Soldier C: Secret War in Arabia Read online

  ‘Real exotic,’ Gumboot said.

  ‘It’s not all that bad when you get used to it. I’ve been in worse holes.’

  ‘Who else is here?’ Ricketts asked.

  ‘Spooks, Signals, BATT, Ordnance, REME, Catering Corps, Royal Corps of Transport, Engineers.’

  ‘Spooks, meaning green slime,’ Ricketts said.

  ‘Yes. You’re SAS, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘They’ll keep you busy here.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Andrew said. ‘I wouldn’t want to be bored in this hole. Time would stretch on for ever.’

  ‘At least we’ve got outdoor movies,’ Pete said, puffing clouds of smoke from his pipe. ‘They’re shown in the SAF camp. English movies one night, Indian ones the next. Just take a chair along with a bottle of beer and have yourself a good time. Me, I’m a movie buff.’

  ‘I like books,’ Andrew said. ‘I write poetry, see? I always carry a little notebook with me and jot down my thoughts as they come to mind.’

  ‘What thoughts?’ Gumboot asked.

  Andrew shrugged. ‘Thoughts inspired by what I see and hear around me. I rewrite them in my head and jot them down.’

  ‘You’ve got me in your notebook, have you?’ Jock asked. ‘All my brilliant remarks.’

  ‘Ask no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,’ Andrew replied with a big grin. ‘It’s just poetry, man.’

  ‘I didn’t think you could spell,’ Gumboot said, ‘but maybe that doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Say, man,’ Andrew said, taking a swipe at a dive-bombing hornet trying to get at his beer, ‘how come there’s so many frogs in this desert?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Pete said. ‘But there’s certainly a lot of ’em. Frogs, giant crickets, flying beetles, hornets, red and black ants, centipedes, camel spiders and scorpions – you name it, we’ve got it.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Tom said. ‘Are any of those bastards poisonous?’

  ‘The centipedes and scorpions can give you a pretty serious sting, so I’d recommend you shake out anything loose before picking it up. Those things like sheltering beneath clothes. They like to hide in boots and shoes. So never pick anything up without shaking it out first.’

  ‘What about the spiders?’ Bill asked, looking uneasy.

  ‘They look pretty horrible, but they don’t bite. One has a small body and long legs, the other short legs and a big, fat body. You’ll find them all over the bloody place, including under your bedclothes – another reason for shaking everything out.’

  Bill shivered at the very thought of the monsters. ‘I hate spiders!’ he said.

  The thunder of 25-pounder guns suddenly shook the tent, taking everyone by surprise.

  ‘Christ!’ Jock exclaimed. ‘Are we being attacked?’

  ‘No,’ Pete said. ‘It’s just the SAF firing on the Jebel from the gun emplacements just outside the wire. You’ll get that at regular intervals during the day and even throughout the night, disturbing your sleep. It’s our way of deterring the adoo hiding in the wadis from coming down off the Jebel. It takes some getting used to, but eventually you will get used to it – that and the croaking of the bloody frogs, which also goes on all night.’

  ‘Time for our briefing,’ Ricketts said. ‘Drink up and let’s go, lads.’ They all downed their beer, thanked Pete, and left the tent. Once outside, Ricketts looked beyond the wire and saw one of the big guns firing from inside its protective ring of 40-gallon drums, located about a hundred yards outside the fence. The noise was tremendous, with smoke and flame belching out of the long barrel. The backblast made dust billow up around the Omani gunners, who had covered their ears with their hands to keep out the noise.

  ‘That’s one hell of a racket to get used to,’ Jock said.

  ‘Plug your ears,’ Gumboot told him.

  The briefing took place in the corner of the marquee known as the ‘hotel’, where Sergeant Lampton was waiting for them, standing beside another man who, like Lampton, was wearing only a plain shirt, shorts and slippers.

  ‘Welcome to Um al Gwarif,’ he said. ‘I’m Captain Ralph Banks of SAS Intelligence and I don’t like to hear the term “green slime”.’ When the laughter had died down, he continued: ‘You may have noticed that I’m not wearing my green beret or insignia. You may also have noticed that everyone else around here is like me – no beret, no insignia. There’s a good reason for it. While we’re all here at the Sultan’s invitation, there are those, both here and in Great Britain, who would disapprove of our presence here, so to avoid identification we don’t wear cap badges, identification discs, badges of rank or formation signs. This also means that the adoo won’t know who we are if they capture us, dead or alive. Of course, if they capture you alive, they may try some friendly persuasion, in which case we trust that your interrogation training will stand you in good stead.’

  The men glanced at one another, some grinning sheepishly, then returned their attention to the ‘Head Shed’, as senior officers were known.

  ‘I believe you were briefed in Hereford,’ he said, ‘about the general situation here in Oman.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ some of the men replied.

  ‘Good. What I would like to fill you in on is what you’ll be doing for the next few days, before we make the assault on the Jebel Dhofar and start ousting the adoo.’ Banks turned to the map behind him. ‘As you’ve already been informed, everything that happens here must be seen to be the doing of the Omanis. With our help, the Sultan’s Armed Forces have established bases all around this area. At Taqa,’ he said, pointing the names out on the map, ‘Mirbat and Sudh, all on the coast, and also here in the western area at Akoot, Rayzut, where a new harbour is being built, at Thamrait, or Midway, on the edge of the Empty Quarter, and even on the Jebel itself, at the Mahazair Pools, which will be your first RV when the assault begins.’ He turned back to face them. ‘While the next military objective is the assault on the Jebel, it’s imperative that you men first learn about the workings of the BATT, who assist the SAF with training, advice and community welfare. Also, before you make the assault on the Jebel you’ll have to learn how to deal with the firqats, who can be a prickly, unpredictable bunch.’

  He nodded at Sergeant Lampton, who took over the briefing. ‘The firqats are irregular troops formed into small bands led by us. Many of them are former adoo who sided with Sultan Qaboos when he deposed his father and started his reforms. As they know the adoo camps and bases, those particular firqats are very useful, but they aren’t overly fond of the Sultan’s regular army and, as Captain Banks said, they can be very difficult to deal with. For this reason, part of the work of the BATT teams is to be seen doing good deeds, as it were, in the countryside, thus impressing the firqats with our general worthiness and strengthening their support for the Sultan. So it’s imperative that you learn exactly what the BATT teams are doing and how they go about doing it. Therefore, for your first week here, you’ll be split up into small teams, each led by a BATT man, including myself, and given a guided tour of the area, plus special training relating to warfare in this particular environment. At the end of that week, the assault on the Jebel will commence. Any questions?’

  There was a brief silence, broken only when Ricketts asked: ‘When do we start?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning. You have the rest of the day off. As the sun is due to sink shortly, it won’t be a long day. Any more questions?’

  As there were no further questions, the group was disbanded and went off to the open mess tent to have dinner at the trestle tables. Afterwards they returned to the NAAFI tent to put in a solid evening’s drinking, returning at midnight, drunk and exhausted, to their bivouac tent. After nervously shaking out their kit to check for scorpions and centipedes, they wriggled into their sleeping bags for what was to prove a restless night punctuated by croaking frogs, irregular blasts from the 25-pounders and attacks by thirsty mosquitoes and dive-bombing hornets. Few of the men felt up to much the next day, but they still had their work to do.
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  Chapter 4

  For the next five days, Ricketts, Andrew and Gumboot were driven around the area in Lampton’s Land Rover, with Ricketts driving, the sergeant beside him and the other two in the back with strict instructions to keep their eyes peeled at all times. To ensure that they did not dehydrate, they had brought along a plentiful supply of water bottles and chajugles, small canvas sacks, rather like goatskins, that could be filled with water and hung outside the vehicle to stay cool. Just as the Bedfords had done the first day, Ricketts always drove alongside the roads, rather than on them, to minimize the risk from land-mines laid by the adoo.

  The heat was usually fierce, from a sky that often seemed white, but they gradually got used to it, or at least learned to accept it, and they frequently found relief when they drove along the beaches, by the rushing surf and white waves of the turquoise sea. The beaches, they soon discovered, were covered with crabs and lined with wind-blown palm trees. Beyond the trees, soaring up to the white-blue sky, was the towering gravel plateau of the Jebel Dhofar, a constant reminder that soon they would have to climb it – a daunting thought for even the hardiest.

  As they drove through the main gates that first morning, the big guns in the hedgehogs just outside the perimeter fired on the Jebel, creating an almighty row, streams of grey smoke and billowing clouds of dust. Just ahead of their Land Rover, a Saladin armoured car was setting out across the dusty plain, right into the clouds of dust.

  ‘The adoo often mount small raids against us,’ Lampton explained. They also come down from the Jebel during the night to plant mines around the base or dig themselves in for a bit of sniping. That Saladin goes out every morning at this time to sweep the surrounding tracks, clear any mines left and keep an eye out for newly arrived adoo snipers. The same procedure takes place at RAF Salalah, which is where we’re going right now.’

  Reversing the same three-mile journey they had made the day before, when they first arrived, with the Land Rover bouncing constantly over the rough gravel-and-sand terrain beside the dirt track, they soon passed the guarded perimeter of RAF Salalah, then came to the main gate by the single-storey SOAF HQ. Their papers were checked by an Omani soldier wearing the red beret of the Muscat Regiment and armed with a 7.62mm FN rifle. Satisfied, he let them drive through the gates and on to where the Strikemaster jets and Skyvan cargo planes were being serviced in the dispersal bays encircled by empty oil drums.

  ‘Stop right by that open Skyvan,’ Lampton said. When Ricketts had done so, they all climbed down. Lampton introduced them to a dark-haired man wearing only shorts and slippers, whose broad chest and muscular arms were covered in sweat. Though he was wearing no shirt, he carried a Browning 9mm high-power handgun in a holster at his hip. He was supervising the loading of heavy resup bundles into the cargo bay in the rear of the Skyvan. The heavy work was being done by other RAF loadmasters, all of whom were also stripped to the waist and gleaming with sweat.

  ‘Hi, Whistler,’ Lampton said. ‘How are things?’

  ‘No sweat,’ Whistler replied.

  ‘You’re covered in bloody sweat!’

  Whistler grinned. ‘No sweat otherwise.’ He glanced at the men standing around Lampton. These bullshit artists have just been badged,’ Lampton said, by way of introduction, ‘and are starting their year’s probationary with us. Men, this is Corporal Harry Whistler of 55 Air Despatch Squadron, Royal Corps of Transport. Though he’s normally based on Thorney Island and was recently on a three-month tour of detachment to the army camp in Muharraq, he’s here to give us resup support. As his surname’s “Whistler” and he actually whistles a lot, we just call him …’

  ‘Whistler,’ Andrew said.

  ‘What a bright boy you are.’

  Everyone said hello to Whistler. ‘Welcome to the dustbowl,’ he replied ‘I’m sure you’ll have a great time here.’

  ‘A real holiday,’ Gumboot said.

  ‘You won’t be seeing too much of Whistler,’ Lampton told them, ‘because he’ll usually be in the sky directly above you, dropping supplies from his trusty Skyvan.’

  Grinning, Whistler glanced up at the semi-naked loadmasters, who were now inside the cargo hold, lashing the bundles to the floor with webbing freight straps and 1200lb-breaking-strain cords.

  ‘What’s in the bundles?’ Rickets asked.

  ‘Eighty-one-millimetre mortar bombs, HE phosphorus and smoke grenades, 7.62mm ball and belt ammo, compo rations, water in jerrycans – four to a bundle. Those are for the drops to our troopers at places like Simba, Akoot and Jibjat, but we also have food resup for the firqats out in the field, since those bastards are quick to go on strike if they think we’re ignoring them.’ Whistler pointed to some bundles wrapped in plastic parachute bags for extra protection. ‘Tins of curried mutton or fish, rice, flour, spices, dates, and the bloody oil used for the cooking, carried in tins that always burst – hence the parachute bags. As well as all that, we drop the propaganda leaflets that are part of the hearts-and-minds campaign. It’s like being a flying library for the illiterate.’

  ‘Whistler will also be helping out now and then with a few bombing raids,’ Lampton informed them, ‘though not with your regular weapons, since those are left to the Strikemaster jets.’

  ‘Right,’ Whistler said. ‘We’re already preparing for the assault on the Jebel.’ He pointed to the six 40-gallon drums lined up on the perimeter track by the runway. ‘We’re going to drop those on the Jebel this afternoon, hopefully on some dumbstruck adoo, as a trial run.’

  ‘What are they?’ Ricketts asked.

  ‘Our home-made incendiary bombs. We call them Burmail bombs.’

  ‘They look like ordinary drums of aviation oil.’

  ‘That’s just what they are – drums of Avtur. But we dissolve polyurethane in the Avtur to thicken it up a bit; then we seal the drums, fix Schermuly flares to each side of them, fit them with cruciform harnesses and roll them out the back of the Skyvan. They cause a hell of an explosion, lads. Lots of fire and smoke. We use them mainly for burning fields that look like they’ve been cultivated by the adoo. However, if help is required by you lads on the ground, but not available from the Strikemasters, we use the Burmail bombs against the adoo themselves.’

  ‘Why are they called Burmails?’ asked Andrew, a man with a genuine fondness for words.

  ‘“Burmail” is an Arabic word for oil drums,’ Whistler told him. ‘Thought by some to be a derivation from Burmah Oil, or the Burmah Oil Company.’

  ‘What’s it like flying in on an attack in one of those bathtubs?’ Gumboot asked with his customary lack of subtlety.

  ‘Piece of piss,’ Whistler replied, unperturbed. ‘We cruise in at the minimum safe altitude of 7000 feet, then lose altitude until we’re as low as 500 feet, which we are when we fly right through the wadis on the run in to the DZ. When those fucking Burmail bombs go off, it’s like the whole world exploding. So anytime you need help, just call. That’s what we’re here for, lads.’

  * * *

  On the second day Lampton made Ricketts drive them out to the Salalah plain, where they saw Jebalis taking care of small herds of cattle or carrying their wares, mostly firewood, on camels, en route to Salalah. This reminded the troopers that life here continued as normal; that not only the adoo populated the slopes of the Jebel Dhofar and the arid sand plain in front of it.

  That afternoon the group arrived at the old walled town of Salalah. At the main gate they had to wait for ages while the Sultan’s armed guards, the Askouris, searched through the bundles of firewood on the Jebalis’ camels to make sure that their owners were not smuggling arms for the adoo supporters inside the town, of which there were known to be a few. Eventually, when the camels had passed through, the soldiers’ papers were checked, and they were allowed to drive into the town, along a straight track that led through a cluster of mud huts to an oasis of palm trees, lush green grass and running water. They passed the large jail to arrive at the Sultan’s white, fortified palace, where
Lampton made Ricketts stop.

  ‘When Sultan Sa’id Tamur lived there,’ Lampton recounted, ‘he was like a recluse, shunning all Western influence, living strictly by the Koran and ruling the country like a medieval despot. Though his son, Qaboos, was trained at Sandhurst, when he returned here he was virtually kept a prisoner – until he deposed his old man at gunpoint, then sent him into exile in London. He died in the Dorchester Hotel in 1972. A nice way to go.’

  ‘And by reversing his father’s despotism,’ Andrew said from the back of the Land Rover, ‘Qaboos has gradually been finding favour with the locals.’

  ‘With our help, yes. He’s been particularly good at increasing recruitment to the army and air force. He’s also built schools and hospitals, plus a radio station whose specific purpose is to combat communist propaganda from Radio Aden. He’s trying to bring Oman into the twentienth century, but I doubt that he’ll get that far. However, if he wins the support of his people and keeps the communists out of Oman, we’ll be content.’

  ‘Our oil being protected,’ put in Ricketts.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lampton said. ‘Wait here. I’m going in to give Qaboos a written report on recent events. He likes to be kept informed. When I come out, I’ll give you a quick tour of the town.’

  ‘It’s more like a bleedin’ village,’ Gumboot complained.

  ‘It might be a village in Devon,’ Lampton said as he got out of the vehicle, ‘but here it’s a town. Relax, lads. Put your feet up. This could take some time.’

  In fact, it took nearly two hours. While Lampton was away, Ricketts and the other two had a smoke, repeatedly quenched their thirst with water from the water bottles and chajugles, and gradually became covered in a slimy film composed of sweat and dust. Already warned to neither stare at, nor talk to, the veiled women who passed by with lowered heads, they amused themselves instead by making faces at some giggling local kids, giving others chewing gum, and practising their basic Arabic with the gendarmes who were indifferently guarding the Sultan’s palace, armed with .303 Short-Magazine Lee Enfield, or SMLE, rifles. When Lampton emerged and again offered them a quick tour of the town, they politely refused.