A Breed of Heroes

by Alan Judd

  The CO was upstairs in his room and Charles went up to brief him. Looking tired and drawn, he was sitting at his desk with an untouched glass of whisky before him. He heard Charles out and then passed his hand wearily across his eyes. ‘Dammit, how I hate having to talk to these wretched people,’ he said. ‘It’s not their fault, of course. They’ve got a job to do just as I have, but it’s all this going back over it, having to say the right thing, resurrecting the whole terrible business. It’s worse than actually doing it, you know. When I think of those poor, stupid, foolish, ignorant, tragically misguided young men whom we probably killed tonight it makes me want to weep, you know, it really does. They could’ve been my sons, or yours if you were older. They were somebody’s. It certainly would have been at least one of my soldiers if we hadn’t done what we did. Those are the people the press should be talking to, the bloody Provisional IRA, not me. They should be saying to them, “Look, for God’s sake stop this bloody lunacy, this violence, because it’ll get out of control and kill all of you and a great many more besides.” Don’t you think, eh?’

  Charles nodded. When the CO needed someone to talk to he did not need them to say very many words, although he paid full attention to any they did say. At such times Charles felt close to him despite himself, and at the same time awkward, as though he were there under false pretences.

  The CO held out his hand, as if to show something in his palm, and kept his dark eyes fixed upon Charles. ‘If only these people could be made to see that if they consistently break the law, if they consistently use violence they will meet with violence, and if it comes to a showdown the side with superior force wins. And that’s us, they must know that. And to keep up a war of attrition is simply to prolong the agony, their own as well as everyone else’s, without getting anywhere because no British government, of any complexion, is going to pull out of Northern Ireland against the wishes of the majority of people as expressed in the ballot box. They must see that, they must. They can’t surely be so stupid as not to, can they? And to go on as they are, where does it get them? How are they one jot the better? How is their cause advanced one inch further? If anything, it goes backwards. There’s nothing to be gained by violence of this kind and everything to be lost, and they’re losing it.’ His tired face was now tense and his eyes hard with passion. He gripped his glass of whisky tightly and raised it but put it down again without tasting. ‘Don’t you think that’s what the press should be doing, telling them that, eh? Trying to stop it instead of asking me damn fool questions about why I opened fire when there were grenades rattling around in the street?’

  Charles nodded again but still said nothing. After gazing thoughtfully at his whisky for a few moments, the CO knocked it back in one and stood up, smoothing down his jersey and stamping his feet so that his anklets fitted snugly over the tops of his boots. He clapped Charles on the back and grinned. ‘Hang it all, I nearly lost my PRO to those grenades, and then where would I be? The only one I’ve got. I hope they realise that.’

  They went downstairs and made their way through the crush, the smoke, the wires and the hubbub to the table by the wall. The CO appeared calm, grave and self-possessed. As he took his seat the hubbub ceased. Charles sat next to him.

  At first, all went well. The questions were much as anticipated, with the rival TV interviewers irritating everyone by each asking the same questions and requiring the same answers to be delivered to them individually. They for their part were irritated by what they regarded as unnecessary and inarticulate interruptions from the steam press. The CO’s replies were stiff and rather lengthy but the points were answered. He used a lot of phrases that were typical of him and of no one else that Charles had met, such as ‘denying the Queen’s highway’, ‘the Queen’s writ will not be flouted’, ‘the un-Christian monsters who so tragically misguide these young men’, ‘the honour and integrity of the British Army’, ‘my soldiers will not stand by while the Queen is insulted’ and ‘the appalling dilemma confronting every commander which only God can resolve’.

  Charles knew that such phrases and concepts were not only part of the CO’s everyday conversation but were central to how he saw himself and the world, but he did not know how the press would react. He feared mockery or disdain but saw neither, only attentiveness. Whether they sympathised with the CO’s all too obvious sincerity or whether such remarks made good press, he could only guess. Trouble came from the well-dressed, thin-faced young man who had earlier displayed his potential animosity. It turned out he was Colm McColm of the Gazette. He did not speak until the conference was about to finish and the TV people had begun to dismantle their equipment. When he spoke it was with a quietness born of confidence.

  ‘Colonel, on your own admission you ordered the shooting of several people this evening, of whom at least one is probably dead.’

  The room quietened and the TV men stopped their dismantling. The CO had his elbows on the table and his hands firmly clasped. ‘I said that we opened fire and we think we hit at least three bombers.’

  ‘Colonel, could you tell me what kind of weapon your men were using?’

  ‘They were using the 7.62 millimetre self-loading rifle. It’s the standard weapon in this and other NATO countries.’

  ‘I see. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it true to say that it is a high-velocity weapon that is lethal at ranges of well above five hundred yards?’

  ‘It is, depending on the accuracy of the man using it.’

  ‘What was the range at which your men opened fire this evening?’

  ‘About sixty or seventy yards.’

  ‘About sixty or seventy yards. And will a human body stop a 7.62 bullet at this range?’

  ‘Not usually, no.’

  ‘Not usually. So the bullet goes straight through. And what about the thing behind the body – a wall, for example. Will it go through that?’

  ‘It depends on the wall.’

  ‘Let us say, an ordinary terrace-house wall like those we all saw this evening. Would that stop the bullet?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  McColm was very relaxed, with one arm along the back of the seat next to his and a notebook balanced on his knee. The TV cameras were going again and the CO was staring at his questioner, his lined face held in a brittle composure. ‘Are we to understand, then,’ continued McColm, ‘that you knowingly and deliberately opened fire with high-velocity weapons in a built-up area at human targets not more than seventy yards distant?’

  Charles could see the veins on the CO’s hands as he gripped tightly, as though in fervent prayer. He looked down at the table and then said in a quiet, taut voice, ‘I ordered my soldiers to open fire at identifiable targets who were throwing lethal bombs and hand-grenades on one of Her Majesty’s highways. I ordered them to aim low in order to avoid injury to anyone in the houses behind.’

  ‘But you admit that you opened fire with high-velocity weapons at short ranges, Colonel, and you admit that the bullets could have gone through the walls of houses in which innocent people were living, but you don’t admit to the terrible danger to anyone in that area nor to this obvious flouting of the Army’s so-called minimum force policy. I ask you, Colonel, a 7.62 bullet at seventy yards, what does it do to a man? Takes his head off, I’m told. And perhaps the head of the man behind him. How can you justify such tactics? How can you sit there and justify them?’

  The CO’s tightly-compressed lips and his prolonged downward glance betrayed a rising tension which threatened his self-control. He still spoke very slowly, staring straight at the reporter. ‘I took what action was necessary to prevent the murder of one of my soldiers. As well as to protect the lives and property of the surrounding population from destruction by the bombers. I ordered my soldiers to aim low in order to minimise the risk to the inhabitants of those houses. And I have since inspected the damage myself and arranged for compensation. There were no injuries.’

  ‘And we have only your word for this?’

  Somethin
g seemed to snap inside the CO and he got to his feet, his voice rising as he spoke. ‘Young man, I don’t know who you are or what paper you represent and I frankly don’t care. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’d stood in my shoes on that street this evening for just two minutes – that’s all, two minutes – you wouldn’t come in here looking for a bloody autopsy. You have not the remotest idea what it means to take the kind of decision I had to take this evening, not the remotest. God forbid that I ever thought the day would come when I had to order a platoon in battle-order down a British street and tell them to open fire. But it has. And God knows it’s not easy but as God is my witness it has to be done. So you’re not going to find any bodies here. Go to Dublin and ask some of your friends down there. Go and ask them!’

  The CO was pointing at McColm by the time he had finished, his teeth clenched, his face red and his finger shaking. The cameras were still going and a couple of microphones were discreetly held at table-level. McColm was still lounging in his chair but his face had paled and hardened with self-consciousness. Seeing that he was about to speak, Charles got to his feet. Everyone looked at him and for what seemed a long moment he could think of nothing to say. He thought of Manningtree, his tutor, who had a habit of ending more than usually boring tutorials somewhat abruptly. ‘Gentlemen, we called this conference in order to discuss matters of fact, not the ethics of violence. If you have no more questions we shall consider it closed.’

  To his great relief there was a general scraping and shuffling of chairs and a growing murmur. People started to move towards the door and the TV men again began packing up their equipment. McColm was one of the first out, saying nothing to anyone. As the London Times man – a kindly-looking, avuncular figure – left he raised his bushy eyebrows at the CO and Charles. ‘Still get complaints if they issued you with peashooters,’ he grunted.

  When they had gone the CO sat down, resting his head in one hand. When he looked up at Charles his face was very weary and his eyes dull. ‘Sorry, Charles, I blew my top,’ he said quietly. ‘Let you down. Let us all down. A CO should never do that in public.’ He stood and stamped his feet, with an effort at cheerfulness. ‘Glad you stopped it when you did. You were splendid. God only knows what I’d have said if I’d gone on. Has it done any harm, d’you think?’

  Charles was embarrassed by the CO’s humility, as though by his mere presence he was taking advantage of it. ‘I don’t think so, sir. There was nothing politically unwise. I don’t see why it should.’

  ‘Good. Well, we’ll see. Bloody press. Get me a whisky, will you?’ Charles went to the drinks tray, poured a large whisky and gave it to him. He took it rather gruffly. ‘You know I don’t drink alone. Get one yourself. Fine state of affairs when a CO has to order his own officers to drink with him.’

  Later, Charles found Van Horne in his office. He had attended the conference, standing at the back, and had shown all the press out. The corners of his mouth showed the merest beginnings of a smile. ‘That bloke dropped a right bollock in front of the CO, didn’t he, sir?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘If he hadn’t been a civvy the CO would’ve had his guts for garters.’

  ‘I thought for a moment he was going to, anyway.’

  Beazely telephoned, asking what had happened at the conference. Charles resisted his first impulse and gave him a boring and doctored account, to make sure that at least one daily did not splash the CO’s anger all over the front page. He then rang the PR desk at Headquarters to tell them what had happened but instead spent most of his time trying to convince them that the major they had sent to assist him at nine o’clock this evening, without telling anyone, had never arrived. With the facetiousness that sometimes comes with tiredness, Charles suggested that he might have found a better story on the way but the suggestion was taken literally and without humour. It was one of a number of options. Others were that he had either been killed or kidnapped. An enquiry was to be started. To those on the streets Headquarters was a remote world and what happened there was a matter of indifference or at best ridicule, unless it directly affected them. It was gone four in the morning and Charles felt no compunction about leaving them to it.

  9

  The post did not arrive in battalion HQ until late afternoon as it had to be collected from Headquarters by the diminutive post corporal and his escort of two Land-Rovers. It had been late the previous day and by the time it came Charles had no time to collect his because of the trouble. He got it before breakfast the following morning. Those mornings were the most leisurely part of the day because the rioters and terrorists had little enthusiasm for rising early. The CO had remarked several times that it would be the best time to carry out a shooting attack on the Army because people were least on their guard then. The mornings were also the time when it was possible to get within sight of that lost world in Army life, privacy. There were no rules about breakfast, and anyone could simply get up and eat roughly six hours after whatever time he had been lucky enough to get to bed, and at the appropriate time breakfast merged painlessly into lunch. There were no papers that morning, which was not unusual because they sometimes arrived late. It was something to be thankful for, in that the CO could not have seen them either. In the meantime, the reading of letters would provide an effective barrier against Nigel Beale, who was sometimes inclined to talk over breakfast.

  However, Charles did not need the barrier that morning. In fact, he did not get a chance to use it. Nigel and Tony Watch were at breakfast when he arrived and, there being no papers, Nigel was particularly chirpy. He was claiming to have predicted the previous day’s trouble.

  ‘Well, I didn’t hear you,’ said Tony.

  ‘Pay attention in the briefings.’

  ‘I do. You never said there was going to be trouble yesterday.’

  ‘Maybe I didn’t say it was going to be yesterday in the briefing. You don’t hear everything there, you know. There’s a lot of need-to-know stuff that I brief the CO on personally.’

  ‘How come he didn’t know about it, then?’

  ‘What makes you think he didn’t?’ Nigel shoved a forkful of egg, bacon, fried bread and tinned tomato into his mouth and munched aggressively. Charles was helping himself from the hot-plates when Anthony Hamilton-Smith arrived and did the same. Anthony never spoke to anyone at breakfast. He always read The Times, beginning with the back page, and when there was no paper he simply ate and stared as though there was no one else in the room. He gave the impression of a great solitude, as of one who had renounced the world, and if he were ever forced to acknowledge other people – such as by having to ask for the marmalade – he did so in a way that made them feel he had never seen them before and had no wish to again. He usually began to be more sociable within about an hour of breakfast, and by the time of his lunchtime gin and tonic he was spritely and cheerful. On this morning he and Charles executed a kind of ritual dance around the hot-plates, based on unspoken principles of fairness, temporal priority and the respect due to rank and age. Each came away with what he required and sat down with the other two without speaking. Unfortunately, the table was small.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Tony Watch. ‘What makes you think it was the Provisionals that organised it? How d’you know it wasn’t the Stickies?’

  ‘The who?’ Nigel’s mouth was still full and his cheeks bulged.

  ‘The Stickies,’ repeated Tony irritably.

  Nigel swallowed. ‘Who the hell are they when they’re at home?’

  ‘The Stickies? Don’t you know who the Stickies are?’ Tony’s plump face showed a mixture of triumph and genuine surprise. ‘The Stickies are the official IRA. I thought everyone knew that. It’s common knowledge.’

  ‘Not to me it isn’t.’

  ‘The CO knows.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

  ‘Well, don’t look at me. You’re supposed to be the Intelligence officer. Go and ask the first Ackie you meet. He’ll tell you who the Stickies a
re.’

  ‘Sounds bloody unlikely to me,’ said Nigel. He looked disgruntled and uncertain.

  Without a word to anyone, Anthony got up from the table, walked over to the hat rack, put on a black beret, taking care to adjust it neatly with the badge in line with the left eye and the brim an inch above the eyebrow, returned to the table, sat down and continued calmly with his breakfast. Nigel and Tony forgot their argument for a while and stared at him, but neither ventured to say anything. Charles was careful not to stare but could not help glancing several times, surreptitiously. Anthony ate solemnly and silently, as though wearing a beret was as much a part of the breakfast ritual as food. He supposed it was Anthony’s way of indicating his disapproval of the conversation and admired him for it, though without following the logic of the act. He decided to postpone opening his letters until he had finished eating. He did not want Anthony to feel obliged to get up and put on his overcoat.

  Nigel Beale was less sensitive, being one of those people who do not seek to enquire after the causes of odd behaviour in others. What interested him was the problem in hand. He put his knife and fork down and pushed his plate away. ‘So why are they called Stickies?’ he asked Tony. ‘If they are, that is.’