by Shaun Clarke
They were facing each other across Callaghan’s cluttered desk, which was actually a trestle table. The many papers and maps on the table were pinned down with stones to keep them from blowing away in the hot wind that gusted in from outside. At just after noon, the air in the tent was stifling and made all of them sweat.
‘So when do we go back to the Radfan for some real work?’ Dead-eye asked him.
Callaghan smiled and held his hand up like a traffic cop. ‘Hold on there, Dead-eye. It is true that we intend mounting a major operation against the rebels in the Radfan, but we can’t do it just yet.’
‘Why?’ Jimbo asked.
‘According to the green slime,’ Callaghan replied, referring to the Intelligence Corps, ‘a couple of Yemeni-trained agents are perverting our intelligence and have to be dealt with before we can move again. Apparently these agents, who we thought were working for British Intelligence in Aden, are actually double agents, alternately giving us false information and passing on to the enemy information about our activities in the area. Either way, their treachery has led to many failed missions and casualties. So before we go back to the Radfan, we have to get rid of those men.’
‘Why us?’ Dead-eye asked. ‘That’s the job of the men based in Aden.’
‘Normally, yes, but the way these double agents are operating indicates that they have many friends in our intelligence community. Should their activities be terminated by Intelligence hit men, or one of our Keeni-Meeni teams, the identity of those who do the job will almost certainly be revealed, endangering future operations by that unit. It is therefore felt that outsiders not known to that community should do it.’
‘So if we’re killed,’ Jimbo said tartly, ‘we can’t be identified. If, on the other hand, we’re captured and tortured into revealing our identity, the job still can’t be traced back to the greens operating daily out of Aden.’
‘Precisely,’ Callaghan said.
Jimbo and Dead-eye glanced at one another, raising their eyebrows.
‘Very nice for the greens,’ Jimbo said, turning back to Callaghan. ‘Not so nice for us, boss.’
Callaghan simply sighed and spread his hands in the air. ‘What can I say? So do you want it or not?’
‘What exactly is it?’ Dead-eye asked. ‘We’ve heard about the Keeni-Meeni teams in Aden. Is that what we’ll be?’
‘Temporarily,’ the CO said. ‘You’ll be shown how to dress and act like an Arab, trained in the special ‘double tap’, then sent into the highly dangerous Crater and Sheikh Othman districts to do the job without backup or identification in the event of failure. Naturally it’s a volunteer job.’
‘Naturally,’ Dead-eye replied sardonically.
‘Yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ Dead-eye and Jimbo replied as one.
Callaghan smiled and placed his hands back on the table. ‘Good. I knew you’d say that. Now go pack your kit, then meet me at the landing pad. We’ll be lifted out on the Whirlwind and be away for two days.’
‘Sounds good,’ Dead-eye said. He and Jimbo pushed back their chairs and left the tent, stepping into the furnace of the midday heat. The sunlight temporarily dazzled them, making them blink and squint as they crossed the clearing between the HQ tent and the smaller tents being used as bashas. When they had adjusted to the searing brightness, they saw that the 25-pounders, 3-inch mortars and Browning 0.5-inch machine-guns in the hedgehogs spread out along the camp’s perimeter were silhouetted starkly against the white haze of the sky and appeared unreal in the shimmering heat.
As usual, a lot of men, some from A Squadron, some from D, were lining up at the large mess tent, waiting to be served lunch, many of them wearing only shorts, socks and desert boots, all of them holding their tin plate, mug and eating utensils. As Dead-eye and Jimbo reached the tent they shared with Larry, a Wessex Mark 1 was landing beside the parked Whirlwind, covering the latter in a whipping cloud of sand and dust that also temporarily obscured the sun-scorched mountains beyond. That cloud even reached Dead-eye and Jimbo, making them both cough and cover their mouths as they ducked low and entered their tent. Larry was squatting on the rubber poncho stretched out beside his camp-bed, reading a copy of Playboy. He lowered it and glanced up when they entered.
‘Filth,’ Jimbo said with a straight face, keeping his head low to avoid scraping the top of the tent as he moved to his own side of it.
‘What’s that, Sarge? Filth? A bit of arse and tit never hurt anyone, Sarge. And it does give me something to think about.’
‘You should be thinking of your nice girlfriend, Cathy,’ Jimbo said, ‘instead of wanking over that filthy rag.’
‘I swear I haven’t laid a hand on myself, Sarge,’ Larry said, grinning without embarrassment. ‘What’s more, I only buy this so-called filthy rag for Hugh Hefner’s profound articles on the Playboy philosophy – about sex, morality, hypocrisy and the need to be free. Really deep stuff, it is.’
‘Yeah, so I’ve heard. He writes it when he’s getting inspiration on his big round bed with birds all around him. A deep thinker that one – or deep diver, more like.’
‘I’m taking everything,’ Dead-eye said to Jimbo as he carefully packed his kit into his bergen. ‘I’m leaving nothing behind for this lot of thieves. You should do the same.’
Dead-eye never discussed things like sex. Ever since he and his wife had divorced, he had kept to himself, having the odd affair, but not really becoming involved. Dead-eye did not like revealing his emotions and sex could make you do that. For that reason, it was best to treat it as a purely physical necessity. Life was easier that way.
‘I will,’ Jimbo replied, also packing his kit into his bergen carefully so that all of it would fit. ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Callaghan must have a trusting nature, but you and I know better.’
‘Are you suggesting I’d steal your kit?’ Larry asked, looking outraged.
‘Not you,’ Jimbo said. ‘You wouldn’t steal it because you’re in here. But those other bastards’ – he nodded towards the tent flaps, indicating the other SAS tents outside – ‘would think we’re a right pair of ponces if we left any kit behind. Then they’d nick it on principle.’
‘You think so?’
Jimbo grinned and shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Not really. It’s just bad luck to leave your kit behind. All right, Dead-eye, I’m ready.’
‘Where are you off to, then?’ Larry asked.
‘On a little trip,’ Dead-eye replied. ‘We’ll be away for a couple of days, so you can have all this space to yourself.’
‘To study philosophy,’ Jimbo added ironically. ‘See you soon, kid.’
They ducked even lower to leave the tent. Straightening up outside, they headed across the clearing, passing a sandbagged gun emplacement, to reach the helicopter LZ just beyond the perimeter. The Wessex had landed and was being unloaded by troops stripped to the waist and gleaming with sweat. Callaghan was standing under the slowly revolving props of the smaller Sikorski, holding his beret on his head as he gave covering instructions for his absence to Captain Ellsworth. He finished talking just as Dead-eye and Jimbo reached the chopper.
‘Ah, good,’ he said. ‘You’re here already. Clamber aboard, men.’ Hauling up their bergens, Dead-eye and Jimbo climbed up into the Sikorski. They were strapping themselves into their seats, placing their bergens between their legs, when Callaghan followed them in and was in turn followed by the RAF crewman. The latter closed the door behind them, then bawled to the pilot that they were ready for take-off. Within seconds, the engines were roaring and the props were rotating at full speed, surrounding the chopper with a whirlwind of sand that it left behind only when it lifted up well above the earth. Glancing down as the chopper ascended, the three SAS men saw the collection of tents and circle of defensive hedgehogs shrinking until they had merged with the surrounding landscape of lava and desert, finally disappearing completely into it.
Only when the Whirlwind had stopped climbing and was flying horizontall
y above the parched mountain peaks was Callaghan able to make himself heard at all above the now reduced noise of the engines. Even so, he was forced to shout the whole time, and finally he said he would tell them what they needed to know when they were back on the ground.
They landed shortly afterwards at the RAF airfield at Aden. From there they were driven in a British Army 4x4 Willys jeep, which carried them along a dusty road to the military complex at Khormaksar, where the SAS Keeni-Meeni men were located. Sitting in the front of the jeep and now able to speak without shouting, Callaghan twisted around to face his two sergeants and explain what ‘Keeni-Meeni’ meant.
‘The kind of clandestine plain-clothes operations we’re mounting here originated with Major Frank Kitson during Kenya’s Mau Mau campaign, which the SAS was briefly involved in. This led to the formation of a few so-called ‘counter gangs’, or anti-terrorist teams, composed of former terrorists and loyal tribesmen led by British officers disguised as natives. The same type of operation was also used in Cyprus as the basis of the undercover “Q” units.
‘However, when we first set up a Close Quarters Battle course here for a carefully selected group of SAS troopers, we knew that there was no hope of ‘turning round’ Arab terrorists and so decided to function more like the “Q” squads of the Palestine police as started by Roy Farran, a veteran of the wartime SAS who used a lot of his old buddies from that period. In some instances this involves driving around in Q cars, or unmarked cars, searching out possible Yemeni agents. In others, it involves picking up terrorists alive and bringing them in for questioning. But often it simply means shooting them before they manage to shoot you, which is exactly what they’ll do if they recognize you. It’s a highly dangerous, face-to-face business that requires lots of nerve.’
‘So the basic idea,’ Dead-eye said, taking lots of nerve for granted, ‘is for disguised, plain-clothes SAS men to go into the alleyways and souks of Aden for undercover surveillance and the odd assassination.’
‘An ugly word, Dead-eye, but I think you’ve got the message.’
‘Keeni-Meeni’s not such an ugly word. What does it mean?’
‘It comes from a Swahili phrase that describes the movement of a snake in the long grass: sinuous and unseen. The same term later became a synonym in Africa – and with the slave trade in the Arabian Gulf – for undercover work. The British army picked it up during the Mau Mau campaign, and from Kenya it travelled to the SAS, here in Aden. We, however, relate it specifically to operations involving a standard operating procedure known as the double tap, which is what you’re going to learn in one day as part of your quick CQB course in Khormaksar … Talking of which …’
Callaghan indicated straight ahead with a nod of his head as the jeep approached the heavily guarded military complex. After being checked thoroughly by the sentries at the gate, which had heavily armed sangars on either side, they were driven straight to Ballycastle House, a block of flats formerly used as married quarters but now the operational centre for the twenty-odd members of the SAS Keeni-Meeni squad. Once inside, they were introduced to Sergeant-Major Monnery, who was with the Long Range Desert Group during World War Two and was a founder member of the SAS, a ‘green slime’ SNCO, and now the man in charge of the Keeni-Meeni teams in Aden.
‘As time is of the essence I’ll now take my leave,’ Callaghan said. ‘Sergeant-Major Monnery will show you the ropes and return you to me when, and if, you succeed. Good luck, men.’
When the CO had left, Jimbo said: ‘Well, well! If it isn’t Wild Bill Monnery of the LRDG. And looking twenty years younger instead of twenty years older. Remember me, Sergeant-Major?’
‘How could I forget you?’ Monnery replied. ‘Came crawling out of the African desert on your hands and knees, bloodied, blistered, black and blue, but with a grin on your stupid face.’ He was referring to the extraordinary trek across the North African desert which Jimbo had made with other SAS men, including the legendary Captain John ‘Jock’ Lewes, creator of the Lewes bomb, after the raid against the Axis airfield at Nofilia in December 1941. As the LRDG sergeant in charge of the transport at the RV, ‘Wild Bill’ Monnery had been there to witness the extraordinary sight of the sun-scorched, tattered SAS men, having lost their transport, walking, stumbling and, as in Jimbo’s case, crawling on hands and knees back to the RV after days in the desert. Now he grinned and put out his beefy hand to let Jimbo shake it. ‘Nice to see you, Jimbo.’
‘Nice to see you, Wild Bill.’
‘Sergeant-Major Monnery to you,’ Wild Bill replied with mock outrage, withdrawing his hand and wiping it delicately on his shorts. ‘Ah, well, here we go again.’ He grinned at the impassive Dead-eye. ‘And you’re …?’
‘Sergeant Richard Parker.’
‘Known as Dead-eye,’ Jimbo said.
‘Ah, yes!’ Wild Bill said softly, in admiration. ‘I’ve heard all about you. The Telok Anson swamp and …’
‘That’s right,’ Dead-eye interjected curtly. ‘So what happens now?’
Experienced enough to know that there were barriers you did not cross, Wild Bill just nodded, then said, ‘All right, men, come with me. I’ll explain what we’re up to on the way to the indoor firing range. But first you’ll have to be kitted out with an Arab futah, which is what you’ll be wearing when you go out on your mission.’ He led them straight to a store room where a British Army private gave each of them an Arab robe, which they were told to put on immediately. This they did with considerable amusement, studying one another with wide grins when they had slipped their futahs over their heads and let them hang down around their body.
‘We still don’t look like Arabs,’ Dead-eye said.
‘You will when the times comes,’ Wild Bill said. ‘Now let’s get to the firing range.’
‘What we’re doing here,’ he told them as he led them along another corridor past the doors of the former married quarters, ‘is exploiting the trick we developed in Palestine: namely, to disguise ourselves as locals, blend in with the local scenery and way of life, and seize on our targets as the opportunity arises. The high-risk areas of Crater and Sheikh Othman are like rabbit warrens, a maze of narrow alleys jam-packed with shops, stalls, Arabs and animals. You move there hemmed in on all sides, close up, practically nose to nose with your targets. For this reason, when we look for suitable SAS candidates for the Keeni-Meeni squads, we pick men who most resemble Arabs, with the hooked nose and prominent cheekbones of the Semite.’
‘My nose is classically beautiful,’ Jimbo said. ‘I’m obviously in the wrong place.’
‘We had to make an exception with you two,’ Wild Bill said, ‘because of the urgency of this situation. You were chosen not for your looks but because you’ve proven yourselves expert with the handgun and are known to be daring.’
‘That’s us!’ Jimbo chirped.
‘However, while you already know how to fire your 9-milli,’ Monnery continued, referring to the Browning High Power handgun, ‘what we’re going to teach you is the double tap, which is the ability to very quickly draw the Browning from the folds of that futah you’re wearing and fire it with perfect accuracy at close range.’
He led them through another door, into a large gymnasium converted into a combined firing range and CQB training area. It was, they noticed immediately, filled with Fijian SAS men, including a truly enormous soldier, well over six feet tall.
‘Our Fijian brothers,’ Wild Bill said. ‘That black giant you’re all staring at is Corporal Labalaba, the best Keeni-Meeni man we’ve got. Naturally his kind blends in with the scenery like you never could.’ Wild Bill grinned broadly. ‘You have to be careful of men like Labalaba. Not so long ago the Royal Anglian Regiment’s Special Branch made the mistake of putting some men into the Sheikh Othman district without telling us. Armed and dressed as Arabs, they were mistaken for terrorists by Labalaba’s plain-clothes patrol and shot to hell in a few seconds. Labalaba doesn’t stop to ask questions, so watch out.’ Turning towards a dark-haire
d, grinning SAS corporal who had just approached them, swathed in a futah, he said: ‘And this is …’
‘Trooper Terry Malkin!’ Dead-eye explained, giving a rare grin. ‘I forgot you’d be posted here, Terry.’
‘Three months in the rabbit warrens of Aden,’ Terry replied. ‘It beats rotting at home.’
The two men shook hands.
‘In the three months he’s been here,’ Wild Bill told them, ‘Trooper Malkin’s become one of our best Keeni-Meeni operators. Unfortunately for us, three months is the limit for anyone engaged in this work, so after he joins you in this operation, he’ll be rejoining the Regiment – going back with you, in fact. In the meantime, he’ll teach you all you need to know and take you out on that patrol. Since he’s not going to be here tomorrow, it won’t matter if he’s identified in the souks.’
‘Terry’s going to teach me to shoot?’ Dead-eye asked, already looking offended.
‘Not to shoot,’ Wild Bill replied. ‘To double tap while wearing that Arab gear, which is something quite different. Now you take note, Dead-eye.’ Grinning, Wild Bill took a seat in a hard wooden chair nearby and lit up a cigarette, letting Terry take over.
Instead of having them get used to the firing range, Terry first demonstrated the double tap.
‘This SOP was devised by Major Roy Farran during World War Two,’ he explained, ‘but Farran taught his men what was then this rather unorthodox triangular firing posture …’ – Terry demonstrated the stance – ‘known as the “Grant-Taylor Method”. He also insisted that his men should be able to put six rounds through a playing-card at 15 yards.’
Suddenly, with startling speed, Terry spun to the side, whipped a Browning 9mm High Power handgun out from under his robes, spread his legs, raised the pistol two-handed in the triangular firing posture and fired off six shots in quick succession at the target at the end of the firing alley. Only when he had finished firing did the half-deafened men see that his target had been an Ace of Hearts suspended where a proper target would normally have been. A large jagged hole indicated that practically all six shots had gone through the centre of the card.
