by John Macrae
Looking back I can picture that scene as if it was yesterday. After the tension and fear of our flight across the desert, it had an almost euphoric air to it, despite the grimness of our situation. Jamal's vehicle commanders listened attentively while he outlined the options, then gravely heard their views. People talk about the noble Arab, but frankly, I've never seen it myself; just dirt and deceit. Even with the Kurds, who are different again. But I suppose that there, in the blue shade of the ravine bottom, with its reddish walls rising sheer for hundreds of feet and the glare of the sun cut off, Jamal stood out like the warrior leader he was. Looking at him, you could understand how Saladin had carved up the crusaders all those years ago. Jamal's hawk-like nose and dark beard made him appear dignified and imperious, and his planning was clear and professional. Even I found myself nodding at his tactics as we all kicked the options around. At the end, he addressed us. His studied theatricality seemed right in that situation and inspired confidence.
"Lastly, my children, I alone am to blame for this. I took time for the vendetta, and that time allowed the lovers of evil to smite us. Nevertheless," and his eyes flashed in the shadow of his loose turban, "Nevertheless, I took my vengeance as a matter of family honour." The commanders murmured approvingly. Ra’ashid, his favourite, a blonde Aryan, spoke up.
"There is none here who would not have done the same, Jamal al Faud." He stared at me, daring me to dissent. I stared back, then slowly nodded. By the standards of the Kurds, Jamal had done right. The group murmured approvingly again, and Jamal inclined his head in recognition of my support. Ra’ashid smiled briefly, his pale blue eyes bright.
Jamal continued, "So, we head north up the valley and into the pass of Kani Rash. They cannot strike us from the air in there. We will be as safe as the scorpion under the rocks. And we all know how the English likes to be safe under the rocks," he added, nodding at me. Even I joined in the laughter. "I shall lead in the convoy and act as scout vehicle. Ra’ashid, you will command the main body. English - will you guard our rear?" Again, I nodded.
Jamal walked abruptly away, and Ra'ashid and I looked at each other, knowing that the first vehicle to be banjoed if any Iranians were lying in ambush would be Jamal's.
We had covered about two thousand metres up the valley, I reckoned, when I heard firing ahead, followed by a series of heavy booms. I waited, then, ignoring my rear guard orders, closed in on the back of the convoy. We rounded a pillar of rock, to a scene of confusion.
The gloomy track had widened here, opening out into a little valley before it plunged back into the mouth of the dark pass leading up deeper into the mountains. The little convoy of trucks was stopped in the sunlight, about a mile ahead, strung along the valley bottom. Further along the track, and only clearly visible through binoculars, Jamal's leading Toyota lay on its side. From our corner, the panorama stretched away for about 3,000 metres, as the valley ran straight towards the north. Three silent bursts of dust and smoke suddenly fountained up around the distant trucks and a moment later the three explosions echoed round the hills.
Mortars! That explained the booms we had heard. My Japanese radio crackled and Ra’ashid's voice, heavily distorted, could be heard giving his orders. I strained to pick up the Kurdish; apparently he was going to rush the entrance to the pass. I waited, engine ticking and looked at Nusret and Yusif who looked back questioningly. I pointed back down the way we'd come and called "Watch our rear!"
They nodded, but their gaze strayed to the valley to our front where all the vehicles were now moving and the furious distant popping of small arms fire showed that Ra’ashid's charge was on. The Iranian group had selected their ambush point carefully. They had sealed off the way out of the valley like a cork in a bottle, blocking off the open neck of the wadi where it narrowed into the dark gateway into the mountains to the north. Anyone driving north had to go through that pass.
Fortunately, there were not enough Iranians or weapons to plug the gap effectively. I calculated that the Hip helicopter could only move about 15 men at this range; if half that weight was mortar, men or ammunition, then only 10 at most could be left to fight off about twenty desperate Kurds and almost as many machine guns.
Through my glasses I watched the drama unfold. Two of Ra’ashid's vehicles slowed to a halt, but the rest fanned out on either side of the entrance to the pass. Even at this distance the fury of the fire fight was obvious. Bright red and green tracers bounced off the rocks. Then the mortar fire stopped, and I could see tiny figures moving up the sides of the pass. After another lengthy exchange of fire, the wadi fell silent. Then Ra’ashid's trucks began to move forward.
Suddenly Ali grabbed my arm and I glanced up from my glasses. Jabbering with excitement he pointed. Hovering just above the horizon, about a mile off to our right, was the dark blob of a helicopter slowly sweeping round the convoy's flank. Even as I watched, it sank below the line of the cliffs, but the clatter of its rotor could faintly be heard.
Suddenly I realised what I had to do to lend a hand in the struggle. "Quick, Ali - Yusif! Give me the SAM!"
For a second they stared, then, galvanised into action, pulled the long tube of a SAM-7 from its sacking roll in the back. I inspected it carefully, looking for dents or damage. We only had two, one Czech and one Libyan. I don't like the SAM-7. As a surface to air missile it's old-fashioned and under-powered, but at least it's not British. We didn't want to leave embarrassing evidence littering the Iranian mountains, after all. I'd much rather use a US Stinger, personally, but Sal wasn't having any of that. "Deniability, my friend, deniability. There isn't one goddam bit of equipment on this vehicle that is traceable to Uncle Sam," had been his mantra over equipment. So the old SAM 7 it was. If I could remember how to use the bloody thing.
I turned on the battery at the front and pulled out the sight. The little ear piece clucked to show it was working. Nusret reached up, and rolling his eyes, removed the canvas end caps from the blast tube which I had forgotten to do.
"Careful, See'dee," he said mockingly.
I grunted and sighted the missile on the rock face where the Hip had disappeared. It was still there; the engine noise carried faintly. I held my breath and swore; "Come on, come on." A trickle of sweat dribbled past my eyebrow and one of the Turks coughed and scuffed his feet . Rashid’s fire fight suddenly poppled away again in the distance.
Then I saw it. The black tadpole shape of a Hip helicopter, rising clumsily behind the line of the jebel and crawling just above the hills.
The seeker head crackled encouragingly but nothing happened. The Hip was too low, merging into the shadow of the horizon. Suddenly he swung up and did a swooping wing-over to pull away. He'd probably dropped another fire team as a picquet on the hill crest. The earpiece squawked, then gave a clear bell-like tone as it locked on. I pulled the contact handle and the thing exploded in my face.
The trouble with the SAM-7 - as with many of these older shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles - is that the rocket motor blows up in your face as the flame and debris burn. Fortunately it doesn't last for long, but I distinctly felt my eyebrows crisp. By the time I remembered that the Soviets used to provide a pair of cheap goggles to protect the firer, the missile was well on its way, along with my most of my eyebrows. Thank God for the scruffy beard. I could smell burnt hair.
Peering through the cloud of choking sand, I saw the red flare of the SAM’s tail receding. As the dust cleared we could see the helicopter at the top of its flight, just beginning to move off. The red dot of the missile swerved and began to make erratic circles in the sky as its heat seeker sniffed the tantalising exhaust of the helicopter's engine. Red dot and black tadpole seemed to hang in the air for seconds and I held my breath. Suddenly the helicopter's silhouette foreshortened to a blob as it swung away. Over my shoulder I heard the collective intake of breath. Then the tiny red dot went out.
Even at that distance, we saw the bits fly. There was no perceptible explosion, just a few dark fragments. For a mom
ent nothing seemed to happen. Then, ludicrously slowly, the helicopter began to turn and drop. The turn became a swing, then a spiral and then it was rotating steadily on its axis as it began to drop like a falling leaf. Nose down and spinning, the HIP disappeared behind the black crest of the Jebel. A huge ball of flame and black smoke erupted, then hung like a pall in the sky, followed a second or so later by the flat crump of the explosion as it rang around the cliffs.
I was nearly catapulted over by Nusret and Yusif's whoops of delight and claps on the back. When I recovered, the clowns were capering around like a pair of dancing bears.
We didn't have time for self-congratulation. Ra’ashid was nowhere to be seen. He had disappeared up the valley at the far end of the wadi; the helicopter's demise merely made his task easier. "Knock it off, you two - we've still got to get past that lot!" I could hear no more firing.
Sobered, they climbed back and we drove cautiously up the open wadi bottom. As I drove, the two Kurds scanned the rock faces as I tried to contact Ra’ashid on the crackling walkie-talkie, but nothing came back except static. Very slowly we threaded the flat pan of the valley bottom and edged up to the shadow of the pass ahead, like a huge gateway, past Jamal's burnt out Toyota. At one point a burst of tracer banged overhead, the bullets glowing like red bees as they swarmed away into the gloomy rocks and splashed up into the sky. The distant sound of the machine gun followed much later as the abandoned Iranians fired from the spot where the helicopter had dropped them; but they were miles out of range.
As we crept into the shadow of the pass, the rock walls came closer, seeming to press in on us. Of Jamal, Ra'ashid and his trucks there was now no sign, although wheel tracks led round the bend and an abandoned American deuce and a half truck sat silent, its tyres shot out, its windscreen smashed and a bleeding and crumpled body sprawled half out of the cab face down on the sand. We stopped to help, but there were only dead men and flies, so we took their dieso cans and re-mounted. Ra’ashid's men had taken all the water already.
We crawled up the pass, the Landrover whining noisily in second gear. At any moment I expected to see either Ra’ashid's trucks or feel the crash of an ambush as the remaining Iranian soldiers opened up. But nothing happened. We just ground further up the gloomy ravine, hearts pounding, mouths dry and watching every rock crevice for a sniper. Where the hell was Ra’ashid and his gang? It was eerie. The deeper we drove up the pass, the narrower and darker it got. The track turned from sand to gravel and the wheel tracks faded, but Ra’ashid's party could only have passed this way.
After about a quarter of an hour I became worried and tried to speed up, but the old Rover didn't like that, so after a series of shattering bangs and crashes punctuated by much tongue clicking from my two uncomfortable passengers, I slowed down again. Nusret sensed my concern, for without being told he leaned over and grabbed the radio. His puzzled Kurdish was just as fruitless as my earlier queries. After about half an hour we were all worried. Ra'ashid and his survivors had about five kilometres start on us from his end of the open pass. Add a bit on for our missile engagement and searching the stricken deuce and a half, and he could be over twenty minutes ahead at least, for we had averaged about ten miles per hour so far. If Ra’ashid's gang had belted north the minute they had slaughtered the Iranian blocking force, they could be over an hour away. And even half an hour at twenty miles per hour was ten miles ahead: minimum.
I was concerned, to put it mildly. Ra'ashid had all the men, all my spare diesel and stores, and was the only real source of help for a hundred and fifty miles of mountains averaging 7,000 feet. I was more than concerned: I was worried sick. After another half hour, the engine started to get hot, so we stopped at the top of the pass to wait for it to cool. While Nusret tried to raise anyone on the radio and Yusif relieved himself behind a rock, I pored over the map Sal had provided. It was depressing viewing. Not only did the sheet consist mainly of blank grid squares, but about 10 miles to the north I knew that a cold and nasty decision lay ahead.
I worked out that we were now about 40 miles north west of Hasak. That made us about 10 miles from the end of the pass where it reached the crest, deep in the high mountains. As long as we stayed in the pass we were safe from pursuing Iranian aircraft - unless they put another helicopter full of troops up ahead. The problem was that once we got to the mouth of the pass it levelled out into a wide plateau, about 20 miles across, like a huge saucer between the peaks. Anyone moving across that open expanse by day would be a sitting duck if the Iranians put up reconnaissance or an airstrike.
Ra'ashid should wait at the top of the pass, hoping to lie up until after dark. I hoped so. No-one but a desperate fool would risk a flat dash across the open expanse of sand towards the safety of the Iraqi mountains to the west in daylight with the Ayatollah’s bloody warplanes buzzing around. Too dangerous. But if Ra'ashid did do something stupid, then it left me abandoned, still with the same problem and that nasty decision. If only the bloody radio would work. I looked at the map again. If the plateau looked like a clock face then we would hit it at about four o’clock. There was a clear fork in the track marked at the end of the pass. The right hand dotted line followed the eastern side of the saucer hugging the mountains and the Turkish border to the north. But the left hand fork ran right across the centre of the open plateau due west, back toward the safety of the Iraqi mountains. Which way to go now?
There was no conceivable way that Ra'ashid would lead his men north, despite the safety of the hills and the Turkish border. The Turkish authorities would not exactly welcome another bunch of renegade Kurds, armed to the teeth. Safety for them lay west. However, our logical escape route was round the clock face to the right, north to the Turkish border. It was the only safe escape route anyway, whether I met Ra’ashid or not. I just wasn't sure how Ra'ashid would take being abandoned by his paymaster and acting rear-guard. But was Ra’ashid waiting for us at the end of the pass. Had he decided to abandon us?
I showed the map to Nusret and Yusif, and traced the route to Hakari and north to the Turkish border with my finger. Nusret, of his own volition, promptly pointed to the right fork and traced the line due north. Yusif grinned slyly and they both looked at me. I shrugged.
"Maybe Ra’ashid will be waiting for us at the end of the pass." They looked thoughtful. "You will wish to rejoin the Pesh', your friends?" This time Nusret shrugged and looked carefully at Yusif.
"Insh'sha'Allah," he said non-committally, in the universal Arabic phrase of the Muslim world. "As God wills." I got the message.
"Let us drive carefully north to the end of the pass, my friends. At the fork in the track we shall see what we shall see." They exchanged glances again. Nusret spoke for them both.
"But not too fast, Quaa'id?"
I looked shocked. "Laa'samah'Allah," I intoned. "God forbid."
So it was. We drove gently up through what remained of the pass. I nursed the engine to save fuel. Gradually the rock walls on either side began to grow further apart; little by little the cliffs were not so high as we neared the final crest. The sky above got wider and bigger. Soon the narrow straight pass became a broad canyon winding due north. The gravelly track became sandier and the deep ruts of fresh tyre tracks showed that Ra’ashid had passed this way. Occasionally I stopped and listened on the radio, but no-one was talking.
Only static met our calls for a radio check. Finally, by noon, we came to the top of the pass, high in the mountains. In front of us, a dazzling white plateau of sand and gravel opened out in the glaring sun, like a broad sea with distant mountain tops in the distance. To the north were the peaks on the Turkish border, far away; and, far off to the left, the plateau disappeared over the horizon to the blue peaks of the Kurdish mountains to the west. I stopped the Landrover and gazed ahead to the north. Ra’ashid's tyre tracks could clearly be seen as they fanned out from the exit from the pass onto the sandy plateau. About a thousand yards ahead they could be seen equally clearly swinging hard to the left, then runni
ng straight as railway tracks across the open bay of sand -- due west towards Iraq and Kurdistan. Ra’ashid had fled. He had abandoned us. Who could blame him?
I reversed the Rover back into the mouth of the pass and the shade. Then we climbed onto a rock where I could scan the plateau through the binoculars. Nothing. Ra’ashid and the trucks must have had a good hour’s start: on this flat going they could be twenty miles away by now – easily. I and took stock of our situation. Perhaps Ra'ashid thought we too had got the chop in the pass and had pressed on. Who could tell?
I did some sums. By now we were down to one full tank of dieso in the Rover; about 10 gallons. In addition, we had our own four spare jerricans, each with four and a half gallons - say a total of 16 gallons, allowing for wastage - plus the three jerricans taken from the deuce and a half - another 12 gallons. With one tank and 28 extra gallons, I worked out that with a reserve we had fuel enough for about 280 miles at l0 miles per gallon, and a lot less if we found bad going or had to detour. Nusret filled the empty tank as I worked and Yusif checked the water.
The decision was hanging over me, when a low rumble made us look at each other in alarm. Instinctively we pressed into the shade. A second later a pair of jets roared over, heading north west, one on either side of the pass and dropping to low level as they cleared the hills. Then they barrelled away into the distance, banking hard to their left. From the stubby fuselage and little wings I recognised them as bombed-up ex-Russian Sukhoi 25s. Ground attack variant. Probably from Tabriz air base a hundred miles to the south east. . . .