The following report appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on June 4:
A scarred, 39 year-old Scot, Major John Stevens has just returned to the Yemen with his latest batch of £800-a-month London recruits for the Royalist guerrilla war against the Egyptians. Major Stevens was Sgt. Stevens of the Royal.Air Force Regiment. He later served in the Spanish Army, then moved on to "Mad Mike" Hoare's Congo force. After 12 months as an instructor and guerrilla leader in the Yemen - where Royalist tribesmen have kept 70,000 of Egypt's best troops pinned down - Major Stevens returned to Britain in February in search of more mercenaries to joint the 175 already there. Of these, he says, more than half are British. Since his return, he has found more than 30 men, some in their 40s, willing to risk death fur £10,000 a year. All carry clean discharge papers after service with British forces and are now on their way to Djibouti. From the French Somaliland capital, they will go by sea with Moslem pilgrims to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia's port on the Red Sea. Next comes an overland trip to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to see a Saudi liaison officer - also a Scot - who supplies uniforms, weapons and jeeps. Of a night attack which went wrong, Major Stevens said: "There was nothing for it but hand-to-hand combat. We fought not for the fear of dying, but because of the fear of being captured. A captured-mercenary dies a ghastly death: we found one who could be identified only by his belt. The RKoyalist insure us each for £5,000, The insurance is always paid.' "
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