A Breed of Heroes (7 page)

Chatsworth grinned at her. ‘I like women. I like you. Do you like me?’

Henry continued to gaze earnestly at her. ‘For two weeks all I’ve seen of women is photographs.’

The girl dumped the tea-pot in front of Henry, almost in his lap. ‘Keep looking,’ she said. ‘You might have more luck with photographs.’

Chatsworth stood up. ‘May I follow you into the kitchen?’

Trying not to smile the girl ran back into the kitchen as fast as her tray would allow. Chatsworth followed her and came out after a couple of minutes, still grinning. They paid and left and
walked back up the hill to the barracks.

‘What did you do in there?’ asked Philip.

‘Nothing. Just got her name and address, that’s all. And telephone number.’

‘But you won’t be allowed out to see her.’

‘I shall break out. I gave her the CO’s name as mine. She thinks I’m a colonel.’

‘You are mad.’

‘I feel randy.’

‘Since our interests seem to be similar,’ said Henry, ‘would you like to come to one of the medical centre porn shows?’

‘Do you have any porn?’

‘Quite a lot. One of the orderlies gets it. It’s really hard stuff. I think you’d like it.’

Chatsworth nodded seriously. ‘I would, yes. When shall I come down?’

‘Any time. Just say you’re reporting sick and ask for me.’

‘How very appropriate,’ said Philip.

Charles’s platoon was doing the town patrol that night but instead of being able to sleep in the cell of the local police station from midnight on as usual, he was kept up until four in
the morning by an explosion at the brewery. It was a small incendiary bomb and there was little damage because it had been badly placed on a window-sill. Charles’s soldiers put out the small
fire before the fire brigade arrived but there was then a lot of hanging around whilst the bomb disposal man, known as an ATO (Ammunition Technical Officer) searched the area for more bombs. The
brewery manager appeared and gave Charles a couple of bottles of whisky for his soldiers. Unfortunately, the CO also appeared and redirected the bottles to the Officers’ and Sergeants’
Messes. The CO was greatly pleased by the event and said it was proof that the battalion’s high level of activity had forced the enemy to waste his resources on soft targets.

The battalion’s level of activity was very high. The frenetic tempo of operations at first bewildered the local people, then impressed them and finally, when no results were forthcoming,
evoked their ridicule. Everyone was very tired by the end of the first week and so much more so by the end of the second that the lack of results was not even slightly depressing. No one bothered
to enquire.

That morning Charles was telephoned at six and told to report with his platoon to the barracks an hour before time. They got there to find that three companies were to carry
out an area search of some flat land about ten miles away. They were to leave at once. Edward was panicking. Charles pointed out that his men had had no breakfast and, for the most part, no
sleep.

Edward put both hands on top of his black beret, forcing it down almost to the bridge of his nose. ‘Charles, for Christ’s sake, don’t stand there arguing. Now means now. Just
get your platoon in the lorries and get them out of here before the CO sees you haven’t gone yet. Everyone else has.’

Charles got his platoon into the waiting lorries, which were smoking and coughing in the clear morning air. They got mixed up with some of A company and had to debus and then embus again. By
this time Edward was frantic. Soldiers were milling around everywhere. ‘Charles, just get in the nearest bloody lorry and go!’ he shouted. ‘Take everyone with you.’

Charles felt like shouting back but didn’t. ‘Nobody’s told us where we’re going,’ he said. ‘The driver doesn’t know.’

‘Don’t be so pathetic. Find Sergeant Wheeler. I gave him the grid reference. You can map-read your way. I’ll follow in my Land-Rover and hoot if you go wrong. Now clear off,
for God’s sake.’

Everyone scrambled aboard something and at last the lorries coughed and spluttered out of the gates. Charles was in the cab of the leading one. After a while he asked the driver if
Edward’s Land-Rover was following.

‘No, sir,’ said the driver with complete confidence and without looking in the mirror.

‘How do you know?’

The driver grinned. ‘His driver’s in the back with us. That’s what comes of all the hurry.’

The search lasted all day and covered several grid squares on the one-inch map. The land was very flat with many ditches and marshes and few trees. The weather was crisp and clear and it was a
pleasant day’s walk for those who had slept. No one really knew what they were looking for nor where to look. At about mid-morning they came across some tinkers with their horses and
caravans. They were small, sullen, frightened-looking people from across the border who resisted any attempt to get to know them by speaking only Gaelic, and little enough of that.

There was a lunchtime rendezvous with one of the lorries, from which they were served pints of hot Army tea and sandwiches. Charles said to Nigel Beale, ‘Why didn’t you tell us last
night that we were going to do this?’

‘Need to know.’ Nigel munched briskly. ‘The only ones who knew were those without whom it couldn’t be done.’

‘What about those who are doing it?’

‘No need to know.’

‘Do you really expect to find anything?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘What are we looking for?’

‘Arms and explosives.’

‘Yes, but any particular sort?’

‘Need to know.’

During the afternoon the CO hovered overhead in a helicopter, causing everyone to poke more purposefully into the ditches and derelict barns. By last light the only thing found was a rusty
shotgun in one of the latter.

When Charles got back, feeling very flat and tired, he had to see that his platoon cleaned their kit and their weapons properly as Sergeant Wheeler had once again disappeared. It turned out that
he had been delayed returning from the search area as the provisions lorry, in which he should not have been, had become stuck in a bog and had to be towed out. By the time Charles got back to his
own quarters all the baths were occupied and by the time he got into one the hot water was cold. However, the cold bath refreshed him sufficiently to turn his flatness into decisiveness for a while
and, knowing he would soon be too tired again to bother, he sat down and quickly wrote a letter to the Retirements Board. He said that he was considering resigning, giving no reasons, and asked
under what conditions his resignation might be accepted. He had been thinking about doing this for some time but had hesitated to take such a decisive and eventually public step. He knew that his
resignation would have to be submitted through the CO, but he did not yet want the CO to know that he wished to leave. He would feel more sure of his ground when he knew whether or not it was
possible to leave. He told no one what he was doing.

That done, he went over to the Mess but it was too early for dinner and, as chance would have it, he found himself alone with the CO, who was warming his backside against the fire. ‘Have a
whisky,’ said the CO. It was not an invitation that could be refused. The CO looked tired and drawn and Charles, feeling guilty for what he had just done, as though he had betrayed the CO in
some personal way, made a show of enthusiasm. ‘Pity about today,’ continued the CO. ‘Would have done the battalion a power of good to have found something. Good for morale.
Nothing worse than trudging round fields all day and not finding anything. I know, I’ve done it myself. And of course if one person finds something it makes everyone else look that much
harder. Still, there you are, can’t be helped. Stuff had probably been moved before we got there.’

‘What was it, sir?’

‘Four hundred pounds of home-made explosives in animal feed sacks. I think we were fairly thorough, don’t you? Don’t think we could’ve missed it.’

‘I think we were as thorough as possible under the circumstances.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought. You can’t really tell when you’re hovering up in the air like a bloody kestrel. Easy to get the wrong impression.’

Charles sat next to Chatsworth during dinner and heard how his contribution to the search had been to shoot a rat in a ditch with his rifle. This probably accounted for the shot that had been
reported by the RUC. Whilst looking for what was left of the rat – he wanted to see what the bullet had done – Chatsworth had sunk up to his knees in slime and, judging by the stench of
his trousers, socks and boots afterwards, had concluded that the ditch was formed by the overflow from a cesspit. He had attempted to exchange trousers, socks and boots for new pairs by claiming
that there were no cleaning facilities that could cope with the contamination, but had been rudely rebuffed by the misanthropic quartermaster.

‘They’re all the same, QMs,’ Chatsworth complained in a low, bitter voice. ‘They all see their job as to prevent you from getting kit rather than to provide you with it.
You’d think they had to pay for the stuff themselves. I reckon if our QM ever had to issue the whole battalion with new boots he’d go into a decline and not eat for a week. Except that,
knowing him, he’d eat even more and dock it from our rations. I’ll get the stuff clean eventually but it means our room’s going to stink for a bit.’

‘Can’t you keep it outside?’ asked Charles.

‘Not without someone pinching it.’

‘Who’d want it in that state?’

‘The QM for one. He’d take anything if he could get it without exchanging. People would pinch it out of spite.’

‘And what about the bullet?’

‘What bullet?’

‘The one you shot the rat with. You’ll have to account for it. You’ll be one round short.’

‘That’ll be all right. We’re bound to get through a few dozen rounds in Belfast. At least, I hope we are. I hope it’s not going to be as dull as this place. Anyway,
I’ve got some of my own from home. I always carry a few with me.’

After dinner the Mess cleared unusually rapidly. Tramping around all day seemed to have tired people. Charles had reached that stage of sleeplessness when he was prepared to delay going to bed,
the better to savour the prospect of sleeping soundly no matter what noise was made by A company going up and down the tunnel outside their room, and no matter what stench Chatsworth had introduced
within it. He lingered over a whisky.

Chatsworth sat back in his armchair and languidly crossed his legs, as though he were about to conduct a tutorial. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever killed anyone?’ he asked
offhandedly.

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Do you want to?’

‘Not particularly, though I don’t object to the idea. It depends on who and why.’ It struck Charles that the conversation was beginning to sound very like conversations with
Henry Sandy about sex. His replies were disturbingly similar. At the back of his mind there was a suspicion that he might quite like to kill someone just to see what it felt like, though it would
never do to admit that to Chatsworth. ‘Why, have you killed anyone?’ he asked.

Chatsworth looked shifty. ‘Well, not really. Sort of but not properly.’

‘D’you mean they recovered?’

‘No, no. No question of that. It’s just that it wasn’t deliberate.’

Chatsworth looked embarrassed, as though he regretted having raised the subject. However, discomfiture of Chatsworth was too rare an experience for Charles to be able to resist exploring it.
‘Come on, what do you mean? What happened? Was it today?’

‘No, no. No. It was – you won’t tell anyone, will you? I won’t like it to get out, you see. It was an old woman in Bogota. I ran her over at night. Pure accident.
Didn’t matter very much because they just leave the bodies on the streets out there. I don’t know who she was. But as I didn’t mean it I can’t really claim it as a
kill.’

‘Perhaps you’ll be able to make up for it here,’ said Charles.

Chatsworth raised his glass. ‘Let’s hope so.’

Charles had meant it as a joke but seeing Chatsworth take his remark seriously caused him to doubt his own intentions. It was quite likely that someone was going to kill or be killed during the
next few months.

Before he left the Mess that night Charles received a telephone call from Janet. She had got the number from military enquiries. In a conversation made awkward by enforced normality, she said
that she was going to a wedding in Dublin the following month and suggested he came down for the night. He explained that he wasn’t allowed south of the border and asked whether she could get
up to Belfast – where he would be by then – for the night. She thought it might be possible. It then occurred to him that he didn’t know whether he would be allowed to take a
night off. She asked whether he was sure he wanted to see her. He said he was. She said that she didn’t want to be in the way. He tried to reassure her, but was rather reticent because he was
acutely aware of Chatsworth listening to every word. In the end they agreed that he should ring her nearer the time. She asked, with a slightly nervous jokiness, whether he had killed anyone yet.
She daily expected to hear that he had slaughtered dozens, and added that she presumed that that was what he was there for. They bade each other a formal goodbye.

‘Is she very attractive?’ asked Chatsworth, immediately Charles had replaced the receiver.

‘Yes, she is, quite.’

‘I wouldn’t mind meeting her when she comes over. You know, if you’re on duty or anything.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’

Chatsworth nodded his acknowledgment. ‘Let me know when she’s coming.’

During the final week in Killagh, just before the relieving unit arrived, there was an event which made national and international headlines. Charles was involved by default of Chatsworth, a
part of whose platoon had crossed the border by mistake and had been arrested by the Irish Army. The meanderings of the border were such as to make accidental crossings all too easy, but
fortunately encounters with the Irish Army were usually amicable. Names and details of the soldiers and their weapons were taken, and they were then escorted back to Northern Ireland. Because
Chatsworth was involved, however, there was the suspicion that the crossing might have been less accidental than most. Edward was upset because the CO was angry.