A Breed of Heroes (22 page)

The CO grinned and drained his glass. ‘Well, gentlemen, I think we’d better get down there and sort it out. Call out the Rover Group.’

‘It’s been done, sir.’

Charles hastily swallowed his last mouthful and followed the CO out of the Mess. He found his flak jacket, combat jacket and webbing but could not remember where he had put his tin helmet. He
eventually found it under his bed and hurried down into the enclosed yard where the Land-Rovers were already revving. There was a lot of movement and shouting. The CO was already in his Land-Rover
and yelled to Charles to buck up. He then shouted at someone else and it was soon clear that he was shouting at everyone he saw. Charles scrambled into the back of the vehicle, helped roughly by
the signals sergeant who always travelled with the CO. He accidentally kicked Nigel Beale, who was too busy with his folder to do more than glare angrily. The iron gates swung open and the
Land-Rovers lurched noisily out, to the accompaniment of the signals sergeant’s crisp ‘Hallo Alpha Zero. This is Alpha Nine leaving your location now, over,’ and battalion
HQ’s equally crisp, ‘Alpha Zero, roger out.’

It was dusk and there was a lot of traffic. They went down the middle of the road as though there was none at all, before turning with an unnecessary squealing of tyres into the Falls. This was
a broad (by Belfast standards), drab, winding road lined by small houses in bad repair and with many mean, narrow little roads opening off it. There was ominously little traffic here, and the CO
pulled the heavy iron grille up over the windscreen. The escort vehicles behind them did the same. Charles touched his tin helmet on the floor with his foot, to make sure it was still there, and
looked at everyone else’s respirators, hoping fervently that there would be no need for them. His own was still missing, and he was far more concerned about the CO’s reaction to this
fact than he was about his own reaction to CS gas. Fortunately, it was a weapon the CO did not favour, being too indiscriminate, and so it was unlikely that they would use it.

Most other sounds were drowned by the high-pitched whine of the Land-Rover’s differentials and tyres. They bumped uncomfortably along the road at an alarming speed. Two soldiers held
macralon shields across the back, and through them Charles could just see the houses, which appeared to sway and jerk as much as the Land-Rover. He sat back against the side of the vehicle, only to
find that the canvas was reinforced only by plywood and not by the macralon he had expected. Macralon was occasionally bullet-proof but the wood was not even properly brick-proof. He leant forward
again, his stomach feeling light and empty. He drew some unjustifiable comfort from the presence of others and even some from the noise of the vehicle.

Very soon the ride became bumpier and Charles noticed a lot of broken bricks and bits of metal scattered across the road behind them. The driver suddenly braked hard and Charles and Nigel Beale
were flung to the floor. They sorted themselves out with some loss of temper but they were both so anxious to find out what was happening that they immediately forgot their disagreements. The
Land-Rover was stopped and by peering between the bulky radios Charles could see through the front windscreen and grille. The street ahead was grey in the sinister twilight. It was littered with
debris, and some hundred yards ahead was blocked by a large mob of youths. There was some shouting but only occasionally did a brick or bottle hurtle down and smash on the road, sending bits
skidding across the surface. At this stage it still seemed gratuitous, even laconic. Some soldiers from the two A company platoons were crouched in doorways on both sides of the street and Ian
Macdonald, their company commander, was talking to the CO through the Land-Rover window. His precise Scottish tones were calm and unhurried.

‘They’re just inside the Gunners’ patch,’ he said. ‘What we can see is the back of them. Albert Street is the next on your right, and our boundary stops just this
side of it.’

The CO was following with his finger on the map. ‘What are the Gunners doing about it?’

‘Nothing, so far as I can see. They’re receiving a lot more stick than we are and they’re just standing behind their shields and taking it. You can see them if you walk up
closer to the mob.’

‘Typical. No imagination, no flair. What do they intend to do – stand there all night, I suppose? Meanwhile, the mob is facing both ways.’

‘What’s more, the mob apparently have a petrol tanker,’ continued Macdonald. ‘I spoke to a Gunner officer earlier who’d come into our patch by mistake. He said they
think it’s round the corner at the bottom of Albert Street, out of sight. It was hijacked in North Belfast this afternoon.’

The muscles in one of the CO’s cheeks twitched slightly as he compressed his lips hard. ‘You’re telling me that this mob has a petrol tanker hidden away, laden with fuel, that
they’ve had it since this afternoon and this herd of Gunners are standing round like a lot of spare what’s-its at a party doing sod-all about it?’

‘That’s what it looks like, sir.’

‘And this lot of yobbos in front are creating a diversion while the real villains are down there syphoning off enough petrol to keep them in bombs till the unicorns return. You would not
credit it. You would simply not credit it.’ He looked down at his map. ‘Where are your Pigs, Ian?’

‘Round the corner, out of sight.’

‘I don’t anticipate much resistance from those louts. They’ll simply fall back into Albert Street when we hit them and form a hard core round the tanker. Ian, one of your
platoons is on foot and the other’s in the Pigs, right? Keep the one on foot here for the time being to hold this stretch of the road. The one in Pigs should follow me at about thirty
seconds’ interval. I’m going to get Brigade’s permission to trespass. I and my two escort vehicles will charge the mob and drive right through it. We’ll then form a blockade
across the road on the Gunners’ side of the mob. Your platoon in Pigs will come thundering up behind them whilst they’re chucking their all at us, will debus and make arrests. Prisoners
to go back in the Pigs to battalion HQ. I think the mob will then scatter down the side streets, mainly into Albert Street, leaving us in control of the junction. We can see where we go from
there.’

‘Right, sir.’

Ian’s grizzled head disappeared and the CO called up Brigade. He reported that he was under attack from petrol and nail bombs which were being thrown from the Gunners’ area, and
asked permission to enter and make arrests. He mentioned the tanker, for good measure. It was the Brigade commander who replied. As usual, his voice procedure was non-existent and his tone vague,
even lethargic, but his message was clear. ‘Thank you,’ he drawled. ‘I know about the tanker. I’ve known about it for some hours. I’m delighted that someone proposes
to do something about it. Please go ahead. Let me know when you’ve done it.’

The CO grinned. ‘That’s a slap in the face for those bloody Gunners,’ he said. ‘Now let’s sort out this mob.’ He summoned Ian Macdonald again and issued final
orders.

For once, Nigel Beale appeared to have a crisis of faith. He leaned across to Charles. ‘Are we really going to charge them in the Land-Rovers?’

Charles nodded and Nigel leant back, looking thoughtful. Charles groped on the floor for his helmet, found it but then hesitated to put it on. No one else was wearing one. Even the men in the
doorways were not wearing helmets. The black beret was a symbol that was not lightly discarded and Charles, against what he considered all reason, still hesitated to be the first man in the
battalion that day to allow an operational situation precedence over regimental tradition.

His dilemma was resolved for him when the driver let out the clutch with a jolt and the Land-Rover jerked forward, shooting Charles’s helmet out of his hands. With a whining and roaring of
overstrained engines and gearboxes, and with the two escort vehicles on either side, they accelerated towards the mob. They bumped and crashed over the debris, flinging those in the back
alternately on to their backsides, heads, backs and knees. The CO clung to his door, guffawed and shouted ‘Geronimo!’ at the top of his voice. A few bricks landed on the road on either
side of them and then one crashed on to the bonnet and bounced on to the windscreen grille with a juddering thump. Seconds later the whole vehicle shook and jumped as they ran into a deluge of
bricks and bits of metal. It was as though they were driving through a wall that was falling continuously upon them. Twenty yards ahead Charles could see the mob dancing like demented demons in the
headlights, throwing everything they could find. They showed no sign of giving way and the driver involuntarily slowed a little. ‘Step on it!’ bellowed the CO, and the driver
accelerated again.

For one moment it looked as though they were going to crush dozens of demons, but then the crowd suddenly scattered like minnows, leaving an empty road. ‘Keep those shields up!’
Nigel shouted at the two soldiers in the back, who had been thrown about so much that their shields had slipped out of place. The Land-Rovers had stopped a few yards past the junction. The only
people in sight were some startled Gunners, crouched in doorways behind shields. Sensibly, they were wearing helmets. The CO whooped delightedly. ‘Swing around and block the road,’ he
said. ‘We’ll show the buggers.’ The three Land-Rovers lurched round, narrowly avoiding each other, and parked sideways across the road. Behind them, where the mob had been, the A
company platoon went in fast and hard. Rioters were fleeing in any direction they could find, mostly into Albert Street. Several had been caught and were being dragged back to the waiting Pigs.
Most became very docile once they had been caught and even appeared physically to shrink. On closer examination they appeared to be puny and dirty teenagers, disappointingly ordinary. Charles saw
one offer violence to his captor, which was accepted and repaid in kind, with interest.

The CO was out of his vehicle and striding gleefully round the captured junction. When he saw Charles he beckoned him over. ‘A company have arrested some of your pressmen somewhere back
along the Falls. Go and sort it out. We don’t want to ruffle their feathers unnecessarily. In fact, I shouldn’t be telling you this. You should be telling me. Why didn’t you know
about it?’

‘No one told me, sir.’

‘That’s no excuse. It’s your job to find out. I’m not going to keep doing it for you. Get on and sort it out. Don’t stand around here.’

It took some time to find the captured pressmen. None of the soldiers whom Charles asked knew anything about them. He eventually found them in the boarded-up entrance of a disused shop, where a
stocky little corporal stood guard over them. They looked tired but patient. One had a camera. They identified themselves as belonging to a local Belfast newspaper, and were obviously familiar with
the routine. It was not clear why they had been arrested, but Charles presumed it was for not being members of A company. ‘It’s all right, they really are press,’ he said to the
corporal.

‘Been told not to let civilians loose on the streets, sir,’ said the corporal.

‘Except the press. They can. Any more you find bring them straight to me.’

The corporal reluctantly released his charges and went off to rejoin his platoon. The one without the camera looked towards Albert Street. ‘Looks nasty,’ he said. ‘Especially
with that tanker in there. It’s going to be an all-nighter.’

‘D’you think so?’

‘No doubt about it.’ He looked at Charles. ‘You’re new. First riot?’

‘First big one.’

‘You can tell after a while. You get a feeling for it. This one is bad. There’ll be deaths, I don’t doubt. I wish they’d have them earlier, I do. Get them over by
midnight so we could all go home.’ It was getting colder and he turned up the collar of his anorak. ‘What’s this about your CO personally leading the charge that broke up the riot
at the junction? Is that true?’

Charles imagined the headlines, and the CO’s reaction. ‘No. There was a group of youths at the junction and when we approached they ran down into Albert Street. There was no
riot.’

‘Any arrests?’

‘One or two.’

‘Was your CO present?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they know it was him?’

‘He was in a vehicle.’

‘So he didn’t lead a charge?’

‘No.’

‘Bit odd, isn’t it, the CO getting involved like that? Who controls things back in Headquarters?’

‘He just happened to be passing.’ Charles did not want to get further involved. He suggested they let him escort them up to near the junction where they could see what was going
on.

‘I could write it for you now,’ said the reporter. ‘When you’ve seen as many as we have you get to know the pattern.’

It was now quite dark, except for a lurid, flickering glow that came from the bottom of Albert Street. Charles was told that the CO and his Rover Group had moved on foot to a point a few yards
down the street. As he approached he could see the crouched figures of soldiers on each corner and identified the nearest group as the CO’s. They were not, after all, quite in the street. The
CO was talking urgently to the RSM about a charge. Charles slipped past them and put his head round the corner, to see what was causing the glow. Less than fifty yards away there was a burning bus
wedged broadside across the road. It had been put in position earlier and set alight only in the past few minutes. It burned fiercely, with flames leaping high into the night and dancing on the
walls on either side of the street. Already the metal frame of the bus showed through and soon it was silhouetted starkly against the flames. It burned with a continuous crackling roar and it was
impossible to see past it. For a few moments Charles stared at the myriad reflections of flame in the broken glass that lay scattered all over the road, until he sensed something pass very near his
head. A brick smashed on to the road, closely followed by two more. Whether they were being thrown over the bus or from behind the adjacent walls, it was not possible to say. The way they crashed
unseen out of the night seemed expressive of a blind, indiscriminate violence that had nothing to do with anybody. Charles withdrew his head and was then startled by being gripped firmly on the
shoulder. For one moment he thought he was being arrested.