by Shaun Clarke
When the other newcomers laughed, Captain Kearney smiled with a slight trace of mockery, recognizing a smart-arse when he saw one.‘Yes,’ he said in that same droll manner. ‘And the LRDG. Let us pray that you don’t let us down, soldier, when we take you out there.’
Realizing that Kearney was slyly putting him in his place, Marty grinned cockily at the other men, but remained silent while Tone asked shyly: ‘What does the LRDG consist of, precisely? We’re still a bit vague on that, sir.’
‘At this point in time we consist of ten patrols,’ Kearney said. ‘Each patrol has the use of modified four- wheel drive Ford F-60 cars and thirty Chevrolet trucks with a single tank range of eighteen hundred kilometres. We have a survey section, where we make up our own maps. We have our own artillery section with a 4.5-inch howitzer, an 88mm 25 pounder, and a single Grant tank. We have an air section with two American WACO light aircraft purchased by the War Office. Last but not least, we have a heavy section of three-ton supply trucks and a Light Aid Detachment for vehicle maintenance. In short, we’re a self-sustaining outfit and we’re well equipped.’
‘For what purpose, sir?’ Marty asked.
‘Good question,’ Kearney replied deadpan. ‘The first LRDG teams spent last summer patrolling from this oasis and Kufra. The work included traffic surveillance on the Axis coast, a good distance away from the main battle area. We also dropped and picked up agents for the Secret Service, recced terrain that the enemy might have to cross, and occasionally raided enemy transport convoys. Though that’s still our basic function, we’ve since split the patrols into fifteen-or-eighteen-man teams led by an officer, with five vehicles. Our methods of crossing soft sand and navigating in featureless desert have improved with experience, but they’re still based on relatively simple ideas pioneered by Major Bagnold in the nineteen twenties.’
‘What ideas?’ Tone asked.
‘Steel channel strips laid on soft sand, enabling vehicles to cross it. Bagnold first did this in the Sinai Desert in 1926, when he used corrugated iron. By the early forties all vehicles carried such channels in the desert. All our vehicles now carry them and you will, as you’ll soon find out, have to use them constantly. It’s gruelling, timeconsuming work, but it can’t be avoided.’
‘What about navigation?’ Marty asked. ‘Do you use normal compasses?’
‘Sometimes, not always. It’s difficult to set up a prismatic compass in a motorized vehicle because invariably you’ll get magnetic interference from tool boxes and other movable metal parts. To use a prismatic compass in a motorized vehicle, the navigator has to get out and walk far enough away to be clear of the vehicle’s magnetic field. Even then, the compass can be an inaccurate guide.’
‘So what did Bagnold use?’ Tone asked, becoming bolder and blowing a cloud of smoke from his Woodbine cigarette.
‘A sun compass with its horizontal disc marked off in degrees and a central needle casting a shadow – rather like a sundial. The graduated disc was mounted in the vehicle, to be rotated as the sun moved across the sky.’
‘And you still use this system?’ Marty asked, deliberately dropping the ‘sir’.
‘Yes. But we also fix the vehicle’s position by taking star bearings or by calculating the longitude and latitude with the aid of a theodolite and astro-navigation tables. It depends on the circumstances, the weather, or where we happen to be at any given time.’
‘How do the different patrols keep in touch?’
‘A sensible question from the feisty private of the 9th Rifle Brigade,’ Kearney responded in his droll manner before turning serious again. ‘Each patrol has a radio truck with a number eleven set, which has a range of about thirty-two kilometres, and a separate set to pick up the BBC’s time signals.’
‘What about communication in general from deep in the desert?’
Kearney nodded, smiling. ‘It’s not bad. The radio operators are able to pick up Morse code from a background slush of atmospherics when working at ranges beyond the normal operational limits of the number eleven set. Their radio links from patrols to the group’s forward base and from the base to the Eighth Army and MEHQ in Cairo are more tenuous. These operate on ground aerials at frequencies which mean that sometimes a patrol can’t contact base until it’s about five hundred metres along its route. Our radio procedures, however, follow French civilian routines. Invariably, this makesthose listening in think they’re hearing a commercial station in Turkey communicating with ships in the Levant. Certainly it appears to have deceived the German radio interceptor services. Because of this, our operators are able to transmit for relatively long periods at night, over great distances, without being identified or interfered with.’
‘Water?’ a corporal, Danny Keyhoe, asked sensibly.
‘A gallon per man per day for all purposes, including the topping up of the individual’s vehicle. No shaving permitted.’
‘Are those Chevrolets outside used for the patrols?’ Marty asked.
‘Correct. Modified four-wheel-drive trucks armed with a Boys anti-tank rifle fixed to the rear and a pintlemounted Browning machine gun operated by the front passenger.’
‘And peppered with bullet holes,’ Marty noted.
‘It’s an exciting life with the LRDG,’ Kearney said sardonically. ‘If you want out, Private, you can get out now.’
‘I’m in, sir. No problem.’
Kearney’s grin told Marty that he had said the right thing. ‘You men have been sent here to gain more extensive experience in desert patrols,’ he said, ‘but you’ve also been chosen because all of you are already experienced, to a certain degree, in this kind of warfare. For this reason, we won’t be wasting any time on unnecessary training, but will, as it were, throw you in at the deep end by sending you out on patrol as soon as you’ve been familiarized with LRDG standard operating procedures. That familiarization will commence as soon as you’ve been kitted out and allocated a vehicle, which will happen as soon as you leave this briefing. Are there any more questions?’
Some of the newcomers grinned sheepishly at each other, but there were no more questions.
‘Right, gentlemen,’ Kearney said. ‘Sergeant Bellamy here will see you outside the tent, show you to your accommodations, get you kitted out, then introduce you to your respective LRDG team members. Best of luck. Dismissed.’
Even as the newcomers were pushing their chairs back to stand up, Sergeant ‘Bulldog’ Bellamy was making his way out of the tent, his shirt stained with sweat around his broad shoulders and chest. Once outside, he snapped at the red-haired, tattooed corporal who was still reading The Strand, ‘Corporal Lester! Get your arse out of that jeep and show these virgins to their accommodations. Once they’ve left their kitbags in the tents, take them to the quartermaster’s store. I’ll be waiting there for them.’
Throwing his copy of The Strand onto the seat beside him, Corporal Lester hopped out of the jeep, waited until all of the newcomers were gathered around him, then nodded in a westerly direction and said, ‘Follow me.’
Being one of the first out of the briefing tent, Marty fell in beside the corporal, studied his bare arms with their many tattoos– there was even one of‘Jane’, the servicemen’s favourite cartoon-strip girl – and said, ‘Nice collection you’ve got there, Corp.’
‘Tell it to me mum who hates the bloody things,’ Lester responded tartly as he led Marty and the others toward the bell-tents located in the protective shade of regular rows of palm trees. They were also located not far from the motor pool, which was filled with Chevrolet two-wheel drive trucks, Ford F-60 trucks, Bedford four-wheel-drive trucks, Land Rovers, and American Willys jeeps, all backed by a rust-coloured mountain of jerry lubricants, or POL.
‘If that lot went up,’ Tone remarked, ‘we’d all be blown skyhigh.’
‘Treat those POL drums as a laxative,’ Corporal Lester said sardonically. ‘They could help you shit bricks.’
‘That Sergeant Bellamy looks like a tough nut,’ Marty said. ‘
Is he as tough as he looks?’
cans containing petrol, oil and
‘Bulldog? An iron man,’ Corporal Lester replied. ‘Hard as nails and knows his business. He’s one of the most experienced men in the LRDG and he has very high standards. Meet ’em and you’ll find him a fair man; fail to meet ’em and he’ll have you for breakfast – and believe me, his teeth are sharp.’
‘He looks like a mad dog,’ Marty said.
‘Like he told you, his bite’s even worse than his bark.’ Corporal Lester grinned crookedly as they arrived at the first line of tents and he turned around to face the newcomers ganging up behind him. ‘You lot have been allocated this row of tents. Where you sleep relates to who you’re sharing a vehicle with, so those sleeping together will be driving together. You’ll find your names on a gummed label fixed to the outside of each tent. When you find your name, remove the label and take any unoccupied camp bed in that tent. When you’ve done so, leave your kitbag in the tent and meet me over there by the motor pool. Okay, lads, get to it.’
Marty and Tone were pleased to discover that they were sharing a tent, even though it was small, boiling hot and already cluttered with the widely scattered kit of another man. As they were throwing their kitbags onto their respective camp beds, Corporal Lester stuck his red head in, gave them a crooked grin, revealing bad front teeth, and said, ‘Sorry about the mess, but I wasn’t expecting you so soon. My name’s Sammy, but all the lads here call me “Red”.’
‘We’re sharing your jeep?’ Marty asked
‘That’s my misfortune,’ Red said with a cheeky grin.
When Marty and Tone had introduced themselves, Red, holding a clipboard, led them from the tent to where the other newcomers were gathering outside the quartermaster’s store, which was one of the few wooden buildings in the base. There they were kitted out with the clothing favoured by the LRDG for use in the desert: shirt, shorts, Arab headgear and special sandals. The headgear consisted of the black woollen agal, a flat hat, and a shemagh, or shawl with tie thongs, which went around the head, flapped in the wind, kept the face cool, and also protected the nose and mouth in a sandstorm. Normal army boots were useless because they quickly filled up with sand, so they were replaced with a special kind of sandal, the Indian North-West Frontier chappal, originally chosen by Bagnold and obtained from the Palestine Police stores. Worn with rolled-down socks, the chappal was particularly tough and had a hole in the toe, enabling the wearer to kick out any sand that got in without having to stop when on the march. Also supplied were funnel-shaped leather gauntlets, which prevented sweat from running down the arms and onto the weapons.
Once they had left the clothing in their bell tents, they were marched by Red to another wooden building, the armoury, where obligatory holstered handgun, Len Dixon leather holster and Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife.
‘You’ll carry these on you at all times,’ Red informed them, ‘starting right now. You’ll pick up the rest of the weapons when you leave on the first patrol.’
When the newcomers had strapped on their holstered handguns and fighting knives, Red led them across to the motor pool. As Marty and Tone would be sharing a vehicle with him, he just pointed out their Chevrolet and told them to have a good look at it while he allocated the others to their respective vehicles, each of them was handed the Browning 9mm High Power which were, Marty noticed, already being attended to by LRDG NCOs.
Marty passed the time by ghoulishly poking his index finger into the bullet holes in the Chevrolet while studying its many interesting innovations. Before he could work out for himself what those innovations consisted of, Red returned to give him the grand tour.
‘Reinforced sand tyres,’ he said, pointing at them, then he reeled off the vehicle’s many other innovations, pointing at each in turn. ‘Special sand filters. Larger fans and radiators. Jerry cans and water condensers. For navigation: sun compass and sextants. For use when the vehicle becomes trapped in deep sand, which is often: sand shovels, woven sand mats, and steel sand channels. For communications: a number eleven wireless set, an S-phone– which is actually a radiotelephone, homing beacon and parachute-dropping indicator all in one– and a portable radar responder known as the Eureka beacon. And of course,’ he concluded, lovingly patting the weapons that were pintle-mounted front and rear of the Chevrolet, ‘our beloved Boys anti-tank rifle and good old Browning machine gun.’
Letting his hand slip off the latter, he said, ‘I won’t bother telling you any more about these beauties because I know you’re already familiar with them. However, listen carefully to what I tell you about some tricks peculiar to the LRDG– and one you’ll certainly need to know before you go out on your first patrol.’
Marty and Tone were given a quick lesson in the use of the sun compass fixed to the vehicle’s bonnet and familiarised with the workings of the sextant. Red then showed them how to improvise a simple compass by stretching a string from the bonnet of the vehicle up to a row of nails on top of the cabin (in the case of a Bedford four-wheel drive truck) or, in the case of the Chevrolet, to another string of hooks stretched taut between the side supports of what had been the windscreen.
‘Every hour,’ he told them, tugging lightly at the fixed line of cord, ‘you move the string one notch along.’ He removed the knotted end of cord from one of the nails hooked, in this instance, to the cord strung between the windscreen uprights, and then looped it over the hook beside it. ‘The driver simply follows the line of the shadow created by the string and that keeps him in the right direction.’
Finally, he showed them how water could be conserved from the car’s radiator. In this instance, when the water boiled, it wasn’t lost through the overflow pipe, which had been deliberately blocked off to prevent this from happening. Instead, the steam was blown off into a can bolted to the running board and half filled with water. When the engine cooled, the trapped steam would condense and the topped-up water would be sucked back into the radiator.
‘If it works properly, without leaking,’ Red explained, ‘you can go the whole life of the truck without ever putting fresh water in after the initial topup. So, that’s your vehicle!’
‘That’s some vehicle,’ Tone said admiringly.
‘I can’t wait to get out there and try it,’ Marty said with similar enthusiasm. ‘When do we start?’
‘This afternoon,’ Red told him. ‘Straight after lunch. Be prepared for some long, hot days and a lot of freezing nights. You’ll be gone for at least a week.’
‘With no preliminary training?’ a surprised Marty asked.
‘You’ll be trained on the job,’ Red said. ‘That’s the LRDGway.’
Chapter Three
Immediately after a hearty cooked lunch in the fly-filled mess tent, Marty and the other newcomers were told to don their new desert clothing and congregate outside the armoury, where they were forced to wait for some time while a lethargic private sorted out their weapons. They passed the time by joking with each other about how pretty they looked with the agals and shemaghs, some even acting like flirtatious women by fluttering the veils in front of their eyes like professional strippers. They were interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Sergeant ‘Bulldog’ Bellamy, who bawled at them to stop acting like a bunch of bloody pansies and line up for their weapons. When they had done so, looking sheepish, they were given an assortment of heavier weapons, including the .303-inch bolt-action rifle, the 9mm Sten submachine gun, the new M1 Thompson submachine submachine gun, the new M1 Thompson submachine inch.
‘Don’t hold them like you’re fiddling with your dicks in your beds!’ Bulldog bellowed. ‘Just take those weapons back to your vehicles and prepare to move out.’
A few minutes later, when they had placed their weapons on the back seats of their respective Chevrolets and taken the positions given to them by the LRDG driver, one manning the Browning machine gun at the front, the other the Boys anti-tank rifle in the rear, they were driven out of the palm-fringed oasis into the vast, b
arren wastelands of the desert.
Assailed by the ferocious heat, Marty was grateful for the wind created by the vehicle’s forward movement, even though this also created huge clouds of sand that threatened to choke him. Noting that his driver, Red Lester, and Tone, on the Boys gun in the rear, had both covered their faces with their shemaghs, Marty did the same. However, while keeping the sand out of his mouth and nostrils, the shemagh in its own way made breathing just as difficult. Within minutes, Marty was sweating profusely and covered in a film of sand that stuck like slime to his sweat. Within half an hour he felt as if he was in hell, and he was suffering from intermittent waves of nausea. He was therefore deeply grateful when, after an hour’s drive, which seemed like an eternity, Bulldog Bellamy, up front in the lead vehicle, used a hand signal instructing all the vehicles to stop.
‘A break at last,’ Tone said, gasping. ‘Thank God for that.’
‘Break, my arse!’ Red exclaimed, halting the Chevrolet in a cloud of spiralling sand and jumping to the ground. ‘Now we check the tyres and let some air out to stop them bursting from heat. We also have to check the carburettors, to ensure there’s no sand in ’em. Last but not least, we check the petrol, oil and water, adjust the compasses, and examine all weapons to ensure they don’t have sand blockage.’
‘That’s a bloody day’s work!’ Tone protested.
‘We do it every hour,’ Red said.
After checking the vehicle, which took a good twenty minutes and was not made any easier by the fierce heat and constantly blowing sand, Marty and Tone, already frustrated and exhausted, checked their weapons and were dismayed to find that most already had sand in them and so had to be thoroughly cleaned and oiled. Attempting this task where they knelt beside the vehicle, hoping to use it as protection from the wind, cursing vehemently as the sand swirled about them, they soon learned that it was blowing into the weapons as quickly as they were able to remove it.
‘Fuck it!’ Marty exclaimed. ‘This is bloody impossible!’