by James Philip
Two months ago Brigadier Mirza Hasan Mostofi al-Mamaleki had commanded a Brigade, now he commanded the equivalent of a division-sized force comprising the equivalent of two armoured brigades supported by several battalions of variously mechanised infantry; in total some twenty thousand men and around two hundred tanks, including a hundred British built and supplied Centurions. This force, deployed around Khorramshahr and within Carver’s Commonwealth Abadan Defence Area, had been further strengthened by its expansion eastward to take in the supplies and munitions dumps of the units which had ‘come over’ to al-Mamaleki in the last few days. Unfortunately, this was the only good news anywhere within Michael Carver’s Persian Gulf Command.
“The greater part of the west and south of the Damman-Dhahran urban area is in ruins,” he reported to his friend.
Al-Mamaleki was a tall, handsome, Sandhurst-educated man in his early forties with a lovingly tended moustache in the old luxuriant style, wearing battlefield fatigues cut by his long dead Savile Row tailor specifically designed to draw the eye to his lean, muscular frame. Carver always felt as if he was in the presence of a ‘real, fighting soldier’ when he was in al-Mamaleki’s presence; and very aware that he himself cut a somewhat bookish, scholarly figure in comparison notwithstanding that of the two men he had the vastly greater combat experience.
Carver had been with the 8th Army - XXX Corps - in the Western Desert, served with Montgommery, fought in Tunisia, Sicily, Italy and Germany in Hitler’s War and subsequently in several of Britain’s unpleasant bush fire colonial wars. A cerebral man who thought deeply about the profession of arms he recognised in his Iranian friend exactly the man he needed to strike the decisive blow, if and when Operation Lightfoot, the plan he had first put to the Chiefs of Staff in Oxford in April was ever to be executed.
The ‘great plan’ had pre-supposed, if not the active military and logistical support of the Saudi Arabian government, then at least the use of the ports, depots and air base of the Damman-Dhahran conurbation on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf within reach of the Kuwaiti border.
“The US Air Force War Stores Depot in the desert next to Damman was completely destroyed,” he reported. “Suffice to say the violence of several of the detonations was such that unexploded munitions from that site have been discovered between two and three miles away. There is little doubt that the incident was caused by sabotage. Shortly after the major conflagration in the desert a number of mines, each containing around five hundred pounds of TNT, detonated in the aft magazine of the Ammunition Ship Retainer. There were several sympathetic explosions which had the effect of scattering the vessel’s remaining cargo, mainly fixed naval rounds of all calibres across the dockyard area and into the harbour. The Retainer was totally destroyed and HMS Triumph, the repair ship moored forward of the Retainer at the main quay was damaged. Some two hundred Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Royal Navy personnel were killed or seriously injured. Recovery squads are presently retrieving munitions on shore and assessing whether they might still be usable. The harbour is being dredged to make navigation safe and hopefully, to recover further undamaged rounds. I’m reliably informed that shells are ‘tough buggers’ and that many of the rounds we pull out of the harbour and find on land ought to be ‘serviceable’. Regrettably, if one is being realistic most of the ammunition on the Retainer is lost, and therefore some of the ships in Admiral Davey’s Squadron are likely to have half-empty magazines by the time the Red Army invests Basra and the Faw Peninsula.”
Al-Mamaleki’s brow darkened.
“Had all the ANZAC tanks and vehicles been offloaded before the ‘incident’?”
Michael Carver nodded.
“Thankfully, yes. Unfortunately, a lot of the 105-millimetre AP and HE rounds were stacked on the quay ahead of transfer to the ANZAC forward depots in Kuwait. Most of the 20-pounder reloads for the Mark I Centurions had already been trucked north. Thankfully, the Sydney had already gone alongside Retainer and embarked some twelve hundred tons of munitions for delivery to Abadan.”
Al-Mamaleki nodded, thinking hard. Over half of his Centurions were Mark Is, equipped with the long 20-pounder (84-millimetre) post-Second World War vintage anti-tank rifle; a good weapon but nowhere near as lethal as the much bigger Royal Ordnance L7 52-calibre 105-millimetre gun which equipped his Mark IIs.
“The worst of it,” Carver explained, trying not to wear his exasperation on his sleeve, “is that the ‘incident’ has somewhat unnerved our Saudi hosts. Apparently, there is a ‘peace at any costs’ camp within the Royal Family. As you know, we’ve been dealing with the Defence Minister and the Oil Minister, both of whom have been recalled to Riyadh. In their absence their agents in Damman are powerless and the civilian authorities have failed to get a grip. Admiral Davey is basically in charge of the military and the civilian rescue and salvage operation in the area. Hopefully, the Saudi authorities will get their act together sooner or later. Even more troubling are the developments in Egypt.”
“Ah, Egypt,” al-Mamaleki groaned. He had never liked the idea of having two Egyptian ‘revolutionary’ armoured divisions anywhere near, let alone planted on the soil of any country in the Persian Gulf. Now he found himself liking the prospect of having to take on the Red Army with several hundred fewer tanks even less appetising.
“Nasser’s forces appear to have regained control of most of Cairo but there have been further insurgencies and minor rebellions around Alexandria and Port Said, and elsewhere in the Delta. The formations that were due to embark at Suez for seaborne transit around the Arabian Peninsula to Kuwait City,” Michael Carver sighed, “have been ordered back to Cairo.”
“What price a second Cannae on the road north of Basra now, my friend?” Al-Mamaleki posed rhetorically.
The Englishman shrugged noncommittally
The Iranian officer grinned knowingly.
“I never trusted that madman Nasser,” he confessed.
Michael Carver shrugged. He had never actually believed a single Egyptian tank would ever arrive in the Gulf; or at least, not in time to be transferred to a forward position in Kuwait in any kind of good fighting order. Moreover, he was not so naive to believe than any Egyptian tanker could be relied upon to obey any command issuing from the mouth of one of their hated former colonial overlords. Privately, he was a little relieved. Better the crews of three score British and ANZAC Centurions than three hundred or three thousand tankers who might as easily turn their guns on his forces as upon to the enemy.
“Nor I, Hasan,” Carver admitted guiltily.
Al-Mamaleki shook his head and chuckled lowly.
“What else has gone wrong?” He inquired.
“Apart from the renewal of England’s traditional war with the French,” Michael Carver quipped wanly, “oddly enough, nothing significant has gone wrong in the last few hours.”
Several smaller physical maps had been pieced together to make a giant map of the whole of southern Iraq and western Iran on the end wall of the room the two generals had commandeered for their conference.
“I asked my GSO2 to accompany me up here from Abadan,” Carver declared, changing the subject and moving from generalities to specifics in the blink of an eye. “He’s got the latest radio traffic analysis. We think we’ve got a handle on what Comrade Marshal of the Soviet Union Babadzhanian is up to.”
Lieutenant Colonel Hamish Clive – so far as he knew no relation whatsoever to the famous ‘Clive’ who had conquered most of India single handed – had been ‘dragooned’ into his current job as General Staff Office 2 (Intelligence) by the simple expedient of his long time mentor Michael Carver asking him to ‘sort out the bloody mess in the GSO2 department’ the day he stepped off the plane from Malta, where incidentally, he had been ‘clearing up after the mess the Russians made at the beginning of April’. Clive was actually a Royal Engineer who had spent a lot of time over the years on the staff, but these days a fellow had to turn his hand to whatever needed to be done most urgently. He was a less rotund man tha
n he had been before the October War; nevertheless he was still well-padded and his complexion was never less than ruddy with apparent good health. He had taken over the ‘GSO2 Department’ with the practical let’s get things sorted out attitude that characterised his character and his twenty year career in the Army.
Clive wasted no time getting down to business.
“The bad news is that I think the Soviets have got themselves organised. Not before time, it had to happen sooner or later!”
Snatching up a pointer he started jabbing the big composite map on the wall.
“In the north Comrade Babadzhanian has done the sensible thing; namely to garrison Erbil, Mosul and Kirkuk, effectively quarantining the surrounding countryside and stopping the one bit of the Iraqi Army that seems to have taken exception to the invasion – the Kurdish regiments – from making trouble, and thus securing the north-western flank of Army Group South as it wheels to the south through Sulaymaniyah. Soon after the Soviets arrived in that part of the country the RAF mounted a series of raids knocking down bridges and choking communications hubs – town and city centres – with rubble. They stopped doing that once the Red Air Force established advance bases around Baghdad and began ringing the city with mobile radars and presumably, surface-to-air missile systems. Give the boys in blue credit where it is due,” Clive conceded grudgingly, “they made a real mess of the roads to the south and the existing airfields, depots and fuel storage tanks in central Iraq before they disengaged.”
Clive stepped back for a moment.
“Babadzhanian has placed a small blocking force west of Baghdad commanding the road from the capital to a place called Abu Graib, and the towns of Falluja and Ramadi. That happens to be the highway that goes all the way across the Syrian Desert to Jordan. We believe that elements of the 4th Mechanised Infantry Division of the Iraqi Army ran away in that direction; clearly, the Russians don’t want these chaps mucking about on their open flank as they barrel down to the south.”
Al-Mamaleki held up a hand.
“Do we have a feeling for what proportion of the Soviet invasion force has reached Baghdad, Colonel Clive?”
“Perhaps, a third, sir,” Michael Carver’s GSO2 offered. “As many troops are likely to be strung out between the Iranian border east and north of Sulaymaniyah or engaged in low level operations in the Kurdish north. The rest of Army Group South is still in the Alborz and Zagros Mountains keeping the roads passable and recovering broken down tanks and other vehicles.”
“So, the push to the south involves say, two or three armoured corps with what,” Al-Mamaleki thought out aloud, “around fifty to sixty thousand effectives and about five hundred tanks?”
“Nearer six or seven hundred, I’d guess, sir. Units are reaching Baghdad piecemeal and the Soviets are re-organising on the hoof, as it were. Equipment and front line troops are being stripped from existing units and reformed into all-arms battle groups before being incorporated into reinforced brigade and divisional formations under the command of Babadzhanian’s hardest charging generals.”
Al-Mamaleki looked up and met Michael Carver’s eye.
He would have sworn his friend was smiling but his facial expression was fixedly inscrutable.
“The most likely scenario is that in true Soviet fashion Babadzhanian has been given a serious hurry up by the arm chair generals back in Chelyabinsk or Sverdlovsk,” Clive grinned happily, “and basically, thrown caution to the winds.”
Al-Mamaleki knew Carver was smiling now.
The faster the enemy came onto his guns the better.
A few minutes later Michael Carver and Hasan al-Mamaleki stood outside the command comples enjoying the cool desert air.
“If you are amenable,” the Englishman prefaced, “I’d like to assign a ‘liaison officer’ to your Headquarters?”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“Julian Calder. You might remember him from the Staff College at Sandhurst a few years ago?”
“Julian?” The Iranian chuckled. “I should have known he’d be around here somewhere!”
“He’s SAS these days. Quite apart from making it easier for you and I to keep in touch I’m sure having a fellow like him around will come in handy,” Carver went on. “Sooner or later.”
“Sooner or later,” his friend agreed.
Chapter 15
Thursday 11th June 1964
Merton College, Oxford, England
Lieutenant Colonel Francis St John Waters, VC, felt more his old self in the brand new uniform which almost but not quite fitted him like a glove. Although the news that his wife wanted a divorce had come as a little bit of a surprise there was, as he always told his men in the field, invariably a silver lining to this as there was to the majority of clouds.
The letter had arrived at his billet in Headington a couple miles walk from the centre of the city, before he had got around to making plans to visit his estranged wife Shirley and the sprog up in Sheffield. That would have been a tiresome journey and he had never really gotten on with Eric, his older brother.
Funny old World, what?
This was a thing he had mused upon more than once in the last few days. He had been dreading paying a duty call on Eric’s hideaway up on Bradfield Moor overlooking Sheffield, making polite forced conversation with his sibling, his wife and his nine year old son. He had not seen Shirley or the sprog since before the October War and frankly, until the Red Air Force was so good as to give him a free ‘lift’ home he had not given an awful lot of thought to any kind of reunion.
Shirley had sent a picture of the sprog, Harold, Harry with her letter asking for a divorce. The sprog looked well, that was something. The letter had been something of a turn up for the books because Shirley had always been such a pretty, passive never say boo to a goose sort of girl; but apparently she and Eric had been brazenly ‘living as man and wife for the last year’.
What with one thing and another Frank Waters had to admit that he was a tad miffed about it all. It was bad enough Shirley was cuckolding him; without discovering that the chap who was regularly dipping his wick in one’s wife’s private parts was one’s own younger brother! Still, noblesse oblige and all that, he did not care to be cast in the role of the pot calling a kettle black; given that he honestly could not remember how many floozies, other men’s wives, and miscellaneous dusky-skinned maidens he had dallied with since the last time he had had carnal knowledge of Shirley, he was hardly in any position to confidently seize the moral high ground.
‘Shall I cite Eric as co-respondent?’ His wife had inquired. The matter was pressing; it seemed Eric had knocked up the bloody woman. ‘Or can I rely on you to organise that side of things at your end?’
Dammit! Did the woman not understand that was not how things worked these days? The era when a fellow could hire an obliging private eye to scrape up the dirt on an illicit assignation in a hotel room with a willing tart had ended the day the bloody bombs started dropping!
Resplendent in his new uniform and medal ribbons Frank Waters was vexed to be asked for his ID card, before the Policeman at the main entrance to Merton College allowed him to pass inside. His marital difficulties excepted the one thing which really irritated the ‘returning hero’ – as he had been hailed by the Ministry of Information and the Prime Minister herself, more than once – was that for some reason beyond his ken he had been declared persona non grata at his alma mater up in Herefordshire.
He had anticipated being welcomed back into the fold with open arms, positively feted and feasted by his old comrades in arms at Stirling Lines, the Headquarters of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment. Instead, he had been shunned, sent to Coventry by the SAS as if it was his fault that he had had the temerity to come back to England without any of the people he had taken to Iran. How was he to know that the whole bloody Red Army would turn up en masse in the middle of nowhere? And it was not as if he had abandoned the chaps to their fate; dash it all he had been unconscious when he was captured and
to this day he had no idea what had happened to his people in the air strike on the Russian column they had been hiding in! The bloody Regiment was treating him like he was a leper! Every morning he half-expected to receive three white feathers in the post!
“Ah, Frank,” Diana Neave, the wife of the Secretary of State for National Security, said smiling in welcome. She pecked him on the cheek and guided him through into the rooms the Neave family shared at Merton. “It is lovely to find you looking so well after your recent adventures.” The Neave offspring; eighteen year old Marigold, an elfin younger version of her mother, sixteen year old Richard, in a cadet uniform, and ten year old William, bright-eyed and still impressed by aging action heroes like Frank Waters, formed an impromptu respectful reception line before being dismissed by their mother.
Frank Waters had been on more than nodding acquaintance with the Neave’s ever since the war – the last ‘proper’ war, the one with that unspeakable bounder Hitler – when he had first rubbed shoulders with the SOE in 1944 and later, MI6 after he came back from North Africa. Airey Neave had been one of the ‘comedians’ responsible for sending him to the Balkans. Working with Tito’s partisans had been quite the dirtiest business he had ever turned his hand to; but at the time it had all seemed like it was in such a dashed good cause and he had never lost a great deal of sleep over it.
“It’s jolly good to be back in the old country, Diana,” the SAS man guffawed jovially, spying the stocky figure of his old sparring partner, Airey Neave approaching.
The two men shook hands.
Airey and Diana Neave were practically the only married couple he knew who were, to all intents, actually very happily married. Airey, the old dog, had married Diana not long after he got home back from Colditz Castle in 1942. The couple had both been in intelligence during the forty-five war, Diana working with the Polish Government in exile, and Airey doing whatever he did with SOE and MI6. That must have been problematic for them, never being able to discuss what went on in ‘the office’ while occasionally bumping into each other in the corridors outside some of the most secret rooms in Whitehall.