Alan Judd - A Breed of Heroes

‘The CO might if we don’t go down.’

They headed for the winding stairs. The Wessex officer looked concerned. ‘Your CO’s a bit intense, isn’t he?’

‘He is a little.’

‘Frankly, I don’t like him very much.’

‘Me neither.’

They met a sweating regimental policeman on the stairs, who told them breathlessly that the CO wanted to see them both immediately. They thanked him. The CO looked furious when they reached him. The RSM at his side was full of pomp and portent. The CO glared at Charles. ‘Do you want to die?’

‘No, sir.’

The CO glared at the Wessex officer. ‘Do you want to die?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then what the hell were you both doing standing up there like that?’

The veins in the CO’s temple were swollen. Charles was aware that they were being discreetly watched and gloated over by half the battalion from behind doors, windows and corners. He had long since learned the lesson of discretion. ‘We were inspecting the defences, sir.’

‘Who the hell told you to do that?’

‘My CO asked me to show your officers round, sir,’ said the Wessex officer.

The CO obviously suppressed the urge to regimental insult.

‘Do you realise, both of you, that you were risking your lives up there? And not only your lives but the lives of those who would have had to go up and get your bodies? You’re professional soldiers, or supposed to be, and you bloody well should have realised. Especially you, Thoroughgood. It would take only a very mediocre sniper indeed to pick you off from that housing estate over there. Did you think of that?’

Charles said nothing, but the Wessex officer came from another regiment. ‘With respect, sir, there have never been any snipers here. We used to go up there all the time —’

‘That does not matter.’

‘— and the people in the estate have been very friendly —’

‘Thoroughgood,’ said the CO very slowly, ‘take him away before I screw him into the ground.’

Charles led the now speechless Wessex officer away, watched enviously by the RSM. He heard later that it was the RSM who had drawn the CO’s attention to what had, until that morning, been a normal practice. This did not alter his feelings towards Mr Bone. It was exactly what he would have expected of him. Mr Bone loved his job and worshipped the CO like a dog, adopting even his mannerisms. He was feared by the soldiers but did not have their respect.

Not surprisingly, the ‘hard targets’ episode was only a taste of what was to come. Security was tightened up all round. Edward Lumley felt that the watchtower incident had brought further disgrace upon C company. He shouted at Charles, calling him a reckless young fool. During the next two days the CO’s frenzied approach to security was carried several stages further than even the CO had intended. The sandbagged position by the gate was reinforced and another added on the roof opposite. The barbed wire was reinforced, the armoury strengthened and the guard doubled. The bored soldier in the watchtower was sent a companion and a general purpose machine-gun. There were practice alarms at all hours. However, what caused greatest consternation throughout the battalion was the order forbidding walking-out. This coincided with instructions that sentries who allowed themselves to be talked to by girls should be charged. Three days later the walking-out order was relaxed to allow officers and soldiers to walk out in groups of four for not more than two hours, in daylight, wearing civilian clothes and signing in and out at the guardroom. The CO saw girls as the greatest threat. ‘The last thing I want is to have one of my soldiers shot in the back by some bloody gunman while he’s walking his girl home. Assassination, they call it. I call it murder and I won’t have it.’

On the second day the secretary of the local rugby club tried to arrange a fixture but was turned away at the gate. Amongst those who had arrived with the QM’s advance party and had experienced the more benign regime of the Wessex there was noticeable nostalgia.

Edward called a company O Group during the evening of the first day. Company HQ was somewhere in the warren of tunnels and passages. When Charles got there Edward was again red-faced and panic-stricken. The other platoon commanders and the company sergeant major were expressionless. The company was to carry out an operation, Edward said. That night. He thought it was partly as punishment for the incredible risks taken by Charles that day on the battlements. He wanted no more such heroics. The CO was still furious. It was also, of course, a compliment to the company to be given the first operation to be carried out by the battalion since embarking upon active service in Northern Ireland. It was all highly secret. One platoon was to do a number of Vehicle Check Points (VCPs) before last light. It was not yet known where. It would be Charles’s job and he would be told later. They would then lay an ambush near one of the customs posts on the border, moving into position under cover of darkness and withdrawing before dawn. There were to be absolutely no cock-ups. Even though the battalion was in the area for only three weeks it was vital to get a grip and show the local villains that they weren’t dealing with a lot of idle bloody Wessex Scouts any more.

Everyone knew that Edward’s briefings were almost word for word what the CO had said in his briefing. Details trickled through during the next two hours. They were to do six VCPs before last light. A VCP consisted of five or six men with portable barriers and road-blocking equipment, sometimes including a tyre-puncturing chain. They were to search cars and their occupants and to change location frequently. Helicopters would carry them from one site to another. Charles’s job was to be ferried from site to site, checking. The drill had been rehearsed many times and the need for politeness had been impressed upon everyone. The helicopters would pick them up from the hill above the barracks. The only difference between this and training was that their magazines would be filled with live ammunition this time. They would then have their evening meal in the field, do an approach march to the ambush position, lie there until 0430 hours and then withdraw. There was already a cold wind.

Charles went back to the cell to collect his kit. Philip Lamb, the education officer, was lying on his bed reading and started guiltily when Charles entered. He was a small neat man with a trim moustache. Though conscientious, he had nothing to do and felt unwanted, as indeed he was on the whole. He spent most of the next three weeks hiding in the cell and playing with his pistol, a thing that intrigued and baffled him.

‘Have you got to go out on this operation?’ he asked.

Charles nodded.

‘All night?’

‘All night.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘With tents and sleeping-bags?’

‘No. With nothing.’

‘You’ll freeze to death. Customs post, I suppose?’

‘Yes. It’s supposed to be very secret. How did you know?’

‘Apparently every new unit that comes here does it. It’s well known for miles around. People even turn up to watch, I’m told.’

However, everything went well in that nothing went wrong. The series of VCPs was executed without trouble or result. The evening meal in the field, near a river, would actually have been pleasant but for the fresh wind and the prospect of the night ahead. They made the approach march to the customs post across several miles of fields and through two streams. Not trusting Sergeant Wheeler, Charles navigated them and to his relief got it right. It was quite dark and already cold. It was obvious to everyone that the post, a small and practically featureless modern building, did not need a platoon of thirty men to ambush it. A section of eight or nine under the command of a corporal would have been sufficient. They spent the night on their bellies in the grass and withdrew through the wet fields at four-thirty in the morning. Their transport — lorries this time — had got lost and did not arrive for another three-quarters of an hour.