Screams of agony filled the air. The swishing roar of a Carl Gustav rocket arcing over the position deafened Mike and Tak. Then the Adoo broke through the wire, a ragged line of desperate, yelling figures, their faces distorted with hate. They dashed in ones and twos, all notion of formation now cast aside, towards the cover of the north wall of the fort and the dead ground to the rear. Tak’s rifle kicked twice in quick succession. A figure fell twitching to the ground. Like crabs on a beach scrambling for a dead fish, the Adoo worked their way round the fort walls, hungry for possession of the big gun. No words were exchanged between Mike and Tak. Each man knew instinctively what he had to do. On either side of the fort, Kalashnikovs disgorged death. And still the Adoo kept coming. The most courageous among them were now only six or seven metres away at the two front corners of the fort wall. Mike and Tak were looking death in the face.
Halfway to Salalah, and Lofty Wiseman, sensing a big battle in the air, was driving like a man possessed. He careered the Land Rover over the rough desert track pitted with potholes. The men in the rear cursed in full technicolour with every crash and jolt. Clutching in one hand the twisting steering wheel like a Wild West rancher gripping the saddle on an unbroken horse, Lofty bent down and felt between his feet for the three cardboard boxes that were sliding around the floor in rhythm with the madly lurching vehicle. With his head level with the dashboard, he alternated his gaze rapidly between the road and the boxes as his fingers pulled back the tape that secured the contents. He flipped open the lid on the first box and his hand dived in like a mechanical grab in a fairground booth. Straightening up, he passed the first handful of morphine syrettes over his shoulder as though he were giving Smarties to impatient kids. ‘Here you are, lads, grab these syrettes.’ Another handful found their way into the back of the vehicle. ‘Inject the morphine straight into the upper thigh – instant nirvana.’ The patrol in the back scrambled for the syrettes and stuffed them into every available empty pouch they could find.
Mike and Tak picked off the swarming Adoo as fast as they could double-tap. A fusillade of LMG fire ripped into the ground just in front of the ammunition bunker. A round cracked so close to Mike’s skull he could feel the vibration of the bullet as it sped over him. Then came the green pineapple. It sailed gracefully through the air and landed smoking on the parapet of the bunker. As Mike ducked down in the confined space, the grenade exploded. An agonizing ringing drummed in his ears, and the acrid smoke of detonation ripped through his lungs. Miraculously, he was uninjured. He eased himself back upright, trembling slightly. Through the smoke and confusion he could just make out the pathetic figure of a DG soldier. You’re no bloody good to me grovelling down there, he thought. He did a quick magazine change and threw the empty magazines at the frightened man. ‘Fill those!’ he barked, kicking the cringing soldier violently on the soles of his boots. And then he was up and firing again.
He squeezed the trigger twice, as near simultaneously as is mechanically and humanly possible, and caught the guerrilla at the corner of the fort wall full in the face. Blood, brain and hair exploded in a crazy stain across the whitewashed wall. The guerrilla slumped to the ground, arms spreadeagled by the shock, with the remains of his head sliding down the wall after him. Then came a salvo of grenades. They arced over towards Mike and Tak like clay pigeons; several exploded nearby with a dull crump. More grenades – and then Mike and Tak froze in horror, their minds switched into a slow-motion nightmare. A grenade hit the parapet at the far end of the ammo bunker and, after what seemed like an age, rolled over the edge. Mike could clearly see the black smoke from the six-second safety fuse as it burned its way towards the detonator. He watched, mesmerized, unable to move as the smoke curled upwards. One… two… three. He counted the seconds, each one booming in his head like a chime from Big Ben. Four… five… six. He steeled himself for the impact of the explosion that would do to his body what his bullets had just done to the head of the guerrilla by the fort wall. Seven… eight… nine. He prised open his rigid eyelids. The smoke fizzled out. Ten… eleven… twelve…
Mike stared in disbelief at the matt green object that should have been the last thing he saw on this earth. It was a misfire, a damp squib. He thanked God in the briefest manner possible and searched the immediate area for the next target, more determined than ever to defeat the Adoo now that he had survived the hand grenade. Cursing aloud, he took a bead on the camouflaged figure at the corner of the fort, squeezed the trigger, saw the figure fall and reached for the two-way radio.
‘Laba’s dead, Tak and Tommy are very seriously injured.’ The sound of Mike Kealy’s voice on the walkie-talkie cracked the atmosphere in the command-post sangar like obscenities mouthed in the middle of a hushed church service.
I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it. Laba! Dead! The din of the battle receded like surf on a distant shore, and my eyes seemed to go out of focus. The next thing I knew, I was re-experiencing my grandfather’s death, the first time I’d lost someone close. A wave of desolation, loneliness and separation had engulfed me then. I had hardly been able to believe that this warm-hearted, laughing, noisy man was now stretched out cold, stiff and lifeless in his grave; the same man whose morning ritual I used to watch with unending awe. He would pour boiling water straight from the kettle into his shaving mug, and then, with a flourish designed to impress me even more, he would plunge his dishevelled shaving brush into the scalding water. After a quick wipe around the stunted remains of a stick of hard shaving soap, he would jut out his jaw, open his mouth and with a half-smile, half-grimace apply the dripping brush to his chin with rapid circular movements. I would always wince at this point, feeling sure that the boiling water must hurt terribly, secretly hoping I wouldn’t grow up to be a man for a very long time yet if that was what grown men had to do.
‘Get on the set and call for reinforcements.’ Bob turned and looked at me, his face still amazingly calm, his voice quiet and steady. I was back in my first major battle, well and truly bloodied, my initiation into manhood brutally complete.
Without a word, my resolve stiffened to ruthlessness by the news of Laba’s death, I pushed the safety-catch on the .50-calibre to ‘safe’ and raced down the steps to the radio room. I began hammering the key, pushing out the message in clear, precise morse. ‘Zero Alpha. Zero Alpha. This is 82. Message. Over.’
‘82. This is Zero Alpha. Over.’
‘Zero Alpha. This is 82. Laba dead. Sekonia VSI. Tobin VSI. Situation desperate. Send reinforcements. Over.’
There was a brief pause, and then the reply boomed in my ear. ‘82. This is Zero Alpha. Roger your last. Send wet rep. Over.’
‘Wet rep!’ I shouted aloud in great exasperation to no one in particular. A weather report at this stage of the game! My mind was so filled with the exigencies and emotions of the moment that I didn’t realize the implications of this request from base. I jumped up quickly, jarring the radio table with my knee and sending the chair teetering across the floor. I poked my head out of the door. Cloud base must be about 150 feet, and the flags were limp on the flagpoles. That would do. ‘0815 hours. Heavy cloud. No wind.’ I hammered out the wet rep, waited impatiently for confirmation, then sprinted back to my position in the command post.
As I brushed past Bob to get at the .50-calibre, the high-pitched roar of a jet’s exhaust filled my ears. Two Strikemaster jets broke into view through the mass of sullen cloud and monsoon mist. The speed at which they appeared meant that they must have been in a holding pattern circling immediately above the battlefield. The jets streaked over the town and raced eighty feet above the plain, contour-flying on a low-level groundattack mission. The bravery of the pilots in these weather conditions and in the face of sustained fire from the Adoo was awesome.