TP managed to find an Argie who could speak English and explained through him to the group of thirty prisoners that the reason they were going home so quickly was because their neighbours in Chile had invaded and they were now needed for another war. Many of the prisoners bit on the joke and got very worked up. It was only after three or four minutes of seeing us curled up laughing that they realised and shared the joke with us.
The one prisoner I had taken a liking to was looking really down. I passed some compo biscuits and an orange into his pocket and patted him on the shoulder. I never did find out his name or address. I really wish I had done now; it would have been interesting to see if both our societies would have accepted contact between us. I know that many of the lads on the ships guarding the prisoners did exchange addresses with them.
A young Argentinean officer, still equipped with his sidearm for self-protection (against his own troops, I must add), drew the prisoners to attention. Their drill was reluctant and carefree; losing the war had shaken their morale and discipline. As they marched away, the young Argie who I had befriended turned and looked at me. He smiled and waved. ‘Goodbye, Wince. Goodbye, Wince.’
I smiled and waved back, with a thumbs-up for him. He continued to wave for at least a hundred metres. He wasn’t the only one waving: the majority of the group did the same. I turned to see most of our lads saying goodbye as I had. We were all wrapped up in our own thoughts. Many fellow soldiers from that war will think differently about it, but for me the simple wave from that lone Argie brought home the crazy reality of war. A few days before, he and I could easily have been trying to kill each other in the bedlam of battle. Now, as he disappeared, friendship could have been possible between us.
The platoon moved back into the bungalow for a brew-up. Sitting around in the living room, we chatted generally about the rumours from above. When would we be going home? How much leave would there be? The PC sat at the table by the window, sipping his brew. He looked out and warned us that the platoon sergeant was coming in. As one man, we waited to gauge his mood.
He entered the room with a smile. ‘Home by mid-July, lads, OK?’
We all felt happy to have some positive news. He then dished out blank telegrams that allowed us each twelve words. I wrote a brief message telling my wife that all was OK and to get a carry-out in. Tommo produced a bottle of whisky again and we gathered around to toast the end of what Johnny called ‘an exercise and a half’. To our amazement, the platoon sergeant, GD, took the bottle and poured the drinks, before treating us to a ‘didn’t we do well’ speech.
Later that day, the bullshit continued. Some of it was obviously necessary, as there were too many men just sitting around. But we at the lower end of the hierarchy felt that, after all the hard work of tabbing across the bloody island, and then the battle, we deserved peace and quiet and to be left to do our own thing, within reason. Area-cleaning with inspections was the last thing we needed. However, our sergeant felt differently from most platoon sergeants in the battalion.
What made me mad was that I still had bad feet, so bad that I was still hobbling a little. I had found a pair of wellington boots, to allow the air to get to my feet. Slowly, my feet began to feel better, then in came the sergeant moaning about ‘mixed dress’ and ordered me to remove the wellies. It was impossible to explain to him anything that was common sense. As I was about to take off the wellies, in walked the CO, RSM and OC on a walkabout. The CO stood there in the living room and chatted to all of us. He turned to me and asked, ‘How’re the feet, Bramley?’
‘Still a bit sore, but healing,’ I said.
‘Well, those wellies should help anyway, yes?’
I looked at the sergeant, who was wide-eyed. I turned back to the CO and said, ‘Yes, sir. They are a great help.’
After the CO had left, with the whole platoon near to screaming with laughter, I still had to remove the wellies.
Next morning, all ammo of all types was collected by the CSM and stored away. We spent the day scrubbing and cleaning all our kit and weapons. We performed this lazily when alone. Bullshit orders were causing more moans than anything.
I think it was on the sixth or seventh day that our battalion marched down the main road through Stanley to the large red church for a memorial service for both 2 and 3 Paras. We filed in quietly. Both battalions squeezed in to listen to the sermons for the dead and wounded. I sat among the row upon row of troops listening to the roll call. It wasn’t the best of feelings. As the names passed of those I knew personally, the list seemed endless – and I was gutted by how young many of them were. I had to think how lucky we had been. In comparison with previous wars, our casualty figures were small. But in another way I felt that the figures were high, because these had been our friends. No battle is easy. Skills were exploited to good effect, to keep the figures of dead and wounded as low as possible. Tactics were used to best advantage, to take all enemy positions quickly.
On leaving the church, we formed up and marched back to our bungalows. The Canberra and Norland returned empty of those who had been the enemy. We spent the remainder of that day cleaning up the houses for the owners’ eventual return.
As I stood in the kitchen, I heard a knock at the door. I opened the door, and standing in the rain were two civilians. They came inside, smiling. They were friends of the house owners, who had been shipped back to England by the Argentineans. They looked over the house while we chatted. Seventeen of us were sitting in various parts of the house, all watching them as they came among us. They eventually stopped to stand by the fire in the living room. The lady warmed her rump, looking across the room to the view of the sea and the bay.
‘Move yourself, Jeffries. Let the man sit there,’ said the sergeant.
Smiling, the man sat down and started talking about how the war had started at this end. We sat and listened to his views on the Falkland Islands Company. He explained that he and his wife had been heavily involved in trading.
‘Well, then, it’s partly your greedy faults for all this then, isn’t it?’ announced Tommo.
‘Yeah,’ Johnny joined in.
‘What have you lads been told?’ asked our shocked guest.
‘Only that if you hadn’t been so bloody eager and ready in your dealings with the Argies they perhaps wouldn’t have got the wrong idea, thinking the Islanders would welcome their rule,’ answered the PC.
‘Rubbish. Absolute rubbish.’
‘That’s the biggest load of balls I’ve heard yet,’ his wife agreed, nodding with her husband.
‘Well then, explain why you dealt so heavily with them,’ I said.
‘Because of convenience.’
‘Well, convenience has killed a lot of people. What with some big fat Intelligence wanker in London and you lot, we now have a completely new era developing here, because I personally can’t see the situation changing for years, can you?’ said Tommo.
The couple stood up. Feeling very much out of place now, they moved to the back door to leave. The platoon could be heard giggling in the living room.
‘Irrespective of the causes, lads, we are grateful you came. Never forget that, OK?’ said the lady.
‘That’s OK. Life is a bitch at times,’ I said.
‘By the way, why did you come round today?’ asked the PC.
‘Two reasons. Firstly, to say thanks for keeping the house clean.’ (If they had come in two hours before they did they’d have had a fit.) ‘Secondly, to say goodbye and thanks.’
‘Goodbye,’ said Tommo.
‘Yes, you’re leaving tomorrow, I believe?’ murmured the bloke.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ answered the PC.
‘Well, we’ll be off now. Thanks again.’
The door closed. The lads in the other room had piled to the doorway of the kitchen. All eyes were now focused on the PC. He looked at us all with a slight grin. ‘OK, OK. I was going to tell you, but this couple arrived as I was about to announce it. Sorry, OK?’
; ‘By God, sir, you’re lucky you don’t look like a Argie, because you’re heavily outnumbered here now,’ laughed Johnny.
That night, the platoon packed every little piece of kit into its kitbags ready for the early move. I crammed my souvenirs into any spare corners I could find. After briefing, we discarded the weapons because of the threats of jail and cancellation of leave. My only concern was to get leave and forget this dump. What a mistake. As it turned out, customs back in England never even looked at us. I could have brought anything through. Perhaps some of the lads did.
I don’t remember much about the last night in that room, only that Johnny and I lay there chatting for some hours. I slipped into a light sleep, thinking about how I would get a shower the next day.
We piled out of the house leaving Bones to mop the last of the muddy footprints from the kitchen floor. We formed up on the road. In a bergen with two kitbags plonked on top and my ‘confiscated’ weapons in my hands, I must have looked like an overloaded mule as I staggered up the road. The rest didn’t look any better. After we had staggered three hundred metres, an Argie lorry pulled up empty. It was soon filled with our platoon and kit, arms and legs sticking out at all angles. We moved off, bound for the pier.
We unloaded and joined a huge queue, where we waited for our turn to shuffle the length of the pier to the landing-craft. Standing at the end of the queue, grinning like a cat, was Divvy Richards from 2 Para. We chatted until departure time. I discovered that Tam had died at Goose Green and that Russell, another close friend, had been wounded. Many other 2 Para lads were on the list. As I climbed on to the landing-craft, I found myself thinking that it was funny that none of us felt anything for the island itself. I personally was glad to see it fade from view as the landing-craft moved off towards our ship, the Norland.
The familiar bobbing of the craft in the waves reminded me of the start of this adventure. The fact that we were clambering on board this time was the biggest difference. Our sergeant stood on the lower deck shouting orders again.
Johnny laughed out loud. ‘I don’t believe him, I really don’t!’
We left our kit in one corner of what was the car deck of the ferry. Along with the rest of the platoon, I fought and pushed myself up the countless flights of stairs to find my cabin.
Once we had found our cabins, we returned twice to bring up our kit. Two hours passed before we were all secured in the allocated areas. Waiting on board were our personal kitbags containing fresh uniforms. Johnny and I filled our two-man cabin with kitbags. Johnny stood outside while I sorted and stacked mine in one small corner, then vice versa. With our fresh kit and towels, we set off to find the showers. After going up and down stairs, we eventually found them. Luckily, there were only four or five guys waiting.
We pissed ourselves laughing when we entered the shower room to see one lad bent over with his mate busily cutting off what we call ‘clinkers’ – pieces of shit stuck to the anal hairs. ‘Clinkers’ were something we all had. But I preferred to cut mine off myself. ‘I’d never trust anyone with scissors,’ I said to Johnny, laughing.
It was the longest and best shower I have ever had. Black water was still running from my hair after three washes. The dirt and grime on my hands had almost become part of my skin. My body odour, especially under my arms, was reminiscent of a pig farm. We had all noticed the ship’s crew keeping well back from us. They had screwed up their noses and told us that we stank. Because we had been living together so closely, we hadn’t even noticed it.
In my clean uniform, shaven and with fresh socks, I was a new man. I packed my dirty kit in a poly bag and placed it at the bottom of one of my kitbags. When I finally arrived home and emptied this bag for washing, green mould had grown over everything.
I joined a queue for tea, then, back in my cabin, I lay thinking, day-dreaming really. Suddenly, my stomach turned over. I fell from my top bunk and headed for the toilet. I spent the next twenty-four hours flat out on my bunk with the worst bout of sickness and diarrhoea I’d ever had. I was starved of food and water and given plenty of pills and an injection by the medics, who were busy looking after about a hundred similar cases. As a result, I soon returned to the land of the living.
23
A FRIENDLY RIOT
A scale ‘A’ parade was called in the main bar. Both 2 and 3 Paras and all our attachments stood squeezed together to listen to the brigadier give a ‘rousing’ speech on how well we had all performed. Most of us yawned at yet another boring Rodney thanking us.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it gives me great pleasure to thank you all for your tremendous courage throughout this campaign. It was also great to see the rift between the red and green berets buried forever more …’
‘Fuck off, hat,’ came one shout from the back of the red berets standing bunched together.
The abrupt insult only stalled the commander for a few seconds, then he shrugged it off with a broad grin. ‘As I was saying, the red and green have always hated each other and it is nice …’
‘We still fucking hate the wankers, too!’ came the next shout.
All the officers were looking into the huge crowd of Paras, trying to find the culprits. All the Paras were laughing loudly.
‘Well, it seems you still have the humour you’re famous for. It’s great to see that you will be home first and …’
‘Yeah, flying home through the back fucking door,’ came the last shout.
A few of the lads started booing the commander and his hangers-on. This died down after stern looks from our own officers.
‘Gents, it’s been nice seeing you and working with you. I salute you.’
He saluted us and walked away from the sweaty room.
We had all, as junior ranks, felt that the separation of Paras and Marines on our return home was fully necessary, and perhaps one of the most sensible things to be done in this war by the administration side. But many of us thought that for the Canberra to sail into Southampton docks with only the Marines on board was yet another insult to our work. The glamour of their homecoming, the blaze of publicity, seemed to say, ‘We won the war, look at us.’
In fact, they had done their jobs as well as any others there, but the Paras fought the worst of the battles, 2 Para having two battles under its belt, the only unit to do so in the campaign. And what of the Artillery, whose help was a godsend to us? The reader may say I sound bitter that the Paras did not sail home to a heroes’ welcome. But I am not bitter about this. I felt at the time, and still feel, that any publicity was the last thing we needed. What I believe is encapsulated in the words of Major General Thompson: ‘There is no such thing as a returning hero, only a returning soldier.’
The Norland set sail and we slowly steamed our way out of the harbour away from East Falkland, some of us forever. Rawley and I stood, with many others, watching it grow smaller by the minute. Jutting out around the edge of this view were the mountain ranges around Stanley. Mount Longdon stood among them, cold-looking and, to my eyes, ugly. Our battalion had lost twenty-three men there, with more than sixty wounded. There were nearly a hundred of our lads missing from the ship as we sailed. As the island disappeared altogether, I felt no loss. I felt only for myself now. Gone were the days when I had thought of war as a game.
The ship sailed through the cold waters of the South Atlantic and on into the warmer waters, heading for Ascension Island again, from which we would fly home. It was now the first weekend of July 1982: Airborne Forces Day. After the evening meal, the battalion all headed for the junior ranks’ bar to celebrate this annual event. Much to our disgust, the senior ranks had restricted each man to four cans of beer for the whole evening. The troops made it well known that they considered this well out of order. We all knew that the officers were drinking themselves silly in their bar, as were the senior ranks. Yet again, it was the Toms who had to suffer. The sergeants even opened all four cans of each man’s beer when he bought them. Whoever gave the order for us to have only four cans each
made a big mistake, for within an hour the queues had got longer and louder with shouts of ‘Fuck off to your own bar’ directed at the few sergeants there.
The duty orderly sergeant stood by the door, agreeing with the complaints but helpless to do anything about them. Beer was smuggled from the hull by many of the ship’s crew, who were also sympathetic. The barmen eventually gave up rationing and a party soon followed. ‘Wendy’, a 100-per-cent homosexual, played the piano and sang songs on request. Everyone was eventually pissed, either with beer or simply the atmosphere.
The Paras sang all their favourite songs, among them ‘The Zulu Warrior’ and ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’. The latter is performed naked on a table with a partner, simulating animal acts to the song. For example, we would sing, ‘And the rams were doing it there, and the rams were doing it here,’ while one of the partners played the ram. People might think we behaved like homosexuals, but while the way the lads acted and fooled about together would seem offensive to civilian eyes, it was purely an expression of camaraderie.
The ‘Dance of the Flaming Arseholes’ was the finale of most piss-ups. A volunteer, who is either very brave or very drunk, stands naked on a table with a toilet roll or newspaper rammed between the cheeks of his arse. To the chant of ‘Alla, zoomby, alla zoomby’, the paper is lit by the nearest guy with a lighter. As the paper catches and the flames get closer to his rear end, the lad dances quicker and quicker. Normally, the volunteer’s pubic hair is nonexistent after this little routine. It might leave him sore, but it raises a roaring cheer around the hall or bar if the lad has braved it long enough to satisfy the crowd.
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