Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

The CO’s tightly-compressed lips and his prolonged downward glance betrayed a rising tension which threatened his self-control. He still spoke very slowly, staring straight at the reporter. ‘I took what action was necessary to prevent the murder of one of my soldiers. As well as to protect the lives and property of the surrounding population from destruction by the bombers. I ordered my soldiers to aim low in order to minimise the risk to the inhabitants of those houses. And I have since inspected the damage myself and arranged for compensation. There were no injuries.’

‘And we have only your word for this?’

Something seemed to snap inside the CO and he got to his feet, his voice rising as he spoke. ‘Young man, I don’t know who you are or what paper you represent and I frankly don’t care. But I’ll tell you one thing. If you’d stood in my shoes on that street this evening for just two minutes — that’s all, two minutes — you wouldn’t come in here looking for a bloody autopsy. You have not the remotest idea what it means to take the kind of decision I had to take this evening, not the remotest. God forbid that I ever thought the day would come when I had to order a platoon in battle-order down a British street and tell them to open fire. But it has. And God knows it’s not easy but as God is my witness it has to be done. So you’re not going to find any bodies here. Go to Dublin and ask some of your friends down there. Go and ask them!’

The CO was pointing at McColm by the time he had finished, his teeth clenched, his face red and his finger shaking. The cameras were still going and a couple of microphones were discreetly held at table-level. McColm was still lounging in his chair but his face had paled and hardened with self-consciousness. Seeing that he was about to speak, Charles got to his feet. Everyone looked at him and for what seemed a long moment he could think of nothing to say. He thought of Manningtree, his tutor, who had a habit of ending more than usually boring tutorials somewhat abruptly. ‘Gentlemen, we called this conference in order to discuss matters of fact, not the ethics of violence. If you have no more questions we shall consider it closed.’

To his great relief there was a general scraping and shuffling of chairs and a growing murmur. People started to move towards the door and the TV men again began packing up their equipment. McColm was one of the first out, saying nothing to anyone. As the London Times man — a kindly-looking, avuncular figure — left he raised his bushy eyebrows at the CO and Charles. ‘Still get complaints if they issued you with peashooters,’ he grunted.

When they had gone the CO sat down, resting his head in one hand. When he looked up at Charles his face was very weary and his eyes dull. ‘Sorry, Charles, I blew my top,’ he said quietly. ‘Let you down. Let us all down. A CO should never do that in public.’ He stood and stamped his feet, with an effort at cheerfulness. ‘Glad you stopped it when you did. You were splendid. God only knows what I’d have said if I’d gone on. Has it done any harm, d’you think?’

Charles was embarrassed by the CO’s humility, as though by his mere presence he was taking advantage of it. ‘I don’t think so, sir. There was nothing politically unwise. I don’t see why it should.’

‘Good. Well, we’ll see. Bloody press. Get me a whisky, will you?’ Charles went to the drinks tray, poured a large whisky and gave it to him. He took it rather gruffly. ‘You know I don’t drink alone. Get one yourself. Fine state of affairs when a CO has to order his own officers to drink with him.’

Later, Charles found Van Horne in his office. He had attended the conference, standing at the back, and had shown all the press out. The corners of his mouth showed the merest beginnings of a smile. ‘That bloke dropped a right bollock in front of the CO, didn’t he, sir?’

‘Something like that.’

‘If he hadn’t been a civvy the CO would’ve had his guts for garters.’

‘I thought for a moment he was going to, anyway.’

Beazely telephoned, asking what had happened at the conference. Charles resisted his first impulse and gave him a boring and doctored account, to make sure that at least one daily did not splash the CO’s anger all over the front page. He then rang the PR desk at Headquarters to tell them what had happened but instead spent most of his time trying to convince them that the major they had sent to assist him at nine o’clock this evening, without telling anyone, had never arrived. With the facetiousness that sometimes comes with tiredness, Charles suggested that he might have found a better story on the way but the suggestion was taken literally and without humour. It was one of a number of options. Others were that he had either been killed or kidnapped. An enquiry was to be started. To those on the streets Headquarters was a remote world and what happened there was a matter of indifference or at best ridicule, unless it directly affected them. It was gone four in the morning and Charles felt no compunction about leaving them to it.

The post did not arrive in battalion HQ until late afternoon as it had to be collected from Headquarters by the diminutive post corporal and his escort of two Land-Rovers. It had been late the previous day and by the time it came Charles had no time to collect his because of the trouble. He got it before breakfast the following morning. Those mornings were the most leisurely part of the day because the rioters and terrorists had little enthusiasm for rising early. The CO had remarked several times that it would be the best time to carry out a shooting attack on the Army because people were least on their guard then. The mornings were also the time when it was possible to get within sight of that lost world in Army life, privacy. There were no rules about breakfast, and anyone could simply get up and eat roughly six hours after whatever time he had been lucky enough to get to bed, and at the appropriate time breakfast merged painlessly into lunch. There were no papers that morning, which was not unusual because they sometimes arrived late. It was something to be thankful for, in that the CO could not have seen them either. In the meantime, the reading of letters would provide an effective barrier against Nigel Beale, who was sometimes inclined to talk over breakfast.

However, Charles did not need the barrier that morning. In fact, he did not get a chance to use it. Nigel and Tony Watch were at breakfast when he arrived and, there being no papers, Nigel was particularly chirpy. He was claiming to have predicted the previous day’s trouble.

‘Well, I didn’t hear you,’ said Tony.

‘Pay attention in the briefings.’

‘I do. You never said there was going to be trouble yesterday.’

‘Maybe I didn’t say it was going to be yesterday in the briefing. You don’t hear everything there, you know. There’s a lot of need-to-know stuff that I brief the CO on personally.’

‘How come he didn’t know about it, then?’

‘What makes you think he didn’t?’ Nigel shoved a forkful of egg, bacon, fried bread and tinned tomato into his mouth and munched aggressively. Charles was helping himself from the hot-plates when Anthony Hamilton-Smith arrived and did the same. Anthony never spoke to anyone at breakfast. He always read The Times , beginning with the back page, and when there was no paper he simply ate and stared as though there was no one else in the room. He gave the impression of a great solitude, as of one who had renounced the world, and if he were ever forced to acknowledge other people — such as by having to ask for the marmalade — he did so in a way that made them feel he had never seen them before and had no wish to again. He usually began to be more sociable within about an hour of breakfast, and by the time of his lunchtime gin and tonic he was spritely and cheerful. On this morning he and Charles executed a kind of ritual dance around the hot-plates, based on unspoken principles of fairness, temporal priority and the respect due to rank and age. Each came away with what he required and sat down with the other two without speaking. Unfortunately, the table was small.