Danger Close by Colonel Stuart Tootal

Author:Colonel Stuart Tootal [Tootal, Colonel Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press Ltd.
Published: 2014-02-18T23:00:00+00:00

Forty-eight hours later swirling pillars of sand were kicked up by the rotor blades of the two Chinooks that also carried us east. As we flew fast and low over the desert I ran through what I knew of the situation we were flying into. One Spartan destroyed by a roadside bomb, a second Scimitar damaged and abandoned in the ambush site, two soldiers reported dead, one severely burnt and one crewman missing. With another suspected MIA, time was against us. The aircraft were flying at their maximum speed of 140 knots, but I willed them to fly faster. A billowing cloud of green smoke marked our LZ next to the squadron's vehicles. We landed on desert tracks to minimize the risk of mines that had already destroyed another Spartan the day before. But that had been an unlucky strike from an old Soviet mine and the crew had managed to walk away from the wreckage unscathed. Alex Dick was waiting to meet us and filled me in on the details of what had happened.

The squadron's move away from Now Zad towards Musa Qaleh had not gone undetected by the enemy. They were lying in wait for them as the lead vehicles pushed into a piece of low ground on the edge of a village. The depression funnelled into a narrow track which was then channelled between two long compound walls that ran for 'so metres before it reached open desert again. The front Scimitar, commanded by Corporal of Horse Flynn, had almost reached the end of the canalized route when he came under RPG and small-arms fire. Returning fire as best he could, he drove out of the ambush to the open desert beyond, hearing a large explosion behind him as he did so. On reaching the relative safety of the open ground he looked back to see the sickening sight of the Spartan that had been following him. It was stationary and burning fiercely.

Flynn turned his vehicle around and headed back into the ambush site. His action attracted another volley of RPG fire which blasted off pieces of the external anti-RPG bar armour that shrouded his vehicle. It protected him and his two crewmen from the impact of the warheads, but the vehicle was forced into a ditch on the side of the track where it became stuck. Still under fire, he ordered his men to dismount and they grabbed their weapons and webbing as they scrambled from the hatches of their disabled Scimitar. They then fought their way back through the ambush site on foot, passing the destroyed wreckage of the Spartan. Flynn saw one of the crew lying in the back of the vehicle and two others lying motionless by its side. All appeared to be dead, but he couldn't see the fourth crew member. Taliban bullets were whipping the desert at his feet and he pushed on to get back to the rest of the squadron who had stopped short of the ambush site on the higher ground.

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