It was autumn of 1964 – with one war about to end and one about to start – although no one knew about that yet. So imagine you have just turned 19, a young soldier, a Staff Clerk by trade, who, having volunteered to serve in Aden to be with your fiancée, are given your ring back the night you arrived there! Furthermore, you are about to discover that the Army’s maxim of ‘soldier first – tradesman second’ is about to be put into practice.
Now in your role as a soldier, you are to be issued with a rifle and bayonet – no bullets! Because that nice Mr Healey thinks you might shoot a citizen of an oil-rich state, causing all sorts of problems. So, much better a dead soldier than an annoyed oil-rich nation. Now, if your imagination has carried you this far, see if you can carry on as well as ‘Jack’, our hero of this first of a trilogy. See how he is to find himself, although only a private soldier, a confidante of generals, a correspondent with a prime minister, an instructor of RAF officers and a bogeyman for the top military policeman. It is also worth reading to find out how he is the only man to escape a poo shower of gargantuan proportions generated by a pyromaniac with 20 gallons of petrol, lots of used ‘compo’ and a hidden ingredient. Could you survive as well as Jack or would you go sick?
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