Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

His dilemma was resolved for him when the driver let out the clutch with a jolt and the Land-Rover jerked forward, shooting Charles’s helmet out of his hands. With a whining and roaring of overstrained engines and gearboxes, and with the two escort vehicles on either side, they accelerated towards the mob. They bumped and crashed over the debris, flinging those in the back alternately on to their backsides, heads, backs and knees. The CO clung to his door, guffawed and shouted ‘Geronimo!’ at the top of his voice. A few bricks landed on the road on either side of them and then one crashed on to the bonnet and bounced on to the windscreen grille with a juddering thump. Seconds later the whole vehicle shook and jumped as they ran into a deluge of bricks and bits of metal. It was as though they were driving through a wall that was falling continuously upon them. Twenty yards ahead Charles could see the mob dancing like demented demons in the headlights, throwing everything they could find. They showed no sign of giving way and the driver involuntarily slowed a little. ‘Step on it!’ bellowed the CO, and the driver accelerated again.

For one moment it looked as though they were going to crush dozens of demons, but then the crowd suddenly scattered like minnows, leaving an empty road. ‘Keep those shields up!’ Nigel shouted at the two soldiers in the back, who had been thrown about so much that their shields had slipped out of place. The Land-Rovers had stopped a few yards past the junction. The only people in sight were some startled Gunners, crouched in doorways behind shields. Sensibly, they were wearing helmets. The CO whooped delightedly. ‘Swing around and block the road,’ he said. ‘We’ll show the buggers.’ The three Land-Rovers lurched round, narrowly avoiding each other, and parked sideways across the road. Behind them, where the mob had been, the A company platoon went in fast and hard. Rioters were fleeing in any direction they could find, mostly into Albert Street. Several had been caught and were being dragged back to the waiting Pigs. Most became very docile once they had been caught and even appeared physically to shrink. On closer examination they appeared to be puny and dirty teenagers, disappointingly ordinary. Charles saw one offer violence to his captor, which was accepted and repaid in kind, with interest.

The CO was out of his vehicle and striding gleefully round the captured junction. When he saw Charles he beckoned him over. ‘A company have arrested some of your pressmen somewhere back along the Falls. Go and sort it out. We don’t want to ruffle their feathers unnecessarily. In fact, I shouldn’t be telling you this. You should be telling me. Why didn’t you know about it?’

‘No one told me, sir.’

‘That’s no excuse. It’s your job to find out. I’m not going to keep doing it for you. Get on and sort it out. Don’t stand around here.’

It took some time to find the captured pressmen. None of the soldiers whom Charles asked knew anything about them. He eventually found them in the boarded-up entrance of a disused shop, where a stocky little corporal stood guard over them. They looked tired but patient. One had a camera. They identified themselves as belonging to a local Belfast newspaper, and were obviously familiar with the routine. It was not clear why they had been arrested, but Charles presumed it was for not being members of A company. ‘It’s all right, they really are press,’ he said to the corporal.

‘Been told not to let civilians loose on the streets, sir,’ said the corporal.

‘Except the press. They can. Any more you find bring them straight to me.’

The corporal reluctantly released his charges and went off to rejoin his platoon. The one without the camera looked towards Albert Street. ‘Looks nasty,’ he said. ‘Especially with that tanker in there. It’s going to be an all-nighter.’

‘D’you think so?’

‘No doubt about it.’ He looked at Charles. ‘You’re new. First riot?’

‘First big one.’

‘You can tell after a while. You get a feeling for it. This one is bad. There’ll be deaths, I don’t doubt. I wish they’d have them earlier, I do. Get them over by midnight so we could all go home.’ It was getting colder and he turned up the collar of his anorak. ‘What’s this about your CO personally leading the charge that broke up the riot at the junction? Is that true?’

Charles imagined the headlines, and the CO’s reaction. ‘No. There was a group of youths at the junction and when we approached they ran down into Albert Street. There was no riot.’

‘Any arrests?’

‘One or two.’

‘Was your CO present?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did they know it was him?’

‘He was in a vehicle.’

‘So he didn’t lead a charge?’

‘No.’

‘Bit odd, isn’t it, the CO getting involved like that? Who controls things back in Headquarters?’

‘He just happened to be passing.’ Charles did not want to get further involved. He suggested they let him escort them up to near the junction where they could see what was going on.

‘I could write it for you now,’ said the reporter. ‘When you’ve seen as many as we have you get to know the pattern.’

It was now quite dark, except for a lurid, flickering glow that came from the bottom of Albert Street. Charles was told that the CO and his Rover Group had moved on foot to a point a few yards down the street. As he approached he could see the crouched figures of soldiers on each corner and identified the nearest group as the CO’s. They were not, after all, quite in the street. The CO was talking urgently to the RSM about a charge. Charles slipped past them and put his head round the corner, to see what was causing the glow. Less than fifty yards away there was a burning bus wedged broadside across the road. It had been put in position earlier and set alight only in the past few minutes. It burned fiercely, with flames leaping high into the night and dancing on the walls on either side of the street. Already the metal frame of the bus showed through and soon it was silhouetted starkly against the flames. It burned with a continuous crackling roar and it was impossible to see past it. For a few moments Charles stared at the myriad reflections of flame in the broken glass that lay scattered all over the road, until he sensed something pass very near his head. A brick smashed on to the road, closely followed by two more. Whether they were being thrown over the bus or from behind the adjacent walls, it was not possible to say. The way they crashed unseen out of the night seemed expressive of a blind, indiscriminate violence that had nothing to do with anybody. Charles withdrew his head and was then startled by being gripped firmly on the shoulder. For one moment he thought he was being arrested.

It was the CO, his teeth bared in what Charles decided was a grin. Charles could just see his eyes by the light of the fire. ‘Glad to see my PRO up in the front line. That’s where all good soldiers should be. Want to see some fun, eh?’

The grip tightened and the CO grinned more broadly. Charles could think of no reply that would be both honest and acceptable, but the CO did not need one. He shook Charles good-naturedly. ‘’Course you do. That’s why you’re out tonight. That’s why we’re all out, including the hooligans who set light to that bus. I’ll tell you what we’re going to do about that. It’s protecting their tanker, isn’t it? That’s obvious. They’ve got it tucked away in a courtyard behind there and they want to keep us out till they’ve finished with it. They’ll be syphoning off the petrol and then maybe wiring it up as a booby-trap. But they’re not bloody going to. We’re going to take it before they start throwing bombs and getting really nasty. And we’re going to do it with a good old-fashioned cavalry charge on shanks’s pony, straight at ’em between the bus and the walls. We’ll jump right down their throats. You and me, Thoroughgood. Chance of a lifetime for you.’ After another affectionate shake he released Charles and shouted across the road at the RSM, who had crossed to the other corner with his party by doubling back round over the Falls, out of sight and out of range of the bricks. The RSM shouted that he was ready and the CO turned to his own party, which now included Charles. ‘Okay?’ he asked. Then, with a boyish grin, ‘Go!’