Hellfire (7 page)

I fired up the Gazelle’s single engine-no problems there-but my first real test came when I needed to check behind me to ensure no one would be decapitated when I engaged the blades. Palmer was so big I couldn’t see past him.

I spoke into my intercom. ‘Can you check left please, sir?’

‘No.’ Palmer continued to look directly in front of him, his visor hiding any expression he may have had.

Parts of me were starting to die. What the fuck was this? ‘Unless I check left, sir, I can’t start the blades. I might chop someone’s head off.’

He squashed me again as he grudgingly looked left. ‘Clear.’

My sense of foreboding deepened. I thought of everything I’d been through-grading, a whole year spent learning how to fly-and it had come to this: cramped in a tiny cockpit with a gargantuan instructor who seemed hell-bent on failing me.

Somehow, as we made our way over the Hampshire countryside, I forced myself to concentrate. I simply had to do my best; I had to hold it together. For most of the rest of the flight I was somehow able to zen out Chopper Palmer’s brooding presence, despite the fact that I remained squashed into my side of the cockpit by the man’s enormous bulk.

Bit by bit we completed the test, until, right at the end, we came to the clincher: Practice Forced Landings. I carried out several PFLs that I thought were pretty good. Then, as we were approaching the airfield with the test minutes from completion, he suddenly said, ‘I have control’, chopped the engine and we plummeted earthwards.

As emergency landings and autorotations went, it was the best I’d ever seen; so expertly done, in fact, that he bled away the last reserves of energy in the Gazelle’s freewheeling blades in a beautiful flared landing that ended in the helicopter’s skids literally kissing the grass.

As we slid to a standstill I was so awestruck by this textbook display that I failed to take on board what he said next. It was only when my mind replayed the instruction that I realised he’d asked me to take off again and given me a grid reference.

I’d missed it.

He’d suckered me, the old bastard. I’d thought the test was over.

I was summoning up the courage to ask him for the grid reference again when he turned to me. ‘Farrar-Hockley’s fallen off a ladder in his greenhouse. He’s got a pitch-fork up his arse. We’ve got to get him to hospital, pronto. I take it you know who I mean by Farrar-Hockley, Corporal Macy…’

‘Farrar the Para,’ I answered as I checked the grid I thought he’d said.

General Farrar-Hockley was a bigwig who’d retired a decade earlier and looking at the grid Chopper bloody Palmer had just given me was apparently living in Harewood Forest, a few minutes’ flight-time away.

What I didn’t know was whether this medical emergency was for real.

I pointed the nose in the direction of the general’s house.

On the way, I checked the map and noticed that the general lived in an area that the instructors used for confined areas-a place that was extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, for a helicopter to land in-though it wasn’t on the cheat-maps.

I flew cautiously around the outside of a clearing that constituted the confined area. Every time I looked down, it looked smaller and smaller. I drew this to the big man’s attention.

‘So get me in there before we run out of fuel,’ he demanded. ‘Farrar’s in a bad way.’

I stared at the tiny gap in the trees, hoping for inspiration. It was touch-and-go. I didn’t know what to do.

‘Are you going in or what?’ Half-drowned by the crackling comms and the scream of the Gazelle, Palmer’s voice still managed to sound like a megaphone.

Make-your-mind-up time, Macy. Palmer wasn’t interested in debates or discussions. He wanted decisiveness and action.

What was the right answer? What was I supposed to do?

I took a deep breath. ‘No sir. I’m not going to make it.’

There was a pause, then: ‘Nor could I. Take me home.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. But Palmer hadn’t finished with me yet. As we approached the airfield, he reached forward and chopped the engine on me.

Suckered again…

I applied my autorotation skills, dumping the collective lever I had in my left hand to store the energy in the blades so I could use it to cushion the landing. We dropped like a stone and the tone of the blades rose an octave as they freewheeled faster and faster.

At about fifty feet I pulled up the nose to slow the speed and as we dropped through twenty-five feet I gave the collective a sharp pull to arrest the rate of descent. The speed was now about thirty knots and we’d dropped to five feet as I levelled her off by pushing forward on the cyclic between my legs and pulling up slowly on the collective, using up the stored energy. I could hear the blades slowing and at the point we would have fallen out of the sky we touched down. We were running fast and bouncing around a bit but I’d got her on the ground before finally skidding to an untidy halt; scraping a slight zigzag in the grass in the process. Engine-off landings were not my strongest point.

With sticky palms, I sat there waiting for Palmer to issue me with fresh instructions. Instead, he pulled on the rotor brake, threw off his straps and opened the door. This time, he really was finished. Just before he unplugged his helmet he said, ‘Do you have any points for me?’

Me? Points for him? I just wanted him to get out before he produced another hoop for me to leap through.

‘I’ll let you into a little secret, Corporal Macy. If you keep that up you might live long enough to fly the Apache. No debrief points. Well done.’

With that he bounced me off my door one last time before gently closing his and taking off across the grass. When he was several strides from the helicopter, it dawned on me that I’d passed.

BOOBY-TRAPPED IN NORTHERN IRELAND

MAY 1997

1,500 feet over Crossmaglen, South Armagh, Northern Ireland

‘Gazelle Five, this is One Zero Alpha. All callsigns are now firm, over.’

I pulled the transmit button on the cyclic. ‘Gazelle Five, roger, wait out.’

I put the Gazelle into a shallow turn and turned to the guy on my right. ‘Look down now, Scottie, and you can see where each brick in the multiple is. The most important element of working with foot soldiers is to identify where each and every man is. If the IRA kick off you need to know exactly where to look.’

Scottie peered down through the bug-eyed canopy. ‘Hellooo,’ he said, pretending to wave to the men on the ground. Not that they stood a hope in hell of seeing us; we were stooging around above them at 1,500 feet. A ‘brick’ was half a section-four men-the British Army’s standard unit in Northern Ireland. A multiple is three or more bricks.

I was sitting in the left-hand seat, the commander of Gazelle 5, an aircraft with 665 Squadron, 5 Regiment Army Air Corps. 5 Regiment was the AAC’s Northern Ireland Regiment to which I’d been posted for five months the year before.

Scottie, my pilot, was sitting in the right-hand seat. My job today was teaching him how to support foot multiples, a skill I’d acquired during my first posting to Northern Ireland four years earlier. As laid-back as Scottie appeared to be, he was also a damn good pilot. We were both sergeants and had known each other since I’d arrived in Dishforth after graduating from Middle Wallop. Scottie was a ‘posh jock’. He had a soft accent and a high-pitched voice that got even higher whenever he got excited. He spent most of his money on cars, clothes and watches.

Scottie took over the flying so I could use the camera.

‘One Zero Alpha has just entered Lismore,’ I said, ‘and taken up positions by the first house on the right. One Zero Bravo is behind them on the Dundalk Road covering the rear to the north.’ I gestured for him to look out of the window again. ‘One Zero Charlie has moved forward on the Dundalk Road to cover the south.’

One Zero Charlie was on both sides of the road, with an RUC policeman, looking along a straight stretch with good avenues of approach.

‘One Zero Charlie is in the most vulnerable position,’ I continued, ‘because a vehicle can approach from the south, take a shot and scoot off. You need to keep an eye out along the Dundalk Road in both directions. If you see any vehicles, yell, because I’ll need to warn the multiple commander. Large vehicles like covered tipper trucks and lorries could contain an IED. Keep a watch for them.’

‘Okay, Ed.’

Before the multiple moved off again, I needed to scout ahead to find its vulnerable points-areas of particular threat in the vicinity.

‘One Zero Alpha, this is Gazelle Five. I have identified all of your men. Can you send me your VPs for this area, over?’

A broad Ulster accent responded. ‘One Zero Alpha, aye, we only have the one. Once we move forward up Lismore we’ll cross a junc
tion on our left leading south along Lismore Park. Can you see it, over?’ The multiple commander was clearly a guy with local knowledge.

I could see the junction he meant. I told him it was clear.

‘Gazelle Five, roger, over.’

‘That’s a bad crossing for us, mate,’ the Ulsterman said. ‘We’ve been shot at from that road before and the bastards have escaped onto the Dundalk Road and got away to the south, over.’

‘Gazelle Five, roger, wait out.’

All of this was new to Scottie, although it shouldn’t have been. Not that I blamed him. There had been a procedural breakdown in the way Gazelles had been supporting multiples in Northern Ireland and without remedial action I knew that more of our boys on the ground were going to die.

The threat level was high. Aside from IEDs and ambushes, it was the era of the South Armagh Sniper, a guy armed with a .50 calibre sniper rifle who’d taken out seven of our lads in the past five years. He was still out there. Our job was to provide top-cover, to scout ahead for anything that constituted a potential threat to the multiple on the ground. The Gazelle was an ideal platform for this role. Thanks to its powerful high-resolution, thermal-imaging camera system, we could stare down the throats of anyone down there, even from this altitude.

‘Look along this road on my TV monitor, Scottie, and you’ll see a lone vehicle at the dogleg bend facing south. That’s a good shooting position, and the car is facing in the escape direction.’

‘How do you know if it’s a threat?’

‘You don’t yet. You need to see if the engine is warm on the thermal camera and to see if anyone is in the car or ready to jump into it.’

I pointed at the screen. The car was stone cold, with no occupants and nobody nearby. Had it been used recently, I would have
detected the white heat glow of the engine block, even through its bonnet.

Scottie was quick to chip in. ‘Do we give them the all clear?’

‘No mate, this is what we do.’ I got on the radio again. ‘One Zero Alpha, this is Gazelle Five. I have a white Ford Capri at the dogleg halfway down the road on the left-hand side. It is cold, no occupants and no one hanging around, over.’

‘One Zero Alpha, wait out.’

I turned to Scottie. ‘We don’t know the threat here, buddy. All we can do is let him know what’s around the corner. He decides what to do about it.’

‘How’s that going to help him?’

‘He’ll be talking to base now; they’ll pull a file on all Ford Capris and also check out the colour in case of a respray. If it’s reported stolen, they won’t go anywhere down that road, because it’s likely to have an IED in it.’

‘Gazelle Five, this is One Zero Alpha. That vehicle is registered to the house that it’s parked outside, but thanks anyway. Are we cleared to move, over?’

‘Gazelle Five, I’ve not quite finished looking around. Wait out.’

I looked at Scottie again. ‘Okay, buddy, now that their VP appears clear I need to check the area they’re about to move into.’

At the edge of the town there was a small close, shaped like a sickle, with an alleyway leading off it. The multiple would move past it in the next thirty metres or so.

‘Look into every place a bomb could be left, or where trouble could come from, because you don’t want the multiple split up, Scottie. If you look on the monitor now, you’ll see a known trouble-spot called The Crescent.’

Scottie peered at the screen. ‘There are three kids playing football down there.’

‘What do you think we should do?’

‘Tell the multiple commander. They need to know what’s at the end of the alleyway.’

‘Right. Paint the picture to the guys on the ground, so they’re ready to respond.’ He was picking it up fast.

After they set off, I explained to Scottie that he was responsible for the rear and the periphery of the multiple and should warn me of any vehicles-or anybody, for that matter-approaching from blind positions.

‘Okay, what next?’ he asked.

‘I’m looking into Lismore. There’s a little cul-de-sac down there where they’re scheduled to do a house search.’

I scanned forward, letting the Gazelle’s powerful thermal-imaging camera do its thing. Lismore was just forward of the area the multiple was patrolling. The ability of the camera to stare into people’s living rooms, from this height and far higher, never ceased to amaze me. I let the camera rove through the streets and alleyways. It was a warm, late spring day. Wild flowers bloomed in the neighbouring fields. I could see it all. It was strange, then, that apart from the three kids playing football, no one was around.

A movement at the edge of the screen caught my eye, a curtain billowing in the breeze. The window on the first floor was wide open.

I scanned to the next house and noticed that its windows were open too. It was the same all along the street…

Fuck
.

‘One Zero Alpha, this is Gazelle Five. Go firm, go firm now! I have large combat indicators in Lismore, wait out.’

‘What is it, Ed?’

I pointed at the screen. ‘The bins are out in this cul-de-sac, but not in any of the others. They don’t do bin collections in just one street. And take a look at the windows. What do you see?’

‘It
is
almost summer, Ed.’

‘Do
you
leave all your windows wide open when you go out to work? Look at the other houses in the area. Only a couple have theirs open.’