Benghazi Journal will be published in April. Here's an excerpt:
......
The Beaver has
just dropped me off at Santa Fe Rig 2. It’s a new location only 10 miles from
the coast, and the new Esso port of Marsa Brega. I’m not wasting any time
hanging around the rig today. They won’t even start drilling for another 24
hours, so I’m heading down to the coast to see some of the German
fortifications left over from World War II.
I’m driving on a well-marked road that has
been cleared of mines, and has been oiled to keep the dust down. I’m almost to
the coast, and, wow, I just passed a little ridge overlooking the main coast road,
and it looks as if the Germans have just walked away. There are at least three
fortified, sandbagged areas that without a doubt are where German machine-gun
placement have been, and there are stacks of land mines and Jerry cans
everywhere.
The oil companies who operate in
Libya hire land mine clearing crews to come in to be sure there are no mines
within a square kilometer of the drill site, and they also clear a 100-foot
sections along the few roads. It a rather eerie feeling to drive along knowing
what would happen if I veered off the road.
It’s estimated there are 3 million land
mines in Libya, and most of them are along the coast. The air is so dry that
when the land mines are recovered and stacked up beside the road, they aren’t
even rusty.
It’s late in the afternoon, and I
think I’ll stop by the Esso supply camp at Marsa Brega for dinner. It’ll be
better than the rig food.
Yeah,
there’s the dining hall and recreation building, I walk up to a Quonset Hut-type building and poke my head
in. Hey, there’s Sidney Sorenson one of
the Aussie Pilots I know. I’ll join him.
“Hi, Sid. Mind if I join you?”
“Have a seat, Mate. What are you
doing here in Brega?”
“Oh, I’m on a rig about 10 miles up
the road, and I thought I’d get some decent grub before I drive back. You’re
usually not in Brega, either. What are you flying?”
“They switched me off Beavers to
that DC-3 out on the runway. I’ll be in and out of here nearly every day for a
while.”
The waiter has just placed a decent-looking
steak in front of me, and I am thinking I’ll
be back to eat here more than once before I get through sitting the well I’m
assigned to. The steak is really good, and I am about to leave, but
something has just crossed my mind that stops me.
I turn back and sit down beside Sid.
“Sid, do you ever have any extra
room on the plane?”
“Yeah, every day, mate. We never
have more than a couple of guys. The plane is mostly for cargo.”
“What if a certain young lady just
happened to be at the airport a few days from now? Do you think you might give
her a lift down here?”
Sid is smiling, and I know those
risk-taking Aussies won’t turn down something like that.
“Well, I’m sure we can work
something out. How are you going to get the word to your wife?”
“If you have a few minutes, I’ll
write her a quick note. I’m going to tell her to come by the dispatcher’s
office and meet you next Monday. What time do you leave Benghazi?”
“I leave a little later than the
Beavers that shuttle you guys in and out of the desert—usually around eight-thirty.”
“Great; I’ll tell her just to walk
out to the DC–3, get on, and no one will ever know—or care.”
“You got it, Richard. Write the
letter.”
A few minutes later, I have an
invitation to Vertis that I hand to Sid.
“Just give it to the dispatcher when
you land. We’re always sending letters back and forth, and he’ll get it to
Vertis.”
“Okay, will do. After I take off
from Benghazi, and we’re in the air, I’ll radio you an ETA. I think it’ll be
better if you can pick her up out on the runway. No sense in having the folks
in this office wondering what a woman is doing here.”
“Gotcha. I’ll be by the radio
Monday morning waiting for your call.”
&
The first week of this desert
assignment is passing faster than most because I have Vertis’ visit on my mind,
and when I got up this morning, I decided to stay by the radio after I made my
morning report. Sid will be calling sometime in the next 30 minutes.
I have just left the communication
trailer, heading for Marsa Brega. Sid gave me an ETA of 9:32, and I will easily
make it there before Vertis arrives.
Marsa Brega is Esso Libya’s port
town on the Mediterranean. It’s located at the end of the pipeline from the
Libyan oil fields, and over a half-million barrels of Esso oil a day are loaded
on tankers destined mostly for the European refineries.
I’m dropping down toward the coast
now, and I can see the two dozen scattered houses, one airplane hangar, and a
dock for the tankers. I guess about 50 people live here year-round, loading the
tankers and working in a city that serves as a supply point for rigs in the
desert.
I stop at the edge of the runway,
waiting on the plane, and as I glance at my watch, I start looking for the
DC-3. There it comes, crosses my
mind, as see a DC-3 dropping like a rock for an approach. Yeah, it’s Sid all right—a carrier pilot’s approach.
I start my Land Rover and get ready
to drive out on the runway. Is she going
to be on the plane? Of course, Vertis knows it’s against company policy for
her to even fly on the cargo plane, and it sure is against the rules for her to
accompany me to a remote camp in the desert and spend the night at one of the
drill sites.
I’m waiting on the edge of the
airstrip in my Land Rover with the motor running, and I watch as Sid pulls up
short of the hangar and kills the right engine. Then the side cargo door opens.
Yes, she’s on the plane!
I roar out to the runway, and Vertis
hops out of the DC-3, just as I pull up.
“Hey, need a ride?” I yell. Vertis
jumps into my Land Rover, and we head for the desert. I’m sure the folks
waiting for the plane to pull up to the unloading dock wonder what’s happening.
We are out of town in five minutes, heading for rig 2.
“Richard, I can’t believe you
pulled this off,” Vertis says, laughing, as we drive along. “Aren’t you afraid
you’ll get in trouble?”
“Naaaa, they need geologists in the
worst way, and true love sometimes does some unusual things,” I say back.
“You mean true lust.”
We both laugh, and since we are in
love and giddy from just the experience, we don’t even think about the
consequences of violating company rules. Heck,
I’m thinking, they won’t fire me. They
need well site geologists—but it will be a written reprimand—won’t look too
good on my record—ah, forget it.
“How was the flight down?” I ask.
“Not bad; a little bumpy, and Sid
made me nervous when he dipped in and dropped like a rock to the runway.”
“Yeah, that’s the way Sid always
comes in. He was an Aussie carrier pilot before he started flying for Esso
Libya.”
“One other little thing; I fastened
my seat belt when we took off, and after we landed I stood up and the belt came
with me. It wasn’t attached to the plane.”
We pull up to the rig, and Vertis,
with her long, blonde hair, causes quite a stir among the crew, but the
tool-pusher and other Americans on the rig are my friends, and everyone thinks
it’s a fun thing to do, sneaking her in. I even take Vertis to the dining hall
that night for dinner, and she is literally the belle of the ball.
It’s after dinner now, and we’re
going to have a romantic reunion in my trailer.
&
The next morning we’re heading back
to Marsa Brega so Vertis can catch the DC-3 back to Benghazi. Sid taxies out to
the end of the runway and kills the engine on the side of the plane where the
cargo door is located. That’s my signal to drive out to the plane and deliver
Vertis. A quick kiss and Vertis hops on the plane.
The DC-3 roars down the runway, and
I’m driving back to spend another boring week on Rig 2. Actually, a geologist
doesn't need to be on the drill site every minute of the day. There are planes
available that can whisk us back and forth to the well sites, especially when
we are drilling surface holes. However, our district geologists like to err on
the side of caution, which means putting a geologist on the well when the
drilling begins, even though the first five or six days involve drilling
through what has been proven—at least so far—to be non-oil productive rocks.
Well, I will say one thing about
this location: There’s a lot more to see around here. The old pieces of junk
from World War II make it look like the Germans and Brits have just left. I
have to be more careful when I am this close to the coast. Land mines are
everywhere, and I make sure I don’t just drive off the road into an area
without any tracks.
I have been nosing around looking at
stuff for most of the day. It’d about 3 o’clock and I am about to turn around
and head back to the rig when I see something strange on the side of a low
cliff. As I get closer, I realize it is the remains of a crashed biplane, and
from its looks it must have come from World War I. It had crashed and burned, and
only the metal parts and the engine remained.
As I stand there looking at the old
biplane, it crosses my mind that Libya and North Africa have seen thousands of
battles between warring nations during the last 10,000 years of history. As I
look at the wreck of the old biplane, I’m guessing it’s Italian, and then not 20
yards away I see a German Jerry can.
The history of this country
sometimes overwhelms me.
.
