As the memories drifted and eddied I must have dozed off. My next sensation was one of confusion as I was abruptly awoken when the minibus suddenly jerked to a halt. In an instant I was alert, rubbing at tired eyes, a stiff muscle in my neck making me wince with pain. The side-door slid noisily open and I was given my first view of the SF base that was to be our home for the next few months. In the bitter January dawn, the base looked squalid and claustrophobic. We were surrounded by high corrugated-tin walls topped by wire netting to thwart attack from RPG-7s, the Russian-manufactured rocket-propelled grenades. Concrete sentry boxes at regular intervals and camouflage nets stretched across sandbagged roofs gave added protection. The interior of the base was an untidy clutter of Portakabins serving as both accommodation and admin offices. Soldiers dressed in combat gear and a few uniformed police were milling around amongst a line of Saracen armoured cars. I felt strangely disorientated in this cold grey world. At this time of morning in Dhofar the sun would be growing more powerful by the minute; waves of heat would be spreading across the terrain. The quivering shapes of the hills would be melting into the blue of the sky generating an upsurge of morale. Here there was only damp, gloom and depression.
Over the next few days, I became more and more convinced that I had to get out of this place. We thought we'd come here to take out the opposition; in reality we were armed with the latest Japanese camera technology and told to photograph them. The green slime, the ink boys, were building an empire and using a mountain of photographs to justify it. I could feel the beginning of a new and dangerous frustration: the frustration of not being able to get to grips with the enemy. After Dhofar you could call it post-operation depression.
* * *
'Alpha from Zero. Radio check.'
It was the duty operator. I gripped the volume control on the radio and turned the sound down, then pressed the speak button with my index finger. 'Zero from Alpha. Read you. Fives.'
'Alpha from Zero. Roger. Out.'
As we finished the radio check I nodded to Taff and the car lurched forward with a squeal of rubber. The high corrugated-tin gates swung open with an electronic whine, the CCTV camera relaying our exit to the duty operator in the operations room. We were sitting in a fouryear-old Vauxhall Viva that must have had a dozen number-plate changes in its short existence. The green bodywork was battered and there was rust everywhere – along the crumbling sills, on the jagged door bottoms, disfiguring one corner of the boot and eating into the dented towing hitch. A casualty of the constantly damp, saline air, it looked like a typical working vehicle: thoroughly neglected through lack of interest, lack of ambition and lack of money. The car would blend in nicely with the traffic. The last thing we wanted to do was draw attention to ourselves around the streets of West Belfast. I glanced at Taff, the driver. He looked as battered as the transport. A lean man with long, dirty-blond hair, he was wearing a scruffy overcoat and a face as sour as last week's wine. To the casual observer he could have been anyone – a farm labourer, a navvy – but he was as watchful as a hunting heron. Taff had been kicking around Ireland a long time and had served in the mobile reconnaissance force. Experienced, dependable, he had the nerve of a New York steeplejack. He was to be my guide for today's familiarization exercise. He knew Belfast like his own backyard.
We were each armed with a 9mm Browning automatic pistol. The four thirteen-round magazines gave me a feeling of security. The pistol grip of the 9mm protruding from the Len Dixon holster dug uncomfortably into my ribs as we drove out through the heavily reinforced gate sangar. We passed the perimeter lights and the coils of Dannet barbed wire and turned onto the main drag, heading straight for the M1. Once we got under way I removed the pistol, placed it on my lap between my legs and concealed it under a copy of the News of the World. As I read the latest 'Gay Boys in Bondage Scandal at Guards Depot', I held the pistol at the ready, thumb on safety-catch, trigger finger resting on the trigger guard.
Having consumed the sensational revelations, I brought my mind back to the day's job. With my free hand I clicked open the glove compartment, rummaged among an assortment of screwdrivers and fuses, a couple of torches and an old fan belt and took out a wellthumbed Ordnance Survey map of the area. The M1 looked like a blue artery, carrying the flow of life-blood straight into the beating heart of Republican West Belfast. This was our second week, and the last couple of days had been spent driving around various locations throughout the province, familiarizing ourselves with them, getting the feel of the place. Today, the big one: Belfast, the worst urban guerrilla battleground in the Western world.
The night-time temperature had dropped well below zero. The frost had spiked the grass verges with glinting feathery crystals and fossilized the trees into frozen wayside sentinels. As we drove through the dawn, the tyres of the vehicles in front of us showered our windscreen with speckles of road grime. Taff flicked on the wipers to clear our view, but succeeded only in smearing multi-arced lines across the glass. The wash liquid had frozen solid in the hopelessly narrow plastic feed-tubes. Then the low-lying early morning sun hit the filthy screen, momentarily blinding us. As we neared the city, Divis Mountain rose through the haze like a giant submarine coming to the surface in a sea of mist. The haze almost completely obscured the scramble of houses that jostled for position on the Republican estate at the mountain's base.
We turned off the motorway and took the west link to the Grosvenor Road roundabout. Following the left-hand lane up Grosvenor Road, we then headed straight for Provo land – past the Royal Victoria Hospital, through the traffic lights and on up the Springfield Road towards Turf Lodge. Taff navigated the area with practised ease, giving a running commentary as he drove. He had a story for every street. 'They fired an RPG at an armoured pig from behind that wall.' His voice drifted over the crackle of a radio transmission. 'They commanddetonated a dustbin full of explosives from across the wasteland.'
Everywhere I looked there were reminders that this was a highly dangerous environment. Row upon row of terraced houses had had their doors and windows bricked and boarded up, their gardens reduced to bombsites. It reminded me of the photographs I'd seen of London after the Blitz. The pavements outside the pubs were barricaded with huge concrete blocks. The pub windows were caged in heavy-duty wire netting as protection against car bombs and petrol bombers. The people on the streets looked cold and hostile. The dickers were out: bands of youths stood on street corners giving us maximum eyes as we drove past, as threatening as black gangs in the Bronx. Hyperactive, they had the air of mescalin-crazed marionettes: their eyes darted up and down, their heads jerked from side to side, and every now and again their arms shot out, hands flat and outstretched, palms upward.
We were now driving through Ballymurphy estate, heading for the Bullring. We hit the Whiterock Road and turned left, the sprawling Belfast cemetery on our right. The final RV. We drove on through the bleak winter day. And then we were turning left into the Falls Road, the Provo heartland, the centre of the deadliest killing grounds in Northern Ireland. We joined the stream of traffic heading towards Divis. The volume of black taxis seemed to increase significantly, their passenger compartments crammed to overflowing. A grey-painted RUC mobile, travelling just in front, swung left up Beechmount Avenue. The hard, alert faces of the two officers in the rear scanned the rooftops and upper windows for possible sniper positions.
We swept up on the Falls past the spot where an RF guy had been shot in his car. 'He forgot his counter-surveillance drills,' explained Taff simply. I peered through a hole in the condensation on the side-window, past the inside lane of traffic, at the dilapidated building on the corner of the junction with Springfield Road. Two youths lurking suspiciously in the doorway attracted my attention. I had been in Ulster only a short time, but already the same instincts that had been able to detect a presence of the Adoo in Oman had been tuned to a new level of alertness to cope with the altogether more sinister threat posed by this environment. These youths signalled danger. I fe
lt sure something was going to happen. What, and exactly how I could not tell, but something was going to happen. Without apparent movement, I adjusted my grip on the Browning pistol, and with my other hand, quietly located the exact position of the spare thirteen-round magazine. My breathing became imperceptibly quicker as the adrenaline began to flow. I glanced at the two youths out of the corner of my eye. The first youth was standing in the shadows, his head jerking swiftly from side to side as he observed the line of traffic. His mate stood slightly forward, more exposed. He was tall and arrogant-looking, his square stocky body clothed in an old bomber jacket. Both sets of eyes zapped like tracer into the rows of cars.
Then suddenly it happened.
In an instant, the tall youth was through the inside line of vehicles and around the back of the Viva, and was wrenching the driver's door open.
'Get out the cahr, or I'll blow yer fecking head orf.'
The coarse, rasping West Belfast accent cut through the silence in the car. It sounded as if the ligaments in the man's neck and throat were being stretched by some massive effort. My heart thumped and the pumping of blood beat in my ears. A flash-flood of adrenaline surged through my muscles as my hand tightened on the pistol grip of the 9mm. Only my eyes moved as I glanced over my right shoulder. The youth was standing next to Taff, jamming the door open with one leg. He tilted his head down from above the level of the car roof so that his voice would carry into the car and not alert passers-by or other drivers. All I could see was his bread-dough gut framed in the rear window of the Viva – a perfect target for a one-second double tap. I realized he could not see me from where he was. I thumbed the safety-catch on the Browning to fire, then hesitated, my breathing coming in short, shallow gasps. Where was the shooter? Show me a shooter, you bastard! Show me a shooter! His right hand was inside the unzipped bomber jacket. What happens if it's a bluff? What happens if I shoot and kill an unarmed man? I'll be up for murder and the Regiment will have fucked up as soon as it has arrived.
But there was also the other possibility. What if we had been tailed leaving the SF base? What if the whole thing was a carefully planned operation? What if we had been set up like Figure 11 targets? Did they think we were civvies on the way to work, or did they realize we were the Army doing an altogether different kind of job? Were we the target, or did they simply want the Viva for a car bomb? In a microsecond, I unspooled the whole of the morning's journey in my mind, desperately scanning every single frame, reassessing every minor incident, seeking the tiniest clue towards the solution of the dilemma I was facing: to shoot or not to shoot.
Nothing came. There wasn't even the vaguest hint of anything sinister. But was the observation merely a reflection of my own inexperience of this urban battlefield, rather than an accurate conclusion? The thoughts ran amok through my pulsating mind. Show me a shooter, you bastard! Show me a shooter! I screamed the words so loudly inside my head I was surprised no one heard me. The youth's hand remained stubbornly jammed inside his bomber jacket. There was only one possible thing to do. If I could catch a look at his mate, I might be able to read some sign in his facial expression, or his posture might give some tell-tale indication of focused aggression. But it was risky, very risky. If he eyeballed me he would realize at once what I was up to. He would recognize the soldier's training and the soldier's reaction. Our cover as civvies would be completely blown.
There was no choice. We were otherwise caught in a split-second, deadly stalemate. Quick as the snap of an alligator's jaw, I turned my head a fraction to the left, pumped my eyeballs as far into the corner of their sockets as they would go, shuttered the youth and returned my gaze to the front. Shit! Nothing! Not a single clue as to his intentions or his state of mind. Back to square one, back to the biggest choice of my life so far: to shoot or not to shoot. Time had run out. The pressure, the urgency swelling inside my head, was about to explode through my head like a bursting tyre. No more reflection. No more option assessment. No more hesitation. I had to make a choice! Now!
'You can fuck off, you wanker.'
At that precise split second I was catapulted free of my agonizing deliberation. Taff, his lean face set hard, had made the choice for me. He gripped the Viva's door handle, and, with a violent whiplash movement, yanked it momentarily towards himself, then instantaneously outwards with all the force and speed he could muster. He hit the hijacker square in the guts with the edge of the door, cracking his knee and jolting his gun arm. The man reeled back, floundering and stumbling with surprise, his mouth twisted in a grimace of pure hate. His right arm, flailing as he steadied himself, exposed an empty hand. There was no telling whether it had been clutching a gun inside the jacket or not. That's something I'll never know.
I had experienced fear before, in Dhofar: the nervous gut feeling at the beginning of a contact before the surge of tingling warmth, the adrenaline-induced relief, gradually took hold. But this was a different kind of fear. Never before had I experienced this sudden shock effect on my mind like the jolt of ice on a raw tooth-nerve, this drawn-out agonizing hesitation, this frustration of not finding relief in the smooth, efficient operation of the trigger. 'Go, go, go!' I heard myself shouting. 'Get the fuck out of here!'
Taff rammed the Viva into first gear and jabbed his foot down hard on the accelerator. The rear wheels spun viciously, spurting gravel, steam and burning rubber. 'Come on… Come on… Come on!' screamed Taff, frantically urging on the old car. The Viva suddenly lurched forward. Taff wrenched at the steering wheel and swung the car into the oncoming lanes, the still-open door flapping wildly like a peggedout sheet on washing day. The 1300cc engine screamed to destruction pitch as we shot through the red lights at the junction, playing a lifeand-death game of chicken with the screeching, swerving traffic hurtling crosswise towards us. We took a right turn up Grosvenor Road and straightened out towards the city centre. Taff leaned out, grabbed the flapping door – miraculously still on its hinges – and banged it shut. As I stabbed the speak button on the radio, I felt a tightness in my throat, I felt the waves of fear and indignation suddenly harden into savage realization. My mind was now in gear. Professionalism had taken over.
'Zero. Alpha. Over.' The transmission was clipped, hurried.
'Alpha from Zero. Send.'
'Alpha. Attempted hijack corner of Springfield and Falls.'
'Zero. Roger. Lift-off. Will send other call sign to investigate.'
'Alpha. Roger. Out.'
As the Viva roared up the Grosvenor Road, driving towards the west link and the M1, I sank back in my seat. I looked down at the hand holding the 9-milly. It was shaking slightly. I eased the safety-catch to 'safe' and replaced the copy of the News of the World. I could have been the lead story in next Sunday's edition, I reflected, if I'd pulled the trigger. The fame would have been as instant as the hijacker's death.
The uniformed policeman guarding the detention block at Castlereagh directed us into the shadows of the covered car park at the rear of the building. Taff eased the Viva to a halt and switched off the engine. It was evening. We both sat silent, expressionless, our heads turned, straining to see through the rear window. It was to be a covert identification parade. After the hijack incident, the local commander from Springfield Road Barracks had initiated a sweep of the area. Foot patrols and mobiles had trawled the Falls and Springfield areas, personnel-checking and lifting any suspicious youths. The haul was then transported to Castlereagh for further questioning. We now sat patiently, blacked out in the darkness of the car's interior, waiting for the ID parade to begin.
An arc light high up on the far wall flared into life, bathing the floor of the block to our rear in brilliant white light. A uniformed officer appeared and prodded four recalcitrant youths into our line of sight. The brightness of the light cascading down made them stare at the floor in front of them. Further prodding with a baton, accompanied by gruff, guttural threats, persuaded the youths to raise their eyes and look straight ahead to facilitate identification. The scene w
as stark and eerie. The sharp light trepanning into the dark of the night had eliminated all superfluous colour. All that remained was harsh black and pure white.
I studied the pale, hate-filled faces, my hand hovering over the car horn. The arrangement was that if I got a positive ID I would sound the horn once. I scanned the defiant faces again. 'Do you recognize anyone?' I asked Taff.
Soldier I Page 16
