by Alan Judd
Henry Sandy leaned across to Charles during the hubbub. ‘It won’t be long before it becomes a regimental custom, compulsory for all newcomers, whisky to be paid for by the subalterns.’
Dinner continued unabated. Eventually, when one or two people were well into their second course, the CO’s voice was raised in anger and all conversation stopped.
‘Get that out!’ he said, emphasising each word for all it was worth.
Everyone looked for the offending person, but there was no blushing subaltern or grief-stricken company commander to be seen. No one moved, except Anthony Hamilton-Smith who continued to eat whilst gazing with mild curiosity at the CO.
The CO banged his fist on the table. ‘Corporal James!’
The cook hurried in from the kitchen, his mouth hanging open and his flabby cheeks vibrating. ‘Sir.’
The CO pointed to the dish of gravy on the table. ‘Get that noxious liquid out of here.’
Corporal James picked up the dish. ‘Something wrong with it, sir?’
‘Everything’s wrong with it. It’s gravy.’
‘Sir. Did you want something else, sir?’
‘The point, Corporal James, is that it is gravy and I will not tolerate gravy in my Mess. I don’t care what else you give us but I never want to see that revolting brown liquid in here again. Got that?’
‘Sir.’
‘Thank you, Corporal James.’ Corporal James waddled out with the gravy. The CO poured himself some more wine and one or two people tried timidly to get the conversation going again.
Anthony Hamilton-Smith helped himself to some potatoes. ‘D’you not like gravy, Colonel?’ he asked.
‘I detest it, Anthony. Ghastly stuff. Can’t stand the sight of it.’
‘Oh dear, I didn’t know that,’ Anthony popped a large potato into his mouth.
After dinner the Mess split into its customary two camps. One consisted of the CO, Anthony Hamilton-Smith, the company commanders and those captains who felt it was time they were company commanders. The other comprised everyone else and included the adjutant, an unusually popular man with more than his share of that weary resignation that is habitual with some officers. The padre, who was no respecter of persons, moved freely and apparently unselfconsciously from one to the other. Philip Lamb hovered uneasily in between.
Night ambushes on lonely customs posts and isolated crossroads were a major feature of the battalion’s brief stay in Killagh. There were no results, although a sheep was shot, but the CO and the Intelligence officer, Nigel Beale, remained enthusiastic to the end. Nigel was a squat, broad-shouldered, newly-promoted captain who took his intelligence work very seriously. He was of an earnest disposition, a keen soldier who talked about the Need for Greater Professionalism. He sometimes engaged Charles in inconclusive conversations about the growth of subversive tendencies in the universities, the BBC and the press, and his manner suggested that he held Charles partly responsible. His definition of ‘subversive’ embraced the civilian population, the Royal Air Force and even certain regiments and corps of the Army, including Philip Lamb’s. A regular feature of his daily briefings – from which he tried without success to exclude Philip Lamb – was his insistence that those ambushing roads near the border should look out for flat-bedded lorries without lights. This soon became a joke throughout the battalion and one night no less than thirty-six such sightings were reported. Nigel was hurt and the CO furious. Walking-out was suspended for three days and no one ever again reported seeing a flat-bedded lorry. Nigel also had to pass on the daily intelligence summaries from Headquarters. This was another duty he took more seriously than his audience, except for the CO. Most of the topics he mentioned had been reported on and speculated about by the television news the day before. He was frequently mortified by this, regarding it almost as a breach of the need-to-know principle. This was the doctrine that secret information should be known only by those that, for the purposes of their jobs, needed to know it. It was applied by Nigel and the CO with great determination but little consistency, with the result that most people knew most things but weren’t sure what was secret and what wasn’t.
After a spate of particularly serious mid-week riots in Belfast Nigel told them that an intelligence source graded A1 had prophesied further trouble at the weekend.
‘D’you know who said that?’ asked Henry Sandy after the briefing.
‘No, I don’t,’ said Nigel, ‘and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.’
‘Well, I know and I can tell you. It was Jimmy Murphy, who commands the Third Battalion of the IRA in Belfast and is now resident in Dublin. He said it on Twenty-Four Hours last night.’
‘You shouldn’t have said that,’ Philip Lamb said afterwards. ‘It was cruel. It hurt him.’
‘Hurt him? It hurts me to think that we’ll have to rely on him for knowing what’s going on round the next street corner when we get to Belfast.’
Nigel Beale soon became a joke throughout the battalion, the more so because his intense earnestness seemed unaffected by reversals. The result was that his wrongs were recalled with relish while his rights, of which there were at least an equal number, went unrecorded.
One afternoon Charles went out for tea in the town with Henry Sandy, Philip Lamb and Chatsworth. The four of them, all young and variously disaffected, had instinctively formed a group apart from all the others. Though three were graduates, what brought them all together was not a shared education but a communal sense of discontent, albeit for differing reasons. Henry Sandy felt himself more suited to being a perpetual medical student than an Army officer, and did not like the CO. Philip Lamb had the sense of military inferiority common to many members of his corps and wanted very much to be needed and accepted, but felt neither. Charles, on the other hand, feared to be needed and accepted – dimly divining that that was a two-way process that would involve him in needing and accepting the Army – but was at the same time uncomfortable as an outsider. Basically, he wished people well but wished not to be too involved. Chatsworth, though, was perhaps more different than anyone. He had been posted to C company in place of John Wheel who had suddenly been moved to one of the other battalions without any reason being given. Chatsworth was tall, fair and gangling. He walked with his shoulders hunched, his hands clasped behind his back and his head nodding from side to side. He was nearly always grinning and was thought to be mad. On his first day he had mistaken Edward Lumley for the paymaster and they had had a long and confused discussion about allowances before Edward realised. On his second night he had ambushed and attempted to arrest an RUC patrol. He seemed unabashed by whatever happened.
‘I like the Army,’ he said, laughing after his scolding for the second incident. ‘I want to be a general. Napoleon commanded an army at twenty-six, which gives me just over three years. But I don’t think I like it here. I don’t like some of the people and some of them certainly don’t like me, particularly the CO now. But the main thing is there’s no killing. It’s boring. I hope it’ll change for the worse when we get to Belfast.’
They found a tea-shop near the town centre. It was run by an old lady and two young waitresses. It smelt of polish and home-made cakes. It seemed the sort of place where there was small chance of meeting off-duty soldiers. Charles found it a great pleasure to wear civilian clothes again. He had that morning received an hysterical and loving letter from Janet who had seen television film of the riots in Belfast and had positively identified him as a wounded officer being helped away. They ordered tea, toast and cakes.
‘I do enjoy tea,’ said Philip Lamb. ‘It’s so civilised, so nice. Except in the Mess where it’s like rugger and they all form a scrum round the toaster. I don’t like rugger.’ They all nodded seriously. ‘I used to enjoy breakfast too but that’s all become rather tense now. I sat down this morning and my pistol fell out of my pocket on to the floor with a great crash. Everyone stopped eating and the CO just stared. The only thing that saved me was that the same thing’s happened to him twice.�
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‘What gets me,’ said Henry, ‘is the way we attached officers have to carry our bloody pistols night and day while the regimental officers who have rifles can put them in the armoury when they don’t want to go out to play. I mean, we have to take ours to bed, to bath and to bog, with ammunition and a fifty quid fine if you lose any of it. Not that I’d know how to use the damn thing anyway.’
‘In the last resort,’ said Philip, ‘they’re for using on ourselves, I suspect. I’m sure I’m the only target I could hit anyway. Although I must admit that just holding it and looking at it gives one a pleasant feeling of lethality.’
Henry snorted. ‘The only lethal thing you could do with one of those is throw it at someone.’
‘Not true,’ said Chatsworth. ‘The nine-millimetre Browning is a lethal weapon, used properly. It’s more accurate than most of its users. But I agree about the pleasant feeling of lethality. I carry one all the time.’
‘You don’t,’ said Henry.
Chatsworth laughed and slapped his thigh. ‘Why does no one around here ever believe anything I say?’
‘We usually hope you’re kidding.’
Chatsworth opened his jacket enough to reveal a shoulder-holster. ‘It’s not the Army’s, it’s my own. Legally, more or less. Though we’re not supposed to bring private firearms out here, are we?’
‘Why do you carry it?’
‘Well, you never know.’
‘Never know what?’
‘What might happen. I always used to carry one in Panama.’
‘In where?’
‘The CO does too. You look at him next time he’s in civvies going to some dinner that he’s refused on our behalf. You can see he’s wearing a shoulder-holster.’
‘I thought everyone in that Mess was mad,’ said Henry. ‘You’re the maddest.’
‘I hope you’re right. I might make general yet. You see, none of the others know they’re mad but I know I am so I can make use of it.’
‘Just keep on the way you’re going.’
The waitress was a plump, homely, blushing girl with dark curls and rosy cheeks. ‘I haven’t touched a woman for nearly two weeks,’ Henry confided to her, seriously.
Chatsworth grinned at her. ‘I like women. I like you. Do you like me?’
Henry continued to gaze earnestly at her. ‘For two weeks all I’ve seen of women is photographs.’
The girl dumped the tea-pot in front of Henry, almost in his lap. ‘Keep looking,’ she said. ‘You might have more luck with photographs.’
Chatsworth stood up. ‘May I follow you into the kitchen?’
Trying not to smile the girl ran back into the kitchen as fast as her tray would allow. Chatsworth followed her and came out after a couple of minutes, still grinning. They paid and left and walked back up the hill to the barracks.
‘What did you do in there?’ asked Philip.
‘Nothing. Just got her name and address, that’s all. And telephone number.’
‘But you won’t be allowed out to see her.’
‘I shall break out. I gave her the CO’s name as mine. She thinks I’m a colonel.’
‘You are mad.’
‘I feel randy.’
‘Since our interests seem to be similar,’ said Henry, ‘would you like to come to one of the medical centre porn shows?’
‘Do you have any porn?’
‘Quite a lot. One of the orderlies gets it. It’s really hard stuff. I think you’d like it.’
Chatsworth nodded seriously. ‘I would, yes. When shall I come down?’
‘Any time. Just say you’re reporting sick and ask for me.’
‘How very appropriate,’ said Philip.
Charles’s platoon was doing the town patrol that night but instead of being able to sleep in the cell of the local police station from midnight on as usual, he was kept up until four in the morning by an explosion at the brewery. It was a small incendiary bomb and there was little damage because it had been badly placed on a window-sill. Charles’s soldiers put out the small fire before the fire brigade arrived but there was then a lot of hanging around whilst the bomb disposal man, known as an ATO (Ammunition Technical Officer) searched the area for more bombs. The brewery manager appeared and gave Charles a couple of bottles of whisky for his soldiers. Unfortunately, the CO also appeared and redirected the bottles to the Officers’ and Sergeants’ Messes. The CO was greatly pleased by the event and said it was proof that the battalion’s high level of activity had forced the enemy to waste his resources on soft targets.
The battalion’s level of activity was very high. The frenetic tempo of operations at first bewildered the local people, then impressed them and finally, when no results were forthcoming, evoked their ridicule. Everyone was very tired by the end of the first week and so much more so by the end of the second that the lack of results was not even slightly depressing. No one bothered to enquire.
That morning Charles was telephoned at six and told to report with his platoon to the barracks an hour before time. They got there to find that three companies were to carry out an area search of some flat land about ten miles away. They were to leave at once. Edward was panicking. Charles pointed out that his men had had no breakfast and, for the most part, no sleep.
Edward put both hands on top of his black beret, forcing it down almost to the bridge of his nose. ‘Charles, for Christ’s sake, don’t stand there arguing. Now means now. Just get your platoon in the lorries and get them out of here before the CO sees you haven’t gone yet. Everyone else has.’
Charles got his platoon into the waiting lorries, which were smoking and coughing in the clear morning air. They got mixed up with some of A company and had to debus and then embus again. By this time Edward was frantic. Soldiers were milling around everywhere. ‘Charles, just get in the nearest bloody lorry and go!’ he shouted. ‘Take everyone with you.’
Charles felt like shouting back but didn’t. ‘Nobody’s told us where we’re going,’ he said. ‘The driver doesn’t know.’
‘Don’t be so pathetic. Find Sergeant Wheeler. I gave him the grid reference. You can map-read your way. I’ll follow in my Land-Rover and hoot if you go wrong. Now clear off, for God’s sake.’
Everyone scrambled aboard something and at last the lorries coughed and spluttered out of the gates. Charles was in the cab of the leading one. After a while he asked the driver if Edward’s Land-Rover was following.
‘No, sir,’ said the driver with complete confidence and without looking in the mirror.
‘How do you know?’
The driver grinned. ‘His driver’s in the back with us. That’s what comes of all the hurry.’
The search lasted all day and covered several grid squares on the one-inch map. The land was very flat with many ditches and marshes and few trees. The weather was crisp and clear and it was a pleasant day’s walk for those who had slept. No one really knew what they were looking for nor where to look. At about mid-morning they came across some tinkers with their horses and caravans. They were small, sullen, frightened-looking people from across the border who resisted any attempt to get to know them by speaking only Gaelic, and little enough of that.
There was a lunchtime rendezvous with one of the lorries, from which they were served pints of hot Army tea and sandwiches. Charles said to Nigel Beale, ‘Why didn’t you tell us last night that we were going to do this?’
‘Need to know.’ Nigel munched briskly. ‘The only ones who knew were those without whom it couldn’t be done.’
‘What about those who are doing it?’
‘No need to know.’
‘Do you really expect to find anything?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘What are we looking for?’
‘Arms and explosives.’
‘Yes, but any particular sort?’
‘Need to know.’
During the afternoon the CO hovered overhead in a helicopter, causing everyone to poke more purposefully into the
ditches and derelict barns. By last light the only thing found was a rusty shotgun in one of the latter.
When Charles got back, feeling very flat and tired, he had to see that his platoon cleaned their kit and their weapons properly as Sergeant Wheeler had once again disappeared. It turned out that he had been delayed returning from the search area as the provisions lorry, in which he should not have been, had become stuck in a bog and had to be towed out. By the time Charles got back to his own quarters all the baths were occupied and by the time he got into one the hot water was cold. However, the cold bath refreshed him sufficiently to turn his flatness into decisiveness for a while and, knowing he would soon be too tired again to bother, he sat down and quickly wrote a letter to the Retirements Board. He said that he was considering resigning, giving no reasons, and asked under what conditions his resignation might be accepted. He had been thinking about doing this for some time but had hesitated to take such a decisive and eventually public step. He knew that his resignation would have to be submitted through the CO, but he did not yet want the CO to know that he wished to leave. He would feel more sure of his ground when he knew whether or not it was possible to leave. He told no one what he was doing.
