For the rest of the day we consolidated our position, improved the sangar and brewed tea. Where were the Adoo? So far not a shot had been fired. The opinion of the rest of the team was that the Adoo, angry at having been fooled by the decoy, would by now have moved back up from the south and would be lying low, playing a waiting game, before probing our defences for any sign of weakness. I looked around the sangar and saw that the gun was laid on possible Adoo approaches. It was a reassuring sight. A belt of 200 rounds hung down from the top cover and coiled in the sangar bottom. The weapon was cocked and ready to go. The team rested against the sangar walls, Sean and I in easy reach of the GPMG while Jimmy and Lou lounged at the back by the radio. Although we were all shattered out of our minds, we were still switched on. We fought back the temptation to close our eyes as the day slipped by, as the torpid dullness of mid-afternoon gave way to the changing light of late afternoon.
Suddenly, after a brief conversation on the radio, Jimmy announced that he and Lou were going to the Duke’s O group. They grabbed their weapons and belt kit and disappeared down the slope of the position. Sean lit a hexamine block and placed it on a small metal cooker. He filled his mess tin from the jerrycan and placed it on the flame. Then, reaching into the side-pocket of his bergen, he withdrew his brew kit. I watched his movements and relaxed in anticipation. I could murder another brew.
Without warning the world erupted. A stream of green tracer, made more luminous in the paling light, raced out and over our position. It was like watching cat’s-eyes on a motorway at night – floating gently in the distance, then cracking past at crazy speed close by. The Adoo had arrived. I grabbed my rifle and hugged the sangar wall, the adrenaline coursing through my body. The whole of the western perimeter exploded with the stuttered popping of incoming small-arms fire. I looked round at Sean. He was low-profile, but continued stirring the brew. From where we were there was little we could do. We were on the eastern flank, and all the fire was coming from several hundred yards away in the west.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Sean, ‘they’re only overs. Have a mug of tea.’ He knew from experience that there was no danger. This was nothing to him. He’d been with the Paras in Aden getting shot to shit every day. I reached for my mug as another stream of tracer arced over the position. Sean looked unconcerned as he poured his brew. I glanced over the lip of the sangar and could see the puffs of smoke from the return fire on the western perimeter. I could just make out the distinctive long-drawnout bursts of fire from the other sustained-fire gun. Were they in the thick of it too? My anxiety heightened, along with my frustration. There was absolutely nothing I could do to help Fuzz and the lads. We could not abandon our own position. All we could do was sit and wait and hope. I sipped my tea, my mind in overdrive, imagining all sorts of horrors happening down below.
After about twenty minutes, the Adoo’s attack slackened until only sporadic firing could be heard on the western perimeter. Gradually this died away, and silence descended again on the position. I looked down the slope and to my intense relief could just see the two figures of Jimmy and Lou running across the makeshift airstrip. They arrived at the sangar, blowing like whales and sweating copiously, jumped in, removed their belt kit and sat down.
‘Make us a brew,’ said Jimmy. ‘I’ll put you in the picture.’ Over a mug of tea he then filled us in on the situation. ‘As far as we can make out,’ he said quietly, ‘a force of between twenty and thirty Adoo hit the positions over on the west. They used AK-47 Kalashnikovs and RPD light machine guns as back-up. We took no casualties. The other SF team are claiming two hits. As anticipated, all they were doing was testing our strength, then they bugged out, possibly to their tribal stronghold at Jibjat.’
I sank back with relief, smiling to myself at my recent wild imaginings.
‘As for the O group,’ continued Jimmy between gulps of tea, ‘the Duke and Colonel John are not happy with the airstrip. Apparently it’s breaking up under the sheer weight of today’s airlifts. So tomorrow we’re going to move lock, stock and barrel the 7,500 yards to Jibjat to build a new one. So make sure you’re ready to go at first light tomorrow morning. That’s all I’ve got for you.’
He went quiet and put the mug of tea to his lips. As for me, I quietly mused on the choice of location for the new airstrip, coinciding as it did with the Adoo stronghold.
Now came the job of securing the position for the night routine. A guard list was drawn up, and the timings were pulled out of a hat. It was decided that because there was plenty of manpower on the eastern perimeter, each man would do a one-hour stag, the first stag starting at 1800 hours and the last stag finishing at 0600 hours. The SF sangar was cloaked in darkness as Lou sat alert by the gun, having drawn first stag. I lay back against the sangar wall, my rifle within easy reach, now feeling quite the veteran. Even though I had not fired a shot in anger myself, I’d had my first exposure to enemy fire. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in over twenty-four hours I sank into a welcome sleep.
Dawn found us busily packing our bergens and servicing the tripod and GPMG for carriage. We had a Chinese parliament before first light to discuss the move across to Jibjat in detail. Every man knew exactly what to do and where to go. Around 0700 hours we carefully destroyed the sangar we’d so painstakingly built only the night before, dragged on our heavy loads and took up our position in the formation that was preparing to advance. It was a marvellous sight. We were drawn up into dozens of extended lines, nearly 800 fighting men in all; camouflaged figures as far as the eye could see. It looked as if we’d just come up out of the trenches and were marching across no man’s land. It was curious to reflect that no matter how far modern technology and weaponry had advanced, the basics of soldiering were often still the same as ever. I just hoped we were going to be luckier than those poor bastards at the Somme.
By about 1100 hours on 4 October, after a brisk firefight, we had established a defensive position on Jibjat. All that remained was to consolidate our position and clear the airstrip. By mid-afternoon the work was well underway. I sat in the SF sangar on my bergen, idly squinting through a pair of binoculars at two demolition guys from Six Troop who were putting the finishing touches to the tree-stump still blocking the airstrip.
A raucous voice suddenly drifted over the location: ‘Chin in, shoulders back, thumbs in line with the seams of your trousers!’ I swung the binocs to a spot of dead ground just below the Firqats’ position. The owner of the voice was Laba. He was standing ramrod-straight, with a mortar aiming post tucked under his arm like a guardsman’s pace-stick. In front of him, drawn up in two ranks, were about a dozen young Firks. Laba was taking them on a mock drill parade. I stared in amazement as he went through the range of drill movements, a wicked smile on his face.