The Sixteen

by John Urwin

  Another thing that really baffled me was how my death would be explained if I was killed on a mission, miles away in another country, or wherever it happened. What explanation could be given if I was supposed to be on detachment at another camp yet that camp had neither documentation nor knowledge of my being consigned to them?

  But then, I supposed, someone like me being found out of uniform, miles from my unit, would probably be easy to cover up by claiming that I’d gone AWOL and was a deserter. Nobody would suspect anyone from my type of unit as being part of any special force.

  Ken was right, I shouldn’t think about it too much, it was too mind-boggling, and I wasn’t going to come up with any answers, so eventually I tried to give up thinking about it, it was pointless wasting time trying to fathom it out. It was obvious that the powers-that-be knew exactly what they were doing and had every angle covered.

  Even so, it was difficult sometimes not to wonder about it all. They had encouraged me to think differently, for myself, to question everything and to only believe half of what I saw or heard. They had educated me and I’d changed drastically as a result. I’d grown up and the shy, stammering eighteen-year-old had disappeared along with his innocence. For all I looked much the same physically, inside I was a completely different person and even my strong Geordie accent was quickly disappearing.

  When I first got back from Beirut – it’s difficult to explain exactly how I felt – it had been so exciting and I couldn’t believe what we’d just done. As Spot had said, something incredible was happening to me. I believed that nothing was beyond our capabilities, there was nothing we couldn’t do, no task we couldn’t handle. With my combat skills and all of the other tricks they’d taught me, I truly believed that nothing could touch me. So, when I returned to camp it felt as though I was walking into a graveyard, everything was so deadly quiet, everyone just lounging around.

  It was much the same after our Cairo mission, and for several long months afterwards my life settled into periods of mind-numbing boredom at camp or undetected periods of intense training and practising with Dynamo, Chalky and Spot.

  I lived for the time I spent with them, and crazy as it may seem, I believe I was becoming addicted to living on the edge. Looking forward to the excitement and adrenalin rush of the risks we took was the only thing that made the long, boring chore of life around the camp in-between times bearable.

  Although I knew I was now a very different person, I still had to pretend to be unchanged when I was with my pals in 524 Company. I didn’t find this too difficult, as I would sometimes be with them for only an hour or so in the evening before they went off for a drink to the NAAFI. However, it was more awkward if I was sent out on detachment with them and was around them for a greater length of time.

  During these periods, I would frequently go with them to the NAAFIs at other camps and often found it difficult to restrain myself if they got into any trouble, which happened quite regularly, as it was generally considered an amusing pastime by other regiments to ‘take the Mickey’ out of the Pioneer Corps.

  On one particular occasion, just before my first job up in the Troodos Mountains, a few of us were on detachment working at another camp and decided to visit their NAAFI. This consisted of a large tent about thirty by seventy feet, with a bar, tables and chairs that was frequented by lower ranks and some lesser NCOs. The bar had a jukebox and besides beer and soft drinks it also sold hot dogs and light snacks. Some of the larger camps had several such marquees.

  Generally, people bought their drinks and went outside but on this occasion the tent was especially crammed with upwards of sixty personnel from a number of different units and regiments, including RAF, marines and some Americans. Apparently a few of the records on the jukebox had recently been changed by some Greeks and word had spread around that they’d managed to get a copy of a record about the late Buddy Holly, ‘The Seven Stars’. This had been banned by his mother after his fatal aeroplane accident, and naturally, because it was banned, everyone wanted to hear it. The Greek blokes had pressed several numbers on the jukebox so we had to wait until these records played through before the banned record came on.

  As usual, I was drinking orange juice, unlike my pals and the majority of those around me. As the evening wore on and the beer flowed a disagreement broke out between one of my pals and some RAF personnel, sitting at a table behind us. It was obvious to me that something was about to happen but, despite my efforts to try to calm the situation down, my pals continued to swap verbal insults with the guys on the other table.

  I just wanted to get out of the way and avoid any possible trouble. ‘Look, come on you lot, let’s take our drinks and go outside,’ I said.

  They were playing dominoes and didn’t want to leave.

  ‘No, just stay here, forget about them.’

  ‘Come on, Geordie, have another coke.’

  ‘Aw, don’t worry about them, we can handle them.’

  ‘They’re just a bunch of poufy Brylcreem Boys, anyway!’

  The guys at the other table didn’t let up either, as more people crammed into the hot, smoky marquee.

  ‘Hey, where’ve you left your f***ing pick and shovel, chunky?’

  The insults were coming thick and fast and I knew that things were quickly going to get out of hand.

  I was trying to concentrate on what my mates were saying to me while at the same time keeping an eye on what was happening at the table behind us. Suddenly, one of the RAF blokes stood up and grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher, brandishing it above his head. It was obvious to me that he intended to bring it down on the head of my pal, who was sitting next to me with his back turned. Swiftly standing up, I disarmed the RAF guy, cracked him across the jaw with the fire extinguisher and let him fall to the floor.

  There were several corporals and some sergeants in the tent, and as I didn’t want any trouble, I quickly propped the extinguisher against one of the tent poles, grabbed the guy, dragged him back to his table and flung him into his seat.

  ‘And don’t you lot get any bright ideas, either,’ I said, leaning across the table to warn his mates. ‘Otherwise I’ll stick my pick right where it hurts!’

  I quickly sat down again, hoping that in the smoky crowded tent my actions had been too quick for anyone to see what happened properly. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.

  ‘Whoa, what are you on, Geordie? I’ve never seen you do anything like that. I didn’t know you had it in you! Give us a swig of what you’re drinking, mate,’ the guy sitting next to me said and slapped me on the back.

  ‘I didn’t do anything, I just helped him back to his seat,’ I said, trying to make light of the situation.

  ‘Helped him back to his seat?’ one of my other pals, exclaimed. ‘Nearly put him through it you mean!’

  As he was sitting across the table from me, he’d watched the whole incident and immediately began to tell everyone what he’d seen.

  ‘He was like a bloody robot, honestly, you should have seen it!’ he went on. ‘I’ve never seen anyone move like that, show us what you did, Geordie.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, stop bloody exaggerating,’ I told him. ‘I didn’t do anything, he was drunk and overbalanced when I made a grab for the extinguisher. He must have hit his head as he fell.’

  But the guy was nowhere near as drunk as the others, and was far from convinced by my explanation. He shook his head and kept on saying he’d never seen anything like it. Luckily, none of the others had really seen anything, there had been too many people around and all they’d been aware of was just a bit of a commotion behind them. Besides, they were so used to my general lack of involvement and avoidance of trouble that they all considered me a bit ‘soft’. Unconvinced by the guy across the table’s explanation of my involvement, they quickly lost interest in the whole thing and went back to their dominoes and drink.

  ‘Don’t be daft, there’s no way Geordie could have done that.’

  ‘Nah, he’s just a lucky b
ugger, the other guy was pissed!’

  The image that I was so careful to project of myself as being shy and quiet had helped me to bluff my way out of a potentially difficult situation. It also helped a lot that I’d always been a bit of a loner, normally keeping myself to myself, trying not to attract too much attention. Years of stuttering had seen to that.

  What’s more the atmosphere in the tent was still pretty tense and it was obvious that it was going to get worse with the amount of beer that was being drunk. Besides, it was stifling, as more and more people shoved their way inside and the air became thick with smoke, and heavy with the smell of beer and perspiration. It wasn’t too difficult now to convince my pals to go outside, it was much too crowded in the marquee. My training taught me that I always needed to be in a position where I could see exactly what was going on all around, so I was glad when they agreed to come with me.

  We moved well away from the entrance to the marquee and sat on the ground with our backs against the piles of sandbags surrounding it. Although there was a lot of activity going on around the camp, compared to inside the marquee it was fairly peaceful. The light was just beginning to fade and the air was calm and relatively cool. We sat with our drinks listening to the records playing then voices began shouting excitedly: ‘This is it, this is it!’ Everything went quiet as the long-awaited record began to play.

  ‘Look up in the sky…’ As the gentle melody began, we settled back to listen to the softly singing voices. The song was full of emotion, in remembrance of the pop stars who had lost their lives on the ill-fated flight – Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.

  ‘…They’re shining so bright, from Heaven above.

  Gee, we’re gonna miss you everybody sends their love.’

  Suddenly, the earth vibrated beneath us as the air was filled with a tremendous explosion, and I was flung forward onto my face, sandbags landing on top and all around me, as a huge blast inflated then collapsed the tent. Bodies, limbs, broken furniture and glass flew out, showering down everywhere. For a few seconds there wasn’t a sound, everything was still and quiet, then all hell broke loose and the air was filled with the sound of moans and groans and screaming.

  I tried to get up but the heavy sandbags pinned me down. My whole body felt numb and I thought I must be injured, but I couldn’t feel any pain. My mouth and eyes were full of dust and I was finding it hard to breathe. Gradually, I managed to move my head and took a full breath. I could just make out people running around, their voices seeming to come from a long way off, I couldn’t hear properly; my ears were still ringing from the noise of the explosion. One at a time, I tentatively began to move each limb and quickly realised that I wasn’t seriously hurt. With difficulty, I managed to push my way out from under the sandbags and struggled to my feet. I looked around me in total disbelief at the devastation; there was blood everywhere, like splattered red paint.

  Nearby my mates were also struggling to get out from under the heavy sandbags, and, worried that some of them might be seriously injured, I immediately helped to pull the bags off them and checked that they were all OK. Like me, they were all shocked and anxious to find out if I was all right but, luckily, none of them was hurt.

  ‘Jeeesus, Geordie, what the hell was that? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry I’m all right, I’ve just got a gob full of dust,’ I reassured them.

  ‘God, what a bleedin’ racket, what happened?’

  ‘Oh Christ, I’m deaf, I can’t hear properly!’

  ‘Bloody hell, it’s a good job we came out when we did. Shit, look at that, what a f***ing mess!’

  Nearby under the heavy canvas of the demolished marquee, people who could move were trying to find a way out and those who did emerge staggered about, dazed and bleeding. By now my ears were beginning to clear and the air was filled with noise. Everywhere people were running around shouting – Red Cross, MPs, NCOs – everyone trying to get to the injured people under the canvas. All that remained of the tent were the two end poles where it had once stood; the rest of it lay around in tattered shreds.

  I went to help but was ordered away by an MP, he dragged me from the area and told me to go to the guardhouse along with others who were uninjured. There we were all searched and briefly questioned.

  ‘Are you going to hold us here?’ I asked one of the MPs.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, we’ve been here all week on detachment and we’re due back at our camp by 2300 hours tonight,’ I explained.

  ‘Right. Show us your ID, then you can go, if we need you we’ll send for you. Make sure you return immediately to your own units,’ he ordered, brusquely.

  Rumours were rife about the incident and that two British servicemen had been killed. It was widely believed that Greek terrorists had planted a large bomb in the jukebox and rigged it to go off when the banned record was played. By ensuring that several other records were played first, they’d given themselves time to get well away. I had no way of knowing if this was the truth, but it sounded fairly plausible. As usual, to ensure that there were no repercussions and to maintain morale, the whole thing was hushed up by the military, and no official explanation was ever given. But after that security around the camps was considerably tightened up, and a large number of Greeks working at camps were dismissed.

  Another incident when I almost blew my cover had taken place some months earlier, shortly after we first arrived at the camp and I’d begun my training with ‘The Sixteen’. It was to have a profound effect on one young soldier. I was on guard duty with several other lads and it was my turn for a sleep break. On this particular night, I was woken by the sound of a woman’s blood-curdling scream and immediately rushed outside to join the others.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘I dunno. It came from over there somewhere,’ a young soldier named Curran told me, white as a sheet and obviously very scared.

  He pointed to an area some seven hundred yards from the camp where there was a small brick building which housed an old generator. At that time, there was no barbed wire perimeter fence, nothing to separate the camp from the surrounding area. I wanted to investigate there and then but the officer in charge insisted that we waited until first light in case it was a terrorist trap to lure us out of camp in the dark.

  As soon as it was daybreak, he assigned a patrol to go out and investigate, which included both Curran and me. Checking carefully for a possible ambush or booby traps, we reached the hut and as we rounded the corner of the small brick building one of the lads in front of me opened the door. He took a step inside then instantly came flying back out.

  ‘Urrgh! Jeesus Christ! Bloody hell!’ He groaned, and then abruptly pushed us out of his way as he began to retch noisily.

  We cautiously peered inside. Sprawled across the top of the old generator was the body of a young Greek woman of about eighteen to nineteen years old. Her throat had been slit to such an extent that her head was all but severed from her body, which was saturated in blood. Her dark olive skin had turned a sallow almost yellow colour.

  The officer in charge immediately yanked us all out and closed the door.

  ‘Get back to camp, you lot,’ he ordered. ‘This mess’ll have to be dealt with by the officers’. Subdued, we returned to the camp. None of us spoke – it had been a pretty horrific sight. Shortly after, the CO, several senior officers and the MO arrived to take charge and later that day I heard that people from the nearby village, probably relatives, had arrived to take her body away.

  Naturally, the camp was soon buzzing with the news and all of the gory details. The rumour was that she had been killed because she fraternised with British soldiers, who to the Greeks were the enemy. Apparently, she had been seen by some of the locals in the company of British troops and they had meted out their own form of punishment. That was almost certainly the reason for her execution by the terrorists. Whether they brought her there specifically to kill her as a warning to the soldiers I don�
��t know, but it seemed to me a terrible waste of a young life and an awful thing for her own people to have done.

  Even so, the sight of a young woman so brutally murdered did not physically or mentally upset me as it did many of the others who witnessed it. I returned to my tent and went back to sleep without any trouble.

  A few weeks later, I was on guard duty with Curran again. He was a small, quiet guy of about nineteen, who looked as though he should have been working in a tailor’s shop. I think that the incident must have been preying on his mind over the couple of weeks since it had happened, although at the time he’d said he was OK.

  He’d seemed a bit quieter than usual but that was all. However, later that night while I was on a rest break, he suffered a form of breakdown, whether as a direct result of witnessing the incident with the Greek girl or not, I’ll never know.

  I’d just done two hours on first watch and was lying sound asleep on the top bunk in the guardhouse, when suddenly I heard the loud crack of gunfire and all of the guardhouse lights went out. Immediately I dived from the top bunk onto the floor and found two other guys lying beside me. There was a lot of shouting going on outside and we feared that it might be a terrorist attack. The two guys had their torches and switched them on as the door burst open with a crash and one of the other lads on duty rushed in.

  ‘Where’s the officer? Curran’s gone crazy!’ he yelled. ‘It’s him that’s doing all the firing. There’s bullets going all over the place, we can’t get near the stupid bastard!’

  ‘The officer’s not here yet,’ one of the lads replied.

  ‘Well, something’s got to be done, before somebody gets killed. He’s spraying bullets all over the bloody camp!’

  ‘Are you sure it’s him?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s him alright, he’s gone bleedin’ barmy.’

  Just then, the gunfire stopped and we all dashed outside, the two with the torches just slightly ahead of me.

  We got to within a couple of yards of the sandbags, but I couldn’t make Curran out properly. Suddenly he turned around towards us and the torches lit up his face. His eyes were wide and staring and he looked completely dazed. Immediately the bullets began to fly again in our direction, towards the torchlight, whistling over our heads as we dived to the ground and the torches were quickly put out.