Immediate Action (5 page)

    My patrol was getting ready to go out. The weather was cold and damp.

    All the concrete was wet, and there were unwanted puddles everywhere. We were wearing nylon flak jackets on which each bloke had written his blood group. I had a civilian duvet jacket underneath my combat jacket.

    There was a quick five-minute briefing in one of the garden sheds by the multiple commander.

    "You take the center of the town; you take the left; you take the right.

    The other patrol will stay out and take down the tricolor.

    Once that's done, they'll come back in and we'll carry on our patrol."

    It was no big deal; it was just another tricolor to be taken down.

    We got by the main gate, and four at a time the patrols would come forward into the loading bay and load their weapons. The guard commander would then get on the radio to Baruki and tell them that the patrols were ready. Their job was to cover us as we were coming out.

    Patrol by patrol we bomb-burst out. It would be just another routine patrol, three hours in the town, back for four, then go out again for another three hours.

    We were going to be the center patrol, around the town square, the nearest patrol to the one that was going to take down the tricolor.

    Nicky Smith, being search-trained, was told that he was going to go and take it down. The plan was that once we had come out on the ground, we would provide an outer cordon for his patrol, just be milling around the area.

    They called for one of the cans that were on the opposite side of town.

    The plan was for Nicky to climb up on the mesh, have a quick look at the flag, and, if it was all right, bring it down. It was no problem. He'd done it scores of times before, and it was in broad daylight.

    The traffic was stopped either side in VCPS; we were manning the VCP that was stopping people coming out of the town along the Newry road. We checked driving licenses and number plates and asked them where they were going and where they had just been. I was stuck in a doorway, covering the two blokes who were running the VCP. I was "ballooning"-hunching down, then standing up, making sure I didn't present a static target.

    After a minute or two I would walk into another doorway or get between two cars. It was important to keep moving.

    I wasn't paying much attention to Nicky Smith and the search team.

    All I was concerned about was that the sooner it was finished, the sooner the can would be free, and then maybe we could get a quick cup of tea out of the Norwegian.

    The can drove up to the base of the telephone pole.

    The gunner was manning the Browning to give cover because the location was exposed, right at the edge of town; it could be a come-on.

    The driver had the armor plate that protected his face down so that he could see what was going on.

    Nicky climbed on top, had a good look, and gave a tug. There was a fearsome explosion.

    As an eighteen-year-old squaddy I'd never heard the quick, sharp, piercing bang of high explosives. There was a moment of disbelief. I thought, Nab, can't be. I didn't know what to do and was looking around for some direction. Reggie had been checking a car; he had the boot open and was taking some stuff out. He stopped, looked up, and looked around. The civilians caught in the VCP knew what was going on.

    They had more experience than I did of explosions going off.

    Reggie slammed the boot down, and the car shot off.

    He called us to him, and we went running down the road. As we arrived at the Saracen, we saw the body being pulled down by the platoon sergeant. There was screaming coming from inside the can. The back doors were open, and people were trying to sort out the crew.

    What remained of Nicky's body was now lying by the rear wheel of the Saracen. His head was cut off diagonally at the neck, and his feet were missing. All the bit in the middle was intact-badly messed up but intact. The mesh was clogged with bits of his flesh and shreds of his flak jacket. Bits and pieces were hanging off every edge.

    The whole can seemed to be covered in blood.

    "Get a poncho!" the platoon sergeant shouted.

    Up on the hill on the opposite side, there were people visiting the graveyard. They stood still; cars were doing U-turns; nobody wanted to be involved. They'd seen all this before; they knew that if the rounds started flying, they might become casualties themselves.

    Was it a simple booby trap? Or was it command-detonated by somebody in the vicinity?

    I All I saw was people getting on radios; all I heard were lots of orders being shouted. I didn't know what to do. I was scared. I felt really happy that there were loads of other people around me who had the appearance of knowing what they were doing.

    There was a fellow in the brick (patrol) at the time who was a right pain in the arse; he would be A.W.O.L on a Monday morning, come back-Tuesday night, go on a charge. He never wanted to do anything.

    But he was really switched on this day. When we got there, the sergeant in charge of the brick was sorting everything Out, and this fellow just ran up and started stitching all along the hedgerows with an LMG (light machine gun). If it had been detonated by a control wire, maybe the bomber was still in range. This bloke was a renegade, always in trouble, but when he had to do this stuff, he knew what he was doing.

    The QRF (quick reaction force) had run out of the base and were going to put roadblocks all around the town at preset points to stop anybody coming in or going out.

    The bomb had taken Nicky out severely, spreading him out over fifty to sixty meters. All we wanted to do was to get the main bits of what was left of him onto a poncho and get him back to the base.

    I was picking up the remains of the person I'd been eating breakfast with, who used to sit next to me honking about the state of the food. I was extremely angry, extremely scared, and real life hit me in a big way.

    The locals were coming out of the pubs and their houses, clapping and cheering. They were chuffed; there was a Brit squaddy dead. I was flapping like fuck. I started to get angry at these people.

    Four of us carried the poncho, one at each corner. The others gave protection as we went through. The poncho was soaking wet with blood.

    He was literally a dead weight. I was soaked up to my elbows In blood.

    We got him back, but then we had to return and clear the area.

    Helicopters were arriving from Bessbrook to pick up the other casualties. We were sweating and panting, drenched with red. We had to use big, hard yard brooms to get all the bits and pieces off the wagon and throw them into a bag. We burned the brooms afterward. Then came the indignity of having to go out and look for one of Nickey's feet, because it wasn't accounted for. It was found'half a street away.

    The welts of our boots had his dried blood in them.

    Our hands had ingrained blood around the nails. All our equipment was full of his blood. Even the map in my pocket was red with blood.

    Nicky Smith was twenty years old. He was a nice bloke, with a mother and a girlfriend. I'd seen him write in a letter just the week before:

    "Only forty-two more days and I'll be home."

    My vision of the army at the beginning was getting money, traveling, and all the other things I'd seen in the adverts: You're all on a beach, windsurfing and having fun. Maybe they were Nicky's visions as well.

    Even going to Northern Ireland was exciting because it was another experience. Maybe, I now thought, they needed a few posters in the recruiting office of dead boys in ponchos.

    All too often British soldiers who died on active service in Northern Ireland would get a brief mention on the news-"Last ni lit a British soldier died then go unremembered. But I resolved to myself that I would never forget Nicky Smith. I would always keep the newspaper cuttings. I would always have his bloodstains on my map.

    I was haunted by images of disembodied feet and the Saracen spattered with blood like a child's painting. It made me fucking angry, and I personally wanted to put the world to rights. I wanted to get the people responsible. I suddenly felt that I had a cause, that I was doing something, not just for political shit or because I was saving money to buy a car; I was there because I wanted to do something for my own little gang.

    Saracen armored.car had got bogged down in the cuds near Crossmaglen, and me and another rifleman, Gil, were put on stag to guard it.

    Council estates in rural parts of Northern Ireland consisted of nice bungalows, paid for by subsidies from the European Economic Community. A new one was under construction; the Saracen had gone into the site to turn around and had got bogged down in the mud. Another Saracen was trying to drag it out. The company were called out and were in all-round defense with an inner and an outer cordon but split up into groups of two and three. All our arcs overlapped each other, giving us 360 degrees' cover around the vehicles.

    As we took over, the other fellows told us where our arcs were, what they'd seen, what they hadn't seen, where we were in relation to other people on stage. We lay in the, hedgerow looking out; it was cold, and the grass was soaking. My trousers were wet through.

    My feet started to go numb, my hands were already frozen, and I couldn't cover my head up because my ears had to be exposed so I could listen. I was bored, I was pissed off, and I spent two solid hours slagging down can drivers for burying their vehicles in the mud.

    The SLR (self-loading rifle) at the time had a bipod attached to the barrel that was like a pair of chopsticks with a spring at one end.

    It was a necessary bit of equipment because the rifle was too heavy to hold properly with its cumbersome night sight on. Every now and then I'd have a look through to see what was going on.

    In the early hours of the morning, as I scanned the countryside yet again, I saw some movement. I refocused the night sight and blinked hard. I recognized what I was seeing, but I didn't believe it.

    I quietly said to Gil, "We've got two blokes coming down the hedgerow here."

    Gil said, "Yeah, okay, fuck off, big nose."

    "I'm telling you, we've got two blokes coming down.

    Have a look."

    They were skulking down in front of us, maybe just over a hundred meters away-not that far away at all.

    "Fucking hell, you're right!"

    As they got closer and came into direct line of sight, I could clearly see that one of them was carrying a long (rifle).

    "What the fuck do we do?" Gil said.

    I didn't know. Did we issue a challenge? After all, they might be two of our blokes. But what if they weren't and they went to ground? There was no way of contacting an officer or NCO. We were riflemen, so we couldn't be trusted with a radio. Shouting at the inner cordon would just create confusion; we might as well just do it, do what we'd been taught: issue a challenge, and then, if necessary, fire.

    Easier said than done. We weren't allowed to have a round cocked in our weapon; we would have to issue a challenge, cock our weapons at the same time, and then get back into the aim.

    I pulled the bolt hack and shouted, "Halt! Stand still!

    This is the army!"

    The characters turned.

    We fired.

    The inner cordon saw the tracer and thought we were being fired at. They opened up on us because that was where the fire was coming from. It was the first time I'd ever fired at people, and the first time I had been fired back at-and it didn't help that it was our own boys.

    We had been taught a thing called crack and thump: When somebody's firing at you, what you're supposed to do is listen for the crack and then the thump as the round hits the ground. From that you can work out distances. An interval of one second, for example, would mean that the weapon was about a hundred meters away. However, the theory wasn't working out. I didn't hear any cracks; all I could hear was the thumps.

    Gil and I got our heads down in a ditch and yelled at the inner cordon to stop.

    The firing increased. Reggie had gone up into one of the half-finished buildings to get a better perspective. He followed the line of the inner cordon's tracer and opened up with an LMG, giving it the good news down on us.

    After what seemed like hours, there was a deafening silence.

    Moments after that there was shit on. The world and his wife were trying to get in on the contact. People in the security base had been listening on the radio and legged it down toward the border, hoping to cut them off.

    Pockets of little contacts were starting all over the place.

    Patrols were opening up on cows, trees, and each other. It was chaos.

    I could see tracer flying. If it hit something solid, it would ricochet and then whiz!straight up into the air.

    Soon the follow-up was in full swing. Dogs were helicoptered in to try to pick up the scent, and off we went: me and Gil, the company commander, the company commander's escort, and the dog handler, traipsing through the fields, rivers, and swamps of South Armagh.

    The dogs picked up blood, but the players were good at their trade.

    "The way to evade dogs is to get on flat, open ground," the handler said. "If you start running along riverbeds, it just keeps the scent in those areas."

    "Running over a stream is lack shit use, too," he panted as we jogged along behind the dogs. "All the dog does is a thing called casting on the other side, and he'll pick up the scent again. If you get into a wide-open field, the scent is dispersed. You want to do a lot of zigzagging, which slows the dog down, makes it harder for him to pick up your scent."