The Exit Club: Book 3: The Professionals

by Shaun Clarke

  For the next five hours, they halted every hour to take five and wet their parched throats with more water. They soon began to run short. An hour later, after six hours of climbing, they halted again – unfortunately not for the well, but because another of the men, this one carrying three radios and marching right in front of Marty, suddenly choked, vomited and collapsed.

  Tommy Taylor, who had special medical training, dropped immediately to his knees beside the unconscious man, loosened his webbing, removed the radios and other heavy kit, then hammered on his chest in an attempt to revive him. When this didn’t work, he applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but this also failed. Without thinking about his own diminishing supply, he opened the only one of his three bottles still containing water and poured some of it down the unconscious trooper’s throat. The man coughed and spluttered back to dazed consciousness just as RSM Patterson appeared on the scene, having walked back from the front of the column.

  Seeing the condition of the sick man, Patterson ordered four of the troopers to carry him all the way back down the mountain to the waiting Bedfords. The troopers would carry the stretcher two men at a time while the other two protected them, one out on point, the other as Tail-end Charlie. The men selected for this task were bitterly disappointed at being pulled out of the operation, but after the expected moans and groans they rolled the sick man onto a stretcher and commenced the long hike back down the mountainside. Then the column moved on again.

  Knowing that first light would be at 0530 hours, the CO marched his men mercilessly, following the hardy firqats uphill through the darkness, still with no sign of the promised well and its life-giving water. Even at this time of the morning, in that total, moonless darkness, the heat was clammy and suffocating, rendered worse by the dust kicked up by those hundreds of marching feet. More men choked and were sick.

  Marty began suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration: dry mouth and throat, swollen tongue, cracked lips. He also began to hear lurking adoo with every sound and to see them in the silhouetted outlines of rocks and outcroppings. Recalling that the adoo were superb marksmen, able to pick off enemy troops at distances so great they had been dubbed the ‘phantom enemy’, his imaginings along these lines became ever more vivid.

  As they pressed on, the firqats up front decided to lighten their heavy loads by discarding valuable items of kit such as ration cans, portable hexamine stoves and blocks of hexamine. These littered the upward trail and made the going even more difficult for the SAS troopers behind them. When reprimanded by RSM Patterson, the firqats started screaming angrily, threw their weapons to the ground, and threatened to return to the base camp. Appeased by Taff, who was able to relate to them, they picked up what they had just thrown down and continued the march.

  Nevertheless, as the climb continued, more men collapsed and either had to be revived or compelled to keep going, or, if they were in serious condition, sent back to the base camp.

  Eventually, about thirty minutes before first light, the men ahead began disappearing one by one over the skyline, filling Marty with the hope that this must be the summit of the plateau. In fact, it was a false crest, only leading down into anotherwadi. Marty’s GPMG team reached the bottom of that wadi just as dawn’s light appeared in the east.

  At the head of his hundred men, but behind the SAF and firqats, the CO consulted with RSM Patterson, both of them studying their maps by torchlight, neither looking pleased. Eventually, word came back down the line that the firqat guides, who should have known the way, had led the column in the wrong direction. Though exhausted and exasperated, the men did as they were ordered by the RSM, which was to turn back down the slope, circle around the mountainside until they came to the correct path, then commence the arduous climb again.

  An hour later, just after the sun had risen, they arrived, with churning stomachs and aching muscles, on the plateau of the mighty Jebel Dhofar.

  Marty sank gratefully to the ground, breathing harshly, completely drained. He felt oddly fearful.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As expected, the scrub ground being used as a makeshift adoo airstrip was deserted. This was confirmation that the otherSAS troop’s diversionary attack to the south had been successful in drawing the adoo away, hopefully long enough for the assault force to get entrenched above and around the airstrip, where they would wait for the adoo to return.

  Receiving instructions from a combination of radio communication and hand signals, the 250 men sank into the ground in a line that snaked in an enormous arc around the airstrip. The CO then moved the assault group, team by team, across the open ground, receiving no resistance whatsoever.

  Lying belly down on the ground, observing the mass of men advance towards the airstrip in small groups, jumping up and darting forward under cover of the others, then dropping down and jumping up again, Marty had the chance to study the terrain in the brightening dawn light. There were rocky, parched hills around the makeshift airstrip, but on the flatlands, on high elevations, he could see other makeshift runways and water gleaming in the area’s few watering holes. It was the watering holes, he knew, that made this area so valuable to the adoo and they would certainly fight fiercely to defend it. The airfields were little more than strips of level ground, levelled carefully by hand, surrounded by defensive trenches and the occasional hut of wood or corrugated iron. There were no control towers or even watchtowers. As for this particular airfield, Lympne, the adoo, in their zeal to defeat the SAS’s diversionary attack to the south, had failed to leave even one man on guard. The airfield was completely deserted.

  Gathering his men around him, the CO ordered Marty’s GPMG team to take up a position on the eastern flank of the airstrip, halfway up the hill overlooking it. The rest were to stay more or less where they were, taking up positions lower down the slope. Before they did so, however, they were reminded that the SAF and firqats would be leading the advance against the adoo and that the SAS would give covering fire only.

  With practically no rest, the very thought of climbing to his feet so soon filled Marty with an even deeper weariness. Nevertheless, he did so, once more shouldering the machine gun’s tripod, then leading Taff, Tommy and the new man, Trooper Larry Purvis, towards the hills rising east of the airstrip. The hike took longer than anticipated, nearly an hour, and when finally they arrived at their position they were sweaty and breathless.

  From here they had a panoramic view of the nearby hills and the valleys far below. The SAF and firqats had completely surrounded the airstrip. SAS troopers were marking the runway with coloured-smoke grenades for the reinforcements being flown in. It was 0815 hours and the sun was getting brighter, creating a massive jigsaw of shadow and light over parched hills and plains.

  Having divested themselves of their kit, Marty and his team proceeded to build a sangar by wrenching boulders out of the ground with their bare hands and stacking them in a rough circle. While they were doing so, Taff kept watch and also listened for incoming calls on the radio. The sangar took the shape of a semicircular dry-stone wall a metre high and two metres in diameter. When it was completed, they laid their Bergens, kit and personal weapons around the inner wall, then mounted the machine gun on the tripod and prepared it for action.

  ‘Right, boss,’ Purvis said to Marty, sitting back against the wall of the sangar, ‘she’s all set to go.’

  Glancing over the wall of the sangar, down the hillside, Marty saw that many other SAS teams had constructed similar sangars on the slopes overlooking three sides of the airstrip and were covering it with GPMGs, light anti-aircraft weapons and mortars. Below him, a good distance down the hill, Sergeant Crowley was sharing a sangar with troopers Welsh and Raglan, as well as a two-man mortar team. Not far to the right, all on his own, Sergeant Alan Hershey, a loner, was smoking a cigarette, studying the landscape, and resting his free hand on the sniper rifle lying on the wall of his small, one-man sangar. At the very bottom of the hill, on the level ground near the airstrip, SAF, firqat
s and Baluchi troops had taken over the unprotected adoo defensive trenches and appeared to be eating and drinking contentedly.

  Looking over the wall of the sangar, Marty saw the first of the Skyvans appearing in the sky to the south. Soon the air was filled with them as lift after lift came in, followed by Huey and Sikorsky helicopters. One after the other, they landed on the makeshift airstrip belonging to the absent adoo, their propellers and rotors whipping up enormous, billowing clouds of dust that obscured the men pouring out of the aircraft and across the runway, carrying artillery pieces, mortars, ammunition, rations and, most important of all, water. Having inserted 800 men on the LZ, the aircraft took off again, creating more immense clouds of boiling dust.

  While Marty was observing this spectacle and still fighting for breath, still feeling oddly fearful, an SAS trooper, Sam Greaves, laboriously climbed the hill, bringing with him two five-gallon jerrycans of water and the news that the diversionary attack to the south had indeed been a success, drawing the adoo away from the airfield and resulting in no SAS casualties.

  ‘The attack’s over now, though,’ Greaves told them, ‘and the adoo are believed to be on their way back here. Expect fireworks real soon.’

  So saying, Greaves waved goodbye and headed back down the hill to his own position.

  He hadn’t gone as far as Crowley’s sangar when the whole hill erupted.

  The first explosion tore up the ground near Trooper Greaves, first showering him in soil, then picking him up and hurling him sideways. He hit the ground like a rag doll, bouncing off it, limbs flapping, then was lost in swirling smoke and more raining soil when the ground erupted again.

  More explosions tore up the hillside, making a catastrophic din, as Marty glanced at the others, all of whom were staring back, then tentatively raised his head above the wall of the sangar to look out again. A stream of green tracer, surprisingly luminous in the morning light, snaked out of the boiling smoke, first appearing to be almost floating, then snapping overhead at fantastic speed to spend itself a good distance away. Another series of explosions erupted across the hillside, spewing earth and more smoke.

  ‘The adoo!’ Tommy exclaimed, huddled up beside Marty with his M16 rifle propped up between his knees.

  ‘Right,’ Marty said. Holding his SLR, he hugged the sangar wall as the western perimeter exploded with the stuttered snapping of incoming small-arms fire. Raising his head again, he saw that the tracer was coming from the rim of the western hillside. The adoo machine guns, he reasoned, were just beyond the rim of the hill, as were their mortars. Even as he deduced this, a series of explosions erupted in a line that ran from the airstrip to the base of the eastern hill, tearing through the SAF trenches. More soil spewed upwards and rained down through the thickening black smoke.

  Taff radioed base, located by the airstrip, asking for a medic to be sent up. The reply was affirmative. Taff put the phone down as another series of mortar explosions tore up the hill below. The adoo foot soldiers, Marty realized, were grouped beyond the rim of the western hill, staying put while their mortars and machine guns softened up the SAS. Right now, there was nothing the SAS could do except sit tight. Which is just what they did.

  The attack continued for another twenty minutes, with the mortar explosions erupting all over the western hill, between the trenches by the airstrip, and on the lower slopes of the hill itself, where SAF troops were also entrenched and returning the fire with their own machine guns and mortars. Soon the whole area was covered in a pall of smoke webbed by criss-crossing lines of green tracer from the adoo and purple tracer from the SF troops, including the SAS.

  ‘Might as well finish our tea,’ Taff said. ‘Not much else we can do.’

  All four of them sipped hot tea as the green tracers continued to streak over the sangar and more explosions erupted lower down the slope. Occasionally, through the drifting smoke on the western perimeter, they saw SAF troops, including the firqats, making their way uphill, trying to get closer to the adoo hidden beyond the rim. However, long before they reached it, the adoo’s attack slackened off until only sporadic fire could be heard. Gradually even this died away and silence descended.

  Glancing down the slope, Marty saw a couple of SAS troopers loping across the makeshift airstrip, from the western side, then up the hill to the sangar. It took them a long time to complete the journey and when finally they arrived they were breathless.

  ‘So what’s happening?’ Marty asked.

  ‘Twenty or thirty adoo hit the positions over on the west with Kalashnikovs and light machine guns as backup,’ one of the men told him. ‘The SF took no casualties, but had two hits, which makes us one up.’

  ‘Why has the attack tapered off?’

  ‘We think the adoo were just testing our strength. Some of the SAF got over the rim of the hill and found the bastards already gone. The generally received wisdom is that they’ve retired to their stronghold at Jibjat, about six kilometres west. That’s where we’re going tomorrow.’

  ‘Why?’ Marty asked.

  ‘Because the CO thinks that makeshift airstrip down there, on Lympne, is fucking useless. Apparently it’s already breaking up from this morning’s resup landings. So tomorrow, at first light, we’re going to march on Jibjat.’

  ‘That’s only about seven kilometres away.’

  ‘Right. A short hike to the enemy.’

  ‘Who dares wins,’ Marty said, wiping sweat from his fevered brow.

  Just before first light, after a night in the sangar, during which they had taken two-hour turns on watch, or ‘stag’, they packed their Bergens and prepared the GPMG and tripod for carriage. Still before first light, they destroyed the sangar, dismantling it stone by stone, then moved down the hill to join Sergeant Crowley and the others. The ground around Crowley’s sangar was pockmarked with shell holes and the sangar itself had been partially damaged by the blast of an explosion. Troopers Welsh and Raglan were still cleaning the weapons that had been clogged up with falling soil and dust. They both looked pretty shattered.

  ‘We’re marching to Jibjat,’ Crowley told them. ‘Six or seven kilometres west with all our gear in the heat of the noonday sun. Talk about mad dogs and Englishmen…’

  Amused by Crowley’s laconic wit, Marty and the others helped to destroy the sangar, taking it apart stone by stone as they had done with their own; then they picked up their heavy loads and took their position in the spectacular gathering of 800 men, broken up into dozens of extended, snakelike lines, stretching down the eastern hill, across the airstrip, then up the lower slopes of the western hill. All of them were wearing camouflaged clothing, with the firqats half hiding their faces with their windblown shemaghs and looking more fearsome by so doing. When everything was in order, a series of hand signals came down the line and the men moved out.

  There was no talking. The various lines stretched out a long way, snaking over the western hill, but the only noise was the jangling of kit and weapons hanging from webbing. At first the air was cool, but the sun was rising fast, and before long, as the last men crossed the hill, the heat made its presence felt. Marty wiped sweat from his face, swatted flies and mosquitoes. Though almost blinded by the sunlight, feeling weak and disorientated, he saw the line of men ahead snaking down the hillside, towards the flatland where the Jibjat airstrip lay. The adoo would be there, waiting for them, ready to fight, and they would fight to the bitter end. Marty felt his heart quickening.

  The march didn’t take long and soon the airstrip came into view in the distance, enclosed in a great horseshoe of high, rocky terrain, where the adoo were almost certainly entrenched.

  Immediately, as if they were communicating with body language, a subtle change came over the hundreds of marching men as they instinctively became more tense and watchful. Moving slightly away from one another, they spread out across the desert plain until they were covering the broad area leading up to the rocky bottleneck leading on to the airstrip.

  All of this was accomplished
without a word being spoken, with only their kit and weapons jangling to fill the vast silence.

  Then the first shots rang out.

  Surprisingly, they were single shots from Kalashnikov rifles fired by the adoo with unerring accuracy to pick off some of the SAF troops up front and hopefully demoralize the others. Some men fell, but the others kept marching, first walking as before, picking up speed, then gradually breaking into a run as they raced for the bottleneck. More single shots rang out and some more SAF troops fell, then came the distant thudding sound of mortars.

  The first explosions erupted in a wide arc where the troops were advancing, tearing up the ground between them and causing a screen of boiling sand and smoke. The men at the head of the column disappeared into it as the adoo opened up with their machine guns. Green tracer illuminated the murk, exploded in silvery flashes, and tore up the sand in jagged, spitting lines that made some of the advancing troops go into convulsions and jerk violently backwards. The other troops continued to race into the murk as the medics ran to and fro, crouched low, bravely tending to the wounded and the dead.

  ‘What the fuck are those bastards firing,’ Tommy Taylor asked, ‘that can reach us from the far side of that airstrip?’

  ‘Shpagin heavy machine guns,’ Marty said as he gradually broke into a trot. ‘They can out-range anything we have, so we’ll have to get a lot closer before returning their fire. Come on, lads, pick your feet up.’

  He and the others ran as quickly as they could while carrying the separate parts of the dismantled GPMG. For Marty it was hell, with the legs of the tripod biting into his neck and chest, but eventually he found himself in the thick of the smoke-filled, spewing sand, where the mortar shells and heavy machine-gun fire were causing most havoc. Here the other men advancing through the murk were no more than shadows.