Open Writing

Returning to Kirkuk and Mile 25, I completed the Personnel work, bade farewell to Whitey, now the only one left from the Gang, and I took the Company 'plane down the pipeline and back to Tripoli. We flew over such familiar landmarks and evidence of the Gang's passage everywhere; scattered strips of black, dope paper for the anti-corrosion; black marks where the barrels of tar had been split open and the caterpillar track marks of the bulldozers and tractors still plainly visible. Within a few hours I covered the hundreds of miles we had taken months to traverse on foot, pipeline laying.

In Tripoli, my Chief greeted me with the usual Arabic greeting when somebody arrives from a journey,

"Praise be to Allah, in safety, welcome," then breaking into English, "Well, how did it go? I told you that Haifa would be a nuns' picnic in comparison with the pipeline Gang, didn't I? Well, right or wrong?"

"Aw hell!" I replied, "It was a piece of cake; just as quiet as a nuns' picnic." He smiled knowingly, then burst out laughing,

'Yes, must have been some picnic at the T3 riot. We heard a few yams about you too; did you enjoy the farewell party at K1 as well?"

"Well, yes, it livened up a bit when all your nuns went off to bed."

He smiled, 'Tell me, how did you like the belly dancer performance by the Bedou girls?" (Gosh! The man knew everything.)

"Ah! It was good, but not as good as when your nuns do it."

He laughed again, "OK, you win but, seriously, well done. You will soon be due your three months leave back home; I'd say you deserve it. In the meantime you can pass the time away at the Tripoli Personnel Office."

The work there was a bore, sitting at a desk; I would have given anything to have been able to call Hassan to take me to some Sheik for a coffee and chat.

The time came to leave. My first two years of duty had gone in a blink — and how enjoyable it had all been for a young, healthy, fit 24-year-old. About fifteen of us embarked on a twin engine charter aircraft, bound for the U.K. and leave. At about ten thousand feet over the Mediterranean, I was happily reading a book when an engine started faltering, then recovered.

We were soon informed that we would be making an unscheduled landing in Malta for a short stop, to fix the engine. As we came in to land, it seemed to me that the approach was far too steep. The front wheels then hit with a bang that shuddered the whole aircraft; the nose lifted and then the tail wheel thumped on the ground as the wheels left the ground.

The 'plane vibrated as the tail lifted and the wheels banged again on the ground and we tilted so far forward onto the front wheels and to such an extent, that I was higher than the passengers in front of me and looking down at them; at the same time, coats, magazines and travel bags came down from the overhead racks on top of us. The engines revved; again the nose lifted followed by an even harder bang on the tail wheel.

'This time' I thought, "We will flip right over on our back, oh my God!'

My hands gripped the arms of the seat, my stomach churned with blind fear and my heart was racing: then the pilot opened the throttles; the engines roared, the 'plane lifted, staggered, it looked as though it would stall, then, miraculously, we were once more airborne.

We all looked at each other and I realised that I must have looked as white as they did. I wanted to be sick. We made another circuit then landed safely. The pilot came out to see us as though it was all a huge joke, "I say.frightfully sorry about that, what? (ha ha), all in a day's work, (ha ha); bet you all thought we were headed for a prang, (ha ha)."

He was greeted by a stony silence. 'Stupid bugger,' I thought, Treating it as a joke" and then voiced my question out loud, Tell us," I called to him, "When are you going to take your second lesson?" His grin faded. Additional comments by the others forced him to go back into the cockpit with such rapidity that he must, obviously, have had very urgent business there.