2-53

 

53.

I was the first in my squadron to pull the trigger in anger.

I remember the night as well as any in my life. We were in the VHR tent, the red phone rang,we all sprinted¹ to the aircraft. Dave and I raced through preflight checks, I gathered the missiondetails: One of the control points closest to Bastion had come under small arms fire. We needed toget there, ASAP, and find out where the fire was coming from. We took off, swept over the wall,went vertical², climbed to fifteen hundred feet. Moments later I swung the night sight onto thetarget area. There!

Eight hot spots, eight kilometers away. Thermal³ smudges—walking from where the contacthad been.

Dave said: That’s got to be them!

Yeah—there’s no friendly forces out here on patrol! Especially not at this hour.

Let’s make sure. Confirm no patrols outside the wall.

I called the J-TAC. Confirmed: no patrols.

We flew above the eight hot spots. They quickly broke into two groups of four. Evenly spaced,they went slowly along a track. That was our patrolling technique—were they mimicking⁴ us?

Now they hopped⁵ on mopeds, some two-up, some one-up. I told Control we were visual on alleight targets, asked for clearance⁶, permission to fire. Permission was a must before engaging,always, unless it was a case of self-defense or imminent⁷ danger.

Beneath my seat was a 30-mm cannon⁸, plus two Hellfires on the wing, 50-kg guided missilesthat could be fitted with different warheads, one of which was excellent for obliterating⁹ high-valuetargets. Besides Hellfires we had a few unguided air-to-ground rockets, which on our particularApache were flechette. To shoot the flechette you had to tip the helicopter down at a precise angle;only then would the flechette fly out like a cloud of darts¹⁰. That’s what the flechette was, in fact, alethal burst of eighty 5-inch tungsten darts. I remembered in Garmsir hearing about our forceshaving to pick pieces of Taliban guys out of trees after a direct hit from flechette.

Dave and I were ready to fire that flechette. But permission still hadn’t come.

We waited. And waited. And watched the Taliban speeding off in different directions.

I said to Dave: If I find out later that one of these guys has injured or killed one of our guysafter we let them go…

We stayed with two motorbikes, followed them down a windy road.

Now they separated.

We picked one, followed it.

Finally Control got back to us.

The persons you’re following…what’s their status?

I shook my head and thought: Most of them are gone, because you’ve been so slow.

I said: They’ve split up and we’re down to one bike.

Permission to fire.

Dave said to use the Hellfire. I was nervous about using it, however; I shot the 30-mm cannoninstead.

Mistake. I hit the motorbike. One man down, presumably dead, but one hopped off and raninto a building.

We circled, called in ground troops.

You were right, I told Dave. Should’ve used the Hellfire.

No worries, he said. It was your first time.

Long after returning to base, I did a sort of mental scan. I’d been in combat before, I’d killedbefore, but this was my most direct contact with the enemy—ever. Other engagements felt moreimpersonal. This one was eyes on target, finger on trigger, fire away.

I asked myself how I felt.

Traumatized?

No.

Sad?

No.

Surprised?

No. Prepared in every way. Doing my job. What we’d trained for.

I asked myself if I was callous¹¹, perhaps desensitized. I asked myself if my non-reaction wasconnected to a long-standing ambivalence¹² towards death.

I didn’t think so.

It was really just simple maths. These were bad people doing bad things to our guys. Doingbad things to the world. If this guy I’d just removed from the battlefield hadn’t already killedBritish soldiers, he soon would. Taking him meant saving British lives, sparing British families.

Taking him meant fewer young men and women wrapped like mummies and shipped home onhospital beds, like the lads on my plane four years earlier, or the wounded men and women I’dvisited at Selly Oak and other hospitals, or the brave team with whom I’d marched to the NorthPole.

And so my main thought that day, my only thought, was that I wished Control had got back tous sooner, had given us permission to fire more quickly, so we’d got the other seven.

And yet, and yet. Much later, speaking about it with a mate, he asked: Did it factor into yourfeeling that these killers¹³ were on motorbikes? The chosen vehicle of paps all over the world?

Could I honestly say that, while chasing a pack of motorbikes, not one particle of me was thinkingabout the pack of motorbikes that chased one Mercedes into a Paris tunnel?

Or the packs of motorbikes that had chased me a thousand times?

I couldn’t say.

 

1 sprinted   

v.短距离疾跑( sprint的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He sprinted for the line. 他向终点线冲去。
• Sergeant Horne sprinted to the car. 霍恩中士全力冲向那辆汽车。 来自辞典例句

2 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

3 thermal   

adj.热的，由热造成的；保暖的

参考例句：

• They will build another thermal power station.他们要另外建一座热能发电站。
• Volcanic activity has created thermal springs and boiling mud pools.火山活动产生了温泉和沸腾的泥浆池。

4 mimicking   

v.（尤指为了逗乐而）模仿( mimic的现在分词 )；酷似

参考例句：

• She's always mimicking the teachers. 她总喜欢模仿老师的言谈举止。
• The boy made us all laugh by mimicking the teacher's voice. 这男孩模仿老师的声音，逗得我们大家都笑了。 来自辞典例句

5 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

6 clearance   

n.净空；许可(证)；清算；清除，清理

参考例句：

• There was a clearance of only ten centimetres between the two walls.两堵墙之间只有十厘米的空隙。
• The ship sailed as soon as it got clearance. 那艘船一办好离港手续立刻启航了。

7 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

8 cannon   

n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮

参考例句：

• The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
• The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。

9 obliterating   

v.除去( obliterate的现在分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• Michael smoked the competition, obliterating field in most of his events. 迈克尔让比赛放光，几乎淹没了他所参加的大多数项目。 来自互联网
• He heard Pam screaming.The noise became obliterating.Then solid darkness descended. 在一片混乱中，他听到了帕姆的尖叫。接下来，噪音消失了，黑暗降临了。 来自互联网

10 darts   

n.掷飞镖游戏；飞镖( dart的名词复数 )；急驰，飞奔v.投掷，投射( dart的第三人称单数 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• His darts trophy takes pride of place on the mantelpiece. 他将掷镖奖杯放在壁炉顶上最显著的地方。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I never saw so many darts in a bodice! 我从没见过紧身胸衣上纳了这么多的缝褶！ 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 callous   

adj.无情的，冷淡的，硬结的，起老茧的

参考例句：

• He is callous about the safety of his workers.他对他工人的安全毫不关心。
• She was selfish,arrogant and often callous.她自私傲慢，而且往往冷酷无情。

12 ambivalence   

n.矛盾心理

参考例句：

• She viewed her daughter's education with ambivalence.她看待女儿的教育问题态度矛盾。
• She felt a certain ambivalence towards him.她对他的态度有些矛盾。

13 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。