A Breed of Heroes (40 page)

Ultimately any appeal to Beazely’s sense of self-preservation could be guaranteed to work. He argued but in the end the thought of being stalked for the rest of his life by a vengeful and
murderous Chatsworth was more powerful than his pride. He was already convinced of Chatsworth’s madness and had been threatened by him once that evening when he had at first refused to drive
the lorry. Chatsworth had tapped the kukri in its sheath and remarked that he never drew it without drawing blood.

Charles had to write three accounts of the incident that night. Van Horne had disappeared and, anyway, it would have been unwise to get him to help. One account was for the Brigade Commander,
ghost-written on behalf of Anthony, which stated that the arms had been discovered in a tunnel connected with the Factory tunnels and which left vague the actual point where they had been found
while implying that it was somewhere under the road. He then did a press statement which elaborated on this by saying that the Army had been moving the arms secretly after dark in order to avoid
provoking trouble in the area of the monastery on a Sunday. The ploy had gone wrong when the driver of the lorry had been struck by a stone and had crashed his lorry outside the monastery gates.
For Beazely he wrote a more dramatic account, beginning, ‘For seven hours I sweated in a rat-infested, booby-trapped IRA tunnel helping soldiers remove crates of deadly Armalites from under
the noses of the terrorists. I was part of a specialist “digger” unit . . .’

The story was in time for the late morning editions. Beazely was content, the rest of the press happy, Anthony very pleased. He lit a cigar and drank black coffee. ‘Good night’s
work, old boy. We can pat ourselves on the back, you and I. Spot of shut-eye now, I think. Advise the same for you.’

Charles returned to the sleeping area and stepped carefully over the blissfully unconscious Moore. What he saw next was Chatsworth squatting like a despondent Job amidst the ruins of the bunk.
It was utterly smashed. Bits of cardboard and wood lay scattered all over the floor. Kit belonging to both of them was strewn everywhere. Only the sheet of corrugated iron was intact. ‘What
happened?’ asked Charles.

Chatsworth looked up slowly, like a man rudely recalled from contemplation of eternal mysteries. ‘Don’t you know?’

‘No.’

‘That bird, the journalist. Moira.’

‘Did she do all this?’

‘She wasn’t alone.’

Charles recalled the rumour of Chatsworth’s assignation with her. ‘What have you done to her?’

‘Me? Nothing. It was what she did with half my platoon. She was supposed to meet me here but I was still with those bloody monks.’ He looked again at the devastation surrounding him.
They spoke in undertones to avoid waking Moore. ‘It took me nearly a week to build. I’ll never be able to get the materials for another. I had to pinch them all as it was. And now
she’s gone off in Henry Sandy’s ambulance.’

‘Is she badly hurt?’

‘She’s gone with Henry.’

‘Oh.’ Charles surveyed the mess. The prospect of sleep was receding rapidly. He knew he would get some somewhere at some time but at that moment he couldn’t imagine where or
when.

Chatsworth looked at him thoughtfully. ‘D’you know something, Thoroughgood?’

‘What?’

‘You bring me bad luck. You’re a blight on my career. You come out on patrol with me and I get shot. You move into the Factory and pinch half my bunk and then you bring into the
building the woman who destroys it during an orgy with half my own platoon, instead of with me as she was supposed to do. I go out and through my own initiative I discover just about the biggest
arms haul ever found in Belfast and not only do I get no credit for it but it’s actually a black mark against me because the two people you recommend to help me panic and cock it up just at
the vital moment. All the way along the line it’s you, Thoroughgood. Every time I have anything to do with you it goes wrong. The rest of my life is a great success.’

Chatsworth spoke flatly, without bitterness or anger. There was silence for a few seconds. ‘I’m only surprised you haven’t yet found a way of giving me the pox,’ he said
morosely.

Charles forced a tired smile that was meant to be suggestive. ‘I may yet,’ he said and Chatsworth, for the first time in their acquaintance, looked just a little alarmed.

T
he arms find was indeed a big story. It received full local and national coverage. Everyone naturally assumed it to have been the object of the
search operation the previous afternoon, which was itself said to have been the climax of a brilliant Army undercover operation. Everyone was pleased, though the Brigade Commander was a little
irritated at first that such an event should have taken place entirely without his knowledge. Edward, though in a somewhat confused and indecisive state the next day, soon adopted an authoritative
and knowledgeable air tempered by a becoming modesty about his own role in the business. Only Nigel Beale was unhappy, not just because he had come to in a manhole – where, so far as he was
concerned, he had been left to die – but also because he suffered total amnesia regarding the events of the previous day and was unable to find anyone who could tell him what his part had
been.

The CO, when he returned two days later, was pleased and jealous. Many of the congratulations were directed to him personally and he had been forced to accept them graciously despite his obvious
uneasiness at the thought that the battalion could not only survive in his absence but actually flourish. ‘Glad to see you haven’t all been idle while I was away. Never any excuse for
idleness,’ he said, and added, ‘No excuse for sloppiness now, though. They’ll want to get their own back. Must keep on the alert. Hard targets at all times.’

With the CO back and with the worsening situation in Belfast – four soldiers and two policemen killed in three days – Charles spent all his waking hours in battalion HQ, returning to
the Factory only for brief and irregular periods of sleep. He and Chatsworth now slept side by side on the floor. As he became more tired he felt more remote from everything he did. He functioned
without participating and responded without initiating. He lost all sense of control over his life and did not experience any sense of loss.

Many in the Army complained of having to fight with their hands tied behind their backs, as they saw it. They knew the terrorists and their leaders but were not allowed to kill them, nor to
interrogate them properly. If arms or explosives were found they were not allowed to booby-trap the dump. There was a general recognition, though, that internment was not the answer since it was
not seen to be just and it created a deep well of sympathy for the internees. Discussions about what should be done were repeated so often that a kind of conversational shorthand developed whereby
attitudes and views could be conveyed simply by an introductory remark and no more, the rest being known already. Charles did not join in and his silence was taken for agreement. He sensed that
this actually made him more popular, especially with the CO. In fact, he did not himself know whether his passivity was due to not caring or because he didn’t know what to think.

The routine was broken when, eight days before the battalion was due to leave and at about five in the afternoon, a foot patrol in the new estate came under fire from a single sniper. No one was
hit but Private Williams, a red-haired Welshman who was tail-end-charlie to the patrol, risked his life to pick up a little girl who was standing near them and run with her to cover. There were
four high-velocity shots from the direction of a block of flats but it was not possible to tell whether they came from within them or not. Whilst a follow-up search was being organised Private
Williams discovered from the little girl where she lived and took her to her house, which was nearby. When he returned her to her mother, the woman spat in his face and said she would rather have
seen the girl dead than saved by the Army. With a soldier’s sense of justice and chivalry, Private Williams pushed past her into the kitchen and beat up her husband before returning to his
patrol. The family later complained and Private Williams had to be withdrawn for investigation and possible charging by the military police or RUC. When the CO was told he slammed down the ops room
telephone so hard that the plastic case shattered and sent splinters flying about the room, leaving the guts of the machine exposed but surprisingly still working. He ordered his Rover Group and
shouted at everyone in sight. Once again, Charles and Nigel Beale were the last to clamber into the Land-Rover as it lurched through the gates, treading on each other in their haste. It was not far
but it was dark by the time they had reached the flats where the follow-up search for empty cases or weapons had been made, with no result. The CO said nothing until, as they were drawing up, a few
token stones were thrown by a group of children on some waste ground. ‘What chance do those poor children have?’ he said to everyone near. ‘Some of their parents are not worth the
bullets we ought to be expending on them.’

They got out and stood around. There was still a platoon there that had been about to pull out when the CO arrived. Now everyone hung about, not knowing why they were waiting. There was no
purpose in being there. Nothing more was happening, and the gunman was probably out of the area. Private Williams was already back at his company location where the CO would see him and try to get
him off, though the legal process had already started. It seemed they were there simply because the CO was so angry with the girl’s parents. ‘Which is their house?’ he asked. He
was shown it and made as if to go and knock on the door, but turned back. ‘I dare not,’ he whispered to Charles, who happened to be closest, ‘I simply dare not. I could not answer
for my actions. Private Williams was very restrained compared with how I would be if I had to talk to those ungrateful monsters. How anyone could feel like that about their own children I just do
not understand. It was the same with that wretched little boy and the pipe bomb. They’ve got no human feelings at all, these people. They’re just brutalised until they’re worse
than animals and then they set about brutalising everything else around them, starting with their own children.’

They left the house and walked along the road away from the others. They came to an alley which led to the flats. ‘I’m sure he was up there,’ the CO said, ‘and probably
still is. He could be in any one of those flats and have a good field of fire and several quick escape-routes. That’s where I’d go if I was him.’ He led the way into the alley. He
just seemed to want to walk and talk and appeared to have forgotten about the others. Charles walked beside him, assuming he would turn back at any moment. It was a long, wide alley, with the high
wall of the flats on one side and the backs of houses on the other. Because of the lights from the windows it was not completely dark, and at the end they could see parked cars illuminated by the
lights from other houses. It was the time when most of the local people were eating their evening meal and it was very quiet.

Charles was trying to read some of the graffiti on the walls, and had just found one neat line which read, ‘Is there life before death?’ when the CO grabbed him and pushed him
against the wall, holding him there. ‘Draw your gun,’ he whispered urgently. ‘There’s someone ahead of us.’ With some misgivings, thinking it was most likely a dog or
some innocent person, Charles eased his Browning from the holster. It was already cocked but with the hammer forward and the safety-catch on. He heard the CO click back the hammer on his own gun
and so did the same. He was still convinced it was unnecessary, but he could feel his heart thumping fast all the same. ‘Bend double and move over to the far wall,’ the CO whispered.
‘We’ll advance together. Don’t get behind me. I think there’s more than one of them and they came out of an entrance on the right. We’ll follow them to the end.
Don’t shoot unless I say.’

Charles crouched so that he would not be silhouetted against the lights behind, and crossed to the other wall in three strides. He waited for the CO to move forward and then moved parallel with
him, still half crouching. He peered into the darkness ahead and made out two, possibly three shapes bobbing along. They were moving quite fast and he and the CO had almost to run to keep up. For
the first time he began to believe that something might really be happening.

As they neared the end of the alley it got lighter. There were definitely three figures, one of them quite small, and they were jogging. Their footsteps could be heard on the cinder. At the end
the alley opened on to another bit of waste ground, beyond which were the parked cars. The three figures were quite near the end and were clearly visible at about twenty-five yards ahead when the
CO signalled to Charles to stop. The CO was holding his pistol in one hand and was pointing ahead, still crouching. Charles, who favoured instinctive shooting, pressed his shoulder against the wall
and held the gun in both hands, slightly low, ready to bring it up. ‘Stop!’ shouted the CO. ‘Stop where you are or we’ll shoot!’

The small figure darted to one side. One of the others vanished but the middle one turned, holding something in his hands. For a moment Charles wondered whether he was justified in opening fire
but then there was a flash and a very loud bang. At the same time he heard the CO shout, ‘Fire, for God’s sake!’ The Browning thumped five times in Charles’s hands in rapid
succession and left him with ringing ears, almost concussed by such noise in a confined space. He saw the figure fall and was then aware that the CO was running up the alley ahead of him, shoving
the magazine back into his pistol, which had evidently jammed. Charles ran with him, and as they approached the end of the alley the small figure jumped out from the side. He was empty-handed and
looked young. Charles stopped and pointed the pistol, shouting, ‘Don’t move!’ The youngster stopped, staring wide-eyed at Charles, and for half a second they stared at each other,
unmoving. Then there was a flash and two more deafening bangs in Charles’s left ear. One of the empty cases from the CO’s gun hit him a hot, stinging blow on the cheek. The boy crumpled
into a heap on the ground. Across the waste ground Charles saw the third figure jump into an already-moving car, which swerved round the corner and was gone.