Soldier Of The Queen

by Bernard O'Mahoney

  I felt like a phoney hiding behind an assumed identity. I couldn't tell anyone, Protestant or Catholic, who I really was. It began to get me down, which was dangerous, because when I feel that way I tend to turn those feelings into anger which I direct outwards at the world. One evening when Elizabeth wasn't at home I felt particularly down. I began feeling angry at being surrounded by all this phoniness. As a joke someone had given me a little blue-and-white shield-shaped badge on which was emblazoned the provocative symbol of militant loyalism, the Red Hand of Ulster. I stuck it on my jacket and went for a drink in another Provo pub that Elizabeth had warned me to steer clear of. The pub was only about a quarter full. I stood at the bar waiting to be served, my badge of defiance unnoticed by the elderly regulars. I couldn't see what Elizabeth was fussing about: none of the customers in this supposed IRA den looked violent or capable of violence.

  The barman, a stocky Lenin lookalike, came and said politely: "And what can I get for you, sir?" His eyes fell on my badge. It was like a crucifix to the Anti-Christ. I saw his eyes widening then he shouted at me: "Get out of here with that thing on."

  I told him I wasn't going anywhere: I wanted a drink. He continued shouting at me to get out, but I refused. The customers watched me with silent hostility, but no-one intervened. The barman said he was calling the police, an unusual act for a republican, but I assumed that the hated symbol of loyalism on my jacket had unhinged him. Within a short while two armed policemen came into the pub. I explained the situation, but they told me a landlord was under no obligation to serve anyone. They asked me to leave with them.

  Outside one of them said: "You shouldn't go in there, especially not wearing that badge."

  I said: "If I want to wear a badge I'll wear a fucking badge and they won't stop me." He said again that I shouldn't return to that pub. I said I was sick of being told where I could and couldn't go: "I'll go where I want." I didn't tell Elizabeth what I'd done, but within a few days she knew. Word had got back to her, even though I hadn't known those policemen. She could not believe I had been so stupid.

  Elizabeth realised I wasn't happy. I could tell she was worried about the way I was drawing attention to myself. She would try to remind me that I wasn't in England where my loutish behaviour might only provoke a fist-fight: "Over here they'll learn who you are, what you are, wait for their moment and shoot you. You've got to take it easy. You've got to learn your boundaries." That weekend she suggested we got out of Enniskillen for the day. We went across the border to a nearby town to see a concert by an Irish country band led by someone called Big Tom. It was not my sort of music, but Elizabeth was keen. Inside the venue, peculiarly, the audience sat down to a meal of fish and chips before the band came on. While I was eating, a man walked past and jogged the table, spilling my pint of beer. He didn't apologise. I thought it was a deliberate act to provoke me. By now I believed it was me versus the whole of Ulster.

  "Oi, you prick," I shouted after him, "you spilt my beer."

  He didn't even look around. Elizabeth told me to forget about it, but I was furious. I got up and approached the man who had moved to stand a few yards away. I told him he had spilt my beer and that I wanted another pint. He stared at me without saying anything. "Look, tosser," I said, "are you going to buy me another pint?" Again he didn't say anything and just stared at me vacantly. I grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him close to my face. I shouted: "Answer me! Answer me!"

  A woman came rushing over to me: "Leave him alone! Leave him alone! He's deaf and dumb."

  I sat back down next to Elizabeth, who looked horror-struck at the attention I had drawn to us. Fortunately the band started playing.

  Elizabeth must have thought I needed to be kept away from large groups of people, because she suggested we moved out of Enniskillen into the countryside. An ex-UDR man owned a house in a remote area near Maguiresbridge and he said he'd rent it to us. I fancied a change, but when I saw the house I wasn't sure it was quite the change I needed. We were about half a mile from the nearest neighbours, a mile from the main road and five miles from the nearest village. Worst of all, we were practically on the border, making us easy targets for the IRA. However, Elizabeth seemed to think it was a good idea, so I went along with her.

  I had been back in Northern Ireland for about three months by this stage. There were still several months to go before I joined the UDR. I had not bothered looking for work, because I didn't want to be in a position where an employer would have to receive my P45 (the official certificate detailing my last employment). But boredom was really beginning to bite and I decided to see if the dole office offered any back-to-work re-training courses at the local college. I went to a dole office that Elizabeth had told me was "safe" (that is, the one most likely to have Protestant staff and a Protestant clientèle). They found me a place on an engineering course at a college in Enniskillen. Memories of my schooldays filled me with dread, but I thought the course would at least get me out of the house. I had arranged that my P45 from the army would be sent to the Department of Employment, which would effectively be my employer during my time on the course.

  I discovered that most of my fellow students were Catholics, as was the instructor. On the first day he went around the class asking people about themselves. Perhaps I was paranoid, but he seemed to pay special attention to me. I suppose I was an oddity, because there were not too many people with English accents in the college. He asked me what I was doing over there. I said my parents were Irish; they had moved back to Ireland and I had decided to join them. I hoped that would be enough for him, but he kept asking searching questions. Where were my parents from? What did my dad do? Where were they living? Perhaps he was just being pally, but he made me feel uncomfortable. The other students weren't particularly friendly, although that could have been my fault as I was not overly friendly myself. I wasn't looking for a new group of mates. I felt that, even though they knew I had Irish blood, for them the most important fact about me was my English accent.

  Later in the week as we sat in the classroom before the start of the lesson the instructor said clearly in front of the class: "Bernard, could you come to the office later? Your P45 has arrived from the army."

  I thought: "I'm fucked." I felt like punching the bastard in the face, but I just gave a little laugh and said: "No problem." I knew he had done it on purpose. At the time I thought he was trying to cause me problems - and I even considered giving him a bashing — but with hindsight I think he might have been trying to do me a favour by letting me know that other people, apart from himself, could already have seen the P45. From then on the instructor remained friendly — more proof that I had more to fear from "nice" people — but almost all the other students made a point of ignoring me. The only people who would ever speak to me were Protestants, and there weren't many of them around. Within days someone had scrawled "Brits Out" on the back of my overalls. I would come in to find my bits of practical work smashed to pieces or missing. I felt vulnerable, but angry. I used to make sure I carried a sharp tool around with me at all times. I was waiting for someone to say or do something overtly hostile - so I could justifiably smash his face in.

  One day as I was standing at the college gates I noticed a motorbike driving past. The pillion passenger stared at me.

  The bike went up the road and drove into a garage forecourt. It turned around and came back down past me. Again the pillion passenger stared at me. The bike stopped at the end of the road. I thought they were just two students who were going to have a go at me. I felt my temper rising. I started walking towards them, thinking, "If they want it, they can have it." They must have seen the look on my face, because as I came within 20 yards they drove off. I told Elizabeth about it: she immediately assumed they were Provos carrying out surveillance on me. She told her brother, who assumed the same. He wanted me to leave the college immediately. I didn't want to: I wasn't going to run from them. He said: "Well, you've really got to start being careful." I did becom
e a lot more careful. I didn't think they would risk doing anything to me inside the complex, but outside was different. I tried to alternate between different exits and I would walk away in different directions. Elizabeth used to pick me up at prearranged places.

  To make matters worse, around this time strange things started happening at the new house. Our dog, Jagger, started barking occasionally during the night, as if there was someone outside. Then one night when we were in bed I heard the sound of a car driving up to the house. Someone got out and banged on the front door. Elizabeth had always told me never to open the door after 10 p.m. She and her friends had an agreement that they would never call on each other after that time, except in emergencies — and only then if they had telephoned first. We stayed where we were, knowing it could only be a stranger. Elizabeth didn't have a personal firearm. She knew there was no point in applying for one if she was sharing a house with someone with my criminal record. There were a few more bangs and Jagger was barking madly. Then we heard a car door slamming and the car driving away. I said to Elizabeth that the driver was probably lost and looking for directions. But I knew I was really just telling myself what I wanted to hear. These were only small things, but they began to play on both our minds. A few weeks later we came home to find that someone had painted the word "scum" in large capital letters on the front door. Elizabeth - if this was possible — became even more security-conscious. So did I. I seemed to spend my days asking myself questions like: "Who's that looking at me? Should I check under the car again? Did I leave the gate closed like that? Did I take this route last time?" But at times I would feel sick of living like that and I would drop my guard and maybe do something that Elizabeth regarded as incautious. All of this put a tremendous strain on us and the relationship began deteriorating rapidly. Ironically, her mother, who didn't even know we were living together — she thought I was still based at St Angelo - started dropping hints about our getting married. She would say things like: "Oh, you and Elizabeth are getting on well. I'll introduce you to the minister." or "I hope you're not going to wear boots to the wedding. Ha! Ha! Ha!" I thought: "Wedding? What wedding?"

  But everything came to a sudden end. I came out of college one day to find two green RUC Cortinas with bullet-proof windows parked outside. Elizabeth was standing in the road between them talking to two policemen. A UDR friend was with her. She was crying. I thought something drastic had happened. I ran to her and said: "What's wrong? What's wrong?" "You've got to go," she said. "You've just got to go."

  I asked her what she meant. One of the policemen said it was best that we didn't go back to the house. I asked him why.

  He said that things had been happening and they were advising me to go. "Go where?" I asked.

  He said it had been arranged that I would go back to England for a few weeks: Elizabeth would join me later and everything would be fine.

  "I'm not going anywhere," I said.

  But he was firmly insistent: "It's for your own good. We're going to drive you to the ferry now."

  I could hardly believe what was happening. I said: "What about my gear?" He said they had put all my gear in the boot. I just caved in: I felt I had no choice in the matter. The fact was that I did have no choice in the matter. Elizabeth was still crying. I kissed her goodbye. She said she would come over to England to see me soon. I got in one of the police cars and we drove off. They drove me to Larne to get the ferry to Stranraer in Scotland. I only discovered then that they had not brought all my possessions. They had filled three cases, but most of the stuff I'd brought from England had been left behind: around 300 LPs, several hundred singles, all my photos and books, my army reserve kit, a lot of my clothes and other personal bits and pieces. There was nothing I could do about it now. I was too dazed to complain. I just got on the ferry. It set sail. For the whole journey I stood on the deck watching the shores of Northern Ireland slowly disappear.

  I never received a satisfactory explanation for why the RUC became involved in taking me to Larne. The more I thought about it, the more extraordinary it seemed. If they had thought we were in immediate danger they could just have helped us move that day to somewhere else in Enniskillen. Why did I need to be moved out of the country while Elizabeth stayed behind? And surely — no matter how immediate the danger -they could have consulted the two of us to enable us to decide what we wanted to do? Elizabeth did come over to England a few times. I tried to get to the bottom of what had happened, but she would say either that she didn't know or that she didn't want to talk about it. The first and most detailed explanation she gave me was that she had kept her brother informed of everything that was going on — the men on the motorbike, the bang on the door, the graffiti on the house - and he had told his superiors, who thought I needed to be moved back to England immediately for my own safety. At first I chose to believe that explanation, but over time it became more implausible.

  I came to feel that what had probably happened was that her parents had found out about my Catholic background and the fact that we were living in sin - and they had wanted me out of her life. The apparent danger I was putting her in with my occasional foolish behaviour would merely have added to their determination to remove me physically from Fermanagh. I was sure the family's RUC connections would easily have provided the clout to arrange for me to be taken to Larne and put on a boat. I couldn't help feeling that Elizabeth had played a part in what had happened. At the very least she had been complicit. The relationship, based as it was on a multitude of falsehoods, had become greatly strained. It wouldn't have lasted, but at the same time I hadn't wanted it to end the way it did.

  Elizabeth told me that my possessions had been put at her parents' house for safe-keeping. I was planning to pick them up myself eventually. When I saw Elizabeth in England about six months later I mentioned I would have to get my stuff back from her parents' house urgently: I was missing my records and

  I needed my clothing and personal effects. I had mentioned the subject several times before and she had behaved oddly, as if she were trying to change the subject. This time, however, she could tell I wanted to make firm arrangements for the return of what was mine. She looked a bit embarrassed. Then she said her parents had destroyed everything. I was stunned. I asked her why. She said they didn't think I was coming back. I wanted to know why she or they hadn't contacted me before doing something so drastic. Again she couldn't, or wouldn't, give me a satisfactory explanation.

  I felt angry and upset. I had lost almost all my most personal possessions. Not just records and clothes, but photos and letters - things that were irreplaceable. It confirmed to me that her family had discovered that I'd been lying to them about my background. I imagined how shocked her poor mother must have been to discover she had been trying to marry her daughter off to a Fenian. I thought of her falling to her knees and praying to God or the Reverend Ian Paisley, or both, in abject apology for her wickedness. I could imagine her, too, piling up my possessions in her garden, dousing them with petrol and, in an act of cathartic cleansing, flicking a lighted match onto the heap.

  In the future my journey would take me to some strange and violent places where I would mix with some strange and violent people, yet nothing would compare with the dangerous peculiarity of that truncated corner of Ulster. With my Irish blood and my British upbringing I should have felt at home there. But I had never felt, and would never feel, so alien. As I imagined my possessions going up in flames my anger was tempered by a sense of relief. I would never return there. They were welcome to their bonfires.

  250

 

 

 
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