Contact (2 page)

I drift off to sleep amidst the sweet sound of a Saracen whining off down the road on another patrol, and the distant rumbling thud of another car bomb in the city centre.

"Sir, O.C. wants you." I struggle awake; who is this apparition thumping me and bellowing in my ear?

"
O.C
. sir, wants you right away." Fuck the O.C., fuck the Irish, fuck the Army.

"O.K. Green, don't shout for Christ's sake. Hey, get a brew on and bring it into the Ops Room, will you." "Can't sir, just going on patrol."

"Then tell some other cunt."

The O.C. is O. K.; he just nods off to sleep in mid-sentence. We figured he managed to get at least a full eight hours just by dropping off at his desk. He didn't need a bed to sleep on. Yesterday, he even fell out of his Landrover. Lucky for him, the driver still hadn't learnt where the accelerator was otherwise it would have been nasty. As it was, he just picked himself up, shook his head and climbed back in. He even fell asleep whilst briefing us on back-up patrol after a contact in the Ardoyne. Now everyone just takes it in their stride and Brian delights in taking videos of him asleep.

I move zombie-like, downstairs again –think I'll move my bed into the Ops Room. At the bottom there is a violent commotion. Brian has apparently caught a sentry asleep in one of the base O.P.s and is busy kicking him an around the stand-by room. His anger was further inflamed when he tried to hit the poor unfortunate, who ducked, and Brian broke his hand on the offered steel helmet.

"Stupid fucking cow." Thud, kick. "Asshole," etc., etc.

There is no formal charging of offenders in this company. The treatment may be rough but it is short and effective. We can't afford to have anybody languishing in the cells. There is not enough manpower as it is.

The O.C. looks up bleary-eyed as I enter. He's just woken up and even recognition is difficult at this moment. "Tony, another patrol please. Sonic disturbance on the Shankill down by Agnes Street. There is a patrol there at the moment but I want to block off the top end of the Crumlin with a V.C.P., and have another V.C.P. at this end near the Woodvale Road, Ballygomartin Road junction."

"Where do you want me?"

"On the Woodvale, Peter will put his on the Crumlin." I ,notion to Paul, one of my section commanders, and he goes out to round up the lads.

V.C.P.s
give us the chance to fly around in stripped-down Landrovers and when I say stripped-down, I mean stripped-down. No doors, no roof, no tailgate, no windshield. It means we can bail out in seconds in a contact situation, and whilst driving, have maximum vision. On days like today, with the rain, we would an prefer a cosy Saracen or Pig.

Out into the cold wet April afternoon. Where the hell did lunch go? The Landrovers are bristling with rifles –four men in the back of each, facing outwards. The driver and one in the front. We drive slowly amongst the Belfast traffic. No cars pass. The locals have been warned to stay clear of any Army vehicles. At night, oncoming or following vehicles douse their lights. If they don't, they are stopped, searched and on occasions have had their lights smashed. Up near our destin¬ation we swing the vehicles across the road, blocking both lanes. Rear four out into fire positions, driver down by the vehicle, leaving myself and platoon sergeant in the middle. He has the search team in his vehicle. We stop an the cars and back the traffic up the road. Then take the numbers of cars turning around at the sight of the V.C.P. and relay to a mobile patrol.

"Would you please step out of your car and open the bonnet and boot." It takes time to go through each car and P. Check the occupants. O. K., move off. Occasionally we get abuse but mostly people are well used to this sort of thing. We even got two Royal Navy clowns in this V.C.P. out for a sightseeing tour of the city. Didn't someone tell them that they could get killed doing that sort of thing? Jesus! Sit in their boats month after month and then think they might see a bit of action to tell their mates about. Here mate, swop places with me!

Ten minutes the V.C.P. has been on. I start to get jumpy standing around for too long. Just make sure that there are lots of cars and people standing around to spoil the chances of a sniper. Trouble is, being a placed V.C.P. we cannot lift it at our own discretion and have to wait for orders. Please don't go to sleep, Major. Not this time.

There is a commotion behind us and one of the toms emerges from a bush with a scruffy young teenager in tow.

"Found him hiding in the house behind us, sir. Keep still you little shit or I'll pan you!"

Lay him face down on the road and P. Check. He must be up to something because he is just not at all nervous. Very unsettling that. Still, one consolation is that he is not very good at whatever he was up to. Perhaps he was trying to pick up some Brownie points with the local U.V.F., or Tartan gang. He clears out on the P. Check but we can still lift him on suspicion. Keep him on the deck until this V.C.P. is over. He's quiet enough at the moment.

The cars keep coming through, but it's a slow process. Wet beret clamped to my head, denims clinging to my legs, it is difficult to move around, talk into the radio and write down car numbers at the same time. The harsh sound of the ghetto Irish grinds in my ears. Girls look good until they open their mouths and a stream of expletives rolls easily off their pretty little tongues.

Fifteen minutes. Come on, Major.

Nervous eyes flicker up to the Holy Cross church just up the road a bit. The last battalion on this area were sniped at from the tower a few times, and last year some guy was blown up by a booby trap in the graveyard. An Irish terrorist with a sense of humour yet! Rain still bucketing down; at least these others are getting soaked too.

"Any mouthy buggers, keep them out in the rain longer, Hookey. "

"O.K. boss."

It's easy to get mean when you are holding the trump cards, isn't it, Clarke. Shit, why not? We don't get any favours from them and anyway, most of these buggers would shoot me in the back as soon as look at me. So? Fuck, forget it. The radio crackles, good old Major, not asleep after all. Hookey hears it as well and in two minutes we are halfway back to Leopold Street.

Sitting here in the de-briefing room, I'm having difficulty in believing I'm not in dreamland. Telephones arc appearing from thin air. Black ones, blue ones, red, yellow. Normal types, fancy ones, thin, fat.

"What's this with the telephones then?"

"I need an extension at home," pause, "and one in the bedroom, one in the toilet, one in the garage and on.

"
O.
K.,
O.
K., but how?"

"Just asked the telephone engineer in the van we stopped. Nervous type, you know."

Jesus, what next. Three-piece suites, refrigerators? As it happens, yes. All manner of goodies were being salted away in secret places to be shipped back to England at the end of the tour as part of the platoon freight. Some freight. Still, back in England, our platoon office was very well equipped. My spare telephone never worked, though.

"Right, forget the telephones, de-brief. Anyone have anything to say?" Series of shaking heads.

"Yeah, boss, that little shit who was spying on us."

Of course, I had forgotten about him. He was in fact at that moment being interrogated by our own company Int. cell. We preferred to try for some information before the ham-fisted twits at TAC. H.Q. got hold of them. Usually they let them go because the idiot we had as Intelligence Officer thought that all the energy should be expended in the direction of the Ardoyne. We were later to leave him and the rest of the Battalion with egg on their faces, as at the end of the day we had the most finds and kills to our credit. So up yours, I.O.

De-briefing over, pasty faces and tired bodies make their way to find a brew and food. Hookey and I sit alone, staring at the mound of telephones.

"You've got to have a go at the O.C., boss. We can't carry on at this pace for ever. The blokes arc beginning to crack."

"How about giving each tom a day off? We can fill in with one of the cooks or the R.C.T. drivers. On their day off, they can get pissed, sleep, or do what they like. It's not much, but it may just ease the pressure.

"Not a bad idea."

So the day-off system was born. The only ones that did not get time off were the section commanders, Hookey and myself. The problems of being in command.

I look in at the Ops. Room on the way through to get a much-needed bite to eat. I swear the
O.C
. hasn't moved from the spot for the last forty
-eight hours straight. The 2 I.
C. sits staring at the map humming tunelessly. His main object in life at the moment is to get through this tour without ever having to put his head outside the door. The radio op. still has that same magazine.

"Two's up."

"On your bike, sir!"

The O.
C. hands me the next week's programme and I see that he has decided that the O.P. platoon does very little during the week, so now they will have to do some patrolling around the immediate area. Just the sort of thing to raise morale to another all-time high. Well, what else do we have to do? Did someone mention overtime? What's that?

"Our area is going to be extended to include the entire Forthriver area. We take over next month."

Oh, delight. Much cheering. Can we go home now! That means that we will now have an area four times the size of the Ardoyne with half the number of men to cover it. What lunatic in the Northern Ireland Office dreams these amazing things up? Some civil servant sitting at a desk playing with figures on a piece of paper.

"Just going to take this guy we brought in over to TAC. H. Q. and hand him over to Int. See what sort of a mess they are into up there." Anything to get out before I throw a fit and hurl my rifle across the room.

TAC. H.Q., that veritable fountain of an knowledge. Housed in the main police station in Tennant Street, it is supposed to be the nerve centre of the Battalion. The C.O. and remainder of Battalion hierarchy live in their own little dream world surrounded by radios, maps, files and god knows what else tucked away in drawers and locked steel cupboards.

The Int. section is, as usual, empty. Until a beautifully turned out corporal comes in, turns his nose up at our dishevelled appearance, and very condescendingly asks us what we want. We hand over the scruffy urchin. Then check on one of my men doing guard duty and go outside to wait the ten minutes it usually takes TAC. to release anyone we bring in. Here he is. Grab the urchin again and give him the gypsy's warning.

"Once more mate and you're for the high dive. Just show your face near a patrol again. Now, fuck off."

An angry bee buzzes past my ear, and another one. That is no bee, that's a low-velocity round. The Winchester Street cowboy.

"Contact, wait, out."

Heart pounding. Legs refusing to run properly. Ham-fisted cocking the rifle.

Dive into doorways . . . cover the next guy . . . sprint again.

When we arrive, there's nothing. Empty street beckoning. Curious passers-by stare. Two empty cases lying on the ground. Check the immediate house. Crash straight through the doors and race upstairs. No sign. Check the alleys. Nothing. By the time the stand-by section has arrived everything has cooled off. One day, we'll get that bastard. He's been pestering us for weeks. Two rounds and he's off and running. But where to? Still, so far he hasn't hurt anyone so he can't be that good a shot.

The next hour is taken up with a search through the immediate area. We finish in the dark in both senses of the word. So a routine delivery of a prisoner to TA C. H. Q. ends up with an hour-and-a-half search. That leaves time to get back to Leopold Street, get the lads fed and ready for their official patrol in an hour's time. Think I'll shy off that one. Why not, I'm out on the Ardoyne back-up patrol at midnight, plus the admin. that needs to be done to sort out the organisation for the week coming up.

Leopold Street, sweet Leopold Street.

We clear the weapons and go through the patrol report procedure again. This time happy in the knowledge that at least now there is something to put down on that forbidding blank piece of paper.

Catcalls and chorus of "Useless" and "Couldn't catch a cold." Boring. The cook is doing us proud, and like an artists is throwing a tantrum at the irregularity of the hours we keep and "How can I possibly turn out cooked meals twenty-four hours a day?" I don't know how he does it but the food is always good and always hot.

Tea, that elixir of life. Saviour of the British Empire. Hot, in huge, black plastic cups. After the excitement of the last hour, the section flop into the chairs in the cookhouse and quietly eat their meal. Some drift off to finish letters, others to make phone calls home. Some to lie down, others to continue the weeks-long arguments as to which football team is the best in England. Me, I'm upstairs in the Mess staring at the T.V. without actually seeing it.

Brian's cursing over some admin. hiccup in the otherwise perfect running of the company. Hookey, like me, is collapsed in a chair, snoring. My eyes now closing. Tiredness creeping over me. Drifting into half sleep .. .

Tired and wet! I've been here before! Strange thoughts. Half unconscious flashback images stealing around the murky corridors of my mind. Ha back in Belfast, the other here in cold wet Brecon.