by Shaun Clarke
‘Direct action?’
‘Ultimately we’ll have to launch an assault against the rebels commanding the heights of the Jebel Dhofar. I want to be part of that.’
‘Christ, Marty,’ Paddy said, wiping his wet lips with the back of his hand and placed his pint mug back on the table, ‘if the Jebel Dhofar is anything like Sabrina, that’s going to be a killing climb, with or without enemy sniper fire. You’re going to be forty-seven this year. Do you think you can hack it?’
‘That’s a bloody brutal question,’ Marty replied, feeling mildly insulted.
‘It’s a bloody brutal business,’ Paddy said as he lit a cigarette, ‘and you have to face up to certain facts. Let’s face it, you’re not young any more and that jebel’s a big one. Are you sure you can climb it?’
‘I can climb it,’ Marty insisted, though he secretly had his doubts. He had seen himself in the mirror and did not like what he saw: thinning, greying hair, lines of age in the face, a body not quite as slim and muscular as it had been some years back. Also, he suffered mild aches and pains that he forced himself to ignore. Time was definitely taking its toll.
Paddy grinned. ‘Grabbing at your last opportunity for some real action, are you? Before they retire you to the training wing or the Kremlin.’
‘You’ve hit the nail on the head, mate.’
‘Well, I don’t blame you. Bloody dreadful how quickly it comes, isn’t it? The years pass so quickly.’
‘That’s the truth of it,’ Marty said.
Leaning back in his chair, he glanced around the pub, all black-tarred beams and brass pots, with an open fire burning in the grate and strands of smoke spiralling up from the flickering yellow flames. It was lunchtime and the pub was crowded with customers, mostly country-squire types in tweed jackets with patched elbows, accompanied by horsey wives in ‘sensible’ clothes that made Luckily, there were businessmen with their leggy, attractive secretaries, leaning on the bar beside local farmers and tradesmen, some in overalls, and a few SAS men from Bradbury Lines, now wearing their civvies. It was a congenial, traditional, cosy pub and Marty felt at home in it.
‘So what’s it like being married again?’ Paddy asked sardonically. ‘And living at home with your new wife instead of in the spider?’
‘Diane and I aren’t married,’ Marty replied, ‘and damned well you know it. Nor do we live together all the time. She works in London, after all. So we only live togetheroff and on, either when I’m on leave and can go to London or when she comes down here.’
‘Living in sin, my old son. It all sounds very cosy.’
‘It’s not bad.’
‘No plans for marriage?’
‘She’s still married.’
‘Ah, yes, I remember. She told me when you brought her here on your last visit. Have you met her husband?’
‘No, thanks.’
Paddy grinned. ‘Don’t want to see the competition, them seem almost masculine. also some sleek-faced local eh?’
‘He’s not competition,’ Marty insisted. ‘They’re just good friends. He’s happily living in sin with his girlfriend and they havea couple of kids.’
‘Try to avoid that yourself. You’re too old to start over again. Either have kids when you’re young or don’t have them at all, I say. And since you’ve already got two perfectly nice kids, you don’t need any more.’
‘Diane can’t have kids,’ Marty told him, ‘so there’s no problem there. What did you think of her?’
‘I wasn’t sure,’ Paddy said frankly. ‘I thought she was attractive and she seemed nice enough, but she did have a certain amount of inner tension that I found disconcerting. Is she easy to live with?’
‘Yes,’ Marty replied, though it wasn’t quite true. Truthfully, his relationship with Diane was based on mutual sexual attraction and worked well enough on that level: they were a hot couple in bed, completely uninhibited, endlessly inventive, and usually satisfied when it was over. Nevertheless, out of bed, Diane was filled with tension and could be disconcertingly singleminded. Her belief in the baseness of politicians bordered on the obsessional and made her argumentative over the most seemingly trivial issues. In truth, they fought a lot and were still living together only because they were so strongly attracted sexually to each other and could heal the most savage wounds in bed. The relationship was more physical than emotional and it had its dark sides. Despite all that, he needed it.
‘I also thought she was rather serious,’ Paddy said. ‘Good-humoured at times, a little mischievous as well, but beneath it all… very serious. Particularly, as I recall, when it came to politics. She ispolitical, isn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Leaning to the left as I remember.’
‘More or less. She despises the Establishment, which she insists is corrupt, but she’s also suspicious of the trade unions and what she calls creeping communism.’
‘So am I,’ Paddy confessed, ‘though not with Diane’s passion. To be truthful, by and large I don’t get involved that much. Angela, of course, takes it all very seriously– she’s Tory to her fingertips – and complains because, although I vote as she does, I never involve myself more than that.’
‘But you believe in the Establishment. I know you do.’
‘In the end, I support it, but I’m not obsessed with it. I rarely worry about Reds under the beds and I believe that the British people, with their innate common sense, will always act properly– taking the middle ground, as it were– when it comes to politics. Nevertheless, I do believe in democracy, not in socialism, and sometimes find myself worrying about communist expansionism in the Third World and the Middle East. You must do as well, having been to so many of those damned countries with the regiment.’
‘That’s true enough,’ Marty said. ‘Those trips always made me appreciate where I come from. I mean, we whinge about our own country no matter who’s in charge, be it Labour or the Tories, but just about every country I’ve been to with the regiment has been brought to its knees because of communism. The commies are always in there somewhere, stirring the bloody pot. Socialism’s one thing – I’m working-class, so I understand it– but communism’s something else again and it’s spreading everywhere. But what the hell are we talking about this for? I take it from what you said about Angela that she’s still okay. Things all right with you, are they?’
‘Fine,’ Paddy replied. ‘No major problems healthwise, thank God’ – he crossed his fingers – ‘and otherwise things are running smoothly. Angela keeps herself busy as always with her local charities and Conservative Party meetings; and the kids are all at university and appear to be doing well. Apart from being a bit lonely with the kids away from home, we still manage to have a decent life– lots of dinner parties and so on. And, of course, my own work keeps me busy and, I must confess, entertained.’
‘It’s nice to enjoy yourself while making money. It makes life worth the living, mate.’
‘Thank you, my friend, for those kind words.’
‘Still producing those propaganda TV documentaries and flogging them off to Third World countries?’
Paddy grinned impishly. ‘Naturally, dear boy. And very successfully, Imight add.’
‘I’ve never worked out if you’re sincere about those documentaries or just plain bloody cynical.’
‘Definitely not cynical, Marty. As I’ve just said, I am sincerely concerned about worldwide communist expansionism– I think that comes from the regiment – and though I’m not obsessive about it, I believe that my propaganda films serve a valuable function. Pictures speak louder than words where illiteracy reigns. And, of course, I’m pretty selective in who I work for. I don’t make propaganda films for despots; nor do I let my clients dictate what goes into the films. I select and shape the material after consultation with them; they then buy the finished product or not.’
‘After consultation with them,’ Marty emphasized. ‘That’s the dodgy issue.’
‘No, Marty, it’s not. I’m not a
mouthpiece for views I don’t approve of, but only for values that I personally hold, which are those of democracy. Should they want propaganda contrary to that, I refuse to deal with them.’
‘I still think it’s a dodgy business. You don’t know the long-term aims of the governments you work for. You don’t know how they’ll use those films; how they’ll interpret them.’
‘Yes, I do,’ Paddy insisted. ‘I carefully research all my potential clients. I do my homework.’
‘There’s still the possibility that slowly but surely you’ll let yourself be swayed in certain ways – and let your standards slip. We’re all open to that kind of corruption. It’s bloody easy to fall for.’
Paddy grinned. ‘Still the moralist, I see. Well, old son, I accept what you’re saying and I have thought about it and believe me, I won’t let myself be bent. I’m too self-aware for that. I also happen to believe that all those years with the SAS have left their mark on me. The regiment instils certain values and I’ve never forgotten them.’
‘Oh, yeah? What values would they be?’
‘Democratic values. Freedom of speech and thought; the encouragement of personal initiative; loyalty to one’s country while avoiding xenophobia; a belief in, and the practice of, moral choice. The regiment’s been run on those principles and I still abide by them.’
Marty sighed and glanced around the busy pub, his gaze drawn instinctively to the fashionably blonde, leggy girls in miniskirts. Their youth and beauty, while attractive to him, also reminded him of how quickly he was ageing. He found that hard to take.
‘It’s too bad,’ he said to Paddy, ‘that nothing lasts for ever. Even the original ideals of the regiment aren’t what they used to be.’
‘How come?’
Marty had a sip of his bitter, then put the glass back on the table. ‘Increasingly, when not on active service overseas, the regiment’s being asked to do work that strikes me as being pretty dubious.’
‘Such as?’
‘In the past couple of years we’ve been asked to test supposedly escape-proof prisons by breaking out or sneaking in. We’ve been asked to perform tasks more suitable to riotcontrol police. We’ve been asked to act as bodyguards for VIPs. In a few instances, we’ve even been asked to train the troops and police of countries with dubious political track records. That kind of arsehole work.’
‘You say the regiment has been asked to do such work. Has it actually done it?’
‘Some of it. Reportedly, when he’s really been against the proposal, the CO’s refused; but other times he hasn’t been able to wriggle out of it. It depends, I suppose, on who’s making the request, the demand, and how much damage to the regiment the CO thinks a refusal could cause. That’s the short-term problem. The long-term problem is that too many shits in high places want to place the regiment under their own control and use it solely for their own purposes. The pressure piled on by those bastards increases each month.’
‘I don’t think you’re alone with that anxiety,’ Paddy told him. ‘In fact, the subject’s been raised at every regimental reunion I’ve attended over the past few years. Your fellow NCOs, in particular, seem to be aware of what’s going on and are clearly concerned by it. One of them even suggested forming an association of older, or even retired, SAS men whose function would be to quietly stop such activities. It might not be a bad idea.’
‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ Marty said. ‘I might give it some thought.’
‘You do that,’ Paddy said. He glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Time for me to be going. I have an appointment at fifteen hundred hours with an oil-rich Arab and potential client. Are you ready to leave?’
Marty nodded at his unfinished pint of bitter. ‘I’ll polish that off first. I’ve plenty of time to spare. Meeting Diane at Redhill Station at sixteen hundred hours – she’s coming up from London – so I might as well hang on here.’
Grinning, Paddy pushed his chair back and stood up ‘Okay, old son. I’ll see you when you get back from Oman. Until then, you take care.’
‘You, too,’ Marty said.
They shook hands, then Paddy hurried out, buttoning his pinstripe coat as he left. Marty sat on, distractedly gazing at the younger girls in the smokewreathed pub. His thoughts, however, were not focused on sexual matters, but on the possibility of forming a clandestine association of SAS men dedicated to the protection of the regiment. He thought about it a lot. Eventually deciding to do it when he returned from Oman, he finished his pint of bitter, left the pub, and drove the short distance to Redhill Station to pick up Diane.
Chapter Twelve
As the four-engined Hercules C-130 transport landed at RAF Salalah in Dhofar, after a flight from RAF Lyneham with a refuelling stop at Akroterion in Cyprus, Marty, recently promoted to staff sergeant, felt the exultation of a man about to have his last fling. Marching down the tailgate from the gloom of the aircraft, he stepped into the burning furnace of the Arabian sun and was pleased to feel it on his skin.
Adjusting his eyes to the fierce glare, he saw large defensive trenches, or hedgehogs, encircled by fortygallon drums and bristling with 25-pounder guns and 5.5-inch howitzers. He then saw Strikemaster jets and Skyvan cargo planes in sandbagged emplacements covered with camouflage nets. The Strikemasters were armed with Sura rockets, 500-pound bombs and machine guns; the Skyvan cargo planes would be used to resupply the SAF (Sultan’s Armed Forces) and SAS when they were up on the plateau of the mighty jebel. There were also Bedford trucks lined along the runway, with the drivers lounging about them, most wearing shorts, boots with rolled-down socks and a loose, flapping shirt, each with a Browning High Power handgun holstered at the waist.
Beyond the airstrip was an immense, sunbleached mountain, its sheer sides rising spectacularly to a plateau from the flat desert floor. That was, Marty knew without asking, the Jebel Dhofar, which right now was crawling with adoo and was soon to be assaulted by the SAS. Adoois an Arabic word for ‘enemy’ and judging from the appearance of that mountain, the enemy would not be easy to dislodge.
The Hercules was unloaded with the aid of Omani labourers, all wearing shemaghs and djellabas. When the task was completed, the newcomers boarded the waiting Bedfords and were driven to the Sultan of Oman’s Air Force Headquarters (SOAF HQ), a single- storey building guarded by local soldiers wearing red berets. After being cleared by security, the convoy moved out of the camp, though gates guarded by RAF policemen armed with submachine guns, then rumbled along the rough terrain adjoining the dusty, rocky road. When Marty asked why they were not on the road, he was informed by Corporal Alf Biggins of the Royal Corps of Transport that because the adoo often mined the roads, the only safe way to travel was to stay off them by driving alongside them and following the tracks of previous vehicles.
‘On the other hand,’ Alf added, ‘the adoo are smart little buggers who sometimes roll an old tyre over a newly placed landmine to make it look like the tracks of a previous vehicle. Then, boom! Up you go!’
‘Is it true that the adoo are crack shots?’ Taff asked, blinking his radiant blue eyes against the flashing sunlight.
‘Damned right. You won’t find better snipers anywhere. They’re also good at keeping out of sight, even managing to hide in what seems to be flat desert. Finally, they’re bold as brass when it comes to infiltrating our territory, so you can never feel safe at any time. Those bastards are everywhere.’
Marty glanced automatically at the terrain they were passing through, but saw only clouds of dust billowing up behind the trucks, obscuring the sun-scorched flat plain and the soaring, parched sides of the Jebel Dhofar. The sky was a white sheet.
‘Paradise on earth,’ Corporal Tommy Taylor said, shaking his mop of dark hair in a vain attempt to get the dust out of it. ‘It’s sure nice to go travelling.’
After turning off the road to Salalah, the truck bounced and rattled along the ground beside a dirt track skirting the airfield, reducing the risk of being blown up by adoo landmines. About ten m
inutes later it arrived at a large camp surrounded by barbed-wire fencing, with watchtowers placed at regular intervals around its perimeter, each holding a couple of armed SAF soldiers, a machine gun and a searchlight. There were sangars manned by RAF guards on both sides of the main gate.
‘Um al Gwarif,’ Corporal Biggins explained when he halted his truck at the main gate. ‘HQ of the SAF.’
A local soldier wearing a green shemagh and armed with a rifle checked Biggins’ papers and then waved the convoy through. The trucks passed under another watchtower as they entered the camp where the sole object of interest was an exotic old whitewashed fort, complete with ramparts and slitted windows. It was the centre of the enclosure and was flying the triangular red-and-green Omani flag from its highest turret.
‘The fort of the Wali,’ Corporal Biggins explained. ‘The Governor of the province. Right now, though, it’s being used as the camp’s command post.’
Beyond the Wali’s fort, Marty could see an old pump house and water well, which he assumed supplied the camp’s water. Beyond that again, beside a line of silhouetted palm trees, was what looked like the officers’ mess and accommodations. Otherwise, the main camp area seemed to be little more than a dusty clearing the size of a football pitch, with only two other stone buildings and some prefabricated huts near the Wali’s fort. Everything else was in tents shaded by palm trees and separated by defensive slit trenches.
‘The prefabricated huts,’ Biggins explained as the Bedfords ground to a halt near the tents, ‘are the barracks of the SAF forces. But you lot have been assigned that big British Army marquee, used as the basha, and those bivouac tents right beside it. No luxuries for you lads.’
‘Bloody typical!’ Tommy Taylor complained, wearily picking up his dusty Bergen rucksack and inching towards the tail end of the truck.
