Tom said, looking as solemn as always, ‘I agree with Bill. I was a lot more relaxed when we went there. It was too late to fail, I thought.’
‘So did some others,’ Jock reminded them, ‘and the poor bastards failed. One even failed during the parachute course. Can you fucking believe it?’
‘That would have killed me,’ Ricketts said. ‘I mean, to be RTU’d at that stage. I would have opened a vein.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Andrew said.
Jungle-warfare training was a six-week course in Brunei, the British-protected sultanate of North-West Borneo, forming an enclave with Sarawak, Malaysia, where the SAS was reborn after World War Two and where it learnt so many of its skills and tactics; There the candidates were sent on four-man patrols through the jungle, some lasting almost a fortnight. During that time they had to carry out a number of operational tasks, including constructing a jungle basha, killing and eating wildlife, including snakes, without being bitten or poisoned, and living on local flora and fauna. Most importantly, they had to show that they could navigate and move accurately in the restricted visibility of the jungle. Failure in any of these tasks resulted in an even more cruel, last-minute, RTU.
Those who returned successfully from Brunei did so knowing that they had only one hurdle left: a four-week course at the No 1 Parachute Training School at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, where Parachute Jump Instructors, or PJIs, taught them the characteristics of PX1 Mk 4, PX1 Mk 5 and PR7 (reserve) parachutes, then supervised them on eight parachute jumps. The first of these was from a static balloon, but the others were from RAF C-130 Hercules aircraft, some from a high altitude, some from a low altitude, most by day, a few by night, and at least one while the aircraft was being put through a series of manoeuvres designed to shake up and disorientate the parachutists just before they jumped out. Those who made this final leap successfully had passed the whole course.
The men drinking around this table in the Paludrine Club had all just done that.
‘I still don’t believe it,’ Andrew mused, ‘but here we all are: in a Sabre Squadron at last. I think that’s reason enough for another drink.’
‘I think you’re right,’ Jock said, going off to the bar for another round.
Once badged, the successful candidates were divided between the four Sabre Squadrons, with those around this table going to Squadron B, where they would spend their probationary first year. They were also allowed into the Paludrine Club to celebrate their success and get to know each other as they had not been able to, or feared to, during the past six months of relentless training and testing.
‘So,’ Gumboot said, raising his glass when Jock had set down the fresh round of drinks. ‘Here’s to all of us, lads.’
They touched their glasses together and drank deeply, trying not to look too proud.
The day after their celebratory booze-up with the other successful troopers, which was followed by a farewell fling with wives and girlfriends in the camp’s Sports and Social Club, the six men allocated to B Squadron were called to the interest room to be given a briefing on their first legitimate SAS mission. As the group was so small, the briefing was not taking place in that room, but in the adjoining office of the Squadron Commander, Major Greenaway. To get to his office, however, the men had to pass through the interest room, which was indeed of interest, being dominated by a horned buffalo head set high on one wall and by the many photographs and memorabilia of previous B Squadron campaigns that covered the other walls, making the room look rather like a military museum.
Andrew was studying photographs of the Malaysia campaign, as well as items of jungle equipment, when a fair-haired SAS sergeant-major, built like a barrel but with no excess fat, appeared in the doorway of Major Greenaway’s office.
‘I’m your RSM,’ he said. ‘The name is Worthington, as befits a worthy man and don’t ever forget it. Now step inside, lads.’
Following the Regimental Sergeant-Major into the office, they were surprised to find one wall completely covered by a blue curtain. Major Greenaway had silvery-grey hair and gazed up from behind his desk with keen, sky-blue eyes and a good-natured smile.
‘You all know who I am,’ he said, standing up by way of greeting, ‘so I won’t introduce myself. I would, however, like to offer you my congratulations on winning the badge and warmly welcome you to B Squadron.’ When the men had murmured their appreciation, Greenaway nodded, turned to the wall behind him and pulled aside the blue curtain, revealing a large, four-colour map of the Strait of Hormuz, showing Muscat and Oman, with the latter boldly circled with red ink and the word ‘SECRET’ stencilled in bold black capital letters across the top.
Greenaway picked up a pointer and tapped the area marked ‘Southern Dhofar’. ‘Oman,’ he said. ‘An independent sultanate in eastern Arabia, located on the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian sea. Approximately 82,000 square miles. Population 750,000 – mainly Arabs, but with substantial Negro blood. A medieval region, isolated from the more prosperous and advanced northern states by a 400-mile desert which rises up at its southern tip into an immense plateau, the Jebel Massif, a natural fortress some 3000 feet high, nine miles wide, and stretching 150 miles from the east down to, and across, the border with Aden, now the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. The Gulf of Oman, about 300 miles long, lies between Oman and Iran, leading through the Strait of Hormuz to the Persian Gulf and the oil wealth of Saudia Arabia. So that’s the place.’
The major lowered the pointer and turned back to face his new men. ‘What’s the situation?’
It was a rhetorical question requiring no answer other than that he was about to give. ‘Oman has long-standing treaties of cooperation with Britain and is strategically important because Middle East oil flows to the West through the Strait of Hormuz. If the communists capture that oil, by capturing Oman, they’ll end up controlling the economy of the Free World. The stakes, therefore, are high.’
Resting the pointer across his knees, Greenaway sat on the edge of his desk. Ricketts, who had worked on the North Sea oil rigs as a toolpusher before joining the regular Army, had been impressed by many of the men he met there: strong-willed, independent, decisive – basically decent. The ‘boss’, who struck him as being just such a man, went on: The situation in Oman has been degenerating since the 1950s with Sultan Said bin Taimur’s repressive regime forcing more and more of the Dhofaris in the south – culturally and ethnically different from the people in the north – into rebellion. After turning against the Sultan, the rebels formed a political party, the Dhofar Liberation Front, or DLF, which the Sultan tried to quell with his Sultan’s Armed Forces, or SAF. The rebels were then wooed and exploited by the pro-Soviet Yemenis, who formed them into the People’s Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf – the PFLOAG. This greatly improved the situation of the rebels, or adoo, and the Sultan’s regime, falling apart, failed to mount an effective counter-insurgency war. Which is where we come in.’
He studied each of the men in turn, checking that he had their full attention and that they all understood him.
‘What’s “adoo” mean, boss?’ Tom asked.
‘It’s the Arabic word for “enemy”,’ Greenaway informed him. ‘Can I continue?’
‘Yes, boss!’
‘The SAF has long had a number of British
