"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

For today's essay*, we return to Dhofar. We're not traveling far, maybe 30 miles, but we're jumping ahead two years. Instead of a sultan's palace in a leafy coastal city, we find ourselves in a dry, dusty,mud-brick fort, worthy of Beau Geste. And instead of the short, Strackenzian combat of a near-bloodless coup d'etat, our objective is the middle of a blistering, deadly firefight.

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