by Alan Judd
Sergeant Mole wrapped the revolver preciously in a piece of cloth. The man stared at the threadbare carpet. No one looked up at them when they left.
Only one of the other houses searched yielded anything, in this case a worthwhile find. There was an old British Army .303 Lee-Enfield rifle, two hundred rounds of 7.62 ammunition, twenty pounds of home-made explosive and, under the floor of a shed, a home-made mortar. The CO was delighted and stayed in the area of the search longer than was necessary in the hope of provoking a riot which he could quell, but none came. It was likely that the trouble, if there were any, would be a planned demonstration some days later, although even this was not that likely since trouble usually followed fruitless rather than successful searches.
Back in the Factory the CO had drinks in the ops room and ordered everyone to join him. Drink and his own boisterous good humour accentuated all his normal characteristics, and he gave a lecture on the Lee-Enfield, using the captured one as a demonstration model. When he had finished, his eyes lighted upon Charles. ‘Ah, Charles, I want to speak to you.’ Still holding the rifle, he grabbed Charles by the arm and propelled him into a corner where he spoke in low, earnest, conspiratorial terms, apparently imagining that no one else was listening. ‘You’ve done well, you’ve done bloody well, but it’s not on, I’m afraid. Politicians won’t allow it. Too much of a hot potato. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘Right, sir.’ Charles was not certain that he knew what the CO was talking about, but it was a response that worked its usual magic.
‘Good man. Knew you’d take it like that.’ He squeezed Charles’s arm hard, his dark eyes brimming with sincerity and alcohol. ‘It’s infuriating, I know. We know they’re there but we can’t touch them. Had it right from the top. They must have a source. Keep it under your hat. And to think they could be used on my soldiers, that’s what makes me want to scream blue murder. I’d raze the place to the ground if I had my way. Rid these poor people of their priests, their politicians and their paramilitary thugs – and us, mind you, and us – and give them a chance to get on with their lives in peace. The day will come, I hope. For the time being no joy, though. But you did well, Charles. Let’s have more of it.’
The CO grinned and punched Charles playfully in the stomach. His face was so close that Charles could see the back of his tongue. ‘Good man. Have another drink. Don’t argue. We’ll knock this university stuff out of you yet.’
Charles made his escape unnoticed after the CO had finished with him. He lay down in his partition but could hear the drinking going on for another couple of hours. Months later it fell to the company officers to pay for the drinks.
Part Two
To Battalion Headquarters
6
The company’s spirits remained relatively high for some days after the arms finds. The shooting of Chatsworth also contributed to good morale. Everyone was amused because it was Chatsworth, and the story was put about, to his annoyance, that he really had been shot by a monk. Soldiers made jests to him about what clerical gentlemen carried beneath their vestments, and how the real meaning of Holy Orders was ‘Aim – steady – fire’. Spirits were lifted by the mere fact of a shooting, since something happening was always more exciting than nothing.
The worst times for everyone were periods of inactivity during which the boredom and the drudgery of military life wore on remorselessly. Like everyone else, Charles was short on sleep and temper and was, indeed, more tired than during active periods because then the excitement was stimulating and the tiredness healthy. Living conditions in the all-male military community were cheerless and sordid; patrolling, guarding, cleaning and watchkeeping formed a grinding and unending routine.
Underlying everything in his life was the feeling that no one in the world cared for him. He suspected that everyone felt this. It was evident in occasional surliness and in the deliberate, hearty display of lack of emotion. The positive side of this was that he found he worried less about his own concerns but at the same time he cared less for other people, and noticed them less.
Each man developed a front of unconcern, which in some was ingrained, to the extent that the more he hardened himself the more he relied upon the corporate identity to take the place of his own. This corporate identity could be seen and felt: each man borrowed from it and lent to it; it embraced all and excluded none, to such an extent that all seemed merely to be aspects of it. It was difficult to say how much these conditions contributed to the suicide of Lance-Corporal Winn but, whether or not they acknowledged it, everyone felt that the contribution must have been substantial.
Lance-Corporal Winn was a small, chunky soldier from Birmingham, a man of few words but reliable and conscientious. He appeared to have little or no ambition to distinguish himself but simply jogged along and ‘kept his nose clean’, as the Army would have it. Charles knew him by sight but had never spoken to him, except to give orders when mounting guard in Aldershot. In time he would probably have made sergeant. The day before his death he had been told by another soldier, who had had a letter from his own wife, that back in Aldershot his wife had been carrying on with someone from one of the other regiments there. He had not said much about this at the time. In fact, his informant had had the impression that he didn’t much care. He had been on guard duty that night and had shot himself just after six, when he had come off duty. He had walked over to where the Pigs were parked in the Factory yard and had gone behind one of them. His relief, who had not spoken to him except to remark upon the cold, had assumed that he had gone to pee against the wall. When the shot came, he and one of the other guards had run to the Pig and found Winn on the ground behind it, but with the back half of his head splattered over the wall. He had apparently rested his rifle butt on the ground, bent over and put his mouth round the barrel.
Winn was in Tim’s platoon and Tim had been roused immediately. Henry Sandy was sent for and the body taken away in his Land-Rover ambulance. The padre came and Tim was unnecessarily rude to him. Arrangements were made to inform Winn’s widow through the Families officer in Aldershot. The CO appeared during the morning and talked to Edward, Tim and the soldier who had received the letter. The effect on the company – and, to a lesser extent, on the rest of the battalion – was to lower morale for a few days. Everyone was quieter and more serious, there was none of the normal banter and boisterousness amongst the soldiers nor any of the perennial grumbling that was so necessary to them. However, things were done quietly and conscientiously, and there was less fuss. But days pass in the Army as they do everywhere else and normality reasserts itself with the willing assistance of everyone, perhaps more quickly than in civilian life because of the consciousness of common purpose. Layer upon layer of daily and nightly routine soon smothered any exceptional event.
Charles was not sorry, though, when a telephone call summoned him with all his kit to battalion headquarters. There had been another shooting: Philip Lamb had inadvertently shot himself in the foot and Charles had to take his place as PRO. He was glad to leave the company and the Factory. The people and the place had become depressingly familiar, like a tedious argument for ever repeated and never resolved. There was a dreary intimacy about it all from which he was glad to free himself. The police station occupied by battalion HQ, though far from comfortable, could not fail to be an improvement upon the Factory, and dealing with the press would be a welcome change from the sordid concerns of his platoon, where kit inspections and deficiencies seemed to be the paramount concern in his life. Sergeant Wheeler was to look after the platoon until a new subaltern arrived from the Depot. Charles bade him goodbye in the Factory yard with what seemed even to himself an absurd formality considering he was moving half a mile or so.
‘’Spect we’ll see you back with all them press poofters, sir,’ Sergeant Wheeler said as they shook hands.
‘No doubt, and I shall expect your help.’
‘You’ll be too good for us then, sir. You won’t want to know us.’
&nb
sp; ‘Goodbye, Sergeant Wheeler. Good luck.’
‘Goodbye, sir, and you, sir.’
Despite the relief at leaving the Factory there were disadvantages about going to battalion HQ. It was renowned throughout the battalion as a place of madness and fear. In addition to the loathing which most soldiers have for the headquarters of higher formations, even their own, the personality of the CO pervaded the building and induced in all who entered it a sense of urgency bordering on panic and the feeling that heads were about to roll. As Charles’s Land-Rover entered the gates into the yard around which the police station was built he already began to feel that there had, after all, been something homely and reassuring about company life. Battalion HQ contained much that was unknown and hence dangerous for second lieutenants. No move in the Army was entirely for the better.
‘Going to be murder with the CO breathing down your neck all the time,’ Edward had said. ‘Rather you than me, old son. Still, it’s more your sort of line, I suppose, all this press rubbish. You read books. Apparently, the new chap we’re getting is very good. Bit of life and a drop of new blood won’t do the company any harm. Drop in and see us sometime when you’re swanning around. Don’t forget to hand your kit in to the company stores. And your rifle.’
‘No more action for you,’ Chatsworth had said. ‘You’re being more or less pensioned off. There might be some women amongst these journalists, so bear me in mind. You know, the sort who have to do it to prove to themselves how liberated they are. With a chauvinistic Ackie shit like me they can feel they’re even more liberated than they thought by embracing the opposition, so to speak. Poor fools. Bring ’em round for an interview.’
It turned out that Philip Lamb had shot his foot whilst entering B company’s location with a TV team. While unloading his pistol for the sentry’s inspection, as was compulsory when entering any defended area, he had carelessly cocked it with the full magazine still in and, pointing towards the ground, had squeezed the trigger to clear it. The TV team had filmed his subsequent writhings. It was the first negligent discharge in the battalion and the CO, who was furious, had fined him heavily. He had brought public disgrace to the regiment and the CO was determined not to have him back.
Charles reported to the adjutant, Colin Wood. Colin, who had left the Army to go into business and had rejoined it after marrying, looked as weary and long-suffering as might be expected of anyone who worked closely with the CO. But he had a reputation for competence and sanity, and his face was kindly. Having been outside the Army, he did not regard all civilians as odd nor all subalterns as criminally irresponsible. ‘Nice to have you with us, Charles,’ he said, balancing on the rear legs of his chair and clasping his hands behind his head. ‘We could do with a new face round here. You’ve got a pretty cushy job, but apart from that it’s all bad news. You’re sharing a bedroom with Tony Watch and an office with me. You’re on the list for watchkeeping in the ops room, which means three eight-hour shifts a week – six till two, two till ten, ten till six. You also have to help me deal with complaints from the locals, of which there are many, and you have some sort of responsibility under Anthony Hamilton-Smith for community relations. Though I don’t think there’s too much of that going on. There’s a telly in the Mess, which sometimes works, the food’s awful and we’re still not allowed gravy. You have to wear a pistol and carry ammunition at all times, including in the bath if you can find one, so better draw one from the armoury. We’re not allowed out, of course, except on duty, and the press, I’m told, can be very difficult. If anyone in the battalion cocks it up the CO will hold you responsible. Apart from all that it’s heaven.’
Colin’s office was on the first floor of the building above the entrance, overlooking the street. The police station had been built during the late 1950s and, like many of Ulster’s police stations, was halfway towards being a fortified barracks from its very inception. There were steel shutters on all the windows through which the defenders could fire, if necessary, by sliding little peep-holes to one side. The office floor, Charles was told, was eighteen inches of reinforced concrete and supposed to be blast-proof. Surprisingly, though, the entrance to the police reception area was unguarded – on orders from some civilian official, who was anxious that members of the public should not feel intimidated in coming to police stations. There was an Army guard inside, however. It did not take Charles long to settle in, if dumping his kit on a bed in the corner of a disused office could be called settling in. At least this time the bed was a real one, with blankets and sheets.
Charles was then sent down to the military hospital to be ‘put in the picture’ – a very common phrase – about his new duties by Philip Lamb. Philip was in a junior officers’ ward for not too serious cases, a quiet and lightly populated place. His right foot was bandaged and supported. He was propped up on pillows, reading David Stirling’s account of the formation of the Long Range Desert Patrol Group, later to become the Special Air Service. Philip was one of the few officers Charles had met who seemed to take a serious interest in war. His neat, precise face looked as worried and anxious as usual but he smiled when he saw Charles. ‘I’m so glad it’s you,’ he said. ‘Do sit down. The CO was going to appoint Chatsworth, of all people. Can you imagine? He’d kill somebody, he’s so tactless. I sent a message to him through Colin saying that you were the only officer in the battalion who could read English, let alone write it. He must have listened to me for once. Because, of course, it is a job that requires a certain amount of judgment, as you’ll have gathered, and you have to be able to see things from the point of view of a civilian. It’s ridiculous to suppose that most of our comrades-in-arms could ever do that. You were the obvious choice. Of course, your problem’s the other way round, if anything. You’ll have no problem about not being too military but you mustn’t let them forget that you are in the Army. Hope you don’t mind being pushed into it like this?’
‘It didn’t take much pushing. I was only too pleased to get out of the Factory.’
‘Of course, yes. Must’ve been rather grim there. I’m sorry to leave the job, to be honest. I didn’t want to. I could’ve come back when I’m better but the CO didn’t seem to want me. I think he’s rather angry about what I did, though it could have happened to anyone, as far as I can see. Just one of those things.’ He closed his book and changed his position carefully. ‘There are a few perks to the job, you know, apart from meeting the journalists, who are very nice. You can occasionally put on civilian clothes and visit their offices, and you don’t have to do watchkeeping.’
‘I do.’
‘Do you really?’ Philip looked puzzled. ‘I never did. Perhaps they didn’t trust me. Anyway, you’ll find all the necessary files in my office, as well as a kind of Who’s Who of the press in Northern Ireland. The PR desk at HQ are also very helpful. That’s another little swan you can arrange for yourself – visits to them. Not that they’re a waste of time, far from it. But it’s just very good to get out of battalion HQ now and again. Clears the cobwebs of the mind a little and even breathes hope of life into the soul. Perhaps that’s going a bit far, but you know what I mean. It’s good to get out.’
‘Thanks. What about the press themselves?’
‘Very charming on the whole. I think so, anyway. Of course, you have to protect them from the CO. He can be quite beastly and ruin in a minute all the good-will you’ve built up over a month. Actually, I think he’s terrified of them, though there are a couple you have to be careful with, I must admit. There’s one called Brian Beazely who’s the most awful incompetent, drunken bore, to be avoided because he’s a nuisance rather than malicious – has been known to misquote rather embarrassingly. And then no one ever believes your side of it. They all think you must have said whatever it was because it’s there in print. Such is the power of Master Caxton. And the other one to watch for is Colm McColm of the Gazette, the Southern Irish Gazette. He’s very anti, and the trouble with him is he’ll quote you exactly, which is almost as bad. Ver
y pro-IRA. Probably in it, for all I know. He can hear a whisper from two streets away, so watch him. Always asks awkward questions in public.’
‘Where do you meet them?’
‘Oh, they’ll come to you. You’ll get to know them soon enough.’ He fidgeted a little with the bedclothes and Charles was about to ask him about his foot, which he would have done before had Philip not been so eager to talk about the job, when he continued morosely: ‘I suppose you’ll have my pistol. I’m sure there’s something wrong with it, you know. I wish they’d let me just have another look at it. I took it on the range four times and it misfired on three. Then it fires when it shouldn’t. The armourer examined it and said it was just me but I don’t think he was interested, so do be careful, Charles. As it was, I was rather lucky. Apparently, I’ll be all right, but I’ll have to learn to walk again, they tell me. It was the first time I’d ever hit anything with it.’
Charles tried to be cheerful. ‘Perhaps you’ll get compensation. Terrorists do, don’t they? So there’s no reason why you shouldn’t.’
‘If I did it might go some way towards paying the fine, but I don’t suppose I shall. I mean, they look at it differently if you do it yourself. I’ve found my insurance doesn’t cover it either. D’you know, the CO was going to charge me with self-inflicted injury, a court-martial offence, I think? I had to fill in no end of forms to prove it wasn’t deliberate, though how they prove anything, I don’t know.’
Philip was looking increasingly miserable. Charles made another effort. ‘What are the other people in here like?’
‘Oh, all right, I s’pose. Usual sorts, you know. Trouble is, they were all shot by someone else. It makes a difference. That I wasn’t and that I am the education officer has become something of a joke. The whole hospital knows about it and all the visitors. Some of them even come to see me and laugh. I think it’s all a little insensitive to be honest.’
