by Harry Beaves
Fortunately time was pressing and after another nervous half we were able to say it was getting near time to go.
‘Back to our place for coffee, then?’
‘Yes. That would be great.’ Why had I said that!
We headed back towards Belfast. My head was spinning as all evening I had been trying to remember street names and landmarks as we passed by. We stopped in a residential area with a street name that might have been on the approved list and entered an upstairs flat. I politely held the door for the other three, then made sure that the Yale lock was fastened. I was looking around taking it all in.
‘Coffee?’
‘Yes please, mind if I use your loo?’
‘It’s by the front door.’
On my way to and from the bathroom I noted as much as I could about the flat, trying to reassure myself that there was nothing suspicious about it.
We chatted cheerily about what a great night it had been, and then it was time to go. They dropped us at the gate to the Military Compound at MPH and we heaved a sigh of relief and waved goodbye to the mini with rigid smiles on our faces. In the Ops Room we took the Brownings from our sagging jackets and handed them in amid peals of ribald comments and nudges and winks.
In the dim light of Cinderella’s coach as we rumbled back to the ‘safety’ of the IRA heartland Ray and I stared at each other with a look that needed no words. ‘Never again.’ The female population of Belfast could sleep soundly in their beds, safe in the knowledge that they would not be troubled by Ray or me at any time. From now on we would stick to Gloria and UTV.
* * *
With Riverdale becoming much quieter, 28 Battery were given the responsibility for the Stockmans housing estate. Stockmans was a more upmarket area than the largely council Riverdale and had a much less hostile population. But it was also less easy to patrol as the gardens were generally well fenced and cared for, unlike Riverdale where fences invariably had gaps made by the IRA to use as escape routes. However, there were no dustbins and whistles to herald our arrival and the children generally played in the street without throwing stones at us.
Several times vehicles had been shot at as they passed Stockmans roundabout. The gunman was almost certainly firing from Stockmans estate, but we had not been able to pinpoint him. One evening I took an eight-man patrol and staked out an area of Stockmans Park. The whole place was in total darkness so it was perfect for us to move in, quietly and unobserved, for our task. Gnr Lambie and I were well hidden behind a small wall at the side of number 39, so well hidden that when the owner’s wife opened her back door to let the cat out she literally tripped over Lambie. With loud whispered apologies she went back indoors. Fifteen minutes later the door opened again, flooding the area with light, and the lady offered Lambie a plate of sandwiches and a glass of milk. I was checking the patrol members at the time and when I returned I found Lambie guiltily munching away. I tapped on the door and respectfully told the occupant that the whole point of our being there was not to be seen. The lady was most apologetic and insisted I take another bag of banana sandwiches for my ‘friend’. There was no point in continuing a ‘covert’ observation so we trudged wearily back to the stadium. The only friendly gesture shown to 6 Troop by the locals in the whole time that we had been in Belfast had, on that occasion, blown our cover.
I was surprised to find Sgt Moore still up when we got in. He gave me the impression that he had something planned so we chatted as the patrol put their kit away and turned in, then kept talking for quite a while after. He looked at the Troop Duty man and said, ‘OK, lad. You can go down and have a brew if you like. You needn’t rush back; the Boss and I need a chat and will be here for a while.’
The Duty Man knew the score and went down to the kitchen while I looked on, puzzled.
‘Right, Boss, grab the other handle.’ He whispered, as he dragged the dustbin of Scouser Brew from under the table. We lugged it out of our accommodation on to the open terraces where an array of empty screw top bottles stood in line. This was the day of the returnable bottle and each time he passed the nearby supermarket in the darkness he had ‘borrowed’ a few from the crates of empties outside.
The stadium was silent as only the Duty Men were awake. The ‘Scouser Brew’ kit had included a plastic tube to be used as a siphon and he now took it from his pocket, but when we lifted the lid from the bin we were in for a surprise. ‘It was crawlin’ and it stunk, but of all the drinks I’ve drunk…’ wrote Kipling. This was a dustbin, kept under a table, so, not surprisingly, people had used it for just that purpose and floating on the yeasty surface were crisp packets, paper, cigarette ends, pencil shavings and all manner of much less pleasant bits of rubbish.
Undeterred, we made sure the end of the siphon was well under the debris and set about the task. The smell of yeast and hops was glorious and soon the filled bottles were tucked away under his bed. We emptied the waste on a far corner of the football field then left the dustbin at the back of the stand where it might be used for its correct purpose.
Then smiling like naughty schoolboys we looked forward to the day about a fortnight hence when we could sample the brew. ‘Scouser Brew’ was an amusing diversion from our serious tasks, but meanwhile, out in Riverdale, the hydra was growing another head.
Chapter 16
Crash and Bang
WOII (BSM) Colin Self, known to everyone as ‘Crash’, was one of those larger-than-life characters who regularly feature in the Army. He was a big man in every sense of the word, standing six feet tall, broad in the shoulder and, now in his late thirties, wide in the waist. His face was never without a smile and he wore the Old Gunner’s badge of honour, a missing front tooth. He originated from the elegant city of Bath and wherever you were on the gun position you would hear his broad Somerset burr.
Crash would tell us that he had joined 28 Battery, straight out of training, as a seventeen-year-old ‘long before the Dead Sea even went sick’. In the space of about nineteen years he had risen steadily through the ranks to become the Battery Sergeant Major. He wasn’t in 28 Battery; he was 28 Battery – nothing more, nothing less. No one seemed to know how he got his nickname, but having travelled back with him in his car after rugby matches it could well have been because of his driving! Quotes by him and stories about him were legend in the Regiment. I remember after one match, in the days before breathalysers, Crash looking at one of the passengers and saying, not entirely in jest. ‘You drive; you’re too drunk to sing’.
Crash, like Dan Fogarty, had difficulty with soldiers’ names. His particular problem was the four or five soldiers in the Battery whose parents had fled from Eastern Europe in the early fifties, Poles with surnames spelt without vowels. His solution was to call them all ‘Smith’ and add the first letter of their name, Grocowski, for example, became Smith G, Peplinski was Smith P and so on.
My favourite story about Crash is of one exercise when 28 Battery were deploying to a new gun position. We had driven through the night and everyone was tired, but, on such occasions speed and efficiency remain as vital as ever, with every member of the Battery understanding his role and moving from one job to the next without prompting. The Army liked to call this ‘concurrent activity at all levels’. A key task on deployment was to establish radio communications as quickly as possible, with the principal radio set connected to an aerial on top of a twenty-seven-foot high telescopic mast. L/Bdr Jones’s next task was to erect this mast, a job which two men could do with difficulty, but was normally done by four. Jones looked round for assistance, but the others were still busy so he took the kit and carefully laid it out ready. Still no one was available so he fixed the base plate down and lugged the heavy mast into position. Telescoped down into its bottom section, it was about four inches in diameter and four feet long. He fitted the guys and other pieces, but no one came forward to help him, so he raised the first section and screwed the locking collar down. Then the second section, the third and so on, all the while waiting for assi
stance which never came.
As he raised each section the load became heavier and the task even more awkward because, as the assembly got taller, it began to sway in the breeze. But still no help came so he struggled on. He reached the final section and, with a mighty heave, he raised it to the full twenty-seven feet. Then disaster struck. One of the collars came unlocked and the whole mast collapsed with a resounding clatter, section by section back down into the telescope. It was so loud that we all stopped and looked up expecting to see L/Bdr Jones minus a couple of fingers, but he was fine.
Crash sized up the situation immediately. No one was hurt and L/Bdr Jones had been doing the wrong thing for the right reason. He strode across, put his face inches from the hapless Jones and said, ‘Ere, lad. What does your village do for an idiot now you’ve joined the Army?’
Then he looked at the others, who stood by, smiling, and added, ‘And you three, get over here and lend Jonesy a hand.’
Crash’s biggest strength was his understanding of his men. He always knew where to find the loafers, but he would also spot the soldier who hadn’t had a letter from home for a while and just keep an eye on him. Touchy-feely hadn’t been invented in those days, but Crash was the bluff old uncle they could always rely on and they thought the world of him.
The admin staff were his particular responsibility and he was keen that they should always feel as important a part of the Battery as the rifle troops. He saw it as essential that they were able to write home with exciting tales. ‘Went on patrol with the BSM and picked up a couple on the wanted list’ was much better than ‘Worked hard in the stores all day getting things ready for the others.’ It gave them a greater sense of purpose and the chance to tell a real ‘war story’ when they got home. They weren’t to know, but he usually took them out on patrol at the lower-risk time of day, and, strangely enough, he often got results. His imposing figure was enough to impress the locals, oblivious to the fact that behind him in the patrol were two cooks, a clerk, two drivers and a nervous storeman.
Crash’s efforts were rewarded when we returned to Germany as he was picked up for promotion to Warrant Officer Class I and was at last posted out of 19 Regiment. He joined 27 Regiment RA and became a very popular and respected Regimental Sergeant Major, but his story has a sad ending. Not long into his tour of duty he was diagnosed with cancer and died soon after.
* * *
Our activities in Riverdale continued to be relatively low-key. One evening I saw a heated discussion taking place outside the Chinese restaurant opposite Casement Park. It was after midnight and voices were raised as two men spoke to one of the owners. As I approached with a patrol the conversation changed to the subject of the owner’s car. The two men identified themselves as Thomas Shaw and James Brown. We had recently heard of cases where the IRA had been intimidating people into ‘lending’ them their cars, usually for terrorist operations. The two men were aged between thirty and thirty-four, burly and looked like heavies, so we took them in. They were not detained and unfortunately the owner refused to press charges, but we were sure this is what they were up to.
The rest of Riverdale remained disturbingly quiet and, though we still regularly picked up Volunteers, we were not finding so many big fish. Either the IRA were lying low or their changed organisation was keeping them more effectively hidden. Whisper the words, perhaps 28 Battery were actually getting on top. On 19th September we were searching 44 Riverdale Park North, the home of the Vernon family who were believed to be activists. In the course of the search L/Bdr Pipes discovered a package hidden in a hedge. Inside were two pistols and eighty rounds of ammunition. The hedge was on the property of the neighbours, a pair of friendly and helpful old age pensioners. We searched their property, but decided that the weapons could not be attributed to anyone. We felt the find was confirmation that the IRA cell system had individual Volunteers responsible for their weapons rather than storing them centrally.
In late September the Westminster Government was due to open further talks with the IRA. No truce was planned and we were warned to expect incidents, probably bombs, intended to demonstrate the Provos’ continuing strength, so we were particularly alert as a number of residents in our area had form in that particular practice. On 21st September L/Bdr Jones (of twenty-seven foot mast fame) with 4 Troop noticed a car parked at the Esso station in Andersonstown Road. He reported it to Battery Ops and looked cautiously inside. He spotted a wire attached to the steering wheel, so did no more. Ops told him the car had been seen being used by IRA Brigade Staff and sent an ATO to the scene. Rather than risk defusing it he blew the car up where it stood. It had contained a large quantity of explosive and was almost certainly booby-trapped for us.
26th September was just another ordinary day. At about 2300 I took a four-man patrol into Riverdale, wondering who we might find on their way home after the pubs had closed. As we approached 25 Riverdale Park South we noticed that all the lights were on and two men were standing at the garden gate, chatting and looking around suspiciously. I immediately assumed they were acting as sentries for some purpose. They identified themselves as Bobby Storey and Tommy McCandless. Both were men on our list whom we had not yet lifted. Loud Irish music was coming from inside the house and we reckoned about thirty people were enjoying a rip-roaring party. A party that required two sentries from the IRA was very suspicious so we moved away and I reported it to Ops. I wanted to lift the house, but to do so with so many people inside would have needed far more men than 28 Battery had and would have taken time to organise.
The BC instructed us to go to the rear of the house and observe. As we looked back, people were already beginning to leave, alarmed by our presence. I was very frustrated as I thought we were losing valuable suspects, but there was nothing that we could do about it, so we went to the end of Riverdale South, turned into MacAlpine’s Yard and doubled back to number 25. We climbed over the broken garden fence and I settled the lads into cover then found the biggest blackest shrub in which to hide myself. I shuffled in backwards and was resigned to a long and probably fruitless wait, but as I settled, I sensed the overwhelming smell of almonds and my nostrils tightened with odour of a heavy oily vapour.
It was unmistakable. I gingerly edged out, whistled to get Gnr Collins’ attention and beckoned him over to me. I drew back the foliage and made a sniffing noise. Collins got the message, did the same and stepped back in surprise. ‘Bloody hell, boss.’ We moved away, taking care all the time to stay in the shadows. The smell was unmistakably that of Co-op sugar and I had discovered a huge cache of homemade explosive.
Unfortunately most of the people had left the house in the short time that it took for the rest of the Battery to arrive. ‘Felix’ brought with him ‘Wagtail’ (the radio nickname for a sniffer dog) and his handler. In his book Stumpy and the Auld Sapper Rab Orr tells in hilarious style of the efficiency of his particular sniffer dog. While ‘Felix’ went straight to the bomb and set about checking the surrounding area for signs of explosives, ‘Wagtail’ was the polar opposite of Rab Orr’s efficient psychopathic partner. He was a big docile settee-filling Labrador and must have visited just about every dustbin, watered every shrub and found every cat scent in the street, but even in the back garden of number 25 he showed no reaction. In short, he was about as much use as the Pope’s balls. Eventually his handler drew back the foliage and almost put his nose on the cache before he finally showed any interest. He was obviously unimpressed with working nights.
We had long suspected that number 25 was being used by the IRA as a safe house. Inside was the tenant, Theresa Byrne, together with Betty Clarke who lived at 59 Riverdale Park Drive, the house where Tommy Gorman had been picked up, and her daughter Barbara Clarke. Also in the house was a short, skinny individual with heavy glasses who bore a passing resemblance to ‘Freddie’ of Freddie and the Dreamers. He was on our wanted list as a low level Volunteer and shared his name with a more illustrious IRA member who had been killed some months previously. We sa
t the four on chairs in the lounge as the property was searched. Betty Clarke was noisy and belligerent, but ‘Freddie’ was noticeably nervous and sweating. Sgt Moore had spotted this as he passed through. When he came back he stopped dramatically in the doorway then came over to me and in a poor imitation of a stage whisper said, ‘Hey boss. That bloke over there – that’s Freddie.’
‘Freddie’ looked over his shoulder, anxious at having been recognised. Then a few minutes later, from behind the closed door to the kitchen, a different voice shouted, ‘Hey fellas, have you heard? They’ve got Freddie in there.’ Freddie began visibly shaking. Soon after, Gnr Collins came through the lounge to go out to the garden. He stopped in his tracks in surprise, walked over to the man and said with relish. ‘Well, well, well, Freddie, we’ve been looking for you for ages.’
This was almost too much for him and by the time we got him in the Saracen to take him away we couldn’t stop him talking. Cruel and inhuman treatment or soldierly fun? I know what I think and we got some good information out of him as well!
Outside ‘Felix’ had examined the find as thoroughly as he could in the dark foliage. ‘I can’t see much and I don’t want to disturb anything in case it’s booby-trapped. What’s the area like?’
‘Ninety-nine per cent hostile,’ I replied.
‘I’d prefer not to take any risks and blow it ‘in situ’. What do you think?’
‘Delighted,’ I replied and walked off to clear it with Richard Craven.
The time for detonation was set for 0400 and as ‘Felix’ set about laying his charges we went around the area knocking people up in all the houses about a hundred yards around. We warned them that a bomb had been found, that had to be detonated in place and asked them to come out of their houses into the street or gardens to avoid any flying glass. A small group of women, the usual suspects, moved among the houses carefully explaining that it was the ‘Prods’ who had planted a bomb behind number 25. When we were sure that everyone was safe, at precisely 0400 ‘Felix’ touched the terminals and there was an almighty bang followed by moans and gasps of horror from the locals and stifled sniggers from the soldiers.