At last, at three thousand feet, he sighted what he took to be a reasonably clear strip and turned the Venom’s nose gently towards it, being careful to keep the gliding speed at a steady 160 knots. There was something he’d forgotten, and for a few precious moments he could not recall what it might be; then he pulled his senses together and reached out a hand, pulling a red toggle. The perspex canopy flew off and desert air, warm and arid, flooded into the cockpit.
Certain now that he could reach his landing point, he reduced the speed to 140 knots. If he found himself too high, he could lower some flap to rid himself of the surplus height. Keeping the aircraft straight with one hand on the stick, he used the other to tug at the straps of his seat harness, making sure that they were as tight as possible. He had seen more than one pilot make a perfect belly landing, only to bash his head in on the gunsight because his straps were not tight enough.
The strip of sand was rushing up at him and he eased back the stick, levelling out gently. The speed began to drop away rapidly now: 105 knots … 100 … 90 … 80 …
The Venom’s belly made contact with the ground in a series of harsh vibrations, rather than the jolt Yeoman had been expecting. Sand fountained up over the nose and sprayed into the cockpit, half blinding him. An instant later, he was glad that he had tightened his straps; they bit into his shoulders wickedly as the aircraft decelerated brutally, slowed by the sand through which it ploughed. There was a terrific bang as the port wing hit an unseen boulder and the Venom slewed round; Yeoman gave an involuntary gasp as his right shoulder struck the side of the cockpit painfully. For a moment, his ears were filled with a harsh clamour as parts of the aircraft hit more rocks. He threw his hands protectively in front of his face.
Then there was silence. He lowered his hands and opened his eyes, his fingers grappling automatically with the harness release. The straps parted without difficulty and he placed his hands on either side of the open cockpit, levering himself up and out. His feet crunched on sand that had partly covered the wing. Mindful that there might still be an explosion, he lost no time in placing some distance between himself and the wrecked machine, looking back at it and marvelling that so much damage had been caused in such a relatively soft forced landing. The tail unit had broken off completely, and jagged rocks had ripped huge gashes in the metal of wings and fuselage. He suddenly saw that he had been very lucky indeed to walk away from the wreck in one piece.
The Venom showed no sign of catching fire, so he returned to it long enough to retrieve the water bottle from his survival pack. Then, without wasting any more time, he set off in the direction of the oilfield, following a bearing he had taken with the aid of a small hand-held compass.
He did not feel unduly worried as he trudged on; in fact, in an odd sort of way he felt almost happy in the midst of the desert’s great solitude. For the first time in days he was able to relax, and the day, although hot, was not unpleasantly so, for the cooler airs of approaching winter were beginning to fan the lands around the Gulf. In a few weeks’ time it would rain, and the desert would burst into a riot of brief and glorious colour as its flowers lived out their short annual lives.
He did not try to hurry his progress. The site at the centre of the oilfield, he had worked out, was seven or eight miles away-about six hours’ march over this kind of ground. If he reached it sometime during the afternoon, he would lie low and give himself plenty of time to spy out the lie of the land before deciding on a course of action.
After an hour or so he began to feel thirsty, and the distant derricks of the oil wells seemed to be coming no closer, but he resisted the temptation to use even a small part of his precious store of water; he would need it later, when he was lying under cover. His.38 Smith and Wesson revolver also began to chafe uncomfortably at his hip as time went by, but he knew that it might prove essential to his survival, so he had no choice but to tolerate it.
He walked on steadily for three hours, feeling the sun beat down with growing strength on his head and shoulders, and then decided to take a short rest before continuing. Scrambling down and across a wadi, he spotted a cluster of boulders and walked round to their northern side, where there was some scant shade from the sun. He settled himself as comfortably as possible in a space between two rocks, eyed his water bottle for a moment, and then allowed himself a mouthful, grimacing as he did so, for the water was warm and tasted of metal.
He closed his eyes and supposed that he must have dozed, for when he opened them again he saw that the shadows cast by his rocky refuge had shortened, which meant that the sun was approaching its zenith. It was time to move on. He stood up stiffly and took out his compass, placing it to his right eye to check his line of march, for the oil wells were temporarily obscured by a rocky outcrop. From experience in North Africa years earlier, he knew that if you lost sight of an objective in the desert you might never pick it up again, even if it was only yards away. Constant compass bearings in this environment were life insurance.
Suddenly, the compass dropped from his hand as a loud crack sent shock and fear rippling through him like a charge of electricity. Feet away from his left ear, a fragment of rock disintegrated in a puff of grey dust and flying splinters. At the same instant, he heard the report of a rifle and the whine of a ricochetting bullet, spinning out over the desert.
He whirled round, his hand clawing for the butt of his revolver, then froze in mid-turn, inwardly cursing himself for his lack of vigilance. A few yards away, a massive camel stood splay-legged, its teeth bared in a snarl against the pull of the reins that held it in check. Perched on its back was a spectral rider, faceless and swathed from head to foot in white robes, but the smoking rifle in his hands was real enough. Behind him, some distance away, two more similarly-clad riders sat like statues, watching.
The first thought that passed through Yeoman’s head was that if the man on the camel had wanted to kill him, he could have done so with his first shot. The pilot removed his hand from his revolver, gazed steadily at the Bedouin — if indeed he was a Bedouin — and waited for whatever might come next. He did not have to wait long.
A brown hand emerged from the folds of the Bedouin’s robes. Silently, the man tapped his other wrist, then made a beckoning motion. Resignedly, knowing what was wanted, Yeoman unfastened his wrist watch and moved slowly forward towards the beckoning finger, conscious of the rifle that was trained unwaveringly on his chest. He stopped beside the flank of the reeking camel, which turned its long neck and glared at him, and held up the watch. The rider bent down slightly, snatched it and stowed it away amid his garments. A moment later, the Bedouin, still without saying a word, also relieved him of his sunglasses and his revolver.
Yeoman saw that the other two riders were moving closer, and stepped back a pace in apprehension. The man who had taken his possessions pointed a long-nailed finger at him, then indicated that he wished him to turn round. When Yeoman hesitated, the muzzle of the rifle jabbed threateningly at him.
He turned slowly, his spine tingling, and heard one of the Bedouin say something in Arabic. One of the others laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. The next instant he was on his knees, dark waves of nausea sweeping through him, his head exploding in red pain where a rifle butt had slammed into it. He felt blood starting to trickle down the back of his neck.
He tried to rise, pushing himself up with his hands, but someone kicked his legs from under him and he collapsed face down in the sand, momentarily blacking out as another red-hot lance of pain slashed through his head.
When he returned to his senses, he found that he was lying on his back, his unprotected eyes staring up into the white ball of the sun. A Bedouin was kneeling on each arm, pinioning him to the ground, and his nose wrinkled at the sour-milk stench that came from them.
The third Bedouin was advancing slowly towards him, a smile on his bearded, hawk-like face. Sunlight glittered on the blade of the knife he was carrying. Yeoman began to struggle, and took a blow in the stomach that kno
cked the wind out of him and left him gasping like a stranded fish. Dimly, through watering eyes, he saw the Bedouin with the knife bend over him, still smiling. Tortured thoughts of Julia and the children flashed through his mind. Mercifully, they would never know the horror of what was happening to him. He wanted to close his eyes, but could not.
The Bedouin was still smiling when his head gave a sudden convulsive jerk, still smiling when a fountain of blood, brains and bone spurted out of the left-hand side of his head. By the time he collapsed on top of the spread-eagled pilot, an instant later, the smile had become a frozen grimace of death.
The other two Bedouin gave cries of alarm and jumped to their feet, releasing their grip on the pilot’s arms, and began to run for their camels. There were two loud cracks, and both men dropped to the sand. One lay still; the other tried to crawl, whining in a high-pitched voice and calling on Allah, until another shot felled him for good.
Yeoman stood up uncertainly, his head reeling, and stared dazedly at the dead Arabs. The front of the pilot’s shirt was smeared with the blood of the man he had just pushed aside. Gathering his wits, he looked round.
Fifty yards away, several men stood on top of the rocky outcrop that had earlier blocked Yeoman’s view of the oilfield. They wore sand-coloured overalls and peaked caps. One of them waved to Yeoman and shouted something in a language he did not understand. He understood that they wanted him to join them.
He waved back, then briefly bent over the lifeless body of the Arab with the knife, averting his eyes from the man’s shattered head and holding his nose as the stench hit him. Rummaging among the man’s robes, he retrieved his watch and revolver, looking cautiously at the men on the ridge as he strapped the latter to his waist; they made no move to prevent him. Then he set off towards them, every step sending pain through his bruised head.
Slowly, panting for breath, he made his way to the summit of the outcrop, threading his way among the rocks. One of the soldiers, smiling, held out a hand to help him up the last couple of feet.
If these are Khoratis, Yeoman thought, they seem friendly enough. They obviously haven’t heard what we just did to their new airfield. Nevertheless, the friendly attitude of the men came as a surprise; they must surely be aware of the havoc wrought on their armour by the RAF jets.
The men guided Yeoman down the other side of the rocky outcrop, where a drab-camouflaged half-track was waiting. It was strange that he had not heard the sound of its engine earlier — but then, he told himself, the vastness of the desert, with little or no echo effect, tended to mask noise.
He climbed into the back of the half-track, surrounded by the others, who numbered eight in all. The engine started noisily and the vehicle moved off with a jerk, churning through the sand towards the oil derricks which were now clearly visible. One of the men offered Yeoman a drink of water and he accepted it gratefully; his own bottle was lying back there in the desert, at the spot where he had been jumped by the Bedouin.
Conscious that he was no longer master of his own fate, and that he was very much in the hands of his captors — or saviours, whatever they were — Yeoman tried to compose himself. He looked at his surroundings with interest as the half-track approached the central site of the oil complex. The first thing he noticed, with a professional eye, was that four twin-engined Dakota transport aircraft stood beside the airstrip, and that there was considerable movement about them. There were a lot of troops at the site, too, together with some civilians, who looked at Yeoman with curiosity as the half-track rumbled past.
Yeoman’s mind knew a state of growing confusion. The civilians were clearly European, and could only be the hostages he had heard so much about — but they did not have the appearance of hostages, being apparently permitted to roam around the site as they wished and to fraternize with the troops. He, too, did not feel like a prisoner; no one had attempted to take his revolver from him, and his companions, although unable to speak his language, had so far shown every possible courtesy towards him. It was all very strange.
The half-track’s driver brought the vehicle to a stop beside a low hut where two men stood, chatting and smoking together. One of the men wore civilian clothing; the other was in uniform, with metal officer’s insignia on his epaulettes. The soldiers got out of the half-track and Yeoman followed suit, wincing a little. The pain in his head had now dulled to a throbbing ache that increased in severity with the slightest movement.
The two men by the hut turned to Yeoman, smiling, as he approached them. It was the man in uniform who spoke first.
‘Hello, George,’ he said. ‘I might have known you were mixed up in this business, one way or another.’
It was the deep suntan and the strange uniform that threw Yeoman into temporary confusion. He stopped in his tracks, peering at the other’s face, his hand automatically reaching out to grasp the one that was being offered to him. Then recognition hit him like a blow, and his mouth dropped open in utter astonishment.
Chapter Eleven
‘Peter, Peter de Salis.’
Yeoman was so shocked that, for a second or two, he could not recall the other’s name, even though the two had served together for several months in Malaya, back in 1948. Then, de Salis had been a major in the British Army, commanding a small and elite unit known as Ferret Force. Its task had been to seek out and destroy communist terrorists in their jungle hideouts, and Yeoman’s squadron had provided air support for these operations.
The civilian was looking from one to the other in bewilderment. ‘Hey, what is going on around here?’ he wanted to know. ‘You two know each other? Who’s this guy?’ The latter question was addressed to de Salis.
De Salis grinned. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Sanderson. This is Wing Commander George Yeoman, of the Royal Air Force. Mr Sanderson’s in charge of the oil workers here, George. I’m afraid I had to lock them all up for a while, for their own safety, but things will soon be back to normal again, with any luck.’
Yeoman rubbed the back of his head, where the blood had begun to congeal, and looked at de Salis hard before speaking.
‘Peter,’ he said, ‘I think the least you can do is give me some sort of explanation. How the hell do you come to be an officer in somebody else’s army?’
‘All in good time, George,’ de Salis grinned again. ‘First of all, let’s get your head fixed. It’s a good thing my chaps happened to be out on patrol in the right place at the right time, or you’d need more than your head fixing.’
A few minutes later, his head bandaged and feeling considerably better, Yeoman accompanied de Salis to the radio truck that stood on the edge of the domestic site. As they climbed aboard, Yeoman noticed that files of soldiers, fully armed, were marching towards the airstrip. De Salis looked at his watch, then said:
‘We may not have much time, George. I’m expecting a radio call at any moment, and then we’ll have to get cracking. Actually, I’m rather pleased that you dropped in; you might come in useful.’
Mystified, Yeoman dropped on to a folding chair and listened in silence as de Salis quickly told him of the events that had led him here, to the oilfield in Muramshir. It was an extraordinary tale, but Yeoman knew de Salis too well to doubt a single word of it.
‘It all started when they disbanded Ferret Force, George — remember? We couldn’t understand at the time why they did it, because we’d reached such a peak of efficiency and were producing the desired results. That, I discovered later, was the whole point; the task of Ferret Force was over once we had reached that peak, when operations in Malaya were ready to be handed over to regular security forces. As you know, they have been coping pretty well ever since.’
Yeoman nodded. It was true; the terrorists in Malaya, although still very much in evidence, were being systematically destroyed.
De Salis went on with his story. ‘After I last saw you — which would be in 1949, wouldn’t it? — I returned to the UK and was posted to a desk job in the War Office. I was there for a month, and hated every m
inute of it, as you may imagine. Then I received a visit from two rather odd characters. No names, but they were very high up in Intelligence.’ He stared at Yeoman. ‘George, don’t ever breathe a word of this to anyone.’
‘Of course not. Go on, Peter.’
‘Well, they offered me a job. They asked me if I’d mind chucking in my army career and becoming a mercenary.’
‘A mercenary?’ Yeoman was startled. ‘What on earth for? These chaps were on our side, I assume?’
‘Oh, yes, very much so. They were out on a sort of recruiting drive, and later on, when I attended a special training camp in Scotland, I discovered just how wide they had cast their net. The chaps on the course ranged from brigadiers to privates, but we all had one thing in common — we had all served in. the Special Forces, and we were a pretty wild bunch.’
‘But what was the point of it all?’ Yeoman wanted to know. ‘Surely you were all valuable as regular soldiers?’
‘I was coming to that,’ de Salis said patiently. ‘It seemed that our people were growing increasingly worried about what was happening in certain parts of the world, and with good cause. You yourself saw what happened in Malaya, George; we managed to cope with that, but the French didn’t cope so well in Indo-China. You’ll recall the Dien Bien Phu fiasco, a couple of years ago, when communist guerrillas surrounded the French garrison and just about wiped everyone out.
‘Well, the danger signs were there, all over the place, and it wasn’t difficult to see that the Russians were about to make a determined undercover drive to grab parts of the Middle East, especially after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. Their main target was the emerging states of the Gulf, with their oil and potential bases giving access to the Indian Ocean.’
Venom Squadron Page 14