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 junction 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