Hellfire

A few minutes later, two fresh jets turned up and checked onto the FAC frequency.

‘Any callsign, this is Starburst Two One and Two Two. How do you read?’

I was quick to get back to him. ‘Starburst Two One, this is Spindle Eight Zero. If you work with me on this frequency and get Two Two to go onto the spare frequency, another callsign will control him later.’

‘Starburst Two One, copied.’

‘Starburst Two Two, copied and changing freq.’

I called Starburst Two One and he confirmed that they were Lockheed T-33 Shooting Stars too, jets older than my father, but good enough for my purposes. I told him that his target was an SF Land Rover, but that I was struggling to find it.

I told Dom to get behind cover then move round the range to the north-west as fast as he could so the Pathfinders wouldn’t know where we were.

They would be looking for us in the south and after that call they’d assume I couldn’t see them and hopefully sit still.

I switched to the spare frequency so the Pathfinders couldn’t hear us and contacted Starburst Two Two.

Freddie fucking Mercury would be listening out on the other frequency for me to send his coordinates to Starburst Two One, not having a clue I was actually working both jets.

‘Starburst Two Two, this is Spindle Eight Zero.’ I gave him Freddie’s coordinates first. North five-zero, three-five, zero-five, decimal six-six. West one-one-zero, four-eight, four-five, decimal niner-zero.’ Then his height: ‘Seven-six-zero metres.’

I told him the target was a Special Forces Land Rover.

I’d get the T-33 to attack from over the ridge behind them. If I did it right, they wouldn’t even see it coming.

I continued into the microphone: ‘Mandatory attack heading, two-one-zero degrees magnetic. Friendly helicopter, four point three kilometres north-west.’ He now knew where I was and, after all, we didn’t want a blue-on-blue, a friendly fire incident…

I couldn’t use my laser on the target for fear of blinding them, so called ‘Negative Lima’, which signalled as much to the T-33 pilot.

‘Readback,’ I said. He read the attack back perfectly. I pictured him turning onto this attack run.

‘Call when ready,’ I said.

A moment later, he signalled he was.

I flipped frequency back to the one the Pathfinders were on for a few seconds to put them off the scent that I was working Starburst Two Two on another frequency. I called Starburst Two One, letting him know that I had found the Land Rover to my north, but needed a few more minutes to get the exact coordinates. Without the correct coordinates they’d be too cool to run just yet.

I flipped the frequency back.

All being well, the Pathfinders would still be looking south just as we were arriving in the north-west.

‘Starburst Two Two, running in…’

Dom pulled us into our new OP. I could see the Land Rover to the east-south-east of us-4.3 klicks away. Perfect.

A quick glance to the left and I saw the T-33 a couple of hundred feet off the deck. It could do 570 but had throttled back to about 400 knots-which still looked fast.

‘Your target is an SF Land Rover,’ I said. ‘Twelve o’clock, four miles is a depression, a wadi, running right-left. Call when visual.’

A momentary pause, then: ‘My target is a Land Rover. Visual with wadi, sir.’

I kept talking. ‘Short of the wadi is a scar on the ground. Long of the wadi is a track running away from it.’

‘I have a white scar short and can see an online track dropping into the wadi,’ Starburst Two Two said. He was homing in nicely. The Pathfinders, meanwhile, would still be waiting for me to give their coordinates to Starburst Two One on the other frequency.

I continued the talk-on, drawing the pilot’s eyes ever closer to the target. ‘Twelve o’clock, two miles, track. Target Land Rover is on that track, blind to you. Your side of the wadi. Caution late acquisition.’ I was warning him that he would acquire the Land Rover late because it would be blind to him on a reverse slope.

‘Got the track dropping into the wadi, possible late acquisition,’ he acknowledged.

‘The target Land Rover has started moving south-west.’

The Pathfinders had cottoned on and were making a break for it. They must have heard the aircraft.

The T-33 began to climb.

I gave Starburst Two Two another steer. ‘Twelve o’clock, one mile, dust trail.’

He replied almost instantly. ‘Tally target, one vehicle heading south-west.’

He had the target and began to dive directly at it.

The final confirmation I needed was unique and swift: ‘Target crossing the bridge now.’

I waited until I was 100 per cent sure he was pointing at the Pathfinders. ‘Starburst Two Two, you are clear dry on that target.’ ‘Dry’ was the command to practise a bomb-drop but not to release any actual munitions.

‘Clear dry, sir.’

As he passed over the top we heard the distinctive beep of him simulating a bomb drop off the rails.

‘Starburst Two Two, this is Spindle Eight Zero. That’s a Delta Hotel. You are cleared back onto the original frequency.’

‘Starburst Two Two, good control, changing freq…’

I took over the controls of the Gazelle, changed back onto the original frequency and flew directly at the Pathfinders. I keyed the microphone. ‘See you guys in Medicine Hat. Looks like you’re buying…’

They gave me the two-fingered salute as we passed overhead.

FACING TOMMO

I only had one place left to look. I told Andy that the tanks had to be hiding behind the small hillock in the dry wadi bed.

‘Easier said than done…’

Andy wasn’t wrong. We’d been up here training with Striker armoured fighting vehicles a couple of days before and the terrain was distinctly unfriendly: a network of narrow valleys cutting through steep-sided hills. The Strikers had fired their wire-guided anti-tank missiles from the ridgelines as we brought in fast jets. It was like a giant game of splat-the-rat. If we got pinged, we’d have to come to a hover, spot turn and fly back the way we’d come.

‘If we get caught here, the tanks will kill us. Keep it low and slow and use the pedals to boot us round if you see anything.’

‘Pedals? While we’re still flying?’

I’d forgotten Andy Wawn was a brand spanking new pilot.

‘I’ll follow you through on the controls and take over if we get caught with our pants down. If I shout “I have control” I want you to cut away faster than lightning because we won’t have time to hand over properly.’

I made a mental note to teach him how pedals could assist a turn. It was a tricky manoeuvre that wasn’t officially in the manual-and with good reason. The nose drops and tail rotor authority teeters on out-of-control; get it wrong and the tail breaks away. You’d end up spinning out of control and smashing into terra firma.

Andy flew us up the valley, just below the skyline, fifty feet off the deck and high enough to spin us round and drop the nose without crashing. I held the controls lightly; the light wind from behind us made them slightly sloppy and unresponsive. We both looked anxiously at the bend 500 metres ahead.

We were both expecting the worst. The enemy tanks could be just behind the bend. We’d be so bloody sharp that the boss had refused to come in with us. He was waiting at the mouth of the valley to bring in artillery and fast jets should we get zapped. We’d know if we’d been shot down because the BATUS Asset Tracking System (BATS) box in the back would register a hit and we’d have to land.

With 400 metres to go I craned my neck to the right to see that extra foot around the bend.

I caught a splinter of light to my left, at the periphery of my vision. No sooner had I picked it up than it was gone again.

With 300 metres to go I heard a very light swishing sound. I glanced at Andy. He made more weird noises through his microphone than Darth Vader; it was one of his party tricks.

He glanced back. ‘What?’

‘Look where you’re goi—’

Before I had time to finish the swishing sound turned into a high-pitched screech. By the time I’d turned to see what it was, it had become a blood-curdling banshee wail. I could hear it over the sound of the Gazelle’s whining gearbox and engine, and my helmet’s hearing protection. Whatever it was, it was less than a foot away from me. It was as if the devil himself was running his fingernails down the world’s biggest blackboard…

‘I HAVE CONTROL,’ I yelled, and flicked my head forward again, fast enough to rattle my eyeballs.

I knew then that what was trying to kill us had us so firmly in its grasp that there really was no escape.

We were at thirty knots, with the valley walls pressing in on both sides. The ground was strewn with boulders fifty feet below.

Hundreds of white strands were suspended in the air in front of us, and more were joining them with every passing nanosecond. We were caught in a giant web. The homing aerials on the Gazelle’s nose had been bent back until they were touching the windscreen.

‘SWINGFIRE WIRE,’ I bellowed.

The Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) on the ridge must have fired a wire-guided missile. As these things shoot down range they spew out a thin but incredibly strong metal wire; this one had been left draped across the valley in front of us. Our blades had picked it up and spun it around the Gazelle, winching us in towards the hillside.

I flicked on the radio. ‘Mayday…Mayday…Mayday…’

As I fought to cut back our speed the screeching intensified then was punctuated by a series of high-pitched pings as the tension in the wire increased. I prayed we wouldn’t lose control of the main rotor.

I was barely keeping us airborne. First we’d been netted; now we were being reeled in. It was only a matter of time before the wires would tighten on the exposed tail rotor drive shaft as it spun at over 5,000 rpm; we were about to be garrotted.

I snatched a glance to our right. The hilltop was too far away; I pointed the nose towards the slope, using a rock as a marker, and shoved the cyclic forward.

Prairie grass ten feet in front of us filled the bubble cockpit. We were going in, head on.

Andy went into Pantomime Dame Mode: ‘I’m too young to die…’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ I screamed back.

With an almighty yank back on the cyclic the nose came up forty-five degrees to match the rake of the slope. I kicked us left a little and dumped the collective lever halfway down. The skids hit the hillside hard and for a moment it looked like we’d stuck solid.

Then we began to slide backwards.

‘Nooo…’ Andy yodelled, but before he could draw breath we shuddered to a halt again.

The rock I’d been aiming to use as a chock was stuck behind the left skid and holding us fast.

My right hand shot up to the fuel cut off lever. The engine whine stopped instantly and the screeching began to fade. I pulled the collective up to slow the blades before pulling on the rotor brake.

Silence.

Andy gave me the biggest grin I’d ever seen.

‘Do you have any fucking idea how hard I was working?’ I said. ‘And how close we just came to dying?’

He just kept smiling like a halfwit.

‘Have you got anything to say?’

‘As a matter of fact I have.’ His expression became instantly serious. ‘Can I have a fag in here? Cos my door’s wired closed and I’m gasping…’

He wasn’t wrong. We were trussed like a turkey.

Twenty minutes later our flight commander and the CO came sliding down the hill towards us. After the CO had taken pictures, a technician cut us free so we could assess the damage. The wires had all but severed the tail rotor drive shaft. Steve McQueen would have been proud of us. He’d used the same trick in The Great Escape to snag himself a motorbike.

‘Should have been collected in after firing,’ the CO said. ‘For you two, the war is over.’

I pulled a copy of Low Level Hell from my jacket and waved it at him.

‘The Bible says we need to pick up another bird and get right back out here, sir. The war’s not over yet.’

‘You’d pick a fight with your own shadow, Macy, given half a chance. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.’

A week later our two Gazelles were sitting on a hill, awaiting the battle due to kick off in the small hours of the next morning. This was the big one, as real as it got at BATUS, and I wanted to show what our Gazelles were made of.

We were due to mix it with artillery fire, tank rounds, armed recce cars, mounted machine guns, mortars, Milan anti-tank missiles, jets dropping bombs and our own Lynx helicopters. It was what we had all trained for-as close to a real battle as it was possible to be-and I knew we were more than capable of acquitting ourselves well.

Lieutenant Colonel Iain Thomson was here to validate our regiment during the final BATUS exercise. Tommo was the revered CO of 9 Regiment Army Air Corps. He was a legendary leader and knew how to get the best out of his men, but he was a scary bastard too.

He held the power of life or death-he was there to assess whether we were ready for war fighting. I was determined not to let our side down.

We had a BATS box fitted into the rear of the Gazelle, in place of one of the seats. It would transmit our position at all times to Exercise Control. Excon was the hub of the mock battle, where the invigilators watched the conflict play out on a giant screen.

We had been on the prairie for six weeks and after a disastrous beginning had kicked tanky arse in every battle since. I wanted Tommo and the brass to know how good we were, how fast and low we could go, how quickly we could pick up the enemy and how we could shape the battle for the commanding officer. We were the CO’s scouts and wielded more power than our little helicopter looked capable of.

The bloody ‘Red Tops’ were our only problem-Gazelles painted a horrific shade of anti-collision Day-Glo red, flown by range officers whose job was to ensure that we flew within safety limits. They could hand us a yellow card if we flew into the wrong area or in front of somebody else’s weapon system. Worse still, they’d give away our position by hovering over us at a couple of thousand feet. Because we went fast and low, the ‘enemy’ tanks relied on the Red Tops to track our stealthy battle positions.

Following my first protest the Red Tops were told to fly low and behind us, but the bastards still managed to give us away because they never flew low enough. They needed to see the big picture, to ensure safety procedures were being observed. As a result, the tankies brought more artillery down to shoot us out of the sky. I’d been told quite firmly by Excon to wind my neck in; there is no way I was going into this battle without the Red Top escort. End of story.

If there was one man this side of the pond that could get in their way it was Tommo. I couldn’t ask him because he didn’t know me and would probably tell me to wind my neck in as well, so I told Excon that Tommo didn’t want us given away by Red Tops. I reckoned they wouldn’t dare speak to him, so we’d get to fly alone.

Job done. Or so I thought.

Tommo strode over to the four of us like he was going to convert me between the posts.

I was alongside Andy Wawn. As an ex-tanky he’d taught me a whole lot of Standard Operating Procedures-how to find his old mates, interpret their intentions and lull them into inescapable ambushes. Andy was a cheeky fucker who loved a confrontation. He cupped his hand around my right ear. ‘You know when I said “we” should bluff Excon?’ he whispered. ‘Well that was like a Royal “we”. I’m just the chauffeur here. Better get your boxing gloves on, Macy.’

‘You lot,’ Tommo announced, hands on hips, ‘will be followed by Red Tops in the morning.’

I heard my flight commander stifle a groan. Dom didn’t know I’d bluffed Excon; he thought we’d been given permission.

Man or mouse time, Macy. I took a step forward.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dom wince as I fronted up to the CO. ‘Sir, every battle we’ve ever been in those Red Tops have given our position away.’

Tommo bristled. ‘And you are?’

‘Staff Sergeant Macy, sir.’

‘Well, Staff, I’ll just get them to fly low level behind you. How about that?’

‘Sir, we’ve tried that and they still give our position away. At dawn we’ll be looking into the sun and won’t be able to see very well, so we’ll be constantly on the move. Having them there is like having the hand of God pointed at us.’ I paused. ‘The tankies spot them every time…’

Tommo looked at me much as he might an insect moments before he crushed it. ‘I don’t see where this conversation is going, Staff Macy, do you? This exercise is fucking dangerous enough.’

My mind was fizzing.

‘I couldn’t agree more, sir. The Red Tops will be blocking our routes out, and won’t see us against the low sun. They’re supposed to be there for safety reasons, but could cause a mid-air collision.’

‘Staff Macy, if you think for one moment I’m allowing you out without a minder, you’re very much fucking mistaken.’

‘Sir, we have a transponder onboard that will track our position perfectly. It’s displayed in Excon on the big map board. We’ve tested it and it works great. And we have our comms if necessary. There should be no need for Red Tops.’

He hesitated for a moment. ‘If you disappear off that board for a second, you’re for it.’ Tommo had clearly had enough of the conversation. He fixed me with a last beady stare. ‘Do I make myself blindingly bloody clear?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He stormed off, and I turned to find Dom holding his head in his hands. Tommo wasn’t a man to cross and the BATS boxes had been known to be temperamental.

‘Let’s just live with the Red Tops’, Dom said. ‘It’s only an exercise.’

I couldn’t blame him for worrying. He was on attachment from the Scots Dragoon Guards and praying that the AAC would take him on; he had a lot to lose.

‘Don’t worry, Boss. I’ll check ‘em before we take off.’

An hour before dawn, I leaned into the back of each Gazelle, switched on the BATS boxes, and wandered over to the Excon Portakabin where a sergeant confirmed that Hotel Two Zero Alpha and Hotel Two Zero Bravo had, indeed, registered on their computerised map.

I got back to the boss. ‘We’re on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

It had to be a hundred to one against both transponders failing. Tommo wouldn’t be too pissed if one dropped off radar; he knew we worked as a pair. As long as we won he’d be doing too many back flips to care.

Staying nicely hidden and looking into the morning sun was proving unworkable. Whatever was sneaking through the wadis below the horizon was invisible to us.

‘Hotel Two Zero Alpha this is Hotel Two Zero Bravo. We need to outflank them in their own backyard,’ I called to Dom. ‘I’m blind…’

‘One Zero Alpha, my thought exactly. Your lead.’

‘Head along that wadi there.’ I pointed the way. ‘We need to keep this low and fast. Get me eyes-on those tanks and don’t even dare come into the hover; we’ll be too sharp.’

‘Awesome dude,’ Andy said. ‘But how the fuck are we going to see them if you won’t let me hover?’

‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

Andy was in his element. ‘Yee-ha, low level hell. This is what I joined up for.’ The floor passed beneath us at an alarming speed and proximity.

‘There’ll be hell to pay if you clip a ridge or fly through wires again. Bring the speed back a touch.’ Height and speed were both okay, but Andy was getting a fraction overexcited. I didn’t want an action replay of our Swingfire stunt.

Dom called a halt to our advance when we were close enough to bump into the tanks’ advanced recce. He scanned a stretch of ground that ran for about 500 metres up to a small bank directly in front of us. ‘Move,’ he called.

‘Moving.’

I told Andy to get me behind the ridge.

His voice rose an octave. ‘I’m ten feet off the shagging floor…’

‘Then you’re ten feet too high.’

The skids barely touched the ground as we scooted across the crest of the hill.

‘Run the aircraft onto the ground and don’t come into the hover. You’ll kick up too much dust.’

He skidded to a halt and turned to me. ‘What the fuck now?’

‘Sit tight.’

I unstrapped, climbed out and ran up the bank.

Peering through my binos I spotted the vanguard of the tanks.

Twenty minutes later we were behind them and slightly off to one flank. There was no way they’d expect that.

The CO was ecstatic and moved his Lynx into place. The artillery opened up the show and then we brought in wave after wave of fast jets, only breaking to drop more artillery on them. In what was now a well-rehearsed manoeuvre, a squadron of Lynx simultaneously unleashed their misery on the tanks before disappearing again.

The show wasn’t over. A handful of tanks had been hiding behind a fold in the ground and were now running with nowhere to hide. I called in a pair of Lynx and we all moved to head them off. We provided cover on either side of the Lynx; we were well inside the tanks’ sector now and had to be on our guard. The Lynx hammered the last of the tanks and we bugged out to the greatest news of all. One of the Lynx had dispatched the tank regiment’s CO, a man that had never once been killed on the prairie.

When we landed back at Excon, Tommo was waiting for us, arms akimbo and feet as far apart as they could be. I was looking forward to hearing what he thought of us managing to get in behind the enemy and smack the CO too.

‘Get your fucking flight commander,’ he boomed at me. ‘I want a word with the both of you.’

Shit. I’d flown right along the boundary, but I was sure we’d not crossed it. Dom would have alerted me. A moment or two later, we were both standing in front of Tommo.

‘Where the fucking hell have you two been? You promised me I would be able to see you at all times, and yet you never appeared on the map once!’

My flight commander looked devastated. Tommo wielded a shed load of power in the Army Air Corps and was destined for the highest of appointments. He could kill careers with one swipe of his pen.

‘I checked the system before we took off and we were on the map, sir…’

‘Another one of your promises, Macy? What do you expect me to believe? You’re not on radar, no one knows where you are, and all of a sudden you two know the location of every fucking tank in Canada. If you switched the transponders off you are both for the fucking high jump. Do you hear me?’

‘Sir…’ I pointed towards the Excon Portakabin. ‘I was on radar two minutes before we left and was assured I could be tracked at all times.’

The sergeant who’d confirmed the presence of our Gazelles on the screen was at his keyboard. I chose my words carefully. ‘Would you let the Colonel know exactly when we met and what I asked you?’

‘Er…yes, sir.’ His eyes batted nervously between me and Tommo. He couldn’t bring himself to hold the big man’s 2,000-yard death stare. I couldn’t blame him. Sterner mortals had wilted under Tommo’s withering gaze. ‘He came in last night to check that his BATS box was working.’

Tommo jumped in with both feet. ‘Then why couldn’t I see him even once throughout the entire battle?’

‘You could, sir. Surely…’ The sergeant looked down at his computer. ‘One moment.’ His face began to redden. ‘Oh, he’s not there…’

‘Make your fucking mind up, man!’

After a few frantic keystrokes, the screen changed. ‘Er…here he is at the start, sir, next to the other Gazelle Hotel Two Zero Alpha-see.’

Tommo leaned forward. ‘Then what?’

The sergeant tapped away furiously, running the battle at warp speed. The icons began to move. They both examined the screen in minute detail, then Tommo turned and gave me a look designed to kill.

‘Well fucking well. You both disappeared together, in fucking unison, the second you got into the exercise area.’