Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

Of Charles’s seven men, five had rifles, one (his radio operator) a pistol and one a pistol and a rubber-bullet gun. This latter was a converted signals pistol which made a very loud bang and could do a lot of damage at close range if fired directly at someone, which was forbidden. The projectile was meant to be bounced off the ground. Charles had a rifle. The simplest way to protect the three vehicles would have been to form a line across the cul-de-sac, but that would have made an easy target for a gunman and he could imagine only too vividly the subsequent enquiry into how he came to lose a soldier. It did not occur to him that it could have been him that was shot. He therefore kept five of his men dispersed among the alleyways with orders to look out for snipers and placed himself, his wireless operator, and Corporal Stagg, who had the rubber-bullet gun, between the vehicles and the crowd.

This had grown swiftly so that it was now forty or fifty strong and included a number of young children. There were no men. He reported the situation over the radio and was told by Edward that an escort vehicle had gone to meet ATO and that both would be with him as soon as possible. For a few minutes more nothing much happened; the crowd talked amongst themselves, shouted the odd slogan or obscenity and in general seemed quite good humoured. Then a black taxi, one of the many old London cabs that had found their way to Belfast, drew up on the main road behind the crowd and four men got out. The taxi drove away and the crowd immediately became more vociferous. It surged slowly forward towards the vehicles with the harridans shouting at the front and holding their children before them. The four men stayed at the back, urging the others on.

As he watched the crowd advance several scenes from his Oxford life flashed through Charles’s mind, vivid and uncontrollable, and for a few seconds the scenes seemed to get between him and what was happening, as though the two worlds were jostling for reality. The present world won when he realised that the front women were within three feet of him, jumping up and down like wizened and frantic baboons. Though the noise was overwhelming he shouted that there was a bomb in the car. To his surprise, the crowd fell back and there was relative quiet; but still the feeling of unreality. He looked at Corporal Stagg’s white and nervous young face and then glanced behind him at the other soldiers crouching with their rifles in the alleys. He felt that all eyes were upon him. He grabbed the headphones from the wireless operator and called for immediate assistance but before he could get a response the crowd began to rumble forward again, only quieter this time and more sinister. They didn’t seem to believe, any more than he did, that the car was booby-trapped.

Charles was aware that Corporal Stagg at his elbow had raised and cocked the rubber-bullet gun, but he did not give the order to fire. No one in the battalion had yet had to fire a rubber bullet; they were accountable; there had to be definite provocation, an aggressive act. The crowd pressed closer, murmuring, the children held in front and no one so much as raising a hand or even shouting any more.

Charles realised that he was separated from his wireless operator by the Cortina. The operator was shouting that the CO was on the air and wanted a detailed sit-rep. ‘Just tell them to get here!’ shouted Charles. He turned round and bellowed for the other soldiers to join him. Corporal Stagg was still by his side. The front women were now within reach again, and Charles stepped forward and pushed one firmly back. Again, to his surprise, they fell back quickly. The rest of the soldiers arrived and they were able to clear a two-yard space between the crowd and the vehicles, but it was clear that it would not last for long. The crowd had increased again, and the same four men were busy at the back. What most inhibited him now about firing a rubber bullet was that it would be at point-blank range. It would frighten or anger the crowd. If the latter they could well charge before the gun could be reloaded, and the only way to stop them then would be to shoot them with real guns. As the crowd now completely surrounded the soldiers and the vehicles, shooting them would be the only way to protect their own lives and weapons. Technically, according to the Yellow Card they all carried, Charles would be justified in opening fire, but he could imagine the resultant publicity if unarmed women and children were shot dead in the street by ‘heavily armed’ Commandos. There would be an enquiry, if not a court case. Half hoping that they would do something to provoke retaliation, and half frightened that they might, Charles walked slowly up and down between the crowd and the vehicles, his knees trembling and with a great emptiness in his stomach. His soldiers were watching him, and so was the mob. He walked with his hands behind his back, trying to look as though he were deep in thought and entirely at peace. For some minutes nothing happened.

Then, with a kind of slow rush, a few of the crowd pushed past and got to the Cortina. The women started to rub it with their headscarves and cardigan sleeves — to remove fingerprints, Charles realised suddenly. He and Corporal Stagg managed to push them back but one of them threw a burning newspaper through the open window on to the back seat. Charles got inside the car and threw the newspaper out, but whilst he was doing so they surged forward again and pushed the car several feet back down the road into an invalid carriage. They were shouting and excited. Needlessly jamming on the handbrake, Charles tried to get out but found several of the women were pushing on the door. Seriously alarmed, and for the first time angry, he shoved the door open with his feet and jumped out, shouting, ‘Prepare to fire!’ Corporal Stagg, after hitting one of the women on the shoulder with the barrel of his gun, aimed it straight into the face of her neighbour, who screamed and ducked back. The women who had been struggling with the other soldiers also fell back for a moment. Both sides waited, neither sure what to do next. It was clear that the crowd still felt sure that the initiative was with them.

Charles felt his heart pounding. He looked at the excited faces in front of him, ugly with hatred, and still only a couple of yards away. Neither he nor his soldiers would have any choice but to shoot if they were rushed: if they had time for that. He pulled and cocked his pistol. If they were rushed after firing the rubber bullet he would do less damage shooting them with that than if he ordered the soldiers to use their rifles, which would go through three or four at that range. He would aim for the legs. As vividly as he saw the mob before him, he heard again some remark made in Killagh to the effect that a bullet from the nine-millimetre Browning would simply bounce off their bra straps. At such close range, though, it would be another matter. He imagined the carnage with disturbing clarity.

Charles was spared the decision by the arrival of the CO with his two long-wheel-base Land-Rovers and his oversize escort. He was not at first aware that help had arrived, only of a sudden commotion and sounds of pain and distress from the back of the crowd. Then he saw the CO’s tall figure, his face set hard and his beret firmly down on his forehead. The CO, accompanied by the RSM and his escort, walked as though there was no one between himself and Charles, and very soon there wasn’t. The escort drove a wedge two yards wide while the snatch squad, whose sole job was to make arrests, remained by the CO’s Land-Rover, fingering their batons. One of the women who swore was grabbed by the RSM and marched briskly back to the vehicle. A shrill chorus of protest by the rest of her tribe was drowned by the CO’s shouting through a loud-hailer: ‘Right, you’ve had your fun, now you’re going home. Anyone still in this street thirty seconds from now will be arrested and charged with riotous assembly. Good night!’