Desert Raiders

‘Worst instructor I ever had,’ he said coolly. ‘Come on, Dirk, let’s keep searching.’

‘I think we might be pushing our luck,’ Greaves warned him.

‘Tosh!’ Stirling barked.

Wincing occasionally from the pain in his unsupported legs, he led Greaves further along the corridor, brushing past many senior staff officers, looking for the office of the C-in-C.

‘That guard’s bound to be trying to find us,’ Greaves said, ‘so if we don’t come across the office of the C-in-C soon, he’ll be on our backs.’

Stirling stopped at a door marked ‘DCGS’. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Dirk. Let’s try our luck in here.’ Boldly, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Greaves followed him in and closed the door behind him. Though bold in war, Greaves now suffered a racing heart at the thought of facing the Deputy Chief of General Staff without an appointment, let alone a pass into the building. His heart thumped even more when he saw the DCGS, General Neil Ritchie, looking up in surprise from his cluttered desk.

‘Who…?’

‘Lieutenant Stirling, Scots Guards, sir,’ Stirling interrupted breathlessly. ‘And Lieutenant Greaves, also Scots Guards. Both with 8 Commando and formerly part of Layforce.’

Before the general could respond or get over his surprise, Stirling apologized for bursting into the office, explained that there had been no time to arrange it and said that he had come on a matter of particular urgency.

‘It had better be,’ General Ritchie replied darkly. Then, distracted by Stirling’s ungainly stance, he asked, ‘Why are you standing in such an odd way, Lieutenant?’

‘Spot of bother with the legs, sir. Parachute drop. Just got out of the Scottish Military Hospital and had to leave my crutches at the gate when we sneaked into the camp.’

‘You came here on crutches?’ General Ritchie gazed at Stirling in disbelief, then smiled a little and leaned back in his chair. ‘You have five minutes, Lieutenant. Take that chair and rest your legs. Then you’d better start talking.’

Relieved, Stirling withdrew his memorandum from the inside pocket of his tunic, handed it to Greaves, then gratefully sank into the soft chair facing the desk while Greaves handed the memo to the DCGS. Ritchie read it carefully, taking rather longer than five minutes, then spread it carefully on the desk and looked up again.

‘Interesting.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘It could work, but I’m not at all sure that the C-in-C would welcome such an unorthodox approach. A sniff of guerrilla operations there, Stirling, and General Wavell doesn’t approve of that business.’

‘That may be true, sir, but rumour has it that he’s under considerable pressure from Churchill to stop the relentless advance of Rommel.’

‘Those rumours are based on fact. Nevertheless, he may not thank me for this kind of proposal. A lot of risk involved, yes?’

‘It’s a safe bet for you, sir,’ Stirling said cleverly. ‘If things go wrong, the casualties will be few in number. If successful, they could change the course of the war in the desert and bring credit to all of us.’

Ritchie thought about it, then nodded in agreement. ‘All right, Lieutenant, I’ll bring the subject up with the C-in-C. If he’s interested I’ll show him your memorandum. You should hear from me within a matter of days. In the meantime, no more nonsense from you – such as this break-in. I’ll get a sentry to escort both you men out. Next time get a pass.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Stirling and Greaves said at once, with big, dopey grins.

The general picked up his phone and called for a guard. Five minutes later a triumphant Stirling and Greaves were being escorted out of MEHQ. As they passed through the main gates, the guard who had pursued them stepped out, grinning broadly, to hand Stirling his crutches.

‘Well done, sir,’ the guard said with a grin.

Stirling smiled back at him, put the crutches under his armpits, and waited patiently beside Greaves while the latter hailed a passing taxi.

‘Now we can only wait,’ Stirling said, ‘so let’s have a good time.’

Three days later, when Greaves and Stirling were beginning to feel more exhausted from having a good time than they ever had on an operation, Stirling received a call from the DCGS’s office, inviting him back to see General Ritchie.

While Stirling was at that meeting, Greaves enjoyed a long lunch with his attractive nurse, Frances, whom he had been wining, dining and bedding for the past two days and nights in his hotel. In fact, she had just left his room when Stirling turned up, flushed with excitement.

‘The meeting wasn’t just with General Ritchie,’ he told Greaves. ‘The C-in-C, General Auchinleck, was also there. So was the Chief of the General Staff.’

Greaves gave a low whistle of appreciation. ‘So, what transpired?’

‘Permission granted,’ Stirling said, ‘on the following conditions. I’ve just been promoted to captain. Five officers and sixty other ranks will be recruited. For the time being, we’ll recruit only from former Layforce men. We’ll train the men ourselves and prepare them for raids against five airfields Jerry is using as bases for his latest Me 109F fighters. Auchinleck felt that five-man teams are too awkward, so teams of four instead of five will be the operational basis of the raiding parties. Our parent body will be a non-existent Special Air Service Brigade, or L Detachment…’

‘Why “L”?’ Greaves interrupted.

Stirling’s grin was mischievous. ‘L for Learner. Anyway, that’s what we’re calling it: L Detachment, SAS Brigade. To Axis agents and others it should suggest that there are more than sixty-six parachutists in Egypt. Meanwhile, we can get on with the real business. Now let’s go and find some men.’

Jubilant, they embarked on a search of Cairo to find the men who would be the bedrock of L Detachment.

The first officer, Lieutenant William ‘Bill’ Bollington, they found immediately, in the bar of Shepheard’s Hotel, where Bollington was staying. A Gordon Highlander whose father and grandfather had been senior NCOs, he was instantly excited by the idea of a new raiding team and agreed to join them.

‘I strongly recommend Sergeant Ralph Lorrimer,’ he told them. ‘Dorset Regiment, but now with the LRDG. Apart from being a hell of an NCO in his own right, and an expert on the desert, he’d probably be your ticket to the LRDG. He’s also, incidentally, unbeatable with the Browning 12-gauge autoloader. A good man in a tight spot.’

‘Where will we find him?’

Lieutenant Bollington grinned and pointed down through his room window, in the direction of the Sharia il Berka. ‘Down there. He practically lives in Tiger Lil’s place. I think he keeps a room there.’

‘Very good,’ Stirling said. He and Greaves left the hotel and walked across to the notorious street of brothels. Tiger Lil’s was a gloomy, echoing barn of a place where the men queued up at the doors of the rooms, often peeping through keyholes to see how the first man was getting on and shouting words of encouragement: ‘Come on! Get on with it! We’re all waiting out here!’ Tiger Lil, the immense, good-natured madam, who was sitting behind the cash desk by the front door, told them the number of Lorrimer’s room. As they climbed the stairs, they came across many young girls, no more than eight or nine, who were running in and out of the rooms with towels, cleaning rags and bottles of Condy’s disinfectant.

When Stirling and Greaves reached the room which was, according to Tiger Lil, rented permanently by Lorrimer, Greaves hammered on the door with his fist and a gravelly male voice bid him enter. Doing so, he and Stirling found Sergeant Lorrimer, wearing his shirt and trousers, though bare-footed, stretched out on his bed, propped up slightly with pillows, reading the latest edition of The Strand.

Surprised to see two officers in his room, he slid his feet down to the floor and sat on the edge of his bed. He was of medium height, but broad-chested and muscular, with a handsome, world-weary face and a fearless, blue-eyed gaze.

‘Yes, sirs?’ he asked, clearly puzzled by their presence in his room.

Stirling introduced himself and Greaves, then explained why they had come. As soon as he had finished, Lorrimer agreed to join up.

‘Can you get us the cooperation of the LRDG?’ Stirling asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Excellent. Please get in touch with them immediately, then contact me here.’ He scribbled his brother’s private phone number on a piece of paper and gave it to Lorrimer. ‘That’s where I’m staying while I’m in Cairo. Get in touch when you’ve fixed up a meeting with the LRDG. If it can’t be arranged immediately, fix it up for later.’ He was leaving the room with Greaves when the latter, unable to contain his curiosity, turned back and asked Lorrimer: ‘Do you rent this room on a full-time basis, Sergeant?’

Lorrimer nodded. ‘Only during my leave periods,’ he said. ‘I’m a married man with three kids and a healthy sexual appetite. This room’s cheaper than anything else I could hire and the girls are conveniently located. What more could a man want?’

‘You’re a man of initiative,’ Greaves replied. ‘I think we made the right choice. See you soon, Sergeant.’

Their next stop was the MP barracks at Bab el Hadid, where one of Greaves’s favourite men, Captain Patrick ‘Paddy’ Callaghan, No 3 Commando, was languishing in one of the cells, pending a court martial for knocking out his commanding officer. Formerly an Irish rugby international and accomplished boxer, Callaghan was normally an amiable, courteous man, but unfortunately he had a violent temper. Indeed, before actually striking his commanding officer, Callaghan had run him out of the officers’ mess at the point of a bayonet. He was, nevertheless, an exceptional soldier who had already been mentioned in dispatches for his bravery in action.

When Stirling and Greaves proposed that he avoid his pending court martial by joining their new unit, he said, ‘Why not? I’m going out of my mind with boredom here. Count me in, gentlemen.’

The rest of the main group had to be searched out across the length and breadth of Cairo, in nightclubs such as Groppi’s, the Blue Nile and the Sweet Melody Cabaret where soldiers, sailors and airmen, drunk on the deadly Zebeeb, groped the ‘cherry brandy bints’; in the Union Jack pension with its egg ’n’ chips and Greek proprietor; in the numerous bars and brothels of the Berka; in the healthier Springbok Recreational Club at Helwan; in the surprisingly sedate Cairo Club, which was a services club reserved for sergeants and warrant officers; and in the Anglo-Egyptian Union, an officers’ club located outside the city.

From these and other places Stirling and Greaves, sometimes together, other times separately, trawled the rest of the men they personally knew, respected and wanted. These included Captain ‘Jock’ Lewes, Welsh Guards, former Layforce member, and the man who had made the first experimental static-line parachute jumps with Stirling. A superbly fit ex-Oxford rowing blue with a low boredom threshold, Lewes had already proven himself to be a superb exponent of night-time raids behind enemy lines in the Tobruk area. He also had a talent for devising training programmes and techniques, which Stirling intended putting to good use.

Finally, Stirling called for general volunteers, inviting them to a meeting in a tent in Geneifa, outside Cairo. Among those who came forward were Sergeants Bob Tappman, Pat Riley and Ernie Bond; Corporals Jim Almonds, ‘Benny’ Bennett, Jack ‘Taff’ Clayton and Reg Seekings; and Privates Neil Moffatt, Frank ‘Frankie’ Turner and Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Ashman.

A few days later these men and more were gathered together at the chosen base camp at Kabrit, in the Suez Canal zone, to begin their special, brutal training.

They were called the ‘Originals’.

3

Located by the Great Bitter Lake, about 95 miles east of Cairo, and south of Aden, Kabrit was a desolate piece of flatland, fully exposed to the scorching sun, plagued by swarms of fat, black flies, and consisting of no more than three mouldering tents for the men, a command tent with a rickety card-table and stool, and one badly battered three-ton lorry.

‘Bloody hell!’ Corporal Jack ‘Taff’ Clayton said as soon as he had jumped down off the back of the three-tonner and was standing in a cloud of dust with the others. ‘There’s nothing here, lads!’

‘Not a damned thing,’ Private Frank ‘Frankie’ Turner agreed, swatting the buzzing flies from his sweating face. ‘No more than a piss-hole.’

The men were already wearing clothing more suitable to the desert: khaki shirt and shorts, regular Army boots with rolled-down socks, and a soft peaked cap instead of a helmet. Each man also had a Fairburn-Sykes commando knife and Browning 9mm handgun strapped to his waist.

‘Damned flies!’ Private Neil Moffatt complained.

‘Bloody hot!’ Corporal Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Ashman exclaimed.

‘All right, you men!’ Sergeant Lorrimer bawled, his legs like tree-trunks in his floppy shorts, his hands on his broad hips. ‘Stop moaning and groaning. Go and put your kit in those tents, then come back out here.’

‘Yes, Sarge!’ they all chimed.

Picking their kit off the desert floor, they crossed to the three tents and wandered around them in disbelief.

‘These tents are in tatters,’ Neil observed mournfully, wiping the sweat from his face and neck with a piece of cloth that could have come from one of the tattered tents.

‘They’re also too small,’ Frankie Turner put in. ‘Might as well sleep out in the open for all the good these’ll do us.’

‘More holes than a fancy Eyetie cheese,’ Jimbo said, spitting on the ground between his feet. ‘And how the hell we’re all supposed to squeeze in there, I can’t imagine. I think this calls for a talk with our soft-voiced friend, Sergeant Lorrimer.’

‘Right,’ Taff said. ‘Let’s pitch our gear temporarily in a tent, then we’ll go and sort this out.’ He ducked low to enter one of the tents and was immediately followed in by some of the others. The tents had been raised over the desert floor; there were no beds or groundsheets. ‘Fucking beautiful!’ Taff exclaimed. ‘We’re supposed to lie on the bloody sand and get eaten alive. Not me, mate.’ Dropping his kit on the ground, he ducked low again and left the tent. The others did the same and gathered outside, where Lorrimer had indicated.

Lorrimer was over by the three-tonner, deep in conversation with Captains Stirling and Callaghan and Lieutenant Greaves. While the men waited for him to come over they had a ‘smoko’, which helped to keep the flies at bay.

‘I can tell we’re all going to be driven mad here,’ Jimbo said, ‘by these bloody flies and mosquitoes.’

‘Creepy-crawlies as well,’ Frankie said darkly.

‘Snakes, scorpions, spiders, ticks, midges,’ Neil said mournfully. ‘You name it, we’ve got it here all right. We’ll be eaten alive.’

‘Dust,’ Taff said, flicking ash from his cigarette and watching it fall to the desert floor, on all its hidden horrors. ‘Sandstorms…Burning hot days, freezing nights…I feel ill already.’

‘What are those two bastards talking about?’ Frankie asked, gazing at Lorrimer and Stirling.

‘We’re about to find out,’ Jimbo said, ‘and I’m not sure I want to know.’

Eventually Stirling climbed up onto the back of the three-tonner and Lorrimer bawled that the men were to gather around. This they all did, most still smoking and puffing clouds of smoke.

‘Sorry, lads, about the state of this place,’ Stirling said, waving his right hand to indicate the tents behind the men, ‘but I’m sure we can do something to improve on it.’

‘With what?’ Jimbo called out.

‘Shut your mouth, soldier, and let the boss speak!’ Lorrimer bawled.

‘Boss?’ Taff whispered to Frankie. ‘Did he use the word “boss”?’

‘SILENCE!’ Lorrimer roared.

‘I appreciate your frustration, lads,’ Stirling continued, ‘but all is not lost. Indeed, I’m led to believe that there’s a splendid Allied camp about fifteen miles south of here, where the New Zealanders, in particular, live rather well.’

‘Is that some kind of message?’ Neil asked.

Stirling’s manner was deadpan. ‘Without being too specific, let me merely remind you that your first priority is to complete the construction of this base camp by whatever means are at your disposal. I’ll be returning to Cairo immediately to collect more vehicles from the Royal Corps of Transport and weapons from the armoury at Geneifa. When I get back here I expect to find things greatly improved. How you do it is not my concern; nor will I be here to witness it. I can only add the information that the Kiwis will be away from their base on manœuvres most of tonight and their tents will therefore be empty. That’s all. Class dismissed.’

Taking the hint, a dozen of the men drove in the battered three-tonner that same evening to the large, fenced compound fifteen miles away, stretched out across a dusty plain above the Mediterranean and being used by British, Australian and Indian troops, as well as the Kiwis.

Deciding that the only thing to do was bluff it, Jimbo drove boldly through the main gate as if they belonged there. ‘New Zealand Division!’ Taff yelled as the lorry passed the bored Indian guard. Receiving no more than a nod of permission from the guard, Jimbo continued driving, passing row upon row of tents, tanks, other armoured vehicles and the many trucks of first the British, then the Indian lines, until arriving at the New Zealand area. There he switched off the headlights and the rest of the men piled out, letting their eyes adjust to the darkness, then using torches to locate what they needed in the tents temporarily vacated by the Kiwis.

It took them quite a while, but it was well worth the effort, for they managed to pile the three-tonner high with lamps, tables, chairs, steel lockers, washbasins, mirrors, cooking utensils, proper camp beds, mattresses, sheets, towels, portable showers and latrines, tents large and small, camouflage netting, and even crates of beer and spirits.

‘Come on, lads!’ Taff whispered when they had been busily thieving for an hour. ‘Let’s take this lot back to base. Then we’ll return for some more.’

‘You’ve got a fucking nerve,’ Jimbo said, grinning.

‘Piece of piss,’ Taff replied.

They made three runs in all, boldly driving in and out of the camp, waving cheerily at the Indian guard and passing the British and Indian lines as if they belonged there. Eventually, even the daring Taff checked his watch, noted that it was almost dawn, and became a bit nervous.

‘Let’s pack it in and get out of here,’ he told them. ‘It’ll soon be first light and the Kiwis will probably return then. We can’t afford to get caught now.’

‘Right,’ Frankie agreed. ‘Let’s get going.’

They were hurrying out of the last, largest tent, obviously used as a mess tent, when the musically inclined Jimbo stopped, stared lovingly at a dust-covered item in one corner, near a long trestle table, and said, ‘Oh, God, look at that beauty!’

‘What?’ Neil asked, perplexed.

‘I want her. I need her!’

The rest stared at Jimbo as if he was mad. ‘Are you kidding?’ Frankie asked eventually. ‘That’s a bloody piano!’

Jimbo ran his fingers lovingly over the keyboard without making any sound. ‘A real darlin’, lads. Going to waste here. It could cheer things up a bit in our mess – when we get a mess going. What about it?’

‘Jesus, Jimbo!’

‘We could have a regular Saturday night. Make the beer slip down even smoother. Come on, lads, let’s grab it.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Taff said, exasperated and amused at the same time. ‘Just grab the bloody thing and let’s go. Move it, lads! Now!’

The piano was humped onto the lorry, easily placed there because this last load was light, then the dozen men climbed up to seat themselves around it. Jimbo then drove boldly back through the camp and waved as usual to the Indian guard at the main gate. The latter, seeing the piano, looked suspicious for the first time, but Jimbo was off and gone in a cloud of dust before he could be stopped.

Once back at Kabrit, where the sun was shedding dawn light over the Great Bitter Lake, painting it crimson, the men unloaded their last haul, had a brew-up and cold breakfast to get them through to lunchtime. They then enthusiastically raised the brand-new tents they had stolen, camouflaged them with the netting, filled them with beds, steel lockers, tables and chairs, hung mirrors from the uprights, filled the lockers with their belongings, and placed family photos on their tables and cupboards.

When their sleeping arrangements had been sorted out, they raised the biggest tent, to be used as the mess tent, helped the cook set up his kitchen, carried in the long trestle tables and chairs, stacked the crates of beer and spirits beside a refrigerator run off a portable electric generator, and finally wheeled the piano in.

Jimbo stood back to admire it. ‘Looks beautiful, don’t it?’

‘A real treat,’ Frankie told him. ‘What about a tune?’

‘You mean now?’

‘Why not? Having just nicked it, we’d like to know if you can actually play the fucking thing.’

‘I can play,’ Jimbo said.

When he had expertly given them a Vera Lynn medley, his fingers light on the keys, they all gathered outside to help two former REME men raise the portable showers and thunderboxes. Jimbo had an experimental shit and pronounced the latrines operational. For the rest of the hour leading up to lunchtime, there was a general rush to make use of them.

Later that day Stirling returned from Cairo in a jeep, leading a convoy of other jeeps and lorries for the use of L Detachment. When the vehicles had been parked, the Royal Corps of Transport drivers climbed into a Bedford and were driven back to their own base at Geneifa. Stirling then told his SAS troopers to unload the assortment of large and small weapons he had brought in one of the lorries. These included the brand-new Sten gun, Vickers and Browning heavy machine-guns, the M1 Thompson sub-machine-gun, and the obligatory Bren light machine-gun. These were stacked up in one of the smaller tents, to be used as an armoury under the charge of Corporal Jim Almonds.

By nightfall, when the burning heat was being replaced by freezing cold, the desolate ‘piss-hole’ of Kabrit was a well-equipped operational base and Jimbo was playing the piano in the noisy mess tent.

4

Their training began at first light the next day with a more intensive weapons course than any of them had ever undergone before. Assuming that their greatest need would be for a barrage of fire at relatively close range to cover a hasty retreat after acts of sabotage, Sergeant Lorrimer gave only cursory attention to the standard bolt-action rifles and instead concentrated on the new 9mm Sten sub-machine-gun. This was only 762mm long, weighed a mere 3.70kg, was cheap and crude in construction, with a simple metal stock and short barrel, yet could fire 550 rounds per minute from 32-round box magazines and had an effective range of 45 yards.

To cover the same needs, great attention was also given to the M1 Thompson sub-machine-gun, better known as the ‘tommy-gun’ and immortalized by the Hollywood gangster movies of the 1930s and early 40s. A heavier, more accurate and powerful weapon, the tommy-gun had a solid wooden stock and grip, a longer barrel, and could fire 11.43 rounds at the rate of 700 per minute from 30-round box magazines, with an effective range of 60 yards.

Everyone was also retrained in the use of the 0.5-inch Browning heavy machine-gun, which could fire 400–500 rounds per minute from a belt feed, and was effective up to 1600 yards; the beloved Bren gun, the finest light machine-gun in existence, which could fire 520 rounds per minute from 30-round box magazines and was effective up to 650 yards; and finally the lethal Vickers ‘K’ .303-inch machine-gun, actually an aircraft weapon, which fired 500 rounds per minute from 100-round magazines filled with a mixture of tracer, armour-piercing incendiary and ball bullets.