‘And the tank crews will be pretty well knackered,’ Swalwell commented. ‘I had a ride in a T-34 once — don’t ask me how it came about.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a tank man’s nightmare, hot, sweaty and cramped even in a moderate climate.’
‘There’s another point in our favour, too,’ Yeoman said. ‘If we let the Khoratis get pretty close before we hit them, we can do so without interference from their MiGs. I estimate that, operating from the bases inside Khorat, the limit of the MiGs’ combat radius would be about here.’ He drew an imaginary line across the map with his finger, some twenty-five miles north of the ridge.
‘That’s comforting. But can’t the MiGs use the oilfield strip?’ Swalwell wanted to know. Yeoman shook his head.
‘No, it’s much too short as it stands. However, there’s always the possibility that the Khoratis might quickly extend it. It doesn’t have to be concrete; MiG-i5s can take off from pretty rough ground, as they showed in Korea. Then we might have the odd problem. I can’t see any possibility of my aircraft being released to attack a target that’s sitting right in the middle of a friendly oilfield.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to hope for the best. Quite frankly, I think it’s going to be up to us — you and me and our respective chaps, I mean — to hold the fort; the Muramshiris don’t seem to be up to much.’
‘That’s a little bit unjust,’ Yeoman admonished him mildly. ‘Some of their best units were wiped out soon after the Khoratis captured the oilfield. However, it’s probably true that the rest aren’t particularly well trained, with the exception of the Sultan’s Guard, who seem pretty keen and disciplined. Some of the officers, though, couldn’t lead their way out of a paper bag. I wish Colonel Al-Saleh were in command; he’s the best of the bunch, by a long chalk, but he has to dance attendance on the Sultan. There’s an education in store for you if and when you meet him, by the way. Threatened to have me executed yesterday because I told him a few home truths.’
Swalwell grinned. T see you’ve still got your head,’ he said.
Yeoman grunted, and looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get on with it,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to work on this map. I need to know exactly where you’re going to position your men. Some Muramshiri artillery has already moved up to the ridge, but if you think it’s not in the right place, suggest tactfully that it ought to be moved. As far as ground-to-air signalling is concerned, we’ll stick to the system used in Malaya; it works pretty well, and we both know it inside out. We’d better get it right, because we won’t have any forward air control. We could use one of the Harvard trainers belonging to the Muramshiris, except there’s nobody to fly it; I can’t spare any of my chaps, and the Muramshiris haven’t got a clue about what’s required.’
‘Oh, one or two of my lot are qualified pilots,’ Swalwell said matter-of-factly. ‘I’ll detail one of them to get checked out on the Harvard and he can act as forward air controller, which doubtless will please him no end.’
‘Find out if he’s well insured,’ Yeoman said grimly. ‘It might be no picnic.’
The two men went on discussing their operational plans for another hour, calling in other officers to brief them as necessary, and then Swalwell went off to issue the orders that would take his men up to their defensive positions along the ridge. Infantry units of the Muramshiri Army were to follow later. There would be precious few reserves, although Yeoman had insisted, through Al-Saleh, that a small force of Muramshiri infantry be held back to guard the airfield. They would be unable to stop Khorati tanks if the latter broke through, but Yeoman was worried about possible infiltrators. If someone got through to his precious store of fuel and blew it up, they might as well all go home.
That afternoon, after holding a briefing in which he brought all his pilots up to date with what was happening, Yeoman took off in the Harvard with the SAS pilot, who turned out to be highly competent, and made an aerial survey of the ridge on which the defensive forces were digging in. After a few false starts, the pilot established good radio contact with his colleagues on the ground and spent half an hour practising signals procedures before returning to the airfield.
As soon as he got back to Faraz, Yeoman buttonholed the NCO in charge of the ground crews, Warrant Officer John Markham, and asked him to make a Venom ready for flight. On Yeoman’s instructions there had been no flying, apart from the odd air test, since the Venom Wing’s arrival in Muramshir, but now he had decided to expend a little of his precious and limited store of fuel to carry out a lone reconnaissance sortie to the north. The lack of intelligence about the Khoratis’ movements continued to worry him, and although he wanted to play down the presence of the RAF squadrons at Faraz he felt that the time had come to embark on a limited programme of operations.
At 1530, he strapped himself into the Venom’s sweltering cockpit and took off a few minutes later, his passage leaving a trail of dust hanging over the runway. He climbed at a steady 260 knots, taking the fighter-bomber up to twenty thousand feet and feeling the cockpit temperature drop mercifully as he did so.
He had the sky to himself, and as he headed north he allowed himself the luxury of a few minutes’ relaxation, admiring the view from his vantage point nearly four miles above the earth. Away to the right he had a clear view of the Gulf, in which there seemed to be an unusual amount of shipping, and fora moment he recalled the great armada on its way to Suez a few days earlier. It seemed a long time ago, and yet it was only eleven days since the first air strikes had gone in against the Egyptian airfields.
Well, the fighting around Suez was over now, apart from some sporadic skirmishing, although the political battle was only just beginning. No one was going to take much notice of what was happening in Muramshir.
And things were happening. He knew that beyond any doubt only minutes later, as his keen eyes detected movement on the desert far ahead. He saw the dust cloud first, then the black specks that were the Khorati tanks and trucks, moving south in two columns like black ants on the march. His aircraft was not leaving a vapour trail, and at this distance it was doubtful whether anyone in the armoured columns would have noticed him. He flew on for another few moments, trying to estimate the speed and strength of the enemy force, and then turned south, pushing down the Venom’s nose to gather speed.
He had seen enough. If the Khoratis maintained their present rate of progress, they would reach the Faraz defensive perimeter sometime during the night. Yeoman felt a sudden surge of elation. His orders were to operate only to the south of the oilfield, and now the Khoratis were well inside that area. He had every intention of stopping their advance in its tracks.
*
In London, a weeping November fog drifted past the tall windows of a room in the Foreign Office. Through those same windows, generations of diplomats had seen an empire rise to its zenith and then waste away in decline. Outside, the chimes of Big Ben, muffled by the fog, boomed out the message to London and the world that it was noon, Greenwich Mean Time.
Inside the room, six men sat at a long oak table, frowned upon by the portraits of others who had presided over the intrigues that had taken Britain to her lost glory. Three of the men were senior diplomats; the fourth was the Deputy Chief of Air Staff, the fifth the head of Military Intelligence, Middle East Section, and the sixth Air Commodore Sampson.
Sampson was weary, for he had just flown from Cyprus in the navigator’s seat of a Canberra jet bomber and had not slept the night before; he was also stunned by what he had just heard, and conscious of a growing anger. He stared at the diplomat who had spoken previously; a man who was the archetype of all British diplomats, with dark hair going silver at the edges, brushed back carefully in wings above his ears.
‘Let me get this quite clear,’ Sampson said quietly, his voice betraying nothing of his internal feelings. ‘Are you saying — are you really saying — that the build-up of British forces in Muramshir has been halted?’
The diplomat nodded. ‘That is correct. There was never any intention of
sending anything other than a token force into the country in the first place. A token force, we reasoned, would be sufficient to bring about the results we desire.’
‘Those results being?’ It was the Deputy Chief of Air Staff who spoke, his voice truculent.
‘Those results being the overthrow of certain elements inside Muramshir who have more than a friendly disposition towards the Soviet Bloc, having first forced them into declaring themselves,’ the diplomat told him. ‘Those same elements have been secretly conniving, for some considerable time, with the Khoratis in their invasion plans.’
‘So, in other words, you are trying to engineer a coup,’ Sampson said bluntly. ‘But why allow the invasion to go ahead? Why couldn’t all this have been sorted out behind the scenes, long since?’
‘Because we didn’t know who the dangerous elements were,’ the Intelligence man said. ‘We needed to force them out into the open, and we knew they’d only emerge from their holes if the invasion actually took place. Even then, they might have lain low for a time if the invasion had gone smoothly — but in this case we managed to put a spoke in their wheel. Or rather, Colonel Al-Saleh did it for us by persuading the Council of Ministers to request our help. With the threat of massive British intervention hanging over their heads, the subversives had no alternative but to act, and act quickly.’
‘The whole business is much more complex than it appears at first sight.’ It was one of the other diplomats who spoke. ‘The original idea was to allow the Khorati and Muramshiri armies to fight one another to a standstill; then, with both sides in a seriously weakened state, the subversive elements would have been able to seize control without serious opposition.’
‘Even the invasion itself was part of a carefully-orchestrated intrigue,’ the first diplomat said. ‘General Orabi’s plan to seize Muramshir’s oil was formed soon after he assumed power, but he might never have carried it out without the right encouragement from his Russian “advisers”. With the fighting strength of the Khorati arm squandered in a war with Muramshir, the Russians would be free to move in and take over on the pretext of restoring stability — invited to do so, of course, by sympathetic elements inside the country. The same thing would happen in Muramshir, and the end result would be a Russian satellite state controlling five hundred miles of the Gulf coast.’
‘But how do the Russians hope to achieve this?’ The Deputy Chief of Air Staff wanted to know. ‘They have a presence in Khorat — we are well aware of that — but none at all in Muramshir.’
‘I can answer that,’ the Intelligence man said, and pushed some photographs across the table top towards the DCAS, who inspected them. They portrayed a large freighter, and had been taken both from the air and, presumably, from another ship.
‘Russian?’ the DCAS queried. The Intelligence man nodded.
‘Yes. She passed through the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, and she’s not all she appears to be. You see the men on deck? They’re Soviet soldiers, identified as such from the items of uniform they are wearing. She’s hove-to now, and an Iranian patrol craft with some of our chaps on board is keeping a discreet eye on her. We think she may be carrying five hundred troops, possibly more. Her position suggests that she is waiting for a signal to move in and disembark on the Muramshir coast, presumably near Faraz.’
The DCAS leaned back in his chair and addressed both the diplomats and the Intelligence man.
‘I intend to be quite blunt with you,’ he said. ‘I think that this whole affair has been allowed to get completely out of hand. We now have two squadrons of Venoms in Muramshir, together with a contingent of SAS troops; their commanders have no idea what’s going on, and it now seems that they are about to be caught in the middle of a very unpleasant and dangerous conflict. I insist that the reinforcement plan goes ahead — or, alternatively, that the UK forces now in Muramshir be withdrawn immediately.’
The senior diplomat bridled. ‘On the contrary, the situation is very well in hand. Every movement made by the Khorati army is now being signalled to us; we have an operative in a very central position indeed, and he has a strong nucleus of supporters whose role will shortly become apparent. Meanwhile, it is vital that the UK forces at Faraz continue to carry out the task for which they were briefed: that is to say, to operate in support of the Muramshiri army against the invaders. I have no doubt that the two squadrons of strike aircraft at Faraz will prove quite capable of breaking the Khorati offensive.’
‘And what then?’ Sampson asked.
‘Then the pro-Russian elements in Muramshir will come out into the open and ask for Soviet intervention,’ the diplomat told him ‘but the intervention will never take place. Immediately the subversives declare themselves, there will be a coup in Muramshir — but a coup controlled by us, not the Russians. Their troops will never go ashore in the face of fierce resistance from the Muramshiris themselves; they already have too much on their plate in Hungary, too much world opinion against them, to risk becoming seriously embroiled in an aggressive conflict.’
‘But what about the Russians in Khorat?’ The question came from the DCAS. ‘They’ll still be in a position to seize power there, will they not?’
The diplomat shook his head. ‘What happens in Khorat will be dictated by the events in Muramshir,’ he said. ‘The failure of Orabi’s offensive will, we believe, destroy his credibility, and the stage is already set for him to be ousted. Orabi is the Soviet Union’s pawn, whether he realizes it or not, and his removal will make it virtually impossible for the Russians to achieve their aims in Khorat, especially in view of their failure to seize Muramshir. Even if they attempt to take control, the man who will succeed Orabi will not tolerate a continued Soviet presence, and will be strong enough to enforce its removal.’
‘I should like to know who that man will be,’ Sampson said. The diplomat looked at him and gave a little smile.
‘That information must remain a secret for the time being,’ he said smoothly. ‘However, I am in a position to inform you, at this stage, who is the leader of the pro-Soviet element in Muramshir.’
Sampson and the DCAS looked at him expectantly, then with incredulity as he told them.
Chapter Eight
‘We can’t afford to wait any longer, if we do, it’ll be dark before we can get the first strike in.’
Yeoman looked at his watch and surveyed the assembled pilots, who were being briefed in the open air. They were, he noted with some amusement, doing their best to appear nonchalant, yet he knew that every man was keen to be off the leash after the lengthy period of inactivity at Faraz. They knew the attack plan off by heart; there was little need to recapitulate, but Yeoman did so nevertheless.
‘All right, remember the drill. We attack in two waves, out of the sun, which means a slight detour to the west. First to take off will be 359 Squadron, followed by 641 ten minutes later. By the time 641 arrive, we hope that 359 will have been able to break up the enemy armoured columns to some extent. Don’t waste your rockets on trucks; go for the tanks. You can deal with the soft-skinned vehicles with your cannon. As soon as you’ve made your attack, don’t hang around to see the result; get back to base so that the ground crews can refuel and rearm your aircraft as quickly as possible. We don’t have enough fuel for a prolonged series of operations, so we want to get in as many blows as we can, as quickly as we can. That means keeping up the pressure on the enemy during the night with the aid of our improvised flare-droppers.’
Some of the pilots grinned. Every available aircraft of Muramshir’s tiny air arm — and there were only four which were anywhere near airworthy — had been hastily modified by the RAF ground crews to drop flares. Colonel Al-Saleh had rounded up all the Muramshiri aircrews he could find, and the best four had been selected to fly up and down over the battle area at night, releasing their flares to illuminate targets for the Venoms. The tactics were very makeshift, but the best that could be devised at such short notice, with the equipment available.
Yeoman’s
face grew suddenly serious. ‘Remember,’ he said, ‘that we might have to cope with Khorati fighters, and that means MiGs. The armoured force’s last reported position puts it inside a MiG 15’s radius of action, so there’s always the possibility that they might be flying combat air patrols. The odds are that the MiGs will be flown by Russians, so keep your eyes skinned and treat them with respect. If we do meet any, it isn’t likely that they will have a great deal of fuel, so if you get caught keep on turning, and sooner or later they’ll have to break off. No heroics, and for Christ’s sake don’t fly straight and level in an attempt to get away, or they’ll have your balls. Keep in radio contact, and stick together.’
He glanced at the rapidly sinking sun, then said: ‘That’s about all, then. We’d better get on with it. Good luck.’
A battered truck dropped the pilots off at their dispersed aircraft, each of which was armed with eight rockets. These, like the fuel, were in short supply, and Yeoman was anxious that his pilots should cause the maximum devastation before stocks ran out. The Beverleys were due to fly in more stocks of weapons, but the transports were not due to return until the following morning — by which time, if the Venoms failed to do their job, Faraz itself might well be under attack.
Yeoman was the first to take off, at the head of 359 Squadron, closely followed by Ernie Wells. Not wishing to expend fuel in an orbit of the airfield, he climbed away slowly northwards, the other Venoms catching up and dropping into position one by one.
When the whole squadron was assembled, Yeoman altered course slightly, turning to the north-west across the desert. His attack plan depended, for its success, on his theory that the Khorati armoured columns would not have slackened their pace, but would be dashing across the desert with all possible speed so as to reduce the chances of being caught in the open by fighter-bombers.
Venom Squadron Page 10