Soldier I

by Kennedy, Michael

  I pushed across jagged stones, squelched through peat bogs, crushed through lime-green beds of young fern shoots and picked my way across stagnant pools of water by jumping from one clump of reeds to another. The olive oil on my socks didn't help this time; the friction in my boots felt like someone pushing a hot, razor-sharp file across the skin of my ankles. Backwards and forwards relentlessly with each step, sapping my willpower and determination, until it felt as if the file was sawing against raw bone. I kept repeating out loud over and over again as the sun rose higher and hotter, 'I've got this far, I'm fucked if I'm going to jack now!' I was overwhelmed by feelings of isolation and loneliness. I felt as though I was the only person for miles around. I must keep going. I must keep going. The sun was getting fiercely hot. It was one of those rare spring days that was a match for the best that summer could offer.

  Midday. I'd been going eight hours and I reckoned I was still less than halfway round the course. The sun was extraordinarily hot for the time of year. Just our fucking luck, I thought, on the very day we could have done with some cloud cover and a cool breeze. As I paused momentarily to get my bearing, my legs began to give way under the load of the bergen. My lungs felt raw, as if someone had thrust their fist down my throat and ripped a layer of skin off them. My facial expression became set in a glazed stare. 'What the fuck am I doing this for?' I asked myself. Do I really want to suffer like this? No answer came back. I scanned my brain but could find no logic with which to talk myself into any more pain.

  I mopped my brow with my sleeve. 'It's worst than the fucking desert, this,' I murmured to myself. At the mention of the desert, my breath suddenly got quicker and I felt a stirring deep within my guts. I stared into the heat haze liquefying the ridge up ahead. But it wasn't the ridge I saw. Through the shimmering haze emerged gradually the sight that had haunted me for the last two years: Silent Valley, the neat rows of white headstones gleaming reproachfully in the fierce desert sun of Aden; the final RV of mates in the Royal Engineers who'd worked alongside me to keep the machinery of the British Army in tiptop condition so that the infantry could keep up the fight against the Communists and prevent them from overrunning Aden.

  I'd joined the Royal Engineers intending only to stay long enough to learn a trade that I could then take back with me to Civvy Street. I wanted it all nice and quiet, none of the Boy's Own heroics for me. Then Aden turned my life upside-down. I'd been there only two months when the British Army was slung out of Aden by the Commies. What use all the constant bullshit and training? I couldn't believe it. We were loading our kit, we were surrendering, jacking, sold down the river by the politicians. Men had died for this; what the hell were they giving it all away for? Could they not see the huge strategic importance of Aden, dominating the entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal? What the fuck was going on? I was twenty-one and didn't have a clue. I knew nothing about politics. All I knew was that it was my first campaign and we were pulling out. In my book it was abject surrender, a personal insult.

  In my naivety, I had thought that after Aden we would return to the UK. Instead we found ourselves dumped in RAF Sharjah, another shithole. We spent nine months in 1968 building roads, helipads and landing strips in the area. For me it was nine months of questioning, nine months of restless soul-searching, until finally I seized my chance the day I saw on the notice board the DCI, the monthly British Army bulletin: 'Wanted: men of exceptional morale and motivation for highrisk operations and exercises world-wide. Contact 22 SAS.' I knew absolutely nothing about 22 SAS. Nor did any of my mates. Nobody had even heard of them. I was intrigued even more; my appetite was whetted. It had to be better than building airstrips in the desert. That was thirsty work, but my thirst for action and revenge was even greater.

  That was it – revenge. That's what had kept me going through the pain barriers these last three weeks. I'd heard vague rumours throughout selection of a stepping-up of Communist activity in the Middle East, and that moves were afoot to do something about it. It all suddenly made sense. Here was my chance to get my own back on the CTs after that humiliating withdrawal. My vision cleared. I took a deep breath, hoisted my bergen higher and pushed on, my body refuelled by the recollections that had drifted through my mind.

  I kept a steady mechanical pace going through the rest of the afternoon and early evening, pausing only for water and the occasional Mars bar. My luck held and I got round in under twenty hours. I had cracked the greatest physical challenge of my life. Of the thirty-seven runners who had set off from Talybont at first light, only seventeen of us made it, seventeen out of the original 135 who had put themselves forward for selection. With extreme relief, I removed my 55lb bergen, eased it into the back of the four-tonner and, with rifle in hand, struggled up the tailgate, crawled into a corner and collapsed into a merciful sleep.

  Back at training-wing basha, I was told to take twenty-four hours' rest and recuperation. I needed no second bidding after my extended ordeal. I'd overcome three weeks of discomfort, despair and desolation. I'd finished the course – but whether or not I'd passed was another matter. The tension grew as the hours ticked by. Hardly anyone spoke; the die was cast. The frustration at not being able to do any more, not being able to improve on my performance in any way, was enormous. It was a highly nervous trainee who was summoned to training wing the next day to see the OC. I stood before him like an exhausted gladiator looking up at Caesar's podium. Which way would the thumb point – up or down? When he spoke, only one word pierced through my battered brain.

  From Hereford to the Jebel Massif

  Badged!

  The prize was mine. After passing initial selection and spending five more months doing exhaustive tests, I became the proud owner of the famous beret and SAS wings. I was now a member of the Praetorian Guard! Somehow I had come through the continuation training unscathed: weapons, explosives and first-aid training; language and initiative tests; a 1,000-yard swim in the OGs; jungle training and survival; and resistance-to-interrogation training. I was on the road back after the humiliation of Aden. As I reached the door on my way out of training-wing basha I looked up at the sign above the exit: 'For many are called but few are chosen'. A few years later, Lofty Wiseman would amend this to read, 'Death is nature's way of telling you that you've failed selection'.

  I headed towards the Sabre Squadron lines. I had been posted to B Squadron along with two other trainees called, in characteristically colourful fashion, Clutch-plate and The Honk. The latter looked like a working-class Charles Bronson. Of my original patrol, Tommo had long been back in his parent regiment; Geordie had put himself out of the running by breaking both his ankles jumping from a bedroom window to escape a jealous husband; while Jim had sailed through in a seemingly effortless manner to be posted to G Squadron, having survived six months of selection as he had survived his six years down the pits. Out of the original 135, only a handful were left to be spread between the four Sabre Squadrons. As Tim had forewarned, it had been more of a rejection process than a selection process.

  We entered B Squadron office and turned left into the squadron interest room. The first thing about the room that caught my attention was the sight of a huge buffalo head, complete with horns, high up on the wall at the end of the room. Some trophy, I thought. The unfortunate beast must have strayed onto the live firing range. The rest of the walls were covered with memorabilia from campaigns going right back to Malaya in the early 1950s: photographs, certificates, old ammunition belts, bits of webbing equipment – it looked like a military museum.

  We heard a noise behind us and turned to be confronted by an intelligent-looking character with silver hair and piercing blue eyes. It was the squadron commander, known, as we later found out, as the Duke. 'Welcome to B Squadron, lads – come into the office.'

  We followed the Duke into his office, and as he sat down behind his desk I was intrigued by the difference between the interest room and this room. Not a photo anywhere – just curtains, dark-blue curtains covering
every wall from corner to corner. I wondered what secrets were concealed behind them. I was soon to find out. After a short welcoming speech, the Duke pushed back his chair with a sudden clatter, stood up and drew back the blue curtain to his immediate right. There, pinned to the wall, in full technicolour, was a map of Muscat and Oman, a little-known country at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula. The word 'SECRET' was stamped in large red letters just above the Straits of Hormuz. I recognized the map immediately. I'd sweated in that region for nine months with the Royal Engineers back in 1968 constructing roads and helipads at places like Nizwa and Bidbid.

  The Duke began his briefing. It was a broad outline of the task ahead. When he had finished, I could feel the excitement welling up inside. At last I was going back. My first operation too! I could hardly believe my luck.

  A strategically vital campaign was being mounted against Communist insurgents. After the fall of Aden and success in Vietnam, Communist ambitions were high. Some said it was part of a worldwide conspiracy. There had been a deep-rooted fear of Soviet expansionism ever since the Red Army, our allies during the Second World War, suddenly shattered all semblance of co-operation by sweeping though the whole of Eastern Europe as far as Berlin – to impose their own, iron-fisted political philosophy on the countries cowering in their wake. The Communist wave was again gathering momentum in Arabia. A breakwater had to be built somewhere to smash its force.

  It was hoped that the breakwater would be Dhofar, the southern province of Oman, immediately adjacent to Aden. It was a medieval region, isolated from the more prosperous and advanced northern states by a 400-mile-wide desert, which rose up at its southern tip into a huge plateau called the Jebel Massif – a natural fortress some 3,000 feet high, nine miles wide and stretching 150 miles from the east down to and across the border with Aden, newly named the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.

  Because of its wild terrain the Jebel had fallen easy prey to the Communists. For us, it was not ideal as a theatre of war owing to its remoteness and the fact that so little was known about it. Hours spent by the intelligence boys in 'the Kremlin' back in Bradbury Lines, poring over military reports, literary works and travel accounts, had done little to dispel the aura of mystery surrounding the place. However, the British government believed it was critical to halt the Communists' advance here, before they could seize the one jewel in Oman's crown: the northern coast of the country beyond Muscat called the Musandam Peninsula, dominating the Straits of Hormuz, a major political and economic flashpoint in the Arabian Gulf. It was through these straits that the bulk of Middle Eastern oil flowed daily to ensure the continued running of the free world's economy. If the Communists captured this vital terrain, they could hold the whole of the Western world to ransom by threatening to block the flow of oil and thus cause a mortal thrombosis in the heart of the Western economy. We simply could not afford to fail – the stakes were too high.

  Since early 1970, small SAS groups supported by Firqats – bands of local tribesmen loyal to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman – had established a few precarious toeholds on the coastal plain immediately facing the Jebel. Operation Jaguar, the mission I was about to take part in, would be the first operation to attempt to establish a firm base on the Jebel to stem the relentless advance of the Communist forces. B Squadron and G Squadron 22 SAS were to support two companies of the Sultan's Armed Forces, along with a pioneer platoon of Baluch Askars – tough little fighters from Baluchistan – and five Firqats of Jebeli tribesmen; approximately 750 fighting men in all. We were to seize an old SAF airstrip called Lympne, which was situated on top of the plateau. This would give us an airhead capability in the east.

  The night of 1 October 1971 was chosen. The Khareef monsoon, which covers the plateau with cloud and mist from June until September, would be finished, and that night there would be no moon to betray our presence. We were to climb to the top of the Jebel Massif in full battle order and seize the airstrip by first light on 2 October. Enemy forces in the area were unknown. They were rumoured to number over 2,000. That meant we would be outnumbered by at least three to one. Into the valley of death rode the 750, I thought – only we would be struggling in on foot. And as for the People's Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf or, as we knew them, the Adoo – no wandering band of vagabonds, thieves and bandits these! They were brave and cunning fighters, ruthless in pursuing the aims of their political masters, skilled tacticians, their leaders having been trained in Communist countries abroad, and armed with the latest Chinese and Soviet bloc weapons: Kalashnikov AK-47s, Simoney semiautomatics, RPG-7s and 82mm mortars.

  The Duke finished his briefing, and the blue curtain swished smoothly back along its runners to conceal once again its veiled secrets. He glanced at the door through which the squadron sergeant major had just entered and, with a final nod of head, the meeting was terminated. We followed the SSM next door into his office, where he briefed us on a move to the army training area at Otterburn. Here we would take part in fire-and-movement exercises as part of a shake-out before going to Dhofar.

  The discomfort of the parachute seat of the Hercules C-130, which had taken off from RAF Lyneham earlier in the day, produced a sudden spasm of cramp in my thigh, waking me with a jolt. After a quick shift of position to ease the pain, I checked my watch. In less than thirty minutes we would land in Cyprus for a refuelling stop before the second leg of the journey to RAF Salalah, in the heart of Dhofar.

  I looked up and down the crumpled shapes sleeping around me. There was Fuzz, a wiry character from Oldham with crinkle-cut hair; Roger, a tall, slim, swarthy bloke from Bristol, so skinny you could play a tune on his ribs – but deceptively strong with it; Pete, a veteran of many contacts, a natural comedian – he was on the mortar line and called his mortar tube Winston; and then the three Fijians: Labalaba, Valdez and Sekonia. The British Army had undertaken a recruitment drive in Fiji back in 1961, when the Borneo campaign was first beginning and good jungle soldiers were at a premium. Labalaba, known as Laba, was a colossus of a man, born to be a warrior, a man who seemed to have stepped straight from the pages of myth and legend. Valdez was cast from the same rugged mould, wiry hair and all, a fighter for whom battle held no fears, for whom winning, not surviving, was the all-important goal. Sekonia, known as Tak, was solid and stocky, as sturdy as an English oak and just as dependable in a storm. He had a heart of gold and a deep, mellifluous voice which came right up from his boots. His strong Fijian accent gave the impression he was chewing and sucking the words before allowing them out in wellmeasured phrases. With sideburns more like wardrobes, thick black curly hair and coal-nugget eyes, he was an impressive sight walking down any street. He was to fight alongside me like a brother throughout my career – a rare phenomenon in the SAS where, as a matter of course, team members were changed on a regular basis.

  I looked out of the window. We were just crossing the Cypriot coast. It wouldn't be long before we landed at RAF Akroterion. A voice crackled over the aircraft intercom system: 'Fasten your seat belts.' The bleary-eyed sleepers began to stir. An RAF loadmaster struggled over bodies, kit and equipment to take his position at the rear door ready for landing. The C-130 hit the runway with a disturbing thump that shuddered through the plane. The pilot won't be proud of that one, I thought. We got out of the plane, glad to have the chance to stretch the stiffness out of our limbs, and were taken by coach to the cookhouse while the C-130 was being refuelled.

  It was a relief to enter the air-conditioned room after the heat of the runway. I made my way to the hotplate and started to pile food onto my plate. I'd got used to the lavish fare at Bradbury Lines. It was my unlucky day; I must have picked the cook going through the male menopause. As I lifted an extra sausage, he swiped my knuckles with a ladle. I couldn't believe it – the cook was trying to rip me off for a reputation. I knew the answer: grab his wrists and glue his hands to the hotplate. I wasn't quick enough and he retired to the safety of the whitetiled wall at the rear of the ser
ving area. I was about to jump the hotplate when the master chef appeared. His face was a ghoulish mask, scarred by a thousand fry-ups.

  'This hotplate is for rissoles not arseholes,' I said, pointing at the sullen cook.

  The master chef launched into his plea of mitigation. 'The lad's been away from his wife for five weeks,' he spluttered.

  'Poor bastard,' I sneered as I carried my scoff to the nearest table.

  Leaving the tensions of the RAF cookhouse far behind, the C-130 reached cruising height. I took a sip from one of the cardboard cups of orange juice passed down the plane by the loadmaster and began to address the problems of the immediate future. The night of 1 October was going to be some night. At Otterburn I had been designated a member of the GPMG sustained-fire team. Because I was a new boy, I ended up number two. This meant I would have to carry a GPMG tripod, weighing over 30lb, plus 1,000 rounds of GPMG link ammunition – 500 wrapped around the body and 500 in the bergen. This was before the rations, water, belt kit and personal weapon, a 7.62mm SLR, were taken into consideration. And all in the heat of an Arabian night. It was going to be some sweat. It was no wonder the SAS became known as the 'donkey soldiers' by the Firqats. I thought of the other members of the gun team: Jimmy, the gun controller; Lou, the observer; and number one, Sean, a Parachute Regiment corporal, the trigger man. They had all been in action before. I was the odd man out, but it gave me confidence to think I was surrounded by such seasoned soldiers.