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which provide substantial protection for the vehicles’ occupants from enemy fire or mine strikes. By comparison, M Squadron’s Pinkies were open to sun, rain, and bullets alike—like throwbacks to the Second World War.
    Yet, over the days in Kenya, Delta Jim’s team warmed to the Pinkies. There was a real sense of freedom when working from an open-topped vehicle, one that imbued the operators with something of a Lawrence of Arabia devil-may-care attitude. And on a practical level the Land Rovers were far more frugal with the diesel.
    There was one other serious advantage to operating from an open vehicle: it made for easier navigation. On top of everything else, the lads of M Squadron had to learn how to find their wayacross hundreds of miles of trackless bush, more often than not at night. Under such conditions the stars provided an invaluable “map” from which to keep track of progress, and a wagon open to the elements offered all-round vision of the moon and stars.
    The final week of mobility training was a blur of desert-driving exercises, ones that were scrutinized by Delta Jim and his team, some of the best at vehicle-borne mobility operations that the Americans have, plus the SAS team. By now the men of M Squadron had acclimatized well, growing seriously unshaven and sporting a thick film of dust and dirt over any exposed skin. As their bodies adjusted to the searing heat, they were sweating and drinking less than they had been during the first few days.
    This last week wasn’t so much about being tested as about getting the men to work as a team in such conditions. The Squadron headed out one evening at last light. The men were tasked with spending the entire night pushing through the dry bush and scrub. They had a distant objective to reach by first light, and they had to navigate their way using the stars and compass alone. Grey’s wagon took the lead, for he was a shrewd and skillful navigator when moving during the hours of darkness.
    When doing such a night drive, the Squadron moved in such a fashion that vehicles had to basically play follow-my-leader. It was the best way to ensure they didn’t lose each other in the dark. Grey was using night-vision goggles on twin leather cups that flipped down over the eyes. They looked like a small pair of binoculars, weighed about the same, and worked by amplifying the ambient light given off by the moon and stars.
    There was little cloud cover and the wide expanse of the African sky was star-bright. The NVG functioned exceptionally well under such conditions. Every way Grey looked, the desert was illuminated in a weird, foggy-green glow, which was almost as good as driving in daylight. In an effort not to lose his natural night vision, he kept flicking the NVG up and down as their wagon pushed ahead. Every now and then he’d catch the twin glow of a big cat’s eyes staring out from the darkened bush.
    They had been making good progress when, almost without warning, the sandstorm hit. They heard it before they saw it, a strange hollow roaring sound whipping through the night. As the storm bore down upon them, Grey flipped up his NVG and pulled on his sand goggles—plastic eyewear a bit like a welder’s glasses—to keep the cloud of driving grit out of his eyes. Above the deafening snarl of the storm he yelled for Moth and Dude to do likewise.
    The sandstorm was a monster, piling up like a thundercloud on the horizon and dumping half the desert on their heads. The standard operating procedure was to go firm when hit by such a storm. You’d wrap a shemagh —an Arab headscarf—tightly around your face to shield it from the stinging sand, and wait for it to pass. But tonight’s mission was a time-specific tasking, and if they held still for too long they’d fail to reach their objective.
    The thick, howling storm blanked everything out, cutting off the Pinkies from the heavens—which meant that Grey couldn’t use the stars to navigate anymore. But there