by Paul Bruce
The Civil Rights leaders decided to stop the march and set up a microphone for the speakers to address the vast throng of people. Bernadette Devlin, the young firebrand nationalist MP, who had become the youngest MP in the House of Commons when voted into Westminster in 1969 at the age of 21, had barely begun to speak when the sound of gunfire reverberated across the area.
Film footage showed members of the Parachute Regiment firing at the marchers as they fled in panic from the scene. The Paras were shown running after the marchers, kneeling, taking aim and firing; while other Paras stood at corners firing at will.
When the firing stopped and the mayhem had calmed down, thirteen innocent people lay dead, all shot by rounds fired by the Paras. Bloody Sunday would forever be remembered by the Catholic minority.
Despite protests from the Parachute Regiment that they had only returned fire after coming under sniper fire, no evidence was ever produced that anyone else, other than the Paras, had opened fire. The British Government set up a judicial inquiry; the Irish Government declared a day of mourning; in London, Belfast and Dublin tens of thousands of workers stayed away from work and left factories, offices, shops, schools and universities in protest at the killings.
In Dublin, the Union Jack was burned outside the British Embassy and the Paratroopers were accused of ‘wilful murder’. Anti-British protests grew, with seven attacks on British firms based in Dublin; a bomb was thrown at the British Embassy in Dublin; violence and rioting broke out in Catholic areas across Northern Ireland; and children as young as seven began throwing nail bombs and stones at British Army vehicles.
On Wednesday, 2 February, more than 20,000 people attended the funerals of the thirteen marchers who had been gunned down.
In our tiny Portakabin, we would discuss the whole appalling episode on frequent occasions during the next few weeks. As I watched repeated screenings of the killings, I could not bring myself to believe I was witnessing disciplined British troops behaving in such an ill-disciplined way. The more we watched reruns of the film, the more dismayed we became with the behaviour of the Paras.
We were even more amazed when no action whatsoever was taken to discipline those soldiers who had seemingly run amok, firing indiscriminately at innocent people. They would never be charged with any offence. And yet we realised that if we were caught carrying out the executions of known IRA killers, we would probably be arrested, charged and left to languish in jail for twenty years. It seemed that everything I had ever believed in about Britain and the British Army was disintegrating before my eyes. I began to feel sick.
CHAPTER TEN
During the first three months of 1972, Lizzie and I saw each other two or three times a week and her parents would invite me to stay most weekends.
It seemed that the more I saw of Lizzie, the more I needed to see her. Every Thursday, we would go to the disco together and spend most of the time on the dance floor wrapped in each other’s arms. The lads came to recognise that we were so close that they called Lizzie my ‘missus’.
I didn’t mind at all. Lizzie would be kind, gentle and considerate to me. She could make me laugh when much of the time I felt more like breaking down in tears. Yet I could tell Lizzie nothing of what we were doing.
On occasions when we took her dog Bella, a young Basset hound, for a long country walk, I would be tempted to tell her everything about my job and yet I knew I could tell her nothing. I could not even hint what we were doing. Indeed, she would never know that I was a member of the SAS. I had told her that I was a vehicle mechanic with the REME, which, in part, was true. If the occasion had ever arisen, I would have known exactly what to do, what to look for if called upon to check a car in an emergency. One weekend, I did prove my REME background by changing the clutch on her car.
We did have great fun together. Once the worst of the winter weather had passed, we would spend many weekends out on the moors north of Belfast or driving around the coast. She, too, loved birds and wildlife and I enjoyed pointing out the different species to her.
On occasions we went rock climbing along the coast at the very tip of Northern Ireland, searching for Leach’s petrels, which, until then, had only bred on St Kilda off the north-west coast of Scotland. I had read, however, that they had been sighted in Northern Ireland and I wanted to check whether any had, in fact, begun to nest in Ireland.
We did see some petrels. They would find themselves a particular ledge, on an obscure part of the cliff, and would visit that ledge for perhaps three or four years, inspecting the area to check whether it would be suitable. During that year, Lizzie and I saw a number of them, but none had started to nest. About three years later, I would read that the petrels had indeed begun breeding in Northern Ireland.
I would go climbing up the face of the cliffs and Lizzie would stay below, shouting at me to take care. ‘I hate you taking such risks,’ she would say on occasions. ‘There is no need for you to take any risks. They’re only birds.’
‘It’s fantastic,’ I would reply. ‘I love checking out such birds because they are so rare.’
‘Well, thank goodness you don’t do anything scary with the army. I don’t mind you being in the REME; they always stay safely in barracks.’
‘Yes, I know, darling,’ I lied, giving her a kiss.
In my heart, I was happy that she had no idea what work I had become engaged in doing. On those occasions, I felt a warmth in my heart that I did keep my nerve, that I had never told her the truth. I vowed I never would.
On one occasion, we were nearly run down by a herd of young steers. The sun was shining, the birds were building their nests and we decided to take a shortcut across a field to check out some hooded crows’ nests. We had noticed the steers at the other side of the field but I thought they were happily chewing the cud, minding their own business.
When we were about halfway across, with another sixty yards to go, a couple of steers looked up and began to walk towards us. The rest of the herd, perhaps as many as fifty, followed and then they all began walking quite fast towards us. I had always been under the impression that, if confronted by a herd of steers, the only way to avoid being chased was to stand absolutely still.
I said to Lizzie, ‘Stand still, don’t move a muscle and everything will be OK.’
She held my hand and, together, we stood still. Far from this making the steers come to a halt, they suddenly all began to run towards where we were standing with Lizzie’s dog. At first I couldn’t decide what to do, but decided to put my theory to the test and hope they would stop.
‘Paul, they’re not going to stop, they’re coming straight for us,’ Lizzie screamed as she held my hand in a tight grip, watching the steers running towards us.
I could see the look of fear on her face and when I looked back at the herd they were less than twenty yards from us and running harder than ever. Bella, it seemed, had more sense than we did for she had seen the advancing cattle and had already run for cover.
I suddenly realised that Lizzie might not be able to make the hedge in time, so I picked her up in a fireman’s lift, threw her over my shoulder and began running like hell.
‘My shoes,’ Lizzie screamed as I picked her up. ‘I’ve lost my shoes. They’re stuck in the mud.’
‘Forget them,’ I yelled back as I ran with her towards the hedge, occasionally glancing over my shoulder at the steers bearing down on us.
I was convinced the herd would catch us. As we reached the barbed-wire fence, I simply threw Lizzie over and then dived over myself. The charging herd kept running and I prayed that the fence would hold. We were both lying on the ground, trying to scramble to our feet. As they reached the wire, however, they put on their brakes and the fence held. My heart was thumping. I had never been so scared in my life.
When we realised that we were indeed safe and that the herd had decided to move off, we both burst into laughter. It may have been through a sense of relief, but I laughed because I had been so bloody stupid as to think a her
d of cattle would simply stop and stare if I decided to stand still. I would never put that theory to the test ever again. I had learned a lesson.
I waited until the herd had drifted off to the other side of the field and walked back to the centre to find Lizzie’s shoes buried deep in the mud by the trampling hooves of the cattle. Lizzie stayed on the other side of the fence, thank goodness, for, as soon as the steers saw me trespassing in their field again, they began to move towards me once more. This time I just turned and ran.
When we arrived back home, looking dishevelled and muddy, Lizzie’s mother asked what on earth had happened. We told her, making sure we didn’t make it sound as though we had been at any risk. Lizzie asked, ‘What’s for lunch?’
Her mother replied, ‘Roast beef, your favourite.’
Lizzie just crumpled with laughter.
On another occasion, when out walking with Bella, we had just returned from a walk in the country and popped down to the corner shop for some sweets, when we noticed about twenty dogs outside the shop. Bella was on the lead and didn’t seem in the least interested in the other dogs.
Lizzie suddenly realised that Bella had come into season. Like all Basset hounds, of course, Bella could not run fast, only trundle along, so Lizzie half-ran, half-walked the hundred yards back to her home while I tried to keep the randy dogs at bay. Once we were safely inside the house, of course, the dogs continued milling around, barking. After a while, Lizzie asked me if I would go outside with buckets of cold water. I must have thrown half a dozen buckets of water at them but it didn’t make the slightest difference.
During the months that I spent with Lizzie, I was to witness the unacceptable face of Protestant bigotry. Until I was exposed to the Protestant viewpoint, I had assumed that the problems of Northern Ireland had been caused solely because the southerners, the Catholics, the Republicans wanted to take over the north to bring about one Ireland, united under the tricolour and the Catholic religion. Furthermore, they seemed prepared to shoot, bomb and terrorise the northern community, killing innocent men, women and children until their demands were met by the British Government.
At the Union Club most weekends, I would listen to respectable, middle-class Protestants, both men and women, all intelligent people, discuss the problems facing the Province. They may not have realised what they were saying to one another but I noted that they spoke with utter contempt about all Catholics, not just those involved in terrorism.
‘I would never employ a Catholic’ … ‘I would never let a son of mine marry a Catholic’ … ‘I cannot imagine why the Catholics don’t leave us alone’ … ‘I don’t see why we should permit any Catholics to live in the Province’ … ‘No Catholics should ever be employed in the army or the police.’
These remarks were repeated over and over again during the months I lived among the Protestant community. The more I heard about the way in which the Protestants treated the Catholics – not much better, it seemed, than as subhumans – the more appalled I became. I began to understand some of the reasons why the Catholic population believed they did have a just cause. Not for one moment could I condone the methods they used, but I began to realise why they had taken up arms after so many years of oppression.
The more time I spent among the Protestants, the ordinary, God-fearing folk of Ulster, the more I understood why the Catholics were prepared to risk so much. I was not among paramilitary Protestant loyalists, prepared to kill and maim Catholics. These people were intelligent and, they believed, fair-minded. I often thought that I myself would have become an active member of the IRA if I had been born into a Catholic family in the north, being treated like a second-class citizen, being barred from employment, from housing, from any organisation dominated by Protestants.
The more executions that Don, JR, Benny and I were ordered to carry out, the more revulsion I felt towards the tasks we were asked to perform and the people, whoever they were, who had decreed that such a policy should be introduced and implemented. It became more difficult to have a pint of beer in the Union Club, or accept a pint from a Protestant hand, when I felt that they would cheer me as a hero if they knew I was engaged in executing Catholics captured on the border.
None of this, however, did I ever mention to Lizzie; none of this did I ever even hint at to those Protestants with whom I drank and rubbed shoulders; and I vowed never to discuss politics with Lizzie, her family or their friends. I was a sergeant serving in the SAS; I wasn’t paid to think.
The more exposed I became to Protestant thinking, the more I tried to forget what I was engaged in doing, and Lizzie did help me to forget.
Lizzie would become my lifeline with reality, the one person who could make me forget the jobs that still cropped up once a week or so. When we were together, we would spend hours making love.
We would always disco at Sydenham on the Thursday evening and spend an hour or more making love in the car – nearly always two or three bouts of feverish, passionate sex. Lizzie would collect me on Friday afternoon and we would make love before her parents returned home in the evening. Most Friday and Saturday nights – from midnight till seven in the morning – we would make love as often as I could, forgetting everything else.
She would threaten to make me take cold showers but she never did. I believe she loved the attention and the mammoth sessions of sex, while to me those sessions were magic. On the nights I slept in the Long Kesh Portakabin, I would spend hours tossing and turning, thinking and worrying before finally sleeping at perhaps 4 or 5 am. With Lizzie, I would fall asleep satiated and relaxed without a thought of the horrors I wanted to leave behind. When I was making love to Lizzie, I could forget everything: my life, my fears, my job, the executions, the poor bastards I was having to kill, the whole sordid, sorry, bloody mess. Sometimes I felt it had all become too much and I was beginning to hate life in the army. Worse, I was beginning to despise myself for doing it; for not having the guts to walk out of the army. Yet I knew I couldn’t do that. I hoped and expected that we would soon be moved back to Hereford; to make way for another unit; and then I could escape back to sanity.
Meanwhile, I knew that Lizzie would be there and that I could survive with her help and her love, although she had no idea what drove me, what made me act in the way I did. She had become my safety valve.
Occasionally, Don would arrange for the four of us to be invited to Palace Barracks, Hollywood, not far from Belfast Lough, where other SAS units stayed when resting from their border patrols. They told us of life in the fields on the border. They were happy to share their experiences with us. They had adopted the Vietcong idea of not simply living rough under hedgerows and shrubs, but actually making large, underground burrows and living in far greater comfort, with greater protection from the elements.
The Vietcong, of course, went on to construct mini-villages underground, with hospitals, arms dumps and living quarters. The simple burrows our mates dug had taken some weeks to build but two blokes at a time could sit or sleep in some degree of comfort. They would also take turns eating their food inside. Much of it was the same type carried by American Marines, in cans that would automatically heat the contents when opened.
They told us that each and every week they arrested eight or nine IRA blokes, all infiltrators, but only the real villains, about one every couple of weeks, would be handed over to us. The rest were handed over to the RUC, Special Branch or other intelligence services for questioning.
I felt how lucky they were to be doing a proper soldiering job, one we had all been trained to carry out, that they could be proud of doing as professionals. As we drove back to Long Kesh, I believe we all felt that we had drawn the short straw and we all wanted out.
In this operation, however, the SAS were taking a back seat compared to the poor soldiers carrying out the everyday duties of patrolling the streets of Belfast and Londonderry. From the beginning of January 1972, the bombings and shootings escalated as the Provisional IRA became more daring, more professio
nal and more determined.
The IRA had begun ambushing army patrols on the border, planting large Claymore mines, up to 100lb of gelignite a time, which they would detonate by remote control when an army Land Rover or armoured personnel carrier drove by. They would sit in a field nearby, keeping watch, and, on most occasions, would explode the mine with precision, causing death and many injuries.
Then the IRA gained access to anti-personnel mines which they would lay on the border at places where they believed British troops would patrol. At the beginning of February, 21 AP mines were discovered in two days. They had to be careful, however, of where and when they planted the AP mines because of the number of IRA personnel crossing the border each week.
St Valentine’s Day 1972 brought death and destruction to the centre of Belfast when six huge bombs blasted six separate business premises across the city.
Four days later, a total of nineteen major bombs exploded in towns and cities across the Province. The IRA were stepping up the pressure and it seemed that the RUC and the British Army were powerless to stop them.
On Tuesday, 22 February, the IRA finally got their revenge for Bloody Sunday. Seven people were killed and seventeen injured when a bomb ripped out the front of the officers’ mess at the headquarters of the 16th Parachute Brigade in Aldershot. The IRA had proved they could successfully move their area of operations out of Northern Ireland and into any corner of the mainland they wished.
Ever since Bloody Sunday, the intelligence services had warned of the probability of a revenge attack on the Paras. Despite the warning and increased vigilance at all Para HQs, the IRA had been able to mount a serious attack with impunity. They had also made the Parachute Regiment look remarkably unprofessional.
However, the political capital the IRA hoped to make from the bomb blast would be heavily defused because all the people killed or wounded were civilians, kitchen staff and others employed in the building. Not one Parachute officer, NCO or private soldier was killed or wounded in the attack.
