A Breed of Heroes (21 page)

Charles’s time of greatest privacy and pleasure was after the 2200–0600 watch, which occurred once a week. After his relief had arrived he would go upstairs on to the flat roof of
the police station. There was a sentry up there in a sangar but he could wander about freely without going near him. He did not worry about snipers since the IRA were not at their most active early
in the morning. There was a view over a large part of West Belfast leading up to the Black Mountain, the only visible bit of greenery. The cold was enlivening and bracing and the air clear. Above
all, though, the city looked clean and almost innocent in its freshness. Later, the industrial haze would settle and turn the sun, if it appeared, into something the colour of rancid butter and the
rain into a dull, dirty smear on the windows. But at six in the morning the homely little rooftops and the quiet little streets looked pathetically human. It was possible then to feel some hope for
the place. Then the traffic would begin and the people would appear, bringing with them the noise, dirt, slovenliness and ordinary harshness of everyday life. Children with hard, old faces would
start their paper rounds, and Charles would go back down to breakfast.

Every night the CO visited the companies. His trip round usually started at about ten, but could be earlier if he were bored. It would last from two to six hours. Charles usually accompanied him
in case, as the CO put it, he had to arrest any rascally journalists on the way. For Charles it was a good opportunity to get out of battalion HQ. Unfortunately, the RSM was of the same opinion,
and he also regarded himself as being in charge of the CO’s escort party. Frequently there was a silent and private feud between him and Charles to see who should sit in the front of the
escort vehicle, the RSM regarding it as being beneath his dignity to give place to a mere second lieutenant, while Charles was happy to give up the seat but not to have it taken from him.

It was well known that the CO was looking for trouble when he went out at night, and he would even poach on a neighbouring battalion’s area if there was no life in his own. In the worst
parts of his own area he would often leave the vehicles under guard and mount an extempore foot patrol under his own command, normally the job of a corporal. He would stop and search people who
struck him as suspicious – nearly everyone did so strike him – and would mount sudden road blocks in the hope of catching stolen cars. Since most cars used in shootings and bombings
were stolen, the search for such vehicles formed an important part of military life in Belfast, and everyone soon acquired something of the mentality of a traffic warden. There was an intense
programme of VCPs and thousands of vehicles were stopped every week, occasionally with some result. Brigade were always worried about Ford Cortinas, which were said to be easy to steal and,
certainly, were frequently used by terrorists. A representative for Ford, interviewed on the radio, denied that they were easier to steal than other comparable cars and suggested that their
popularity was due to their reliability and speed. On some nights the CO would stop every Ford Cortina he saw. For about a fortnight Brigade issued numerous reports about blue Cortinas and the
adjutant said that one of the RUC men had told him that if all the reports were true, every blue Cortina in Belfast had been stolen twice.

Anthony Hamilton-Smith sometimes did the rounds of the companies instead of the CO, with noticeably less drama. No one in battalion HQ knew how he passed his time, and no one thought it
appropriate to ask. He was always fresh and immaculate, polite and charming whatever was happening. His persistent anachronisms earned him some good-natured ridicule, yet tinged with admiration. It
was an army which admired bluff, which recognised its importance and which could forgive most sins provided they were done with a certain style. There were, of course, those – one or two of
the more ambitious company commanders – whose sense of military virtue was outraged by Anthony’s continuing lament over the demise of the horse in modern warfare. They regarded him as
an ineffectual dilettante, but his own unfailing politeness and good humour prevented them from demonstrating their disapproval. There was, indeed, something in his playfully old-fashioned manner
that indicated a mind at rest, but not asleep. The CO seemed only intermittently aware that he had a second-in-command and showed no curiosity as to what his second-in-command did with his time.
His style of leadership rendered subordinate commanders unnecessary, and an amiable, unprotesting 2IC fitted perfectly. Anthony’s responsibility for community relations remained almost
entirely theoretical. It would have been completely theoretical had he not had to chair a weekly meeting of the RUC community relations representative and the company representatives. Charles was
made responsible for the minutes. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss and, where necessary, allocate funds for community relations projects. Such few projects as there were had been inherited
from the previous unit, though B company’s representative, a rather keen captain, wanted to build an adventure playground on some wasteland. The CO, though, was known not to favour community
relations, and Anthony was not one to exert himself unnecessarily. The result was that the previous unit’s projects dwindled and the adventure playground, though paid lip-service to by all,
was talked about in such a way that everyone, except the keen captain, was able to feel reassured that it would still be under discussion when the battalion left Belfast. At best, community
relations secured the friendship of the friendly, while the unfriendly remained unchanged. Anthony introduced each meeting, was not always able to stay to the end, but occasionally handed round
some cigars.

One evening came the first serious riot in which the battalion was involved. There had been no indication of trouble at the five o’clock ‘prayers’ –
indeed, Nigel Beale had forecast a quiet period during which the IRA were ‘regrouping’ – and there was no apparent reason for it, though it was later said to have been a test of
the battalion’s reaction. ‘They wanted to know whether they were dealing with soft nuts or hard nuts,’ the CO said afterwards. ‘Well, now they know.’

It began during dinner, which was an event in itself that night. Most mealtimes were a forum for the CO to pronounce upon anything in the world, military or civil. Usually, he chose those
aspects of the world that disagreed with him, and so there was never any shortage of subjects. His audience was mainly passive and respectful, which he interpreted as meaning agreement, though a
few competed with each other in their efforts to heap fuel on the fire of his opinion. Anthony was the only one who would ever disagree, usually on some point of regimental history or etiquette or
in some arcane area where he alone seemed to possess certain knowledge. In particular, he always seemed to know of some tribe somewhere whose habits contradicted any generalisation made about human
behaviour. On matters of political or military moment, however, he remained silent.

On this occasion the CO was giving his opinion on an article by the
Sunday Truth
’s Hindsight team, which was about Army searches of Catholic houses. It said that nothing had been
found in a large number of houses, that many families had been deeply upset and frightened, that several who were interviewed had alleged brutality and violence and that many felt the houses had
been selected on a purely sectarian basis. There were accounts of two women receiving treatment for nervous afflictions and a few paragraphs about the effect upon children. The article ended by
quoting a bland statement from Headquarters which denied sectarian discrimination and unprovoked violence and maintained that the Army had a duty to search houses if they believed there might be
weapons hidden in them.

The CO dealt with the matter over his soup. ‘Muck-raking, that’s what it is. They’re simply trying to stir things up. Some of these bloody journalists are no more than
left-wing communist agitators.’ He looked at Charles, whom he viewed as being in some way responsible for whatever appeared in the papers or on radio or television. If by nothing else,
Charles was guilty by association. ‘Isn’t that true, Charles?’

‘I’ve not met the Hindsight people, sir.’

‘Don’t be diplomatic with me. They’re subversive. They’re trying to destroy the fabric of our society. They’re on the other side. No matter what we do they
criticise it. And they’re getting control of the media, which is why they’re so dangerous. Not that all of them are downright evil, mind you’ – the company waited in
respectful silence whilst he sipped a spoonful of soup, some of which dribbled off the edge of the spoon and plopped back into the bowl – ‘not all of them. Some of them are dupes.
Well-meaning, academic, intellectual, left-wing dupes. The universities and the press are full of them. One thing they don’t know is who’s paying them, where the money’s coming
from. Whose dupes they are. That’s why they’re dangerous.’

There was a general nodding of heads. Charles concentrated on his soup, but the adjutant ventured calmly: ‘All the same, there’s probably a degree of truth in some of what they say.
The Ackies can be rough if something’s upset them and whatever reason we have for searching these people it must look to them as if we do it simply because they live where they do, especially
when we don’t find anything. I think a lot of these large-scale searches do more harm than good. We’ve been lucky with ours so far. They’ve been small-scale and we’ve
usually found something. And I don’t know that there’s really any organised political conspiracy in the media.’

The CO banged his spoon down. ‘There you are. Just what I’ve been saying.’ There was an embarrassed silence for a few moments and then he laughed. ‘They’ve even
turned my own adjutant against me!’ A ripple of relieved mirth ran round the table and the CO smiled indulgently at the adjutant. ‘It’s not an organised political conspiracy that
I’m talking about, Colin, it’s the coercion of opinion. They create a climate of acceptability in which everything is acceptable so long as you accept what they choose for you.
It’s a kind of political pornography they’re trying to force down our throats. You’ll just have to take my word for it, I’m afraid. When you get to my position and see some
of the confidential documents that I see you’ll know what I mean. You’ll see these people in their true colours, which is more than they do themselves, I can assure you.’

The adjutant seemed content to have made his point. There was no arguing with the CO. Charles, whose turn it was to buy the wine that evening, occupied the ensuing pause by filling their
glasses. The conversation then turned, as it frequently did, to the iniquities of the neighbouring unit, a regiment of gunners from Germany. The CO prefaced his remarks by saying that one
shouldn’t make disparaging remarks about other regiments, and that one should always bear in mind that these chaps were trained to fire missiles from thirty miles behind the lines; they were
not the sort of chaps who could be expected to come to grips with the enemy. Anthony Hamilton-Smith thought they were all right at polishing their cannonballs and keeping their powder dry, but not
very fleet of foot when it came to dodging round street corners. There then followed a catalogue of their misdeeds and inadequacies. Right or wrong, the CO was a prisoner of his own prejudices.
There could be no serious opposition to anything he said, and so his own opinions were mirrored back to him, reinforcing the original, showing only himself, and himself as right. There was no
chance of change or advance where there was no chance of contradiction, no limitation at all.

For some minutes all except the CO, who was talking, had been aware that the radio operator in the ops room next door was acknowledging more signals than usual. Tony Watch was the duty
watchkeeper. After more radio chatter he hurried into the Mess and bent over the CO’s shoulder, a little too confidentially. ‘From Alpha One, sir, a crowd of youths in the Falls Road,
stoning vehicles. Twenty so far and increasing.’

The CO swallowed his mouthful and gave himself a moment’s indigestion. He put his hand on his chest until it had passed. ‘The Falls is turning nasty, is it? We’ll have our
punch-up yet. Where on the Falls?’

‘Junction with Leeson Street, sir. Border between us and the Gunners.’

‘Right on the border?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Damn.’ The CO put his hand to his chest again and there was another moment’s silence. ‘Inform Brigade and keep me posted, will you?’

Tony Watch returned to the ops room and could soon be heard calling up Brigade. ‘Would be right on the border,’ the CO continued. ‘The Gunners’ll probably have the most
God-awful riot on their hands and not have a clue how to handle it, while we sit here and twiddle our thumbs and watch. Our boys could do with a riot, too. They’re getting bored, idle and
troublesome. Twice as many on Orders this week as when we arrived. Just shows you can’t keep highly-trained infantrymen sitting around on their arses all day and all night.’

Charles resumed his argument with the piece of steak that was the officers’ dinner that night – the soldiers, because there were more of them, had a choice. It seemed likely that
dinner would be disturbed, and so Charles determined to eat as much as possible. The Falls Road and its neighbourhood was the traditional home of Belfast Republicanism, and although at one point it
was no more than a few hundred yards from the Protestant Shankhill Road, the two were different worlds. Many of the inhabitants of each never had and never would venture on to the other. (Charles
had heard that during a bombing raid in the Second World War some of the people on the Falls had lit bonfires to guide the German bombers, until they found that the bombers aimed for the fires.)
Within a few minutes there were two RUC reports of large numbers of youths moving along the Falls. Someone said that an informer had informed to the effect that ‘the word was out’.

There was a loud ‘Roger. Wait out,’ and Tony Watch strode purposefully back into the Mess. ‘Alpha One report petrol bombing and heavy stoning, sir. They’ve deployed two
platoons but they can’t act effectively without going into the Gunners’ patch.’