Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

Charles strove to see a flaw in the idea. He needed the money to leave the Army and it sounded so simple. It was not, after all, giving Beazely any more than he would have got anyway, nor more than any other journalist would have got. Also, where something like this was concerned, he felt he could trust Beazely. He sounded as though he knew what he was talking about. Certainly, there was no other way of getting out of the Army soon. But for the present the very novelty and simplicity of the idea baffled him.

‘Come on, you idle bugger, it’s easy. Just give me two or three stories a week, that’s all. For Christ’s sakes, your own PR desk at HQ could give you that. Then you just phone ’em through to me. No one will know. I did it with a Yank when they sent me to Vietnam and it worked like a bomb till he got zapped. And with one of the delegates at the Labour Party Conference till the drink got him. You can’t lose, Charlie. Hundred a week minimum, no tax, guaranteed, plus bonuses of course. How you split it with your oppo is your business but I’d suggest fifty-fifty. Keeps people happy. Anything else and they either think they’re hard done by or they think you must be getting a rake-off that they don’t know about. How about it?’

Speedily, furtively, the deal was done. Van Horne was brought in, listened to the explanation and simply nodded at the end of it. Involving a soldier was the only aspect about which Charles felt uneasy, but Van Horne was no ordinary soldier and his immediate acceptance of the deal suggested that he would have thought any other course mere foolishness. Perhaps he, too, wanted to buy himself out of the Army.

‘Great stuff.’ Beazely pulled out another mangled cigarette. ‘I’ll do this afternoon’s story as I happened to be here. I wouldn’t have hung around of course if I hadn’t wanted to talk to you. You can start tomorrow.’

All the other journalists had gone off to the Ardoyne where there was more trouble, according to Van Horne. Most of the Land-Rovers and Pigs were pulling out.

Beazely put his cigarette back into his pocket. ‘I’m not staying here without the Army. No disrespect to you two, but I have faith only in numbers in these situations. I’ll go back to the hotel. Can you fill me in on the Ardoyne business? Before ten if you can. Basic facts plus a few details. Children and injured soldiers, that sort of thing. Make them up if you like.’ He buttoned up his coat as he left, as though to keep out the danger.

It turned out that the CO had got Brigade to send Scoopy-do that night rather than the following morning. There were no journalists around, no rioters and just a few soldiers. Scoopy-do lumbered down the road like a hungry beast let out for feeding and paused in front of the CO, who stood with his hands on his hips looking very pleased with himself. It was a different Scoopy from the night before and a different Sapper. The CO explained that he wanted the cars dumped in people’s gardens as close as possible to the front doors. ‘If these people are prepared to steal them, make barricades out of them and then no doubt burn them, they can bloody well have them in their living rooms.’

Everyone, including the startled residents, watched Scoopy-do go about its business. It would move itself alongside its victim, so that it was in a killing position, and then raise one huge paw and with ponderous but unerring accuracy smash it on the head. It would then back off a few yards, as though to survey its crushed victim for signs of life, before raising its gaping bucket-jaws, lowering them gently on to the victim and fastening with an appetising crunch. Next it would pick up the car by the neck, like a dog with a rat, exposing the wheels like legs, and would trundle off to someone’s front garden and lower it carefully on to its side across the front door. The occupants were confined, for once, to hurling abuse from the upstairs window.

‘The only drawback,’ said the CO, ‘is that we don’t know for certain that it was people from these houses that actually caused the trouble. It could have been people from the next street. But they all hate us anyway and this might persuade them to try to restrain their friends next time. Though I doubt it.’

‘We will not tell Beazely about this,’ said Charles to Van Horne.

‘There’ll be complaints. He’ll get to hear of it.’

‘But not from us. Not this.’

They pulled out when the cars were positioned to the CO’s liking, leaving the onlookers scratching their heads and swearing. The rain was falling more steadily now and dusk was approaching. It was one of those afternoons that are never really light and that slip with relief into night. They had reached the outer ring of the estate when there was a loud explosion from somewhere back within it and a small plume of dark smoke rose rapidly behind them. The CO was as aware as everyone else that this could be a come-on, a bait to lure them back into an ambush, but he was never a man to wait and see. ‘Turn about!’ he shouted. His Land-Rover and its two escorts lurched round and headed back down different roads towards the Bull Ring. They had not gone far when they saw that the smoke, which was all but finished, seemed to have come from a scrubby bit of no-man’s land at the side of a house. Several women and a couple of men were looking at something on the ground, and more were joining them every moment. As usual after an explosion, other sounds seemed cowed into silence. When they got out of the Land-Rovers the engines on tick-over were the only noticeable noise. Several of the escort party ran doubled up across the road and took up fire positions facing the surrounding houses. The CO’s party, with the CO inevitably to the fore, ran over to the sullen little group. As they reached them the group turned and tried to stop them seeing what it was they were surrounding. For a moment the resistance was real enough but the RSM and Nigel Beale put their heads down as though in a rugby maul and the people were pushed aside. Even then, though, they did not go away but still kept shoving and pulling resentfully. A fat woman grabbed hold of Charles’s sleeve above the elbow with both hands and for a few moments he struggled with her in silence before elbowing her in the belly and winding her. Throughout all the tussling no one spoke and no one shouted. It was conducted in an eerie, bitter silence and seemed all the worse for it. When they finally broke through they saw that the object of the crowd’s attention was a small, dark-haired boy of about eight or nine. He was lying on the ground in a curiously twisted attitude. His head was resting on his right shoulder, his eyes were closed and his face was calm as though in peaceful sleep. His right arm was stretched out beside him with the palm upturned. His left arm appeared to go straight down the side of his body but it was difficult to see where it ended because from the elbow all the way down to his knee was blood and mangled red flesh. No hand or fingers were visible. The right side of his body looked complete and normal.

It was Nigel Beale who acted most promptly. He got down on his knees beside the boy and pulled the shell dressing from his belt, tearing it open with both hands. No one from the crowd tried to help. Charles got down beside Nigel and pulled off his own shell dressing. The boy was still breathing but there was a lot of blood on the ground and it was still oozing out of his body from the great wound down one side. Charles pressed his shell dressing on the reddest and most exposed bit he could see and stuck it down. He did not like to press too hard. He felt very calm but noticed with a rather remote curiosity that his hands were bloody and shaking. He heard the CO’s wireless operator calling for Starlight — Henry Sandy — and being told that he was on his way. The crowd had grown considerably and there was now a lot of shouting. A space had been cleared round the boy but not without some scuffling. The CO was calling for his parents and eventually a fat, dark and dirty little man stepped forward. He demanded to know what the CO was doing with the boy.