On the Brinks

by Sam Millar

  The workers were saturated in blood, as red as the mangled wreckage of meat they hacked at. Distinguishable only by the tiny whitenesses of eyes, teeth and fingernails, they worked their endless choreography of death as though immune, moving in perfect harmony as if part of some farcical play performed for an invisible audience. They seemed to be talking at once; loud yet ambient.

  On my first day, my nostrils began to flood with the stomach-churning smell. The same stinking stench from outside the building assaulted me, but with greatly magnified force – the filth of rotten flesh, of fear and hate, oozing from the ruins of carcases and their tormentors.

  One group of workers were seated comfortably in a tiny corner of the room, seemingly immune to the chaos about them, talking and reading newspapers. They devoured their meal of fried eggs and freshly slaughtered meat, wiping their stained mouths with bloody, ragged handkerchiefs.

  I felt my stomach move at the thought of eating a creature I had seen alive and well only minutes before. How could they hold down the food? I felt my head go light, and wondered was I going to vomit, would my resolve evaporate?

  “Are ye feeling okay?” grinned the foreman. “Ye look pale.”

  “No, don’t you worry about me. This is nothing,” I lied. “Get me my knives …” It was then I remembered Sadie’s prophetic words: You’ll be able to do this one day …

  On the plus side of this nightmare, I was able to bring home as much meat as I could carry, each Friday evening. Some of the Catholic workers refused to take any, perceiving it as an insult to the Fishy Friday imposed by Rome. It didn’t bother me for a moment. Steak will beat fish any day of the week, said the Protestant blood in me.

  Thankfully, my stay in the bloody place was shortlived. After only six months, I got a job as a barman, working in Kelly’s Cellars, one of Belfast’s oldest drinking establishments. There I would listen to longhaired and bearded radicals mixing with left-wing students, espousing social change and discussing how to bring down the status quo of Unionist domination. They spoke of Che Guevara, Martin Luther King and James Connolly, of street strategies and struggles. I listened, but wasn’t listening. Despite my family’s republican background, I had little interest in politics and banter. The brutal murders in Derry were pushing me towards militant republicanism. All I needed was one more shove.

  It soon came.

  I had only been a barman for about a week when I heard the terrible news on the TV: Masked loyalist terrorists have shot a Catholic teenager in his workplace, on the Lisburn Road. The so-called Red Hand Commandos have admitted the murder, stating all Catholics were targets. Police have named the victim as seventeen-year-old Jim Kerr …

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Sticky Situation Called Welsh Taffy

  Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

  Henry David Thoreau

  He that is taken and put into prison or chains is not conquered, though overcome; for he is still an enemy.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Not too long after Jim’s sectarian murder, I found myself being arrested on trumped-up charges of belonging to an ‘illegal organisation’, namely the Irish Republican Army. At seventeen, I met my very first Englishman as he kicked in the door of my home in the early morning, forcefully dragging me out of bed using my ears as a rope.

  There with his squad of fully armed mates attired in British Army uniforms, he insisted on aiming an SLR (Self-Loading Rifle) inches from my left eye and calling me a dirty Paddy bastard, despite the fact that I kept groggily telling him my name was Sammy, not Paddy. He wasn’t too impressed by my grandfather’s Orange sash, or the photos of Kennedy and the Pope. Perhaps if we had placed a photo of Lizzy Windsor alongside them, it might have tempered his temper, and the house wouldn’t have looked as if it had been visited by a mini-tornado of vandalism and destruction.

  Dad always allowed our home to be used as a safe house for IRA men on the run, feeding and sheltering them. I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone informed on him.

  Fortunately for Dad, he wasn’t home when the armed foreigners arrived to ‘have a word with him’. Unfortunately for me, I became a suitable substitute, and was quickly taken away to the notorious Castlereagh Interrogation Centre, a sinister place with a terrifying reputation for torture and human rights abuses of political suspects, as recorded by Amnesty International.

  Suspects were often beaten, burned with cigarettes or lighters, and forced to assume stressful positions for long periods. They were stripped and humiliated, and sometimes threatened with murder. Some were treated to a technique known as ‘dorsi-flexing’ – stretching a suspect’s wrists or elbows into painful positions, sometimes for hours at a time. It wasn’t unusual to be sent to the hospital after a visit to Castlereagh, though you weren’t guaranteed a bunch of flowers and grapes.

  One notorious peeler, Bill Mooney, would fire up his interrogators before they entered the interview rooms, demanding: “What are you, men or mice? get in there!” If the other peelers failed to quickly break a suspect, he would ask them: “Have I got to get in there and do it myself?” The charitable Mooney would later be awarded the rank of Detective Chief Superintendent, for his kindly work and communications skills.

  After my three-day lodgings in Castlereagh, I was sent to Crumlin Road Gaol, with quite a few bruises and cuts about my body – though not on my face. ‘Never on their faces, lads. Never the face …’

  Belfast’s infamous Crumlin Road Gaol – known to locals as the Crum – was an intimidating place, gothic in atmosphere. Had the bleak structure been built on top of a mountain instead of on a main roadway, it would have made a great set for a Hammer movie. Built from black basalt rock between the years of 1843 and 1845, its ten-acre site housed four wings, fanning out from a central area known as The Circle – or Control Area. Each cell measured twelve by seven feet, and ten feet in height. The gaol was originally built to house between 500 and 550 prisoners, in single-cell accommodation. In later years – especially in the 1970s – up to three prisoners, chiefly republicans, could occupy a single cell.

  The first official use of the hellish place was in March 1846, when 106 unfortunate prisoners – men, women and children – were marched here in chains from the county gaol in Carrickfergus. Six of these original 106 souls were eventually transported to the ‘end of the world’, Australia.

  In the early years of the gaol, starving children were imprisoned here for stealing food, in a city where poverty and starvation were rife in working-class areas. Sentences handed down to children by the compassionate and god-fearing judges ranged from one week to one month, and usually included a whipping. The sentence could increase if the judge did not like your face. This was the fate of ten-year-old Patrick Magee, who found himself before a judge for a second time in April 1858 for the unpardonable crime of stealing dirty clothes from a washer woman. Patrick was sentenced to three months. Tormented and threatened by the jail’s cowardly hangman and screws, the young boy was forced to hang himself in a cell.

  In the gaol’s lifetime, seventeen men were executed by hanging. Their bodies were buried within the prison walls in unconsecrated ground, the only marker being the men’s initials and years of execution, scratched into the wall.

  The gaol’s most regular hangman was Albert Pierrepoint, a ghoul who relished his grisly trade. As an eleven-year-old he wrote, in a school essay: “When I leave school I should like to be the Official Executioner.”

  And so you shall, lad, and so you shall …

  * * *

  Sunday nights in the Crum were always the worst. For supper, a boiled egg and a slice of soda bread had to suffice until the next morning’s bowl of hardened porridge. The only things to break the stultifying monotony were searches carried out by armed British soldiers, wrecking your cell and confiscating the few belongings you had managed to accumulate. The searches usually lasted from Sunday night into the wee hours of Monday morning.
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br />   Most of the time, the searches went on without too many problems. Prisoners were placed in the prison canteen, watched by a handful of eagle-eyed screws. Normally, once the searching of your cell was over, the soldiers would leave, and you would be escorted back to your cell by the screws, to clean up the mess.

  Usually …

  “Millar,” snarled a screw, interrupting my conversation with my cellmate.

  “What?” I said, waiting for the screw to tell us to go back to the cell.

  “You’re wanted in your cell,” said the screw, a sinister smirk on his slimy gob. “Someone wants to talk to you – alone.”

  “Who?” I said, trying to sound as if alarm bells weren’t suddenly ringing in my head.

  “You’ll find that out soon enough. Come on. We haven’t all night.”

  “Don’t go down, Sam,” said my cellmate, concern on his face. “The bastards are up to something.”

  “If you don’t come now, Millar,” cut in the screw, “we’ll drag you down to your cell – feet first.”

  On cue, three more screws appeared at the canteen door. They didn’t have smiley faces on.

  “Fuck it. I’m not afraid of them,” I lied, practically shitting myself. Heading out of the canteen, I kept wondering how many pairs of clean underwear I had left?

  All four screws escorted me down the wing, whispering and laughing. Just as I approached my cell, one of them said, “You’re fucking in for it, Millar. Hospital bed for you tonight.”

  I entered the cell. A British soldier stood there, arms folded. He was a giant of a man, in length and breadth. How the hell they managed to get him in the cell was beyond me. They must have used a giant shoehorn, just to squeeze him through the door.

  “Do you need our help, Sergeant?” Smirking Screw asked.

  I almost burst out laughing.

  Sergeant Giant must have found it funny also. He grinned, before saying in a Welsh accent, “No, officer. I think I can manage this lad on my own.”

  The screws fled quickly, obviously not wanting to be called as witnesses to the carnage about to befall me.

  “Do you know me?” Sergeant Giant said, slowly walking towards me.

  I shook my head, mumbling, “No … don’t think so …”

  “Have a good look,” he said, bringing his face to mine. “A real good look.”

  I quickly gave his face a real good look, while waiting for a killer punch to my gut.

  “No, I don’t know you …” I finally managed to say.

  “Then why the fuck do you want to kill me, eh?” he said, sounding like an angry Tom Jones.

  The guy had clearly lost his marbles, and I was alone with him. Why did bad things always have to happen to me? “I … Why would I want to kill you? I … I don’t even know you.”

  His shovel-sized Welsh hand came up to my face. I waited for him to wrap it around my skinny Irish neck and squeeze the life out of me. Instead, he gently guided my face towards the back wall of the cell.

  “See that picture?”

  There were hundreds of pictures on the wall, mostly of beautiful women and pop singers.

  “Which one?” I croaked.

  “That fucking one,” he said, jabbing his finger.

  I looked at the picture in question. A newspaper clipping, from a British red top. The newspaper had been running a moustache-growing competition between British Army regiments, trying to discover who had the best-looking moustache in uniform. The eventual winner had an enormous moustache, groomed to perfection, looking like Jimmy Edwards. Childishly, I had drawn a crosshair on the winner’s forehead, and written the word Bang! across it.

  “Well? What have you to say for yourself?” Sergeant Giant said, obviously offended that one of his mates should be treated in such a coldblooded fashion.

  I shrugged my shoulders. There was nothing I could say. His mate was the enemy, and would be treated as such.

  “That’s me before I shaved the moustache off,” Sergeant Giant growled.

  Oh fuck. I farted loudly with nerves, and hoped it wasn’t the sound of things to come.

  “I won the award for best moustache in the army. I beat the Sais – the English – at their own game. They were gutted,” Sergeant Giant continued, pride in his voice while staring at the clipping. Then he quickly turned his attention back to me, his voice changing dramatically. “So, you’d shoot me, if you saw me on the street in Belfast, would you?”

  I knew what was coming next, a punch or a kick, and wondered how painful it would be.

  “I … well … this is my country, and you’ve no right to be here.” I was shocked at how big my balls had grown. I was sure it wouldn’t be too long before they were kicked back to pea-size.

  Sergeant Giant looked taken aback at my audacity. Then he spoke very softly. “Let me tell you something. My brother was a member of Byddin Rhyddid Cymru – Free Wales Army. Ever hear of them?”

  “No.”

  “They were a bit like your IRA, only a hell of a lot smaller. They did thier bombings, just like your IRA – though they weren’t very good at making them. Killed a couple of themselves with their bombs. Never got Wales anywhere. Like yourself, my brother spent time in prison for them. Know where he is today?”

  “No.”

  “Homeless in Swansea, an alcoholic. Marriage destroyed. That’s what joining Byddin Rhyddid Cymru got him.”

  A head popped itself into the cell. Another soldier. “Sarge? We’re packing up. Time to go.”

  Sergeant Giant nodded. “Coming,” he said, turning his attention back to me. “Byddin Rhyddid Cymru had a motto: Fe godwn ni eto. That means, ‘We will rise again.’ Ha! Some hope.”

  Turning, he lifted one of my felt-tipped pens from the top of the table, and scrawled “Taffy” on the clipping of himself.

  He smiled, handing me back the pen. “Think about what I said. No one gives a fuck about you, rotting away in here. No one …”

  And with those pearls of wisdom, he was gone.

  * * *

  Two-and-a-half months later, I had the dubious distinction of being the first Irish nationalist to appear in front of the infamous non-jury Diplock court, on 15 October 1973.

  “Not to worry,” said my lawyer at the time. “You’ll probably only be fined. Probably about thirty quid. That’s what they’re all being fined.”

  Thirty quid! Where the fuck was I going to get thirty quid? Dad would have a buckle in his eye if he ended up having to borrow the money. I doubted if he had three quid to his name, let alone thirty. I didn’t know if I could face him after this was over.

  Before I could say a word, my lawyer added ominously, “… provided, of course, we don’t get Judge Lowry …”

  Robert Lowry’s father was a bitter old Ulster Unionist and notorious anti-Catholic, and the apple never falls far from the tree, as the saying goes. Of course, with my luck – i.e. a complete lack of it – I ended up getting Lowry. I’ll never forget the sight of him that day, sitting there in his red-cushioned bidet with that stupid-looking white rag on his skinny dung-beetle head.

  “There is no doubt in my mind that you are a dedicated terrorist …” Lowry mumbled in his summing up.

  I glanced at Dad’s stress-burnt face, wondering what his reaction to having to pay thirty quid was going to be.

  “… I have, within the law, the power to sentence you to eight years. But I am forced and somewhat reluctant to take into consideration your age of seventeen years,” moaned Lowry. “I sentence you to three years in prison …”

  For one terrible moment, I thought old Rag Head had sentenced me to three years. Dad was taking the fine a lot worse than I thought. A gang of screws were restraining him. He was screaming and shaking his fist at Lowry.

  My lawyer kept touching my shoulder, offering condolences. “I can’t believe he simply didn’t fine you … so sorry …”

  A few years after this, the IRA tried to kill old Rag Head, but unfortunately the devil looks after his own, and he survived.
It took until 15 January 1995 for Lowry to finally die, and go to meet a real Judge; one who would surely remind him: Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged. I hoped his contribution to my innocent youth being destroyed would be taken into consideration by the Big Lad Upstairs.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Have You Got the Bottle for the Battle of Long Kesh?

  OCTOBER 1974

  The most anxious man in a prison is the governor.

  George Bernard Shaw

  It was well after midnight that we had a quiet period for about two hours. In the meantime, we could hear the prisoners singing in their burning compounds. Their morale was quite high. I can remember thinking what great people the Irish are to have on one’s side.

  British soldier participant, Battle of Long Kesh

  Prison always seems to get a bad rap, but there are many positive attributes overlooked. Laxatives, for example, are never needed, as you are always anticipating some piece of utter nightmarish madness munching its way in your direction. If you’re into losing weight at an alarming rate, forget Jenny Craig, prison is the place for you.

  It was now October 1974, and I’d been in Long Kesh – the Kesh or the Lazy K, as some laissez faire prisoners colloquially referred to it – for just over a year. The Kesh was situated in the former air force base of Long Kesh, on the outskirts of Lisburn. Political prisoners and internees were incarcerated there in huge numbers and in dreadful conditions, in what were fittingly termed cages. I happened to be in Cage 20. Originally, the vast majority of prisoners were republicans and socialists, but over the years, loyalists would come to form a significant piece of the incarceration pie chart.

  In prison, there’s always someone who wants to stir things up; almost as if they have an aversion to sense, sanity and serenity. This particular person in this scenario happened to be the governor of the Kesh. An arrogant sort of chap, he constantly tried to chip away at our political status.