gathered the FST together, but left Jess sleeping in his bunker. We reckoned it’d be a great wind-up to deliberately leave Jess out of the FST photo. We got tooled up in our full battle rattle and clambered up to JTAC Central. We asked Paddy — an Irish lad who’d been helping out with the FST — to take the shot.

I talked the pilots through what I wanted.

‘We’re after a good souvenir photo, with the four of us in line and you guys coming in from behind. Come in real low but to the west, to keep you out of the sun.’

‘No dramas,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Banking around now.’

As the Apaches thundered low across the bush, there was a sharp crackle of gunfire. Bullets went tearing past our heads. Rounds started kicking up the dust and dirt on the roof. We forced a line of cheesy grins, and yelled at Paddy to take the shot before someone got their head blown off. As soon as he was done we broke ranks and dived for what little cover there was. The lead Apache was passing over the Golf Bravos, and from below it a stream of fire tore upwards at the gunship. One half of my mind was thinking: Bollocks, that’s the end of our photo op. The other half was thinking that I’d better warn the aircrew.

‘Arrow Two Three, Widow Seven Nine: you’ve just been engaged by small arms fire from just to the south of Golf Bravo Nine Two.’

‘Roger. Stand by.’

I cleared it with the OC to get the Apaches to fire warning shots, and radioed the pilot.

‘Arrow Two Three, Widow Seven Nine: I want you to fire warning shots at the position you were engaged from.’

‘No, sir,’ came the reply. ‘I am conducting my reconnaissance.’

Fair enough. The pilot was obviously having a good look, and scanning for targets.

There was a sleepy call from below us: What’s going on? It was Jess, fresh awake from his cot with all the gunfire. As he clambered up the steps he realised the entire FST bar him were on the roof all tooled up with guns, body armour and helmets.

‘What’s going on?’ he repeated.

‘Erm… We wanted a photo op with the Apaches…’

‘You were asleep, so…’

‘Didn’t want to wake you, mate.’

‘Reckoned you needed your beauty sleep.’

Jess looked totally devastated. ‘You did the FST photo without me?’

I was starting to feel a bit bad about the wind-up. There was a fresh burst of shooting from below. The second Apache was now taking fire. I radioed the pilot and told him what was what, and asked him to put down some warning shots.

‘No, sir,’ he replied. ‘I’m conducting my recces.’

There was a call from the OC. ‘Bommer, what’s going on with those Apaches?’

‘Sir, they say they’re conducting…’