Both Thomas and Philby were on the lookout for Wabar during their separate crossings, as was, three years later, the British lone traveller and author Freya Stark, all 5 foot 2 inches of her, whose extensive journeys in the Yemen included a meeting with the Yemeni Sultan. He told her, ‘Wabar is a deserted city which spirits took over when Ad and Thamud were destroyed. It lies between Hadhramaut and Oman.’ Freya Stark pointed out that Arab geographers had variously situated Wabar inside Yemen, between Shisr and Mahra, between Shisr and Sanaa, and in numerous other locations. With such evidence, she concluded, it seems quite possible for Mr Thomas and Mr Philby each to find Wabar in an opposite corner of Arabia.
In fact Thomas never found any ruins but, somewhere to the west of where we had already searched the Wadi Mitan, his Rashidi guide had pointed at what Thomas later described as ‘well worn tracks . . . graven in the Plain’. He shouted at Thomas, ‘Look. There is the road to Ubar.’
Philby’s own search for the legendary Wabar ended with the comment, ‘There is little likelihood of ancient ruins being found anywhere in the Rubh al Khali. I think it has been unsuitable for human occupation except by nomads since long before the beginning of civilization . . . What then of the legend? So far as the Rubh al Khali is concerned, it is a myth and no more. We must seek elsewhere the site that gave rise to it. The spade may yet disclose the identity and history of Ad.’
Fourteen years after the Wabar searches of Thomas and Philby, Wilfred Thesiger first visited the Sands, and in two remarkable journeys with bedu guides completed the first two west–east traverses through the heart of the Empty Quarter, once from Shibam in the Yemen to the coast of the Persian Gulf at Sharjah, and then further east in the sands a round trip from and back to Salalah. He made no great efforts to locate Ubar but was once told by his chief guide that the ruins were definitely buried to the north of Habarut, outside the Omani-Yemeni border.
In 1955 Wendell Phillips was told by a bedu of ancient shards found in the dunes five days by camel to the west of Shisr. Phillips’ subsequent search some ‘four miles into the dunes’ apparently followed the tracks mentioned by Bertram Thomas, but his description of exactly where these were is so vague as to be of no help at all. He concluded:
The mystery of Ubar remains unsolved. In a completely inaccessible area where today there is little or no camel traffic, a well-marked highway centuries old, made by thousands of camel caravans, leads west for many miles from the famous spice lands of Dhofar and then, on a bearing of N75°W, mysteriously disappears without a trace in the great sands. A dozen Ubars could well be lost among these high dunes, unknown even to the present day bedu. I firmly believe some day some explorer will solve the mystery of Ubar, Arabia’s most intriguing lost city.
Leaving our camp at the Yadhake Dune, we made our way due west over very difficult surfaces of sand, sabkha crust and low canyons along the latitude line where the wadis debouch into the southern edge of the Sands. North-west of the Wadi Atinah and some five miles short of the abandoned Fasad North 1950s drill site, we split a half shaft in the worst sabkha trough that even Murad could remember. By then we had been on patrol for two weeks in the very northern limits of Dhofari nej’d without a sign of any adoo activity or, for that matter, any sign of a lost city or allied ancient tracks.
In between patrols I had collected many snakeskins in the desert – most of the reptiles were small and all had venom sacs. In the smaller wadi-beds, cracked and white with saline nitre where pools of rain had long since evaporated, were thickets of ghaf acacia and threadbare marakh bushes. In such places there were many snakes. Sleeping on the ground it was possible to hear the dry crackle of the serpents squirming through the thorny chicka brush.
None of us had been chewed at by spiders, though I twice awoke to find them under my blanket. Perhaps they came in for warmth, but the touch of their great furry legs was loathsome and both times I jumped up shuddering and could not sleep again for a while.
The spiders provided food for the desert monitors and countless smaller lizards that lived in the nej’d.
Even in the depths of the nej’d and the still emptier Sands to the north there were flies, countless thousands of them. And in addition to the flies of any particular area there were also our own flies that accompanied us everywhere, travelling on our backs and headcloths or, when we drove, clinging to the metal of the vehicles. Little scratches on my hands and legs became infected by these flies, grew larger and refused to heal.
The idea that I had nurtured that Ubar must lie at the latitude where the underground aquifers became buried in or near the rim of the Sands had not proved to be the case, or at least there had been no visible signs of any artefacts either to the north-west of Shisr, Fasad and the Wadi Mitan, nor to the east and up to the mouth of the great Umm al-Hayat which in turn led to Mugshin.
We had been more thorough in searching all likely areas than any of our predecessors, including Wendell Phillips. Nonetheless, as we fought our way down the Wadi Atinah, I felt regret as my hopes of a great discovery had been stupidly high.
We became adept at dealing with the sandstorms which occasionally swept across our path in the region just south of the Sands. They were seldom more than surface phenomena reaching, in height, some six metres above the ground and giving us warning of their approach because they were visible from several miles away as a dark approaching haze, walls of dust or sand particles moving at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour.
In the nej’d we would usually drive through minor dust storms. The vehicles were buffeted and fine particles of driven sand stung our skin despite the bedding blankets that we wrapped around our faces. If the visibility dropped to a dangerous level then we would stop, but this seldom happened. In the worst storms we huddled together on the leeward side of the vehicles, having closed them up one behind the other. All weapons were kept close to our bodies and under our blankets. I remember the sensation of being altogether in another world as the roar and the rush of matter passed by while I clenched my eyes tight shut, closed my mouth, holding my shemagh and blanket with one hand and my rifle with the other. Then the storm passed and the silence that followed was interrupted by ‘Waos’ and ‘Wallahis’ from the men. The sun beat down again as if nothing had happened.
We came at length to Shisr and there received a message from Salim Khaleefa asking us to return to Fiend Field as soon as possible, for his task of finding an alternate route between Ayun and Thumrait to evade adoo ambushes had failed.
I knew it was likely to be a long while before I might have another chance to search the rim of the Sands, and when it did come there was no reason to believe that we would have any more success than on our last two searches. The trouble was clearly that surface searches involving areas of moving sand were inadequate. I would have to obtain air support, locate the Thomas ‘tracks to Ubar’, which should be easily visible from above, and follow them if necessary over the unmarked Saudi border until there were outlines of the ruins. That was the way ‘proper’ archaeologists worked these days, and I knew two of the Sultan’s pilots well enough to ask for such a small favour as soon as my next brief leave took me to Salalah.
At Fiend Field we had a cheerful reunion with the other Recce sections, although their news was as negative as ours in terms of results achieved.
Salim Khaleefa had tried his utmost to locate another route, which did not pass by easily ambushed passes overlooked by the adoo, that could be used both by us returning from the Dehedoba trail and by the companies from Deefa and the western front. But sheer cliffs or cul-de-sac wadis had always blocked his way. So we switched over jobs and Salim’s men headed north while we took over in the land of rocky canyons instead of dunes.
This time my section struck lucky and found what we were looking for. Nosing up and down a valley close to Ayun, Murad found a convoluted, sometimes hairy, way to the Wadis Harazon, Hayla and Yistah, which took us at length to Thumrait well beyond the reach of PFLOAG observers. This route, in fact, solve
d only half the problem because it worked well for our travel but not for the companies, since we would need to find yet another ‘link road’ up another set of ravines in order for their heavy vehicles and field guns to head west.
There were no immediate plans for the companies to move, so I took the opportunity to fly to Salalah on the next Beaver flight bringing supplies to Fiend Field. Over the previous two months in the sweltering heat of the sands, the festering sores on my neck, arms and legs had grown worse, and the swarms of flies which were our constant companions, smelling the poison, seemed to find me more attractive than the others. At Ayun our medical corporal had done his best and given me penicillin pills (his answer to all problems), but I had begun to feel feverish.
At the Umm al Ghawarif headquarters the Indian doctor advised two weeks’ rest and a course of (a different) penicillin.
For a week in the extreme cool of the air-conditioned Mess, I played poker and went swimming in the sea by Kor Rori.
I remember one evening in the Mess a visiting pilot from Muscat commented on the Sultan’s ongoing failure to introduce a policy of hearts-and-minds or to build schools and hospitals to counter PFLOAG propaganda. ‘He ought to step down and let his son Qaboos take over.’
There was a general nodding of heads and only Tim Landon, reading a paper in one corner, refrained from appearing to agree. His face remained impassive as though he had never heard the pilot.
At that point few people knew that he was a key part of an ongoing plot to oust the Sultan.
I took the opportunity to chat up our Beaver pilot to ask if he would mind ‘adding a tiny diversion’ to his flight plan, like a quick flight along the edge of the Sands when he took me back to Fiend Field. ‘Not in the near future,’ was the reply, ‘because things with the companies are hotting up due to increased PFLOAG pressures on the Leopard Line. But once it quietens down we’ll see what we can do for you.’
That was that then. I would need to be patient. After a week of indolence in Salalah I was bored and feeling guilty, so I pleaded total good health due to the excellent doctor’s treatment and he let me fly back to Fiend Field.
I noticed an ebullient atmosphere among the men who greeted my reappearance.
‘You look well, Bakheit. Welcome back to your family. You have news?’
It was soon apparent that nobody was interested in my news. Around the campfire and with plastic mugs of tea, Ali Nasser stood up, for it was his moment of glory. He had succeeded where Salim Khaleefa’s section and mine had both failed.
‘After five days of hard travel,’ Ali said, ‘and the building of many ramps to cross deep wadis, we came to a country where no bedu has been before and no man has seen.’
He stroked his luxuriant beard and glanced at his audience to ensure that all were attending.
‘Allah was good to show us the way and I was always correct in choosing the right route. On a high ridge I went to pray and, below me, many hundreds of feet down, I saw a great white wadi running north. At once I ran down without delay – after my prayers were ended – and found a ledge of rock which led down to the wadi floor. This ledge will be, Insha’Allah, big enough for our Land Rover with some work.’
‘Where does this wadi lead, Ali?’ I asked, after giving him over-the-top congratulations.
‘In the correct direction,’ was his only reply. We failed to tie up his discovery with my map, which hardly mattered since the latter’s favourite printed comment was ‘POSITION APPROXIMATE’.
The morning after my return, my section and Salim Khaleefa’s followed Ali Nasser’s along a circuitous route, not using the lie of the land and skirting dizzy ramparts where the slightest skid would spell disaster. At length we climbed a narrow ridge to its highest point and looked down to see the wide white floor of a curling wadi.
Ali’s ramp, which he proudly showed me, was a precarious ledge down which only a madman would drive in a mini car. And he would never get back up. Quite where the wadi led was impossible to tell, but here at last was a possible PFLOAG-free route for the companies from the western end of the Leopard Line to the gravel desert and so to the camp at Thumrait.
For several days we worked in chains rolling boulders down to widen the natural ledge, and in a week Murad proudly skidded his Land Rover down to the wadi below. Since it might well be a cul-de-sac valley, no more vehicles were allowed to descend until, after three more days, we had perfected the ramp. Then, to much wild cheering, Murad urged his vehicle slowly back up the precarious ledge to the summit.
Next day we all descended and, after a five-hour journey, came to a fork in the unknown wadi. This we followed until the hills fell away behind us and, in open steppe land, we sped north-east until we recognized the Wadi Yistah which led to Thumrait.
We signalled Salalah of the new safe route from the mountains, and not long afterwards David Bayley’s company from the west withdrew their artillery by way of our ramp, thus avoiding the dangerous Valley of Haluf.
From then on our movements went undetected by the guerrillas, a factor that would prove vital in the events to come.
CHAPTER 13
Operation Snatch
Late in 1968 Fiend Force became involved in an event which Tim Landon was later to tell me changed the course of the Dhofar war.
An apparently trivial event can set off a ripple effect leading to a catastrophe, as when the assassination of a duke by a student in Sarajevo led to the carnage of the First World War.
In his zeal to root out the Mahra dissidents of the eastern jebel, the PFLOAG leader, Salim Amir arrested the two sons of a Bait Howeirat Sheikh close by his PFLOAG headquarters at the village of Qum. One of these prisoners, a man named Sahayl, detested Salim’s newly arrived Idaara squad, who had gang-raped and nearly killed his daughter. He managed to escape and made his way to Salalah. Salim Amr instigated a search but, failing to catch the slippery Mahra, assumed that he might defect and guide the army to Qum. He determined to make ready for such an attack.
At that time I was squatting with Murad and Said Salim on a pile of rocks in the centre of the Wadi Habarut, on the border with the Yemen. To our left the Sultan’s fort; to the right the Yemeni fort. Across the dancing heat shimmer of the valley between the two forts and close by the palms of the oasis, I heard the thirsty roar of four or five hundred recently arrived camels and the screams of their herders.
Villagers from both sides of this frontier oasis had clashed over some domestic squabble.
The commander of the Yemeni garrison had made a formal complaint to the Chief Askar of our fort who, in turn, had radioed Salalah HQ, who had told me to sort things out before the two garrisons started escalating the squabble into an armed conflict. We had immediately interrupted our patrols in the northern sand dunes and reached Habarut in eight hours.
I glanced at the sun. It was midday, so the blinding glare favoured the riflemen of neither fort.
A three-man delegation from the Yemeni fort made its way slowly towards us, led by a small man with yellow skin and a baseball cap. We stood up and shook their hands. After greetings, we sat again. The leader spoke classical Arabic which, compared with my Omani Army slang, was like the Queen’s English compared with Cockney. One of his villagers had been shot by an askar from our fort and his men were slavering for retribution or compensation.
I apologized on behalf of the Sultan and promised to chastise our miscreant forthwith. By way of compensation, I nudged Murad who produced a pack of 200 Marlboro cigarettes, gold dust in the Yemen. I nudged him harder and he passed over the second pack. I gave these to the Yemeni, who nodded his acceptance. His stern features softening, he said, ‘Your apologies are accepted. You will deal with your troublemakers. We with ours.’
Some months afterwards, the Yemeni garrison bombarded the Sultan’s fort and razed it to the ground.
Back at our two Land Rovers, my signaller gave me an Operations Immediate signal from Tim Landon. We were to meet him at Thumrait the next morning. He would fly t
here from Salalah. I radioed the other Recce groups to meet me soonest at the Pools of Ayun. I knew that Tim would only shift us, pawn-like, around the desert at such short notice for a very good and immediate reason.
So we raced over gravel trails to Ayun and, leaving one section to guard the main Dehedoba trail, drove along a well-known track above the Qismeem Pass, which would take us back into the nej’d, from whence, as far as adoo or even bedu would know, we could only reappear via the same bottleneck route. We would thus be accounted for by the adoo watchers as having no vehicular access to Thumrait or to the Midway Road. It was as though we were bottled up in the desert. For the first time this was not, in fact, the case because we used Ali Nasser’s new and hidden way of reaching Thumrait and all places east thereof. Using this ‘Ali route’ we arrived at our Thumrait rendezvous with Tim Landon the following day. With him was a small, dark-skinned Mahra.
‘Do you know the well of O’bet, sometimes called Leeat?’ Tim asked me.
I knew it well from patrols the year before. ‘Yes, but we never use the water there as the cliffs above are on the edge of the No-Go area – prime adoo territory.’
‘True,’ Tim nodded, ‘but that’s where you are about to go. Let me explain.’ He laid out a crude map of the Qara.
‘Sahayl here – ’ he nodded at the Mahra – ‘has been cruelly treated by PFLOAG. He is of the Bait Howeirat who hate the Marxist doctrine even more than they hate us. So he has come to me to avenge his family for what was done to them earlier this week. He has agreed to lead us to his village in the upper reaches of the Sahilnawt Valley, an area never previously patrolled by SAF. It is one hundred per cent adoo territory, but disputed at present between the main Marxist adoo and the Eastern Mahra tribes who still champion Islam, like Sahayl and his clan.’
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