of the BATT teams. ‘I’m here to guide you probationers through your first few days.’ He grinned and glanced back over his shoulder at the towering slopes of the Jebel Dhofar, the summit of which was hazy with the heat. ‘How’d you like to cross-grain the bukits of that?’ he asked, turning back and grinning. ‘Some challenge, eh?’
‘It’d dwarf even the Pen-y-fan,’ Andrew admitted. ‘That’s some mother, man.’
‘Right,’ Lampton said. Slim and of medium height, the sergeant was dressed in shorts, boots with rolled-down socks and a loose, flapping shirt, all of which were covered in the dust that was already starting to cover the new arrivals. A Browning 9mm high-power handgun was holstered on his hip. Squinting against the brilliant sunlight, he pointed to the convoy of armour-plated Bedfords lined up on the edge of the runway. ‘Stretch your legs,’ he told the men, ‘and get used to the heat. When the QM has completed the unloading, pile into those trucks and you’ll be driven to the base at Um al Gwarif. It’s not very far.’
While the men gratefully did stretching exercises, walked about a bit or just sat on their bergens smoking, the Quartermaster Sergeant, a flamboyant Irishman with the lungs of a drill instructor, organized the unloading and sorting of all the squadron’s kit by bawling good-natured abuse at his Omani helpers, all of whom wore shemaghs and the loose robes known as jellabas. The new arrivals watched them with interest.
‘Fucked if I’d like to hump that stuff in this heat,’ Gumboot finally said, breaking the silence.
‘You soon will be,’ Lampton replied with a grin, puffing smoke as he lit a cigarette. ‘You’ll be humping it up that bloody mountain, all the way to the top. That’s why you’d better get used to the heat.’ He inhaled and blew another cloud of smoke, then smiled wryly at Ricketts. ‘Now these Omanis,’ he said, indicating the men unloading the kit and humping it across to the Bedfords, ‘they’d probably down tools if you asked them to do that. That’s why they call the SAS “donkey soldiers” or majnoons – Arabic for “mad ones”. Are they right or wrong, lads?’
‘Anything you say, boss,’ Bill said, ‘is OK by me.’
‘An obedient trooper,’ Lampton replied, flicking ash to the ground. ‘That’s what I like to hear. Which one of you is Trooper Ricketts?’ Ricketts put his hand in the air. ‘I was informed by the RSM that you’re the oldest of the probationers,’ Lampton said.
‘I didn’t know that, boss.’
‘You’re the oldest by one day, I was told, with Trooper McGregor coming right up your backside. That being the case, you’ll be my second-in-command for the next few days. I trust you’ll be able to shoulder this great responsibility.’
Lampton, though a sergeant, was hardly much older than Ricketts, who, feeling confident with him, returned his cocky grin. ‘I’ll do my best, boss.’
‘I’m sure you will, Trooper. The RSM also said you put up a good show at the briefing. Fearless in the presence of your Squadron Commander. Right out front with the questions and so forth. That, also, is why you’ll be in nominal charge of your fellow probationers while you’re under my wing.’
‘This sounds suspiciously like punishment, boss.’
‘It isn’t punishment and it isn’t promotion – it’s a mere convenience. Do you want to beg off?’
‘No, boss.’
‘You gave the correct answer, Trooper Ricketts. You’re a man who’ll go far.’ Glancing towards the Bedfords, Lampton saw that Major Greenaway and RSM Worthington were already allocating the other members of B Squadron to their respective Bedfords. ‘The unloading must be nearly completed,’ Lampton said, dropping his cigarette butt to the tarmac and grinding it out with his heel. ‘OK, Ricketts, collect the other probationers together and follow me to that truck.’
Ricketts did as he had been told, calling in his small group and then following Lampton across to one of the Bedfords parked on the edge of the airstrip. When they were in the rear, cramped together on the hard benches, already covered in a film of dust and being tormented by mosquitoes and fat flies, Lampton joined them, telling another soldier to drive his Land Rover back to base. The Bedford coughed into life, lurched forward, then headed away from the airstrip to a wired-off area containing a single-storey building guarded by local soldiers wearing red berets. The Bedford stopped there.
‘SOAF HQ,’ Lampton explained, meaning the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force. Removing a fistful of documents from the belt of his shorts, he climbed down from the Bedford and went inside.
Forced to wait in the open rear of the crowded Bedford, Ricketts passed the time by examining the area beyond the SOAF HQ. He saw a lot of Strikemaster jet fighters and Skyvan cargo planes in dispersal bays made from empty oil drums. The Strikemasters, he knew from his reading, were armed with Sura rockets, 500lb bombs and machine-guns. The Skyvan cargo planes would be used to resupply, or resup, the SAF and SAS forces when they were up on the plateau, which Ricketts could see in all its forbidding majesty, rising high above the plain of Salalah, spreading out from the camp’s barbed-wire perimeter. The flat, sandy plain was constantly covered in gently drifting clouds of wind-blown dust.
Returning five minutes later with clearance to leave the air base, Lampton climbed back into the Bedford and told the driver to take off. After passing through gates guarded by RAF policemen armed with sub-machine-guns, the truck turned into the road, crossed and bounced off it, then headed along the adjoining rough terrain.
‘What the matter with this clown of a driver?’ Jock McGregor asked. ‘The blind bastard’s right off the road.’
‘It’s deliberate,’ Lampton explained. ‘Most of the roads in Dhofar have been mined by the adoo, so this is the safest way to drive, preferably following previous tyre tracks in case mines have been planted off the road as well. Of course, even that’s no guarantee of safety. Knowing we do this, the adoo often disguise a mine by rolling an old tyre over it to make it look like the tracks of a previous truck. Smart cookies, the adoo.’
All eyes turned automatically towards the road, where the Bedford’s wheels were churning up clouds of dust and leaving clear tracks.
‘Great,’ Gumboot said. ‘You take one step outside your tent and get your fucking legs blown off.’
‘As long as it leaves your balls,’ Andrew said, ‘you shouldn’t complain, man.’
‘Leave my balls out of this,’ Gumboot said. ‘You’ll just put a curse on them.’
‘Any other advice for us?’ Ricketts asked.
‘Yes,’ Lampton replied. ‘Never forget for a minute that the adoo are crack shots. They’re also adept at keeping out of sight. The fact that you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there, and you won’t find better snipers anywhere. You look across a flat piece of desert and think it’s completely empty, then – pop! – suddenly a shot will ring out, compliments of an adoo sniper who’s blended in with the scenery. They can make themselves invisible in this terrain – and they’re bold as brass when it comes to infiltrating us. So never think you’re safe because you’re in your own territory. The truth is that you’re never safe here. You’ve got to assume that adoo snipers are in the vicinity and keep your eyes peeled all the time.’
Again, they glanced automatically at the land they were passing through, seeing only the clouds of dust billowing up
