Fire Strike 7/9

Thump-thump-thump-thump… My words were lost in the pounding percussions of 30mm cannon fire. I turned to see Arrow Two Three spitting flames from its chin turret, and churning out a thunderous burst of rounds. At the same time there was a savage stab of fire beneath Arrow Two Five’s stub-wings, and two Hellfires were away.

Fuck me. The Arrows were opening up with all they’d got, and we still had a foot patrol out in the bush. Not only that, but neither of the bastard pilots had cleared it with me.

The US Apache pilots worked on different rules of engagement to our own, which gave them the right to open fire if they believed themselves to be under threat. They were taking fire, and they’d opted to return fire — but it would have been nice if they’d told me what their target was.

‘Bommer!’ the OC was yelling. ‘What the hell’s going on with those Apache?’

‘How the hell do I know?’ I yelled back. ‘I didn’t ask them to fire a bloody thing!’

‘Arrow call signs, Widow Seven Nine!’ I was yelling. ‘Arrow call signs, what the fuck are you two firing at?’

‘Wait out,’ came the reply.

The pair of gunships were now no more than three hundred metres above us at PB Sandford. They were going crazy firing cannons and Hellfires into the valley below. I kept calling for a sitrep, but all I ever got was a wait out. Spent 30mm casings rained down on us, as the pair of gunships let rip in one long, uninterrupted shooter-shooter burst.

The lads were staring at me, as if it was my fault we had two lunatic Apache pilots shooting up the Green Zone. Within five minutes both gunships had winchestered their 30mm cannons, and only had two Hellfire left between them. I’d counted Arrow Two Three doing eleven runs with its cannon, and firing four Hellfire, and the other gunship was going in equally hard. I’d never in my life seen anything like it. Everyone kept yelling at me: What the fuck are the Arrows up to? I still didn’t have a bloody clue what they were shooting at, as the pilots weren’t answering me. Finally, the pair of gunships ceased firing.

‘Listen, Arrows, you pair of…’ I yelled into my TACSAT. ‘It’s my ROZ and you need to get bastard clearance! We’ve got a foot patrol out on the ground…’

‘Sorry, sir,’ the pilot cut in, ‘but we had thirteen armed pax in the treeline and we were flanking them so they couldn’t escape.’

‘Say again?’ I asked.

‘We’ve just killed thirteen males of fighting age,’ the pilot repeated. ‘We’ve killed thirteen minimum, and we need to bug out, ’cause we’re sippin’ on air up here.’

‘Well, cheers, but next time we work together let me know what you’re fucking doing!’

‘Affirmative, sir.’

And that was it; the Apaches were off.

I turned to the OC. ‘That was the Arrow pilots. They’ve just killed minimum thirteen enemy in the treelines south of Golf Bravo Nine Two.’

‘They’ve what?’ said the OC.

I gave him a look, as if to say: I know, the bloody lunatics, but it was nowt to do with me.

‘Widow TOC, Widow Seven Nine,’ I spoke into my TACSAT. I was wondering how they were going to react to this one. ‘Sitrep: Arrow Two Three and Arrow Two Five are leaving my ROZ, winchestered. They’ve conducted twenty-one strafing runs and fired six Hellfire.’

‘Widow Seven Nine, Widow TOC: say again.’

I repeated the message, and then Damo Martin came up on the air from FOB Price.

‘Shut up, Bommer man, you’re just being a dick. What’s the score with the Apaches?’

‘Mate, both gunships have just left me fucking winchestered.’

There was a moment’s silence, then: ‘Well what the fuck have you been shooting at?’

‘According to the pilots we have minimum thirteen dead in the trees to the south of Golf Bravo Nine Two.’

Neither Damo nor Widow TOC would believe me. Instead, they decided to send a Predator over to check. I was told I’d have Overlord Nine Five above me in four minutes. By now, Sticky’s Brother was also getting noticeably agitated.

‘They’re calling for Commander Hadin to check in!’ he shouted. ‘Over and over and over. Commander Hadin! Commander Hadin! Commander Hadin!’

His enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Let me guess — Commander Hadin’s not answering?’

Sticky’s Bro nodded, gleefully. ‘And there are lots of other commanders they keep calling for, and they don’t answer either.’

No one seemed willing to believe me about the Arrows — not until the Predator operator got it over the attack site. There it found eight bodies lying beside the treeline, all with weapons. The analysts reckoned there were at least five more corpses half hidden in the trees. So that pretty much confirmed what the Apache pilots had said.

A while later I got another call from Damo Martin. Intel had come down from on high with the Americans. The thirteen kills were confirmed, and amongst their number were six enemy leaders — Commander Hadin included. The Taliban top brass had been in the midst of doing a handover with their troops, when the Arrows had hit them.

‘Top bloody job, Bommer, mate,’ Damo kept telling me. ‘Top bloody job.’

‘Mate, I didn’t do owt,’ I tried to object. ‘I did not call a single shot. The Arrows just went lunatic and malleted everything.’

‘Shut up,’ Damo countered. ‘You’re just being bloody modest.’

‘Mate, I did not call one single shot.’

‘Shut up, you tit! I’m having none of it.’

Whatever I tried to say, Damo wouldn’t believe me.

It still wasn’t a top fluffy feeling for me though. Alpha Xray was only a hundred and twenty metres from the attack site, we’d had a foot patrol out on the ground and I’d had no idea what those Apaches were up to. But all was well that ends well.

Later, I’d settled myself down with a Flashman book that my Light Dragoons mate, Spunky, had lent me. I was reading by the light of my head torch. It was just after midnight and I was enjoying the warm afterglow of those Arrow airstrikes. Flashman was a Light Dragoons man, of course, and I couldn’t help but love the bloke. I’d grown a pair of ‘lamb chop’ whiskers, just like him, and it was his tales of derring-do and caddishness that were helping get me through Afghanistan.

There was a call on the TACSAT. It was a covert surveillance aircraft, Bat Zero Two, and I had him for two hours above me. I wasn’t very happy at being torn away from Flashman’s adventures, but I heaved myself out of my cot and into the Vector.

The aircraft picked up a new piece of comms: The heavy weapon is here and ready for pick-up in the desert. I got Sticky to waken Chris who woke the OC. We reported it up the chain, and I got allocated two A-10s — Hog One Two and Hog One Three. The A-10s would be with me in thirty minutes. Meanwhile, Bat Zero Two was picking up all sorts of stuff about the heavy weapon handover. With the Warthogs still twenty minutes out, I feared we’d miss the bloody thing.

As soon as they were in my ROZ I got the A-10s flying recces north-east, scouring the desert. A heavy weapons handover meant vehicles, and that’s what we were looking for. As the Hogs searched all up the desert with their sniper optics on wide-field view I had my eyes glued to my downlink.

But it wasn’t long before I knew for sure that we’d missed them. Sometimes, you just sense these things. Then we had it confirmed on the intercepts: The heavy weapon has been successfully delivered. I lost the A-10s and the surveillance platform, it was 0245 and I was alone with Flashman once more. I wondered what it was that they’d sneaked into the Triangle to hit us with. It would not be long before I found out.

After stand-to the OC gathered the lads for a briefing. He told us that the rules of engagement had just been