Soldier E: Sniper Fire in Belfast

by Shaun Clarke

  ‘Are you OK?’ Lampton asked him.

  ‘Yes, Frank, I’m fine. A rude shock to have this unexpected call, but I’m waking up now.’

  ‘I’d love to know where Cranfield is.’

  ‘He’s been missing since yesterday.’

  ‘I asked Captain Dubois and he said that it wasn’t my business. I felt like smacking his face.’

  ‘An Army ponce,’ Gumboot said. ‘He’s never been in the SAS. He still thinks the lower ranks and NCOs should be kept in their place. Little does he know.’

  ‘A good soldier, though,’ Martin said. ‘I mean he has a good record. He’s been in Northern Ireland a long time and done a lot of good.’

  ‘We did a lot of good in Oman,’ Gumboot replied, ‘but no one’s singing our praises.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Martin said.

  ‘Och, aye,’ Jock cut in with an exaggerated Scottish accent. ‘We all know that him and Cranfield are your heroes. That must mean you’re officer material and all set to move on. The best o’ luck, laddy.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Lampton said. ‘Martin’s earned his badge just by being here. He’s also proven himself to be a good soldier, so let him have heroes. And let him be a good officer if that’s what he wants.’

  ‘Sure, boss,’ Jock replied, rolling his eyes, shaking his head and flashing Gumboot a ‘What more can I say?’ look. ‘Anything you say, boss.’

  But no matter how much they mocked him, Martin was pleased to hear Sergeant Lampton speaking about him that way. He was proud of how he had behaved here – particularly during the first encounter with PIRA youths from the Divis flats – though he knew that not everyone in the Troop thought that highly of him.

  He didn’t mind being sneered at by the likes of Jock and Gumboot – he knew they were working-class, in the SAS for life, and highly resentful of most officers – whom they termed ‘short-term Ruperts’ – as well as of Troopers who aspired to be one of that class. No, what bothered Martin most was when Troopers his own age – and, like him, only recently badged – behaved exactly the same way.

  Officers like Cranfield and Dubois were indeed what Martin aspired to be. They represented his future. The other men, Martin realized, didn’t understand such ambitions and strongly resented anyone who harboured them.

  ‘I think Cranfield’s gone looking for Michael Quinn,’ Martin said distractedly, still thinking about the wedge his ambition drove between him and the other Troopers.

  ‘Probably,’ Taff Burgess said. ‘Our surveillance proved that he had a bug about him – you know, Public Enemy Number One. He was stung that Quinn managed to get away, so he’s probably gone after him.’

  ‘The dumb shit,’ Dead-eye said. They were the first words he had spoken. ‘You ask me, all officers are dumb shits.’ He shrugged. ‘Who gives a fuck?’

  ‘I do,’ Lampton replied. ‘I don’t like big-timers. To tell you the truth, Lieutenant Cranfield has me worried. Where the fuck is he?’

  ‘Somewhere he shouldn’t be,’ Ricketts replied. ‘You can bet your life on it.’

  ‘I don’t bet,’ Dead-eye said.

  Danny looked with admiration at the expressionless Dead-eye and finally got up the courage to ask his burning question.

  ‘’Scuse me, Sergeant, do you mind if I ask you something?’ Dead-eye just stared flatly at him, not responding at all, so Danny took a deep breath and came right out with it: ‘What kind of experience did you have in the Telok Anson swamp in Malaya?’

  The ensuing silence was filled only by the low growling of the armoured pig’s engine and the wind roaring outside. Jock glanced at Gumboot, who rolled his eyes and whistled softly. Ricketts and Lampton exchanged glances, then lowered their heads to grin. Taff Burgess, who was terrified of Dead-eye, looked down at his boots, while Martin, who was also frightened of him, looked on, fascinated.

  Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, Dead-eye, staring flatly at Danny, said: ‘What do you mean, kid?’

  Danny cleared his throat, stoking his courage. ‘I mean, you’re really quiet, you know? And really good – a great soldier. I mean, you never say nothing – you just do it – but you do it so well and you learnt it all in that swamp in Malaya. I hear it changed you … you were changed in that jungle. What happened there, Sarge?’

  Dead-eye stared at Danny for a long time, his eyes as flat as two stones; then speaking in what sounded like the voice of the walking dead, he said: ‘It rained and it was hot and it stank and it was dark; and we lived off the jungle and shat and pissed in the water and fought the fucking guerrillas as ordered. What more do you need to know?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Good,’ Dead-eye said.

  No one spoke after that.

  As the armoured pig trundled off the A1, cut through the Broadway, and turned into the Falls Road, Ricketts was reminded again of just how much he detested being in Northern Ireland. This wasn’t a real war with an enemy to respect, but a dirty game of hide and seek, a demeaning police action, a bloody skirmish against faceless killers, mean-faced adolescents, hate-filled children and contemptuous housewives. Christ, he loathed it.

  Ricketts was filled with this disgust as the armoured pig took him through the mean streets of Belfast in dawn’s pale light, past terraced houses with doors and windows bricked up, pubs barricaded with concrete blocks and off-licences, betting shops and all kinds of shops protected by coils of barbed wire. He did, however, manage to swallow his bile when they neared the estate and Sergeant Lampton, now his best friend, started counting off the distance to the leap: ‘Two hundred metres … one hundred … fifty metres … Go! Go! Go!’

  The armoured pig screeched to a halt, its rear doors burst open, and the men, including Ricketts, leapt out one by one, carrying their weapons in the Belfast Cradle, then raced across the debris-strewn lawns in front of the bleak blocks of flats, still wreathed in the early-morning mist.

  Ricketts raced ahead with Lampton, across the lawn, into the block, along the litter-filled walkway, even as someone shouted a warning – a child’s voice, loud and high-pitched – and a door slammed shut just above.

  Up a spiral of steps, along a covered balcony, boots clattering on the concrete, making a hell of a racket, then Lampton was at the door in front of Ricketts, taking aim at the lock with his’Remington 870 pump-action shotgun.

  The noise was ear-splitting, echoing under the balcony’s ceiling, as the wood around the Yale lock splintered and the door was kicked open. Lampton dropped to his knees, lowering the Remington, taking aim with his Browning High Power as Ricketts rushed into the room, his Heckler & Koch MP5 at the ready, bawling: ‘Security Forces! Don’t move!’ even as he hurled a stun grenade to confuse those inside.

  The grenade exploded, cracking the walls and ceiling, but when its flash had faded away an empty room was revealed.

  Cursing, Ricketts and the others rushed through the poky rooms, tearing down the curtains, kicking over tables and chairs, ensuring that no one was hiding anywhere, then covering each other as they backed out again, cursing in frustration.

  ‘Let’s try the flats next door!’ Gumboot bawled, his voice distorted eerily by the respirator. ‘The fuckers on either side!’

  But before they could do so, other doors opened and housewives stepped out, still wearing their nightdresses, curlers in their hair, swearing just like the SAS men, and bending over to drum metal dustbin lids on the brick walls and concrete floor of the balcony.

  The noise was deafening, growing louder every second, as more women emerged to do the same, followed by their children.

  Their shrieked obscenities added dramatically to the general bedlam until, as Ricketts knew would eventually happen, the first bottle was thrown.

  ‘Damn!’ Lampton said, glancing up and down the walkway, then over the concrete wall, the shotgun in one hand, the Browning in the other, but briefly forgetting all he had been taught and failing to watch his own back. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
/>   It was his first and last mistake.

  A ragged, gaunt-faced adolescent had followed them up the stairs and now stepped out of the stairwell with his Webley pistol aimed right at Lampton. He fired three times, in rapid succession, and Lampton was thrown back, bouncing against the concrete wall, even as the kid disappeared again.

  Lampton dropped both his weapons and quivered epileptically, blood bursting from his respirator, and was falling as Ricketts raced to the stairs, bawling: ‘Christ! Pick him up and let’s go!’ Then, as bottles burst about him, with drumming binlids and shrieked obscenities resounding in his head, he chased the assassin, plunging into the dangerous gloom of the stairwell without thinking about it.

  The stairwell was almost dark, littered with rubbish, stained with piss, its concrete walls covered with graffiti, much of which was political. It was dangerously narrow, each flight of steps short, and Ricketts knew that he was running down blind, with the kid likely to step out from around a corner and blow his head off.

  He didn’t give a damn. This was a shocking revelation. The strain of the Falls Road OP had already taken its toll, straining his nerves to the limit, and now the shooting of Lampton, his best friend, had made him explode. He knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself, so he kept running down the stairs.

  ‘Phil!’ Gumboot bellowed from up above.

  Ricketts burst out of the stairwell, back into the morning light, just as someone on a balcony above dropped another bottle.

  It exploded into a searing, crackling wall of yellow flame about ten metres away. A Molotov cocktail.

  The kid with the gun had vanished. Ricketts cursed. When another Molotov cocktail exploded to his right, he glanced up and saw a bunch of dickers hanging over the wall of the balcony, some throwing more bottles. The bottles, which were more home-made petrol bombs, smashed on the ground along the bottom of the block of flats, creating a long wall of yellow fire.

  ‘Shit!’ Ricketts said, removing the respirator from his face and letting it dangle under his chin. ‘Murderous little bastards!’

  He was shocked by the realization that he had almost lost control of himself for the first time since joining the SAS.

  ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘What the …?’

  Gumboot came rushing out of the stairwell, crouched low, his Colt Commando at the ready.

  ‘Jesus, Ricketts!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, going down the stairwell without back-up? You could have got yourself killed.’

  ‘Sorry. I lost my head for a moment. Is Lampton …?’

  Before Gumboot could reply, Jock McGregor appeared, carrying the blood-soaked Lampton over his shoulders.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Gumboot said.

  Ricketts felt terrible grief and rage, one emotion at odds with the other, but before he could think about it the wall beside him exploded, spitting dust and pulverized mortar, and he realized that he’d heard a rifle firing.

  ‘Sniper!’ Gumboot bellowed, dropping to his knees and scanning the waste ground as Jock hurried towards the armoured pig, still carrying Lampton. ‘Some bastard up on the roof! Let’s get the fuck out of here!’

  Ricketts glanced back at the flats and saw smoke billowing up from the balconies, forcing the dickers and housewives to scatter, many of them obviously choking and trying to cover their streaming eyes and noses. The roaring of sub-machine-guns suddenly came from the stairwell, then Danny and Taff came backing out, firing as they retreated.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Ricketts shouted.

  ‘We were covering Jock,’ Taff said, ‘as he carried Lampton down, with Dead-eye and Martin trying to hold back those stupid bastards on the second floor. They’d started throwing Molotov cocktails and instead of getting us they set fire to their own bloody flats. We backed down the stairs as Dead-eye and Danny threw some CS grenades and fired some rubber bullets, trying to hold the mob back. Then, just as we reached the stairwell leading down from the first floor, another bunch – hard men, not kids – carrying spiked clubs and chains, came along the first-floor balcony. Some followed us down the stairwell; the others went up to the second floor. Now Dead-eye and Martin are trapped up there, caught between the two groups. I think we have to go back up.’

  Ricketts glanced back at the armoured pig to see Jock leaning forward, into the open rear doors, letting Lampton’s body roll into the vehicle. ‘Come on, Gumboot, let’s go,’ he shouted.

  ‘What about us?’ Danny asked.

  Ricketts glanced at the wall of flame that ran along the front of the building, sending up a great column of black smoke.

  ‘There should be another entrance at the far end of the block,’ he said to Danny. ‘Go along there, take the stairs to the second floor, and come up behind those damned kids.’

  ‘How do I stop them?’

  ‘No bullets. Use a combination of smoke and stun grenades to put them out of action. If necessary, use the butt of your gun to beat the shit out of them.’ He glanced back towards the pig and saw Jock at the PRC 319 radio. ‘Jock’s calling for back-up,’ he said. ‘It’ll come from the nearest RUC station, which is just down the Falls, so it shouldn’t take long. Now get up there and calm them down.’

  ‘Right, boss,’ Danny said.

  While Danny and Taff ran towards the far end of the block of flats, Ricketts and Gumboot rushed back into the stairwell, holding their weapons at the ready, wondering what they would find there.

  In fact, the stairwells were empty and they soon reached the second floor.

  Martin felt as if he had wings and was taking flight. Standing beside Dead-eye, in the narrow, litter-strewn balcony, caught between the bottle-hurling youths at one end, the screaming housewives in their doorways, the wooden doors set alight by the hastily thrown Molotov cocktails, and the gang of hard men advancing from the other end with spiked clubs and bicycle chains, he was too enraptured with the sheer excitement of it all to feel any fear. This is what he had joined the SAS for and it was more than enough.

  He was standing back to back with Dead-eye, facing the oncoming youths as Dead-eye prepared to tackle the hard men. The screaming housewives were dousing the fires with buckets of water, creating more smoke.

  Martin asked: ‘Do we fire or not, Sarge? I say let’s shoot a few of the bastards and set an example.’

  ‘Stop talking shit,’ Dead-eye said, sounding calm. ‘Shoot one of these bastards and the rest will go mad. Put your respirator on and then throw a couple of hand grenades – a stun grenade, followed by CS. That should dampen their spirits.’

  An egg broke against Martin’s face. It was followed by some tomatoes. A fat whore of a housewife threw a pile of rubbish at him and someone else deluged him in cold water. His rage came out of nowhere.

  ‘Bugger this,’ he said. ‘I’m not playing with rubber bullets. If these paddies want to behave like pigs, then I’ll treat them that way. I’m not taking this shit!’

  ‘No real bullets!’ Dead-eye hissed, as his stun grenade exploded just in front of the hard men, blinding them with light, deafening them, making them reel drunkenly and fall against the walls. It was followed instantly by the CS grenade, which obscured them in a chemical smoke that burned their throats and eyes, hurt their ears and made them choke and vomit.

  When one of the youths aimed a pistol at Martin, he let rip with his short-barrelled Sterling submachine-gun, firing a short, deadly burst of 9mm bullets.

  ‘No!’ Dead-eye bawled.

  The young man flung his hands up, looking very surprised, then back-flipped into the group bunched up behind him, parting them like skittles as he crashed backwards on to the concrete floor, his chest pumping blood.

  The other youths looked down at him, briefly shocked into immobility, then, realizing that he was already dead, rushed as one at Martin. Being too surprised to fire his weapon a second time, the trooper let them swarm all over him before he could decide what to do.

  By then it was too late.

  The sub-machine-gun was torn f
rom his hands. His respirator was torn off. He was punched and kicked, then picked up and spun around. He caught a brief glimpse of Dead-eye, whose back was still turned to him, heading boldly into the clouds of CS gas, to beat his way out through the crowd of choking, vomiting hard men.

  Martin caught this glimpse of Dead-eye before he was turned away, balanced precariously on the hands of the bawling youths. Then he saw the balcony wall, the ground far below, and knew, with a terrible, lacerating fear, what they were going to do.

  He couldn’t believe it.

  His own scream was the last thing he heard as they heaved him over the balcony and he plunged to the ground.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Taff exclaimed just as he and Danny reached the second floor. ‘They’ve thrown someone off the bloody balcony. Oh, Christ, it’s a trooper!’

  Danny glanced over the wall and saw the soldier on the ground, face down and not moving a muscle, looking like a rag doll. When he stared along the balcony, he saw some youths running towards him, out of a cloud of CS gas, choking, coughing, wiping their eyes and noses, some falling against the walls, others collapsing, writhing on the ground in their own vomit. Beyond them, Dead-eye was making his escape, beating his way through a gang of older men, all of whom were also suffering badly from the clouds of CS gas.

  Clearly, Dead-eye was all right.

  When a rifle shot rang out from the roof, Jock twisted sideways, grabbed his left arm, fell to his knees and shook his head as if dazed.

  ‘Go back down and look after them,’ Danny said. ‘I’m going up on the roof.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a sniper up there and I’m going to get him.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No. You go back down and look after those two.’

  ‘OK,’Taff said. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I will,’ Danny replied.

  While Taff hurried back down, Danny took the stairs to the roof. It was another three flights up and he passed a few people – two housewives and a pimply-faced youth who wanted to see what was happening. Danny simply brushed past them, pretending they weren’t there; but when an older man, bumping into him near the top of the last stairwell, tried to stop him from going further, Danny belted him in the stomach with the stock of his sub-machine-gun, then thumped him on the side of the head and the back of the neck. When the man collapsed, groaning, Danny jumped over him and continued on up the stairs until he burst out on to the roof.