Grey metal, black tape. I stared through sleep-filled eyes at the airborne tin mug floating before me. Thick black masking tape overlapped the rim. I reached forward and took the mug – Christ, it was hot! Without the masking tape I would have needed asbestos lips.
‘Stand by your boots with your beds in your hands.’ It was Roger, with a feeble attempt at an early-morning joke. He was standing at the entrance to the tent, holding the flap back. The sun glinted on his ribs so that they looked even more prominent than usual.
I was in no laughing mood. The mosquitoes had been zapping into me all night and I was covered in bites. I grunted and took a swig of tea.
‘Get your shit together, we’ve got a briefing from the green slime in the marquee in thirty minutes. Oh, and don’t forget to take your Paludrin.’ With that, Roger disappeared and I was left to nurse my insect bites.
Paludrin, the anti-malaria tablet. Over the next few months I would grow to hate this morning ritual. I peeled back the tin foil containing the pill and placed the white tablet on my tongue. The bitter taste made me retch. I took another swig of tea and swallowed hard, but the sour taste remained. What a breakfast, I thought.
The atmosphere inside the marquee was one of excitement mixed with anticipation. There was a low hum of conversation as we awaited the arrival of the ‘green slime’ to give us the big-picture brief. We had split into our teams, and each team sat around a standard British Army six-foot table, our maps of Dhofar spread out in front of us. I glanced at the personalities around my table. They were all studying their maps intently. I said nothing and did the same.
The hum of conversation died down as the Intelligence Corps officer entered. The Duke, who was sitting at the front, rose to greet him. They shook hands and the Duke launched into his introduction. ‘Gentlemen, this is Captain Jackson. He will give you an update on the situation on the Jebel.’
Jackson withdrew a pointer from its container and turned to the Dhofar map, which was pinned to the briefing board with the words ‘Operation Jaguar’ emblazoned in black across its top. ‘Gentlemen, we have done a feasibility study of the eastern area.’ The pointer drew circles on the map. ‘We have identified a start line for the operation against the airfield at Lympne. On 30 September we will leave Midway, an SAF staging post north of the Negd plain, and drive by convoy south-east until we hit the foothills of the Jebel and the entrance to this major wadi here.’ The pointer traced a line on the map and came to a halt at the beginning of the Jebel.
The speech was rolling off his tongue like a lizard down a windowpane.
‘From here we will follow the wadi bottom until we run out of motorable track. We will then debus and move on foot to an area known as Mahazair Pools. The monsoon has just finished, so there should be plenty of water here. This will be our rest area. It is from this location that we will mount the operation on the night of 1 October.’
His voice droned on; he wasn’t telling me much I didn’t already know. We had gone over the plan at Otterburn with the Duke. All that had been missing was the timeframe. Right now I was more worried about the immediate problem of humping the GPMG tripod to the top of the Jebel.
‘We expect a running fight for a few months. Then we anticipate a surrender from the Adoo before the next monsoon begins in June. Nobody has yet stayed on the Jebel during the monsoon, so we don’t want operations to be prolonged into this period of time. It should be all over by the next monsoon.’
He continued on about logistics, but I was thinking of this last gem – ‘all over by the next monsoon’. That didn’t say much for the Adoo’s expected resistance. I was puzzled. The SAS’s own intelligence unit in the Kremlin had drawn an altogether more complimentary picture of the Adoo’s capabilities. But I pushed this thought to the back of my mind. As far as I was concerned, a short, sharp campaign would suit me fine. A few months and then back to the Sports and Social in Hereford, and with a bit of luck a go at Geordie’s bird. After nine months in the desert she wouldn’t know what was in store for her, lucky woman!
My thoughts of the hostel dance hall in Redhill next to the camp were suddenly interrupted. ‘Any questions?’ Jackson’s voice barked.
‘Yeah, why don’t we do a parachute drop?’ a voice from the Seven Troop table shouted.
Captain Jackson looked surprised, as if he’d been asked what the Adoo had eaten for breakfast that morning. ‘How do you mean?’ he replied.
‘Well, we can’t see the point of humping all that kit and equipment to the top of the Jebel, risking ambush, injury and heat exhaustion, when we could parachute straight onto Lympne and be fit enough to go into action immediately. After all, we do have air superiority.’
This caused a buzz amongst the Head Shed. Their brains, heavy with complicated tactical theory, had possibly missed the obvious. They chewed the option around for a while, then vetoed it on the grounds that the amount of enemy activity in the area was unknown. Shame, I thought, that could have been the answer to the tripod problem.
The five-round burst hit the Figure 11 target nine inches above the four-inch-square white patch. Sean slid forward from the firing position and slipped the hinge-clip off the foresight of the GPMG barrel. He then took the foresight blade between his thumb and forefinger and screwed it up with confident precision into the error. Having replaced the hinge-clip, he once more took up his firing position, the second pad only of the index finger on the trigger and only the thumb behind the pistol grip, so as not to influence the movement of the gun by the natural side-pull of closing fingers.
We were now on the 100-metre firing point of Arzat ranges, zeroing the second spare barrel of the GPMG. As Sean rotated the elevation drum to lay the sights, I checked over in my mind the list of equipment we would have to carry into battle in a few days’ time: the tripod weighing 30lb, two spare barrels weighing 6lb each, spare return spring, dial sight, marker pegs, two aiming posts, aiming lamp, recoil buffer, tripod sight bracket, spare-parts wallet and the gun itself weighing 24lb. Then there was the ammunition: 1,000 rounds of 7.62mm GPMG link weighing 60lb. The equipment would be split between the members of the team, and I calculated that I would end up carrying over 100lb of hardware – and that didn’t include water, rations and personal kit.
My mental arithmetic was interrupted as the gun hammered out another five-round burst.
‘Check targets,’ shouted Jimmy.
Sean and I walked forwards to the butts and squinted at the Figure 11 target pasted on the screen. ‘Spot on!’ shouted Sean with satisfaction. The mean point of impact of the group was three inches above the white patch – the correct zero position. ‘Come on,’ said Sean, ‘we’ll fire a check group into the other Figure 11, then wrap this up.’
Midway was a disused oil-exploration camp about fifty-five miles north of the Jebel, now consisting of a number of Twynam huts scattered around an old airstrip. We had arrived by Skyvan from RAF Salalah the previous afternoon, and it was now first light on 30 September. We were on our way. The operational equipment had been packed into every spare bit of space on the armoured Bedfords, and now, with personal weapons and belt kits to hand, we sat on the mounds of kit in quiet anticipation. I looked back down the convoy. There were about 250 of us. The assault force had been split into two. The majority of B Squadron and G Squadron 22 SAS, the Firqat Al Asifat, the Firqat Salahadeen and the Baluch Askars were tasked to assault the airfield at Lympne on foot. The remainder of the force would be choppered in after a firm base had been established.