Arabian Adventure

Not a travel book, as I had expected, but a military one - telling the story of eighteen months that Anthony Shepherd spent in what is now the United Arab Emirates (and Oman), and at the time was the Trucial Coast, and the Sultanate of Muscat.
Although in the Royal Tank Regiment, Shepherd was sent to join the Trucial Oman Scouts as a Regimental Signals Officer. The extent of his training in Arabic was a four week course, after which which he possessed “a complete inability to pronounce half the Arabic letters, and a complete ignorance of where the Trucial Oman was.

Ok there is a lot of plot outline below, so spoilers... So in the deep end, and for the first half of the book Shepherd outlines his time as the Signals Officer, moving around between Bahrain, Sharjah and travelling from camp to camp within the Trucial Oman and Muscat. The story largely revolves around the Jebel Ankhandar - a mountain where rebels led by the terrible trio of Ghalib the Imam, Talib his soldier brother and Sheikh Suleiman bin Hamir, who were rebelling against the Sultan. The Jebel was well supported, and well fortified, making it too difficult for the Sultan's armed forces to take alone, and the British were called on to assist.There was a failed attempt to take the Jebel, and then the SAS were brought in to try again, and were successful, although the core rebels managed to evade capture. The second half of the book outlines Shepherds new role in taking over the command of B Squadron, stationed in Buraimi. He explains his training, his interesting mixture of men (Adenese, a Somali, Baluchis, Dhofaris, some half-Persians, two Kuwaitis, and a Pakistani. The bulk of the squad from the Trucial States), and the various activities and tasks they undertake. He also explains his relationship with the various Sheikhs, the interactions with them, and various functions he attends (weddings, dignitaries visits and the like).He later relinquishes the command of the squadron, and is temporarily assigned to the SAS as an interpretor, and they are tasked with again sweeping over the Jebel Ankhandar to look for traces of the core rebels or their leaders.

Overall, quite military, but very readable, and an interesting interlude in history.

Some quotes:
P145/6. Arriving at a village, the Sheikh is away, but his son entertains.
Gradually we were joined by whatever men were in the village. Each appeared more diseased than the last. The last two were too much. One has the worst squint I have ever seen, the other was quite mad. My men nudged each other, caught my eye and burst out laughing. Iw was all that I could do to restrain myself from joining them.Every time I caught sight of the man with the squint, my eyes started watering uncontrollably. This increased my soldiers attempts to make me laugh, and I had an extremely uncomfortable half-hour.... We were invited to stay for lunch, but i produced and excuse......One or two kissed my hand, and it was a week or two before I was certain that I hadn't caught anything.

P190, having shot some Arabian ibex on a mountaintop, to embellish their rations. And who doesn't love a Thesiger quote?
Sahail and the guide carried the carcases the mountain with some difficulty. The last person to have shot and killed ibex had been Wilfred Thesiger. “He,” said the guide, “had carried two down himself.” We were not amused.

3.5 stars, rounded down to 3.