by Andy McNab
Frank didn't say a word all the way back. Even inside the warehouse, with its glaring, twenty-four/seven lights, everything felt cold and dank. People went about the business of unloading and cleaning weapons, but I had another task. Ken had told me to collect Al's weapons from the job; they were to be made safe and bagged up for the RUC. Then I needed to gather any ammunition he had in his room. We all had hundreds of rounds for our different weapons in our lockers.
Saddlebags and Cyril were up in the briefing room with the RUC. They had to go through the civil process. It was just one of the drawbacks of classifying PIRA as common criminals instead of granting them the political status they craved. And it was important, too, that we were seen to operate within the rules of engagement. Everybody involved had to make a statement after a contact, and weapons that had been fired would be taken away for forensics. It was a fucked-up way of fighting a war, but we wouldn't have had it any other way.
45
There was a strong smell of burnt coffee in the corridor. I opened the door with the Mr Grumpy sign on it and went in. The coffee pot had boiled dry.
Somebody had already brought in Al's blood-soaked belt kit and dumped it on his bed. Frank had volunteered to sort out and pack his personal stuff. I was glad he was doing it and not me. I'd had to do it twice, but twice was enough.
I felt around Al's bits and pieces in his locker as I looked for ammunition. Under a pile of clean socks and underwear, I felt what I thought was a box of 9mm. I pulled it out, and found myself holding a Bible.
Was this the one doing the rounds so the blokes could arm themselves with quotes to get at Frank? It didn't look like it; this one had a dedication to Al on the inside flap. No wonder he hadn't given Frank a hard time, not even in the jungle. He'd been a Christian all along. All credit to him – at least he'd kept it to himself.
I finished gathering up his ammo and started to sort out his weapons. Al had taken an M16 with him on the job, and a 9mm pistol in a thigh holster. I unloaded the M16 first. I pushed down the magazine, and discovered he'd got some rounds off. Up until then we weren't sure if he'd had a chance to fight back.
I bagged up his magazines and turned to the bloodstained leather thigh holster. I pulled out the Browning, removed its magazine, and tried to rack back the top slide to unload it – but it wasn't happening. A round from the burst that had taken Al down had hit the top slide and jammed it in place.
I tagged it with a brown luggage label, ready for the RUC: 'Weapon still made ready – a round in the chamber.' Their armourers would take it down to the range and try to fire it off.
Some of the M16 mags on the chest harness had big holes in them. It must have been a fearsome burst. I was bagging them up as Frank came in. He didn't speak to me, just went to the locker and started his job. He was clearly agitated. He finally turned to me. His jaw was tight. 'What do you think about Ken on the job? I'm not impressed.'
'Frank, we weren't there. We have no grounds to say anything. All we know is what we saw and what we heard – which wasn't much. Ultimately, he was the commander. Al's dead, for fuck's sake. Nothing will change that.'
He was going to say more but I turned my back. Frank was getting on my nerves big-time.
'Oh, my Lord.'
I looked back. He was sitting on the bed, and Al's Bible was in his right hand. He held it up at me.
'I know.'
He then held up a small prayer book in his left, and three or four Christian music cassettes. Frank stared at me. 'I tried so many times to convert him.'
It was as if Frank was in his own world now. 'Why couldn't he have talked about his faith to me – you know, just the once? Why did he have to keep it to himself?'
I tied off another plastic bag and picked it up. 'We don't all try to shove our beliefs down other people's necks, mate.'
Ken's voice came over the intercom. Every room was wired up so we could communicate with each other and the ops room. 'All to the bar now. All to the bar.'
We went over there together. Nobody had showered yet, or even changed out of their wet clothes. Most still had their thigh holsters and all the party gear on. I'd opted for a shoulder holster. I was going to be sitting down: I wanted a quick and easy grab.
Cans and tots of whisky were handed round.
Ken held up a glass of whisky and looked around the room. 'To Al.'
We nodded. 'To Al.'
46
Nish stared at an empty whisky glass.
Frank's knuckles went white around his can. 'At least Al went down fighting. That's what he would have wanted.'
Saddlebags looked up. 'I'm not so sure, mate. I reckon he was just shot, no chance for him to return.'
Frank's head was shaking. 'He fired back, I just know it.'
'Frank's right.'
The group stared at me.
'There were rounds out of his mag.'
There wasn't much more chat. We drifted away in ones and twos. Nish was more sombre than most. Frank began to open up. But it was all about Ken, and I'd seen the bitterness in his eyes as Ken raised his glass to Al.
I didn't understand, never have done, why Frank had it in for Ken. Maybe he just needed someone to direct his anger at, and Ken had been in charge.
As I took Al's kit to the ops room, I thought, At least we all feel a little better knowing that he returned fire. It's a soldier's thing. No one wanted to think of him just taking some rounds and dropping without having the chance to fight back. If that ever happened to me I wanted to be able to fire at least one round back, or even throw a stone.
I briefed the RUC guys about the 9mm, then went back to my room and got my head down. That afternoon I watched Countdown, and I failed to solve the conundrum.
A few hours after the shooting, two men were detained by Gardaí near Pettigo when they drove through a checkpoint. The car had been hijacked earlier and the owner was still in the car, at gunpoint. A Winchester rifle and eighteen rounds of ammunition were in the foot wells.
At first light, in a follow-up search of the area of the shooting, explosives were found in the blue Toyota, as well as the nine beer kegs containing the thousand-pound IED at the entrance to the Lodge. A radio and a pistol with six rounds of ammunition were also found near the gate where the body had jumped into the field next to Nish. He didn't have either on him when Cyril and Saddlebags challenged him: maybe he dropped them when he saw the headlights, and thought he'd bluff it back to what he thought was the ASU's vehicle and drive off.
Later that morning, the body Cyril and Saddlebags had dropped was identified as that of Antoin Mac Giolla Bride, a twenty-six-year-old Irish Army deserter.
The Toyota had been hijacked in Pettigo village, County Donegal, at about 9.30 p.m. the same night. The victim said four of the ASU were dressed in combat uniforms. Mac Giolla Bride wasn't.
Two of the ASU had worked at the culvert placing the IED. Two others were up the field on the Kesh side, positioned at the firing point. One of these, allegedly, was Kieran Fleming. Arrested in 1976 when he was eighteen, Fleming was sentenced in 1977 to be imprisoned indefinitely for terrorism offences. After six years in the H Blocks, he had escaped with thirty-seven others in September 1983.
The two at the culvert had just got the IED in position and hadn't even finished setting it when a car full of long-haired civvies turned up. Who would they have thought it was? UDR? RUC? INLA? Or just more smugglers? That was the thing in Northern Ireland. No one was ever sure. There was nearly always a time lag while everyone tried to work out who the fuck everybody else was.
It looked as if Mac Giolla Bride had heard Cyril's car, jumped out of the van and taken cover. He had chosen the same hiding-place as Nish.
Cyril then cruised past the van before turning and blocking the road. The guys didn't know it but they'd parked directly opposite the ditch in which two players were laying the IED.
Then Cyril heard someone walking towards him and Saddlebags. Nish had seen Mac Giolla Bride jump over the gate.
I walked into Nish's room.
Frank was in there with him, sitting on Tiny's bed reading a letter. The telly was off. More dirty plates were piled in the corner.
Nish studied Frank's face, waiting for approval. 'You don't think it's a bit too heavy? A bit too much?'
'No, mate, I think it's good.' Frank looked up at me. 'It's to Al's parents.'
Nish shook his head. 'First letter I've written for about twenty years.'
Frank handed it back. Nish folded it and put it in an envelope. 'I needed to say something to them. We're not going to be able to go to the funeral, are we? We're on ops.'
Frank jumped to his feet. 'No, we will go! We will!'
He stormed off. There were guys on standby back in the UK, ready to fly over if numbers were needed. Afew of them could easily come over and cover.
Nish licked the envelope. 'Tell you what – Frank's got to wind his neck in. He'll be out of a job and probably a head if he carries on. Ken isn't going to take much more.'
I left Nish to his letter posting and went back to my room. Paul was out. I lay on my bed, waiting for Countdown.
Frank stopped by on his way back. He looked a little sheepish. 'Ken has already sorted it. Afew of us are going back to H.'
'Good news, mate. I've said I'll stay here. You lads who really knew him need to go.'
He hovered. 'You bored?'
'Yeah, waiting for Carol.'
'Want a book?'
'What you got?'
'You'll love it. Sex, violence, double-dealing, treachery – it's all in there, mate.'
'Go on, then.'
'I'll go and get it.'
Even as he disappeared from the doorway, I knew I'd fucked up. Sure enough, when he came back into the room he had his Claymore bag with him. He pulled out his Bible.
'Don't bother, mate. I'm not interested.'
'Why not? Why not give it a try? Al liked it. If it's good enough for him—'
'It – does – not – interest – me. I – don't – care. You're like a fucking ayatollah, trying to pump it down my neck all the time.'
'Ayatollah . . .'
The book went back into the bag and for a moment I thought he was going to laugh.
'I like that.'
He turned, and left quietly. It wasn't the right time for laughter.
47
Nish and Al had been supposed to be doing their EPC course every Monday. They didn't turn up very often, and it had become a standing joke that whenever the teacher asked them where they'd been, they'd say, 'I'm sorry, sir, I cannot answer that question.'
The Monday after the shooting, Nish handed in Al's calculator and EPCA folder. He also handed in a copy of the Sun. The headline read, 'SAS SOLDIER KILLED IN NORTHERN IRELAND'.
The forensic results confirmed what I already knew from the part-empty magazine: Al Slater's weapon had been fired. He'd managed to get off six rounds.
The autopsy report on Antoin Mac Giolla Bride showed that he'd been hit by nine, possibly ten rounds.
The episode was more or less over. There were scuffles at Mac Giolla Bride's funeral on Tuesday, 4 December 1984, when the RUC tried to remove a tricolour from the coffin on the outskirts of the estate where the Mac Brides lived in Magherafelt, but that, we thought, was that.
A few days later, Nish, Frank and a few others from the troop boarded a Puma that had just dropped off another lot from Hereford to cover for them. They flew back for the funeral at St Martin's Church, where the Regiment has a plot and most of the guys get buried.
Ken didn't come back with the others. He had to hang around for a couple of days to debrief the head shed about Al's death. While that was happening, he obviously got word about Frank having a go at him. Ken stormed back to the warehouse on his return and ordered everyone into the briefing room. He went for it as only Ken could. 'No fucking about now. If you've got a point to make, say it now – put up or shut up.'
To my surprise, Frank got to his feet. He stopped short of blaming Ken for Al's death, but he came very close. None of us really knew why. Perhaps it was because, for all his talk of eternal life, he couldn't deal with the fact that Al was dead.
I knew everybody was encouraged to have a voice in the Regiment, but this was tearing the arse out of it. As I'd said to Frank, how could we judge? We didn't see what they saw; we didn't hear what they heard.
'OK, stop.' Ken had had enough. 'Don't you think I've gone over what happened out there, time and time again? For fuck's sake, the man's dead.'
Frank got up again to have another twopence-worth, but Tiny intervened. 'Enough already, Frank. Wind your neck in.'
Nish got to his feet. 'Listen, I'm right there with Ken. I keep thinking, if only I'd done things differently . . . If only we'd had personal radios so we all knew what the fuck was happening . . . If only I'd fronted Mac Giolla Bride when he jumped the gate . . . If only, if only . . . Maybe this, maybe that. No one's to blame. It's done.'
I knew he wanted to believe that, but one look at his haunted eyes told me it certainly wasn't done in his head.
Cyril was next. It felt to me that he had more gravitas than the rest of us on this job. 'Nish is right. He's dead. There's fuck all we can do. He was a soldier. If you don't like what we do, get out and become a social worker. Debrief over.'
It was. It all stopped. Frank kept himself to himself for the next few days. Christmas came. Frank went away on R&R, and when he came back he dropped the bombshell. He was getting out of the Regiment.
Because of Al getting zapped? Surely not. It had to be religion. Frank wasn't saying. All we knew was that he was going on the Circuit (working for a private security company). He'd taken a job in Sri Lanka with one of the firms, training the Sri Lankan Army to fight the Tamil Tigers, the world's first suicide-bombers.
Nish kicked it all off one night in the bar. 'Come on, Frank, what about you having religion and being on the Circuit? It's just the same as being here, so why aren't you staying?'
Frank remained tight-lipped.
Nish stared at him, and then the penny dropped. 'Oh, fuck, you're going to become a vicar, aren't you?'
'A vicar . . .' Tiny cut in. 'Or, Andy, what did you call him? He's going to become an ayatollah!'
48
The troop was a close-knit group and Al Slater's death hit us hard. It's never easy losing somebody you know, but in the military there's not much time for mourning. I'd known a lot of guys in rifle companies who'd got killed, and those left behind just had to move on. It doesn't mean you've forgotten the guy, but Cyril was right: he was a soldier, and now he was dead.
The jokes came back slowly, but after a while normal piss-taking service was resumed. Tiny and Nish still tried to outdo each other on the stitch-ups, and Minky was still the primary target. He was a big-time boxing fan. He spent hour after hour in the gym trying to knock out the punch-bag or watching bouts on TV. One Saturday night there was a big fight coming up. To stop his enjoyment being sabotaged, he locked himself in his room with some cans of Tennants and a few packets of crisps. Nothing was going to come between him and his ringside seat.
The bell went for round one, but almost immediately his TV jumped channels. Even from two doors away, I could hear him yelling as he wrestled with the remote control and changed it back, only for it to happen again a minute or two later. What he hadn't factored in was that every room in the troop had the same sort of TV, and therefore the same remote control. As soon as Minky had locked himself in, Nish and Tiny had moved a couple of chairs outside his room and spent the evening holding their remote controls to the glass fanlight above the door and flicking from channel to channel.