A bead of sweat broke out on my brow, rolled down the side of my face and splashed a dark stain onto the dusty cover of the codebook. As I waited for the reply, my finger quivered nervously on the morse key. Suddenly the base signaller at Um al Gwarif sparked into life and keyed back the answering code: ‘82. 82. This is OA. QRK 5.’
I unclenched my jaw and let out a low sigh. Relief swept though me as I heard the morse signal boom through the earpiece at full strength. I was just reaching for the codebook when a sharp explosion rocked the Batt House. The building shuddered violently from wall to wall as bits of plaster fell from the ceiling, and for an instant the room was filled with choking dust. Things outside were getting extremely serious. Looking down at the cover of the codebook, I realized it was going to take too long to code messages before keying them back to base. It was at this point that I took the first major decision of the battle that was developing all around us: I would ignore the complicated coding procedure and send all messages to Um al Gwarif in plain-language morse. This was a major deviation from regulations, a serious breach of security, as all radio messages in Dhofar required coding before transmission. Fuck the rulebook, I thought, as I gripped the morse key and tapped out my message, the Adoo know we’re here anyway! ‘OA. OA. This is 82. Contact. Under heavy fire. Wait. Out.’
As I finished the message and placed the headset on the pile of message pads, another explosion pummelled the Batt House, the sudden intensity of the explosion rocking the building to its foundations. It felt like being at the epicentre of an eight-Richter-point earthquake. Sand ran down in fine trickles from the expanding wall cracks, and big pieces of plaster from the wall in front fell onto the signals table, covering the spare radio batteries in dust and masonry.
Lofty gave the padlock a couple of tugs. Having reassured himself that the armoury door was once more securely locked, he turned and set off down the steps. He was surprised to see the same trooper still there doing his boots up. He was just about to question the usefulness of this time-consuming exercise in perfectionism when the Duke approached. With a grim look on his face he took Lofty to one side and told him quietly that the town of Mirbat was under heavy attack and that he should prepare a step-up operation and a quick move to the SAF headquarters at RAF Salalah.
Things were getting hot. I could hear the throb and rumble of distant explosions, the murderous whistle of shrapnel. I decided it was high time to move back to the command-post sangar on the roof and get the .50-calibre Browning into action as quickly as possible. I sprinted up the sangar steps to my gun position, checked the ammunition belt once more and eased the safety-catch to ‘fire’. Suddenly an enormous explosion slammed into the tower of the DG fort. It gouged away a huge chunk of masonry, leaving a gaping hole with jagged edges silhouetted against the first glimmer of dawn. The flash of detonation briefly illuminated the Second World War-vintage twenty-five-pounder artillery piece located in the defensive sangar at the base of the fort walls. The figure of Laba was clearly visible kneeling behind the gun’s protective armoured shield. ‘That looks like a 75mm RCL,’ Bob shouted at Mike Kealy above the roar of six explosions detonating in rapid succession. My ears screamed with the roar of the noise and for a moment I was totally disorientated, until I realized with immense relief that it was the BATT mortar initiating a pattern of harassing fire.
I shook the noise and confusion out of my head and studied the landscape that rolled away into the distance. The darkness was receding, and the first flickers of light revealed the blurred and shadowy foothills of the Jebel. The battle now began to flare up, roaring into a sense-stunning and mind-numbing conflagration. The din and racket of combat reached a frenzied crescendo, all the noises running into one another to create a surreal clatter of machine guns, green tracer ricochets leaping like firecrackers around the buildings and walls of the town, the throaty swish of incoming mortar rounds followed a few seconds later by the deadly crump of detonation, and the ear-splitting explosions of the BATT mortar returning fire. I looked at my watch: it was just about 0600 hours.
The two machine guns on the roof remained silent. This could be another stand-off attack, albeit a particularly determined one, so we didn’t want to risk compromising our position by giving the Adoo telltale gunflashes to aim at. I looked over to the left. The thirty Askars in the Wali’s fort evidently had the same idea. The ramparts bristled with old bolt-actions .303s, but they remained silent. As the first rays of dawn filtered through the thick, spongy monsoon cloud hovering over the plain, the flashes of the Adoo mortars became paler. Far from diminishing as the light exposed the Adoo mortar positions, the bombardment increased in its ferocity. The racket from the Spargen heavy machine gun and the LMG fire gradually escalated. All along the wire for as far as the eye could see, plumes of sand and earth spewed as if from distant volcanoes. Winged daggers of flame leapt skywards. The air above and around me teemed with the cracks and hisses of the lethal lead zingers. I glanced nervously around the roof. The other members of the team were at their stand-to positions, poised over their guns like cobras ready to strike. We were waiting, our fingers welded to the triggers, every muscle and nerve rigid, screwed tight with the tension of facing the unknown.
Lofty, showing no sign of emotion, his face blank and expressionless, his eyes methodically searching the reopened ammunition store, worked flat out issuing all the GPMGs, semi-automatic rifles and M79 grenadelaunchers he could find. A human chain was formed to hump box after box of 7.62mm link and ball ammunition from the store to the trucks. Between them the men had soon loaded 20,000 rounds. In a matter of minutes the ammunition store had been cleaned out. As dawn broke over the volleyball court, the dangerously overloaded Bedfords, sagging heavily under the weight, stood ready to go.
Forty well-armed Adoo formed into an extended line and began moving at a brisk pace across in front of me towards the DG fort, following the line of a shallow wadi that ran between the perimeter wire and the Jebel Ali. I stared at them intently. The figures broke into a run. My eyes felt like oversized pebbles pressing achingly into my sockets as I continued to stare. Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. My breathing resumed a steady and rhythmical pattern. I took up the first pressure on the trigger of the .50-calibre.
This was it. The few fleeting moments before the battle is joined. Too late now to do any more training. Too late now to fine-tune and zero the weapons. Too late now to strip and oil the mechanism’s liquidsmooth action. The same pitch of intensity in human experience as at birth and death themselves. The fear wells up and you welcome it. Without fear you cannot perform fully. Without fear you do not have that razor-edge extra of concentration that can make the difference between you and the enemy, between life and death. The few fleeting moments before battle is joined. You mentally go through every move. There’s nothing else to do. You are on automatic pilot. You lapse into unconscious behaviour patterns, comforting routines: the curled finger caressing the smooth metal trigger, the moist hand rubbing against the rough trouser material, the blowing of cool air onto tightly bunched-up fingers, the anxious chewing on the bits of broken skin at the edges of fingernails. The few fleeting moments before battle is joined.