The Dhofar Redemption: Chapter One

The following is the first chapter from a work of Historical Fiction I have been working on for quite some time, essentially since completing work on Frozen Reaction. I became fascinated by Oman during my many trips there between 2017 and 2018, and especially with the Dhofar Rebellion period between 1963 and 1976. My fascination with this war stemmed from the fact that even though it is largely overlooked in Western military history, it is one of the most successful counterinsurgency campaigns in history. This is especially true when juxtaposed with the Vietnam War during roughly the same time period.

I was also fascinated with this war because it was the conflict where a lot of my Omani military acquaintances had cut their teeth. With their Southern border with Yemen, it felt like many of them didn’t consider the war “over.” Just a lull until the insurgents with a strange blend of Islamic and Communist ideals wanted to try again.

Detroit – January 1970

Curtis Harrigan groaned as he hauled himself out of bed. At only twenty five years old, his joints popped and his bones ground against themselves far more than a man twice his age. The creaking joints a never-ending reminder of a life he had recently left behind. The small apartment he resided in alone was always too cold in the winter, a tiny space heater struggling to keep the bitter weather at bay through poorly insulated, paper-thin walls.

He rubbed the last vestiges of sleep out of his eyes as he rotated off the lumpy mattress and slipped his feet into the wool lined slippers he had prepositioned next to his bed the night before. With a heavy sigh bordering on a groan, he made his way across the tidily kept room and opened the door to his nearly sterile bathroom.

Curtis turned on the shower, allowing the water to warm up before he stepped inside, kicking his slippers back out the bathroom door. The warm water cascaded over Harrigan’s body as he quickly cleaned himself off. He mostly used the shower to warm up before heading to work, so the shower was short.

Turning off the water and drying off, Curtis wrapped his cheap, coarse towel around his waist before stepping out of the shower and over to the sink. The mirror hanging above the sink had fogged over, but as Harrigan brushed his teeth his visage became clearer and clearer.

He had features that baffled his newer acquaintances. Dark, almost curly hair sat atop a face that had a complexion like a cup of milk that had a shot of coffee dropped in it. Not quite dark enough to be considered Black, too dark to be considered White, at least in the current climate of the country. Curtis toweled himself off, running the thin towel over a frame that was just tall enough to be considered average.

In fact, what Curtis Harrigan had started to consider to be his most desirable trait was that he did not stand out at all, in pretty much any crowd. He often wore shirts and pants that were a size or two too large, to conceal a tightly wound, muscular frame. Harrigan was unnoticeable, appearing average in almost every way.

After he dried off, Harrigan folded his towel precisely and hung it back on his towel rack exactly as he had left it every morning for the past incalculable number of mornings. Naked, he strode across his neatly kept bedroom to the small chest of drawers and pulled out what he had started to consider his new working uniform.

Underwear first, then socks, right then left. A white t-shirt followed by Levi jeans just a hair too big, tuck the shirt in. Thick leather belt threaded through the belt loops, leaving just enough slack. A thick woolen flannel shirt, red plaid today, again just slightly too large. A well-worn Japanese Diver’s watch went on his left wrist. Sitting down on his bed, Harrigan pulled his boots on in the same order as his socks, one of the only visible references to his past life. After the boots were laced, he heaved himself up and turned to the bed.

Once he was satisfied the bed was made tightly, he turned his attention to his breakfast. Wheat toast, a single egg, and a cup of strong, black coffee. He sat in his nearly pristine kitchen, alone as he ate his breakfast. He did not look around his apartment, for there was nothing to see. No furniture, no pictures. Just a lonely man, both proud and ashamed of his past, and heading to a dead-end job mere steps from his bed. He ate in silence, consuming the sparse breakfast and washing it down with black coffee. Harrigan washed his dishes quickly, returning them to the nearly bare cupboards where he had taken them from.

He checked his watch.

0730, he grunted to himself, thirty minutes.

Curtis Harrigan walked back to his bedroom and plucked an old trucker’s hat off of his chest of drawers and pulled it over his head before putting on the last reminder of his previous life. He looked at the worn leather as he slipped the holster into his beltline, taking up the small amount of slack left by his belt. Harrigan picked up the old Colt pistol from his nightstand, took a quick look down the sights, and slipped it into the holster. He placed a spare magazine in his pocket and ruffled his flannel shirt to make sure it covered the butt of the large pistol.

Off to work, Curtis Harrigan sighed to himself as he took the same eight steps from his bedroom door to his front door, quietly closing and locking his apartment before walking down the steps and into the tavern below.

“So, what is this guy’s story?” the man staring out the rear window of the idling Cadillac sedan asked in his accented English through heavily bundled clothing to the two men sitting in the front seats.

Neither of the two men in the front seat turned their attention from the front door of Major’s Bar and Grill across the street. With a blended American accent that betrayed only that he had lived all over the country, the driver spoke up in response to the man in the back seat’s question.

“Harrigan, Curtis,” the driver spoke quickly, “Born 1944, joined the Marines at 17 with permission from his mother in 1961. Father, Ryan was in the Navy during World War Two and Korea as a Medic. He was killed in 1952 by Chinese artillery. Mother, Cathy was a Filipino national working as a nurse in Hawaii before the war started. She died in 1966 during Curtis’s third tour in ‘Nam of a sudden heart attack.”

The man in the passenger seat clicked his teeth, “A bloody shame,” he muttered in his proper, British accent.

“Agreed,” the driver grunted, “rumor has it that she was watching the news and a different Curtis Harrigan’s name showed up on the list of boys killed that week. Dropped dead on the spot.”

“Sad, but what of his military experience?” The man in the back spoke sharply, in a manner that indicated he was not very interested in the ancestry of the man working at the bar across the street.

“I was getting there, Naz,” the driver sighed. The Cadillac got quiet for a moment before the driver continued.

“Private Harrigan, USMC, arrived in Vietnam during the very early stages of US involvement in the War in 1962. He was assigned to a rifle platoon, but that deployment was pretty quiet for him, mostly repelling small-scale attacks on air bases.”

“Corporal Harrigan deployed to ‘Nam a second time in 1964, and spent a full year there, eventually being promoted to an infantry platoon sergeant. That deployment was lively for him, and he got a hell of a lot of experience patrolling the jungle.”

The driver paused for a moment to adjust the heater in the Cadillac, vainly attempting to keep the biting cold at bay. His foreign passenger in the back seat was shivering heavily, despite the thick layers of clothing. The driver couldn’t help but grin, a wolfish, predatory smile he had purposefully cultivated over the years.

“Cold, Naz?” The driver’s question drew a sharp glare from the shivering man, but he just kept his grin.

“Continue, please,” Naz said, taking his hands out of his pockets to gesture. He was impatient for the two men in the front of the sedan to finish their appraisal so they could go somewhere warmer. It was starting to appear as if they were toying with him.

“Well in ’65 Harrigan came back and asked to be sent to scout sniper school, but on the recommendation of his CO back in ‘Nam, they made him go get a commission, and then they sent him back to ‘Nam as a Platoon leader in late ’65.”

“Is that when you met him?” It was the man in the front passenger seat this time.

“No, actually I did not meet him until late in 1967,” the driver responded. “Anyway, in ’66, Harrigan gained notoriety for keeping all of his Marine’s alive for the duration. A few of them were wounded, but none of them died while he was in command. When he was turning over the platoon to a new Lieutenant, the fresh ell-tee got killed by a VC sniper, and Harrigan stayed a few months past his departure date to provide turnover. Still kept patrolling, and even kept his guys alive.”

“When he came back, he found out that his mother had died, so he sold his parent’s house and turned around and asked his command for a deployment. His new CO liked him, so instead he sent him to become a Forward Artillery Controller, or FAC,” the driver pronounced the acronym as a single word, fack, as many military men were accustomed to doing. “And then I met First Lieutenant Harrigan in Hue City.”

The man in the passenger seat grunted. He had not been there, but he knew what the Americans had gone through in January of 1968 in Hue City. The man in the back had heard about the fierce fighting as well, but he made no reaction to the statement other than to ask another question.

“So how does Lieutenant Harrigan end up at this dive bar?”

“Well,” the driver said with his trademark grin, gesturing to the front door where the waitress was flipping the sign from CLOSED to OPEN, “why don’t we go ask him?”

Harrigan had walked into Major’s Bar and Grill at the same time every day, seven days a week since he got the job tending the bar. The owner was an old Korean War veteran, and Curtis always thought he gave him the job for two reasons. The first was pity for another jobless, Black war veteran. The second reason was to set him up with the Major’s daughter, Nicole. Curtis and Nicole were two of the only three employees of Major’s Bar and Grill, the fry cook, Jimmy, was already in kitchen in the back, out of sight and out of mind like he always was.

Even though Curtis found Nicole’s presence intoxicating, he did not know how to approach the subject of asking his boss’s daughter out for dinner, nor was he confident enough that she would agree.

So, Curtis Harrigan and Nicole Freeman gently flirted their way through their days at work, neither one of them willing to take the next step. Today though, as Curtis prepared the bar for opening, dusting the countertops and cleaning the tables with Nicole, he could see the white Cadillac idling across the street, and the man from his past staring through the darkened front window of the bar.

His mind wandered across time and space, back to the devastated city in Vietnam, and wondering just what this man wanted from him.

“You ready to open, Curt?” Nicole whipped Harrigan’s shoulder with her dust rag.

He smiled at her, still keeping the Cadillac in the corner of her eye, “Yeah, Nicole. Why don’t you flip that sign over?”

She flashed a bright smile at him, and his focus on the Cadillac wavered. “I’m going to get you to call me Nikki one of these days.”

Curtis waved his hand dismissively while he turned to put himself behind the bar. “Not at work you won’t.”

Nicole sighed dramatically, and walked to the front door, flipping the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. She turned around and grinned to Harrigan behind the bar, “Major’s is open for business!” It was the same statement she made every morning, and as she always did, Nicole started to readjust her curly hair, pulling it behind her and fastening it in a wild, dark ponytail.

For the first time since he started tending the bar and working the grill, Curtis wasn’t absorbed in Nicole. He was staring over her head and behind her, at the three men who had exited the Cadillac and strode into the frozen street.

Something about his gaze raised Nicole’s suspicion, and she turned around.

“Do you know them, Curt?” Her voice wasn’t concerned, not yet.

Subconsciously, Harrigan had slipped his hand under his shirt, resting it on the butt of his .45.

“Curt?” Nicole asked, the concern rising in her voice.

“Yeah, I know one of them.” He said quietly as they stepped onto the curb and started to reach for the door.

The bell above the door tinkled as the door was pulled open, and the three men strode in from the cold.

“Welcome to Major’s,” Nicole said, her voice forced into sounding cheerful, but her eyes betrayed her. The way that Curt had reacted to seeing the men was starting to worry her. She knew he had been in the war, but never asked him about it. And now there were three strangers in the bar, and Curt had his hand on his pistol, something she had only seen him do once before.

“Why thank you, miss,” the lead man said, while nodding over to Curt, “We will take this booth over near the back.”

The second man was bundled up against the cold far more than the other two men, but she could see his serious, dark eyes set against his olive-colored skin. He had an intense gaze, and Nicole looked away quickly, grabbing three menus off the bar top as she passed Curt. She looked to him for encouragement, but he was sizing up the three men and ignored her.

As she sat the three men down at their requested booth, she realized that one of them had flipped the sign over back to CLOSED and had locked the door behind them. She started to walk over to flip the sign back, but the last man grabbed the sleeve of her blouse.

“I’m terribly sorry miss,” the man had a distinct, British accent she noticed, “but we need you to leave the sign how we left it.”

Nicole nodded meekly and retreated to behind the bar. She grabbed Curt’s arm as she did, and he leaned over and whispered into her ear, “Go back and help Jimmy with the kitchen, I’ll take care of them.” He looked into her eyes and smiled a little bit, and she nodded and hurried back to the kitchen.

“What can I do for you?” Harrigan asked the three men, but he never took his eyes off the driver.

“You can sit down, Lieutenant Harrigan,” The driver smiled, and patted the seat next to him in the booth, “we have a proposition for you.”