by Paul Bruce
That was the first time I experienced that nightmare but it would not be the last. Each and every time I have that nightmare I awake cold, sweating and shaking.
The next morning, I awoke determined to put behind me all that had happened; not just the killings but the nightmare as well. I thought I had been plain stupid in letting the whole affair get to me to such an extent. I had blown up the incident out of all proportion and knew I must return to reality. I told myself I was behaving like a wimp.
I also realised I was bloody hungry and polished off a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage, tomatoes and fried bread. After that I ate two bowls of corn flakes and drank two mugs of tea. I felt better, more like my old self, and the terrors of the previous day began to fade.
JR wanted to chat to me about the shooting. He explained that sitting in the car waiting for Don and me to come back had been terrifying. He told me he had been fearful that we would get shot; that the mission would go wrong; that he would be left in the car waiting while IRA gunmen found him and moved in for the kill. I told him he had been silly to allow his imagination to run so wild but he wanted to know each and every detail of what had happened outside the newsagent’s.
I tried to tell him everything that had happened and how I had felt as I stood outside the shop waiting for the two men to emerge. He asked loads of questions but kept returning to one in particular. Over and over again JR asked, ‘What’s it like actually to kill someone?’
I didn’t want to tell him for a thousand reasons. I knew that he would one day go through what I had been through when it was his turn to kill someone. If he was lucky, it would happen in a gun battle somewhere, perhaps on the border. If he was less fortunate, he, too, would have to kill someone in cold blood, just as I had. So I simply left out the details of the actual killing and talked of my feelings, of my emotions before, during and immediately afterwards. In that way I thought it would help him to come to terms with what we knew we would all have to do at some future date.
Don returned from a briefing at 39th Brigade headquarters and told us we were going on an expedition the following day. First, however, he had news for us. He explained that the killings we had carried out that week were not, in fact, a one-off mission. From time to time, we would be assigned to carry out other killings. Our targets would be IRA gunmen who had been identified by Special Branch and other intelligence branches, like MI5. He also informed us that MI6 had been operating in southern Ireland for some time and they, too, would be responsible for identifying IRA replacements making their way from the Republic into Ulster. Our orders would all come through him from 39th Brigade headquarters where we had received our original briefing after arriving in Belfast.
Don told us that he had no idea how many gunmen we would be expected to target; nor could he tell us how long we would be staying in Belfast. ‘It’s a job that’s got to be done and we’ve been assigned to do it,’ he said. ‘The sooner we get rid of these arseholes, the sooner we can go home.’
At that time we felt the troubles would be over in a matter of months. We had been told that, since internment, only about sixty or seventy IRA gunmen were in the north and that we would be one of the units used to deal with them.
Don went on, ‘Today I have been given the map reference of one of our disposal points. In future, it will be handled differently to what we just did in Belfast. There will be no laundry men to clean up afterwards; we will have to take away the bastards we kill and we will have to dispose of them. The brass at 39th Brigade gave me the map reference of one place where we will dispose of the bodies. Tomorrow we will go and check it out.’
The next day, with rain beating down, the four of us set off in our blue Marina, the pathetic windscreen wipers making driving difficult, to find the map reference given to Don. We knew the spot was not far from the main Lurgan to Dromore Road.
As we left Belfast, the rain cleared and the sun shone sporadically through the clouds. I hadn’t seen the beauty of Northern Ireland before, hadn’t appreciated the countryside, which at times seemed as desolate as the Brecon Beacons, and at other times more like the farmland of Hampshire. ‘Good birdwatching country,’ I thought.
As we turned slowly off the main road, we crossed a stone bridge spanning the fast-flowing stream below. I looked up and down the torrent of water, wondering if there were any sandpipers. Peaceful, quiet and in the heart of the country, it was an ideal habitat for sandpipers.
We drove slowly up the metalled lane to the precise map reference and noticed on our left the wood marked on the map. The trees, mainly deciduous, were a mix of oaks, beeches, elms and a few silver birches. On the edges of the wood were conifers, but most of these appeared to be immature, the majority of them only a few feet tall. Between the lane and the wood, fifty yards of scrubland was being cleared by a worker with a JCB digger.
Checking the map once more, Don said to JR, ‘Pull in here. This is it. Map reference one-six-zero-five-three-four.’
JR drove the Marina slowly off the narrow lane on to the piece of scrubland. The ground was wet and heavy but the sun shone brightly and the clouds had cleared, leaving a brilliant-blue sky.
As we walked over to the farm worker, I could hear birds twittering away and heard some crows cawing high up in the trees. I looked up and noticed that they were hooded crows, a large black and grey species, making quite a din.
The farm worker switched off the JCB and walked over to us as we approached. It seemed obvious that he knew we would be paying him a visit. We did not shake hands. Introducing the man, Don said, ‘This bloke is one of us. He wants to see the back of the IRA bastards as much as we do. And he is going to supply us with holes to get rid of these scumbags.’
The farm worker appeared to be a typical Irish farmhand who had spent most of his life working outdoors. He looked about thirty and was nearly six feet tall, with dark, wavy hair, well down below his collar. He had ruddy cheeks and spoke with a strong Northern Irish accent.
I looked over to where the man had been working with the digger and saw a twelve-foot-long trench, about four feet wide and seven feet deep. We walked over to the trench which was approximately sixty yards from the lane and ran parallel to it.
‘Come and take a look,’ the man said. ‘I think it’ll suit your needs.’
‘Should do,’ said Don.
The rest of us said nothing. I realised that we were being shown a grave big enough to hold a number of bodies. My stomach turned over as the full realisation hit me that, more than likely, I would be expected to carry out more executions; that the two men I had shot in Belfast were only the first; I feared it would not be long before my turn came round again. I wondered if I would be capable of carrying out another execution; if my bottle would hold out.
As we walked back towards the car, JR began throwing stones.
‘What are you doing?’ Don asked him, irritated.
‘I’ve just seen a rat over there and I’m trying to get it,’ he explained.
‘Well, don’t,’ snapped Don. ‘You’re behaving like a bloody kid. Get in the car.’
As we sat in the car, Don explained, ‘If you haven’t already sussed it out, this is where we will be disposing of the customers that we will soon be picking up.’
We looked at each other and wondered exactly what our involvement would be. We didn’t know whether we would be expected to kill these people or whether they would be delivered to us in American-style plastic body bags. I hoped that all we would be asked to do would be to bury whatever we were told to, with no questions asked. ‘No questions, no pack drill – the old army adage,’ I thought as JR backed the car out into the lane.
Benny asked of all in general, ‘Who’s organising this then, the fucking Mafia?’
Don commented, ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever heard the British Government described as the Mafia.’
We laughed, but not very loudly.
Benny went on, ‘Seriously, all this must be taking some real organisation. I neve
r realised that we would be expected to kill people and then dispose of their bodies in forests miles away from civilisation. This isn’t real.’
‘It is,’ replied Don.
A few moments later, Don turned to Benny and said, ‘Were you wearing a fucking blindfold when you joined the Firm? We’re not knights in shining armour, you know. We kill or we get rid of the bad guys. That’s our job.’
After a moment’s silence, Don corrected himself with a chuckle: ‘When you come to think of it, that’s right, we are knights in shining armour.’He went on to remind us that the SAS emblem of a winged dagger represented Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword, in effect making every SAS man one of King Arthur’s knights. We liked that idea. It made us feel good, even privileged.
Don suggested we drove around the area to get a feel of the place, to check various landmarks, to make ourselves aware of each and every recognisable piece of the countryside and to see how deserted the area really was.
Having driven around for thirty minutes or more, we drove south towards the border. It was our intention to recce the area and Don wanted to show us the problems facing the British Army in trying to keep out the IRA gunmen who wanted to enter the north by crossing the border, rather than attempting to use small boats as others had done.
As we drove down, we came across a typical Northern Irish country pub and stopped for lunch. We enjoyed a pint and a ploughman’s lunch – a hunk of strong, mature cheddar, bread and pickle. We could have been on holiday anywhere in the United Kingdom countryside. It seemed a far cry from the reality of our life and we had only been in Northern Ireland for a little more than a week!
Using the narrow, hedgerowed back lanes, we drove down to the border, checking our map every mile or so. We didn’t want to cross the border accidentally, but we did repeatedly and deliberately cross into southern Ireland. Don wanted to show us that the border was almost impossible to patrol effectively as there were no border signs, no landmarks delineating it, nothing whatsoever to tell the unwary traveller whether he was in southern or Northern Ireland.
What seemed more extraordinary was the complete absence of any army or police presence on either side of the border. Indeed, it was impossible at any time to tell which country we were in without checking the map in very close detail. Even on the Ordnance Survey map the black line detailing the border was about a quarter of an inch thick, which, in real terms, meant it would have been about 100 yards wide. It seemed obvious that the mapmakers had not been able to trace the border accurately either!
We knew from our training in Wales that the border country could have hidden an SAS squadron of sixty men and it would still be impossible to see them with the naked eye. That showed us how easy it would be for IRA gunmen, with help from locals who knew the area far, far better than we ever would, to cross undetected into the north.
We drove in a circle from near Armagh to Dundalk in the south. We were, however, careful not to stop anywhere that we thought could be southern Ireland territory. We just needed to check the lie of the land, to make ourselves aware of the problems that lay ahead as well as giving ourselves some idea of landmarks that we could check on our maps.
One sign that did help us during that car drive was the Irish tricolour, for the Republic’s flag could be seen on farmhouses and cottages on both sides of the border. Those were houses, farms and cottages that we knew we should steer well clear of.
As we drove through what we would call ‘bandit country’, Don said, ‘If anyone tries to stop us while we are in this part of the world and they ain’t wearing British Army uniform, shoot the bastards.’ He wasn’t kidding. We were all carrying handguns in shoulder holsters, with a full magazine of rounds and a further three magazines each in our pockets.
His remark gave us a feeling of excitement, as that was what we had been trained to do ever since joining the Firm. Part of me really wanted someone to stop us and ask questions.
Back at Sydenham Docks that night, we sat around drinking tea and discussing the problems of patrolling bandit country. Don explained our role: ‘We are now on stand-by, waiting for orders from Lisburn telling us where they want us to go and what they want us to do. It might seem boring hanging around doing nothing but I can assure you that we will be needed, and soon. I can’t tell you when. What I do suggest, however, is that we concentrate on keeping fit.’
Next day we all went for an eight-mile run, dressed in tracksuit trousers, T-shirts and baseball boots. We didn’t kill ourselves, stopping every few miles, but when we did run we went at quite a pace. On the way back, we ran through a Belfast city park and saw some youths kicking a football about. For a laugh, we joined in with them.
JR and I had both been more than competent footballers and the young blokes asked us if we would turn out for them. Later, we would find out that young men from both Catholic and Protestant backgrounds played for the local pub. They hadn’t been doing too well of late and thought we might be able to help them win a few games. They played every Sunday and asked whether we would be available. ‘If we’re not working on that Sunday, sure, love to turn out,’ we said.
A few days after our trip to bandit country, we read in the papers that British Army Royal Engineers had begun blowing up cross-border roads in a bid to stop infiltration into the north. The engineers used plastic explosives, leaving large craters, twelve feet wide and six feet deep. They began the operation around Newry in County Armagh and at Monaghan in County Tyrone.
The operation would continue for ten days but not without stirring up much local anger. Within hours of the Royal Engineers moving away from a blown road, the local people, aided by the farmers, immediately repaired the roads so that they were once more open to vehicles. Within days of the troops blasting a crater, the locals had repaired it well enough to allow vehicles to move slowly along the road. We wondered what Lisburn’s next tactic would be.
Worse would follow. After the first couple of days, the IRA decided to intervene and the engineers would come under small arms attack as they began to prepare the roads for blasting. On one occasion in early October, an army helicopter hovering overhead was hit by small arms fire but managed to return to base. No one was injured.
The war on the streets intensified around the middle of October 1971. Three British soldiers were hit when patrolling in the Short Strand, a Protestant area and two IRA gunmen wounded.
In other incidents, seven Belfast city buses were hijacked one night and set on fire; British Army troops found large quantities of arms and ammunition in the Catholic market area of the city, instigating severe street riots. In Londonderry, troops fired on four IRA gunmen, wounding them.
The newspapers on Saturday, 16 October 1971 revealed the extent to which the crisis had developed in a matter of weeks.
The previous day, two RUC officers had been shot dead as they sat in a private unmarked car in the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast; a soldier attached to the Green Howards was shot and seriously wounded in Belfast after being hit by thirty bullets; three armed hold-ups were carried out in Belfast; there were explosions in both Londonderry and Belfast; a bank was bombed in Greenhills Road, Londonderry; and masked men held up a bus at Drumaney in County Londonderry, firing shots at random to scare the passengers.
During that week, the British Army had undertaken a large sweep in the Catholic areas of Belfast, arresting eighteen people and discovering arms and ammunition caches. As a result, hundreds of Catholic women took to the streets, protesting at Britain’s internment policy as well as at the arms searches being carried out. At one point they laid siege to Mount Pottinger RUC police station. The officers had to be rescued by army reinforcements.
By that Saturday night, the death toll in Northern Ireland had reached 112 since disturbances had begun in 1969. In the first year, only thirteen people had died; in 1970 only nineteen had died; since the introduction of internment on 9 August – only three months before – a further 57 people had died.
With the IRA’s extraordi
nary burst of violent activity, which had caused so many deaths and appalling injuries, we were anticipating being called on to take our share of the fight against the gunmen but during the next few days we lived the life of Riley, keeping fit during the day with runs and gym work, lazing around the billet watching TV and playing cards and spending the evenings visiting pubs in the Protestant areas of Belfast.
A REME staff-sergeant arranged for us to be invited to a Unionist Club between Belfast and Carrickfergus. The clubhouse, a wooden building built on a jetty at Belfast Lough, provided wonderful panoramic views across the sea. The walls inside boasted yachting trophies, shields and regimental plaques. In pride of place above the wooden bar was the Red Hand of Ulster.
The members, mostly middle-aged, respectable businessmen, big and small, showed us nothing but friendship and generosity. They knew, of course, that we formed part of the British security forces but they never asked us the name of our regiment nor about the precise nature of the work we were carrying out in Ulster. Indeed, they often seemed protective towards us, saying on occasion, ‘Just make sure you keep clear of the evil bastards.’
One or two of the members must have been very wealthy for the yachts moored nearby were magnificent, expensive motor-yachts, worth a small fortune. On occasions, one or two would invite us back to their homes to enjoy a traditional Sunday dinner.
At the club I often chatted with a friendly, decent kind of bloke who spoke with a Northern Irish accent but who was, in fact, a recently retired English businessman. He had bought a bungalow in Carrickfergus and was renovating it as a hobby. He moored his blue, thirty-foot, ocean-going, four-berth yacht on the lock. He was a man who always stood his round and I would get to know him very much better during the next twelve months.
