Hateland (7 page)

    It was one of those moments when I felt distanced from these people. Although I wore the same uniform, I felt no sense of loyalty to them and certainly didn't see myself as fighting for them. I'd say most English and Welsh soldiers felt the same: they didn't give a toss about the Ulster Protestants - and certainly didn't fancy dying for them.

    Hunger strikers died at regular intervals throughout our tour. Two died on the same day. This provoked a whirlwind of violence across Northern Ireland. Around 10,000 petrol bombs were thrown at the Crown forces in the week that followed. None was aimed at me.

    In the week of the two hunger strikers' funerals, the Reverend

    Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and scourge of Fenians everywhere, boosted morale. He suggested during a television interview that shotguns ought to be issued to soldiers for use against street rioters. After the terrible onslaught of 10,000 petrol bombs, he thought that shotguns would be able to clear streets of rioters without risking life in the way a bullet from a rifle might. The packed TV room burst into laughter and cheers. Some people stood on chairs and made Nazi salutes, chanting, 'Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! ' Outside the television room, there was less bravado. At night at remote permanent checkpoints, animals would often get shot if they triggered tripwires. It was in such an incident around this time that I shot my first sheep. Rabbits, foxes and even, occasionally, cows also fell victim.

    One night, I was on a mobile patrol roving through the countryside around Belcoo. It had been raining in that special Irish way since we'd first jumped from the helicopter. Everyone was soaked. We decided to have a false 'contact'. If you encountered terrorists while on patrol and opened fire you were supposed to get on the radio immediately and shout 'Contact! Contact! Contact!' That night's Quick Reaction Force would then be despatched to you swiftly by helicopter as back-up. But, most importantly, as your position had been compromised, you'd be taken back to your nice warm bed and a cup of tea.

    We all agreed on our story in case of investigation. Apparently, we'd spotted a figure carrying a rifle near a tree several hundred yards away. I laughed as two flares exploded in the evening sky and we opened fire on the tree and bushes. Meanwhile, the corporal screamed into the radio handset, 'Contact! Contact! Contact!'

    Back at base, they must have thought we'd encountered an IRA Flying Column. Within seven minutes, we heard the whirr of the helicopter. Soldiers jumped from it before it had even touched the ground. They ran towards us, hyped up and ready for action. Our corporal pointed in the direction of the tree and the QRF soldiers moved off in defensive zigzags to hunt down the enemy, helped by the helicopter's powerful search beam.

    Our regiment soon had its second casualty. A soldier was shot in the foot. Thankfully, he hadn't been shot by other soldiers.

    He'd shot himself. He claimed it was an accident, but no one believed him. During our tour of duty, the IRA only caused one casualty among our regiment's soldiers: the friend of mine injured in a mortar attack.

    That summer of 1981 saw rioting throughout the United Kingdom. The season kicked off in July with four days of riots in the Toxteth area of Liverpool. At least 70 buildings were burned down and 468 police officers were injured. Smaller riots then took place in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Leicester and just about everywhere else with a significant ethnic minority population.

    I started going out with a 'Greenfinch' - a female UDR soldier. She was called Elizabeth. Through her, I got to meet a lot of UDR soldiers. Several of them seemed all right, though none of them left me feeling overwhelmed by the desire to form a lifelong friendship. There were, however, several out-and-out sectarian bigots who made no attempt to hide their hatred of Catholics.

    One of the worst bigots was someone I nicknamed Billy Bunter. He was overweight, with a red face, and had the unpleasant habit of sniffing when he finished a sentence. His favourite saying was, 'What would really make me happy is if you gave me a pope on a rope.' He continually made a point of telling me not to be anywhere near him if a gun battle broke out. 'Yer man,' he'd say, 'watch your Fenian back if the bullets start flying.'

    I'd reply, 'Why wait till my back's turned, fat boy?'

    He'd pretend to laugh.

    I wish I could say his views were unusual, but they weren't. That sort of demented anti-Catholicism was widespread among the UDR soldiers. Even Elizabeth told me not to broadcast my Catholic background. She said it didn't bother her, but she thought other UDR people might not be so 'forgiving'. It wouldn't have been hard for any of the UDR people to justify their hatred of republicans, but I didn't like the way they seemed to hate all Catholics.

    Most UDR soldiers had lost friends or relatives at the hands of the IRA. And all of them, especially the part-timers, lived with a constant sense of personal threat. Out of uniform, at home and at work, they must have felt vulnerable all the time. Behind their backs, we used to call their unit 'the Utterly Defenceless Regiment'.

    Our officers never wore badges of rank on patrol and we were constantly told never to address them as 'Sir' in front of civilians. These precautions were designed to prevent terrorists identifying them as officers. The thinking was that an officer would present a more tempting target than a mere squaddie. I understood the logic of this, but I still resented it, especially when the officers who in camp would put you on a charge for not calling them 'Sir' were the ones who outside camp would be most upset if you called them 'Sir'. At checkpoints, I made a point of calling officers 'Sir' whenever I could, especially in front of Catholics. Some officers would get really freaked, 'O'Mahoney! Don't call me "Sir". How many times do you have to be told?'

    It's difficult to describe how I felt about 'the Troubles'. It wasn't exactly a case of being torn between two sides - I knew which side I was on. I was a British soldier, and I had no time for the IRA. Yet I agreed with the republican goal of a united Ireland and I secretly admired the hunger strikers, even though sometimes I could feel elated at their deaths.

    The strange thing was that while I could allow myself to feel satisfied that a hunger striker had died, I didn't like to see English soldiers, especially middle-class officers, sneering at hunger strikers' deaths. Contradiction was the dominant force in my mind.

    Life was full of injustice: everyone behaving unjustly to everyone else. That was the way of the world, it seemed to me. I'd felt this from an early age and, in some ways, I suppose this feeling helped me resolve the contradictions in my mind. I stopped getting bothered about who was right and who was wrong. Everyone was right and everyone was wrong. My only goal was survival.

    I was sitting in the canteen one day with a group of soldiers from my regiment. Someone was reading an Irish newspaper containing reports about the Pope's convalescence after his shooting in Rome. A double-page pull-out poster showed him in better days celebrating mass in front of a huge crowd. In the picture, he held his shepherd's crook in one hand. His other hand was raised to give a blessing. Underneath the photo stood the words, 'Pray for His Holiness'. I stuck the poster above the hotplate and sat back down with my mates. We all started giggling.

    Around five minutes later, a group of about twelve UDR and police walked in, among them Billy Bunter. Suddenly I heard him shout, 'You Fenian bastard!' I looked up and he was pointing at the poster. What happened next was extraordinary. At least six UDR men ran to the poster and tore it violently from its place. Then, in a group frenzy, they ripped it to pieces, spat on it and finally stamped on it, all the time shouting madly.

    My mates and I were laughing. Billy saw us and ran over, his face afire with anger. He looked at me and shouted, 'Who put that up there? Who fucking put that up there?'

    I said, 'What are you talking about, you idiot?'

    We denied having anything to do with it - and no one outside my group had seen me put it up.

    Billy said, 'You saw it up there and you did nothing about it.'

    They were all deadly serious. I'm sure they'd have been less offended by a bomb. Elizabeth told me later that two of the UDR people had gone to the ops room to demand an officer launch an inquiry to find the culprit.

    The incident created a lot of bad feeling between our regiment and the UDR. It overshadowed the rest of the tour. It seemed to confirm the suspicions of some UDR soldiers that our regiment was a haven for IRA sympathisers. I wasn't aware of many sympathisers, but there were plenty of hooligans. In my mind, hooligans made the best soldiers. On the ground, dealing with real people in real situations, the army barmies were often clueless, whereas natural-born hooligans like me and a few others could deal effectively with whatever trouble came our way.

    To escape the tensions of active service - at least that was my excuse - I started drinking a lot more. There was little else to do when you weren't working. A few of us even started bringing alcohol with us on night-time checkpoint shifts. I can't remember us ever being drunk on duty, with our loaded rifles, but four or more pints of lager mixed with adrenalin probably contributed to some of our more loutish behaviour. We used to joke that at least the booze helped us walk in zigzags, thus making us hard targets for snipers.

    I started really enjoying myself on patrol or at checkpoints. I really did get into it. The more confident I got, the more enjoyable I found it. Some people should never be put in positions of power. I was certainly one of them. I began to relish the opportunities for confrontation, especially as the people who used to confront us tended to be around my age. I'd experience the same buzz I used to get from gang fights and I'd behave in much the same way as I did formerly. The difference now was that I wore a uniform, carried a gun and acted with lawful authority.

    Of course, we knew such incidents bred hatred and helped swell the IRA's ranks, but we didn't care. Our overriding goal was to get back to camp, and ultimately to Germany, alive and intact. The future was someone else's problem.

    We used to break into isolated houses. The purpose wasn't to steal stuff, although we did occasionally pinch small items, it was really to have a place to put our feet up for a few hours and watch TV, instead of footslogging through the countryside. If there was any beer or food around, so much the better, but we'd be happy just to find a comfortable sitting room where we could lounge on the sofa monitoring daytime television.

    Before long, the tour was over and we were back in Germany, swapping war stories. I actually found myself missing the buzz of Northern Ireland. Over there, I'd lived in a permanent state of alertness. I'd really felt I was living my life wide awake. I suppose I was also missing Elizabeth. She'd ring me regularly In one of our phone conversations, we started discussing the possibility of my joining the Ulster Defence Regiment.

    At first, I thought it was a mad idea. Apart from Elizabeth, there weren't too many UDR people I liked, and I knew my Irish- Catholic background discomforted the bigots. But I'd heard that quite a few English-born soldiers joined the regiment after serving in Northern Ireland. There was nothing else on the horizon for me, so I began to consider it seriously. After a few weeks mulling things over, I told Elizabeth to get me the application form. I was going back to Northern Ireland.

    Before I left the army, I received my Certificate of Service. The range of Military Conduct Gradings is: 1) Exemplary, 2) Very Good, 3) Good, 4) Fair, 5) Unsatisfactory. I was given an 'exemplary' grading. Perhaps they'd hoped it'd guarantee me a job in Civvy Street and I'd never again don the uniform of the Crown.

CHAPTER 4

BRITS OUT

I arrived in Fermanagh for Christmas. It was good to see Elizabeth again, but I felt strange walking around as an ordinary civilian. I moved into her flat in the centre of Enniskillen.

    Until that time, her mother, father and brother had been an invisible presence, appearing occasionally in conversation, but never in the flesh. That was about to change. I'd been invited to spend Christmas Day with them.

    I knew her father was a retired RUC officer and that her brother had followed him into the police. I also knew her mother was a devoted follower of the Reverend Ian Paisley. She'd even stood unsuccessfully in council elections as a candidate for his party. Elizabeth had also told me how in the '60s her mother had wrapped herself in the Union flag and lain in the road to block a civil rights march by Catholics. She'd been shocked when police had removed her from the Queen's highway.

    Beyond those bare facts, I knew little else. I got an inkling of troubled times ahead when Elizabeth sat me down and told me she wanted to explain a few things before I met her family. She said her mother had quite extreme views on a number of issues and, however ridiculous I found them, she'd like me to respect them.

    In essence, her mother was a fundamentalist Protestant who didn't like having anything to do with Catholics. Nor did she want her children having any such dealings. Elizabeth said she couldn't be honest with her mother about my background. In her mother's eyes, because I'd been born a Catholic, I'd always be a Catholic, at least until I'd been rebaptised as a born-again Protestant.

    I'd never really liked the term 'born a Catholic'. I hadn't been born a Catholic. I'd been born naked and screaming. My religion had been imposed upon me. If I'd been born in India I'd likely have been a Sikh or a Hindu or a Muslim. The only God I'd ever worshipped was George Best - and he came from the Ulster Protestant tradition. Elizabeth knew my views and agreed with them to a large extent, but she asked me, for the sake of family harmony, to keep my Catholic background secret. In fact, she wanted me to lie.

    She knew her mother would pick up on my Catholic name, so she suggested a cover story. If asked, I was to say my family came originally from Eire but had been Protestants for generations, the stain of Catholicism having been expunged long ago. Her other stricture was that I'd be sure not to swear or blaspheme in front of her mother. I said, 'Of course I'm not going to swear!' But she explained that, for her mother, swearing and blaspheming came together in the use of such words as 'Jesus', 'God' and 'bloody'. Nor could I expect to drink alcohol in her mother's house - or even give the impression I'd ever drunk alcohol anywhere in the world at any time. Apart from all that, she thought I'd get on fine. Elizabeth had yet to meet my family, so, out of pity for what the future might have in store, I agreed to her terms.