we were still laughing our tits off. And then we heard the blood-curdling howl of the incoming round. I tried burrowing deeper into the sand. As I did so I felt Sticky kind of spread himself out on top of me.
‘BOMMER, YOU’RE TOO FUCKIN’ IMPORTANT TO HAVE YOU GETTING KILLED!’ he screamed. ‘LONG LIVE THE JTAC!’
I stared into Sticky’s eyes — the lunatic. He was like a rabbit caught in a car’s headlamps.
In the thing came. We’d both stopped laughing now.
Twenty Eight
ENDEX
During the last seconds of the weapon’s descent it sounded twenty times worse than it had done when we’d been in some kind of cover. When the giant round smacked into the dirt barely six metres from us, our world erupted in a whirlwind of shock and pain.
A wall of blasted shrapnel engulfed us, the terrifying power of the explosion punching and pounding me like a rag doll. I felt my body tense, as I waited for the burning agony of injury or worse. The violence of the blast tore the air from my lungs, forcing me deeper into the earth. I choked and gagged on a mouthful of grit and sand, but still came up breathing. How the hell was I still alive? And what about that poor fucker Sticky? He’d been lying on top of me, fully exposed to the gut-wrenching blast. Surely, he must’ve been peppered full of jagged, razor-sharp steel.
After the thunderous roar there was a deafening, echoing silence. For a second I just lay there, Sticky pressing me down into the hot Afghan dirt. I tried lifting my head, but either Sticky was dead, or he just wasn’t moving. I tried wriggling out from under him, but I was pinned down. It was like the grave down there.
‘Gerroff, you daft bugger!’ I choked, hoping and praying that he’d answer me.
For an instant there was no reply, and then I heard a rasping wheeze of laughter — the crazed cackle of a man who somehow had survived. Sticky sounded even more insane that normal, which was saying something. We struggled to our feet. We staggered about in the thick cloud of smoke and dust. Neither of us could believe it. We were alive. And we didn’t appear to have a scratch on us.
I turned to inspect the nearside surface of the HESCO barrier. From about half a metre upwards it was completely torn to shreds. Scores of ragged holes were still smoking from where the hot shards of 120mm shrapnel had torn it apart.
But there was no time to contemplate the unbelievable fact that we both weren’t dead. All of a sudden we heard the faint screechhowl of a second incoming round. This wasn’t funny any more. The bastards had sent up two in quick succession.
‘Back to the Vector!’ I yelled.
Sticky and I sprinted for the wagon. As we did so the string holding together my flip-flop gave out. I was trying to run with the sole bent double, which wasn’t very clever. We made the Vector just as that second 120mm round tore into the earth behind us. We dived inside the wagon and lay there gasping for breath. We were plastered in sand and dirt from head to toe, and soaked in sweat. Chris and Throp were in there, and they stared at us as if we’d gone completely nuts. Neither of them had a clue as to where we’d just been, or of our death-defying escape.
There was no time to explain. I got on the TACSAT and dialled up the air. I got four F-15s —
I got them flying recces over Pizza Pie Wood, but they detected absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. I was slouched in the back of the burning hot Vector staring into my Rover screen, eyes glued to the downlink and I was boiling over with frustration. Where the fuck was that mortar team?
Then we spotted the hay cart. This was it. Finally, we had them. Six males were pushing a massive cart, which was clearly far too heavy to be filled just with dry grass. What did they have hidden beneath the hay: crates of 120mm rounds, or the entire tube? I could feel the excitement building, as the Dude call signs said they were ready to smash them.
The six men pushed the cart along a track just to the north-west of Pizza Pie Wood. Finally they stopped in a mud-walled compound and began unloading. My eyes were glued to my downlink as first all the bundles of hay came off and then… nothing.
I couldn’t believe it: there was nothing on the cart but fucking hay. Only fucking hay. Where the bollocks was that bastard mortar?
Whilst the F-15s continued flying their air recces, Sticky decided to tell everyone within earshot how we’d been caught in the open by those mortar rounds. Chris and a few of the other lads had seen us wandering off, but none of them had thought much about it. Jess had made it into the cover of a bunker, which made us look even more idiotic. As Sticky finished his story, the OC stared at us like we were a couple of complete lunatics. He shook his head in disbelief.
‘A Royal Marine and a JTAC… What is it, sixteen years’ experience between you? You couldn’t make this up.’
Sticky grinned, sheepishly. I stared into my Rover screen, trying to avoid the OC’s eye. There was a chorus of ‘you stupid twats’ from the other lads. Only Mikey Wallace seemed to disagree. He told us he was chuffed as nuts that we’d got him his tail fin. Chris seemed to think that our behaviour was beyond warped.
‘Why on earth did you want to go to a 120mm mortar impact point, in your shorts and flip-flops?’ he asked, incredulously. ‘Especially when the mortar’s still live?’
‘Why d’you think?’ I snorted. ‘’Cause Mikey wanted a tail fin — and a tail fin Mikey got.’
For an hour or so after the jets had gone Sticky and I sat in the Vector, and we couldn’t stop laughing at each other. It was the sheer simple joy of still being alive.
A few hours later I said to Sticky: ‘You know what, mate, lightning never strikes twice. Let’s go take a butcher’s at the impact point, eh?’
‘Yeah, come on then,’ said Sticky.
We wandered over, me with my little digital camera in hand. I was hobbling like an old man, for my foot was cut to shreds from where I’d been trying to run with a broken flip-flop. We didn’t really say much when we saw that blasted HESCO barrier; we knew how close it had been, and how by rights we should be dead.
I took a photo of Sticky and he took one of me. Sticky was pointing at the ground where we’d been lying, as if to say —
The following morning there was the warning of a major op in the offing. C Company, 2 MERCIAN were tasked with pushing five kilometres east into the Green Zone on the southern side of the river. They were to take Qada Kalay, and square off the front line with us, so turning the Triangle into a proper kill-box. Once that was achieved, we’d be handing over the entire territory to a Danish battle group.
In addition to C Company 2 MERCIAN, there’d be a Gurkha company, a shedload of ANA soldiers and some Estonians on the op. We’d be holding the lines in the Triangle, as the main force went into action on the south side of the river. They’d be doing a five-kilometre advance to contact in full-on bandit country.
With the last days of the tour upon us, we were being held in reserve for the operation. But we were in no doubt that we were going to get used at some stage or another. In addition to which we expected our own world of trouble. Once the lads went in to take Qada Kalay, it was bound to stir up a hornets’ nest in the Triangle.
I was told to put together an air plan for the coming operation. I knew there’d be several JTACs working on it, and I talked it through with Damo over the air. We decided to put together a High Density Air Control Zone (HIDACZ). One JTAC would be in overall control, and we’d break the area down into kill-boxes each controlled by a
