Venom Squadron

by Robert Jackson

  ‘It is the will of Allah,’ he muttered aloud, sensing the glory that would soon be his. The coming campaign would be worthy of those planned fifteen years earlier in North Africa by another hero, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. It would be swift and sure and devastating.

  The man seated next to him stirred, and looked at him questioningly. Brigadier Yusuf Bin Ahmed Hamad had been trying unsuccessfully to doze.

  ‘I beg your pardon, General?’

  Orabi glanced at him, startled, unaware that he had spoken aloud.

  ‘Nothing, Yusuf. I was just thinking about what was happening in Egypt, and how everything seems to be working out in our favour.’

  ‘The wild goat is sure of its foothold on the rocks until the day it slips,’ Hamad commented philosophically. He did not share his superior’s certainty about the forthcoming operation. Neither was he slow in voicing his opinions, for he was completely unafraid of Orabi. Khorat’s military dictator needed him, and they both knew it. Not only did Hamad command the enormous loyalty of a large section of Khorat’s armed forces; he also had the military experience his nominal superior sorely lacked, having fought with the Long Range Desert Group of the British Army in Libya during the Second World War.

  ‘It was you who built the rocks,’ Orabi commented with unaccustomed mildness, and this also was true, because Hamad was the real architect of the operation. The Khorati Army had been preparing for it for weeks, until every detail of what he had to do was etched on the mind of every soldier.

  Hamad was proud of his commandos. He had trained them himself, and modelled them on the lines of the Desert Group. They would be the spearhead of the Khorati offensive; it was they who would secure the only road through the mountains, overwhelming the scattered defensive outposts on the southern side. Everything depended on complete surprise; the border defences must be neutralized before they had a chance to signal the alert to other units of the small but highly efficient Muramshiri Army.

  Once the border posts had been overcome, the commandos, followed by infantry and armour, would embark on a 250-mile dash across the open desert towards Muramshir’s oilfields. The latter would, by that time, be in Khorati hands, because Hamad had a trump card tucked away up his sleeve.

  Yet it only needed one small slip, the intervention of a single unknown factor, for the operation to go badly awry. Hamad was conscious that he and Orabi were taking a fearful gamble. It was one which, if it succeeded, would make Khorat one of the richest and most powerful of all the Gulf states, and bring her immeasurable standing in the Arab world. Power and prestige were the things that counted most now, with East and West struggling for influence in the Arabian Peninsula. An Arab nation that showed itself to be strong and decisive would be in a position to name its own terms at any international bargaining table.

  Nevertheless, Hamad was worried that his colleague, Orabi, had perhaps jumped the gun in his recent courtship of the biggest and cheapest source of arms and equipment, the Soviet Union. Khorat had desperately needed modern military equipment to carry out its plans, but the flood of Soviet ‘advisors’ who had arrived in the country to assist in the arms build-up seemed out of all proportion to what was actually required.

  Even as the military convoy came to a halt in the desert night, and the spearhead units moved forward to their jump-off positions, Hamad could not shake off an uneasy feeling that Orabi might have seized a tiger by the tail.

  *

  John T. Sanderson stood outside the entrance to the mess tent where he had just breakfasted and turned a malevolent, bleary eye towards the distant derrick of No.3 rig. The mud pump had broken down again and he had been working on it all night. The fact that it was still not in operation was due entirely to those useless administrative bastards at Penco Oil HQ, who had not yet come up with a vital spare part. If it didn’t arrive on the morning supply flight, there’d be all hell let loose.

  The inside of his mouth still tasted gritty, despite the copious mugs of coffee he had just swallowed. Jesus, how he loathed this country. He’d endured close on two years of it now, and even three months’ vacation every year, plus the best pay he’d ever had, failed to compensate for the heat and the dust and the stink and wandering Arabs who drank camel’s piss. He hadn’t believed that, until he’d seen it with his own eyes one day out in the desert, when he had come upon a Bedouin pouring a thin yellow trickle out of a camel’s pierced bladder into his mouth. He had even heard that the Bedouin, in times of real hardship, would force their camels to throw up so that they could drink the vomit. They even used camel vomit mixed with urine as some sort of tonic for stomach disorders.

  Well, he’d just about served his time out here, thank God. Another few weeks and he would be homeward bound for Wyoming. There was no way he was going to renew his contract with this outfit, not even if they threatened to crucify him. He didn’t like working with Brits, anyway: couldn’t get used to their methods, to the way they treated the Arabs like equals. All an Arab understood was a boot in the ass. If the Brits wanted to pour money into this God-forsaken sand-pit, that was their business, but in future they could leave him out of it. There would be other well-paid jobs for him in more clement parts of the world. Maybe it would not be a bad idea to get out of the northern hemisphere for a while, anyhow. What with Hungary, and this crazy Suez fiasco, there was no telling when people might start throwing atomic bombs at one another.

  The distant sound of aero-engines suddenly disturbed Sanderson’s somewhat bitter train of thought. He looked at his watch and frowned; if this was the incoming supply flight, then it was an hour early, and that was unheard of.

  He turned his head, his hearing tuning in to the direction of the sound, and his brow furrowed again in puzzlement. The supply flight always approached from the south, but this noise came from exactly the opposite direction.

  Sanderson turned sideways on to the rising sun and raised his right hand against its glare, shielding his eyes while he scanned the northern sky. It was hard to make anything out, for a milky mist hung over the desert, partly shrouding the horizon.

  The noise of engines grew steadily louder, until it became a heavy droning which, Sanderson knew now, was caused by several aircraft. He saw them suddenly, rising above the swirls of mist in the north. There were six of them, twin-engined machines in tight formation, and they were heading directly for the oil complex.

  Sanderson had served in the 82nd Airborne Division during the closing year of the war in Europe, and recognized the silhouette of a Douglas c-47 transport when he saw one. The formation adopted by the incoming aircraft was also familiar to him; it was the kind of grouping used by a transport squadron about to disgorge tight sticks of paratroops on a dropping zone.

  The American had no idea what was happening, but his instinct told him that there was an immediate threat to the oil complex. A hundred yards away, in the middle of the domestic site where the tents and huts that housed the workforce were grouped, a siren stood on top of a long pole; it was meant to sound the alarm in the event of fire or some such emergency. He sprinted over to it now, the aero-engines a throbbing roar in his ears, and ripped open the metal door of a box that was fixed a few feet up the pole. He seized the red handle that was inside and pulled it hard.

  Above him, the siren began to turn with a low hum that rose to an ear-splitting screech, almost drowning out the thunder of the approaching transports. Men, some only partly clothed, came tumbling from their sleeping quarters and the mess tent, staring incredulously at the aircraft and at Sanderson, who ran towards them waving his arms and shouting something at the top of his voice. It took them long seconds before they were able to make out, above the din, the words he was mouthing.

  ‘Get weapons — anything at all! We’re under attack! Move, you bastards!’

  The six aircraft that hung in the sky like black locusts, silhouetted against the glare of the rising sun, were in fact not C-47S at all, but Li-2s, Russian-built copies of the famous American transport. After cro
ssing the mountains they had descended to five hundred feet as they entered Muramshir; the pilots knew that the Muramshiris had no radar of any kind, but according to the Khorat Air Force’s intelligence service there was a British destroyer in the Persian Gulf, and its radar might just have picked up the transports had they flown any higher. Only when they were in sight of the objective had they climbed to fifteen hundred feet.

  Inside each vibrating metal fuselage sat twenty-five fully-armed men of Brigadier Hamad’s pride and joy, the 1st Khorat Paratroop Regiment. Each man sat in silence, busy with his own thoughts, conscious that this would be his first chance to prove himself in action.

  It would not be an easy task. The objective was to seize the vital oilfield without damaging any of the installations and to hold it for a full day, which was how long it would take before the paratroops were relieved by the commandos and infantry. The latter, a combined force two thousand strong, should already have overcome the mountain outposts and have started the long thrust across the desert into Muramshir.

  The operation’s success depended not only on complete surprise, but also on the inability of the Muramshiris to react quickly to the situation. Their small army was well trained, but lacked modern equipment and transport; no matter how valiantly it fought, it would be no match for the Khorati forces. The Muramshiris had no air force to speak of, either – a handful of North American Harvard trainers, which were also used for communications, and two war surplus B-26 bombers which hardly ever flew.

  Nevertheless, Brigadier Hamad had left his commanders in no doubt that, if the paratroops which seized the oilfield were engaged by the Muramshiri Army’s elite force — the Sultan’s Guard — before the main body could reach them, they would have a stiff fight on their hands. The Muramshiris would certainly attack them with great fanaticism and little regard for casualties, for much more was at stake here than the simple possession of an oilfield.

  John T. Sanderson had managed to round up a handful of men by the time the first parachutists tumbled from the bellies of the Li-2s. They were armed with a variety of weapons that included revolvers, shotguns and iron bars. One man, whose hobby was archery, had dashed into his tent and re-emerged with a longbow and a quiver full of arrows. Sanderson grouped them around the radio shack, where a sleepy operator was desperately trying to raise someone with his calls for assistance. The oilmen crouched down behind the scant cover of wooden packing cases and empty drums, and waited to see what would happen.

  ‘Maybe it’s just an exercise,’ one of the workmen commented doubtfully as the first paratroops hit the ground a couple of hundred yards away. Sanderson watched with professional admiration as they quickly released themselves from their harnesses, fanned out and began to advance in short dashes towards the buildings, their weapons at the ready.

  ‘Exercise my ass,’ he muttered. ‘Those guys mean business.’

  As though to underline his words, a burst of fire from a light machine-gun crackled overhead. The gunner was firing high, but Sanderson had a nasty feeling that the next burst would be right in the middle of his group. He looked down at the iron bar he was carrying, then at the heavily-armed paratroops who were now approaching rapidly.

  ‘God-damn it,’ he swore. ‘I didn’t survive Sainte-Mere-Eglise to be shot by some goddam wog. Sorry about this, you guys — ’

  He stood up slowly and raised his hands. The others, some cursing but all knowing that resistance was futile, followed suit.

  The paratroops were splitting up into groups now, some circling round the outer perimeter of the domestic site. One group approached the men who stood disconsolately by the radio shack, out of which the operator had now emerged, shaking his head. He had failed to make contact with anyone.

  Close to Sanderson, an Arab worker suddenly fell to his knees, weeping and muttering pleas for Allah’s intercession. Sanderson put out a booted foot, caught him in the buttocks and sent him sprawling.

  ‘Shut your God-damn mouth,’ he snarled, his vision of the green grass of Wyoming receding into the distance.

  Half a dozen paratroops dressed in sand-coloured overalls came towards him, their weapons levelled, their eyes watchful. One man, who seemed to be an officer, halted a few feet away from Sanderson and looked directly at him, having apparently singled out the American as some kind of leader. Sanderson returned his gaze levelly, doing his best to show some Caucasian American superiority. The man’s eyes were an incongruous blue in a swarthy face, partly shaded by the rim of his steel helmet.

  ‘I say, old chap, we’re most frightfully sorry to inconvenience you like this. Jolly good thing you decided to surrender, though. Saves any needless unpleasantness, don’t you think?’

  The accent was straight out of Eton, closely followed by Sandhurst. The American’s mouth dropped open in amazement and he completely lost his composure. The paratroop officer smiled at him and raised an eyebrow, conscious of the effect his words had produced.

  Sanderson managed one strangled sentence.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘D’you mean me, personally, or myself and my men, collectively?’ the other responded mildly. ‘I’ll be only too glad to answer both questions for you, but not just now, if you don’t mind. I’m a little bit busy at the moment.’

  He flashed a white-toothed grin at Sanderson and then turned away abruptly, barking some commands in Arabic. The paras who had been standing watchfully behind him now came forward, indicating by shouts and gestures that the American and his colleagues were to go into the radio shack. One of the soldiers picked up the iron bar Sanderson had dropped and followed them inside; while they looked on helplessly he set about smashing the radio equipment to smithereens.

  Leaving some of their men to guard Sanderson’s group, and other workers who had been rounded up elsewhere on the site, the paras quickly started to prepare defensive positions, centring on the airstrip and the rough road that led southwards from it.

  Looking out of the radio shack’s grubby, sand-pitted window, Sanderson watched their efforts disconsolately. No one inside the hut spoke much; their eyes kept straying towards the machine-pistol of their paratroop guard, who lounged against one wall, smoking. Only once did Sanderson make any comment, and that was to advise the men not to try anything foolish. He did not believe, now, that they were in any immediate personal danger, but if they tried to resist it would be a different story.

  Suddenly, as he peered through the window, the American was puzzled to see the soldiers near the strip scatter and take cover in the slit trenches they had managed to scrape in the rocky earth. He did not tell the others, not wishing to cause any rush to the window that might be wrongly interpreted by the guard. A few moments later, however, they all heard the sound of engines as the supply aircraft came slanting in from the south.

  To the pilot of the battered Lockheed 14 light transport that made the daily run to the oilfield from Muramshir’s capital in the south, the layout of the makeshift airstrip and its environs had become as familiar as the garden of his parents’ home back in Carnarvon, Western Australia. In fact it was a good deal more familiar, for it was a lot of years since the pilot had been back to his native patch.

  Nothing ever changed at the strip; every morning, someone set fire to a drum filled with oily rags so that the resulting smoke would indicate the wind direction, and every morning two jeeps waited for him beside the strip at the point where he usually completed his landing run.

  This morning, for once, things were different. There was no smoke, and the pilot could see no sign of any jeeps — nor, for that matter, could he detect movement of any kind, anywhere on the site, as he made his approach to land. Without knowing what, he realized that something was wrong.

  Leaving his undercarriage down, he levelled out and flew slowly along the line of the runway, looking down on either side of the cockpit. Except for the complete lack of activity, he could see nothing amiss. Well, he thought, if anything is wrong, there’s only one way to find o
ut.

  Opening the throttles again, he climbed to circuit height and turned downwind, lowering his flaps as he turned on to final approach. A few moments later, the Lockheed’s main wheels rumbled on the airstrip, the rear fuselage sinking slowly on to the tail wheel as the aircraft lost speed.

  It was then that the pilot saw the men, running hard towards him. They were uniformed and helmeted, and they carried weapons. The Australian had no idea who they were, but he knew they ought not to be there.

  Pushing open the twin throttles, he sent the Lockheed surging forward in a cloud of dust. The tail came up quickly and he raced past the group of men, who were now crouching down and pointing their guns at him. He heard a spatter of bullets striking the fuselage, and almost simultaneously felt as though someone had branded his left shoulder with a red-hot poker. For a moment, the pain was so intense that he almost slewed off the runway; then it passed and he kicked the rudder bar to bring the Lockheed back on course again. The main wheels bumped a few times and then he was airborne, turning hard away from the danger and climbing towards the south.

  Back on the airstrip, the Khorati NCO who had been in charge of the party sent out to capture the supply aircraft watched its retreating silhouette and swore, both in anger and fear. He had been too hasty; he should have waited until the pilot had come to a stop and switched off his engines.

  He broke out into a sweat when he thought of what might happen to him now. His commanding officer was not a merciful man. At best he could expect to be demoted, in which case the men would exact their own form of vengeance, for he had often been unduly severe with them; at worst … He shuddered and turned away, steeling himself to make his report.

  The distant drone of the Lockheed’s engines seemed to mock him. In the aircraft’s cockpit, the Australian pilot, dazed and bewildered by the unexpected turn of events, did his best to keep control of the aircraft while he tried to staunch the flow of blood from his shoulder with a rag he normally used to wipe the inside of the windscreen. He tried using the radio but it was inoperative, probably smashed by bullets. There was nothing for it but to keep flying, the face of his aircraft’s compass swimming before his eyes as fresh attacks of agony threatened to overwhelm him.