Idyllic scene...
...on the SE coast of the Arabian peninsula heading towards Masirah at about 1000ft.
Sitting in the guns position in a MK3 Shackledrone nodding off slightly in the warm sunshine. Then there is a sort of "eeh aw eeh aw eeh aw" sound from our french P1 in the left seat, and we start to descend. Looking ahead I see a camel train with its driver leading the line of, oh quite a lot of camels, dabbling their toes in the small surf.
" You barsteward Jaques " says I "you wouldn't would you?"
Down we go to about 50 ft, from quite a long way back and sneak up on the line. As we cross the tail end camel Jaques firewalls the throttles and pulls up back to 1000ft in a sort of wing-over-y thing to look back.
Lead camel with driver still hanging for dear life is high tailing it along the beach, the rest are scattering to the desert.
P1 is giggling fit to bust.
We had not seen any signs of human habitation for about 70 miles and didn't see any more until we got fairly close to Masirah.
The theory of "hearts and minds" hadn't reallly taken root in those days. Allah knows how long it took the poor chap to round up all his beasts again.
The Ancient Mariner
PS It was a different time and a different world, far less a different air force