We each wore long KDs, rubberized lace-up ankle boots and an old US-style leather flying jacket – Hudd said no one had ever made anything better for the field. Quite like old times for me: I’d owned one once, but I didn’t tell them that either. Each of the jackets had a goolie chit stitched into it, and for the nervous among you I’d better explain what a goolie chit was. A goolie chit was (and maybe still is for all I know) a notice in a local language addressed to anyone who might find or capture a distressed airman, telling him that a reward was offered for said airman’s safe return – with his balls still hanging where they should be. Goolies was said to be the Hindustani word for testicles: hence ‘goolie chit’. The RAF is nothing but thorough, so they gave me another on printed paper, headed up with a jolly-looking Union Jack and translated into Arabic, Kurdish, French and Greek. I’d rather have taken my chances with the Arabs and Kurds than the Frogs, but this isn’t the place to go into that.
There was one other thing. If the goolie chits didn’t prove all that persuasive, we each had a big .45 in a canvas holster around our waist, and Hudd and his man had Stirlings. I felt as if we should be asking directions for the OK Corral.
Hudd took a bearing with an old marching compass, and we set off on a goat track, up a slope of stony ochre-coloured ground overlaid with that same rough sawgrass. All around us were mountain tops, and they seemed steeper and more oppressive the higher we climbed. That was interesting: my logic told me it should have been the other way round.
I reckoned the snake venom and antivenom were taking their toll of Hudd’s man. He didn’t complain, but I could see he was sweating pints, so after half an hour I called, ‘Drink, anyone?’ to give him a breather.
Hudd, who had been leading, swung round with an angry look on his face.
But he took in the situation immediately, wiped his forehead on his sleeve and said, ‘Yeah. I’m parched. Five-minute bums down.’
We had dumped the jump helmets; the snakes were welcome to them. Both the Aussies favoured wide-brimmed bush hats, but I’d brought my Jerry canvas desert cap. It was just the job. Hudd looked a bit askance at it, but didn’t say anything. Sitting down wasn’t all that dangerous: most of the snakes were in the gullies, and there were fewer the higher we climbed.
‘Why are there so many bloody snakes up here?’ I asked Hudd. ‘I hate the damned things.’
‘Plenty o’ food, and damn few predators I’d guess . . . and I’d also guess we arrived the weekend they came out of hibernation, cold and cranky. Come back in a fortnight’s time and you might not see one.’
‘Can we go away, and come back in a fortnight’s time then?’ I asked. That raised a weak smile from Hudd’s man. I guessed he was suffering.
Hudd replied, ‘Don’ be so squeamish, Charlie; you sound like a drama queen.’ That raised another smile. We drank a few mouthfuls of water, and ate a couple of squares of something hard that tasted like third-rate chocolate. It was so tough you had to suck it.
I asked, ‘How much do your packs weigh?’
‘ ’bout sixty pounds,’ Hudd told me.
‘. . . and mine?’
‘Half that.’
‘Why don’t we even out the load?’ I was thinking of Hudd’s man, who glanced up quickly, and shook his head.
Hudd said, ‘ ’cos I need you to keep up with us, Charlie. You wouldn’t get a mile with fifty pound on yer back.’ At least he’d told me straight. His man grinned up, but didn’t say anything. He might have just appreciated the thought.
‘How far are we from the aircraft?’
‘Two mile, say; less than three. Get there in time for tea.’
‘I didn’t realize we were that close. I didn’t see it at all on the way down.’
Hudd grunted.
‘Good. That means you were doin’ what you were told.’ He stood up and stretched. ‘C’mon, time to move on.’ He reached out a hand to haul his man to his feet, taking care to choose his good arm, but even so Hudd’s man winced as he stood. After six paces he stopped, bent over and vomited.
‘Teach you not to drink so much before a job,’ Hudd told him. ‘You had a skinful o’ beer last night.’ It was a light enough comment, but as he turned away from us I could see that our glorious leader was worried.
We came out upon the plateau suddenly, an hour later. Both Hudd and I had matched ourselves to his man between us, and our pace had slowed. This was one of the strangest places in the world: it could have been invented by Conan Doyle or Mr Rider Haggard. We were surrounded by horrible brown mountains on all sides, with only one pass to the north. Great crumbling crags of brown rubble. The pass looked narrow, but it was obviously wide enough for a fairly big aircraft, because Tony Frohlich had brought his Stirling bomber through there. It was as far as you’d get, though: for anything other than a V2 rocket or a modern helicopter, the mountains around us were a ring of death.
The floor of what was now obviously an old volcanic basin rose up a few hundred feet from the mountain roots, until it levelled out to form a large flat
