A Breed of Heroes (26 page)

Charles and Van Horne walked slowly up the street together. Charles had forgotten Beazely and groped ineffectually for his pistol as the portly figure lurched from the darkness of an alley.

‘All right, it’s me, it’s me,’ said Beazely in a hoarse whisper.

Charles pretended to have been fastening the flap on his holster and Van Horne, who had been rather quicker on the draw, replaced his pistol. ‘I’d forgotten you,’ said
Charles.

‘Thought you had. You’ve been a bloody long time down there. Is it all over?’

‘Everyone’s gone home.’

‘Thank Christ for that.’ Beazely’s sheepskin jacket was wet and dirty, his face red and flustered as always but adorned by raindrops. He touched his glasses nervously.
‘Sounded bloody awful down there. Hell of a noise. Must’ve been a real battle. You’re all right, are you? Not blown up or anything?’

‘No, we’re all right. Why, were you worried you wouldn’t get your story?’ Charles regretted the remark as he said it.

Fortunately Beazely never took offence quickly. ‘Well, I won’t deny that crossed my mind,’ he said. ‘But, you know, when two blokes you know and like disappear off into
the dark and there’s a lot of banging and shooting and shouting it’s natural to wonder if they’re all right. Nice to have you back, that’s all. Must’ve been a real
battle.’

Charles found that he didn’t want to talk about it now that the time had come. Anyway, there wasn’t much to say. ‘Not really. We shot two or three bombers and the others went
home. There were no bodies and no prisoners. One soldier was slightly injured by burns and another by a brick.’

‘What about details? I must have details. Eye-witness accounts, you know.’

‘There’s a press conference back at battalion headquarters. Come to that.’

‘That’s no good, you know it isn’t, that’s all the official stuff. I can’t use that for my I-was-in-the-front-line-trapped-between-both-sides, can I? Come on,
Charlie, give me the story. You said you would.’

‘I’ll give it to you there.’

Beazely grabbed Charles’s arm imploringly. ‘For Jesus Christ’s sake, Charlie, look, I have a deadline to meet in twenty-five minutes for the early editions and if I don’t
meet it I’m finished – you know, cut throat finished. The press conference stuff is for the later editions. Everyone else has filed theirs and I still haven’t even got mine and
then I’ve got to find a phone that works in this God-awful place. Come on, Charlie, please, you said you would.’

Charles turned to Van Horne, who had maintained an air of polite disinterest. ‘Did you notice anything suitable?’

‘Blood all over the place,’ Van Horne replied promptly. ‘Lying in puddles in the road, spattered over the walls of the houses, brains in the gutter. Grenade-thrower’s
head taken off in the act of throwing. Mothers and children cowering in the houses, priests in attendance –’

‘Priests?’ asked Charles. Beazely was avidly noting everything Van Horne said.

‘There must’ve been at least one, sir. There always is.’ Beazely shot him a quick glance of grateful appreciation. ‘Vicious attack with nail bombs and grenades in narrow
streets, designed to kill. Army opened fire only after repeated warnings. Minimum force but enough to be effective. Armoured car ablaze, crew saved by brave sergeant. Dramatic rescue of petrol
tanker bomb horror that could’ve blasted entire neighbourhood. Army tempted to blow it up where it was and save themselves trouble –’

‘Not that,’ said Charles.

Beazely’s pencil hovered. ‘How about Army defuse massive tanker bomb and save families?’

‘If you like.’

‘You’ll be rewarded handsomely for this, gentlemen,’ added Beazely.

‘No need,’ said Charles.

‘We’ve got photos too,’ said Van Horne.

‘Great. Thanks a lot. I should be able to do something with this.’

‘How long will it take you to write it?’ Charles asked, more because he felt a little guilty at having been so unhelpful than because he really wanted to know.

‘Whatever time I’ve got. Ten minutes maybe, then I’ll probably alter it as I ring it in. Less than that if I don’t get to a phone quickly. Thanks for your help. Hope you
have a quiet night, what’s left of it.’

Beazely did not get to the conference because he was still telephoning his story. Given a few of the right phrases and a few facts, true or false, he seemed to be able to knock one into shape
very quickly. There was no doubting his proficiency in this respect. The story, when Charles saw it the next day, was a convincing and exciting account of a riot and its aftermath which could be
faulted only in its not resembling the riot he had attended. Though perhaps, on reflection, that would not have been regarded as a very serious fault.

The journalists were crowded into the Mess, with all the wires, lighting and cameras needed by the TV people. It was not difficult to sense a degree of impatience with all this on the part of
the steam press, as they called themselves. These men needed only notebooks and access to a telephone to make their news. The cumbersome, time-consuming technical demands of their more glamorous TV
counterparts were exasperating and the result, in their eyes, was not worth it. The radio reporters, able to offer the most immediate news of all, were only slightly encumbered by their equipment
and had more in common with the steam press. A space was cleared at the far end of the Mess for a table and two chairs. Pleading that the CO would not answer questions he was not prepared for and
was required by the Army to stick strictly to facts, Charles ascertained that they wanted comment on why the CO had decided to open fire, what effect he thought it had had, the dangers arising from
the hijacking of the petrol tanker and whether or not the CO had himself led the charge on the bus.

The CO was upstairs in his room and Charles went up to brief him. Looking tired and drawn, he was sitting at his desk with an untouched glass of whisky before him. He heard Charles out and then
passed his hand wearily across his eyes. ‘Dammit, how I hate having to talk to these wretched people,’ he said. ‘It’s not their fault, of course. They’ve got a job to
do just as I have, but it’s all this going back over it, having to say the right thing, resurrecting the whole terrible business. It’s worse than actually doing it, you know. When I
think of those poor, stupid, foolish, ignorant, tragically misguided young men whom we probably killed tonight it makes me want to weep, you know, it really does. They could’ve been my sons,
or yours if you were older. They were somebody’s. It certainly would have been at least one of my soldiers if we hadn’t done what we did. Those are the people the press should be
talking to, the bloody Provisional IRA, not me. They should be saying to them, “Look, for God’s sake stop this bloody lunacy, this violence, because it’ll get out of control and
kill all of you and a great many more besides.” Don’t you think, eh?’

Charles nodded. When the CO needed someone to talk to he did not need them to say very many words, although he paid full attention to any they did say. At such times Charles felt close to him
despite himself, and at the same time awkward, as though he were there under false pretences.

The CO held out his hand, as if to show something in his palm, and kept his dark eyes fixed upon Charles. ‘If only these people could be made to see that if they consistently break the
law, if they consistently use violence they will meet with violence, and if it comes to a showdown the side with superior force wins. And that’s us, they must know that. And to keep up a war
of attrition is simply to prolong the agony, their own as well as everyone else’s, without getting anywhere because no British government, of any complexion, is going to pull out of Northern
Ireland against the wishes of the majority of people as expressed in the ballot box. They must see that, they must. They can’t surely be so stupid as not to, can they? And to go on as they
are, where does it get them? How are they one jot the better? How is their cause advanced one inch further? If anything, it goes backwards. There’s nothing to be gained by violence of this
kind and everything to be lost, and they’re losing it.’ His tired face was now tense and his eyes hard with passion. He gripped his glass of whisky tightly and raised it but put it down
again without tasting. ‘Don’t you think that’s what the press should be doing, telling them that, eh? Trying to stop it instead of asking me damn fool questions about why I opened
fire when there were grenades rattling around in the street?’

Charles nodded again but still said nothing. After gazing thoughtfully at his whisky for a few moments, the CO knocked it back in one and stood up, smoothing down his jersey and stamping his
feet so that his anklets fitted snugly over the tops of his boots. He clapped Charles on the back and grinned. ‘Hang it all, I nearly lost my PRO to those grenades, and then where would I be?
The only one I’ve got. I hope they realise that.’

They went downstairs and made their way through the crush, the smoke, the wires and the hubbub to the table by the wall. The CO appeared calm, grave and self-possessed. As he took his seat the
hubbub ceased. Charles sat next to him.

At first, all went well. The questions were much as anticipated, with the rival TV interviewers irritating everyone by each asking the same questions and requiring the same answers to be
delivered to them individually. They for their part were irritated by what they regarded as unnecessary and inarticulate interruptions from the steam press. The CO’s replies were stiff and
rather lengthy but the points were answered. He used a lot of phrases that were typical of him and of no one else that Charles had met, such as ‘denying the Queen’s highway’,
‘the Queen’s writ will not be flouted’, ‘the un-Christian monsters who so tragically misguide these young men’, ‘the honour and integrity of the British
Army’, ‘my soldiers will not stand by while the Queen is insulted’ and ‘the appalling dilemma confronting every commander which only God can resolve’.

Charles knew that such phrases and concepts were not only part of the CO’s everyday conversation but were central to how he saw himself and the world, but he did not know how the press
would react. He feared mockery or disdain but saw neither, only attentiveness. Whether they sympathised with the CO’s all too obvious sincerity or whether such remarks made good press, he
could only guess. Trouble came from the well-dressed, thin-faced young man who had earlier displayed his potential animosity. It turned out he was Colm McColm of the
Gazette
. He did not
speak until the conference was about to finish and the TV people had begun to dismantle their equipment. When he spoke it was with a quietness born of confidence.

‘Colonel, on your own admission you ordered the shooting of several people this evening, of whom at least one is probably dead.’

The room quietened and the TV men stopped their dismantling. The CO had his elbows on the table and his hands firmly clasped. ‘I said that we opened fire and we think we hit at least three
bombers.’

‘Colonel, could you tell me what kind of weapon your men were using?’

‘They were using the 7.62 millimetre self-loading rifle. It’s the standard weapon in this and other NATO countries.’

‘I see. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it true to say that it is a high-velocity weapon that is lethal at ranges of well above five hundred yards?’

‘It is, depending on the accuracy of the man using it.’

‘What was the range at which your men opened fire this evening?’

‘About sixty or seventy yards.’

‘About sixty or seventy yards. And will a human body stop a 7.62 bullet at this range?’

‘Not usually, no.’

‘Not usually. So the bullet goes straight through. And what about the thing behind the body – a wall, for example. Will it go through that?’

‘It depends on the wall.’

‘Let us say, an ordinary terrace-house wall like those we all saw this evening. Would that stop the bullet?’

‘Probably not.’

McColm was very relaxed, with one arm along the back of the seat next to his and a notebook balanced on his knee. The TV cameras were going again and the CO was staring at his questioner, his
lined face held in a brittle composure. ‘Are we to understand, then,’ continued McColm, ‘that you knowingly and deliberately opened fire with high-velocity weapons in a built-up
area at human targets not more than seventy yards distant?’

Charles could see the veins on the CO’s hands as he gripped tightly, as though in fervent prayer. He looked down at the table and then said in a quiet, taut voice, ‘I ordered my
soldiers to open fire at identifiable targets who were throwing lethal bombs and hand-grenades on one of Her Majesty’s highways. I ordered them to aim low in order to avoid injury to anyone
in the houses behind.’

‘But you admit that you opened fire with high-velocity weapons at short ranges, Colonel, and you admit that the bullets could have gone through the walls of houses in which innocent people
were living, but you don’t admit to the terrible danger to anyone in that area nor to this obvious flouting of the Army’s so-called minimum force policy. I ask you, Colonel, a 7.62
bullet at seventy yards, what does it do to a man? Takes his head off, I’m told. And perhaps the head of the man behind him. How can you justify such tactics? How can you sit there and
justify them?’

The CO’s tightly-compressed lips and his prolonged downward glance betrayed a rising tension which threatened his self-control. He still spoke very slowly, staring straight at the
reporter. ‘I took what action was necessary to prevent the murder of one of my soldiers. As well as to protect the lives and property of the surrounding population from destruction by the
bombers. I ordered my soldiers to aim low in order to minimise the risk to the inhabitants of those houses. And I have since inspected the damage myself and arranged for compensation. There were no
injuries.’

‘And we have only your word for this?’

Something seemed to snap inside the CO and he got to his feet, his voice rising as he spoke. ‘Young man, I don’t know who you are or what paper you represent and I frankly
don’t care. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’d stood in my shoes on that street this evening for just two minutes – that’s all, two minutes – you
wouldn’t come in here looking for a bloody autopsy. You have not the remotest idea what it means to take the kind of decision I had to take this evening, not the remotest. God forbid that I
ever thought the day would come when I had to order a platoon in battle-order down a British street and tell them to open fire. But it has. And God knows it’s not easy but as God is my
witness it has to be done. So you’re not going to find any bodies here. Go to Dublin and ask some of your friends down there. Go and ask them!’