smudge,
you have a PM.
The chap who turned up at the a/c turned out to be a mine clearance engineer who worked for a firm called Rimfire. The were out there on contract to the UN.
He told me that large parts of the airfield were still mined (remember the int brief !) and and not to stray away from the pan. If we taxied back exactly the same way we came in we should be OK ! I promised that we would do so even if we needed a man with a red flag to lead us. For this priceless bit of info we gave him a six pack of cold cokes. He then went on his way with my thanks and respect.
One of the guards had seen this and came over waving his rather rusty AK47 and shouting in Somali. It was obvious he wanted coke too. If we gave him one then a zillion others would magically appear and clean us out. I said no and he shouted a bit louder. It is interesting how the mind works in these situations. I doubted his green card was in date and the weapon looked very dodgy .
Yet I was less worried about my own safety than what the boss would say in his a/c came back with more holes in it than it had left Mombasa.
We were rescued by our minder (the one in slacks and yellow top in the Mig pic). He was so important he did not need a weapon, he had a Filofax, remember those ? After a brief one sided conversation no doubt centered on discrepancies in the guard's family tree the guard slunk off and we had no more problems. In relief I gave him a coke and a detachment tee shirt.
The G/E and I then resumed our tall tales in peace.
The pic shows the state of the tower etc at Hargeisa.