Last weekend Sgt. K- and I ate a light meal after work, got kitted out in armor and gear (goggles, ear plugs, dust scarf) and sat behind concrete blast barriers at the helicopter pad, waiting a bird in the middle of the night. There were about a dozen of us, mostly Brits, but a few civilians too. The heat radiating like a furnace off the cooling concrete flight pad. Hard to see much though, as the entire airfield area is darkened (no need to give any amateur gunners any help with targeting). Then, off in the distance, the familiar thwop-thwop of rotary blades carving the thick night air. Suddenly lights flicker over the top of the blast wall and she is there, the Merlin EH101 helo, a dark limber shape, perched lightly on wheels, back ramp down. We stagger under the prop wash, hot air full in the face and trying to stay away from the burning engine exhaust. Then guided up the rear ramp by flight crew, waving furiously to keep us left as he’d rather we not get sliced up by the rear rotor blades. Unpleasant for the victim, lots of paperwork for the crew, plus the flight would be scrubbed…
As I step up the ramp in the dark I practically trip over the gunners’ machine gun (swivel mounted on the ramp) before buckling in to a really comfortable seat, surprisingly so. Definitely a better design than those damn C-130 seats. The ramp is up, we are buckled in, the lights are off and suddenly we’re off the ground, pulled up into the air as if carried in a giants’ hand. The lift is incredible. Out the back hatch, the dust-filled air bleeds everything to shades of charcoal grey, with bright spots of diffuse yellow light for street lights and the broader, deeper orange glow of gas fires burning in the distance. I was suddenly reminded of the quote from Maj. General Dixon, commander of the British forces in Mesopatamia in 1915-16, when he said: “When the Devil made Hell it wasn't bad enough, so he created Basra, and added flies...”
The engine is quieter than I expected and with green LED lights glowing about the cabin, and the stars and lights swirling across the plexiglass windows or out the open rear hatch, it was difficult to keep your brain fixed on the horizon. Images of the flight -- the gunner tramping around, dragging his safety cable behind him, swaying in our seats as the helo banked and swerved, dark blotches of terrain scudding by below, a marsh, a river glistening with lights, a flare off in the distance, cars in the city streets and suddenly on the helo pad, inside the Basra Palace compound.
K- and I were there to meet some State Dept people, as they are having a going away party, and others are at the other end of e-mail chains. It is a different world, of tree-lined paved streets, stone buildings, cable tv, laundry machines, a stocked pantry and a kitchen, where the next morning I made myself a cheese omelet. They also had a garden inside the compound, with trees, flowers and real grass. I sat there the next day, with the blades of grass tickling my bare feet, and visited by stray cats. At one point a large water bird flew over, with black wing tips, a black body and head with white highlights but the most brilliant turquoise plumage on the wings near the body. Heaven... Ok, ok, everything is relative.
The base is in yet another old Baathist compound, with canals and pools of water fed from the Shatt al Arab waterway (which is surprisingly narrow, smaller than the Potomac even) and I took some pictures of the water and of some U.N. and Consulate buildings that are being renovated, swallows flitting through the air. Other than the 120 degree heat in the shade, it seemed much nicer than Baghdad. The nights are dark and hot, with the smell of the river a nice variation from the baked sand out at the airport.
I stayed there for two days before I could get a flight back, which was much like the first one except they shot off some flares at one point, which were both loud and amazingly bright in the darkness.
Oh, I almost forgot. They had a pool there too, which I managed to get in afternoon, in keeping with my plan to stick at least a toe into every body of water possible in the world (I still regret not getting my feet wet in the Yellow Sea…) – and I’m hard at work trying to get into the Persian Gulf. Anyway, when wandering around you had to carry a radio and use a call sign. For all you Camp people out there, it’ll be an easy guess what I picked for my call sign… (a signed copy of the Basra Sun newsletter to the first who can guess!)
I've enclosed a pic of the Shatt al Arab and of "Rehab", an adopted stray. It was nice to touch an animal again.
Fair Winds and Following Sands!
For past Brown Sand Sailor entries and pics, visit: Brown Sand Sailor Web Site