The Thirty Days War

by John Harris

  Boumphrey stared at the stars and saw them swinging. ‘Five minutes I think, then a ninety-degree turn to port. That’ll carry us east. Another five minutes then a turn forty-five degrees to port. Then the palms and the huts of Bisha should be visible.’ He stared at the sky again. The moon was rising and the river was flecked with silver as the sky beyond grew lighter, throwing the land into sharper silhouette.

  The murmurings from the boat lashed alongside had died down now that they had turned downstream and the motion of the boat had subsided a little. Boumphrey moved to that side of the tender, checking the lashings and speaking reassuringly to the occupants of the bumboat.

  ‘Ahmed has been sick,’ someone said cheerfully. ‘He is no sailor. Aziz rather fancies cutting his throat because he was sick on Aziz.’

  ‘Tell Aziz,’ Boumphrey said, ‘to save his bloodthirstiness for the Irazhis. We shall soon be going ashore.’

  The ninety-degree turn came up and, shortly afterwards, the forty-five degree turn.

  ‘There’s Bisha,’ Boumphrey said.

  ‘I see the palms, sir.’

  ‘There’s a wooden jetty running out from the bund. Can you put us alongside without carrying it away?’

  ‘No trouble, sir. I’ll come upstream of it and let the current carry us on it.’

  The muttering in the boat alongside began again as they turned broadside on to the current and the motion started once more, but this time it was overlaid with the excitement of their arrival. The tender’s diesels throbbed as the sharp nose edged in. A slash of spray came over that raised a low wail of protest from the boat alongside and a series of warnings to be quiet. It was possible to see a few faint lights in the mud huts among the reeds beyond the bund, as though crude oil lamps were burning.

  ‘Can I use the searchlight, sir?’

  ‘I’ve got a torch. Let’s use that instead. It’ll attract less attention.’

  The beam picked out the wooden jetty almost immediately and the tender edged in. There was a soft thump as the boat lashed alongside touched. It was Bisha all right, a place of crude mud huts festering along the bank, unlovely against the landscape. Among the few date palms and withered trees that struggled upwards, it was basically as medieval as in the days of Genghis Khan, with the same despair, the same ragged people, the same swollen-bellied children. A dead buffalo lay in the water near the bank, the hair all gone from the hide and the white ribs bursting through. Around it the water looked curdled, though the people of Bisha didn’t hesitate to use it to drink – or, for that matter, to wash away their defecations. The air was noisy with the croaking of frogs.

  The deck hand and the fitter were ashore with ropes, lashing them to the poles that held the jetty, and Boumphrey gestured to the men in the boat alongside.

  ‘Ashore,’ he said. ‘Quickly. And no noise.’

  The boards of the jetty creaked under the feet of the hurrying men. Then Sergeant Porlock and his three assistants, their feet clad in gym shoes, climbed from the tender and followed them. Boumphrey was the last to go. As he reached the jetty he turned to the coxswain.

  ‘If there’s trouble,’ he said, ‘it’s up to you to go. But leave it to the last moment in case anybody turns up.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Boumphrey climbed ashore, reflecting that, despite being in the middle of the desert, the marine craft men still managed to retain their seafaring habits.

  His men were standing in a line on the bund. The frogs’ chatter had died as they had gone ashore. He waved them over the bank to the lower ground where they weren’t silhouetted against the sky, and they organised themselves quickly into four parties, Sergeant Porlock or one of the armourers with each.

  ‘The job’s to be done quickly,’ Boumphrey pointed out quietly. ‘Then away. Don’t waste time.’

  There was a murmur of assent and he climbed the bank to a point halfway up and began to lead the way. After a quarter of an hour, he stopped and, as Porlock and the armourers gathered round him, he gestured.

  ‘Four of ’em,’ he said. ‘There, there, there and there.’

  ‘I can see a wireless aerial, sir,’ one of the armourers said.

  He pointed and Boumphrey nodded. ‘That’ll be number one. According to the education officer, the others are stationed at thirty-yard intervals eastwards. Move along the bank, count your steps then halt. I’ll give you ten minutes. After that I’ll fire the Very pistol. It ought to start a few people moving and there will probably be lights. So go straight in on them. Right?’

  There were murmurs of assent and he waved them away, Porlock first, stumping off with his bag of explosives, his small eyes bright with excitement. The armourer stood quietly at Boumphrey’s side, behind him half a dozen men of the legion waited patiently.

  Boumphrey studied his watch then he lifted his head. ‘Ready?’

  The armourer nodded and Boumphrey lifted the Very pistol.

  ‘Here goes,’ he said.

  The gate in the iron fence at the other side of the camp stood open, held by a man of the Loyals. Beyond, outside the camp in what was now enemy territory, Verity’s levies had gathered to the left. Jenno’s cars had not moved since they had arrived because of the danger of their engines alerting the Irazhis on the slopes. Near them, but on the outside of the wire, stood the half-company of the Loyals, led by a lieutenant and a burly sergeant major who seemed to be the very essence of military hostility.

  Jenno stared at the gaunt outline of the hills and then at his watch, his eyes worried. ‘What’s happened?’ he said. ‘Boumphrey should be in position by this time.’

  He studied the sky to the north, wondering what was happening, then, as he stared, Flight Sergeant Madoc alongside him flung out an arm.

  ‘There, sir!’

  A red Very light was soaring into the sky beyond the camp and they clambered aboard their cars as it burst into a brilliant red glow that shone on the roofs of the buildings and the surface of the distant river. Immediately, Verity’s levies set off at a half-run along the edge of the escarpment and turned left on to the road that led upwards to the north and east. Jenno’s cars began to growl forward, bumping and swaying outside the wire fence.

  Almost at once, they saw two Irazhi armoured cars in front of them, parked among the rocks at the bottom of the escarpment, and as Madoc opened fire they saw his tracer bullets striking the turret of the nearest and leaping into the air. As the Loyals surged forward, the machine gun stopped and the big sergeant major appeared from the shadows, and raised his hand to slip a grenade through the slit of the enemy car’s turret. There was a flash and a bang and the turret seemed to bulge. The machine gun, just beginning to move round towards Jenno’s cars, came to a halt, and the car seemed to sag back, immobilised. The second car began to move but Jenno’s driver jammed his foot hard down and they leaped forward, ramming it with the armour-plated nose. The enemy car rolled on its springs and came to a stop, its front wheels twisted inwards as if it were crippled. Immediately the hatch opened and a man leaped out and thrust his hands in the air.

  ‘They’re yours, Sergeant Major,’ Jenno said. ‘Hang on to them. We’ll tow ’em in as we come back. Let’s have your men behind us. We’re going up the slope.’

  Swinging to their left, the four cars began to growl in low gear up the rocky path to the escarpment. At the top they almost ran into two men who were standing on the roadway staring down at the point where the attack had taken place. Jenno’s machine gun rattled and they toppled over among the rocks. Almost immediately, they saw more men armed with rifles running towards them. As the gun went again and several of them fell, the rest turned tail, throwing down their rifles as they ran.

  ‘Go ahead, Sergeant Major,’ Jenno shouted. ‘We’ll cover you.’

  The Loyals swept past and they saw grenades being flung. A shrub caught fire and in the light of the flames, they caught glimpses of soldiers in the gun positions. There were cries of terror and anguish, a few more explosions, the clatte
r of rifle fire, then silence. A few minutes more then the Loyals reappeared. They were carrying machine guns that didn’t belong to them.

  ‘We smashed what we couldn’t carry,’ the sergeant major said. ‘The bastards were still wondering what hit ’em.’

  ‘Right,’ Jenno said. ‘Get back down the slope. We’ll cover you.’

  As the Loyals hurried past, the cars began to turn in the narrow road. It wasn’t easy in the dark but they managed it, each taking up a position to cover the others as they manoeuvred. At the bottom of the slope, the Loyals had emptied the two disabled cars of their crews. Two bloodied corpses lay alongside one. Alongside the other four men stood with their hands in the air.

  ‘Like they was trying to claw their way up to heaven,’ one of the Loyals said.

  The sergeant major gestured at the car that had been rammed. ‘Hell of a job to tow that, sir,’ he said. ‘Wheels all haywire.’

  ‘Right, we’ll just take the other then. Put a grenade in the engine as we leave.’

  As they struggled back into the camp with the captured car, there was a dull thump and they saw pieces of bonnet panel fly into the air and heard the clang and clatter as they crashed down among the rocks.

  ‘That’ll not be used again for a long time,’ Jenno said as the Loyals came running past towards the gate. Taking up a position covering the slopes and the route the levies had taken, they waited in the darkness for the returning men.

  Moving forward in silence, Verity’s levies found the Irazhi gunners outside their trenches, staring towards the south-west where the bang of the first grenade had gone off. They fell on them immediately with rifle, bayonet and grenade. The Irazhis were completely surprised, standing in the open wondering what was happening, and as the levies went in, they yelled and fled among the rocks, heading for the gulleys and safety.

  Grenades were dropped, where possible, down the barrels of guns, and abandoned weapons were snatched up. For a quarter of an hour, the levies ranged among the gun positions shooting at anything that moved, then – as the Irazhis began to recover and they began to be fired on – Verity rallied them and they began to hurry backwards down the slope towards the gate.

  Reaching the gate, they found the armoured cars waiting. As they hurried through, the cars followed them, swinging round one by one to cover the retreat with their machine guns, then, as the last man passed through, the gate was pulled shut again and rolls of barbed wire were hauled into place by a lorry.

  By this time, the Irazhis above them had started firing wildly on the camp. They appeared to be doing little damage and a lot of the shells were going clean over the buildings towards the river where they could hear the sustained rattle of musketry.

  ‘Sounds as though Ratter’s enjoying himself,’ Jenno observed.

  Boumphrey found the first gun without difficulty and his men went in swiftly. Lights appeared and torches glowed but the crew were standing in the open watching the fireworks at the other side of the river and were totally unarmed. They were dispatched quickly and Boumphrey’s group had reached the gun when they heard an explosion over on their right.

  ‘Sounds as if Sergeant Porlock’s got a few fireworks of his own,’ Boumphrey said.

  The armourer swung open the breech of the gun and wrestled out the breechblock which was dropped into a sack.

  ‘Right, sir,’ he said. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘Back to the bank,’ Boumphrey said. ‘We’ll hold the way until the others pass through us.’

  A few moments later, there was another crash from where Porlock was operating and a flare of flame.

  ‘Sounds as if he’s found the ammunition, sir,’ the armourer said.

  As they waited, they saw figures hurrying towards them, then a machine gun opened up from further along the river, followed by musketry. Immediately the whole length of the bank opposite burst into flame as the eager men of the legion, anxious to be part of the fight, started firing with everything they possessed. Tracer bullets arc-ed across the river and the machine gun that had been firing became silent. As more firing started further along, the fire was switched to swamp it.

  The party from the next gun were among them now, panting, none of them hurt, the breechblock safely in the armourer’s sack.

  ‘See any sign of the others?’ Boumphrey asked.

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  A few minutes later, Porlock appeared, flushed with success. ‘Blew the bugger up, sir. Guncotton and a detonator just as I said. That one won’t fire again. Then I found the ammunition and put a spot more there. We lost one man. That chap who was sick. He was shot by the officer in charge of the gun. I couldn’t ’old your boys. They wiped the lot of ’em out after that.’

  Boumphrey nodded. ‘What about the other party?’ he said.

  ‘No sign of ’em.’

  The moon was high now and it was possible to see quite clearly. Then, to Boumphrey’s amazement he saw a group of men struggling along the bund with what appeared to be a gun.

  ‘Good Lor’,’ he said.

  The armourer who had been with the third party panted up. ‘Holy wars, sir, the buggers decided to bring the gun along. I couldn’t stop ’em. I’ve got the breech and if we do get it here we’ve got another gun – if we can get the bastard across the river.’

  Boumphrey stared about him, then he gestured to Porlock and the armourers. ‘Back to the boats,’ he said. ‘Get planks. We need planks. Tear up the jetty if necessary. We will take it with us.’

  Eight

  Boumphrey’s Belles were tearing round the camp in triumph, singing, cheering and boasting of their achievement. In addition to the 18-pounder, they had brought back a mortar and several Lee Enfield rifles.

  Jenno grinned. ‘What else did you get, Ratter?’

  ‘One man killed,’ Boumphrey said sadly.

  At the other side of the cantonment they had added an armoured car, a light gun and numerous other weapons to their armoury, though Sergeant Artificer Porlock didn’t think much of their acquisitions. ‘They’re in an ’orrible state,’ he complained. ‘Them wogs don’t know ’ow to look after a good weapon.’

  They had also taken several prisoners who were now busily indicating on the map to Osanna where their gun positions were situated. Though the night’s events had amounted to little more than a skirmish, they had clearly made the enemy nervous and as soon as daylight began to appear, shells began to come thick and fast from the escarpment, though the firing died away immediately the aeroplanes lifted off the ground. It was quite obvious that the Irazhis were concerned that their positions were now vulnerable, not only from the air but also from the ground, and their one desire seemed to be to keep them hidden.

  There had been no Irazhi aircraft over Kubaiyah for twenty-four hours because the Irazhi airfields had been paralysed by the attacks by the Wellingtons, Gladiators and Blenheims. Leaflets had also been dropped, but the air gunners who had had to push them out had found that the air that roared up the flare chute carried them back in a fiercely whirling mass of paper which stuck to the hydraulic oil that always settled on everything inside an aircraft. ‘Just like a bombed lavatory,’ Darling informed Boumphrey. After that, the gunners had pushed the packets out unwrapped in the hope that they might hit some aggressive Irazhi politician on the head.

  With the station now immune from shelling during daylight hours, things had become a lot easier but the attacks had still not caused the Irazhis to budge an inch from the ridge and, though the water tower remained untouched, the problem of the food supply was still having to be overcome by the shopping runs to the coast by the catering officer.

  Apart from those who were working in the hospital and had elected to stay, however, almost all the women and children had been flown out without casualties, though the officer running the Audax-Hart squadron in place of Wing Commander Atkin, had taken a bullet through the backside while escorting the DC2s and was now having to eat his meals off the mantelpiece and sleep on his face. ‘Seems to b
e an unlucky flight,’ he said.

  To his surprise, Boumphrey was given the flight in his place.

  ‘It doesn’t mean that you’ll fly nothing but Audaxes or Harts,’ Fogarty admitted. ‘Like the rest of us, you’ll have to fly whatever’s available, but it means you’ll be running it.’ He studied Boumphrey’s face. ‘Not that that means all that much, either,’ he said. ‘They’re crewed by anybody we can get, plus pupils. However–’ he sat back in his chair ‘–you can put up your second ring.’

  Boumphrey left Fogarty’s office feeling taller even than his six-foot-four.

  Though they had achieved all that they had intended, there was still danger. An attempt was now being made to help Craddock at Hatbah and several of the Gladiators and Oxfords had been sent in that direction. They returned to say they had scattered Fawzi’s troops, and soon afterwards a radio message was received from Lieutenant Colonel Barber, of the Engineers, indicating that they had taken advantage of the diversion to escape from the fort – though Craddock’s horses had had to be left behind – and the whole force had bolted west and were now within reach of the Palestine border.

  However, it was now known that German aircraft were known to have arrived from Syria and reconnaissance patrols had been sent northwards to try to find the field from which they were operating. The news worried the AVM a good deal because, despite their daytime failures, the night after Boumphrey’s raid across the river, as though in retaliation, the Irazhis on the ridge started firing on the cantonment after dark. It was new and unexpected and meant that after the hard work of the daytime flying there was now to be no rest after dusk.

  The AVM climbed to the lookout post above AHQ and stared at the dark shape of the ridge in the distance. As he watched, a gun fired and a shell, screaming across the fence, fell near the polo field.

  ‘They’ve pinpointed the most important targets in the camp,’ Vizard said. ‘They must have worked them out and they’re firing by map references.’