by Paul Bruce
I wondered in those few seconds whether I should just put down the phone and forget it. I could be certain that a girl like Maria would have another boyfriend and I wondered if she had become engaged, or, God forbid, even married since we had last seen each other.
Tentatively she said, ‘Is it you, Paul?’
‘You’ve got it in one,’ I replied.
‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘What do you want? It’s ages since we spoke.’
‘Well,’ I said, gathering courage, ‘I’m in Ireland and I’ve got a 72-hour pass. I was wondering, if you’re doing nothing, whether we could see each other.’
My heart was thumping as I waited for her reply.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said, sounding confused.
‘Good,’ I said.
Maria cut in, saying, ‘Paul, I’d love to. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.’
A sense of relief came over me. ‘Great,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you at the weekend, this weekend about eight o’clock Friday night. Is that OK?’
‘Yes, of course it is. That’ll be fine,’ she said with the same enthusiasm in her voice that I remembered so well. ‘See you on Friday then. I’ve got to go. Bye.’
‘Bye,’ I replied but she had already put down the telephone.
The instant I saw Maria that weekend the months we had been separated disappeared in a moment. She was smiling and happy, looking better than I’d ever seen her. I felt she had grown up in those ten months, or was it a year? She seemed more assured of herself and I liked that.
I had flown from Aldergrove in Belfast to Gatwick, hired a car and arrived at Maria’s home early, just after 7.30pm. After saying ‘hello’ to her parents, we went for a drink at one of our favourite pubs on the main Tidworth–Salisbury Road.
Automatically, I ordered a pint of beer for myself and half a lager for Maria. ‘Cheers,’ I said and almost downed my pint in one.
‘You’re thirsty?’ she said, as it had been unusual for me to drink so much so quickly.
‘Yeah,’ I lied, ‘I just feel like a couple of pints under my belt to help me relax.’
Before Maria had barely taken a sip of her drink, I had bought myself another pint.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked out of the blue.
‘Nothing,’ I lied again. ‘Why?’
‘I can tell, that’s all,’ she replied. ‘Now, why don’t you just tell me all about it.’
‘No, there’s nothing,’ I said with a false smile. ‘Everything’s fine.’
I hadn’t expected this reaction and it worried me because Maria had immediately understood that I wasn’t my old self. I had changed and she had noticed that immediately. I had to snap out of my black mood of depression, forget about Northern Ireland or, I judged, the weekend would be a disaster and, as soon as I saw Maria, I knew in my heart that I needed her.
So I turned the conversation, asking Maria what she had been doing, suggesting that she had probably had a string of boyfriends since I had walked away from our relationship. I refused to believe her protestations of innocence.
‘Go on, tell me,’ I teased her.
I knew that she never would and she never did. All she would tell me was that she had dated one or two blokes but there had been nothing serious. I wanted to believe her, so I did. In any case, I told myself, if she hadn’t wanted to see me, she could easily have said ‘no’.
By the end of the weekend, I felt like my old self. It seemed wonderful to breathe the English country air, to listen to the birds, to listen to nothing but English accents. I felt at home and the feeling was comforting and exhilarating at the same time.
Before I drove back to Gatwick for my flight to Belfast, Maria put her arms around my neck and said, ‘I have missed you. Don’t leave it so long in future, eh?’
‘I won’t,’ I promised and I meant it.
We arranged times for me to phone her and I tried my damnedest to make sure I did so. However, I had explained that, on occasions, if I missed a call, it meant I was away from the barracks, out on duty. She didn’t need to ask any further questions. She knew the secret lives SAS men lead from time to time.
Within a matter of days after returning to duty, Northern Ireland experienced its worst ever weekend of sectarian violence. It erupted after a car bomb exploded outside Kelly’s Tavern in the Springfield Road, Belfast, seriously injuring 63 people.
Within hours, gun battles raged between the Catholics on the Ballymurphy housing estate and the Protestants on the Springmartin estate opposite. Rifle and machine-gun fire could be heard coming from both estates for several hours. The army was called in and drove their armoured vehicles into the road dividing the two warring parties, to form a barrier, and left them there until the firing ceased.
As soon as the army arrived on the spot, both sides temporarily forgot their gun battle and started firing at the army vehicles, hoping to find a chink in the armour. It seemed that both sides were beginning to blame the British Army for everything. Six civilians and one British soldier died in the battle that night.
The following day, Harry West, a well-respected, former Northern Ireland minister, issued a statement claiming that the Province was now on the verge of civil war. He went on to challenge British Government ministers to visit Northern Ireland to see for themselves the extent to which the situation had deteriorated. No one took up the challenge.
Since June 1970, when five Protestants were killed on the Crumlin Road and in East Belfast, there appeared to have been an undeclared truce between the two communities. The gun battle that weekend saw the first significant expression of open Protestant violence for two years.
During the weeks before this, there had been an emergence of Protestant gunmen on the streets, the erection of barricades, the emergence of Protestant ‘no-go’ areas, strongly worded statements from members of the Ulster Defence association, hijacking of lorries and vehicles for barricades and the appearance of youths and young men in paramilitary clothes.
Never before that weekend in May had the British Army come under simultaneous gunfire from both Protestant and Catholic gunmen, a chilling scenario which had haunted senior British officers ever since the army first arrived in Northern Ireland. Intelligence reports that weekend warned British Government ministers that the spectre of an all-out sectarian war on the streets of Belfast had become a real prospect.
The Protestant muscle-flexing culminated that weekend in several hundred Protestant vigilantes, clad in military-style uniforms, turning the loyalist Woodvale area of Belfast into a one-day ‘no-go’ area, demonstrating that they could adopt the same tactics as the Catholic minority. They would also borrow IRA tactics by using the press to publicise their demands. Standing in well-drawn ranks for the benefit of photographers, their hands stuck ominously in the pockets of their combat jackets, as though holding pistols, they were reminiscent of photographs showing IRA men riding shotgun on the backs of hijacked vehicles in ‘Free Derry’. The vigilante organisers, the Ulster Defence Association, wanted to give the world the impression that the time had come for the Protestant majority to take the law into their own hands.
Two days later, on 18 May, William Whitelaw told the House of Commons that the IRA were desperately trying to provoke a Protestant backlash. He appealed to the Protestant community to show restraint and to stay calm, claiming that the security forces would protect the bulk of the population.
Indeed, Whitelaw’s words appeared to be prophetic. Within days of his speech, Britain’s crack forces – the SAS – would be set loose on the streets of Belfast. Their orders were secretly to kill and wound Catholics.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With Northern Ireland seemingly on the brink of civil war; with politicians warning that sectarian warfare had finally broken out on the streets of Belfast, we were stunned when Don returned from a Lisburn briefing one day during the middle of May to tell us our new mission.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, ‘but the top brass want us to c
hange tactics; they’ve ordered us to stir up trouble on the streets of Belfast.’
‘What?’ we chorused in unison.
We couldn’t believe what he was telling us. During the past few weeks, the troubles had escalated incredibly, with bombings and shootings, as well as sectarian gun battles, occurring nearly every day.
We bombarded Don with questions, wondering what was meant by stirring up trouble in Belfast. We thought there was far too much trouble already.
Then Don explained, ‘According to the brass at Lisburn, it seems that the job we’ve carried out here for the past eight months has not been very successful,’ he said, ‘and they want to adopt a different policy.’
As he said those words, a sense of great relief came over me. I had been almost praying for the day when we would no longer have to go out picking up and executing unknown victims.
Then Don added, ‘Don’t look so happy. It’s worse.’
We stared at him, wondering what could possibly be any worse than the operations we had been involved in so far.
He went on, ‘The idea is this. The brass want to encourage a no-holds-barred, real sectarian war between the Catholics and the Protestants so that the army can stand back and see the two sides tear each other apart. They reckon that within a matter of weeks both sides will want a truce and then the politicians can start to put the Province back together again, in peace.
We wondered how this would involve us.
‘Our job,’ he went on, ‘is to make sure the war starts between the two sides and keeps going. We will be going into Catholic areas of Belfast at night, shooting at anyone we see on the streets. The idea is to kill Catholics, to provoke an even greater backlash against the Protestants.’
‘This can’t be true,’ I said in an agonised voice. ‘This can’t be for real.’
‘It is true,’ he said, ‘and we start tonight.’
I looked at JR and Benny. They looked grim. I felt the same, unable to comprehend what the hell was really going on. Until this moment, we had been informed that the victims we were executing were known IRA killers, captured on the border. We had been told they were dangerous men, determined to continue their campaign of bombings and shootings, killing innocent people.
Now we were being ordered to go out on the streets and kill totally innocent people, just young men we happened to come across walking down the streets in Catholic areas. The orders seemed unbelievable. They also appeared grotesque.
‘Are you sure?’ I asked Don, hoping that I hadn’t heard correctly what he had explained.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I felt the same as you do when they told me. I checked. It’s for real all right.’
Don felt our mood of scepticism but he also knew that he could not permit us to challenge the orders he had been given to carry out. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘It’s no good arguing, no good asking questions. We’ve been given our orders and we must obey them. Remember, we’re just the soldiers; our duty is to carry out the orders we are given and we will carry them out to the best of our ability. That’s our job. So we had better all shut up and get on with it.’
Don decided that we should venture into the Catholic sections of Belfast, into the Falls and Ballymurphy areas, on reconnaissance exercises, checking the streets and making ourselves fully aware of the layout of the roads, especially checking possible getaway routes.
We knew this new operation would be dangerous because the IRA always kept look-outs, many armed, to check any strange vehicles that ventured through their areas. We knew that, given half a chance, they would try to stop and check a strange car, especially one containing four young men who they would assume would be either Protestant loyalists or an SAS unit on the prowl.
It was decided that JR would always drive and Don told him to make sure he spent rest periods studying a street map of Belfast so that he would know precisely where he was at all times, day or night.
Don also decided that he would ride shotgun in the front passenger seat and that Benny and I, with weapons at the ready, would remain in the back seat.
It was decided that JR would carry only the one pistol he had always kept in his shoulder holster. We kept the ‘border special’ in the glove box, in case it ever became necessary to use it. Don, Benny and I would all carry Sterling sub-machine guns, firing 9mm rounds, and capable of firing off a magazine of twenty in three seconds.
Each of us had two magazines, one on the weapon, the other taped to it, for speed. In that way, we could change magazines within two seconds. Taping magazines in this way had been banned by the army some years before but the SAS encouraged it. Using the taped method allowed you to change magazines three times quicker than the traditional way and that’s all that mattered. The SAS weapons instructor had told us, ‘Learn to change mags this way; it could save your life.’
We always carried a spare can of petrol in the boot of the car just in case we ran out while driving to and from the border. Now we needed the petrol can for a different reason. We realised that, if the IRA or, just as important, the RUC, sussed our car, we must have no hesitation in burning it immediately. The can of petrol would make that quicker and easier. We knew that there was very little love lost between the British Army and the RUC. The RUC always maintained that, if left to their own devices, they would have put an end to the troubles without any need for army intervention. They resented the fact that the British Government had disbanded their special forces, the infamous B-Specials, and they also resented British troops being sent to the Province.
We knew that, if we were stopped by the army, our codeword, ‘Nemesis’, would immediately be passed to higher authorities, letting us off the hook. We feared that the RUC, on the other hand, might use our plight for their own political advantage, perhaps even arresting and charging us publicly before Lisburn HQ were aware that we had been picked up. That could end in a long jail sentence for the four of us.
That night, we took off at dusk in our green Ford Corona to check out the Catholic areas of Belfast. The light summer nights were fast approaching but we never wanted to make a hit after the pubs had closed at 10.30. We knew that when the young wild ones left the pubs around that time they were looking for trouble and an unknown, unmarked car with four men inside would have provided them with the perfect target.
We spent an hour making a ‘recce’ of the two main Catholic areas, checking where all the ‘no-go’ barricades had been erected, making sure the streets we intended to patrol had at least two avenues of escape. We all knew what would happen to us if we were ever picked up by the IRA. The notion was too horrifying to think about.
On our return, Don briefed us on the plan of action. ‘We all have to know exactly what we will do if the worst happens and we’re sussed by the IRA or, perhaps, the car breaks down or we’re involved in a crash.’
He went on, ‘If the car breaks down and there is no one around, we will simply burn the car and leg it. If, however, we’re sussed and they’re coming for us, then we must take control of the situation. No one must panic. If we have to fight our way out of the situation then we will do just that. Remember, if they catch us, we’re dead. Remember your training. Back at Hereford we were all trained to stick together in a fire fight, for that is the best chance any unit has of surviving in such circumstances.’
Speaking slowly, he went on, ‘If the worst happens and we have to abandon the car with a crowd coming for us, we will first fire over their heads. If that doesn’t stop them, we will let them have it, all of us, at once. Then we fuck off, but in a disciplined way, keeping five yards between each of us, as we were trained.’
He looked around. ‘Any questions?’
We had none. We all knew what we would have to do.
Two days later, we cleaned and oiled our SMGs and loaded the magazines, ready for our first ‘milk run’, the name we would always give to these operations.
At 9pm, we set off as planned and made for the Falls area, arriving about 9.30. Don had told us before leaving tha
t he would carry out the first shooting, but we still held our SMGs at the ready, between our legs, with the butt folded up and the barrel facing the floor of the car. It would have taken only a few seconds to bring up the gun, take aim through the window and fire.
The adrenalin was flowing. This would be the first live action Benny, JR and I had seen in our lives. We knew Don had seen action in various parts of the world but we were raw novices. We had not counted the executions as action for that had been awful and boring, even degrading. This would be different. We knew this could be dangerous.
That night, the Lower Falls area seemed almost deserted, except for some children playing football and we had no intention of targeting them. Nor did we ever target any women or any men older than fifty.
We noticed an army foot patrol dodging in and out of shop doorways, keeping their eyes peeled for any rooftop snipers. In the street, half a dozen ten- or twelve-year-olds were kicking a football about and taking not the slightest notice of the armed eight-man army patrol in their combat kit. It seemed such an extraordinary contrast – the innocent kids playing happily within yards of armed soldiers who feared an attack at any moment.
It seemed unbelievable that parents still allowed their young children out on the streets at dusk when most of the violence took place. A stray round, a ricochet, cross-fire, a bomb – any of these could have ended their lives or seriously injured them any night, and yet, most nights when we went out on the ‘milk run’, the kids would be on the streets, playing like any other kids anywhere.
We drove into the Ballymurphy area, on the edge of IRA heartland, and saw a number of men who could have been potential targets. We weren’t sure, however, so we decided to drive to the Falls Road area.
We had only turned off the main road for a few minutes, and the street seemed almost deserted, when we saw a bloke walking towards us on the pavement on our near side. I noticed Don sit up.
As we drove slowly towards the man, Don raised his SMG, put the barrel to the open window and gave him a short burst of perhaps five or six rounds, firing when we were only a few feet from him. I saw the man collapse to the ground in a heap. I looked back. He hadn’t moved.