Shaun Clarke - Counter-insurgency in Aden

‘This pilot couldn’t ride a bike,’ Corporal Ken Brooke complained, ‘let alone fly an aeroplane.’

‘They’re pilots because they’re too thick to do anything else,’ Lance-Corporal Les Moody replied.

‘Stop moaning and get ready to disembark,’ Sergeant Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Ashman told them. ‘That RAF Loadmaster’s already preparing to open the door, so we’ll be on the ground in a minute or two and you can all breathe fresh air again.’

‘Hallelujah!’ Ken exclaimed softly.

In charge of the squadron was the relatively inexperienced, twenty-four-year-old Captain Robert Ellsworth. A recent recruit from the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry, the young officer had a healthy respect for the superior experience of the troops who had already served the Regiment well in Malaya and Borneo, particularly his two sergeants, Jimmy Ashman and Richard Parker. The former was an old hand who had started as a youngster with the Regiment when it was first formed in North Africa way back in 1941 under the legendary David Stirling. Jimbo was a tough, fair, generally good-natured NCO who understood his men and knew how to get things done.

Parker, known as Dead-eye Dick, or simply Dead-eye, because of his outstanding marksmanship, was more of a loner, forged like steel in the hell of the Telok Anson swamp in Malaya and, more recently, in what had been an equally nightmarish campaign in Borneo. Apart from being the best shot and probably the most feared and admired soldier in the Regiment, Parker was also valuable in that he had spent his time since Borneo at the Hereford and Army School of Languages, adding a good command of Arabic to his other skills.

Another Borneo hand, Trooper Terry Malkin, who had gone there as a ‘virgin’ but received a Mention in Dispatches for his bravery, was in Aden already, working under cover with one of the renowned ‘Keeni-Meeni’ squads. As a superior signaller Terry would be sorely missed for the first few weeks, though luckily he would be returning to the squadron in a few weeks’ time, when his three-month stint in Aden was over.

Three NCOs who had also been ‘broken in’ in Borneo, though not with the men already mentioned, were among those preparing to disembark from the Hercules: the impetuous Corporal Ken Brooke, the aptly named Lance-Corporal Les Moody and the medical specialist, Lance-Corporal Laurence ‘Larry’ Johnson. All were good, experienced soldiers.

Two recently badged troopers, Ben Riley and Dennis ‘Taff’ Thomas, had been included to make up the required numbers and be trained under the more experienced men. All in all, Captain Ellsworth felt that he was in good company and hoped to prove himself worthy of them when the campaign began.

The moment the Hercules came to a halt, the doors were pushed open and sunlight poured into the gloomy hold. Standing up with a noisy rattling of weapons, the men fell instinctively into two lines and inched forward, past the stacked, strapped-down supply crates, to march in pairs down the ramp to the ground. Once out of the aircraft, they were forced to blink against the fierce sunlight before they could look about them to see, parked neatly along the runway, RAF Hawker Hunter ground-support aircraft, Shackleton bombers, Twin Pioneer transports, and various helicopters, including the Sikorski S-55 Whirlwind, which the squadron had used extensively in Malaya and Borneo, and the ever-reliable Wessex S-58 Mark 1. Bedford three-ton lorries, Saladin armoured cars and jeeps with rear-mounted Bren light machine-guns were either parked near the runway or cruising along the tarmac roads between the corrugated tin hangars and concrete buildings. Beyond the latter could be seen the sun-scorched, volcanic rock mountains that encircled and dominated the distant port of Aden.

The fresh air the men had hoped to breathe after hours in the Hercules was in fact filled with dust. Their throats dried out within seconds, making them choke on the dust when they tried to breathe, and they all broke out in sweat the instant they stepped into the suffocating heat.

‘Jesus!’ Ken hissed. ‘This is worse than Borneo.’

‘I feel like I’m burning up,’ Les groaned. ‘Paying for my sins.’

‘Pay for those and you’ll burn for ever,’ Jimbo told him, breaking away from a conversation with Captain Ellsworth and Sergeant Parker. ‘Now pick up your gear and head for those Bedfords lined up on the edge of the runway. We’ve a long way to go yet.’

‘What?’ the newly fledged trooper Ben Riley asked in shock, practically croaking in the dreadful humidity and wiping sweat from his face.

‘We’ve a long way to go yet,’ Jimbo repeated patiently. ‘Sixty miles to our forward base at Thumier, to be exact. And we’re going in those Bedfords parked over there.’

‘Sixty miles?’ Ben asked, as if he hadn’t heard the sergeant correctly. ‘You mean now ?

‘That’s right, Trooper. Now.’

‘Without a break?’

‘Naturally, Trooper.’

‘I think what he means, Sergeant,’ the other recently badged trooper, Taff Thomas, put in timidly, aware that the temperature here could sometimes rise to 150 degrees Fahrenheit, ‘is that a two-week period is normally allowed for acclimatization to this kind of heat.’

Ken and Larry laughed simultaneously.

‘That’s for the bleedin’ greens,’ Les explained, referring to the green-uniformed regular Army. ‘Not for the SAS. We don’t expect two weeks’ paid leave. We just get up and go.’

‘Happy, Troopers?’ Jimbo asked. Both men nodded, keen to do the right thing. ‘Right, then, get up in those Bedfords.’

The men did as they were told and soon four three-tonners were leaving the RAF base. They were guarded front and rear by British Army 6×6-drive Saladin armoured cars, each with a 76mm QF (quick-firing) gun and a Browning .30-inch machine-gun. The convoy trundled along a road that was lined with coconut palms and ran as straight as an arrow through a flat desert plain covered with scattered clumps of aloe and cactus-like euphorbia.

As the Bedfords headed towards the heat-hazed, purplish mountains that broke up the horizon, the coconut palms gradually disappeared and the land became more arid, but with a surprisingly wide variety of trees – acacias, tamarisks, jujube and doum palms – breaking up the desert’s monotony.

Once they were well away from Aden, out on the open plain, the heat became even worse and was made bearable only by the wind created by the lorries. This wind, however, churned up dense clouds of dust that made most of the men choke and, in some cases, vomit over the rattling tailgates.

‘Heave it up over the back,’ Jimbo helpfully instructed Ben as he tried to hold his stomach’s contents in with pursed lips and bulging cheeks. ‘If you do it over the side and that wind blows it back in, over us, you’ll have to lick us clean with your furry tongue. So do it over the rear, lad.’

His cheeks deathly white and still bulging, the trooper nodded and threw himself to the back of the vehicle, hanging over the tailgate and vomiting unrestrainedly into the cloud of dust being churned up by the wheels. He was soon followed by his fellow trooper, Taff Thomas, who picked the exact same spot to empty his tortured stomach, while the more experienced men covered their faces with scarves and either practised deep, even breathing or amused themselves with some traditional bullshit.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Ken said to Taff as the latter wiped his mucky lips clean with a handkerchief and tried to control his heavy breathing. ‘You’ll feel better after you’ve had a good nosh at Thumier. Great grub they do there. Raw liver, tripe, runny eggs, oysters, octopus, snails that look like snot, green pea soup…’

Taff groaned and went to throw up again over the back of the bouncing, rattling Bedford, into boiling, choking clouds of sand.