Hellfire (26 page)

Stretching back across the cockpit I lifted a small clear cover and pushed the recessed button beneath it. The APU was startled into life. Within a few seconds the acronym on the button glowed green, and it was soon screaming away at full power.

I flipped my helmet onto my head, making sure my ears weren’t folded, and then buttoned the chinstrap tight. A bent ear now would drive me to distraction later.

I grimaced as the internal harness pushed down on the weeping egg on the top of my head.

I dragged my life-support jacket from my seat and pulled it on. It felt cumbersome and tight as I zipped it up, and became even more uncomfortable when I slipped a triangular armoured plate into the sheath on the front.

The ‘chicken plate’ was designed to shield the vital organs within the chest cavity from bullets and shrapnel. As I pulled up the outer zip holding it in place, it pressed heavily on my bladder, making me even more uncomfortable and irritable than before.

It fitted so tightly that it was impossible to take an extra-deep breath. But if it were slacker it would become a snag hazard if I had to be dragged from the cockpit in an emergency. I tried to look on the bright side: it would stop my organs spilling out if I were shot. The pressure would stem the flow of blood and keep me conscious for a few more valuable seconds.

The heat was getting to me good style; I could actually smell it. The cockpit stank like a workshop. The wiring, glues, resins, metals and a whole host of other materials came under immense temperatures in the glass cocoon.

I took hold of the grab handles above the seat and pulled myself inside, arching my back so I didn’t catch the magazine jutting from my stubby carbine clipped to the right side of the seat.

I adjusted the position of the pistol strapped to my right thigh and began to clip on the five-point harness that would save my life in the event of a crash. You couldn’t help but feel a moment of omnipotence in the rear seat of an Apache on operations-master of a £46 million boy’s toy with everything you needed at your fingertips, elevated above your surroundings, looking down on everyone working their arses off to get you into the air.

1313 hours

‘
Bastard!
’ I let go of the cyclic stick and winced.

I made a mental note for the second time in as many weeks: do not touch black objects in the Apache until you’ve put on your fucking gloves. To add insult to injury I’d smacked my funny-bone on the carbine magazine as I pulled away. Taff grinned like a maniac and held up his hand. He sported a cracker of a blister on his palm that made mine look pathetic.

I strapped my black brain to my left thigh and opened it to read the A5 mission information sheet. The brain also contained vital operating information. Not everything could be committed to memory.

I grabbed a fresh sheet of paper, ready to scribble vital grids in the heat of battle.

The web between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand had whitened; I could already see the beginnings of a blister. I wondered what temperature the cyclic must have been after baking in the midday sun.

The heat in the cockpit was still insufferable. Every breath seared my nasal passages. It was the hottest part of the day; the sun sat directly above me and beat down through the cockpit glass, turning it into a pressure cooker.

Within a matter of seconds, the inside of my helmet was saturated with sweat; it gathered in rivulets beneath my browpad and ran into my eyes and down my nose before cascading onto the front of my survival jacket.

My eyes stung like hell, but there was no point in wiping it away. It would instantly replenish itself, and my hands were too busy sweeping around the cockpit, getting this highly complex flying computer up and running and ready for takeoff.

Taff firmly closed the cockpit door and I switched the air conditioning to fifteen degrees. It was a constant battle to bring the ambient temperature down a single degree. There was a lot of metal radiating a great deal of heat.

1315 hours

Patrols Platoon come under fire as they attempt to set off once more. 3 Flight continue in support. No sooner have they started firing than Patrols Platoon break clear and begin their move to safety again.

We spent the next fifteen minutes getting all the systems up and running. We didn’t need to speak to each other. Our hands were a blur as they moved around the plethora of switches, buttons, levers and controls.

On this occasion our Apache had started swiftly and with no snags, but Nick and Jon were having severe comms problems. They could only get a single inter-aircraft radio working, which fell well short of our normal four.

In the mission critical equipment section of today’s briefing we’d stated that a minimum of two radios were required for IRT/HRF, but
it wasn’t like they could just conjure up a spare. We only had four Apaches in-theatre, two of which were already out on the mission.

According to the rule book, Wildman Five One was the only Apache in Afghanistan capable of launching. Theoretically, the mission should have been aborted. Billy and I were unable to perform alone. We relied on each other for mutual support and to keep a seamless stream of fire. But there were guys out there on the ground depending on us. I’d rubbed up the boss too much lately; thank Christ it wasn’t my decision to make. As mission commander of our pair of Apaches that weight fell squarely on Nick’s perfectly formed shoulders.

His call came through the helmet earpieces.

‘Wildman Five One, this is Wildman Five Zero. As I see it we don’t have a choice.’

‘Nick’s going to abort, buddy,’ I muttered to Billy. ‘He doesn’t have the experience to go against the abort criteria for the benefit of 3 Para.’

‘I agree. He’ll follow protocol.’

Nick had literally just finished his pilot’s course when he joined us on our Apache conversion. He was full of enthusiasm but had zero experience.

Nick came back, ‘I’d rather relay messages between us than leave the lads without cover. In the meantime, we’ll try and fix the comms en route. What do you think?’

Inexperienced he might have been, but he was learning fast. We backed him to the hilt; 3 Para was in a fierce firefight and needed our support.

I replied, ‘Wildman Five Zero, this is Wildman Five One. Roger that, we can talk to the ground troops.’

If their comms couldn’t be fixed by the time we got there, then we’d coordinate the fire from our aircraft, directing Wildman Five Zero by the only radio they had available.

1330 hours

I blinked rapidly to flush my eyes of salt, but aggravated the lump on my head in the process.

I imagined my daughter looking at me and rolling around the place, hardly able to contain her giggles no matter how stern a face I tried to maintain, and my son reciting my overused response to him whenever he hurts himself: ‘Man-up, Dad!’ I smiled, misfortune forgotten.

The radios were teeming with transmissions from what sounded like the entire British Army. I could make out Chris’s voice intermittently, then the same nagging question from Ops: ‘How long is it going to take to get airborne?’

I wanted to yell, ‘As long as it always takes, which is why we should have been here hours ago’, but I managed to button my lip. At any minute now 3 Flight would be breaking station, while 3 Para were about to be deprived of Apache cover. We were pushing every envelope to get off the ground as soon as possible.

By now 3 Flight must have been down to zero combat gas-the quantity of fuel required to fight to the very last minute before returning to base direct. They must have been eating into their reserves to provide cover by now. We called it ‘chicken’, as in ‘chickened out’: the very last possible safe moment to return using a straight line, A to B, flying the glideslope from your original height to land with the very minimum fuel allowed.

If they stayed out for another twenty minutes there was a real probability they wouldn’t make it home. Eat into your chicken fuel and you lost your wings for ever if the vapours in the tank didn’t hold out.

I glanced across at the other Apache as our rotor blades started to spin.

What a wonderful sight: Beauty and the Beast all wrapped into one. To my eye, at least, its lean profile was beautiful. Not an inch
of fat, not a superfluous nut or bolt. Everything had been designed with everything else in mind, to produce a perfect flying, killing machine. Warheads and cannon barrels bristled menacingly from its sleek, perfectly honed surfaces; just seeing one of these things coming at you was enough to chill most of our enemies to the core.

I called ‘Ready’ to Nick and Jon, and we got a two clicks back, two quick presses on the transmission button to indicate the message had been heard and understood and he was going to comply. We were not truly ready, but if push came to shove we were in a safe enough configuration to lift.

The air conditioning was finally winning its battle against the blistering heat and the temperature slowly dropped. Sweat no longer dribbled down my face.

It was time for the Weapon Op checks. I actioned the gun and felt the thud under my feet as its hydraulics sprang to life.

‘Gun coming right, Taff,’ I warned him before I turned my head. The gun had enough power to jack the Apache completely off its wheels if you looked down with your right eye without the safety in place. If I looked quickly right it could break Taff’s legs.

As I moved the cannon around Taff told me where it was. ‘Fully right…twelve o’clock…fully left.’

As long as it had full movement I could sort out any other possible snags in flight; the rest of the gun checks could wait. The rocket and missile launchers would have to wait until we were airborne too.

My left hand swept round the cockpit checking the switch settings while my right gripped the now much cooler cyclic. I flicked down a rocker button with my right thumb, changing the symbology being projected into my right eye to hover mode.

I repositioned the cyclic and trimmed it so that the velocity vector in my right eye was smack bang in the middle on takeoff. If I could keep it there I wouldn’t need any external references to keep
the aircraft over the same point. I didn’t want a repeat of the drift I’d managed on landing here. I needed to trust my symbology, despite the fact that every instinct still recoiled from it.

1333 hours

We were positioned slightly ahead and to the right of Jon and Nick.

We waited for them to lift first.

‘Wildman Five One this is Wildman Five Zero. Ready. Lifting.’

‘Copied. Will lift as soon as your dust clears.’

The blades on their Apache coned upwards and they disappeared into their own dust cloud. The vortex stopped just short of our blade tips, held back by the light wind and our rotor wash.

I watched them emerge into clear air like a giant conjuring trick.

Taff finally unplugged himself, stretched out his arms and took a good look around. Satisfied that we weren’t about to climb straight into any £46 million obstacles, he lifted his arms like a cricket umpire signalling a series of sixes, giving us the signal to lift off.

As my hand moved to the collective lever, I caught the end of a conversation between the aircraft of 3 Flight. They were at chicken fuel. They had to return now or risk landing below the legal limit. I heard myself begging them to eat into it, but knew they couldn’t hold out for more than another five or ten minutes even if they did.

I removed the collective friction lock with a single twist of my left hand. Keeping my head perfectly still, I glanced up at the torque reading: 21 per cent; normal with MPOG-minimum pitch applied on the ground. With my right eye still focusing on the torque reading, I watched a pinker-than-usual Taff with my left.

I raised the collective lever, pushed my left pedal down and allowed my right to come up to prevent the Apache from spinning, left eye glued on Taff and right eye on the torque reading, now counting towards 30 per cent.

I shifted my perspective between the torque and the balance ball bottom centre of the monocle. As the torque passed 31 per cent, the ball was being displaced and my right hand instinctively corrected the roll of the aircraft by adjusting the cyclic so the Apache remained upright. As my right eye tracked the ball heading towards the centre, my left saw the dust cloud beginning to build.

I must trust my symbology
…

With my right knee bent high and my left leg nearly straight my feet rotated forward, depressing the tops of both pedals simultaneously until I could hear a light thud. My left eye flicked down to confirm that the parking brake handle had retracted and then back to where Taff was still standing in front of us.

Billy completed the final checks. ‘Tail wheel and parking brake?’

A quick glance at the UFD confirmed the tail wheel lock command had been selected. The green TAIL WHEEL UNLOCKED light was extinguished on the panel by my left hand. Torque was passing 50 per cent.

‘Tail wheel lock selected,’ I replied. ‘Light out. Parking brake off and the handle is in.’

As the torque increased Taff disappeared inside a thick blanket of dust. I knew he’d be leaning forward to prevent himself being bowled over by the colossal downdraught.

Billy sat six feet in front of me and a couple feet lower. I could see straight over his head. His gloved hands took a firm grip on the handles in the roof either side of his head. He wasn’t bracing himself for a bad takeoff. We were about to lose all external references, we’d have very little power, we were thirty feet from a huge stack of live ammunition-so holding tight was the best way to suppress the urge to grab the flying controls.

The torque reading nudged past 85 per cent as the wheels lightened. I couldn’t see a fucking thing outside the cockpit.

My right hand made minute adjustments to the cyclic stick then pushed the trim button when the velocity vector in my right eye was central. My left hand gradually increased the pitch on the collective lever; my feet balanced the pedals, slowly correcting the balance ball and preventing the tail from spinning. My left eye tried to ignore what was happening outside the cockpit.