by Alan Judd
One evening came the first serious riot in which the battalion was involved. There had been no indication of trouble at the five o’clock ‘prayers’ – indeed, Nigel Beale had forecast a quiet period during which the IRA were ‘regrouping’ – and there was no apparent reason for it, though it was later said to have been a test of the battalion’s reaction. ‘They wanted to know whether they were dealing with soft nuts or hard nuts,’ the CO said afterwards. ‘Well, now they know.’
It began during dinner, which was an event in itself that night. Most mealtimes were a forum for the CO to pronounce upon anything in the world, military or civil. Usually, he chose those aspects of the world that disagreed with him, and so there was never any shortage of subjects. His audience was mainly passive and respectful, which he interpreted as meaning agreement, though a few competed with each other in their efforts to heap fuel on the fire of his opinion. Anthony was the only one who would ever disagree, usually on some point of regimental history or etiquette or in some arcane area where he alone seemed to possess certain knowledge. In particular, he always seemed to know of some tribe somewhere whose habits contradicted any generalisation made about human behaviour. On matters of political or military moment, however, he remained silent.
On this occasion the CO was giving his opinion on an article by the Sunday Truth’s Hindsight team, which was about Army searches of Catholic houses. It said that nothing had been found in a large number of houses, that many families had been deeply upset and frightened, that several who were interviewed had alleged brutality and violence and that many felt the houses had been selected on a purely sectarian basis. There were accounts of two women receiving treatment for nervous afflictions and a few paragraphs about the effect upon children. The article ended by quoting a bland statement from Headquarters which denied sectarian discrimination and unprovoked violence and maintained that the Army had a duty to search houses if they believed there might be weapons hidden in them.
The CO dealt with the matter over his soup. ‘Muck-raking, that’s what it is. They’re simply trying to stir things up. Some of these bloody journalists are no more than left-wing communist agitators.’ He looked at Charles, whom he viewed as being in some way responsible for whatever appeared in the papers or on radio or television. If by nothing else, Charles was guilty by association. ‘Isn’t that true, Charles?’
‘I’ve not met the Hindsight people, sir.’
‘Don’t be diplomatic with me. They’re subversive. They’re trying to destroy the fabric of our society. They’re on the other side. No matter what we do they criticise it. And they’re getting control of the media, which is why they’re so dangerous. Not that all of them are downright evil, mind you’ – the company waited in respectful silence whilst he sipped a spoonful of soup, some of which dribbled off the edge of the spoon and plopped back into the bowl – ‘not all of them. Some of them are dupes. Well-meaning, academic, intellectual, left-wing dupes. The universities and the press are full of them. One thing they don’t know is who’s paying them, where the money’s coming from. Whose dupes they are. That’s why they’re dangerous.’
There was a general nodding of heads. Charles concentrated on his soup, but the adjutant ventured calmly: ‘All the same, there’s probably a degree of truth in some of what they say. The Ackies can be rough if something’s upset them and whatever reason we have for searching these people it must look to them as if we do it simply because they live where they do, especially when we don’t find anything. I think a lot of these large-scale searches do more harm than good. We’ve been lucky with ours so far. They’ve been small-scale and we’ve usually found something. And I don’t know that there’s really any organised political conspiracy in the media.’
The CO banged his spoon down. ‘There you are. Just what I’ve been saying.’ There was an embarrassed silence for a few moments and then he laughed. ‘They’ve even turned my own adjutant against me!’ A ripple of relieved mirth ran round the table and the CO smiled indulgently at the adjutant. ‘It’s not an organised political conspiracy that I’m talking about, Colin, it’s the coercion of opinion. They create a climate of acceptability in which everything is acceptable so long as you accept what they choose for you. It’s a kind of political pornography they’re trying to force down our throats. You’ll just have to take my word for it, I’m afraid. When you get to my position and see some of the confidential documents that I see you’ll know what I mean. You’ll see these people in their true colours, which is more than they do themselves, I can assure you.’
The adjutant seemed content to have made his point. There was no arguing with the CO. Charles, whose turn it was to buy the wine that evening, occupied the ensuing pause by filling their glasses. The conversation then turned, as it frequently did, to the iniquities of the neighbouring unit, a regiment of gunners from Germany. The CO prefaced his remarks by saying that one shouldn’t make disparaging remarks about other regiments, and that one should always bear in mind that these chaps were trained to fire missiles from thirty miles behind the lines; they were not the sort of chaps who could be expected to come to grips with the enemy. Anthony Hamilton-Smith thought they were all right at polishing their cannonballs and keeping their powder dry, but not very fleet of foot when it came to dodging round street corners. There then followed a catalogue of their misdeeds and inadequacies. Right or wrong, the CO was a prisoner of his own prejudices. There could be no serious opposition to anything he said, and so his own opinions were mirrored back to him, reinforcing the original, showing only himself, and himself as right. There was no chance of change or advance where there was no chance of contradiction, no limitation at all.
For some minutes all except the CO, who was talking, had been aware that the radio operator in the ops room next door was acknowledging more signals than usual. Tony Watch was the duty watchkeeper. After more radio chatter he hurried into the Mess and bent over the CO’s shoulder, a little too confidentially. ‘From Alpha One, sir, a crowd of youths in the Falls Road, stoning vehicles. Twenty so far and increasing.’
The CO swallowed his mouthful and gave himself a moment’s indigestion. He put his hand on his chest until it had passed. ‘The Falls is turning nasty, is it? We’ll have our punch-up yet. Where on the Falls?’
‘Junction with Leeson Street, sir. Border between us and the Gunners.’
‘Right on the border?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Damn.’ The CO put his hand to his chest again and there was another moment’s silence. ‘Inform Brigade and keep me posted, will you?’
Tony Watch returned to the ops room and could soon be heard calling up Brigade. ‘Would be right on the border,’ the CO continued. ‘The Gunners’ll probably have the most God-awful riot on their hands and not have a clue how to handle it, while we sit here and twiddle our thumbs and watch. Our boys could do with a riot, too. They’re getting bored, idle and troublesome. Twice as many on Orders this week as when we arrived. Just shows you can’t keep highly-trained infantrymen sitting around on their arses all day and all night.’
Charles resumed his argument with the piece of steak that was the officers’ dinner that night – the soldiers, because there were more of them, had a choice. It seemed likely that dinner would be disturbed, and so Charles determined to eat as much as possible. The Falls Road and its neighbourhood was the traditional home of Belfast Republicanism, and although at one point it was no more than a few hundred yards from the Protestant Shankhill Road, the two were different worlds. Many of the inhabitants of each never had and never would venture on to the other. (Charles had heard that during a bombing raid in the Second World War some of the people on the Falls had lit bonfires to guide the German bombers, until they found that the bombers aimed for the fires.) Within a few minutes there were two RUC reports of large numbers of youths moving along the Falls. Someone said that an informer had informed to the effect that ‘the word was out’.
There was a loud ‘Roger. Wait out,’
and Tony Watch strode purposefully back into the Mess. ‘Alpha One report petrol bombing and heavy stoning, sir. They’ve deployed two platoons but they can’t act effectively without going into the Gunners’ patch.’
The CO grinned and drained his glass. ‘Well, gentlemen, I think we’d better get down there and sort it out. Call out the Rover Group.’
‘It’s been done, sir.’
Charles hastily swallowed his last mouthful and followed the CO out of the Mess. He found his flak jacket, combat jacket and webbing but could not remember where he had put his tin helmet. He eventually found it under his bed and hurried down into the enclosed yard where the Land-Rovers were already revving. There was a lot of movement and shouting. The CO was already in his Land-Rover and yelled to Charles to buck up. He then shouted at someone else and it was soon clear that he was shouting at everyone he saw. Charles scrambled into the back of the vehicle, helped roughly by the signals sergeant who always travelled with the CO. He accidentally kicked Nigel Beale, who was too busy with his folder to do more than glare angrily. The iron gates swung open and the Land-Rovers lurched noisily out, to the accompaniment of the signals sergeant’s crisp ‘Hallo Alpha Zero. This is Alpha Nine leaving your location now, over,’ and battalion HQ’s equally crisp, ‘Alpha Zero, roger out.’
It was dusk and there was a lot of traffic. They went down the middle of the road as though there was none at all, before turning with an unnecessary squealing of tyres into the Falls. This was a broad (by Belfast standards), drab, winding road lined by small houses in bad repair and with many mean, narrow little roads opening off it. There was ominously little traffic here, and the CO pulled the heavy iron grille up over the windscreen. The escort vehicles behind them did the same. Charles touched his tin helmet on the floor with his foot, to make sure it was still there, and looked at everyone else’s respirators, hoping fervently that there would be no need for them. His own was still missing, and he was far more concerned about the CO’s reaction to this fact than he was about his own reaction to CS gas. Fortunately, it was a weapon the CO did not favour, being too indiscriminate, and so it was unlikely that they would use it.
Most other sounds were drowned by the high-pitched whine of the Land-Rover’s differentials and tyres. They bumped uncomfortably along the road at an alarming speed. Two soldiers held macralon shields across the back, and through them Charles could just see the houses, which appeared to sway and jerk as much as the Land-Rover. He sat back against the side of the vehicle, only to find that the canvas was reinforced only by plywood and not by the macralon he had expected. Macralon was occasionally bullet-proof but the wood was not even properly brick-proof. He leant forward again, his stomach feeling light and empty. He drew some unjustifiable comfort from the presence of others and even some from the noise of the vehicle.
Very soon the ride became bumpier and Charles noticed a lot of broken bricks and bits of metal scattered across the road behind them. The driver suddenly braked hard and Charles and Nigel Beale were flung to the floor. They sorted themselves out with some loss of temper but they were both so anxious to find out what was happening that they immediately forgot their disagreements. The Land-Rover was stopped and by peering between the bulky radios Charles could see through the front windscreen and grille. The street ahead was grey in the sinister twilight. It was littered with debris, and some hundred yards ahead was blocked by a large mob of youths. There was some shouting but only occasionally did a brick or bottle hurtle down and smash on the road, sending bits skidding across the surface. At this stage it still seemed gratuitous, even laconic. Some soldiers from the two A company platoons were crouched in doorways on both sides of the street and Ian Macdonald, their company commander, was talking to the CO through the Land-Rover window. His precise Scottish tones were calm and unhurried.
‘They’re just inside the Gunners’ patch,’ he said. ‘What we can see is the back of them. Albert Street is the next on your right, and our boundary stops just this side of it.’
The CO was following with his finger on the map. ‘What are the Gunners doing about it?’
‘Nothing, so far as I can see. They’re receiving a lot more stick than we are and they’re just standing behind their shields and taking it. You can see them if you walk up closer to the mob.’
‘Typical. No imagination, no flair. What do they intend to do – stand there all night, I suppose? Meanwhile, the mob is facing both ways.’
‘What’s more, the mob apparently have a petrol tanker,’ continued Macdonald. ‘I spoke to a Gunner officer earlier who’d come into our patch by mistake. He said they think it’s round the corner at the bottom of Albert Street, out of sight. It was hijacked in North Belfast this afternoon.’
The muscles in one of the CO’s cheeks twitched slightly as he compressed his lips hard. ‘You’re telling me that this mob has a petrol tanker hidden away, laden with fuel, that they’ve had it since this afternoon and this herd of Gunners are standing round like a lot of spare what’s-its at a party doing sod-all about it?’
‘That’s what it looks like, sir.’
‘And this lot of yobbos in front are creating a diversion while the real villains are down there syphoning off enough petrol to keep them in bombs till the unicorns return. You would not credit it. You would simply not credit it.’ He looked down at his map. ‘Where are your Pigs, Ian?’
‘Round the corner, out of sight.’
‘I don’t anticipate much resistance from those louts. They’ll simply fall back into Albert Street when we hit them and form a hard core round the tanker. Ian, one of your platoons is on foot and the other’s in the Pigs, right? Keep the one on foot here for the time being to hold this stretch of the road. The one in Pigs should follow me at about thirty seconds’ interval. I’m going to get Brigade’s permission to trespass. I and my two escort vehicles will charge the mob and drive right through it. We’ll then form a blockade across the road on the Gunners’ side of the mob. Your platoon in Pigs will come thundering up behind them whilst they’re chucking their all at us, will debus and make arrests. Prisoners to go back in the Pigs to battalion HQ. I think the mob will then scatter down the side streets, mainly into Albert Street, leaving us in control of the junction. We can see where we go from there.’
‘Right, sir.’
Ian’s grizzled head disappeared and the CO called up Brigade. He reported that he was under attack from petrol and nail bombs which were being thrown from the Gunners’ area, and asked permission to enter and make arrests. He mentioned the tanker, for good measure. It was the Brigade commander who replied. As usual, his voice procedure was non-existent and his tone vague, even lethargic, but his message was clear. ‘Thank you,’ he drawled. ‘I know about the tanker. I’ve known about it for some hours. I’m delighted that someone proposes to do something about it. Please go ahead. Let me know when you’ve done it.’
The CO grinned. ‘That’s a slap in the face for those bloody Gunners,’ he said. ‘Now let’s sort out this mob.’ He summoned Ian Macdonald again and issued final orders.
For once, Nigel Beale appeared to have a crisis of faith. He leaned across to Charles. ‘Are we really going to charge them in the Land-Rovers?’
Charles nodded and Nigel leant back, looking thoughtful. Charles groped on the floor for his helmet, found it but then hesitated to put it on. No one else was wearing one. Even the men in the doorways were not wearing helmets. The black beret was a symbol that was not lightly discarded and Charles, against what he considered all reason, still hesitated to be the first man in the battalion that day to allow an operational situation precedence over regimental tradition.
His dilemma was resolved for him when the driver let out the clutch with a jolt and the Land-Rover jerked forward, shooting Charles’s helmet out of his hands. With a whining and roaring of overstrained engines and gearboxes, and with the two escort vehicles on either side, they accelerated towards the mob. They bumped and crashed over the debris, flinging those in the back
alternately on to their backsides, heads, backs and knees. The CO clung to his door, guffawed and shouted ‘Geronimo!’ at the top of his voice. A few bricks landed on the road on either side of them and then one crashed on to the bonnet and bounced on to the windscreen grille with a juddering thump. Seconds later the whole vehicle shook and jumped as they ran into a deluge of bricks and bits of metal. It was as though they were driving through a wall that was falling continuously upon them. Twenty yards ahead Charles could see the mob dancing like demented demons in the headlights, throwing everything they could find. They showed no sign of giving way and the driver involuntarily slowed a little. ‘Step on it!’ bellowed the CO, and the driver accelerated again.
