Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

When he and Van Horne met the reporter and photographer they were questioned about the incident in detail. On hearing that Charles had put a shell dressing on the boy, the reporter said, ‘That’s great. We’ll have one of you sitting next to him on the bed — the soldier who saved his life. What’s your name and rank?’ Charles told him and he then said, ‘Sorry, no good. It’s no good with an officer. Doesn’t work. Not the same impact. What about a soldier?’

Charles, relieved, did not hesitate to volunteer Van Horne. ‘He’s a lance-corporal.’

‘A private would be better.’

‘I could take my stripe off,’ said Van Horne.

There stirred within Charles a faint but developing instinct for where the Army line would lie in such matters. ‘No, he can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Queen’s Regs. Regulations.’

‘All right. Did he put his shell dressing on the boy too?’

‘No.’

‘Was he there, in the vicinity?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’ll do, then.’

An officious, plump little nurse took them through a children’s ward, where Charles felt gigantic and self-conscious, and into a small room opening off it. There was a bed with what appeared to be a mound of bandages in it. The nurse bent over the bed and said in a sing-song voice, ‘Hallo, Terry, how are we then, eh? Here’s some gentlemen come to see you. And they’ve bought you a lovely present.’ The mound moved and they could see a hole in the bandages enough to show most of the boy’s face. His eyes moved and registered the visitors.

‘Is that him?’ asked Charles.

‘Who else d’you think?’ said the nurse sharply. She did not seem to like the Army.

‘But his head was all right. Why is it bandaged up?’

‘His head was most certainly not all right. There were bits of metal in it, especially the back. Now do what you want to do and be quick about it. I don’t want to disturb him for long.’ She bent over the boy again. ‘Lots and lots of nasty cuts soon be better, better, better, eh, Terry? Nasty men go away soon and we’ll be better, won’t we? Ever so better.’

The photographer looked on gloomily. ‘Can’t do anything with this. Whatever angle I do it’s going to look a bit sick, isn’t it? I mean, handing a book to a lump of bandage.’

Van Horne looked on impassively. ‘Where’s his hand?’ he asked the nurse.

She sssh’d him and whispered, ‘He’s lost it. He doesn’t really know yet.’

‘But where is it?’

‘What do you mean, where is it? It’s gone.’

‘You haven’t got it?’

‘Certainly not.’

Van Horne lost interest.

‘Is he going to be all right?’ asked Charles.

‘Yes. Anything else?’

They said goodbye awkwardly and left the uncomprehending child. The reporter said he might do a little piece on it anyway, just a paragraph. Charles realised he still had the book and so Van Horne was sent back with it. When they got back the CO’s reaction was as surprising as had been his original suggestion. ‘Good. I don’t really like publicity for the sake of it. It would have been distasteful even if the poor little blighter hadn’t had a mark on him. And our soldiers don’t like being photographed like that, you know. It’s not what they joined for. Very sensible of you to call it off. Well done.’

A few days later they conducted another search in the new estate, this time of a Gaelic football ground. The search went in at about eleven in the morning without previous notice as the CO and Nigel Beale had applied the need-to-know principle so rigidly that many of those who needed to know in order to take part were away doing other things. Several vehicles were away being serviced or repaired and others were out on patrol. Charles was told by Van Horne about the search at six minutes to eleven and was just able to scramble aboard the last Land-Rover as it was leaving. He left Van Horne behind to deal with any telephone enquiries.

It was a fine sunny morning with a fresh breeze. The green turf of the field was refreshing after the dirty bricks and concrete which was all they had seen for weeks on end. There were three platoons plus search teams, about a hundred men all told, and no trouble was expected as no houses were to be searched. The platoons dug into the grass banks surrounding the pitch, directed by NCOs trained in searching, but there was to be no excavation of the pitch on orders from Brigade, who did not want to inflame local feeling. There had already been complaints that the Army was seeking to intimidate and terrorise the Catholic population. The sun, the grass and the fact that many of the men were stripped to the waist gave to the sports-ground a holiday atmosphere that enlivened everyone. Even the sporadic stones lobbed over the banks by children from the surrounding streets did not detract from the previous euphoria.

Charles strode about the field with the CO and his gang, all in the hands-behind-the-backs position. The CO talked good humouredly about tanks. Because of the banks around the field the roofs of the houses could not be seen and it was possible for a while to imagine that they were in England. Charles kept an eye on the entrance to see if any journalists turned up. He more than half expected Van Horne to appear, having found some quite unanswerable reason for deserting his post. He was aware of Van Horne as an interesting man about whom he had no more curiosity than was strictly necessary for them to perform their tasks together. Had Van Horne not been a soldier, or had they not been involved in their scheme with Beazely, he might have tried to get to know him better. He sensed, and sensed that Van Horne sensed, that they had something in common but he was suspicious of what it might be and felt it was better left unexplored. It was perhaps a common assumption of being an outsider, with possibly an added, secret something that was best summed up by the word ‘uncare’.

Whatever it was, it was better not to admit it. Sometimes he could fancy Van Horne as a kind of Mephistopheles or perhaps a Mosca, though he could never even at his most fanciful see himself as Faust or Volpone. Yet at the same time Van Horne was like many other soldiers in that he shirked irksome duties whenever he could, lied glibly and was reluctant to accept any responsibility unless he had someone over him who was more responsible.

But for a long time that morning no one came and Charles was able to enjoy the field and the sun. He was warmed, too, by the thought of his approaching freedom. It was something he could allow himself to think about more and more as the money paid by Beazely mounted up. He was still not sure what he would do next, but there was a pleasant sense of possibility about the future, which remained intact so long as nothing too explicit was demanded of it.

The first find was made within twenty minutes on the outer slope of the first bank. It consisted of an old Lee-Enfield.303 rifle, a newish Russian twelve-bore shotgun and two rusty Webley.38 revolvers, all carefully wrapped in polythene. ‘This is excellent,’ said the CO, ‘we’re on to them now. This entire stadium is an arsenal. I only wish we could plough up that damn pitch. It’s probably a magazine. Everybody look for discolourations in the turf. Charles, fetch the press.’

‘They’re on their way, sir,’ Charles lied, hopefully.

‘Well done. Good timing. Make sure they see all this.’

Shortly afterwards a soldier on the north-east corner of the bank noticed a strip of old polythene protruding from the earth. He dug carefully round it and found that there was a dustbin in a large polythene bag. He took the lid off the bin and found it was filled with decaying, unstable gelignite. The search team commander estimated that there was between fifty and seventy pounds of explosive. It was so unstable that a child jumping on the ground nearby could have detonated it. It was too dangerous to move and the bomb disposal team was called to burn it off.