Braver Men Walk Away Read online

  Given the sheer quantity of stock held at Abu Sultan, the task of checking for trapped needle disc fuzes was time-consuming. But it was not inherently dangerous: the mine could not detonate while the fuze was inverted. Every mine was safe to handle because every fuze was safely assembled in the storage position.

  Until now. Now warnings had been sent out that mines had been found at another depot with their fuzes in the armed position. An army-wide alert was under way.

  As the days passed, information poured in. Army statisticians reckoned that the likelihood of a trapped needle disc fuze being inadvertently assembled in the armed position was only 1 in 100,000. I didn’t know how many Mk 7s were held by RAOC worldwide, but here at 9 BAD we had 300,000 of them.

  If just one defective fuze went off in the armed position, then it would detonate every other mine in the same location. The only solution was to carefully unpack each mine, remove the fuze and then pack each separately and store them well away from each other. And the only way to do that was to resort to a bunker which, if anything went wrong, would protect those on the outside by containing the blast inside. I was the one in the bunker.

  The boxes came in one by one with the mines two to a box. Sand-filled ammunition cases had been used to create the bunker; now, fenced in on all sides, my only contact with the outside world was via the blast traps – two hinged safety shields that functioned like heavyweight cat flaps.

  I concentrated on my mini-assembly line, the heat inside the confined space sending rivulets of sweat across my skin. The boxes were passed to me through one of the flaps; I opened them, unpacked the first mine, unscrewed the fuze well cover plate, removed the fuze, then unpacked the second mine and repeated the procedure. That done, I passed the mines and the fuzes out through the other flap.

  I had already worked my way through thousands of the mines before the alert, but it was different now. Even if a fuze functioned while you were holding it, you would be unlucky to lose more than a couple of fingers – but 20 pounds of high explosive detonating was a different matter. Everything now had to be done slowly, deliberately and more precisely. There were no odds and there were no certainties in a situation like this. The tenth mine, the hundredth, the thousandth; statistically, any one of those could be in a highly dangerous condition. But so too could be the next one out of the box. Or the one after that. You wouldn’t know until the cover plate was removed.

  For hour after hour the operation continued, until the heat was intense. No sound except the grating of the cover plate as it turned upon its thread. The task had its dangers but it was also excruciatingly boring and, paradoxically, I found myself hoping to discover fuzes in the armed position.

  At the end of the first day they were all O K. At the end of the second day they were all OK. On the morning of the third day I rechecked the remaining stock levels. The storage locations were primitive but effective: sand sites covered with light roofing and surrounded by a substantial earth traverse, all of them well away from the operational centre of the base. One of the sites was at the very perimeter of the depot, separated from the Suez Canal by only a few hundred metres of scrub and sand. The canal couldn’t be seen because of the depth of the cutting through which it ran. But a great white liner, its superstructure gilded by the early morning light, moved steadily and silently into view. Monumental, majestic, it sailed onwards across the sand.

  I turned back to the storage site. The temperature was climbing; after being cooled by the velvet dark of an Egyptian night, the land and everything in it was once again experiencing the heat of new day.

  Crack! Muffled, yet near; faint, but distinctive. And again – crack! Deep within the mines’ stack, two trapped needle disc fuzes went off.

  By the time the work was finished, around a hundred defective fuzes had been found, the majority still intact but a number showing signs of having gone off while still in storage. No trapped needle disc fuzes were discovered in the armed position.

  I was delighted to be free of the bunker, to be out in the open air again. I wasn’t alone. Making my way back to the accommodation huts, I saw a familiar figure, someone last seen being dragged away to the guardroom.

  Sergeant Wiggins had survived. Despite the breach of orders, the Medical Officer had decided to give him another chance. Wiggins beamed at me. ‘It’s like I always said, innit? The old MO, he knows what he’s doin’. Right?’

  The time was drawing near for our departure from the Canal Zone. There was much to do because it was not economical to shift the bulk of 9 BAD’s stocks to another depot. Accordingly, large-scale demolitions became routine – operations made easier by the use of large numbers of aircraft bombs left in Egypt by the RAF and normally destined for dumping at sea. These bombs made convenient demolition charges in the destruction of other munitions which, because they contained only relatively small amounts of explosive, were difficult to detonate.

  Large-scale demolitions took place miles into the Sinai, at a remote location where huge pits grew deeper with each successive explosion. All around, the land stretched away, empty of everything but a kind of sun-bleached tumbleweed that bowled along in the wind. The only cover available was a small mound a couple of miles from the pits. From here I watched the explosions, the blast wave from the detonation travelling towards me like a ripple in the surface of a pond.

  Nearer the camp was an area where surplus or unserviceable propellant (cordite) was burnt. Bags of the stuff were laid out in a huge carpet and ignited by means of a long tapering propellant trail. The trail would begin at the widest point of the carpet then taper down to a single stick. Great care was needed to ensure that it would burn into the wind and that the propellant used in the trail was not the kind which would fly off in all directions once it caught fire.

  Propellant burns are always impressive and, if you’re out in the open, always intimidating. On more than one occasion as I watched the main carpet catch fire and the wall of flame get bigger and bigger and nearer and nearer the thought occurred that I was far too close, that this time I’d also be going up in smoke. But then, before I took to my heels, the flames would suddenly recede and die down. I would sagely nod and compose my features in such a way as to suggest that what had happened was all quite routine. Friends who have been in the same situation tell me they experienced similar feelings. We’ve all looked back and thought how easy it would have been to retire to a safe distance – and then doubled that distance. But none of us ever did. Moths are not the only creatures to be captivated by the flame.

  I had begun work on a series of trials on behalf of the Explosives Storage and Transport Committee, which formulated the regulations governing the safe keeping of munitions. The purpose of the trials was to put some of the theory into practice; a key test was explosive wave propagation analysis.

  A primary stack of munitions would be constructed and then surrounded by secondary stacks all built at varying distances from the primary. Each stack would contain only one type of munition although this could vary from stack to stack. The primary would usually consist of either Artillery Shell or Mines Anti-Tank Mk 5. The nett explosive content of the primary was around 10 tons when mines were used, a little less with shells.

  The anti-tank mine was useful when observation was being made of blast effects alone. It was little more than a circular biscuit tin filled with TNT and there was minimal fragment hazard when it detonated. By contrast, shells generated a considerable number of fragments; they were used when observing the likely effect of a fragment attack.

  The primary stack would be detonated and the effects of this on the other stacks noted. Occasionally, one or more of the secondary stacks would explode en masse with the primary stack; more often than not though, the blast wave would merely blow them over.

  The real problem came with the shell: notwithstanding the images created in countless war movies, it is far from easy to get a stack of shells to go off simultaneously. Though the fragment strikes on the secondary stacks would
frequently cause a fire, what followed next could be one big bang or a series of sporadic explosions, depending on the type of munition in the secondaries. Not only that: damaged but unexploded ammunition could be hurled hundreds of yards when a stack partially erupted; it had to be located and destroyed as quickly as possible.

  I organized the final explosive wave propagation trial shortly before we left Egypt. The primary stack was composed of shells which blew cleanly and noisily, sending a blizzard of fragments whirling into the other stacks. After the smoke had cleared from the secondary explosions, I drove across the site in the company of Geoffrey Biddle, a major who had been in overall charge of the operation. The focus of our attention was what appeared to be a quietly smoking stack of mines – a secondary which, though riddled by shell fragments, had not detonated. We examined the stack carefully, the Major taking notes while I photographed the scene. Now that we were close in we could see a fire within the stack; flaming gushers of molten TNT were pouring out through the holes caused by fragment damage.

  Suddenly the noise of the fire changed in pitch and intensity. I didn’t need to look twice and nor did the Major: we knew that this was the sign of impending detonation. We sprinted away, heads down and legs pounding, running flat out for the Major’s Land Rover parked about fifty metres away. We set off together and kept in step together and fetched up together in a tangle of arms and legs behind the steering wheel, managed somehow to get the thing started and hared off across the desert.

  Finally the Land Rover came to an abrupt halt in its own cloud of dust. We eased ourselves out, gasping as much from exertion as relief. There was also an embarrassing sense of anticlimax: away in the distance, the test site was still quiet, marked now by only a few plumes of dark smoke.

  Major Biddle massaged a bruised forearm while I grappled with the camera I’d brought to capture for posterity the image of the exploding stack. I used the Land Rover’s bonnet as a makeshift tripod, focused on the distant smoke, and waited. Five … ten … fifteen minutes passed. My arms ached from holding the camera. Then the stack exploded with a bright flash and a loud and deep rumble. The echoes went on for a very long time. Major Biddle turned to me and grinned: ‘Bet you didn’t need a flashbulb for that one.’

  The village had no name that I was aware of. The road I’d taken out of Benghazi soon gave way to a track which would have tested a goat, never mind a Land Rover. I pulled in behind an old German army truck whose condition matched the surroundings. It was barely conceivable that anyone could still be living here; the ragtag huddle of white breeze-block buildings looked as though they were falling apart in a kind of slow-motion earthquake. In amongst the dereliction, dogs barked.

  Amal was in his early twenties and brimming with enthusiasm. He wore a white shirt and dark trousers and, for some unfathomable reason, a red polka-dot scarf tied loosely around the neck. In clear but fitful English, he introduced himself as Operations Manager of the centre of the breakdowns. For this was the place where Libyan workers dismantled all manner of munitions, sending the scrap metal to merchants and the explosive to Italy, where it was turned into fertilizer. (I was to remember this years later, when dealing with IRA bomb-makers who turned fertilizer into explosive. By that time, too, there were parts of Belfast which looked no better than this.)

  Amal was recently promoted, the previous manager having been killed in an ammunition accident together with several of the workers. Gazing around at the buildings, I wondered if accidents were routine here. Amal was grateful that the British army expert had come to the centre of the breakdowns to give his good advice. Safety procedures had all been improved, and it was hoped the British expert would be impressed by what he saw and advise on how to make things even better.

  And so the inspection tour began. By rights it should have finished less than five minutes later, but when you’re the British army expert you can’t just head for the hills at the first sign of danger. We ducked low through a misshapen doorway and entered the first of the workshops. Ammunition, of every type and in every conceivable condition, was stacked haphazardly in various corners or piled up on benches where the dismantlers worked. It was obvious that much of the stuff had come from sunken ammunition barges lying just off the Libyan coast. The bodies of the shells were well-nigh rusted away; great crops of multi-coloured crystals had formed where the fuzes used to be.

  I would have blown the whole lot up without touching it but Amal’s men had other ideas: they were happily levering shell from cartridge cases and then pouring out the sodden propellant to dry in the sun. God alone knew what Captain Scott would have thought of it, back in Walsrode.

  Amal beamed at me. ‘You have some thoughts about this?’

  I stared dry-mouthed as another case was split apart. ‘It’s a bit hard to know where to start,’ I said. ‘The thing is–’

  ‘Good,’ said Amal. ‘Good. Wait till you see some more of the operation.’ He turned on his heel. I trudged after him into another building. For a moment, as my eyes accustomed themselves to the change from bright daylight to inner gloom, I thought with all the clanging and banging that I’d arrived in a blacksmith’s. But there were only three workers sitting cross-legged on the floor using steel chisels and hammers to take the bottoms out of German army anti-tank mines.

  As before, Amal’s presence unfortunately seemed to galvanize everyone into ever more feverish activity. I took two steps forward and stopped to stare at the floor: it was probably three inches deep in explosive; TNT dust hung thickly on the air and began to settle on my clothes. One of the mine workers looked up. He was wearing a polka-dot scarf around his nose and mouth.

  ‘You see?’ Amal said. ‘Precautions.’

  I wanted to tell him that, as precautions go, this ranked with changing into a swimming costume before tying your feet to half a ton of concrete and jumping into the sea. But Amal was hunched down by his men, and I’d no wish to join him. The situation was aggravated by the fact that, though I didn’t know if this was an official operation or a private-enterprise ‘cottage industry’, it was certainly licensed by the Libyan government, so a certain degree of diplomacy was called for.

  I diplomatically retreated to the far end of the room, where mines waiting to be dealt with were piled up side by side. To take my mind off what was happening behind me, I removed a mine from one of the stacks and reminded myself of the details of its design and construction. It was a Tellermine 42, a useful high explosive munition which could blow the tracks off any tank unfortunate enough to drive over a position where it was hidden – downward pressure was all it took to initiate detonation. I contemplated the stacks of Tellermines. There were enough here to cripple an armoured division. The majority looked in good condition but they all appeared to have been recovered from minefields and I wondered how the Libyans had overcome the problem of removing the fuzes: there was more than one model of fuze and one of these incorporated a booby-trap mechanism. This fuze was known as the ‘Ti Mi Z 43’ – Teller Minen Zünder Type 43; once the pressure plate of a mine was screwed down on such a fuze it was impossible to unscrew it without the fuze firing. As there was no outward clue as to which fuze had been used, it had become normal practice to destroy recovered mines without attempting to remove the pressure plates.

  Because Amal was still down there amidst the TNT and because I had some reason for being as far away as possible, I pantomimed an elaborate interest in the mine, going so far as to unscrew the pressure cap and stare into the empty fuze pocket – except it wasn’t empty. A Ti Mi Z 42 (the non-booby-trapped fuze model) stared back.

  I looked at the stacks again, rapidly counting them. They all appeared to contain around twenty mines, one atop the other. A Tellermine 42 weighed 12 pounds; the pressure required to fire it was between 250 and 400 pounds. If a fuzed Tellermine was at the bottom of a twenty-high stack, it would be under a weight of 240 pounds; if a fuzed mine was at the bottom of a twenty-two-high stack, then 264 pounds would be pressing down on it.
/>   I called Amal and showed him the fuzed mine. This, I explained, pointing to the stack, is not a good idea. Fuzed mines should not be stacked this way.

  Amal smiled reassuringly. ‘Oh, you must not worry. This is all safe. We know, we have experience of these things.’ He lowered his voice. ‘In the past, there have been … accidents. A man unscrews the cap and boom! it goes off. Now we remove the explosive before we remove the cap.’

  Realization dawned then that things were even worse than I’d thought: Amal’s men were actually chiselling out the bottoms of fuzed mines. I swallowed hard. The reasoning behind this unique method of breakdown was now clear: once the explosive had been removed, then the pressure caps could be safely unscrewed because even if a Ti Mi Z 43 was fitted, only a small detonator in the fuze would fire. But such reasoning was dangerously flawed: the way the Tellermines were being stored and handled, the odds against ever reaching the stage of fuze removal were terrifying.

  I tried to explain this but Amal either didn’t hear or didn’t wish to listen. ‘The mines are all the same,’ he said. ‘Remove the explosive then everything good.’ He nodded towards the trio on the floor. ‘You see?’

  I saw. I nodded – and decided it was time to go.

  Outside, moving briskly away with Amal still in step beside me, I summarized the situation for his benefit: the mines, the fuzes, the TNT, the corroded munitions, the propellant – every last rule in the book was being broken. I would put it all in my report but in the meantime they had to start taking some elementary precautions.

  Amal nodded as though each new criticism amounted to yet another endorsement, although by the time we reached the Land Rover there was sadness in his expression, as if the brevity of my visit indicated that he’d failed as a host. As I clambered up into the driving seat he said: ‘Has it not been interesting for you?’