by Rob Maylor
During these cordons we searched areas and people, set up vehicle checkpoints and did our best to provide security. An incident like this generally lasted a minimum of four hours, although we provided one cordon that lasted 12 hours and we had to be replaced by the other troop. They were tough on the nerves because at any time you could become a target.
In another incident a 16-year-old boy had been ‘kneecapped’ in both knees with a .22-calibre rifle for stealing the wrong car. He was lured to a park then given the good news. We arrived on the scene as he was crawling backwards towards his house.
A house invasion took place while we were patrolling on foot in a particular area. They bound and gagged the occupants and then set up a firing position in a room on the second storey of the house where the window faced Kennedy Way, an uphill road. They planned to carry out a ‘sniper’ shoot onto one of our patrols; in fact the patrol happened to be the one I was in.
As soon as we entered Kennedy Way and started to walk up the hill the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I was one of the two rear men in that four-man brick. The other was Grenville ‘Wadders’ Waddington, who later said he also felt something unusual. This wasn’t the first time I’d had this feeling so I became extra vigilant. Maybe I’d developed a soldier’s instinct. But we covered each other by pepper-potting, rifles at the ready as we moved up Kennedy Way and out of view from the window of that house.
Back at Fort Whiterock it wasn’t long before they told us what had happened. The occupants of the house were held under guard but near enough to the shooters to hear what they were saying. Apparently they were too scared to initiate a contact on either of us as we were covering each other too well. They could have compromised their position and got caught, or more likely, shot.
On another occasion while our four bricks were patrolling along Glen Road at night, one of the section commanders, Paul Ashcroft, found a freshly placed MK16 mortar sitting on a milk crate at the top of Ramoan Gardens orientated towards Glen Road. It was placed to hit either military or RUC vehicles that were in the area. We set up a quick cordon and two bricks aggressively followed up the command wire that was part of the firing device. All the signs were fresh, but the bad guys had disappeared.
That morning we finished our patrolling program and were picked up by the quick reaction force (QRF) using a Saxon four-wheel-drive armoured vehicle. These guys were on constant standby at Fort Whiterock. They would deploy if there was an incident and a multiple required their help. (A multiple consisted of four bricks usually with two RUC constables.) We could also use the QRF for pick-up and drop-off. This particular morning after being picked up, shattered by the intense patrolling program, we were travelling uphill in the back of the Saxon on the Monagh Bypass towards Fort Whiterock. The Mike Echoes–the military escort for the RUC–were travelling downhill in their Land Rovers at the same time. As we passed each other a MK16 mortar was fired from the side of the road and narrowly missed the rear of our vehicle but it glanced off the windscreen of the lead Land Rover. The windscreen was cracked and the mortar landed somewhere in the vacant land opposite.
I didn’t realise we had been targeted until I heard the troop boss shout, ‘Contact!’ We debussed and contained the area the best we could. The boys traced the command wire back to a well-known player’s address. I felt extremely lucky after that as I’d been sitting on the right side of the vehicle with my back to the incoming mortar.
For us in the middle of the Troubles it was a test of nerves. It was so volatile–you could incite a crowd with just the wrong eye contact and suddenly you’d have an angry mob advancing at you throwing bricks, bottles and stones. They worked on the fact that if they didn’t have a firearm we couldn’t shoot them, and they knew our hands were tied by a set of very tight rules of engagement. So we had to be extremely careful how we treated a violent situation.
If one of the lads did slightly overstep the mark through sheer frustration, the mob would retaliate by becoming even more violent. If a civilian was hurt in any way it would give them licence to twist the truth and to extract maximum amount of compensation from the British Government, and of course there were always plenty of witnesses.
Most of the time we were ordered to cautiously move away from a mob and let it die a natural death without ruining public relations. But a few times we had to call on the RUC to assist in dispersing a persistent crowd. This was extremely frustrating for us, because as soldiers we didn’t want to be seen to be weak and walking away from trouble. It is very understandable to me why soldiers serving in Northern Ireland or even veterans crack every once in a while. It was, however, very satisfying to catch one of these serial troublemakers out when he found himself in the wrong spot at the wrong time. I was glad to see the back end of that tour as it was very busy and wearing very thin towards the end.
I made some extremely good mates at 40 Commando. ‘Chappy’ was one of them. He was in 9 Troop, Charlie Company, and is now a well-known polar explorer. He asked me to do an expedition with him that he called the Icelandic 500–the first ever ski crossing of Iceland towing sledges weighing up to 90 kilos, which carried the necessary equipment and rations to survive the harsh winter crossing. I said I was more interested in soldiering, but Chappy went on to complete the first military expeditions to the north and south poles. In 1993 Chappy and I went to Kenya and stayed with George Aggett, an ex-bootneck (slang for marine) and good friend of Chappy, on his farm that looks at Mount Kenya on the horizon, a truly magnificent view. George took us hunting a few times and fishing in their huge dam. At night there was no TV and they very rarely listened to the radio. So we mostly drank Tusker beer and spun a few yarns. While there Chappy and I took advantage of our location and travelled to Uganda and Zaire. We also saw the gorillas in the mountains before they were butchered by rebels coming through from Rwanda.
Chappy is quite a character and extremely confident in his soldiering ability. He is also a terrific leader. In our bar one night in Norway it was young AJ Smith’s 21st birthday. As 9 Troop’s senior corporal, Chappy decided to make him a ‘death wet’–a pint glass filled with an assortment of spirits. There was a little ceremony that accompanied the death wet and everyone shouting, ‘Scull, scull, scull!’
AJ knocked back the concoction in one hit and it wasn’t long before he started to turn green and was handed a bucket. The death wet resurfaced along with his dinner into the blue plastic bucket. Chappy, being the tightarse he is, decided not to waste the pint of spirits they’d paid for and encouraged the 9 Troop lads to drink the contents of the bucket. In fact, Chappy went first and knocked back a decent mouthful. Some of the contents stuck to his moustache, which made him look like a kid after drinking a glass of milk. He then proceeded to lick his moustache and then chew on the piece of tomato skin that was stuck in it.
I watched from another table and physically had to stop myself from being sick. Once the bucket had gone around, Chappy had another crack at it, and then offered it to the rest of the lads in the bar. He got no takers. ‘Stick it up ya fuckin’ arse, Chappy!’ And ‘You’re sick mate!’ is all he got.
Chappy was like me. We both lived by the Royal Marines’ ethos of ‘work hard, play hard’. Later in Chappy’s career in the marines he became an officer.
In Norway, we had a company dining-in night–‘top table’ as it was called–and the theme was ‘formal suit’. Of course we didn’t have any formal clobber, as we were deployed on a three-month exercise. So the blokes decided to raid the Q store of all their large black plastic bin liners and make dinner suits from them. Some put tremendous amounts of thought into making these, and some didn’t. But it didn’t matter; everyone had a suit.
One of the rules for a top table is that you cannot leave the table until you either have permission from the OC, or until all the formalities are completed. So the lads stocked up on beer and got stuck into it well before the event. Within minutes of sitting down at the table a bucket was being passed around underneath
it so blokes could relieve themselves. Some couldn’t wait and just went where they sat. One of the blokes used an empty wine bottle that was promptly passed up to the OC. We all urged him to have a swig, which to my disbelief he did. He then spat the contents back into the bottle and gave us a look of horror and disgust while wagging his finger.
I thought, ‘You dickhead.’ If someone hands you a very warm wine bottle and tries to get you to drink it, there’s obviously something wrong it; all the combat indicators were present to suggest it wasn’t wine, but something else. This was the same dickhead who jumped off a wharf during that trip to get out of a major field exercise–he made it look like he fell! Being wet in Norway can be extremely life threatening, so the OC was whisked away to a nearby hotel for a warm bath and change of clothes.
Another mate was Big Thomo; I can’t remember his first name as it was never used but he was a hard man to handle when roused with the drink. I remember walking out of Kingstons night club near the base in Taunton, Somerset one night when we had returned from Norway, and seeing Thomo sitting on this civvy’s chest pounding him in the face. The shots he was delivering were rather pathetic so we just had a giggle and carried on to Lotus Flower, a Thai takeaway.
Alcohol in Norway was ridiculously priced and being underpaid British soldiers we couldn’t afford the crazy £5 a pint it used to cost. So we would buy one or two and then conduct an exercise called ‘mine sweeping’. This involved identifying a reasonably full pint that was unattended or not being closely guarded by a local Norwegian, and then swiping it for our own consumption.
One night in a bar in Bjerkvik, Big Thomo got caught. (C Company had two Thomos, so we called one Big Thomo and the other Little Thomo.) The bar erupted. I remember Thomo planting one on this bloke and then it was all in since naturally we had to support him. Next thing I felt a big bang on my face and I was dragged out of the bar and thrown into the back of a Land Rover. Thomo followed a few seconds later. There were four of us in the back of that freezing Land Rover all the way back to Ose. The vehicle commander was one of our own from another unit. He was on what the corps called ‘shore patrol’ making sure we kept out of trouble. He wasn’t happy with our performance but did the right thing and got us out of there as the local police had been called. I’ll never forget that 30-minute drive back to Ose; the temperature was below minus 10 and all that was separating us from the elements was the canvas tarp.
Before Thomo joined the corps he used to work as an entertainer: he played the guitar and sang. One weekend during summer leave 12 of us, ‘the orphans’ as we called ourselves, decided to spend some time at the Butlins holiday camp in Minehead. This was about 45 minutes drive from Taunton. We all arrived together and were actually turned away at the gate by security. However, one of the guards did the right thing and said if we were to come back in twos and threes they would give us a pass until midnight.
Once inside we had a few beers while watching a cabaret show, then Thomo decided he was going to get up on stage and do a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York, New York’. To my surprise he was very good. However, 2 a.m. came around all too quickly and we’d had a skinful. A big fight started and all 12 of us got stuck in. At one stage Big Thomo went to headbutt this bloke, but because Thomo really is quite ‘unco’ he telegraphed his intentions that told this bloke what he was about to do. So the bloke moved out of the way and Thomo became unbalanced. His front foot slipped forward on the wet floor and he somehow ended up on his back. His opponent then jumped on his chest and made a pathetic attempt to strangle him. Thomo looked over at Little Thomo and me and said rather calmly, ‘Would someone get this fuckin’ lemon off me?’ We obliged.
The police arrived shortly after and all 12 of us made a run for it. Pete and I ran towards the beach, crossing the road and jumped off the wall and into the sand. We heard a police officer shouting behind us. Fortunately the tide was out so we were able to lie in the night shadows cast by the rocks at the low-tide mark. The police officer stood on the wall and shone his torch along the beach but soon gave up. Big Thomo lost his wallet and military ID card during the fight and sheepishly had to return the following day to retrieve it.
Friday mornings at 1100 hours we always had ‘rounds’–an inspection of the accommodation by the CSM and the OC–before we knocked off for the weekend. As rounds were being conducted we had to stand at ease by our beds in uniform until brought to attention by a senior corporal who then reported the accommodation ready to inspect. This time the CSM and OC were accompanied by the regimental sergeant major (RSM) and the commanding officer (CO) of 40 Commando, known as ‘the Moose’. Thomo always ran his own routine, and on this particular morning he got caught out. We were all standing at ease when we heard the door burst open followed by a loud ‘Oi, fat arse!’ Thomo had just finished in the shower and met the inspection team head on. His only escape route was through our grots. He sprinted straight towards the fire escape at the far end of our room completely naked with towel in hand. As he ran through with the RSM hot on his heels his thongs flew off, making the RSM stumble momentarily. Thomo got through the fire escape and was gone. The RSM was wild. He turned to us furiously shaking and pointing his pace stick randomly. ‘Who was that fat cunt?’ he shouted. We denied everything and struggled immensely to stop ourselves from laughing.
But while we played hard, we prided ourselves on our professionalism in the field. On the whole, the Royal Marines are good hard soldiers and cheeky bastards who were always up for a laugh. In fact, one of them, Matt Howley–or H as he is called–did me the greatest favour of my life.
I first met H when I marched in to Charlie Company at 40 Commando. I instantly liked him as he had a ‘no bullshit’ attitude and was a quiet but very professional soldier. H played a lot of rugby for the marines and his local club. And, being a Kiwi, it’s in my nature so I was happy to join him in the team. A few times when we were ashore (marine slang for off base), usually at Kingstons night club I had noticed his sister Georgina. By that stage I was usually blind drunk and making a fool of myself. I was really attracted to her–she was beautiful, blonde and very bright–but she must have thought I was a drunken idiot.
I returned to New Zealand in 1994 on leave and suddenly found myself in a different world. It was like getting my freedom back. I realised what a lovely place it was and for the first time in ages I didn’t feel constricted. I’m not a fan of crowds or heavily populated areas. I love the open spaces and going back to New Zealand made me realise what I was missing. While there I spent most of my time hunting and fishing and got part of my life back. It was like two separate worlds. But there was one thing missing: Georgina.
Soon after I returned to England I was placed on restriction of privileges (RPs), a form of punishment given to soldiers designed to screw you around from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. on each day of your sentence. I’d received five days RPs after a drunken scuffle in the accommodation at Norton Manor and caused £150 damage to a door after kicking it open when a bloke locked it in my face.
Charlie Company was on guard duty at the time so I didn’t get too much grief from the guard commanders especially when H was the guard 2IC. I was up at the guard room in full combat equipment with him and I asked if he’d fix me up a date with his sister. He said, ‘Come and play rugby on Saturday and I’ll make sure she’s there.’ That was it. We hit it off from there.
‘George’ was a nurse but her family was all military. Even her mum was in the services for a short spell–the Women’s Royal Army Corps. George’s brother Karl was also in the marines, and the youngest, Boris, was an officer in the Royal Corps of Signals. Her father was in the Royal Corps of Signals for 23 years and during that time was posted to Rinteln, Germany, where George was born. When I met George her father was working in Oman; he’d retired from the army but had a civilian contract over there. When he got back in late 1994 I got on really well with him. He was an old-school career soldier.
Shortly after we met, George went to Cyprus
on a two-week holiday that she had organised months before. We could hardly believe how much we missed each other and from then on we were pretty much inseparable; that is, until I had to deploy on exercise to Norway again. Just before George and I got together I had passed selection for Brigade Patrol Troop (BPT)–3 Commando Brigade’s reconnaissance troop. It is run by the Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre so naturally Norway was the perfect training ground for the troop. I had opted for BPT, as some of the lads from 40 had started to get drafted to units and jobs that they didn’t want to go to. Commachio Group in Scotland guarding the submarines was where a large proportion of the lads went. I didn’t want to go there. I wanted action.
Once settled into the Norway routine again we decided to head to one of the civvy ski slopes to upgrade our skills. However, we were on ‘pusser’s planks’, the wide-based cross-country skis that were standard marine issue. Cross-country or telemark skiing is a different style to downhill skiing–to turn you slide one leg forward of the other into what looks like an awkward, half-squat kneeling position. Your knees are crossed and leaning the way you want to go.
I was struggling to get this right and became more and more frustrated as I was creaming in all the time while others gracefully skied past me. So I decided to head down the slope as fast as I could to have a break and a coffee. A couple of the lads whipped past as soon as I started my descent, so I crouched over and tucked in my ski poles under my arms to pick up the pace. Towards the bottom of the slope I saw the lads catch some air from a bump in the snow and land safely. I thought I’d do the same as they made it look so easy, but as I got closer to the jump the light faded and a big soft shadow covered the slope making it all look smooth. I lost sight of the jump. Suddenly I hit the bloody thing totally unaware and in a split second was looking down on the town and remember seeing all the house and street lights, then bang! I’d hit the deck.