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‘A little vomit goes a long way,’ Ken said. ‘Across half of this bloody desert, in fact. I never knew those two had it in ’em. It just goes to show.’
Men in the other Bedfords were suffering in the same way, but the column continued across the desert to where the lower slopes of the mountains, covered in lava, with a mixture of limestone and sand, made for an even rougher, slower ride. Here there were no trees, so no protection from the sun, and when the lorries slowed to practically a crawl – which they had to do repeatedly to navigate the rocky terrain – they filled up immediately with swarms of buzzing flies and whining, biting mosquitoes.
‘Shit!’ Les complained, swiping frantically at the frantic insects. ‘I’m being eaten alive here!’
‘Malaria’s next on the list,’ Ken added. ‘That bloody Paludrine’s useless.’
‘Why the hell doesn’t this driver go faster?’ Larry asked as he too swatted uselessly at the attacking insects. ‘At this rate, we might as well get out and walk.’
‘It’s the mountains,’ Ben explained, feeling better for having emptied his stomach and seemingly oblivious to the insects. ‘This road’s running across their lower slopes, which are rocky and full of holes.’
‘How observant!’ Ken exclaimed.
‘A bright lad!’ Les added.
‘Real officer material,’ Larry chimed in. ‘These bleedin’ insects only go for red blood, so his must be blue.’
‘I’m never bothered by insects,’ Ben confirmed. ‘It’s odd, but it’s true.’
‘How’s your stomach?’ Ken asked the trooper.
‘Feeling sick again?’ queried Les.
‘I can still smell his vomit from an hour ago,’ Larry said, ‘and it’s probably what attracted these bloody insects. They’re after his puke.’
Ben and Taff dived simultaneously for the rear of the lorry and started heaving yet again while the others, feeling superior once more, kept swatting at and cursing the insects. This went on until the Bedford bounced down off the slopes and headed across another relatively flat plain of limestone, sandstone and lava fields. They had now been on the Dhala road for two hours, but it seemed longer than that.
Mercifully, after another hour of hellish heat and dust, with the sun even higher in a silvery-white sky, they arrived at the SAS forward base at Thumier, located near the Habilayn airstrip, sixty miles from Aden and just thirty miles from the hostile Yemeni border.
‘We could have been flown here!’ Ben complained.
‘That would have been too easy,’ Ken explained. ‘For us, nothing’s made easy.’
In reality the camp was little more than an uninviting collection of tents pitched in a sandy area surrounded by high, rocky ridges where half a dozen SAS observation posts, hidden from view and swept constantly by dust, recced the landscape for enemy troop movements. There were no guards at the camp entrance because there were no gates; nor was there a perimeter fence. However, the base was surrounded by sandbagged gun emplacements raised an equal distance apart in a loose circular shape and nicknamed ‘hedgehogs’ because they were bristling with 25-pounder guns, 3-inch mortars, and Browning 0.5-inch heavy machine-guns. Though the landscape precluded the use of aeroplanes, a flattened area of desert near one of the hedgehogs was being used as a helicopter landing pad, on which were now parked the camp’s helicopters, including a Sikorski S-55 Whirlwind and a British-built Wessex S-58 Mark 1. The Bedfords of A Squadron were lined up near the helicopters. A line of men, mostly from that squadron, all with tin plates and eating utensils, was inching into the largest tent of all – the mess tent – for their evening meal. A modified 4×4 Willys jeep, with armoured perspex screens and a Browning 0.5-inch heavy machine-gun mounted on the front, was parked outside the second largest tent, which was being used as a combined HQ and briefing room. Other medium-sized tents were being used as the quartermaster’s store, armoury, NAAFI and surgery. A row of smaller tents located near portable showers and boxed-in, roofless chemical latrines were the make-do ‘bashas’, or sleeping quarters. Beyond those tents lay the desert.
‘Home, sweet fucking home,’ Les said in disgust as he clambered out of the Bedford to stand beside his mate Ken and the still shaky troopers, Ben and Taff, in the unrelenting sunlight. ‘Welcome to Purgatory!’
Ken turned to Ben and Taff, both of whom were white as ghosts and wiping sweat from their faces. ‘Feel better, do you?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Corporal,’ they both lied.
‘The vomiting’s always followed by diarrhoea,’ Ken helpfully informed them. ‘You’ll be shitting for days.’
‘It rushes out before you can stop it,’ Les added. ‘As thin as pea soup. It’s in your pants before you even know you’ve done it. A right fucking mess, it makes.’
‘Christ!’ Ben exclaimed.
‘God Almighty!’ Taff groaned.
‘Keep your religious sentiments to yourselves,’ Jimbo admonished them, materializing out of the shimmering heat haze to study them keenly. ‘Are you two OK?’
‘Yes, Sarge,’ they both answered.
‘You look a bit shaky.’
‘I’m all right, Sarge,’ Ben said.
‘So am I,’ Taff insisted.
‘They don’t have any insides left,’ Ken explained. ‘But apart from that, they’re perfectly normal.’
Jimbo was too distracted to take in the corporal’s little joke. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘So pick up your kit, hump it over to those tents, find yourselves a basha, have a smoko and brew-up, then meet me at the quartermaster’s store in thirty minutes precisely. Get to it.’
When Jimbo had marched away, the weary men humped their 60-pound bergens onto their backs, picked up their personal weapons – either 5.56mm M16 assault rifles, 7.62mm L1A1 SLRs or 7.62mm L42A1 bolt-action sniper rifles – and marched across the dusty clearing to the bashas. Because the two new troopers had been placed in their care, Ken and Les were to share a tent with Ben and Taff.
‘Well, it isn’t exactly the Ritz,’ Ken said, leaning forward to keep his head from scraping the roof of the tent, ‘but I suppose it’ll do.’
‘They wouldn’t let you into the Ritz,’ Les replied, ‘if you had the Queen Mother on your arm. This tent is probably more luxurious than anything you’ve had in your whole life.’
‘Before I joined the Army,’ Ken replied, swatting uselessly at the swarm of flies and mosquitoes at his face, ‘when I was just a lad, I lived in a spacious two-up, two-down that had all the mod cons, including a real toilet in the backyard with a nice bolt and chain.’
‘All right, lads,’ Les said to Ben and Taff, who were both wiping sweat from their faces, swatting at the flies and mosquitoes, and nervously examining the sandy soil beneath the camp-beds for signs of scorpions or snakes, ‘put your bergens down, roll your sleeping bags out on the beds, then let’s go to the QM’s tent for the rest of our kit.’
‘More kit?’ Ben asked in disbelief as he gratefully lowered his heavy bergen to the ground, recalling that it contained a hollow-fill sleeping bag; a waterproof one-man sheet; a portable hexamine stove with blocks of fuel; an aluminium mess tin, mug and utensils; a brew kit, including sachets of tea, powdered milk and sugar; spare radio batteries; water bottles; extra ammunition; matches and flint; an emergency first-aid kit; signal flares; and various survival aids, including compass, pencil torch and batteries, and even surgical blades and butterfly sutures.
‘Dead right,’ Les said with a sly grin. ‘More kit. This is just the beginning, kid. Now lay your sleeping bag out and let’s get out of here.’
Jimbo and Dead-eye were sharing the adjoining tent with the medical specialist, Larry, leaving the fourth bed free for the eventual return of their squadron signaller, Trooper Terry Malkin. After picking a bed, each man unstrapped his bergen, removed his sleeping bag, rolled it out on the bed, then picked up his weapon and left the tent, to gather with the others outside the quartermaster’s store.
‘A pretty basic camp,’ Jimbo said to Dead-eye as they crossed the hot, dusty clearing.
‘It’ll do,’ Dead-eye replied, glancing about him with what seemed like a lack of interest, though in fact his grey gaze missed nothing.
‘Makes no difference to you, does it, Dead-eye? Just another home from home.’
‘That’s right,’ Dead-eye said quietly.
‘What do you think of the new men?’
‘They throw up too easily. But now that they’ve emptied their stomachs, they might be OK.’
‘They’ll be all right with Brooke and Moody?’
‘I reckon so.’
The four men under discussion were already gathered together with the rest of the squadron, waiting to collect the balance of their kit. Already concerned about the weight of his bergen, Ben was relieved to discover that the additional kit consisted only of a mosquito net, insect repellent, extra soap, an aluminium wash-basin, a small battery-operated reading lamp for use in the tent, a pair of ankle-length, rubber-soled desert boots, a DPM (disruptive pattern material) cotton shirt and trousers, and an Arab shemagh to protect the nose, mouth and eyes from the sun, sand and insects.
‘All right,’ Jimbo said when the men, still holding their rifles in one hand, somehow managed to gather the new kit up under their free arm and stood awkwardly in the fading light of the sinking sun, ‘carry that lot back to your tents, leave it on your bashas, then go off to the mess tent for dinner. Report to the HQ tent for your briefing at seven p.m. sharp…Are you deaf? Get going!’
Though dazed from heat and exhaustion, the men hurried back through the mercifully cooling dusk to raise their mosquito nets over the camp-beds. This done, they left their kit under the nets and then made their way gratefully to the mess tent. There they had a replenishing meal of ‘compo’ sausage, mashed potatoes and beans, followed by rice pudding, all washed down with hot tea.
While eating his meal, Les struck up a conversation with Corporal Jamie McBride of A Squadron, who had just returned from one of the OPs located high in the Radfan, the bare, rocky area to the north of Aden.
‘What’s it like up there?’ Les asked.
‘Hot, dusty, wind-blown and fart-boring,’ McBride replied indifferently.
‘Good to get back down, eh?’
‘Right,’ the corporal said.
‘I note we have a NAAFI tent,’ Les said, getting to the subject that concerned him the most. ‘Anything in it?’
‘Beer and cigarettes,’ the weary McBride replied.
‘Anything else?’
‘Blue magazines and films, whores, whips and chains…What do you think?’
‘Just asking, mate. Sorry.’
Realizing that his fellow soldier was under some stress, Les gulped down the last of his hot tea, waved his hand in farewell, then followed the others out of the mess tent.
‘Another fucking briefing,’ he complained to Ken as they crossed the clearing to the big HQ tent. ‘I need it like a hole in the head.’
‘You’ve already got that,’ his mate replied. ‘Between one ear and the other there’s nothing but a great big empty space.’
‘Up yours an’ all,’ said Les wearily.
2
The men were briefed by their Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick ‘Paddy’ Callaghan, with whom most of them had recently served in Borneo and who was now on his last tour of duty. Wearing his SAS beret with winged-dagger badge, in DPM trousers, desert boots and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, Callaghan was standing on a crude wooden platform, in the large, open-ended HQ tent, in front of a blackboard covered with a map of Yemen. Seated on wooden chairs on the platform were his second in command, Major Timothy Williamson, and the Squadron Commander, Captain Ellsworth. The members of D Squadron were in four rows of metal chairs in front of Callaghan, their backs turned to the opening of the tent, which, as evening fell, allowed a cooling breeze to blow in.
Outside, a Sikorski S-55 Whirlwind was coming in to land before last light, the noise of Bedfords and jeeps was gradually tapering off, NCOs were bawling their last instructions of the day at their troops and Arab workers, and the 25-pounders in the hedgehogs around the perimeter were firing their practice rounds, as they did every evening.
It was a lot of noise to talk against, but after the usual introductory bullshit between himself and his impatient, frisky squadron of SAS troopers, Lieutenant-Colonel Callaghan knuckled down to the business at hand, only stopping periodically to let some noise from outside fade away.
‘I might as well be blunt with you,’ he began. ‘What we’re fighting for here is a lost cause created by our lords and masters, who are attempting to leave the colony while retaining a presence here at the same time. Most of you men are experienced enough from similar situations to know that this is impossible, but it’s the situation we’ve inherited and we’re stuck with it.’
‘We’re always stuck with it,’ Les said. ‘They ram it to us right up the backside and expect us to live with it.’
‘Who?’ Ben asked, looking puzzled.
‘Politicians,’ the lance-corporal replied. ‘Our lords and masters.’
‘All right, you men,’ Jimbo said in a voice that sounded like a torrent of gravel. ‘Shut up and let Lieutenant-Colonel Callaghan speak.’
‘Sorry, boss,’ Les said.
‘So,’ Callaghan continued, ‘a bit of necessary historical background.’ This led to the customary moans and groans, which the officer endured for a moment, before gesturing for silence. ‘I know you don’t like it, but it’s necessary, so please pay attention.’ When they had settled down, he continued: ‘A trade centre since antiquity, Aden came under the control of the Turks in the sixteenth century. We Brits established ourselves here by treaty in 1802, used it as a coaling station on the sea route to India, and made it a crown colony in 1937. Because it is located at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, between Arabia and eastern and north-eastern Africa, its main function has always been as a commercial centre for neighbouring states, as well as a refuelling stop for ships. However, it really gained political and commercial importance after the opening of the Suez canal in 1869 and in the present century as a result of the development of the rich oilfields in Arabia and the Persian Gulf. In 1953 an oil refinery was built at Little Aden, on the west side of the bay. Aden became partially self-governing in 1962 and was incorporated into the Federation of South Arabia, the FSA, in 1963, which is when its troubles began.’
Callaghan stopped to take a breath and ensure that he had the men’s full attention. Though the usual bored expressions were in evidence, they were all bearing with him.
‘Opposition to the British presence here began with the abortive Suez operation of 1956, increased with the emergence of Nasserism via the inflammatory broadcasts of Radio Cairo, and reached its high point with the so-called shotgun marriage of the FSA of 1959–63. This, by the way, linked the formerly feudal sheikdoms lying between Yemen and the coast with the urban area of Aden Colony. Steadily mounting antagonism towards our presence here was in no way eased by the establishment in 1960 of our Middle East Command Headquarters.’
Stopping momentarily to let a recently landed Sikorski whine into silence, Callaghan glanced out through the tent’s opening and saw a troop of heavily armed soldiers of the Parachute Regiment marching towards the airstrip, from where they were to fly by Wessex to the mountains of the Radfan. Having served in Malaya and Borneo, Callaghan had a particular fondness for the jungle, but not the desert. Nevertheless, the sight of that darkening, dust-covered ground guarded by hedgehogs bristling with 25-pounders, mortars and machine-guns brought back fond memories of his earliest days with the Regiment in North Africa in 1941. That war had been something of a schoolboy’s idea of adventure, with its daring raids in Land Rovers and on foot; this war, though also in desert, albeit mountainous, would be considerably less romantic and more vicious.
‘In September 1962,’ the CO continued when silence had returned, ‘the hereditary ruler of Yemen, the Imam, was overthrown in a left-wing, Army-led coup. This coup was consolidated almost immediately with the arrival of Egyptian troops. The new republican government in Yemen then called on its brothers in the occupied south – in other words, Aden and the Federation – to prepare for revolution and join it in the battle against colonialism. What this led to, in fact, was an undeclared war between two colonial powers – Britain against a Soviet-backed Egypt – with the battleground being the barren, mountainous territory lying between the Gulf of Aden and Saudi Arabia.’
‘Is that where we’ll be fighting?’ Ken asked.
‘Most of you in the Radfan; a few in the streets of Aden itself. Aden, however, will be covered in a separate briefing.’
‘Right, boss.’
‘Initial SAS involvement in this affair took place, with discreet official backing from Whitehall, over the next eight years or so, when the royalist guerrilla army of the deposed Imam was aided by the Saudis and strengthened by the addition of a mercenary force composed largely of SAS veterans. Operating out of secret bases in the Aden Federation, they fought two campaigns simultaneously. On the one hand they were engaged in putting down a tribal uprising in the Radfan, adjoining Yemen; on the other, they were faced with their first battle against highly organized urban terrorism in Aden itself.’
‘That’s a good one!’ Ken said. ‘In the mountains of Yemen, a team of SAS veterans becomes part of a guerrilla force. Meanwhile, in Aden, only a few miles south, their SAS mates are suppressing a guerrilla campaign.’
‘We are nothing if not versatile,’ Callaghan replied urbanely.
‘Dead right about that, boss.’
‘May I continue?’
‘Please do, boss.’
‘In July this year Harold Macmillan set 1968 as the year for the Federation’s self-government, promising that independence would be accompanied by a continuing British presence in Aden. In short, we wouldn’t desert the tribal leaders with whom we’d maintained protection treaties since the last century.
‘However, Egyptian, Yemeni and Adeni nationalists are still bringing weapons, land-mines and explosives across the border. At the same time, the border tribesmen, who view guerrilla warfare as a way of life, are being supplied with money and weapons by Yemen. The engaged battle is for control of the ferociously hot Radfan mountains. There is practically no water there, and no roads at all.’
‘But somehow or other,’ Dead-eye noted, ‘the war is engaged there.’
‘Correct. The Emergency was declared in December 1963. Between then and the arrival of A Squadron in April of that year, an attempt to subdue the Radfan was made by a combined force of three Federal Regular Army battalions of Arabs, supported by British tanks, guns and engineers. As anticipated by those who understood the tribal mentality, it failed. True, the FRA battalions did manage to occupy parts of the mountains for a few weeks at a cost of five dead and twelve wounded. Once they withdrew, however – as they had to sooner or later, to go back to the more important task of guarding the frontier – the patient tribesmen returned to their former hill positions and immediately began attacking military traffic on the Dhala Road linking Yemen and Aden – the same road that brought you to this camp.’
‘An unforgettable journey!’ Ken whispered.
‘Diarrhoea and vomit every minute for three hours,’ Les replied. ‘Will we ever forget it?’
‘While they were doing so,’ said Callaghan, having heard neither man, ‘both Cairo and the Yemeni capital of Sana were announcing the FRA’s withdrawal from the Radfan as a humiliating defeat for the imperialists.’
‘In other words, we got what we deserved.’
‘Quite so, Corporal Brooke.’ Though smiling, Callaghan sighed as if weary. ‘Given this calamity, the Federal government…’
‘Composed of…?’ Dead-eye interjected.
‘Tribal rulers and Adeni merchants,’ the CO explained.
‘More A-rabs,’ Ken said. ‘Got you, boss.’
‘The Federal government then asked for more military aid from the British, who, despite their own severe doubts – believing, correctly, that this would simply make matters worse – put together a mixed force of brigade strength, including a squadron each of RAF Hawker Hunter ground-support aircraft, Shackleton bombers, Twin Pioneer transports and roughly a dozen helicopters. Their task was twofold. First, to bring sufficient pressure to bear on the Radfan tribes and prevent the revolt from spreading. Second, to stop the attacks on the Dhala Road. In doing this, they were not to deliberately fire on areas containing women and children; they were not to shell, bomb or attack villages without dropping leaflets warning the inhabitants and telling them to move out. Once the troops came under fire, however, retaliation could include maximum force.’
‘Which gets us back to the SAS,’ Dead-eye said.
‘Yes, Sergeant. Our job is to give back-up to A Squadron in the Radfan. To this end, we’ll start with a twenty-four-hour proving patrol, which will also act as your introduction to the area.’
‘We don’t need an introduction,’ the reckless Corporal Brooke said. ‘Just send us up there.’
‘You need an introduction,’ Callaghan insisted. ‘You’re experienced troopers, I agree, but your experience so far has always been in the jungle – first Malaya, then Borneo. You need experience in desert and jungle navigation and that’s what you’ll get on this proving patrol. We’re talking about pure desert of the kind we haven’t worked in since the Regiment was formed in 1941, which excludes most of those present in this tent. Desert as hot as North Africa, but even more difficult because it’s mountainous. Limestone, sandstone and igneous rocks. Sand and silt. Lava fields and volcanic remains, criss-crossed with deep wadis. The highland plateau, or kawr, has an average height of 6500 feet and peaks rising to 8000 to 9000 feet. The plateau itself is broken up by deep valleys or canyons, as well as the wadis. In short, the terrain is hellishly difficult and presents many challenges.’
‘Any training before we leave?’ Dead-eye asked.
‘Yes. One full day tomorrow. Lay up tonight, kitting out and training tomorrow, then move out at last light the same day. The transport will be 4×4 Bedford three-tonners and Saladin armoured cars equipped with 5.56-inch Bren guns. Enjoy your evening off, gentlemen. That’s it. Class dismissed.’
Not wanting to waste a minute of their free time, the men hurried out of the briefing room and raced each other to the makeshift NAAFI canteen at the other side of the camp, where they enjoyed a lengthy booze-up of ice-cold bottled beer. Few went to bed sober.
3
Rudely awakened at first light by Jimbo, whose roar could split mountains, the men rolled out of their bashas, quickly showered and shaved, then hurried through the surprisingly cold morning air, in darkness streaked with rising sunlight, to eat as much as they could in fifteen minutes and return to their sleeping quarters.
Once by their beds, and already kitted out, they had only to collect their bergens, kit and weapons, then hurry back out into the brightening light and cross the clearing, through a gentle, moaning wind and spiralling clouds of dust, to the column of Bedfords and Saladins in the charge of still sleepy drivers from the Royal Corps of Transport. The RCT drivers drank hot tea from vacuum flasks and smoked while the SAS men, heavily burdened with their bergens and other kit, clambered up into the back of the lorries. Meanwhile, the sun was rising like a pomegranate over the distant Radfan, casting an exotic, blood-red light through the shadows on the lower slopes of the mountains, making them look more mysterious than dangerous.
‘We should be up there in OPs,’ Les complained as they settled into their bench seats in the back of a Bedford. ‘Not wasting our bleedin’ time with a training jaunt.’