Ranulph Fiennes - Killer Elite

Ali checked and exhorted each of his men, then delved into his pack for the Chinese field cap of which he was so proud. He pulled it tightly down to his ears and gently checked

the cocking lever of his AK47.

With a burst of sudden son et lumiere the PFLO heavy mortars began the offensive as the first stirrings of dawn came to Mirbat.

Mike lay half awake, pleasantly aware that life was about to take on a rosy tint. Tomorrow 8 Troop would be relieved. In only a few days he would be home in his beloved Sussex. Idly he ran over the things to be done in preparation for the handover to G Squadron.

He heard the crump of incoming mortar bombs; another symbolic action by the adoo. Nothing serious was expected. There had been no warnings from the “green slime”-SAS argot for Intelligence.

When several heavy mortar rounds landed close by, Mike rose and fumbled in the dark for his spectacles. Donning shorts and rubber flip-flops he grabbed his FN rifle and clambered up a rickety ladder to the Bat-house roof.

The predawn sky crackled with high-velocity bullets. To his immediate front Mike watched a patch of perimeter wire disintegrate in a mortar explosion, while 12.7mm Spaagen rounds dug great chunks of masonry from the Dhofar Gendarmerie fortress and shrapnel screamed over the Bat-house. This was no low-key attack.

Mike was mentally well prepared. He had spent time over the previous month plotting imaginary reactions to hypothetical attacks on Mirbat. He knew exactly what to do and so did the men of 8 Troop. A lot of “muck” was already being flung at the fort, a sure sign that the building was a priority target for the adoo. The poorly armed Dhofar Gendarmes were unlikely to survive a frontal assault without immediate aid. If they fell, the twenty-five-pounder would go too.

Mike knew that his Fijian sergeant, a giant of a man named Labalaba, had already departed into the gloaming to help the single Omani gunner in the pit beside the fort. Laba, as he was known, was a humorous soul, given to boasting that an ancestor of his had once feasted on the missionary John Wesley. He was one of a number of Fijians who had been recruited by the British Army when good jungle soldiers for Borneo service were at a premium.

Mike approached Corporal Bob Bennett, the quiet West Countryman in charge of the Bat-house mortars. Mike had established a close rapport with Bob over the previous three months.

“High explosive and white phosphorus, Bob,” Mike ordered. The WP mortar shells would provide an instant screen of white smoke among the adoo, upsetting their aim and giving Labalaba time to prepare the twenty-five-pounder for action.

“Right, boss,” Bob replied and radioed his mortar-fire directions to Fuzz Pussey, an Oldham man, down in the mortar pit.

Mike could see major trouble was imminent. He turned to the powerfully built trooper lying behind the sights of the. 50 Browning machine gun.

“Pete, see if you can establish comms with HQ.”

Pete Winner was a northerner with a fiery nature. In May 1981 he was to lead the Alpha Assault Group raid on the Iranian Embassy in Kensington, London.

Pete left the Bat-house roof and tapped out a Morse code message to SAS Headquarters near Salalah: “Contact. Under heavy fire. Wait. Out.” Sand and mud showered his face as a brace of 120mm Katyusha rockets exploded nearby.

A dull monsoon dawn had broken over the shore and the village. The SAS men wore shorts, shirts and desert boots. All were bare-headed.

For half an hour the attackers poured bullets, mortars and rockets at the forts and the Bat-house. Bob and Fuzz returned mortar fire as best they could and the others formed a line to haul ammunition boxes up to the roof.

Shortly before 6 a.m. there was a sudden lull in the bedlam and little children appeared on the roofs of the town houses behind the Bat-house. Bob Bennett cupped his hands and shouted, “Go down, go down.”

The two SAS machine guns remained silent, not wishing to give away their position until a ground attack began. At exactly 6 a.m. all hell broke loose.

From shore to shore across the length of the wire the adoo opened up on the Mirbat defenders and, in groups of a dozen, their commandos began the assault. Using the still dim light, the clinging wraiths of mist and the broken ground for cover, they darted forward from rock to rock. They outnumbered the garrison by five to one and their firepower was greatly superior.

On the rooftop Pete Winner waited behind his heavy machine gun. Air-cooled and belt-fed, it could fire up to six hundred rounds a minute.

A few paces away Geoff Taylor, on loan to 8 Troop from G Squadron, adjusted the sights of the smaller 7.62 GPMG (General-Purpose Machine Gun) and prepared the feed belts with help from Roger Coles, a Bristol man built thin as a rake.

Mike felt the tension slacken in his stomach. He cleaned his spectacles with his shirttail and peered into the fog of dust and cordite. He forced down an appalling surge of fear.

Men were advancing on foot toward the perimeter wherever he looked. As they broke into a run, Mike turned and shouted, “Open fire.”

Winner and Taylor were totally efficient with their weapons. The ground to the north of the wire was soon littered with adoo bodies shredded by heavy. 50-caliber and high-velocity GPMG bullets.

The advancing PFLO lines continued, ignoring the screams of their dying. The wire was breached in places, and rocket launchers set up behind rocks. Soon the Dhofar Gendarmerie fort and the nearby gun pit shook to direct hits from Carl Gustav rockets. Gaping holes appeared in the fort and bodies of dead gendarmes slumped over the wall embrasures.

The gun pit was undermanned but Laba worked like a demon to load and fire the Second World War relic over open sights and at point-blank range. His activities attracted a hail of bullets, one of which removed part of his chin.

Back at the Bat-house mortar pit 8 Troop’s second Fijian, another giant, named Sekavesi, lost walkie-talkie contact with his friend and braved seven hundred yards of open ground under heavy fire in a dash from Bat-house to gun pit.

Roger Coles sneaked out of the Bat-house with a Sarbe ground-to-air beacon. He hoped to call a helicopter in from Salalah to evacuate the wounded. Choosing a suitable spot close to the beach, he signaled the machine, which came in low over the sea. Murderous enemy fire precluded any landing and the helicopter veered away into the mist. Coles was lucky to make it back to the Bat-house.

In the gun pit Sekavesi and the wounded Laba were working the twenty-five-pounder. Covered in blood, black cordite and sweat, burned by the empty brass cases, they slammed round after round into the wire to their front. A 7.62 bullet entered Sekavesi’s shoulder and lodged itself close to his spine. A second bullet cut a deep furrow along his skull. Blood cascaded down his face, but realizing the imminent danger of being overrun, he propped himself against a sandbag with his rifle and, wiping blood from his right eye, continued firing at the wire.

Laba limped across to a 60mm mortar tube. A bullet penetrated his neck and the great Fijian fell dead. Beside him in the pit the Omani gunner lay writhing with a bullet in his guts. The big gun, of key importance to the defense of Mirbat, fell silent.

On the Bat-house roof Mike was deafened by the numbing roar of the battle but he sensed the sudden silence in the gun pit. Receiving no response to repeated calls with his walkie-talkie, he knew he must go to the pit without delay. Bullets were now passing over the Bat-house from the south as well as the north. This could only mean the adoo had outflanked the forts and were already into the village itself. Eight Troop were surrounded. Mike forced this unpleasant turn of events to the back of his mind. Bob, Pete and the others could hold the Bat-house; he must help the Fijians defend the northern perimeter at all costs. The thought of running the gauntlet from Bat-house to gun pit now that the adoo lined the perimeter wire with their full firepower was to stare death in the face. Yet every man on the roof volunteered to go with Mike. He chose Tommy Tobin, the medical orderly. As he was about to set out, Bob reminded him, “You’ll not get far in your flip-flops.”