Killing For Company

by Brian Masters

  Dennis told his mother that he had decided to enlist in the army. It offered new opportunities, travel, a complete break with the past, and the occasion to train for a trade. He would be a chef. His mother said she thought he had wanted to do something artistic, to which he replied that cooking was as artistic as anything else. At the Army Recruiting Office in Market Street, Aberdeen, he passed the entrance tests and was given a date to start in September 1961, having signed on for a period of nine years. He was perky with optimism. Adam went to see him off.

  I remember standing on the platform on the hill at Strichen Railway Station. I had a shabby suitcase and raincoat. I was fifteen years old. It was raining. The great steam train arrived and took me puffing slowly off to the start of a new life. I never looked back, and the old images and the mists lifted as the bright blue sky appeared ahead of me. I left Aberdeen on the ‘Aberdonian’ overnight express for King’s Cross. I was impressed crossing the Tay Bridge with the tragic stumps of the fallen old bridge still there …

  The next morning we arrived in London. I took a confusing route on the tube to reach Waterloo Station. There I took the train to Aldershot and took a taxi up to St Omer Barrack (Apprentice Chefs Wing), Army Catering Corps, ‘A’ Company Junior Leaders’ Regiment.14

  fn1 See also the story in Chapter 10. There was an actual case of a boy who drowned trapped beneath the pier at the harbour. When his body was recovered, the sea-crabs had eaten out his eyes. Dennis Nilsen had nightmares about this story afterwards, and the image of a boy in sea-water, whether himself or someone else, never left him.

  4

  ARMY

  For the next three years, from 1961 to 1964, Dennis Nilsen was a boy soldier at Aldershot, in company with about twenty other adolescent recruits all eager for adventure. By his own account, he was ‘a frail and skinny boy, very self-conscious, introverted, and shy’.1 There was scarcely a moment, as is the way with army life, for introspection. The boys were immediately issued with a mountain of kit, staggered over to the ‘spider’ complex, and divided into V and W squads, Nilsen being assigned to V squad. From the very first day they were initiated into the iron discipline of army routine, under a strict and smart instructor. The day started early, stripping beds in the barracks and making a neatly-folded ‘bed pack’. Then the scrubbing jobs, washing the floors, corridors, lavatories until the linoleum shone like a mirror. With not a second to spare, they toiled the rest of the day in military, educational, and technical trade training, with kit inspections likely to be called at a moment’s notice. The boys quickly grew accustomed to working as a team, the better for each individual, and were transformed in a matter of days from a disparate group of confused, undisciplined children into an array of smart, alert, responsible young men. Dennis Nilsen’s confidence blossomed under the strain, and he, like everyone else, did not object to speeding about all day. He regularly collapsed into bed and slept at once. To feel ‘like everyone else’ was both novel and exhilarating for him. ‘On a final account, and in total, these days as a boy soldier were the happiest of my life.’2

  His colleagues at Aldershot – Brian Wells, Eric Talbot, Chris Innerd, Dave Norris – accepted him at face value, and one in particular, Brian Brasher, became a confidant until, crushed by the harsh routine, he bought himself out. Nilsen managed drill and training well enough, but his one difficulty was with physical exercise. When the regiment put forward a team for the Ten Tors marches, sixty miles’ tracking over hills in Dartmoor in thirty-six hours, he worked hard to train for the event, but felt he let the side down when he collapsed in the heather and failed to finish the course. Thereafter, he threw himself into cross-country running, determined that such a failure should never happen again, and made himself abundantly fit. This was the first occasion when both the strength of his will and his terror of failure manifested themselves as central aspects of his character.

  The Ten Tors march took place during the hot summer months when the entire Junior Tradesman Regiment moved to camp at Fort Tregantle in Cornwall. ‘It was a boy’s dream of high adventure, rock climbing, and general excitement. I loved that part of the country, the cliffs and the sea.’3 The warm air breezed in stark contrast to the cold bitterness of Aberdeenshire winds; it was another world entirely.

  On other occasions at Aldershot, he took part in ceremonial parades. One such, held in celebration of the centenary of the Garrison Church, was attended by the Queen, whom Dennis was proud to see in close proximity (and amazed at her small stature), and before whom he marched past afterwards. Another celebrity who inspected him on parade was Field-Marshal Lord Montgomery; instead of staring straight ahead at attention, Dennis Nilsen looked his lordship in the eye, and was surprised not to be admonished.

  On weekend leaves, the boys had seventy-two hours passes, and most would go home. Those who lived too far away to make a journey worthwhile, Nilsen included, would go camping, to Marlow on the Thames, to the New Forest, or to Stonehenge. On one occasion they found themselves in the grounds of Broadlands, Lord Mountbatten’s home.

  The most important man at Aldershot was the regimental sergeant-major who, whether he liked it or not, met the needs for paternalistic authority felt in varying degrees by all the boys. Dennis Nilsen was no exception. He warmed to the ‘father-figure’ appeal of R.S.M. ‘Paddy’ Dowd, a man whom he knew intuitively he could trust:

  I never met any R.S.M. in the army whom I didn’t (although sometimes secretly) admire and respect … An R.S.M. is top man in any regiment, and they all have a hard abrasive vocal edge, with scrupulously fair-minded ‘soft centres’. You know exactly how you stand with them – there are no uncertainties. They can be relied upon 100 per cent. I never knew an R.S.M. who didn’t have a warm sense of humour and quick (sometimes acid) wit … in times of real personal problems the ‘soft centre’ always came to the fore and mountains could be moved to ease the pressure.4

  After three years, Nilsen passed his senior education test (equivalent to ‘O’ Level) in five subjects – maths, English, catering science, map-reading and current affairs, passing in addition the important B II catering exam which confirmed the direction of his career. He completed full training on foot, arms and weapons drill, and took his passing out parade in the summer of 1964. At the age of eighteen, Nilsen was a young man with a career, a future, security. There was little that need trouble him. Even his pervasive sense of isolation had to a large extent been dissipated by the comradeship of army life. He could mix much more easily, and he had begun to find his tongue.

  After Aldershot, Nilsen went home to Strichen for a brief period of leave. Anxious to see his grandmother, he hired a scooter and drove to Fraserburgh, then on south to Aberdeen. It was raining and the road was slippery. Dennis skidded, crashed into a lorry, and was taken to the infirmary where he was X-rayed and discharged. Apart from bruises, there appeared to be no serious damage, and if the heavy knock he sustained to the head caused an injury with hidden and delayed effects, certainly no one diagnosed anything of the sort at the time.

  Nilsen’s first posting as a private was to the 1st Battalion the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) at Osnabruck in Germany, whose commanding officer was Lt.-Col. Taylor. He took up his job on the team of SQMS ‘Badger’ Maitland, a likeable and easy-going fellow with a serious drink problem. The cook sergeant was Tommy Ibrahim, and Nilsen’s contemporaries and friends at this time were Ginger Watson, Micky Duke, Bob Pears, Dumbo Howitt and Paddy Aherne. The company commander was Major Dennis. It was, again, a happy time, an extension and continuation of the domestic camaraderie begun at Aldershot, occasionally interrupted by military field exercises. Osnabruck also marks Dennis Nilsen’s introduction to drink. ‘We were a hard-working boozy lot who did not appear to miss one night’s drinking in the two years I was there.’5 Some of his fellows noticed he was more frequently intoxicated than the rest of them. He returned to Aldershot briefly to pass the B I catering exam, and served with the brigade in Norway.

  The happ
iness of these years was compromised by one increasingly serious preoccupation. While still at Aldershot he had been aware of being attracted to various other boys, and of the obvious need to repress these sexual longings. The repression carried with it a concomitant feeling of guilt, for if his desires needed to be hidden then there must be something wrong with them. He thought of himself as bisexual rather than homosexual, and as he was not in any way effeminate it was relatively easy for him to dissemble. He was careful never to let slip any indication of his sexuality, still less to declare himself, but was tormented by the awkward suspicion that his ‘abnormality’ must somehow be transparent. ‘I never took a shower, always a bath. I was always afraid that I must somehow look different and that my innermost thoughts would be exposed with my nakedness.’ Sleeping in barracks with twenty other boys, he could only find relief in masturbation when alone in the bathroom.

  As a young man in Osnabruck, the temptations were greater, and had therefore to be the more severely contained. Coming home drunk in the evening, he might frequently have to be undressed and dumped into bed by one of the other soldiers, or perform the same service for one of them. No sexual encounter ever took place. If ever ‘queers’ were discussed, it was invariably with derision and scorn, in which Dennis Nilsen joined as heartily as the next man. All the time he knew that he was deceiving his friends, and that his real emotional identity was being smothered by pretence. The strain of maintaining the deception was gradually depositing a silt of unacknowledged pressure.

  In 1967, aged twenty-one, Nilsen was posted to Aden, attached to the Military Provost Staff Corps in charge of terrorist detainees at the Al Mansoura Prison. The British had on their hands a desperate defensive war against Arab terrorists fired by hatred and oblivious to personal safety. The prison, a walled fort with heavy gates and machine-gun watch-towers, was under frequent attack from rioters, and the sight of dead bodies littering the countryside was commonplace. Some soldiers, ambushed on their way back to their barracks, lost their lives and were horribly mutilated; others unwise enough to be entertained by a local whore might have their throats cut on the job. It was altogether a searing experience in an atmosphere torrid with heat and danger. Dennis Nilsen appears to have taken more than a few risks, hitch-hiking back to Al Mansoura through terrorist-infested terrain (and probably unmolested because the Arabs thought he must be a decoy), and arriving at the prison on the back of an Arab vegetable lorry. There was one incident which ought to have proved fatal, when he had been drinking in the Oasis Bar.

  I was really drunk at the time. I hailed a black and yellow cab and instructed the driver to go forth. I remember passing Check Point Bravo and waving the taxi on. I must have dozed off in the back of the cab. I felt a sharp pain on the back of my head (on reflection I guessed that the driver had hit me with a cosh or something – to this day I cannot understand why he didn’t cut my throat – maybe he was proud of his taxi and didn’t want to make a mess of the back seat with my blood). I woke up naked in what I took to be the boot of the car. I was still a bit dazed. I felt around and my clothes were in the boot as well (or someone’s clothes). The engine started (I couldn’t open the boot). After what seemed like a short drive the vehicle stopped. In a flash I decided to ‘play dead’ as being the best way to sum up the situation and make a break for it. The boot opened slowly and through a squinted eye I saw a well-built Arab. He had a cosh or something in his hand. He stretched his arm cautiously towards me muttering something in Arabic. He touched my ankle and moved his hand up to my knee still muttering. He grasped my leg under the knee, raised it and let it flop limply back in place (I tried to be as limp as possible) … he stroked his hand across my buttocks … It was when he was manhandling me out of the boot that I felt the coldness of metal. I grabbed the jack-handle and sitting up hit him a hard blow full on the head. He dropped like a felled ox. I hit him two equally hard blows on the head. There was a lot of blood. He never made a sound. I was in a cluster of old buildings. I quickly put on my clothes (I couldn’t find my underpants). My money was still in my jeans … I wiped the jack-handle with an oil cloth, put it in and closed the boot. There was no one else around, very quiet. A dog barked some way off. It was quite light under the strong moonlight. I stood thinking for a moment and decided that he would be less conspicuous actually in the boot himself.6

  Nilsen managed to drag the Arab into the boot, scuffed the sand to disperse traces of blood, and started walking. He was not far from a main road, and soon recognised it as the road which would eventually lead to the prison. It was two in the morning when he arrived at the gates, was picked out by searchlights and brought in by foot patrol. He was reprimanded but never talked about the incident.

  The next morning I was full of the horror of what had almost happened to me. I felt like the luckiest man in Aden. I had nightmares afterwards of being tortured, raped, murdered and mutilated, or other combinations towards the same end.7

  The incident gains interest in the light of what we now know. Both a psychiatrist and the present author challenged Nilsen with the possibility that it might be a fantasy. He readily acknowledges that he is prone to embellish memories with imagined details (as indeed we all do to some extent), and is no longer certain which of his recollections are fantasy and which are fact. (Similarly, his portrayal of himself as a scruffy little boy in Aberdeenshire with romantic longings for the land owes something to the post facto shaping of a novelist or stage director – a fusion of Nilsen the boy and Nilsen the creature of his own imagination.) The psychiatrist said frankly that he thought the Aden incident was ‘most unlikely’ to be true. I believe it is based on an actual event and has been enhanced by subconscious editing (the nakedness and unconsciousness probably being the work of the subconscious). There may not even have been a death, but only the threat of one. The degree of factual truth is almost beside the point. What is significant is that he mentioned it to no one. His capacity to thrust the memory into a private compartment of his mind and proceed, outwardly unaffected, along the normal course of his life, was remarkable when set beside the ordinary compulsion that many would feel to confide such an unnerving experience. And if it is an imagined adventure, it is still remarkable that his fancies could thrive secretly, without interference from the side of him engaged in mundane reality.

  Pending British withdrawal from Aden, in the summer of 1967 Nilsen was posted in charge of catering to the Trucial Oman Scouts Mess at Sharjah in the Persian Gulf. Despite some harrowing events (a pilot who crashed was brought back to his mess in pieces), this was a relatively more relaxing time with boozy evenings at the R.A.F. Flying Kunjah Club, jovial companionship and lewd songs, even cocktail parties on the roof. One of the drinking companions, known as ‘Smithy’, fell off a Land-Rover and broke his neck. He was buried in a simple desert grave. Dennis lamented his loss as they all did, but he nursed a secret fascination with the idea that to die young was in an important way enviable, that to be saved the vicissitudes of an uncertain future was perhaps more a cause for celebration than regret. Looking back, he reflected on ‘the sand storm blowing over the disappearing grave of young “Smithy”, terminated at the end of a happy day with his mates, instantly. There “Smithy” is forever as he was, ageless, while the rest of us totter on round our little circles of personal decay.’8 Death is here conceived, not as an end, but as an endless pause in time.

  At Sharjah, Dennis Nilsen was an N.C.O. with the crucial advantage of a private room. This was to have a lasting influence upon the development of his sexual nature. It was not particularly important that there was an Arab boy willing to go to bed with him, as he was with most of the officers, although this must have been the first time that Dennis had achieved tactile sexual contact with another person. The boy declared undying affection, pleaded to be taken back to England, and offered his services more frequently than they could reasonably be required. Dennis was not moved in any way. He felt rather ashamed of having sex with the boy, who was not even sure of his o
wn age, but his thoughts did not dwell upon it or deepen into guilt. Far more important was his discovery of the mirror.

  When I had the privacy of my own room as an N.C.O. sexual expression became more complex. The novelty of one’s own body soon wore off and I needed something positive to relate to. My imagination hit on the idea of using a mirror. By placing a large, long mirror on its side strategically beside the bed, I would view my own reclining reflection. At first always careful not to show my head, because the situation needed that I believe it was someone else. I would give the reflection some animation, but that play could not be drawn out long enough. The fantasy could dwell much longer on a mirror image which was asleep.9

  Thus began a distorted narcissism in which the desired object was, to all outward appearances, dead.

  Years of concealment and guilt were now harvesting their crop of deep psychological damage, or at least beginning to. ‘If the guilty feel like criminals, then I have been all my life a criminal.’10 Nilsen was ashamed of his emotions and dared not declare them. As far as he knew, he was destined never to enjoy the warmth of a normal human relationship, for a variety of reasons which he only half admitted to himself. He would not marry, because he was stained with the genetic shortcomings of his unstable father, which made him peculiar even before birth. He felt no great stirrings of emotion or lust towards women, and those he felt towards men had necessarily to be hidden. He was an expert at concealment; nobody knew him, and his reputation as a ‘loner’ was gaining wide credence, in spite of his being chummy and loquacious with the crowd. As far as he was concerned, his very nature was marked with a scar of abnormality which he could do nothing about. Like a club foot, it would be with him forever, but at least it was not so visible. If he would have to continue suppressing his own nature, then he must indulge his private emotions in secret, where the imagination rules, not reality. ‘The image in the mirror becomes your only friend and true lover.’ He would not allow any emotional experience in reality, but would take more and more frequent refuge in fantasy. ‘It starts in narcissism and ends in confusion.’11