The Small Dog With a Big Personality

by Isabel George

  Major Woodrow decided a daily aerial reconnaissance was a necessary addition to the regular foot patrols. After all, a helicopter could ‘patrol’ an area that would take days on foot, and considering the British Army had 300 miles along the border to survey and protect, helicopters were to prove invaluable. Fielding was pleased that Rat enjoyed riding in the air as much as travelling in the armoured vehicles as he really didn’t want to leave the dog behind. He felt safer having Rat alongside him and many of the men felt the same too. Where there was a need to run both a foot patrol and a helicopter, Rat would follow Fielding. It went without saying.

  One misty morning in January 1979 Major Woodrow was leading a helicopter patrol of the border as Fielding took a foot patrol over the same ground. Rat was at his heels. The dog had already lost half his tail in the firebomb attack but it had not put him off joining his friends. Easy to spot from the helicopter, a car and an open truck carrying a mortar base plate attracted the major’s attention and he ordered a closer look. As the helicopter descended, the men in the vehicles opened fire. Receiving a radioed message from the helicopter, Fielding and the rest of the foot patrol commandeered two passing cars and raced to the scene to help their colleagues. The helicopter had been hit but the pilot had managed to keep it in the air. Rat ran out of the cars with his colleagues, baring his teeth at the gunmen. The suspects, outnumbered, reversed their vehicles and escaped south over the border. No one was hurt that day but 10 days later they were not so lucky. Once again a helicopter patrol commanded by Major Woodrow spotted a lorry and a van acting suspiciously and went in to take a look. It was a trap. Automatic rifles and machine guns battered the helicopter. The pilot was hit in the face with shrapnel and Major Woodrow sustained a number of gunshot wounds to his legs and was airlifted to Musgrave hospital in Belfast but not before he handed over to the new regiment on site. The soldiers managed to contain the damage but the helicopter was crippled by shots to the rotor blades as it made its way back to base.

  I never saw Rat again, and I insist that he will always be Rat to the Grenadiers. I was airlifted to hospital after that and to be honest my mind was still on what we had just encountered and how the men were going to survive this and get back to duties. The Guards were to be posted to Germany next so there was no time to dwell. We did our job in Ireland. We did what we were there to do.

  The Army never underestimated the Opposition. To those who were posted to Northern Ireland this was real soldiering. This was what all their training was about and a test of their ability to contain the activities of that formidable and unpredictable organization.

  As the men of the Grenadiers prepared to follow their company commander out of the base Rat sensed something was wrong. Fielding recalls how the dog glued himself to his heels, almost afraid that the soldier would make a move without him. Rat was amongst heroes and with men who had not only served with him, they had saved his life. Keith Regan, who had saved Rat’s life after the petrol-bomb attack, received the BEM for his service in Crossmaglen. Kevin Kinton had been injured several times during his tour of duty and for him the friendship of the little brown dog was something that helped keep him grounded: the dog was a touchstone for kindness amidst the hostility. For Fielding, the parting was particularly painful. Man and dog had become inseparable. At one point Fielding made plans to take Rat home to England, but that proved to be impossible as the battalion was to transfer to Germany soon after.

  Rat was there to see the men take the helicopter out of the base. One by one they patted the dog’s head before they boarded. As the last man stepped into the chopper Rat looked towards the door and began to run to it. ‘I could tell Rat was going to try and leap into the helicopter and he wasn’t always that good at it,’ said Fielding. ‘I had to pick him up and take him to the man who was taking over from me. I have no doubt at all that he knew we were leaving him and might never see any of us again. All I can say is that he had been a blessing to all of us while we were there. So far as any dog could, he had made us happy.’ Rat whined and struggled to run after the helicopter. Fielding admitted that it ‘almost broke my heart’.

  Life with the Queen’s Regiment was not the same as it had been with the Grenadiers for Rat. For a start he was called Rats, not Rat, and although that didn’t bother him at all he was slow to attach himself to any one man. He went back to sleeping under bunks rather than lying in them and he drifted between the soldiers, perhaps looking for his old friends before he committed to making new ones. He was not quite the same dog, but then he was battle scarred, and maybe the ravages of the bullets, petrol bombs, shrapnel and other injuries acquired leaping in and out of helicopters and Scarrycans were having an effect. Or maybe it was the emotional strain of losing another group of friends and starting all over again.

  But there were some of Rats’s old habits that did not disappear with the Grenadiers. His liking for chasing cars was always going to be an accident waiting to happen. Vehicle checkpoints were always fun for Rats because cars were right there in front of him to chase. As soon as the soldiers had checked the car and it was driving away Rats would be there biting at the tyres. Most drivers realized he was there and moved away slowly, even though he followed them for a full 20 or 30 yards. But on one occasion, just after the arrival of the Queen’s Regiment, Rats chased one car too many. He had watched the car as the soldiers checked it over and then, as usual, as the car moved away, he ran in towards the wheels. Suddenly the car veered to the left and Rats disappeared under it.

  Yelping with pain the dog lay at the roadside. The soldiers saw what happened and dashed to Rats’s side. Corporal Ainsworth gathered Rats up and ran with him back to base. The dog’s left front leg was too damaged to be treated on site, and so the Queen’s Regiment arranged a helicopter to fly Rats to Battalion HQ at Bessbrook. From there he was transferred to the Maze Prison at Long Kesh where a team of veterinary surgeons waited to examine the patient. Rats had a broken leg and was lucky to have escaped with only one serious injury. No one knows if the driver deliberately drove into Rats or if it was a genuine accident. That could never be proven but it was important to the soldiers that their mascot received the best of attention and within a month his leg was as good as new.

  No sooner was Rats back on his feet than he was back to his old car-chasing antics. Maybe it would not have been so bad if he had limited his bad habits to chasing cars, because the day he chose to take on a bus was the day he needed stitches in his head. It was around this time that the RAF became reluctant to let him fly with them. They didn’t want to be responsible for any injury to Rats. After all, he was becoming far too important to the base to risk that. Although he hadn’t adopted any one particular friend amongst the men from the Queen’s Regiment, they all played their part in making sure the little dog was well taken care of. But there was one thing they had to change for their mascot – his passport to the skies. They knew how much he liked taking to the air and so they worked together to make sure that Rats was never left behind. No flight left without Rats being smuggling aboard inside someone’s jacket or a Bergen (backpack).

  ‘Rats was a member of the company so we were not going to leave him behind. If we were going somewhere, Rats was going too,’ recalls Major (now Colonel) Richard Graham, the company commander. ‘When you are in a situation where you are surrounded by adversity, a small item of happiness can take on huge significance. Rats was a small trace of happiness in adversity and for that he was very important to all of us.’

  When the 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Highlanders arrived in Crossmaglen in August 1979 so did Corporal Joseph O’Neil. He was a Catholic and a family man and his tour of Northern Ireland had begun as his wife was about to have their third child. O’Neil had concerns about being in one of the most dangerous locations for any British serviceman at this time in his life but it was his job and, of course, he was just going to get on with it. But it was the sight of Rats waiting to greet the advance party from the helicopter that interested O’Neil.
He wasn’t expecting to see a dog in this God-forsaken place. For some reason the appearance of a small dog stuck in his mind and the next time he saw Rats, he was sleeping on the empty bunk of one of the corporals who had flown out that day. The man had played the mouth organ and other soldiers had said how Rats had liked the sound and often tried to join in, ‘singing’ along. O’Neil couldn’t play anything but he tried to entice Rats with a whistle. ‘Come on little fella…it’s alright…come over here.’ To the soldier’s surprise, Rats followed the sound of the whistle and settled on O’Neil’s bunk. It wasn’t really the soldier’s intention to invite the dog to take over his bunk but it was too late, Rats had moved in.

  By the morning Rats was on patrol at O’Neil’s feet, tugging at his bootlaces and never moving more than a few inches from the soldier at any one time. ‘It seems you’ve chosen me as your friend after all,’ observed O’Neil, who was already missing his family. ‘To many of us, having Rats around was like having a child in the camp. He was funny. He made us laugh and if he chose you for company he could be a comfort just sitting on a lap or running at heel on patrol. The dog was our friend and we were grateful for it.’

  The Highlanders lost five men during that particular tour of Northern Ireland. A remote-controlled bomb killed one soldier in Crossmaglen Square; two were killed when a helicopter was shot down and two more died in an ambush at Warrenpoint along with 16 other British troops. This attack coincided with the assassination of Lord Mountbatten on holiday in the Republic and the world’s media suddenly was concentrating on the trouble in Northern Ireland. Death and misery had been features of daily life on the front line of this conflict for 10 years but the high-profile activity that culminated in the death of a member of the Royal family brought the world’s focus on Crossmaglen. BBC television cameras descended on the Army base to capture the essence of the Troubles. It didn’t take long for them to be introduced to Rats.

  The troops that had served with Rats at their heels did not need to be told of the dog’s value as a friend and mascot. They had experienced it first hand but this was not an aspect of Army life that the outside world was aware of. The significance of a small brown dog was known only to the soldiers and their families. Letters home told of the dog’s antics and how he played games and brought some light relief to the soldiers’ lives. In that way he was a comfort to those left worrying at home too. At least they knew there was a welcome diversion from the soldiers’ constant fear. There was a dog called Rats.

  Maybe it needed the arrival of a television crew to highlight Rats’s contribution to life on the base or maybe it was something the soldiers had planned all along, but this dog was about to be honoured for his loyalty, his friendship and his ability to raise morale amidst all the conflict. A medal, made from a dog disk, was struck in his honour. On one side there was the Queen’s head and on the other his name and Army number: Delta 777 – Delta for Delta Company (after the company he was serving with) and the triple seven because it was considered the luckiest number possible. It was suspended from a red and white ribbon, and was the Army’s way of recognizing Rats as a ‘soldier dog’; and like all soldiers who are awarded medals, Rats was guest of honour at a special ceremony. As a piper played ‘Scotland the Brave’, the company sergeant major pinned the medal to the dog’s collar. It was a poignant moment for O’Neil and one he was forced to share with millions of people watching on television. Even O’Neil’s young sons saw ‘Daddy’s dog’ on the television and pleaded with him to bring Rats home to Glasgow.

  O’Neil, like several other soldiers who had served with Rats, was desperate to take the dog home at the end of his tour of duty but by this time the dog was part of the base. Despite encouragement from his friends O’Neil knew that he couldn’t smuggle Rats out in his kit bag, although he would have dearly loved to. He could not be the one to take this hero dog out of Cross-maglen. But it was time for the Highlanders to move out and for Rats to lose another friend, someone else he had grown close to. This happened every four or five months. Suddenly the person Rats had chosen as his friend was gone, never to be seen again. To try and avoid the tearful farewell at the base it was decided to fly Rats to HQ in Bessbrook. The location made no difference. The farewell was just as tearful, for man and dog. Rats whined and, to the men, it sounded like crying. Twice he ran after O’Neil as walked towards the Army lorry that was to take the men away. Twice the soldier brought him back, the second time handing him to the man who was going to take over the care of the soldier dog of Crossmaglen.

  Major Vyvyan Harmsworth, Company Commander 1st Battalion the Welsh Guards, had first heard about Rats during a period of pre-Northern Ireland training several months earlier. A Grenadier Guards officer had shown him a picture of the regiment in Crossmaglen and one of the men was holding a scruffy looking dog. The dog was introduced as Rat and the message was: ‘When you get out there you must look after the little chap.’ And who was he? ‘He’s a mascot and a marvellous little dog.’ Major Harmsworth did not forget the request and when he met Rats in the flesh he could understand why the Guards had been so insistent that the dog was well looked after. ‘From the moment we arrived in Crossmaglen it was obvious that Rats was clearly a boost to the men’s morale. It was well known that he had been shot at, blown up, run over and injured in a firebomb attack. In other words, he had been through hell, the same as the men and that is why they not only had great affection for the dog, they respected him too. He was, to them, another soldier. A friend.’

  The man O’Neil handed Rats over to, Corporal Arwel Lewis, part of the Welsh Guards’ advance party of NCOs. He was with the anti-tank platoon, which for this tour was attached to the three platoons already in the Prince of Wales Company. There was a need for additional manpower to face the Opposition as by this time, October 1979, the death toll of British soldiers in Northern Ireland had reached 60. Lewis had already been on his first patrol in Crossmaglen, with Joseph O’Neil leading the way and alongside him the ever-present Rats. Lewis had grown up on a farm in North Wales and was used to dogs so, for him, the sight of the scruffy brown mongrel skipping ahead of the soldiers was a welcome sight. It was Lewis’s introduction to the man and dog duo and it was a meeting that showed O’Neil that his dog would be in safe hands. Just a few days later O’Neil was handing Lewis the dog for safekeeping.

  Whether it was because Corporal Lewis was used to dogs or just because Rats instantly liked the man is immaterial; the important thing for Rats was that they were instant friends. ‘He was always smiling,’ recalls Lewis. ‘He bobbed along at my heels when we were on patrol and every now and again he would look up at me as if to check that I was OK. It’s his facial features I remember more than anything else, not his stumpy tail or his scarred ears but the way he looked at me and how we hit it off right away. He was always cheerful. Nothing got him down.’

  He patrolled with the Welsh Guards, ate with them and slept in their bunks and everyone liked him. There wasn’t a thing he could do wrong, except go out and not come back for ages. As a rule Rats preferred to stay close to Lewis and that was the case whether he was on patrol or enjoying some rest and recuperation on the base. But every now and again he would be tempted to hitch a ride on a helicopter and then another and another until he had no idea where he was. If he arrived late at night it wasn’t unusual for the soldiers, wherever he landed, to feed him and put him up for the night. If he found himself at HQ in Bessbrook the men would find him a bunk, and next morning a genuine ‘dog’s breakfast’, including plenty of sausages, would be prepared in the cookhouse especially for him. Once fed, Rats would head for the helipad where he would be put on a helicopter bound for Crossmaglen. Several could come in from the various base camps along the border so the men would help him out by shouting and pointing at the right helicopter for his return journey. ‘That’s your helicopter Rats. Off you go.’ Maybe there was a particular noise from the engine or maybe it was down to perfect dog sense no one could fathom out, but somehow he knew when
the chopper was about to land at his ‘stop’.

  The dog was known by everyone, everywhere and so when he went walkabout everyone knew to contact Crossmaglen, and then Corporal Lewis would inevitably be sent to collect him. On one occasion Rats went missing and everyone on the base noticed his absence, even Major Harmsworth. Without wasting time he ordered Corporal Lewis to track the dog down and collect him from wherever he had landed. After doing some detective work Lewis discovered that Rats had travelled to Bessbrook and was having his usual ‘dog’s breakfast’ of bacon, eggs and extra sausage. Lewis caught the next flight out. Very often Rats travelled alone but not without the base sending a message ahead. It was not unusual to receive messages like this:

  Rats arriving your destination five minutes stop Turn him round, give him a kick up backside and send him back.

  Thanks to the visit from the BBC cameras Rats was becoming a household name. Visitors to the Army base in Crossmaglen wanted to meet the little dog with the huge profile and would ask for him by name. It could get a little embarrassing if Rats had decided to absent himself for the day. If he disappeared for more than a few hours the men would become concerned and begin calling round to track him down. Rats’s love of helicopters was usually to blame. With over 50 flights a day moving through Battalion HQ to bases along the front line on the border it was a great temptation for him to jump aboard with soldiers heading out on patrol. Rats thought this was great fun and the perfect escape from the confines of the base.