We landed at Riyadh to find the weather typically pleasant for the time of year in the Middle East, but there was no time to soak up the rays. Covered transports were waiting on the tarmac, and we were whisked away to a camp in isolation from other Coalition troops.
The advance party had got things squared away sufficiently to answer the first three questions you always ask when you arrive at a new location:
Where do I sleep, where do I eat, and where’s the bog?
Home for our half squadron, we discovered, was a hangar about 300 feet long and 150 feet wide. Into it were crammed forty blokes and all manner of stores and equipment, including vehicles, weapons, and am munition. There were piles of gear everywhere-everything from insect repellent and rations to laser target markers and boxes of high explosive. It was a matter of just getting in amongst it and trying to make your own little world as best you could. Mine was made out of several large crates containing outboard engines, arranged to give me a sectioned-off space that I covered with a tarpaulin to shelter me from the powerful arc lights overhead.
There were many separate hives of activity, each with its own noise-radios tuned in to the BBC World Service, Walkmans with plug-in speakers that thundered out folk, rap, and heavy metal. There was a strong smell of diesel, petrol, and exhaust fumes. Vehicles were driving in and out all the time as blokes went off to explore other parts of the camp and see what they could pinch. And of course while they were away, their kit in turn was being explored by other blokes. “You snooze, you lose,” is the way it goes. Possession is ten tenths of the law. Leave your space unguarded for too long and you’d come back to find a chair missing-and sometimes even your bed.