Forward into Hell

by Vince Bramley

  We had a couple of new songs that night. One of them began with a chanting rhythm, singing about 3 Para being the first to be called up for the war. Then came a bit about 2 Para quickly leaving Aldershot to join us. The last part was a collection of insults about 1 Para, who didn’t get to join us at all. That was just in jest, because deep down we knew that, if 1 Para had joined us, the war would have been better for having the Paras there in full strength.

  The second song was about a very sad incident, but very appealing to the army sense of humour. It was an adaptation of the old First World War song ‘Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kitbag’. We sang, ‘Pack up your brother in your old kitbag.’ This stemmed from the story of a young Argie, captured in Stanley, who, when trying to board the Canberra for his homeward journey, had been discovered with the remains of his dead brother in his personal kitbag. He had kept the body with him for the long march in retreat from us because he didn’t want to leave it behind. A lot of the lads felt for the Argie, but it was impossible to let him take home a rotting body. It was taken from him for decent burial.

  At around ten o’clock, a few sergeants gatecrashed our bar and tried to lead the entertainment. Within minutes of their arrival, a fight had started on one side of the lounge. I was standing with Kev Connery, Paul Reid, Johnny, Big Jacko and Quincey of the 2 Para Mortars. Fighting by the piano caused Wendy to jump up and down and scream at the lads to stop, in a female voice. This helped, and caused laughter all round, but within minutes a few more fights had started. Everyone has seen the typical saloon-bar fight in the Westerns. Well, that’s exactly what happened on Airborne Forces Day, 1982, on board the Norland.

  The fighting spread like wildfire across the whole room, everyone scrapping with anyone they chose. Tables, chairs, beer cans, even bodies, flew through the air in every direction. Big Jacko and I backed our way to the wall, watching and screaming with laughter at the whole scene. Two lads crashed and rolled together off a table in front of us, punching hell out of each other. Four to six others attempted to pull them apart, but ended up fighting each other. I couldn’t stop laughing. Suddenly, Quincey shouted at me, ‘Stop laughing,’ then smacked me in the side of the head. I retaliated and Jacko tried to separate us. We rolled on the floor, punching and kicking like the other four or five hundred lads in the bar.

  After what seemed hours but was in fact minutes, Johnny and Jacko succeeded in separating us. I stood up, still laughing. The place looked more and more like a cowboy saloon. We all decided to take a break from the mess and go up to Quincey and Jacko’s bunk for a quieter beer. Ducking the flying chairs and beer cans, we wove our way from the lounge.

  As we ran down a corridor towards the bunk, we saw two lads walking ahead of us. Suddenly, a lump of wood came from a doorway, hitting one of them on the head and a snatch party flew out and mugged them of their beer. We stopped and retreated to a different corridor, but the fighting had now spread out of the lounge and into most of the corridors. It was no less than a shipboard riot. Even Bones and Ratch were scrapping in one corridor as we tried to pass.

  The fights lasted until the early hours. Abandoning Jacko’s drinking session, Johnny and I made our way back to our own cabin and supped a few cans there.

  Next morning, as we sat in the galley eating breakfast, everyone had black eyes, swollen lips and cut faces. The amazing thing was that only a handful of lads bore grudges against their fighting partners of the night before. Everyone chatted happily about the way they got caught and hit, or how they hit back. They merrily swapped stories of their new battle experiences.

  Why did the riot start? We all agreed overwhelmingly that the brass’s small issue of beer on Airborne Forces Day infuriated most of us because it added to our frustration. We also agreed that the riot had resulted from a massive release of the tension caused by our personal experiences during the war. Our punishment was no drinking for about two days. However, by this time, we all had our secret supplies anyway, so the evenings were spent sitting in the corridors outside our cabins, drinking and swapping stories.

  We arrived at Ascension Island soon after Airborne Forces Day. The warm weather brought the lads out on deck to feel the hot sun for the first time since our departure. The island looked different from when we had last seen it. Now, it was Paradise, the start of a homeward journey. Before, it had been the start of a nightmare.

  We anchored just offshore and a flight plan was posted to the battalions. The flights would take a number of days to get both battalions home. The first flight received a massive welcome home from the public, family and friends, with Prince Charles and Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, who was one of the fathers of the Parachute Regiment, attending.

  Johnny and I, Skip and a few more of our platoon ended up on flight ten, near the last. We weren’t worried; this suited us to a tee. We watched the Norland slowly empty of our comrades. Johnny and I spent the last few days and nights bumming around the bar, drinking. We felt very much the same: that we wanted a quiet welcome, please. Neither of us even felt that we wanted our families to meet us. We wanted just to get on the plane, land and jump on the military transport that would take us to Tidworth.

  The Norland started to fill up with the relief troops for the Falklands. They were a Scottish battalion, but I no longer remember which. They were posted with us at Tidworth. The ship’s corridors were suddenly filled with fresh-looking, clean troops, all eager to listen to the war stories. Johnny and I reflected on how innocent they looked. Some lads that had moved into the cabin opposite ours sat with us on our last night on board, with a massive carry-out of beer. They had noticed the opposite about us. One said, ‘Have you looked in the mirror lately?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Johnny.

  ‘Because your faces, particularly your eyes, look, or make you look, so old.’

  Next morning, I looked into the mirror after my shave. I stared at myself. I looked into my eyes closely. The lad was right. In some way, they did look different. They have never changed since, either.

  24

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF WAR

  ‘Flight ten to the upper deck now, please,’ came the signal we all wanted to hear.

  With all our kit, we started to fight our way along the corridors to the deck.

  ‘Hey,’ came a shout from behind us, and we turned to see two Jocks leaning in a doorway.

  ‘Have a nice flight home, lads, but sorry to spoil your day: we’ve been shagging your wives while you all got wasted!’

  Johnny looked at me to boogie (fight). I stared at them, but the childish remark didn’t arouse the anger they wanted. I simply smiled and said, ‘That’s OK, we’re going home to shag yours now, and you’ll be down south much longer than us.’

  Johnny pissed himself laughing while they started screaming and swearing. We walked off into the heat of the sun for our flight home. Within two or three months, the Sun did a front-page story that bore out my prediction. The Jocks’ battalion suffered a large percentage of divorces.

  A chopper ride to the airfield brought us home to dry land again. We quickly bought duty-frees and climbed aboard the DC10. Within two hours of leaving the Norland, we were up and looking down at the ship anchored in the bay. A pretty air-hostess came along with grub and drinks, while we all clambered over each other to look into the aisles, to see her arse and legs as she walked up and down. Skip pushed me and Johnny off him. He was sitting next to the aisle.

  ‘Talk about dogs on heat!’

  ‘Come on, Skip, don’t be an old fart. She’s lovely, and after looking at your boat race for three months I think I’m in love. Ha, ha.’

  After the meal, we fell into a relaxed sleep only to be awoken as we landed at Dakar for refuelling.

  We all clambered out on to the tarmac to see the locals filling up the plane and staring at us as if we were Martians. Once the plane was refilled, the pilot could not achieve a connection with his engines. We sat watching the mechanics fiddling with their tools and banging about in the engine
. I turned to Johnny and said, ‘This is something fucking different, mate. If you think I’m getting on that plane after witnessing the world’s best mechanic in action there, then you’re in for a shock.’

  The pilot eventually came and stood in the doorway of the plane, by the wing, and shouted for attention. The Paras all looked at him with interest.

  ‘Gents, we have a small problem. Please be patient. We are going to bump-start the engine that’s giving the trouble, quickly release the starter motor and then get the other engine going. If this fails, I will take off and bump-start it in the air, then come and pick you up, OK?’

  ‘Fuck off, you maniac,’ shouted a lad from Signals.

  ‘What did you say, young man?’

  ‘I said, “Fuck off’‘, pal. If you think I’m going to watch something from a sketch by Monty Python and fly home in that, then you’re mistaken. You’re not taking me.’

  We all cheered and backed him up, with comments like, ‘Next, you’ll be asking us to push the fucking thing down the runway to gather speed for take-off!’

  An officer stood up and calmed us down, laughing. He was in agreement with us and had a chat with the pilot. Two hours passed, with the mechanic working flat out while a large group of Paras stood below him with their hands on their hips, watching his every move as if they were aircraft technicians.

  Once the engine was finished, we all stood back as it turned over for the first time. However, we were all still adamant that we would rather wait for the promised backup flight and refused to board.

  Again, the captain came to the doorway, his plane humming quietly. ‘Right, come on, lads, let’s be fair and get home.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ came our reply.

  We’d been shot at, bombed and fucking bossed around like garden gnomes down south, but we were not going to step on to a dodgy plane.

  The captain walked off. Minutes later, the young air-hostess was standing in the doorway. All went quiet.

  ‘Come on, lads, if I’m willing, so must you be.’

  Everyone laughed out loud, one lad shouting our thoughts: ‘If you’re willing, so am I. Your place or mine?’

  She turned red at the joke, but pleaded with us in a sexy voice like a naughty schoolgirl. The plane was filled with troops and ready for take-off in seconds. The wonder of females!

  We spent the last part of the long-drawn-out journey looking at the fuselage of the plane. An expected failure of the engine was very much in our minds.

  ‘Vince,’ said Johnny. ‘Do you think the families have been warned of our homecoming?’

  ‘I don’t know, but personally I’d rather they wait at home for me. It’s a bit heavy all these reports of crazy families and friends going mad over us.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. Still, we’ll see.’

  This was perhaps the last important conversation of the campaign that Johnny and I held.

  When we stepped off the plane at RAF Brize Norton the next morning, we were hit by an English summer in full blaze. As we entered the airport lounge, the doors were slung open to a screaming crowd of relatives, who charged towards us. My mother climbed over chairs to hug me, with all the rest of my family in close pursuit. My wife came up to me. I was tense and made unsure by all the noise and shouting. It made me scared in a peculiar way. Karon looked hard and almost angry. ‘Hello, Vince,’ was all I got from her.

  After a little research of my own, I haven’t met anyone else from the task force who didn’t get a kiss from his wife. It seems silly to write this because, given the choice of whether to have my family there or not, I would have said no. But not to get even a kiss from my wife confirmed to me that trouble at home was my new war. My parents were obviously overwhelmed to have me home and this was touching, for I, like many others, didn’t feel we had done anything out of the ordinary. After all, war is what we were trained for.

  Customs proved to be a simple walk-through. How I cursed and kicked myself for not bringing home more spoils of war. I quickly parted from my family and Karon, because my quarters were in Tidworth, and climbed aboard the army coach.

  All was very quiet on the journey. The English countryside made me feel like an alien. Johnny tapped my shoulder from behind. ‘Vince, the trees, man. Look at them.’

  I looked at the trees. They were part of what was making me feel an alien. They were all in full bloom, bright-green leaves in the wind. There was traffic on the roads, shops, people walking about doing their own thing. It all seemed unreal. After only three months away, it was a shock to see civilisation again. The odd thing was, I felt anger. Anger at everyone for doing their own thing. It was as if something in my head was urging me to shout at them as they walked along the streets, ‘Hey, you lot, licking your fucking ice-creams, there’s a fucking lot of injured guys over there. Friends have been killed, but all you’re interested in is yourselves.’

  Just frustration, I know. The general public was concerned, but it didn’t seem like it just then. I wasn’t expecting a medal, or even a pat on the back. I really didn’t know what to expect. Even so, I found it hard to be calm.

  Back in my quarters, I started to fight a completely different war, against boredom. The first thing I did was to throw open all the windows, because the claustrophobia I felt almost made me ill. The wind came rushing in, much to my relief, but not Karon’s. Within an hour, I had to go out and walk about. Karon and I walked around Salisbury shopping, but still the people annoyed me as they crowded together, pushing and shoving.

  That night, I was restless, sweating and walking about the house. I sat for two or three hours by the open windows in the lounge. I couldn’t stop thinking of how the lads who had been hit by shrapnel or bullets were coping.

  Next day, we went home to Aldershot. A banner hanging from the front top window of our house saying ‘Welcome Home’ was touching, but somehow embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to know where I had been. I started to grow a beard on this six-week leave, to hide my identity as a soldier.

  What hit me most was that I really hated the leave at first. It was so fucking boring. There was no way I could relax. If I had been asked to go and do a tour of duty in Ireland, I would have gone. More than anything, I felt the pinch of no longer having my friends around me. We had been together so tightly over the last few months that it was as if now I had severed an arm. The buddy-buddy system that we had needed to literally survive wasn’t there any more and the sheltered life now seemed to me far too boring to endure.

  I made a point of not talking about my experiences to any member of my family, including my wife. But I do remember sitting up in bed one evening, turning to my wife and giving her a very mild insight into what had really happened. I was sick to death of the press’s views and of the publicity of a country still high on the war. I told Karon what had happened to Denzil and CJ. The blank look she gave me, with a half-smile, told me she wasn’t interested and couldn’t understand me at all. I never said anything again. I tried to look at it from her point of view instead. She was sick of the war, of the Army and of me going away. Whenever I bumped into one of the lads, I seemed more at home and relaxed talking our private language with him than I did with civvies and my own family. If I had had my own way, I would have gone on the biggest bender ever, but I knew that was the easy way out. I remember buying the LP The Friends of Mr Cairo by Vangelis. That record had been played daily to us over the intercom on the Canberra on the journey down. The track ‘I’ll Find My Way Home’ had been an instant hit with the troops.

  The days at home turned into weeks. I finally returned to camp with many other Paras who had chosen to help unload the Elk in Plymouth of all the remaining 3 Para equipment. Next day came notice of a further six weeks’ leave. It was sending me nuts.

  Karon and I moved into new quarters in Aldershot. Setting up the new home gave me something to do for a while. As I walked into town on the first morning after our arrival, the sun was out and kids were playing in the small swing park. It was a typical sum
mer’s day, quiet and nice. All of a sudden, a jet fighter flew over us with a scream and I ducked and was halfway into a doorway before I realised it was peacetime now. Karon looked at me, half-giggling. I smiled to cover the embarrassment that engulfed me.

  There is no doubt that I was slowly unwinding over the long leave, but the boredom also gave me more time to think about my experiences. Worst of all were my nightmares about the war. At first, they came nightly; later they faded and returned intermittently. I always had the same dream, of Denzil’s smock and CJ’s face passing before me. I would wake up in a bed so wet that a bucket of water might have been thrown over me. Sometimes Karon would be sitting there waiting for me to come round, but only because I had lashed out.

  The nightmares lasted about six months or so. Today, I can see and understand everything that happened to me. I now know that I wasn’t alone. The most comforting words I ever had to help me did not come from any of my family. My family were concerned, but could never really understand what I was going through. Those words came from my friends in the pub as we drank during the leave. Johnny turned to me and said, ‘Vince, I’ve had a few turns in the night, you know.’

  That made me sit up and see clearly that I wasn’t alone, and when you’re not alone you’re stronger.

  I sit here today, 24 years later, and feel so different from how I felt then. My whole outlook has changed about the Army and my aims in life. I still think back occasionally to the wind-swept hills of the Falklands. Many things still niggle me: for example, the QM stopping the balancing of our SF guns at Estancia or the men at the rear keeping back the overboots for themselves. The list is endless, and, even though they are trivial points, it’s the little things that niggle the Tom.

  I fully believe that we, as a nation, performed the most excellent of tasks. I am fully behind the decision to send the task force and I wouldn’t hesitate to fight again for our country and its beliefs. People who whinge about the decisions taken in a war they weren’t involved in are to me the most misguided of all. Take the sinking of the Belgrano. Nobody at home has the right to say it was wrong, when thousands of British lives could have been at stake. I believe the sinking saved more lives than it claimed. Nobody, but nobody, will change my view on that. Also, we should remember that the Argentinean regime of that time had shown scant regard for human life. What if the boot had been on the other foot? No, we British had been kicked once too often.