The darkness got deeper and I slid into the realms beyond dreams.
In the dark of that night, the lingering Khareef monsoon wrapped the Jebel Massif in mournful clouds of mist and drizzle. Before first light, 300 hand-picked Adoo warriors crouched motionless behind the tumble of ragged boulders strewn at the foot of the Jebel ramparts, watching and waiting. Droplets of rain ran down their stony, weatherbeaten features as they stared out impassively over the shadowy pre-dawn scene that lay before them: the mud-walled dwellings of the garrison town of Mirbat huddled up against the shore, and the slow, leaden swell of the sea to the south.
Their commanders surveyed the town’s defences: just to the north of the town, a shallow wadi ran from east to west; 500 metres beyond and parallel to it stretched the barbed-wire perimeter fence; and in the gap between the two lay their main obstacles – the Wali’s fort and the British Army Training Team headquarters (the ‘Batt House’) down by the wadi, and to the north-east, nestling close to the perimeter wire, the Dhofar Gendarmerie fort, with the twenty-five-pounder located at the base of its walls.
The Adoo were certainly not risking anything. They were armed to the teeth with the choice of the latest Soviet weapons: AKM and AK-47 rifles; heavy, medium and light machine guns; two 75mm RCLs; 81mm, 82mm and 60mm mortars; grenades and rocketlaunchers; and one 84mm Carl Gustav. And each man had been issued with a large reserve of ammunition. This was the battle they had to win. This was the one upon whose outcome the political and economic fate of the whole of Western Europe could depend. Muscat and Oman with the Straits of Hormuz were a glittering prize to capture, and Mirbat was the jewel in the crown. This was to be a day they hoped would live for ever in their folklore, a day whose exploits would be retold over and over by tribesmen elders with greying beards, sucking pensively on rough pipes as they sat cross-legged by the camp-fires, watched in awe by young boys eager to grow up to be warriors themselves. This was a day to restore morale with a resounding victory.
The Adoo were taking no chances. These were the Communists’ elite shock troops, three hundred well-trained, well-armed men against a pitiful opposition: twenty-five DG in the perimeter fort, one Omani gunner manning the twenty-five-pounder, thirty Askars in the Wali’s fort, a scattering of Firqats embedded with their wives in Mirbat itself and nine SAS in the Batt House.
Forty miles away, at Um al Gwarif, Lofty Wiseman stirred from a listless sleep, levered himself upright on his bare metal bed, rubbed the sticky secretions from his eyes and glanced at the luminous dial on his G10 watch. It was just before 0500 hours, the start of another day at SAS base camp. He looked outside. Beyond the barred windows and whitewashed walls of the armoury, he could just make out through the drizzle the vague shapes of the first of the lines of bivouac tents housing G Squadron, who had come to relieve B Squadron now that the latter’s tour of duty on the Jebel and the coastal plain was coming to an end. It would be just another routine day for Lofty. Ammunition would be counted, checked, listed and issued to G Squadron for the predeployment shake-out. They would move to Arzat ranges, where weapons would be checked, double-checked and meticulously zeroed. In this way they could keep themselves in a state of constant alertness just in case anything should happen. The day’s work for Lofty had been reduced significantly with the deployment of advance parties from G Squadron into strategic locations throughout the sultanate to facilitate a smooth handover. The only forces remaining in Um al Gwarif were a handful of NCOs and around forty troopers.
At a signal from their leader, the Adoo crept forward without a sound, as noiseless as fish gliding through water, to occupy their predetermined assault positions. One group established a line of 81mm and 82mm mortars 2,000 metres north of the town. Two groups went further south, fanning out on either side of the town, to attack from the seaward side. Before dawn, the still-sleeping inhabitants of Mirbat garrison were completely surrounded.
‘I don’t drink on ops, you know that, Fuzz.’
It was 5.00am in a top-floor room in the Batt House. The final few bars of the last song on side two of Easy Rider were quietly playing out on the battered cassette-player in the corner, as Fuzz made one last attempt to persuade Tak to have a swig from the illicit half-bottle of rum that had kept them company through the long night. The other Fijian, Laba, had had no such reservations. The three of them were slumped on their beds, still fully dressed, in Jesus sandals, shorts and shirts. While the other lads slept the monotony away, Laba, Tak and Fuzz – now designated an honorary Fijian – had drunk, talked and sung right through the night. What did it matter anyway? They would not be doing much the next day. They never did. They only went out now and again on patrols, and they were mostly uneventful. Just the occasional threat from a minor skirmish. The most difficult part was finding the discipline to stay alert. Nothing ever really happened at Mirbat. It was one long rest period.
Meanwhile, the Adoo sent a scouting party to probe further forward towards the first obstacle in their way – the Jebel Ali hill, which rose 1,000 metres due north of Mirbat, dominating the coast and plain. They suspected this could conceal an enemy outpost. Their suspicions were well founded; it was manned by a section of the Dhofar Gendarmerie. The Adoo lead scouts surrounded the hill and sealed off all escape routes. The unbelieving DG woke up staring death in the face. They only managed to loose off a few shots before the outpost was overwhelmed with ruthless efficiency in a matter of seconds, its occupants put to the knife and silenced forever. Fearing that the sounds of the shots must have alerted the BATT, the Adoo mortar line opened fire.
Lofty was beginning to have that end-of-tour feeling. He cheered himself up with the thought that in a few days’ time, B Squadron would be all packed up and winging their way back to the UK, the married pads returning to their families, the young thrusters to a bit of sex and athletics in the Redhill Sports and Social. No more monsoon, no more heat, no more dust, no more flies. Just cool beer and hot women. He turned slowly on his back and stared up at the fan whirling in the gloom above his bed. This always enabled him to think better. The hypnotic movement and faint vibrating beat of the fan helped him to dispose of all irrelevant thoughts so that he could concentrate solely on the task in hand. He allowed the gentle breeze from the revolving blades to waft over him to clear his mind as he began to make a mental checklist of his responsibilities for the day.
Crump. Crump. Crump. Fuzz propped himself up on his bed on a crooked elbow and squinted at the bulky Fijian figure still lying down in the shadows. ‘Laba, they’re throwing a few in.’
‘No problem, Fuzz, it’s the dawn chorus. Regular as clockwork once they start. You don’t need a watch round here!’
‘Yeah, it’s just the Adoo coughing themselves awake,’ said Tak laconically. ‘Another tedious day in Dhofar.’
Crump. Crump. Crump.
‘That was closer. They’re getting a bit brave this morning,’ said Fuzz, his voice tightening slightly.
‘Don’t worry,’ soothed Laba reassuringly, ‘there’s no small-arms fire. They’re just stonking us.’