The week before we went everyone was drinking heavily. One night a group of us got a taxi back to the barracks. We were all drunk. With us was one of the Ulster Protestants who was keen to get over to Ireland. For some reason he decided to jump out of the taxi before it had stopped moving. He fell badly and ended up smashing his back and losing a kidney. Somehow it seemed like a bad omen. On our last night in Germany the barracks had the atmosphere of a funeral parlour. Gloom, gloom and more gloom. Anyone who had a girlfriend was phoning home to say goodbye to her. It was like watching a bad film. Then when I thought things could not get gloomier the news came through that the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands had just been elected to parliament for the constituency of Fermanagh-South Tyrone - the area where we would be based. There were about ten of us watching TV in the Squadron Bar when we heard. The news did not go down well: it could mean only one thing - we were going to be stuck for four and a half months in an area crawling with Provos and their sympathisers. I tried to lighten the deathly atmosphere with a joke. I said that if the locals mistreated us we'd at least know who our MP was to complain to.
Everyone turned to look at me, but no-one laughed.
9
Muppet In Hollywood
Inside the Hercules aircraft that would take us to Northern Ireland we sat dejectedly. No-one spoke. The stale air seemed heavy with foreboding. Outside, the ground crew shouted and laughed as they readied the plane for take-off. To them it was just another day; to us it seemed like our last. We sat facing each other on hard wooden benches that stretched down each side of the cavernous interior. There were no windows, just a large hole at the back of the aircraft through which everyone and everything came and went. The last pieces of kit were wheeled up the ramp. Then we all watched as the plane's huge back door lifted off the ground and moved slowly upwards, gradually blacking out the natural light before slamming shut like the lid of a coffin.
Like everyone else, I had my full backpack of kit in front of me. Unlike everyone else, I did not have the standard infantryman's Self-Loading Rifle. I would not be allowed one of those until I had done my week's training at the Hollywood base on the outskirts of Belfast.
The engines started up with a blast of noise that jolted us into a more alert state of anxiety. The plane began to move. The sound of the engines got more frantic and the back door started vibrating wildly. Someone pointed at it and shouted above the noise: "It's falling apart." Everyone laughed, but uncomfortably: we all started looking intently at the door thinking he might be right. But with a final scream of effort the plane took off. During the flight a few people tried cracking jokes, but nothing could dispel the heavy feeling of gloom.
We touched down at Aldergrove Airport near Belfast. As the back door wound its way to the ground my mind filled with images of grinning Provos lifting their sniper's rifles to their shoulders.
"OK, move!" shouted the senior officer.
We got up from the benches, slung our packs on our backs and began filing out into a massive hangar. Everyone looked lost. Around 50 yards away was another group of soldiers whose mood contrasted sharply with ours. They were overflowing with jubilation, laughing and playing like children at break-time. I soon discovered the reason for their happiness: they were on their way back to Germany. I don't know whether it was deliberate army policy always to have soldiers from incoming regiments filing past those from outgoing ones. Perhaps they thought the sight of soldiers on their way home in one piece would give us something to look forward to. If so, they were wrong: seeing the delight of the outgoing soldiers only intensified our misery.
Soon the barking started. An officer with a clipboard began shouting out names, squadrons and destinations within County Fermanagh. We had been told in Germany we were going to be split up and sent to bases at Belcoo, Lisnaskea, Belleek, Rosslea, Newtownbutler and St Angelo. So I already knew I was going to be separated from Lofty and Paul, but the reality still came as a blow. I trusted them: I knew they would have looked out for me, and I for them; in times of danger we would have been there for one another. But it was not to be. I was going to Lisnaskea; they were going to Belleek. I felt terrible, especially when I saw they'd been put with several of the regiment's most gormless prats. I felt especially sorry for Lofty, who was one of those who had joined the regiment believing he would never get posted to Northern Ireland. He had always said he would never shoot anyone, whatever happened. He hated unnecessary violence. In Germany when fighting broke out around him, which sometimes happened when he went out with me, he would look pained, put his head in his hands and say mournfully: "Oh, no!" His pacifist tendencies were well known and he could have been kept behind in Germany to work in the offices, but they seemed to make a point of sending him.
Once the division had taken place we stood bewilderedly in our groups. I nodded at Paul, who smiled back weakly. Lofty was just staring at the ground: he seemed to be muttering to himself. Nearby were several seemingly civilian lorries: some had the markings of removal firms, others advertised well-known brands of frozen food.
The officer with the clipboard pointed to the lorries and said: "Your transport to Bandit Country, gentlemen."
I had not given much thought to how we were going to get to Fermanagh, but I had assumed the army would at least put us in vehicles with some sort of armour-plating. The thought of travelling through terrorist heartlands in unprotected lorries managed to lower morale even further. However, we were not given too much time to dwell on what awaited. The barking started again and the first group were led to their lorry. Paul and Lofty's group went before mine — they got one of the removal lorries. I walked over quickly to say goodbye to them. They were sitting on the floor looking as unhappy as I had ever seen them.
"Keep your head down, cunt," said Paul.
I smiled and said I was sure they'd get him before they got me. We bantered for a few more seconds until I saw my group move off. I said: "See you later you fucking scouse bastard." I felt awful leaving them, just gutted. A sergeant had directed my group towards a refrigerated meat lorry. Bad omen, I thought: frozen meat.
The sergeant said: "Sit in the back and don't say a fucking word. Don't make a noise until these doors open again. Even if the lorry stops — you might just be at traffic lights."
We got in and sat on the floor. The sergeant gave an evil smile before slamming shut the heavy back door and throwing us into total darkness. I had never felt so trapped and helpless. I heard the latch being locked and realised that if we were attacked we wouldn't be able to make our own way out.
The lorry started up and moved off. I could not see the other soldiers but I could smell their fear - and I am sure they could smell mine. I imagined machine-gun bullets tearing through the lorry's flimsy skin; I wondered what would be left to put in a coffin if a rocket-propelled grenade hit us. The journey in that black box lasted around three hours, although every second seemed to last an hour. I had heard stories about the IRA setting up their own checkpoints in the border area, so my heart started racing whenever the lorry stopped. You could sense the relief when it moved off again.
When not listening out for the Provo traffic police I thought morbidly of what might be in store in the months ahead. In the silence of the darkness I thought of Paul, Lofty and my family. Would I see them again? And, with Paul and Lofty, if we survived would we all be in the same state? After all, you didn't necessarily die if you were hit: you might just be wounded hideously. Which one of us would get hit? Would it be me? I imagined a reunion with Paul and Lofty; I could see myself being pushed towards them in a wheelchair; I could see them having to shake the stump where my hand had been. Everyone felt that at least one person in the regiment was going to get it. As my eyes got used to the darkness I could make out faces in the lorry. I looked into those faces and all I could think was: which one? Who is going to get taken out? I just hoped it wasn't me or my friends. Finally, the lorry stopped and I could hear English accents outside. Someone pulled open the door and the l
ight greeted us.
Lisnaskea was a small camp built close to a school, which I assumed was meant to deter the Provos from launching mortar attacks. There were about ten Portakabins and three brick buildings surrounded by barbed wire. The conditions in the camp were squalid. I found myself sleeping in a gym where the beds were three-high and a foot apart. Even the regimental magazine — not known for subversive criticism — said it was a scene of human-rights violations. But that night the cramped squalor did not worry us too much: the psychological torture of the journey down had left us exhausted and we were grateful for any bed.
The next day I put on civilian clothes and got in an unmarked car to be taken to Hollywood Barracks near Belfast for a week's anti-terrorist training. Once again the mode of transport did not fill me with a sense of security, but I could at least look out the windows and, if necessary, open the car door. The handgun in the glove compartment made me feel a little better too. The early part of the journey, travelling along isolated country roads, filled me with apprehension, but the last stretch on the motorway made me more relaxed. I hardly took in any of the scenery: I was too busy looking out for snipers and men in balaclavas manning checkpoints.
At Hollywood I found myself in a group of about 20 soldiers from different regiments. We sat in a room with a large television at the front.
A major walked in, marched to the front and said: "If you're going to die, we might as well tell you why." He then played a video which condensed Ireland's history into 30 minutes. When the video finished he began talking to us in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were merely stating the obvious. He opened his talk by saying that the film had probably left us more confused than enlightened, but that this did not really matter. The essential fact, he said, was that as British soldiers we were little more than piggies-in-the-middle in a baffling tribal conflict, the intricacies of which need not concern us too greatly. All we really needed to bear in mind as we went about our duties were the simple equations: Catholic = IRA = Bad and Protestant = British = Good.
He said he did not mean to give offence to any Catholics in the group, if there were any, as British Catholics were obviously different from Irish Catholics. He said he knew also he was being deeply unfair to the many Irish Catholics who did not support the IRA. However, his purpose was merely to identify the tribal grouping from which the threat to our lives was most likely to come. And the simple fact of the matter was that we didn't need to be as wary of Protestants. He rounded off his talk by saying that of course Britain should give Northern Ireland back to the Irish, but the province was such a good training ground that the army didn't want to let it go. He said that in most years more soldiers were killed on exercises in Germany than died at the hands of terrorists in Northern Ireland. Everyone was so taken aback by his cynical frankness that after he left no-one really said anything. The only comment was from a Liverpudlian who asked: "Was he taking the piss?"
The major's last observation about the statistical improbability of our coming to any harm had not been absorbed by the course instructors who for the whole of that week told us we were definitely going to die. No doubt about it. Every second sentence that emerged at high pitch from their spit-flecked mouths assured us that our incompetence as soldiers meant the Provos would certainly kill us.
The scene of most of our training was what looked like the set of Coronation Street several rows of the exteriors of two-up-two-down terraced houses. Videos filmed us patrolling these streets and captured on tape our pitiful attempts to negotiate the various hazards put in our path. Cardboard cutouts of various "friendly" and "non-friendly" people appeared suddenly at windows - usually to be blasted indiscriminately by me and my fellow "Professionals". I lost count of the number of vicars and women and children we collectively managed to massacre as we wandered the streets hopelessly in our numbered fluorescent jackets. Occasionally a balaclava-clad Provo cut-out would appear: he tended to escape with his cardboard life.
An instructor told us that at some stage in Northern Ireland we would all have a sniper's rifle trained on our heads. Sometimes as we patrolled the streets they would set off an explosive charge in a house. When we ran for cover behind a car they would detonate something in the car. Ranting and raving in the way that only army NCOs know how, they would point out that we were supposed to check everything we used for shelter. They often gave the impression of being in despair.
One of them kept shouting: "You're going to die. Paddy will look for fools like you — off-the-ball, day-dreaming, dead."
After each exercise we would watch our mistakes on video. Once as we carried out a house search I walked into a room to find a package on the floor. Smoke began to billow from it. I picked it up and ran out into the street where I dumped it on the road. I thought I'd done quite well.
The instructor disagreed: "You fucking muppet! You stupid fucking muppet!"
When we gathered in the debriefing room he ordered me to stand on a chair in front of everyone. He said: "I want you to take a long hard look at this man." Everyone stared at me. "Does anyone know why I want you all to look at him?" No-one spoke. "It's because this man is going to get you all killed." The stares became harder. The instructor shouted: "You're a fucking muppet, aren't you O'Mahoney?"
I said I was.
He pointed out that, while I might have saved the lives of the civilians in the house, I had taken a bomb out into a street full of soldiers, whose lives were more valuable.
He said: "What are you?"
I said again: "I'm a muppet."
Then, in case anyone in the room had still not deduced what I was, he screamed in agreement: "Yes, you're a fucking muppet."
We would do our best, but no matter what we did they would make us feel that we'd not just made a mistake, but had committed a truly life-ending error.
"You're going to die! You're going to die!" was the response to almost everything we did. After a few days we all started to believe them. At night I would lie in bed thinking: "God, what am I doing here? I'm doing everything wrong. I am going to die."
I received a few rudimentary lessons in the workings of the Self-Loading Rifle, but they hardly served to bolster my morale. A proper infantryman should have been capable of stripping down an SLR blindfolded. I needed natural light and the help of my colleagues. On the firing range I hardly hit the target.
Once an instructor bent down beside me and screamed: "Don't apply for the marksman's course yet, you useless cunt." I thought the only way I would survive in Ulster was if I could drive an armoured personnel carrier - a "Pig", as it was known - in a built-up area. A few months earlier I'd been sent on a course to Hull to learn how to drive one. At least on that course I had felt competent driving around smashing into barricades and ramming wrecked cars. When the Pigs were battened down the driver only had a six-by-three inch perspex window to see out of. We were taught that rioters tried to disable Pigs by throwing paint on that window, so in the water container for the window-wipers we were told to put paint-stripper. However, I didn't get to act on this wisdom: I didn't even see a Pig during my whole time in Northern Ireland, let alone get to drive one.
Then our anti-terrorist training was all over. After a week in which we had apparently not done anything right we were told we were now trained and ready for action. A soldier from my regiment came to take me back to Fermanagh, again in an unmarked car. He had been out on patrol a few times already and was talking like a veteran. If anything, the week's training had made me feel even more vulnerable and I slightly resented my colleague's apparently relaxed state.
As we passed through a town near to where we were going he said: "Oh, I'll show you around here." He drove to a loyalist housing estate where a pipe band was practising their tunes. We parked a few hundred yards away from them. They started marching up the street towards us, led by a few aggressive-looking men competing with each other to see who could hurl batons highest into the air.
My companion said: "This is Ulster."
T
he band marched past us. Several of the pipers looked at us suspiciously.
I said: "What a bunch of fucking edibles." They came back down past us: their marching seemed more frenzied. I began to feel unsafe and uncomfortable: perhaps they could smell
my Irish Catholic blood. I said: "Get me out of here, you
_»
cunt.
On the journey back I felt a sort of anger at being surrounded by so much hostility. None of these people knew me, but as far as I could see lots of them already hated me -and wanted to do me harm. "Fuck them," I thought. I wasn't going to let them: it was as simple as that - I wasn't going to let them. There was no way I was going back to Codsall in either a coffin or a wheelchair. I didn't give a toss about the politics of the situation. I just wanted to survive - and was determined to do so in the best way I knew how. I would survive by dealing ruthlessly with any potential threats. And, as far as I was concerned, anybody I did not know personally was a threat.
I would crush those threats before they crushed me.
10
Beer For The Boys
The Sergeant called a troop meeting before I went out on my first patrol.
He was probably the most experienced soldier in our regiment. I was told he had joined us from another regiment and had already done a few tours of duty in Northern Ireland. I hadn't had much contact with him before, but I knew from talking to other soldiers that he was highly regarded. He tended to do things by the book but, unlike a few of the other NCOs and officers, he did at least inspire confidence in his military capability.
There must have been about 20 of us gathered in front of him. We had all been in Ireland for a week. Most had already been out on the streets. Some tried to give off the
nonchalant air of veterans; others still looked as bewildered and fearful as we all had on first stepping off the plane at Aldergrove.
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