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Silence has descended on the Shankill, lit by the odd remaining street lamps and the flaming barrels still in the middle of the road. A different feeling comes over the place,
the tension lifts slightly, an uncanny knowledge that the gunmen have gone, to be confirmed by the helicopter pilot. A scan of the windows and street corners through the I.W.S. does not reveal a thing.

Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. Nothing.

Having conveyed this information to Coy H.Q. we finally get the order to move. Not to dig out the bodies as I want but back to Leopold Street, first clearing the barrels out of the way so the traffic can move.

"Did you get that, Hookey?" A nod from him.

"Right, we'll take the Pigs down the outside with the Saracen in the middle leading. Tell your drivers to go straight into the barrels. "

"Boss, they could explode, the ones that aren't alight, that is."

"It's a chance we have to take,
unless, of course, you want
to get out and move them by hand."

So here we go, charging down the road three abreast with the news crew filming away. The Saracen lurches as it hits the barrels and knocks them over to the side of the road. Behind, I can see that, for a heart-stopping moment, one flaming barrel has got stuck under the front of the following Pig, but the driver keeps his nerve and powers straight over the top of it, engine screaming, and the screeching of tortured metal as the steel is dragged along the road. Finally the back wheels bump over it and they are clear.

Fleeting sideways glances down the side streets. Images of bullet-chipped walls, shattered windows and blood on the pavement.

Back at Leopold Street and
the place has gone daft. The C.
S.M. has bought the whole platoon free beer and we stand there grinning, laughing, excitedly replaying the entire day over and over again like a worn-out record. But it is not over yet. The next stage of the drama takes almost as long as the riot and gunbattle put together. The S.I.B. report.

We have to account for every round fired, produce the empty cases, note the exact time each round was fired, what at, describe it, where was the soldier who fired the round standing, where was the gunman he fired at standing, and on and on and on, into the early hours of the morning. A check is made on each man's magazine, which have been filled to the correct amount he should have in if he only fired a few rounds as we are claiming. Thank heavens for buckshee rounds, they make life a lot easier. At last the interrogation is over and Hookey and I can now try and get some sleep. After the day's activities we are completely drained and the excitement of the fighting has worn off like a drug, leaving us with mouths like a whore's armpit and a feeling of heavy-headed unreality.

Due to orders from 39 Brigade, we are not allowed into the area for a few hours and must maintain a low profile. Right now, I'm too tired to argue and am thankful just to be able to get my eyes closed for a few hours after a spell of 24 without a
break. Too tired to think of the shady dealings going on behind closed doors, of the frantic phone calls by Prot. leaders to get the Army to stay out of the area so that they can restore order. It makes you wonder what they need us for. At least today, we've taught them that for us the Shankill is just as much a battleground as the Falls or the Ardoyne or the Springfield Road area.

1900 hrs. August 1973.

The time

To leave

Draws near.

Am I going

To Make

It?

I'M LOOKING UP at the ceiling of the room I share with Clive thinking of the remaining eight days of the tour and how I'm going to get through them without getting hurt. It is the fear of everyone. Fear of getting zapped in the last few days after four or five months of boredom and narrow escapes.

Tomorrow the Grenadier Guards advance party arrive and I have to show the platoon commander assigned to me the Shankill in all its glory. So I'm lying here trying to work out how I can best achieve this aim and maintain a low profile. Suddenly self-preservation comes on very strong and I'm not about to go against the survival instinct. It's fairly easy to lose yourself here at the Mill without anybody finding you. Idle thought in a moment of relaxation. Since the shoot-out on the Shankill the area has been very quiet, as if the whole thing had never happened, indeed the next day when asking around as to who knew anything about the shooting, the most common answer was: "Shooting? What shooting? Certainly not on the Shankill!" This from a bloke who lives not 25 metres from the position a gunman had taken up. Just like the three wise monkeys.

Jesus, what an asylum of a place this is! The trouble is you begin to disbelieve your own eyes and ears after a while and only believe the radio logs, the only thing that can confirm you are here at all—that and the rifle you carry all day and every day.

Reality is a radio and a rifle. Reality is a milk bottle heading your way. Reality is the sweet sound of expletives rolled out of an Irish mouth at six o'clock in the morning.

Well, can't lie here for much longer otherwise I'll be getting the title "mattress-back", besides which I'm on the Ops. Desk in a few minutes to do my stint as duty officer. The lengths of duty go from six to eight hours, sometimes extending ad infinitum if there is something on.

From two o'clock in the morning onwards is the best time for me, when I can sit quietly with my own thoughts with just the radio operator for company and drift into a dream land of peace and gentleness. For an all too brief moment, escape from the stark aggression of everyday living, to escape the constant effort to put on a face and be myself, thinking back to sandy beaches, to the girls and the parties of my adolescence and the innocence, above all the innocence. Secret moments in my head kept safely hidden from the sneers and jokes of my fellow officers. Sitting staring at the map as I have a thousand times before, looking at it as if for the first time, seeing the lines and colours, the names and numbers, pictures gradually forming of old incidents, half-forgotten capsules of life among the dead routine of peace-keeping.

Belfast, I live and breathe you. Belfast, you are etched deep within my soul. Belfast, I have become you and carry the stink of your corpse like a cause.

I'm still at the Ops. Desk at ten o'clock in the morning, having had a brief respite for a wash and shave followed by breakfast, when the O.C. comes in with the Grenadiers advance party, to introduce me.

"Tony, this is Bob Nairac who will be assigned to you for the handover period."

I shake hands with a stocky guy with curly black hair, far removed from the normal type of Guards officer you usually meet. I take in the broken nose and cheerful grin and think "Thank God I haven't got one of those g
uys with a mouthful of marbles.
" The pleasantries ov
er, he goes off to dump his kit
and I'm left alone again with my thoughts and the radio operator gabbling away in my ear.

Just a few more days to go and the confirmation of that fact written up on the walls of the billets and corridors of the Mill. Everyone trying not to let the anxiety show when on the street, but it wouldn't matter anyway as the Irish know almost to the hour when we are leaving. Secret prayers behind masks of indifference, secret thoughts behind forced laughter.

Soon my private reveries are broken as the Ops. Room fills with the Guards officers and N.C.O. s having a quick rundown on the area from the O.C. and a current situation brief from me. The babble of voices makes it difficult to hear the radio so I have to sit with the handset glued to my ear, trying to concentrate and wishing they would all bugger off to the briefing room or the Mess. Having to sit at the Ops. Desk for the last twelve hours has put me in a bad mood and I don't particularly want to converse with anyone.

At last the C. S.M. relieves me and I saunter off to the mess for a cup of coffee before making a tour of my blokes who are on guard and stand-by. Clive is there with his opposite number and Bob, so we fall into the small talk of officers everywhere and rapidly move onto the topic uppermost in all our minds.

Bob is the one with all the questions, insatiable for knowledge, expressing disappointment that his Coy is not in the Ardoyne and not convinced when we tell him that we, the Shankill Coy, have had more finds and by far the biggest contact of the tour. He is no sooner in the place than he wants to get on the first patrol. It just so happens that I'm due out with one of my sections in an hour's time so he goes away happy, to get his kit together. Clive and I look at each other in disbelief. There's no way we would be so keen to get out there and certainly not at this stage in the tour. In fact the
O.
C. had to hound us to get us out into the street. Well, each to his own. Right now I want to stay safe.

Out in the street and Bob is like a foxhound, digging into everything, questioning everything, wanting to cram five months knowledge into one
short two-hour patrol. The lads
are working well, putting on their best performance to impress the "crap-hats" and the two hours goes past quickly without incident.

It's morning, it's early and it's raining and I don't care about any of it. Today we leave. Today we say goodbye to the grimy streets, the pallid faces, the grinding harsh Irish ghetto slang. Today we say "Fuck th
e lot of you, we're going home.
"

Security is intensified, everyone on the alert for an attack. We pick straws in the platoon to see who will take the last patrol, nobody wishing to tempt fate at this late stage. As for
me,
for the first time in months I'm singing, nervous at the thought that at the last minute something may go wrong and our tour will be extended for another few months. Not wanting to answer the telephone in the Ops. Room in case that's what it is. The Guards are wanting us out of the way so they can get on with it, us wanting to leave them to it. Before we know where we are the four-ton trucks are assembled and we are on the way down through the early-morning traffic to the docks and the waiting L.S.L.

Heartbeats are faster than normal, eyes more alert than normal, ears hearing the slightest sound above the noise of the vehicle. All the lads trying to be casual, but inside wishing the truck would go a little faster so that we can get aboard that boat.

Into the docks and the breathing becomes a bit easier. Cheers as we see the next load of Guardsmen ready to be transported in.

"Get in there, you suckers."

"Stag on woodentops."

The yells from the toms mix with the laughter and obscene gestures, the recipients not looking too happy, wishing to be finished before they have started.

Having got the sleeping arrangements sorted out and left the remainder of the admin. to our platoon Sgt., Clive and I wander to the ward-room in
search of a drink to break the
tension and let out so
me
of the steam of five months of tight control.

There are the other officers in the ward-room and,
l
o and behold, one of the ship's officers is leaving and so is buying all the drinks up to midday. We need no further encouragement and set to with a will. Shorts of course, and before too long we're getting well and truly pissed. The rest of the day goes by in a blur and before long we are sacked out.

Liverpool. A distant grey blotch in the early morning mist. Liverpool. By the rails, soldiers stand quietly looking at the approaching skyline, the silence broken only by the screeching of sea-gulls and the odd shout or obscenity. Liverpool. Home and sanity within our grasp.

Five months have gone since we were last looking at this skyline then retreating. Five months and it seems a lifetime ago. Standing here in the open air, feeling strange without a flak jacket, radio and rifle, somehow naked.

The C.S.M. joins us by the rail.

"Well young sirs, you've finally got your knees dirty." Is that what this last five months has been about? Getting dirty knees?

2300 hrs. October 1975.

It's black outside And cold.

It's also a long Way down.

Red On!

Green On!

Out and down.

IT SEEMS WE'VE been hanging suspended over the North Sea for weeks. The pilots are sitting dozing whilst the navigator watches the instruments and checks for course corrections. I'm sitting on the jump seat in the back of the cockpit watching the night gradually chase the light out of the sky. Behind us in the belly of the Hercules half the company are sitting cramped up. Some with their parachutes still on, others sitting on the ramp at the back of the aircraft.

The navigator turns and winks at me.

"Another hour to the southern tip of Norway and then about fifty minutes to the D.Z.," he says above the drone of the four engines. I nod and he carries on scanning the instruments and occasionally making notes. So I'll sit here for another hour and go back and get my parachute back on.

We're off to join the Royal Marines on a N.A.T.O. exercise just south of Oslo. just one company from the Battalion, to parachute in as a back-up to the sea-borne assault. Most of us will put up with the fear of a night jump onto an unknown D.Z. just to spend a couple of weeks in Norway. The exercise won't last long, then it's off to the delights of the town. Still, the first thing we have to do is get there, and once there, get on the ground.

Having just come from the Depot after an eighteen-month stint, I've got quite a few jumps in, but most of the lads in the Battalion don't get the opportunity, therefore every jump is a

nightmare. Still, what the hell? All this free travel and an extra pound a day danger money. What more could you ask?

I'm just sitting here talking to myself above the clouds. Mindless silent chit-chat five miles up in the sky. Following behind, two more aircraft. One with the rest of the company and the other with the heavy drop. A couple of Landrovers and trailers and an anti-tank gun. All bound for a foreign farmer's field at the dead of night. Will the weather be too bad to drop? Where arc the trees on the D. Z.? Christ I've forgotten where the R.V. point is! Or have I? I get out my notebook and check it for the thousandth time. Now I've got it! But no doubt will forget again in the next few hours. As always. And as always when everything starts to happen, all the fears drift away with the concentration required for the drop. It's the sitting waiting that screws your insides around and sends you half crazy with worry.

So relax, Clarke! Relax and watch the passing clouds. Relax and think of . . . Home! Home. I've almost forgotten where that is. A concrete post-war house tucked away in the pine trees just outside Aldershot. Home. A wife, two children and a dog. My responsibility, my family and yet I hardly know them. When was I last home? Just after coming back from Venice, that's when. The memory makes me smile.

Venice! We had just completed another N.A.T.O. exercise, this time with the crazy Italians. Then it was four days pissing it up wherever we could. Drunken officers stark naked on the tops of restaurant tables dancing and yelling. Getting turfed out of nightclubs at two and three o'clock in the morning where we were trying to sleep. Eventually ending up on the landing of a block of flats huddled together for warmth. The next morning, washing in the railway station and then sitting on the steps shaving, watching toms racing each other across the canal dodging the water-buses and gondolas.

Home! This is my home! All these crazy lunatic people are my family! Shit, I don't know any more and right now I really don't care.

I drift out of my daydream.
Back to the roar of the engines
and smell of Avtur and pressurisation. The loadmaster is nudging me and pointing to the rear. Suddenly my guts start to feel weaker and the heart beats a little faster. It's time to go back and start getting organised for the
drop. Shit, I hate this part!
Oh well! Haul myself off the seat and climb down the steps from the cockpit into the rear of the aircraft. The engine note changes and the plane starts to descend. As it goes down through the clouds there is some turbulence. The conditions in the back are hardly what you'd call first-class; tourist class would be a positive luxury compared to this shambles. Men and equipment everywhere. All having to clamber over each other. I find my place and struggle into the harness helped by the guys on either side of me. Having got it fastened and my tin helmet on I sit sweating, sandwiched between two burly soldiers. Container clamped between my knees with the leg strap attached and the quick release fastened to the right hip.

Check and doublecheck! Where the hell is my static line? O.K., breathe again. I've found it. Get it where it should be Clarke, over the left shoulder. Well done!

The loadmaster struggles down the aisle over the packs and knees checking the equipment. By now the aircraft has descended to just above dropping height. As soon as we get to Oslo Fjord, we descend as low as possible then pop up just prior to dropping. The ride is quite rough now and every now and then somebody throws up, the smell wafting around mixing with the Avtur and sweat and other human smells. What a great way to spend an evening.

This bouncing nightmare ride continues for about twenty minutes and then it comes. The loadmaster signals to stand up and fit equipment. The weight of the two parachutes is bearable when seated but once standing the tight straps cut into my shoulders. The helmet feels like a clamp around my head and the sweat runs in rivulets down into my eyes. I have to keep blinking. For the first time I'm wearing contact lenses for
a drop. Why I don't know, as it will be pitch black out there and I won't be able to see anyway!

Struggle to turn around in the tight confines of the aircraft and hook up the container. All eighty pounds of it. There is now one hundred and thirty pounds of dead weight slung around my shoulders, and no way of resting it properly.

Forget the discomfort, just don't forget to hook up! I would look silly going out with my static line still hung over my shoulder.

For God's sake get those doors open! is the internal scream. Some of the smaller lads are nearly on their knees, bowed down by the weight of the equipment. As if hearing us, the lights go out in the cabin to be replaced by a dull red glow. This is to get our eyes used to the dark, so that once on the ground we will be able to see as best we can. The doors are opened and the welcome blast of cold air rushes in, cooling the sweat on our faces. Everybody gulps in the air. Outside it is pitch black. Over in the distance the lights of a village eight hundred feet below. Just above the aircraft, clouds whip past. We are right on the borderline of whether to jump or not.

There is the tell-tale straightening of the aircraft and the slight change in attitude that tells us we're on the run-in. The tension increases. Christ, the straps are tearing my shoulders o
ff!

The loadmaster shakes his head and waves his arms. No drop this time around. The pilot has missed the run-in. Good old "crab-air", never reliable, always fucking us about. You can hear the groans and moans above the sound of the engines and the rushing air. Being number three in the stick I can look out of the door and see the empty blackness of the D.Z. slip away beneath us. The aircraft banks and begins the next circuit. They haven't told us to sit down again so presumably the jump is still on. If we don't go this time a little R.A.F. pilot is going to be hung up by his balls!

Circuit completed and we are lining up again. This time the red light comes on! Ten seconds to go! The green flashes and suddenly we're moving! Straight out into that black night!

I've made a good exit! It's
the first thing that crosses my
mind as I plummet down in the night. There is a tug as the static line pulls the parachute out then once free of its bag it whips overhead and once again there is the sensation of being on a big swing until the canopy opens and there is silence. Check for twists! None. Good. Check for anybody else close by and then drop the container. The hooks snap open and the container drops away on its length of nylon rope to dangle nearly twenty feet below.

I've drifted clear of the main stick. Away to the left two idiots have got themselves tangled and there is much cursing and swearing carrying quite a long way in the night. All around shadows of canopies drifting down towards the Norwegian countryside.

All very pretty, I think, looking around drifting in the blackness. Then with a start I remember the sodding ground coming up at sixteen feet per second to smash a bone or two.

Look down and see a black mass! The realisation of the tree reaching out to grab me was almost too late! Tuck legs up! Arms in front of my face and wait for the crash!

The container catches first and then I smash straight into the topmost branches. The parachute collapses and I'm falling through the tree bouncing off branches and eventually come to rest, caught up by the harness.

Here in the trees the darkness is total. The silence complete. I wonder if I've broken anything? Forget the exercise, think of my poor battered body. I feel bruised but everything moves as it should do. Thank Christ for that! Breathe a sigh of relief and try and get out of this mess. Question. How far up am I? There is no way of knowing. The only thing to do is pull the reserve and try and climb down the rigging lines. I pull the handle and let the parachute fall out of its bag and down to the ground. The next thing is to get out of this harness without dropping straight out of the tree. This could be fun! Grab the rigging lines over my head with one hand then turn and hit the buckle with the other.

I've never felt such an idiot in my life! The distance to the ground is approximately
six inches! Thank fuck there is
nobody watching.

I must have fallen from the top to the bottom to be held just before hitting the ground. Lucky! Now where's my container? Follow the rope and it leads me straight to a stream. The rope disappears. Great. When I finally get the container out of the stream and unwrapped, all my clothes are wet through. With the temperature near freezing point and a light drizzle falling, it's going to be one of these fun exercises.

"Anybody there?" A voice in the darkness, to shake me out of my self-pity.

"Lt. Clarke over here! Who's that?"

"Leighton. There's a couple of others. I'll bring them over.

The whispered Geordie voice stopped and there was rustling as he moved away to collect the others. I pick up my bergen, get it onto my shoulders having first strapped my belt pouches on, then with rifle nestled in the crook of my arm, wait. It's then that I realise I've lost my contact lenses. Boy what a night this is! Movement in the bushes.

"Over here lads!" a whispered command.

A thud. A curse. A stifled laugh and there are three shadows in front of me.

"Right. Follow me. Keep close until we get out of the trees." A few paces through the trees and I can see the lighter area that shows where the D.Z. is. Struggle through the undergrowth a little further and then we're sitting on the ground on the edge of the wood whilst I take stock.

"There's a couple more lads over there boss. Shall I get them?" He goes off taking his rifle but leaving his pack. That gives me time to figure out the direction of the R.V. An unknown point in a strange land at night in the rain. It seems as if it's been raining all my life. Leighton returns with half a dozen blokes and we set off for the D.Z. Me leading and hoping I've got it right.

Fifteen minutes of stumbling over ploughed fields and tracks and then a click from just in front.

"Halt! Hands up! . . ." T
he RV sentry. We go through the
procedure, then split up to find our platoon areas.

"Finally made it, boss? What took you so long?" Sgt. Denny lying on the sodden ground. No doubt he is grinning as usual if I could see his face in the dark.

"No bones broken, I trust?"

"No. Just landed in trees. lost my contact lenses and dropped my bergen in a stream." It's difficult to roar with laughter without making a lot of noise but he manages it.

"Now boss, don't crack." The banter continues in whispers. The rain continuing to soak everything. Toms lying on the wet ground, helmets on the backs of their heads, chins resting on rifle butts, each alone in their own thoughts.

"Lt. Clarke! O.C. wants you for a briefing." I nod at my radio op. and together we make our way over to the O. Group. The other platoon commanders arc there and we grin at each other in the pool of dull light from a couple of torches set up beneath a bivvy. The O.C. looks slightly comical sat in all his kit, beret on back of head, face smeared with camouflage cream. We all squash together and sit expectantly with waterproofed maps and notebooks at the ready.

"Orders . . ." the well remembered words signifying the start of the briefing. Heads down. Look in.

"We've been sitting here for fucking hours. What's going on?"

"Shut up Smith. Why can't you do as you're told. Idiot." He's got a point though. What the fuck are we waiting for? According to the orders, once we made it to the Form-up Point it would only be a few minutes before the attack went in. I get up and crawl over to where the O.C. is slumped against a tree shivering.

"What's the hold-up, Major?"

"The Marines haven't got themselves into position yet." "When do they expect to be there?"