The instructor with the four-man squad I was attached to was a highly capable Scot, Sergeant Trevor Henry, who taught me how to fix up a mosquito net and hammock between trees under a camouflaged groundsheet and beyond the reach of whiplash scorpions, spiders, snakes and poisonous millipedes. Each day, twice a day, monsoon rain beat down, so the forest floor was always glutinous mud. The humidity made any activity, even without the great weight of the rucksack and 7.62 FN rifle, a palpable effort. We were taught about setting Claymore mine ambushes, how to spot jungle booby traps, how to spot human presence by bird alarm calls, how to avoid leaving tracks, how, in close-foliage contacts, to kill before being killed. By day and by night we took turns to navigate to set points through dense undergrowth and along zigzag ridges following game trails.
Biting ants brushed off leaves were a constant nuisance and, as we passed, our presence was announced by the screams of hornbills and the manic laughter of long-tailed monkeys.
From time to time, as Trevor taught us, the lead scout, a role we took in turns, would halt with one hand raised and listen intently.
Before halting for a night stop, we would head round in a circle which ended back where we had passed ten minutes before so that we could observe our earlier tracks and be sure that nobody was following us.
About a fortnight after we started the training, the toughest soldier in our group went down with dengue fever from drinking unsterilized local water. A helicopter evacuated him after we had used our explosives to clear a landing zone of trees. As the trees crashed down, a shower of every imaginable tree-dwelling insect parachuted down onto us as we lay behind the tree trunks. A very large black and yellow spider bit the patrol medic, Roger Cole, on the neck, and this produced a spongy, bulbous black bump. The other ‘student’ in the group, a recently joined SAS captain, Simon Garthwaite, slipped on a wet rock and cracked the back of his skull. Roger patched him up and we kept going.
Some while later doing my stint as lead scout, I slipped and slid down a slimy slope. Trailing liners of barbed attap thorn brought me to a sudden halt, suspended by one ear. I cut myself free with my knife, but half of my ear lobe was torn away and the injury was bleeding freely. Roger pumped me full of penicillin and stitched my ear lobe back on.
At the end of the course Trevor Henry celebrated back in the base at the local Kampong tea-house. Alcohol was forbidden by the Sultan of Brunei, but beer and whisky were served from a china teapot into pretty little teacups.
A year later Simon Garthwaite was shot dead by adoo in Dhofar.
Back in London I met Ginny on her return from her Ulyah harem. For a long while her finger nails remained indelibly orange from henna. On a later Omani foray she collected a number of rare scorpions from the Wahiba which now reside in the Natural History Department (Arachnida Section) of the British Museum.
The SAS kindly gave me and Ginny an empty office in their King’s Road Barracks for the next eight years, and it was from there that we organized her plan to complete the first surface polar circumnavigation of Earth and recruited unpaid volunteers to join us. Ginny also learnt to become an expert in HF communications with the Territorial Royal Signals.
The Foreign Office would only support our circumpolar project if we gained some experience of polar travel, so, via Tim Landon, I approached Sultan Qaboos of Oman, and he kindly agreed to sponsor our costs to train on the Greenland Ice Cap in 1976.
More snow fell on Greenland that year than had ever been recorded before. The katabatic winds roaring down the escarpment to the sea had been measured by an anemometer at the air base at a speed of 140 mph.
Britain’s best-known climate expert, Professor Hubert Lamb, stated that so much snow had fallen that year that the Greenland Ice Cap was rendered unduly heavy, in terms of the world’s balance. Since the world wobbles on its orbit, this 1976 unbalancing factor might well have altered the atmospheric circulation and, likewise, the fragile global weather patterns.
The violent snow storms that we experienced on that journey as I skied ahead of the two snowcats reminded me of sandstorms in Arabia when similar all-powerful energy had blurred my ability to think, to sense direction and to do anything other than grovel on the ground in order to escape the hostile blast of the elements.
After Greenland we did further polar training north of Ellesmere Island on moving sea-ice, and in 1979 we finally set out on the Transglobe Expedition from Greenwich heading south down the zero meridian. Our first major obstacle began at the port of Algiers where our ancient ship, the Benjamin Bowring, with her volunteer crew dropped off our ‘land group’ and sailed on ahead to pick us up when we made it down to the Ivory Coast.
Our team of five in three Land Rovers consisted of Ginny and her only helper, Simon Grimes, in one vehicle, me in another with, when we could get one, a local guide, and lastly the other two members of the surface-team (selected from 800 applicants), Ollie Shepard from Wales and Charlie Burton from Sussex. Ollie had been a beer salesman and Charlie had run a meat business in South Africa.
I noticed as the ship headed out of Algiers harbour, hooting a Goodbye signal to our three quay-side Land Rovers, that she was steaming backwards all the way. We later discovered that the ship’s engine had become jammed in reverse gear.
We left Algiers in 110-degree heat at noon and headed south into the Atlas Mountains. The French had tamed the Berbers in their mountainous homeland and in the 1870s their soldiers and explorers had crossed the Atlas Mountains to conquer the great deserts to the south, which in the 1850s were virtually untrodden by Europeans.
These deserts, or ergs as they were known, had gradually dried out over thousands of years and their lakes had disappeared, along with all cover of grasses and bush. All soil blew away and humans moved south leaving only bare rock vistas and great dunes of sand. Like the bedu of Arabia, only the Touareg could survive in such a place.
The French had defeated the Berbers of coastal Algeria to the north of the Atlas with great brutality. In the 1840s their soldiers had conducted ruthless raids (or razzias) which culminated in 1868 in suppressing one uprising by the locals at a cost of 300,000 lives.
Once when eight hundred villagers hid in caves to escape the military, they were all asphyxiated by fires lit at the entrances. The French used many irregular troops called tirailleurs and, against the Touareg, camel-borne cavalry known as méharistes. The Foreign Legion, known for a while as the kings-of-the-desert, was started in 1831 by King Louis Philippe (who survived seven assassination attempts) to provide gainful employment for the many armed and dangerous ex-soldiers at large in France following the Napoleonic Wars.
Their first role was to pacify Algeria, and there were other foreign forays before the force was sent to Mexico to overthrow the government and install a European prince as head of state. In terms of the Legion, the event was memorable for a stand at Camarón on 30 April 1863 by sixty-five Legionnaires, led by Captain Jean Danjou, who had lost his hand when a musket exploded a decade previously. Surrounded by two thousand Mexican troops, Danjou refused to surrender and made the isolated men swear on his wooden hand that they would fight to the last.
For twelve hours wave after wave of Mexicans were repelled by the stalwart fighters of the Legion until the last handful who remained alive emerged, defeated as much by thirst as by the opposing force.
Although Danjou was killed early on, the prosthetic was taken back to France where it is still the Legion’s most valued relic and is paraded annually on the anniversary of the Battle of Camarón. The battle characterized a fundamental tenet of the Legion, that Legionnaires should follow orders implicitly, no matter how futile they seem.
There followed numerous overseas actions, including many during the First and Second World Wars. Beau Geste, the novel by Percival Christopher Wren, filmed in 1926 with Ronald Colman and in 1939 with Gary Cooper, has the Legion in the Sahara defending fortresses typical of those found in Morocco, which was a French protectorate until 1956. Wren claimed to be a former
Legionnaire, which made the tale seem all the more authentic.
Shortly afterwards, when Algerians fought for their independence, the Legion showed its mettle by rebelling against their own government which was about to settle with the Algerians, and even plotted to assassinate the French President, Charles de Gaulle. Conscripted troops in the French Army put paid to the Legion’s attempted coup. Conspirators were arrested and the problematic regiment involved was disbanded. But there is little evidence that the Legionnaires involved were in any way repentant. Today, more than seven thousand shaven-headed men in the Legion wear their distinctive white kepis, or hats, with pride. Loyal to France they may be, but it’s the Legion that they inhabit rather than the country.
In 1926 Russian-born Major Zinovi Pechkoff of the Legion described the men who served with him as ‘simple and modest’. ‘They do not claim glory for their services. They do not even claim recognition. The most impressive thing about them is that they do not think of themselves as heroes sacrificing their lives. They do not think of themselves as martyrs; and even if they died, they die with the same enthusiasm.’
It’s tough, soldiering in excessive heat. That is partly why the redoubtable ranks of the French Foreign Legion are so remarkable. These are men specially trained in the most gruelling conditions to endure everything that the jungle, the desert, and their often sadistic officers can throw at them.
For decades there was an air of romance about the French Foreign Legion, whose men were believed to be the roughest of diamonds who would willingly die for a cause that was not their own.
In the public consciousness the Legion is inextricably linked to lonely fortresses in the Sahara Desert, thanks to the story of Beau Geste.
That was the Legion’s mid-twentieth-century history, but being a Legionnaire is still hot work today, as part of their arduous training regime takes place in the unforgiving jungle of French Guiana. This old colonial outpost in South America is where Devil’s Island, once France’s most notorious prison, lies rotting. Even now there is not much by way of luxury in that sparsely populated part of the world which is bordered by Brazil and Surinam. That suits the Spartan ethos that defines the Legion.
Although it’s part of the French Army, the Legion has its own motto, ‘Legio Patria Nostra’, meaning ‘the Legion is our Fatherland’, and a definitive anthem.
You certainly don’t have to be French, or even to speak the language, in order to join. Those who survive their time under the muscular regime of the Legion are entitled to become French nationals, being ‘Français par le sang versé’, or ‘French by spilled blood’.
Entry is open to anyone older than seventeen and a half years but less than forty, who is physically fit but isn’t on the Interpol ‘most wanted’ list. That said, a criminal past is not necessarily a barrier, although convicted murderers are no longer welcomed, and anonymity by virtue of an assumed identity is an option favoured by many.
Faith, education, marital status and nationality are disregarded by the Legion during induction, at which time rudimentary French is taught. For those among the international contingent who may not have shone at languages at school, this is frequently as hard as the physical challenges thrown down by the officers in charge of recruits. These recruits suffer beatings, with corporal punishment being a recognized method of shaping the thoughts and actions of a disparate group drawn from dozens of nations until they function as smoothly as a machine.
The French, like the Italians and British before and after them, eventually left their erstwhile hard-won colonies to self-rule followed, usually, by civil strife such as the Arab Spring.
The route that we followed from Algiers to the Sahel, and various alternates to either side of it, had been in use for thousands of years to bring slaves north to Europe, just as now, in 2015, hundreds of thousands of refugees are annually risking their lives through the same deserts on the same voyage.
Apart from the risk of drowning in the Mediterranean, the chances of dying of thirst before ever reaching the southern edge of the Saharan ergs are ever present through lack of water coupled with the deadly heat of the Saharan sun.
A healthy adult human body is 60 per cent water. Dehydration occurs when more water is lost – through either exercise or dehydration – than is drunk. And it only takes the water levels to drop by a few percentage points for problems to start.
At first the symptoms are bearable – extreme thirst, headache, low blood pressure, dizziness, dry skin, tiredness and irritability. Further deprivation of liquids means that the body’s cells will start to shrink without the necessary replenishment, and confusion follows as the brain begins to shrivel, tugging at the blood vessels attaching it to the cranium in the process. Toxic waste products, that should be flushed out of the body with a healthy rinsing of water, remain trapped within. The volume of blood that services internal organs also declines calamitously in the absence of water. When organs are no longer properly serviced by the viscous fluid that remains in the veins and arteries of the dehydrating body, then they begin to fail.
At this point the body’s temperature rises, the eyes sink and the tongue swells, making communication impossible. Within hours the victim falls into a coma, which will come as a blessed relief to those unfortunate people who are dying of thirst.
In modern times one might hope that journeys into deserts, where it is so hot that sitting still in the shade compromises fluid retention, would inspire careful preparation. Alas, dying of thirst is still one of the perils that many desperate migrants face when they seek a better life, including many people from Sub-Saharan Africa who are tempted to make an ill-prepared desert trek to find low-paid work in countries in the north of the continent or travel onwards to Europe. By the traffickers who take their money, they are barely given the same considerations as cargo. A spotlight was shone on this illicit human trade route in 2013 when ninety-two men, women and children died parched in the desert after two lorries that had been transporting them from Niger to Algeria broke down. Only twenty people survived. The UN’s tally of migrants crossing the Mediterranean in 2014 was, at 219,000, nearly four times larger than the figure for the year before.
Problems begin even before the mechanical problems. One young girl died after finding the stuffy, uncomfortable ride across the Sahara too much to bear. The drivers used water from the canisters they carried aboard to soften the hard-baked ground so that they could bury her.
When one of the two trucks ground to a halt, both were unloaded and their drivers went to the nearest settlement to sort out repairs. Despite a lack of water and the beating sun, they refused to take their paying passengers to a well that was comparatively close. In desperation people finally headed there on foot rather than be marooned in the desert. When the alarm was finally raised, bodies were found in groups or singly already half-buried by sand.
There is a similar story in America where the arid southern US border with Mexico has claimed the lives of untold hundreds of immigrants who would rather risk the unforgiving heat for a new start in the US than continue their economically unrewarding lives at home.
As for the slaves who were marched, already sick, starved and exhausted, right through the Sahara from places like Lake Chad in Central Africa to the coast by Tripoli, their bones still line the old desert slave trails.
A British official in Nigeria, Hans Vischer, who returned to duty from leave in 1908 leading a caravan of two hundred ex-slaves from Tripoli, published first-hand information of these slave caravans. The losses could be as high as 80 per cent, and he calculated that during the whole period of Arab slaving more than two million miserable human beings must have been moved north along this route, the majority on foot, and only the youngest and prettiest girls and boys in covered camel-litters.
Since a profit was made on the 20 per cent of slaves who somehow survived, the equanimity with which the slavers accepted the massive death rate of their human cargo is easy to understand. The Creator, whether God or Allah, had cle
arly decided to ignore this world of suffering without a grain of compassion.
After crossing the Atlas Mountains, we came at length to the sand dunes of El Golea, nicknamed by Ollie as El Gonorrhoea, and we camped there between dunes as the expedition’s very first scientific task was to collect sand lizards, or skinks, from the nearby Sands of Khanem for London’s Natural History Museum, who had spent many hours training Ollie as a skink catcher.
Ginny, who had in the past collected Omani scorpions for the Natural History Museum, had been commissioned to collect fairy shrimps from desert ponds. These are tiny crustaceans less than a centimetre long that swim in swarms. They have hatched from eggs that may have been blowing with the desert dust for fifty years or so, travelling maybe for hundreds of miles from where they were laid by their long-dead parents. The dust has also produced microscopic spores and these now, in the water, have grown into thin filaments of algae. The tadpoles feed feverishly, and the algae alone will sustain them.
Ollie lectured us on skinks and skink-hunting.
The dune surface can become broilingly hot within a few hours of sunrise, yet coolness is only an inch or so away. Thrust your hand beneath the surface of the sand and you will feel how cold it is. Most of the dune animals are well aware of this fact and will burrow down beneath the surface to hide or to escape the worst of the heat. But the sand grains are so smooth and dry that they do not cohere. So it is impossible to tunnel. The sand simply collapses behind the tunneller. One way to move through it is with a swimming action, and several of the lizards that regularly dive beneath the surface push themselves through the sand with their legs. The best way is not to use legs at all but simply to wriggle. Several lizards belonging to the skink family do this. Their legs, very much reduced in size, are sufficient to move them over the surface but are held close to the body when they are moving within the sand. One or two that spend nearly all their time below the surface have lost their legs altogether, like the skink of the Namib Desert, which has covers over its eyes, protecting them from wear by the sand grains, and its nose is pointed, assisting it in moving. It lives by hunting beetle grubs and other insects. The tremors in the sand caused by a moving insect are detected by the skink. It swims through the sand towards the movement and then pops up to seize its unsuspecting prey.
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