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
