…the Libyan Desert was an otherworldly mystery, stretching 1,000 miles south from the Mediterranean and 1,200 miles across, from the Nile to the mountains of Tunisia, a bone-dry realm of howling winds and dead silence, of dunes as tall as a 15-story building, rocky escarpments, hidden wadis and temperatures that could soar to 140 degrees by day and plunge below freezing at night.
-New York Times, January 5, 2024, Obituary of Mike Sadler, Chief Navigator for the Long Range Desert Group, British Army commandos, North Africa Campaign, WWII
“Ragtag buccaneers in Arab headdresses and pirate beards”, as the obituary described Sadler and his mates. But they weren’t really commandos, just jeep drivers trained to dodge those 15 story sand dunes and hidden wadis. Or they could have picked a better route, where the going was flat. Bi Rāh, Go Easy, KhairAllah always called out from the head of the Dabouka.