by Alan Judd
‘I don’t know,’ said Tony. ‘Go and ask them. Or get Charles here to ask the press for you. They’ll know.’
Anthony put his cup into his saucer with a noise as decisive as an auctioneer’s hammer. ‘Stickies,’ he said with chilling precision, ‘is the name by which the official IRA have been known since one Easter a few years ago when they departed from Republican tradition by sticking their Easter lilies to themselves rather than pinning them. As an Intelligence officer you should know the regimental history and traditions of your enemy.’ He sipped his tea, almost demurely, and then looked again at Nigel. ‘And as an officer you should also know that talking at breakfast is not a habit that is encouraged in the British Army, especially talking shop. It’s unfortunate that it’s allowed at all. In some regiments it is not, while in my father’s regiment, the wearing of head-dress at a meal indicated that the wearer did not wish to be spoken to. Indeed, it was considered polite not to speak in his presence. That is a custom we would do well to adopt.’ Anthony then got up and took his tea to an armchair, where he sat and sipped calmly, still wearing his beret.
Tony Watch raised his eyebrows and smiled at Charles. Nigel Beale looked as though he were about to reply, played for a few moments with his teaspoon, then got up and walked out without looking at anyone. Tony soon left and Charles went and sat with his coffee and letters in the armchair opposite Anthony. The silence continued for some moments until Anthony looked up. ‘Charles.’
To his surprise, a slight smile played upon Anthony’s features. ‘Yes, Anthony?’
‘I think I may have started a regimental tradition.’
‘I hope you have, Anthony,’ said Charles, sincerely.
Still smiling, Anthony took off his beret. His triumph seemed to have made him light-hearted and almost loquacious, for the time of day. ‘Should shut young Beale up for a bit,’ he said. ‘I’m very pleased he left when he did, though. This beret ain’t mine. Tight at the band. Must belong to some pin-head. Thought I was in danger of passing out and spoiling the effect. Mine’s upstairs.’
Charles laughed. ‘It did the job anyway.’
Anthony stood and stretched. ‘Just goes to show,’ he said, mysteriously. He put the beret back on its peg on his way out of the Mess. ‘Have a good day, old boy.’
‘And you, Anthony.’ Charles turned at last to his letters. There was a postcard from Janet, posted in York, where she had been for the weekend. She did not say with whom. One of the other letters was from Regimental Headquarters asking for subscriptions and the other was from the Retirements Board saying that he could be released from the Army on repayment of one thousand pounds. The earliest date was the day after the battalion’s return from Ireland, by which time he would have to have paid the money. He was not entitled to terminal leave nor to the normal gratuity. A copy of the letter was being sent to the CO.
Charles had had no idea that it could be so easy. Pessimism had set in after he had sent his letter and the recent busyness had pushed to the back of his mind all thoughts about resignation, but now the knowledge that he could be out of the Army in two months shook the sleep out of him and made even his present surroundings seem almost pleasant. He rose from the table and poured himself another coffee with the delight in detail of one who sees for the first time. His boots, his beret, his heavy wool jersey could all be viewed now with affection, rather than sickening familiarity, because he would be leaving them. It was clear that his main task now was to stay alive, complete and uninjured. He thought about this as though it were a holy vow and resolved to consider how best to eliminate those activities that offered the most danger.
There was, of course, a problem about the money. The very most he could raise by selling everything saleable, including the old Rover (if it still was saleable) and his mess kit and blues (if Regimental Headquarters still bought such things), was a little over five hundred pounds. He could think of no job he wanted and would be in no position to borrow from the bank. He thought briefly of Janet, who had money of her own, but felt this would be ignoble. He was then a little annoyed because he had considered himself above thinking such things were ignoble – it was the kind of reaction he associated more with the CO than with himself – but he then had to admit that the real reason was that he did not like to commit himself to her any more than he had.
These intriguing speculations were ended by the arrival of the CO. Charles nervously expected a reaction to the letter from the Retirements Board but the CO ate his breakfast quickly, saying nothing to anyone, called sharply for his vehicles and drove off to the Brigade O Group. When he had gone one of the mess orderlies brought in the newspapers, from the state of which it was clear that someone had read them hurriedly. It appeared that the CO had had them sent up to his room the moment they appeared. Charles was apprehensive but they turned out on the whole not to be as bad as he had feared. The riot and subsequent shootings were headlined throughout and there were lots of fuzzy, confusing pictures. There were a few quotations from the CO’s outburst, which came over surprisingly well, and no one had taken up McColm’s point about high-powered weapons except the Irish Times man. The Gazette carried essentially the same stories as the others but with the addition of extensive coverage of the views of local residents. It claimed that soldiers had broken into houses on the pretext of searching for wanted men but that their real purpose had been to vandalise. The damage in the house that the CO had inspected was accurately listed, although McColm had neglected to mention that the holes in the walls had been caused by a bullet and not by the soldiers. Inside there was a short feature entitled, ‘The Man who lets God decide’. It said that the CO had been beside himself with rage at the press conference and asked whether such a man could be trusted to remain cool in more dangerous situations. It questioned the use of high-powered weapons in built-up areas and cited the CO as one who shifted the responsibility for such decisions to a suspiciously Unionist God, using the Queen of England as his authority. Surprisingly, none of the papers speculated about the cause of the riot, which remained unknown.
Charles read Beazely’s paper last. He was reassured by the report on the front page and Beazely was on the way to having some of his lost credibility restored to him when Charles reached the centre-page spread. There was a large photograph of himself cowering beneath the Pig at the crossroads, captioned, ‘Lieutenant Charles Thoroughgood, 41, takes no chances as grenades pepper the streets’. It was a press agency photograph and had beneath it an article by ‘Our Special Correspondent’ in which Charles read some of his own and many of Van Horne’s words, fortunately without their being attributed to either. Beazely had added the punctuation and a few imaginative flights of his own.
The only other surprise was a leader in a staunchly Unionist paper calling for more shooting, more units like AAC(A) and, strangely, for stricter enforcement of the law relating to road fund licences. It was the adjutant who later pointed out that cars in Republican areas were never taxed.
There was more trouble that afternoon up in the new estate. The fact that it began about an hour after lunch, as convenient a time as any, was due to the CO’s having started it. That morning he had returned from his O Group later than usual, and had stomped straight up to his room, still without speaking to anyone. The adjutant was summoned a while later and Charles feared that it might have something to do with himself, especially as the adjutant was tight-lipped afterwards. Later, though, the ops officer and Nigel Beale were summoned and Charles began to relax. Over lunch there was a great deal of important secretiveness amongst those in the know, except for the adjutant who looked as disinterested and weary as usual by then. Anthony Hamilton-Smith was either oblivious to any secret or was particularly good at keeping it, whilst Tony Watch was aggressively but unsuccessfully curious. Nigel Beale exuded a passionate furtiveness and communicated with the ops officer in cryptic monosyllables. It was all spoilt by the CO who was brisk and talkative when he came to lunch and informed everyone that he had got clearance
from Brigade to do a search of selected houses in the new estate before dusk. There was information – doubtful, according to Brigade, who couldn’t see beyond the ends of their noses, but white-hot, according to the CO – that a large quantity of gelignite had been moved in to the area in preparation for a series of bombings. Swearing all present to eternal secrecy, he said that this was the result of a decision taken by the Provisional IRA leadership at a conference in a Dublin hotel to increase terrorism and to decrease rioting. Apparently they thought that terrorism was more likely to drive the British from Ulster and would convince the Ulster people that to live in an Ireland united by the Provisional IRA was what they really wanted. Eternal secrecy was vital in order that the Eire government should not be embarrassed by the suspicion that it harboured terrorists.
Elements from throughout the battalion were involved in the search and they entered the new estate in an impressive convoy, to the accompaniment of banging dustbins. There was also the usual shouting and jeering. It was some time since Charles had been into the estate and he would not have thought deterioration possible, but before his eyes the worst had clearly got worse. Unbroken windows and unsmashed paving stones were now so unusual that they caught the eye and prompted speculation. Garden fences had long been pulled down but a few tatty privet hedges remained. Many of the houses had tiles missing and cracks in their walls. Dirty, unhappy-looking children swarmed like flies and mangy dogs started up everywhere. Because of the very high unemployment a large number of men were at home and, it being afternoon, most of them were up.
Grilles were up on the Land-Rovers. The CO sat in the front with his map-case open. ‘There is nothing that pleases me more,’ he said, ‘than to ride at the head of a convoy of military vehicles. If only we were going to war instead of searching these wretched people’s homes. My God, we’d better find something, you know, or we’ll look pretty stupid.’
‘It’s bound to stir them up if we don’t,’ said Nigel Beale.
‘It’ll stir them up if we do. Anything we do annoys them. If you were to walk round here tonight and give every man a pound he’d go and drink it and then throw the empty bottle at you. And if we didn’t do anything they’d hoard enough explosive to blow themselves and the rest of Belfast sky-high. Maybe that’s the answer, I don’t know.’
Once well into the estate the convoy split up and different bits went to different houses. Charles went with the CO to one of the white-hot certainties, the home of a well-known Republican family. The thought that because he was leaving the Army he would never come back to Belfast, made him pay more attention to what he saw. It might, after all, be the last search they would do. He hoped it would. He was too English not to feel apologetic about such an invasion of privacy. The house in this case was a tattered semi-detached with a larger than usual garden, which was no more than a patch of earth and scrub excreted upon by dogs and children. They surrounded the house and entered by the front door, which had had a hole kicked in the bottom and didn’t close properly. There were at least a dozen occupants of all ages and both sexes. Some protested vigorously and loudly to the pale young soldiers who concentrated on their first duty of entering every room and counting the people, before trying to get them all into one room downstairs. Meanwhile, a shouting and chanting crowd had gathered outside but were kept at a distance by the escort. The accompanying RUC men were older and more accustomed to abuse, and they went about their work with none of the nervous hurry of the young soldiers. An indefinable stench, a combination of many smells, old and new, pervaded the house. On entering, the CO turned to Nigel Beale and said in an undertone, ‘This is where the stuff is, you know. I’m sure of it. If it’s anywhere in this estate, it’s here.’
Soldiers with mine-detectors were ordered to search the garden. After taking a couple of steps into the hall Charles had attempted to linger on the doorstep, but was summoned inside by the CO to deal with complaints. The house had been searched many times before and after their initial hostility most of the people settled into a sullen resentment. Their names were taken and it turned out that they were all family, or so they said. There was a likeness running through them all, but it was more a likeness of expression and manner than of anything physical. A plump, unhealthily pale and prematurely old man who sat quietly in the corner said, when his name was taken, ‘Youse searched this house seventeen times since 1969 and never found nothing. When youse gonna stop?’
‘When you tell us where the gear is,’ said the soldier.
‘There’s no gear here. I don’t know where no gear is.’
‘Then we won’t be long, will we?’
Charles knew better than to invite complaints, since everyone would have complained at the house being searched at all. However, he was picked upon by two teenage girls with lank dark hair and hard, expressionless faces. They had probably chosen him because he was the only one standing around doing nothing. ‘Some of your soldiers have made a mess of our toilet,’ one of them said.
‘What have they done?’
‘Come up and see.’
He followed them upstairs and they showed him into the bathroom. There were smears and deposits around the toilet in such positions as to suggest wild, uncontrolled and aerobatic excretions. It was only his involuntary recoil on entering that saved him from the indignity of being locked in, as they tried to push him forward and close the door behind him. He pushed back and they ran downstairs, laughing loudly and humourlessly. He followed them, conscious of the stares of the soldiers who wondered what had happened. For some time he hung around awkwardly in the hall as searchers came and went. Then the obese lady of the house offered cups of tea to him and several others. It was a suspicious gesture but they felt obliged to accept it. The cups were presented to them on a tin tray with a packet of biscuits. As they raised their cups to their lips each one gave off a powerful smell of urine. Charles replaced his without a word, but he heard later from two soldiers who had eaten them that the biscuits were all right.
Charles then followed the CO out into the garden where a tunnel had been discovered, starting with a manhole cover near the wall of the house and ending in the bank of a ditch near the bottom of the garden. The man of the house said that it was the drains and that there was nothing in it except rats.
‘We’ll see for ourselves,’ said the CO. He looked around. ‘Who’s going down? Any volunteers? Somebody small.’ Charles drew himself up to his full height and could see others doing the same. ‘Nigel, you’re a little chap. You’ll do.’
Nigel Beale never liked to be reminded of his height, but he always liked to feel useful. He was clearly torn now between pleasure and humiliation. The manhole cover was pushed to one side, showing the hole to be deep, dark and stinking. Nigel began taking off his webbing while everyone else looked on with relieved curiosity – except for the CO, who said, ‘Come on, you’re not doing a striptease. Get it off.’
Charles held Nigel’s webbing and equipment, thereby, he hoped, giving the CO an impression of willing participation whilst making it slightly less likely that he would be the one sent to follow Nigel, if anyone was. It had begun to rain again. Nigel handed over his kit with an air of puzzled martyrdom and lowered himself gently into the hole. A renewed stench wafted up. ‘Don’t be too long down there,’ said the CO. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do. And watch out for booby-traps.’
Nigel’s anxious face popped up again. ‘Anyone got a torch?’ A torch was handed to him. ‘It’s very low, sir. I’ll have to go on my belly to get along it.’
‘Well, don’t sit there talking about it. Do it.’
They saw Nigel huddle up at the bottom and then disappear head first in the direction of the ditch. There was a lot of grunting and squeezing as though he were being dragged by a rope. His lower legs and boots were still visible when there was a muffled shout and a young rat ran along his calf, jumped up out of the hole and made for the next-door garden. It was ineffectually chased by the RSM, who aimed several clumsy kicks at it a
nd tried to hit it with his truncheon. When Nigel’s boots had vanished the watchers went to the ditch to see him come out. All they saw was two more rats, one a very large one, before Nigel clambered from the manhole he had entered. He was red-faced and puffed and covered in sludge. ‘Couldn’t get right down, sir,’ he said. ‘It gets narrower as it goes on. Thought I’d got stuck, actually.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘No, sir, it’s clean.’ Everyone laughed, except Nigel and the CO.
‘Pity. Well done, anyway. At least you frightened the rats. Good effort.’
The CO went back into the house and Nigel began brushing himself down briskly, with little result. ‘Bloody filthy down there, you know. Really gungy. There’d better be some hot water when we get back.’
Charles handed him his kit, his pistol and his beret at arm’s length. ‘D’you think you’ll be able to clean yourself before you get back into the Land-Rover?’
Nigel pulled at some sludge that was clinging to his hair. ‘Doubt it. Don’t s’pose these bastards’ll let me use their water, if they have any. They must’ve been chuffed to blazes when they saw me go down there. Anyway, if I have to put up with that I don’t see why the rest of you buggers shouldn’t put up with me in the Land-Rover.’ He bent forward and shook himself, holding his collar back. ‘At least we know there’s nothing down there.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s something, isn’t it?’
‘Did you think there would be?’
‘You never know. It’s as good a place as any. There still might be, of course, in the narrow bit. But the only way to search that is to tie a rope to one of their kids and use him as a pull-through.’
The search of the house was fruitless and they moved on to a local school, where the largest search operation was still going on. A disgruntled mob was gathered outside and there was sporadic stone-throwing which worsened while they waited for the search teams to finish. The mob grew larger and the stoning became suddenly and persistently worse, obviously a result of organisation. One soldier had his face opened up from the mouth to the ear and snatch squads were deployed. They caught two boys in their teens and brought them back behind the barricade of Pigs and Land-Rovers. One of them came from the group that had stoned the soldier and Charles saw a knee go into the boy’s groin as he was pushed into the Pig. His head came forward on to a convenient elbow and he was bundled inside. Like most arrested rioters they did not seriously struggle once arrested. They seemed overawed by the very semblance of organisation. Henry and his ambulance Pig were called to treat the injured soldier.