A Breed of Heroes (28 page)

Charles read Beazely’s paper last. He was reassured by the report on the front page and Beazely was on the way to having some of his lost credibility restored to him when Charles reached
the centre-page spread. There was a large photograph of himself cowering beneath the Pig at the crossroads, captioned, ‘Lieutenant Charles Thoroughgood, 41, takes no chances as grenades
pepper the streets’. It was a press agency photograph and had beneath it an article by ‘Our Special Correspondent’ in which Charles read some of his own and many of Van
Horne’s words, fortunately without their being attributed to either. Beazely had added the punctuation and a few imaginative flights of his own.

The only other surprise was a leader in a staunchly Unionist paper calling for more shooting, more units like AAC(A) and, strangely, for stricter enforcement of the law relating to road fund
licences. It was the adjutant who later pointed out that cars in Republican areas were never taxed.

There was more trouble that afternoon up in the new estate. The fact that it began about an hour after lunch, as convenient a time as any, was due to the CO’s having
started it. That morning he had returned from his O Group later than usual, and had stomped straight up to his room, still without speaking to anyone. The adjutant was summoned a while later and
Charles feared that it might have something to do with himself, especially as the adjutant was tight-lipped afterwards. Later, though, the ops officer and Nigel Beale were summoned and Charles
began to relax. Over lunch there was a great deal of important secretiveness amongst those in the know, except for the adjutant who looked as disinterested and weary as usual by then. Anthony
Hamilton-Smith was either oblivious to any secret or was particularly good at keeping it, whilst Tony Watch was aggressively but unsuccessfully curious. Nigel Beale exuded a passionate furtiveness
and communicated with the ops officer in cryptic monosyllables. It was all spoilt by the CO who was brisk and talkative when he came to lunch and informed everyone that he had got clearance from
Brigade to do a search of selected houses in the new estate before dusk. There was information – doubtful, according to Brigade, who couldn’t see beyond the ends of their noses, but
white-hot, according to the CO – that a large quantity of gelignite had been moved in to the area in preparation for a series of bombings. Swearing all present to eternal secrecy, he said
that this was the result of a decision taken by the Provisional IRA leadership at a conference in a Dublin hotel to increase terrorism and to decrease rioting. Apparently they thought that
terrorism was more likely to drive the British from Ulster and would convince the Ulster people that to live in an Ireland united by the Provisional IRA was what they really wanted. Eternal secrecy
was vital in order that the Eire government should not be embarrassed by the suspicion that it harboured terrorists.

Elements from throughout the battalion were involved in the search and they entered the new estate in an impressive convoy, to the accompaniment of banging dustbins. There was also the usual
shouting and jeering. It was some time since Charles had been into the estate and he would not have thought deterioration possible, but before his eyes the worst had clearly got worse. Unbroken
windows and unsmashed paving stones were now so unusual that they caught the eye and prompted speculation. Garden fences had long been pulled down but a few tatty privet hedges remained. Many of
the houses had tiles missing and cracks in their walls. Dirty, unhappy-looking children swarmed like flies and mangy dogs started up everywhere. Because of the very high unemployment a large number
of men were at home and, it being afternoon, most of them were up.

Grilles were up on the Land-Rovers. The CO sat in the front with his map-case open. ‘There is nothing that pleases me more,’ he said, ‘than to ride at the head of a convoy of
military vehicles. If only we were going to war instead of searching these wretched people’s homes. My God, we’d better find something, you know, or we’ll look pretty
stupid.’

‘It’s bound to stir them up if we don’t,’ said Nigel Beale.

‘It’ll stir them up if we do. Anything we do annoys them. If you were to walk round here tonight and give every man a pound he’d go and drink it and then throw the empty bottle
at you. And if we didn’t do anything they’d hoard enough explosive to blow themselves and the rest of Belfast sky-high. Maybe that’s the answer, I don’t know.’

Once well into the estate the convoy split up and different bits went to different houses. Charles went with the CO to one of the white-hot certainties, the home of a well-known Republican
family. The thought that because he was leaving the Army he would never come back to Belfast, made him pay more attention to what he saw. It might, after all, be the last search they would do. He
hoped it would. He was too English not to feel apologetic about such an invasion of privacy. The house in this case was a tattered semi-detached with a larger than usual garden, which was no more
than a patch of earth and scrub excreted upon by dogs and children. They surrounded the house and entered by the front door, which had had a hole kicked in the bottom and didn’t close
properly. There were at least a dozen occupants of all ages and both sexes. Some protested vigorously and loudly to the pale young soldiers who concentrated on their first duty of entering every
room and counting the people, before trying to get them all into one room downstairs. Meanwhile, a shouting and chanting crowd had gathered outside but were kept at a distance by the escort. The
accompanying RUC men were older and more accustomed to abuse, and they went about their work with none of the nervous hurry of the young soldiers. An indefinable stench, a combination of many
smells, old and new, pervaded the house. On entering, the CO turned to Nigel Beale and said in an undertone, ‘This is where the stuff is, you know. I’m sure of it. If it’s
anywhere in this estate, it’s here.’

Soldiers with mine-detectors were ordered to search the garden. After taking a couple of steps into the hall Charles had attempted to linger on the doorstep, but was summoned inside by the CO to
deal with complaints. The house had been searched many times before and after their initial hostility most of the people settled into a sullen resentment. Their names were taken and it turned out
that they were all family, or so they said. There was a likeness running through them all, but it was more a likeness of expression and manner than of anything physical. A plump, unhealthily pale
and prematurely old man who sat quietly in the corner said, when his name was taken, ‘Youse searched this house seventeen times since 1969 and never found nothing. When youse gonna
stop?’

‘When you tell us where the gear is,’ said the soldier.

‘There’s no gear here. I don’t know where no gear is.’

‘Then we won’t be long, will we?’

Charles knew better than to invite complaints, since everyone would have complained at the house being searched at all. However, he was picked upon by two teenage girls with lank dark hair and
hard, expressionless faces. They had probably chosen him because he was the only one standing around doing nothing. ‘Some of your soldiers have made a mess of our toilet,’ one of them
said.

‘What have they done?’

‘Come up and see.’

He followed them upstairs and they showed him into the bathroom. There were smears and deposits around the toilet in such positions as to suggest wild, uncontrolled and aerobatic excretions. It
was only his involuntary recoil on entering that saved him from the indignity of being locked in, as they tried to push him forward and close the door behind him. He pushed back and they ran
downstairs, laughing loudly and humourlessly. He followed them, conscious of the stares of the soldiers who wondered what had happened. For some time he hung around awkwardly in the hall as
searchers came and went. Then the obese lady of the house offered cups of tea to him and several others. It was a suspicious gesture but they felt obliged to accept it. The cups were presented to
them on a tin tray with a packet of biscuits. As they raised their cups to their lips each one gave off a powerful smell of urine. Charles replaced his without a word, but he heard later from two
soldiers who had eaten them that the biscuits were all right.

Charles then followed the CO out into the garden where a tunnel had been discovered, starting with a manhole cover near the wall of the house and ending in the bank of a ditch near the bottom of
the garden. The man of the house said that it was the drains and that there was nothing in it except rats.

‘We’ll see for ourselves,’ said the CO. He looked around. ‘Who’s going down? Any volunteers? Somebody small.’ Charles drew himself up to his full height and
could see others doing the same. ‘Nigel, you’re a little chap. You’ll do.’

Nigel Beale never liked to be reminded of his height, but he always liked to feel useful. He was clearly torn now between pleasure and humiliation. The manhole cover was pushed to one side,
showing the hole to be deep, dark and stinking. Nigel began taking off his webbing while everyone else looked on with relieved curiosity – except for the CO, who said, ‘Come on,
you’re not doing a striptease. Get it off.’

Charles held Nigel’s webbing and equipment, thereby, he hoped, giving the CO an impression of willing participation whilst making it slightly less likely that he would be the one sent to
follow Nigel, if anyone was. It had begun to rain again. Nigel handed over his kit with an air of puzzled martyrdom and lowered himself gently into the hole. A renewed stench wafted up.
‘Don’t be too long down there,’ said the CO. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do. And watch out for booby-traps.’

Nigel’s anxious face popped up again. ‘Anyone got a torch?’ A torch was handed to him. ‘It’s very low, sir. I’ll have to go on my belly to get along
it.’

‘Well, don’t sit there talking about it. Do it.’

They saw Nigel huddle up at the bottom and then disappear head first in the direction of the ditch. There was a lot of grunting and squeezing as though he were being dragged by a rope. His lower
legs and boots were still visible when there was a muffled shout and a young rat ran along his calf, jumped up out of the hole and made for the next-door garden. It was ineffectually chased by the
RSM, who aimed several clumsy kicks at it and tried to hit it with his truncheon. When Nigel’s boots had vanished the watchers went to the ditch to see him come out. All they saw was two more
rats, one a very large one, before Nigel clambered from the manhole he had entered. He was red-faced and puffed and covered in sludge. ‘Couldn’t get right down, sir,’ he said.
‘It gets narrower as it goes on. Thought I’d got stuck, actually.’

‘Did you find anything?’

‘No, sir, it’s clean.’ Everyone laughed, except Nigel and the CO.

‘Pity. Well done, anyway. At least you frightened the rats. Good effort.’

The CO went back into the house and Nigel began brushing himself down briskly, with little result. ‘Bloody filthy down there, you know. Really gungy. There’d better be some hot water
when we get back.’

Charles handed him his kit, his pistol and his beret at arm’s length. ‘D’you think you’ll be able to clean yourself before you get back into the Land-Rover?’

Nigel pulled at some sludge that was clinging to his hair. ‘Doubt it. Don’t s’pose these bastards’ll let me use their water, if they have any. They must’ve been
chuffed to blazes when they saw me go down there. Anyway, if I have to put up with that I don’t see why the rest of you buggers shouldn’t put up with me in the Land-Rover.’ He
bent forward and shook himself, holding his collar back. ‘At least we know there’s nothing down there.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that’s something, isn’t it?’

‘Did you think there would be?’

‘You never know. It’s as good a place as any. There still might be, of course, in the narrow bit. But the only way to search that is to tie a rope to one of their kids and use him as
a pull-through.’

The search of the house was fruitless and they moved on to a local school, where the largest search operation was still going on. A disgruntled mob was gathered outside and there was sporadic
stone-throwing which worsened while they waited for the search teams to finish. The mob grew larger and the stoning became suddenly and persistently worse, obviously a result of organisation. One
soldier had his face opened up from the mouth to the ear and snatch squads were deployed. They caught two boys in their teens and brought them back behind the barricade of Pigs and Land-Rovers. One
of them came from the group that had stoned the soldier and Charles saw a knee go into the boy’s groin as he was pushed into the Pig. His head came forward on to a convenient elbow and he was
bundled inside. Like most arrested rioters they did not seriously struggle once arrested. They seemed overawed by the very semblance of organisation. Henry and his ambulance Pig were called to
treat the injured soldier.

One rubber bullet was fired and, although the stoning continued, the crowd was kept at too great a distance to be a serious menace. They turned then to building a barricade of cars across the
road out, rocking them from side to side and then turning them over. Most were old wrecks anyway but one or two were probably stolen. By this time a number of the press had arrived and hovered
uncertainly between the Army and the mob, before making hurriedly for the Army as the stone barrage worsened. Charles was always surprised at the speed with which a relatively minor disturbance
could become a dangerous confrontation. It needed no more than a drop of bitterness, mixed with the odd injury or two, to turn the whole thing. Charles resumed one or two acquaintances of the
previous night and learned from them that trouble was breaking out throughout Belfast. There were Republican demonstrations against the shootings and Loyalist demonstrations in support of them.
Londonderry was quiet and somebody pointed out that the two cities were never aflame together. The arrival of the TV men seemed once again to constitute an important part of the ritual without
which no riot seemed real. The press symbolised both crowd and referee at a football match but it was a match in which the referee’s decisions were long delayed, and in which one side was
able to conduct itself with regard to them alone while the other was hampered also by a set of rules known to all but applied to itself. Once the cameras were in place the game could begin in
earnest.