by Jim Gregson
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry about that, sir. I should have realised that you would wish to be personally involved. Your experienced tuition would have been much appreciated, I’m sure. I was very conscious that I was a novice among very experienced men. I was lucky to have their enthusiasm to carry us along.’
‘I had no wish to be involved in this teaching exercise.’ The thought of that seemed to leave him appalled. The suggestion that he might have taught these battle-hardened men seemed to throw him quite off balance. ‘These classes should not have been conducted at all, in the present desperate military situation.’
I was both disgusted and depressed by the attitude of this pompous windbag, whose only claim to respect was the crown he carried upon his shoulder. ‘It was an educational opportunity, sir. I didn’t seek it out; these men came to me and asked if I could do anything to help them. They had time on their hands and a desperate need for the qualification which would secure their substantive ranks. In my opinion, we should have been offering them the opportunity to study, not waiting for them to ask for it.’
Both of us were now incensed. In view of the challenge I had offered to his authority, it was probably as well for me that Barker now followed what seemed to be a diversion. ‘I asked you when you arrived here about your background, Sergeant Gregson. You were evasive at that time.’
‘On the contrary, sir, I was forthcoming, as I remember it. I told you that I’d been at Manchester University and secured my degree there.’
The major glared at me with undisguised hostility. ‘I wished to be told about your background, sergeant, not what you read at your red-brick university.’
‘Better than white-tile, sir.’ It was a cheap, irrelevant crack, stolen from Jimmy Porter. I’d seen Look Back in Anger on a free ticket from the Red Cross centre in London whilst I’d been at Beaconsfield.
Barker didn’t spot the plagiarism. His eyes widened, making him look to my biased eyes like one of the less intelligent varieties of goldfish. ‘What school did you attend, Sergeant Gregson?’
‘St Joseph’s College for Boys, sir.’
‘Isn’t that a Roman Catholic school?’ The major’s nostrils flared in triumphant contempt.
‘It is, sir. It is known to its boarding pupils as Joe’s Jailhouse.’
‘I thought as much.’ Barker nodded his satisfaction, as if he had established that this recalcitrant junior had come straight here from a Borstal confinement. He wasn’t far out there, I thought. Joe’s Jail had many similarities with the corrective institutions of the day, though the Irish Christian Brothers had been heavier on corporal punishment and lighter on liberalism.
I waited for Major Barker to enlarge upon his thoughts, but he evidently felt no need to do that. A Catholic background apparently vindicated all his reservations about me. ‘I have had a request for aid in the present exceptional situation. Cyprus has now been declared an active service posting. There are plenty of troops on the island, but a shortage of senior NCOs to direct them.’
I was pretty sure that this was a fabrication, but I had no statistics available to dispute it. I suspected that I knew where he was going with this, but all I could do was repeat my previous contention. ‘As I said earlier, sir, the situation offers us opportunities in education. Thousands of troops on the island are waiting for action, rather than engaged in action itself. They would welcome our services and make good use of our excellent facilities here. I set out some of the possibilities in the paper I left on your desk last—’
‘I have volunteered your services elsewhere, Sergeant Gregson.’
‘I see, sir. Well, as I said, there are many sorts of educational needs which we could—’
‘Not in an educational capacity, sergeant. You will be required on this assignment to operate as a normal senior NCO, not an educational one. I have studied your background and the few talents you possess. I am confident that you are the member of my staff best fitted for the requirements of this particular temporary and exceptional posting.’
‘Posting, sir?’
‘You will be leaving Dhekelia for a time.’ He smiled a smile that I did not like at all. ‘But don’t worry, you will still be attached here as part of my establishment. I expect you to return here in due course. This assignment is temporary.’
I felt a tangible threat now. I had done that most foolish of things: I had neglected the realities of rank. Whatever the rights and wrongs of any argument, a major held all the key cards in any hand played against a sergeant. There was power as well as malice and ineptitude on the other side of that big desk. ‘What exactly is the nature of this work for which you have volunteered me, sir?’
‘You have been temporarily assigned to an active service unit pursuing terrorists in the Troodos mountains. Present intelligence is that Colonel Grivas himself is in that area and is directing anti-British action there. I cannot say how reliable that intelligence is.’
My mind reeled back to childhood. I wanted to pinch myself to make sure that this was not a weird dream, that this preposterous man was actually saying these things. It sounded not like me, but like someone else speaking from a long way away as I said, ‘And you genuinely think that I am the appropriate man for this assignment, sir?’
‘You are a sergeant, Gregson. You are a senior NCO. You were surely told before you were given those stripes on your arm that you were an NCO first and an educationist second. You are surely not refusing to do your bit in the emergency?’
‘Do your bit.’ I remembered my parents saying that when I was a child. It was an old phrase from the Second World War, an exhortation to every civilian to play his part in the struggle against Hitler. Now this vindictive idiot was quoting it against me in this petty little struggle to maintain British dominance on a small Mediterranean island. It felt obscene.
‘Of course I’m not refusing, sir. I’m questioning whether I’m the best man for the job, when my lack of field experience might put men in danger. I’m also questioning why I’m not being allowed to fulfil my proper function here, where there is a huge need for education which is not being met.’
‘You are questioning my authority and my judgement.’
I took a huge breath and controlled my tongue. I looked straight ahead at a point above Barker’s head as I said, ‘I’m saying that there might be an alternative view to yours, sir. As an experienced and enlightened officer in the RAEC, I’m sure that you welcome ideas from your senior NCOs.’
‘I welcome loyalty, Sergeant Gregson. I welcome the willing cooperation of my juniors in supporting a decision to which I have given hours of thought. You are an excellent marksman with a knowledge of Greek. This makes you eminently the most suitable man for this particular assignment. I expect you to undertake it with energy and enthusiasm.’
I knew a little Latin and no Greek. And it was that cock-up over Gunner Capstick’s expertise on the shooting range on the Welsh coast which had designated me an expert marksman. But there was no use telling those things to this Blimpish idiot.
I said grimly, ‘Colonel Grivas will surely be quaking in his boots at this prospect, sir.’
Sixteen
The dawn was cool in the Troodos foothills, even though the year was advancing. The sun was still behind the mountains, but the sky was very blue. The long ridge of crags in the distance looked very dramatic with the light behind it, but the valley where we were was still in shadow.
I had been fearful about my reception among hardened fighting troops. I had expected lips to curl at the sight of the RAEC flashes on my shoulder, despite the stripes on my arm. But the men here did not deride the schoolie, at least not in my presence. Their resignation was typical of fighting troops the world over. The brass hats back at base did all sorts of strange things, because they didn’t realise the realities of life on the front line. They’d made daft decisions from the start and they’d no doubt go on making them until the end.
I received in fact a cautious welcome. The senior men were glad of another
hand at the pumps; it stretched the duty rotas and made them a little less demanding. The squaddies were disciplined to the idea that a sergeant’s stripes weren’t allotted without being earned, so that they felt they had no choice but to accept the authority that had been invested in this lanky newcomer. And I think there was also a vague suspicion among both sections that the new man must have something to offer, if he had been sent up here to take a sergeant’s role in the Troodos.
Only I knew how false that suspicion was, and I held my peace. When I’d been dragged unwillingly into national service a year and more ago, I’d have told them deprecatingly how ill-fitted I was for this task, how inefficient was the army machine that had landed me here. Now I kept my mouth shut and my ears open. I was trying hard to assimilate all the information I could about the latest strange task which had been visited upon me by the army system.
With a system like this, it was difficult to see how Britain had enjoyed the military successes it had celebrated in various wars. I kept that thought to myself and recalled Churchill’s advice from the darkest days of the war. KBO. Keep buggering on. That was all I could do and what I had to do.
There were two sergeants working alongside me, both regular soldiers who had been members of this infantry unit for many years. I was unpacking my kit in the tent allotted to me when I heard the phrase ‘Crack shot…recommended for sniper duties…’ spoken by some invisible source beyond the canvas. My immediate reaction was to move outside and reveal just how farcical that description was. I could get cheap laughs if I told the comic story of how my reputation as a marksman had been achieved; we would be able to shake our heads together over farcical army inefficiencies. I stayed inside my tent.
I knew that whatever credibility I had could only be damaged by such a revelation. I reasoned grimly that it was better to claim this distinction I did not deserve. The instinct for self-preservation prevailed. As you moved into these unfamiliar hills to pursue a mysterious and ruthless enemy, that was a strong instinct. I did explain that my five words of classical Greek would be totally useless if I was asked to interrogate enemy captives, but that disappointed no one and did not affect my status.
The youngest of the sergeants seemed by the end of my first day to have adopted me. I wasn’t sure whether this was by prior arrangement or whether it had simply happened, in the way things continually did in the army. Harry Hart was his name. When I explained away the fiction of my knowledge of Greek, he reassured me. ‘We shan’t be talking to the Cyps. Last thing we’ll want to do is talk to the buggers! We might want to shoot their balls off, if they give us half a chance!’
My recent experiences with Major Barker had reinforced my prejudices against the officer class. But Captain Foulkes, who was assigning duties to the three sergeants under his command, won my reluctant admiration. His briefing was brisk and to the point and he didn’t pretend to more knowledge than he had. ‘There are four valleys leading up towards the summit.’ We glanced automatically at the peak towering thousands of feet above us. ‘They converge at a height of about four thousand feet. Our job is to make sure they are clear of EOKA fighters. The paras are over there, in the most western and the broadest of these valleys. That’s where the enemy are most likely to be. If you hear any firing, you take cover and await developments. It’s possible fleeing terrorists may come into your sights. No random firing: listen to your NCOs. You await orders before taking any action. Any questions?’
Harry Hart said quietly, ‘Is Grivas here, sir?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Sergeant. He was here ten days ago – we know that for certain. We shall discover whether he’s still around in the next few days. Good luck!’
I hoped I wouldn’t need good luck. I wondered how I would behave if there was real action and bullets flying around my head. When I had arrived here on the previous night it had felt to me as though I’d wandered into a black and white movie from my boyhood, with people speaking in clichés and building up hatred for a faceless enemy, whom I had never seen and did not want to see. This morning it was suddenly real and in technicolour. There was no sign of movement on the steeply rising green flanks of the valley, but the mountain towered against blue sky above us, as if awaiting its function as a backdrop to violent action.
Each sergeant was in charge of eight men, with a corporal or lance corporal amongst them to support him. Our task was to move methodically up the slopes to the head of our allotted valley, ensuring as we did so that it was clear of the EOKA fighters who had in the last few weeks been swooping from the hills to attack British personnel on lower ground.
I realised as we set out that I had expected the Troodos to be like my familiar and much-loved Lake District hills, with well-trodden tracks following the best routes to the summits. I had spent much of my boyhood and youth on the great Lakeland fells, in the years before my fellow-Blackburnian Alfred Wainwright had begun to release his unique and wonderful guides to the area.
This was very different from the Lake District. There were faint tracks here and there, then nothing at all. I couldn’t be sure whether the minimal signs of a previous presence were those of men or animals. Sheep, goats, or something wilder? Or something human and hostile, which might be watching us from some hidden eyrie even now? A vivid imagination had helped me as a literature student at university. It was no more than a damned nuisance here, when you were playing deadly charades with an unseen enemy. I thrust away the thought that he probably knew this territory even better than I did Great Gable and the Langdale Pikes.
The valley was wider than it had seemed on the map. Harry Hart and his eight men looked like ants on the other side of it, moving in parallel with us but probably about a mile away. I hadn’t much in common with Hart, whom I’d met only on the previous day after my belated addition to this operation. Now I felt myself yearning for his company and wanting to speak to him. I needed to catch a little of his certainty and confidence about what we were doing here.
I knew I had to appear confident to the men I was leading. Confident both of the action we were taking here and of my own military confidence. Both of them cons, of course. The whole of my national service was a con, wasn’t it? But I hadn’t expected to be combing mountains for men who were anxious to kill and who knew this terrain much better than I did.
My men didn’t speak much as we climbed. They panted and spat out the ritual army expletives when they came up against a steep or tortuous bit of ground. I had expected them to be much fitter than I was, since they had been fighting terrorists whilst I had been confined to camp for many months. But this wasn’t the case. Until they had been assigned to this exercise, these men had been chafing in even more confined quarters than I was, waiting for action rather than engaged in it. I was at least as fit as them, and my Lake District years meant that I was more used to climbing hills than they were.
It didn’t look far to the top of our valley, but the four thousand feet Captain Foulkes had mentioned was higher than any British mountain and the lack of clearly defined tracks made progress slow. Distances in hills are always deceptive: I calculated that it would take us four to five hours to reach the top of the valley. I hadn’t allowed for the fact that we were carrying loaded weapons and small packs; that added another hour.
In other circumstances, this would have been an exhilarating excursion. The land was dry and the air was crisp and clean; it grew even more so as we climbed. I kept a wary eye on the hillside around us, but our progress was mercifully free of incident. Some of my eight were not as pleased with that as I was. Stretching their limbs after months of boredom in tents, they were young men who craved action and probably needed it. Any sort of military action would be welcomed. If the British army said these bastard Cyps needed shooting, they wanted to get on with it and blast a few of them off the face of the earth.
They said as much when I told them to ‘take five’ and light their fags. Thin blue lines of smoke rose into the clear air as we smoked. One of them studied the ash at t
he end of his fag and said, ‘I reckon the murdering sods have gone, sarge. Got clear away. I reckon they’re laughing at us on the other side of this bloody mountain, whilst we chase around like blue-arsed flies.’
‘Some bloody flies!’ I said sourly. ‘We’ve been climbing for three hours and I reckon we’re not much over halfway up this lot.’ I looked resentfully upwards, towards the steep and rocky slope which looked like our next challenge.
‘It’s time we found the bastards!’ said the squat man sitting beside me. He raised his rifle and pointed it at an imaginary enemy on a distant ridge, as if he were a schoolboy again, playing cowboys and Indians.
I was abruptly outraged by this childish approach. I said with professional distaste, ‘You find the bastards and you’ll be shitting yourself, Barton. You won’t be half so bloody fond of action once you’ve experienced it!’
The other men laughed, whilst I turned away from them and affected to study the route ahead. I was appalled at myself. I’d behaved and spoken like a grizzled veteran, when I was anything but that. I didn’t look the part. I was far too young, for a start. These men must surely see through me. But they didn’t. To my astonishment, they nodded and appeared to accept my expertise. The conditioning of rank was stronger than I had ever thought it could be. And in this lonely, alien place I was human enough to be glad of that.
The top of the valley was twisting and difficult, as I had known it would be. We had to scramble a little, using hands as well as feet to retain our balance. I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was when we were at our most vulnerable, with our rifles an encumbrance rather than a defence. We were an exposed and virtually static target. If there were indeed unseen and hostile eyes upon us, this was surely when the enemy would strike.
On the steepest and slowest stretch, I ordered my men to rest for a moment whilst I reconnoitred what was ahead. Feeling absurdly over-dramatic, I clambered up the next fifteen-yard rise alone. Then I rested my rifle on a boulder and trained it on the ridge above us, whence I expected any attack to come. I could see no sign of any human presence as I watched for the flashes of gunfire which would reveal the position of any attackers. All was quiet, but no doubt the enemy would be well hidden behind scree or rocks. No doubt they had chosen their combat areas carefully; they would know where to hide and in which places their targets would be most exposed to them.