Just another tour?

By Ken Lake Ex Royal Marine

A Pawn for the Queen

Ken Lake served 4 tours in Northern Ireland when the 'troubles' were at there peak. He professes to having matured on the streets of Belfast and learned responsibility and something about human nature.Having become a fitness instructor he turned to writing and found that the experiences he learned in Belfast nurtured a desire to express his frustrations at pointless war and conflict. His first book 'a pawn for the queen' was nominated by the national library of Malta for the international Impac Dublin literary award. These pages are excerpts from his phase one autobiography 'the trains, boats and bullets of a fitness instructor'. He has also just finished another book called 'the greatest sense,' which is a fiction work that also features a story line that is hewn from the troubles. A pawn for the queen can be ordered from www.concept2malta.com or contact Britain's small wars. Please note that this web site receives no profit from the sale of this book.

Saturday night and the bar was throbbing with people. Cigarette smoke thickened the air and palls of it wafted liberally around the yellow lights above the bar. The bar staff, were severely over worked and a boisterous mood among the revelers was getting bolder and louder as the alcohol consumption was accelerated.

I was sitting in a corner of the lounge observing the energy of the group and listening to the ritualistic chanting and their interesting tribal behavior. I’ve leant a lot by witnessing mob energy and the psychology required not to inflame it.

 I suppose that it wasn’t unusual for a 19 year old to spend a Saturday night in such an atmosphere but a deeper, more detailed picture must be drawn to illustrate my participation in this particular scene.

My drinking vessel content and emulating most of my colleagues was half filled with orange juice and like my small band of companions we were wearing the combat uniform of the Royal Marines. We hadn’t been invited to the impromptu party and were beginning to feel like crashers and stand out like sore thumbs. Intimate conversations between ourselves had been curtailed as the core of the revelers began to turn their attentions from humorous football songs to taunting us and then the hatred began to seep through.

I was sailing across the Irish Sea toward Belfast on the Ulster Prince to begin my third tour of duty in the troubled Province. February 1974 and Whisky One, One Charlie was the same section I joined on completion of my training after joining K Company, 42 Commando. The section had gone through a metamorphous since my first day and I was the only original left. A lot of good friends and brilliant soldiers had left the section in the Corps trickle draft system. Now I was the commander of the section that had possibly more success than any single section in a tour of duty. Now I was part of a detachment of the unit’s advance party, paving the way before the bulk of the unit arrived a week hence. Our jobs as leaders were to familiarize ourselves with the geography, the routines and also get to know the habits of the bad guys.

Small problem, big pain, as our party hadn’t been allocated a full complement of sleeping births. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise that as the youngest section commander in the group that I hadn’t been allocated one of the berths. Another problem had entered the equation; the large group of football fans that had just watched one of the Manchester and one of the Merseyside teams had stopped bantering with each other. Now, with varying degrees of hostility, they had turned their attention on us half a dozen Marines sitting whiling away the time pondering how to spend the night.

 “You can stick the Marine Commandos up your arse,” was one of the ditties vehemently directed at us.

“Who is the stupid, bureaucratic ‘Norbert’ responsible for this predicament?” mouthed one of our group, angrily, which was not the best way to begin a tour we all agreed. We stayed firm and tight together before deciding to exit. I headed for the WC and on re-entering the bar I walked into a vicious fight that had broken out among the mob. The other Marines had sensibly departed. I headed for the gangway and up the steps and onto the open deck where the refreshing breeze of the night and the open sea was very welcome.

“Let’s throw the bastard over the side,” a voice said threateningly behind me. Turning quickly, I faced a group of 4 youths that surrounded me after following my exit. I bunched my knuckles, looked hard and said nothing. I was anxious but not scared, as during the past 6 months until rejoining my unit I had been a full-time Royal Navy boxer, so I could look after myself in normal circumstances. However, this was hardly the Marquis of Queensbury stuff. In a few hours time I would have the power to arrest persons for this attitude but at that moment I was just a transient peacekeeper. Bluffing it out, I pushed past the group and headed purposely toward the lower deck and toward the berths. I was not followed but I wasn't going to run around the ferry for the rest of the night avoiding being chucked in the sea. Thinking fast and considering all the relevant facts, now I was alone on a night boat sailing to a trouble zone in the company of some tanked up locals with a grudge against the Marines. Who was the damned ‘Norbert’ who allocated the berths? I’d like to have invited him to a gelding party without anesthetic and with him as the victim.

I looked for a broom cupboard, a safe little place, anywhere to save myself the plight of a midnight swim in a freezing sea. At least 20 cabins had been checked before I found one unlocked. I sneaked in and quickly locked the door. In the dark, somebody stirred, and I detected the scent of a woman in the room; I could also see the figure of a man on the top bunk. Nothing to lose, I lay quietly on the floor of the extremely cramped space, shutting my eyes and letting sleep embrace me, noting that the occupants of the room hadn’t made a peep and wouldn’t until I left the cabin at 06.00 am.  What the hell was happening the occupants must have thought? I didn’t care as the night had passed peacefully and I was still dry.

Back to Belfast, with a base camp at Brown Square, a former police station now housing my Company. The accommodation and facilities were abysmal. A room was divided into three areas with makeshift curtains for each of the 10-man sections. We also used the triple bunk beds as walls for our minus 5 star home for the next 4 months. Our patrol zones were different so I had to get to know my new area of Belfast, which in my opinion was ridiculous tactics. The unit had operated in the same boundaries as the previous year but now the companies had been switched to other locations and in the process had lost invaluable intelligence and knowledge of the known streets. I knew my previous area, the New Lodge like the back of my hand, knew where the danger zones were, knew where to take cover if things went wrong, and now I started as a rookie in a fresh place. What ‘Norbert’ had taken this fancy decision to switch us?

On the streets, it was immediately obvious that a new attitude prevailed in the town. It wasn’t quite as frightening as ‘72 or ‘73 and there was a distinct air of ‘things must go on'. Generally there were fewer riots, less shootings and less bombs. Personally this made the tour slightly more dangerous. During the last tour there wasn’t a moment to think, and everyone stayed switched on at all times or faced the consequences of the 'Zap Man'. Adrenaline rush is addictive and bizarrely, facing death in its darkest form can be very thrilling, especially when you eventually live to tell the tale. When things were hot and the adrenaline kicked in, I jumped around like my backside was on fire. Fear kept you alive; complacency invited the attentions of the 'Zap Man'.

The drudgery went on; long foot patrols in bitter winds, biting rain and freezing sleet. VCPs, person searches, house searches, static periods in fixed observation posts, and guard duties, it got routine and a different type of soldering developed in comparison to the frantic pace of the previous years. We certainly had more time to attend the pressing requirements of the civil duties. One Saturday night whilst on a vehicle patrol, we sped past a darkened side street, where at the side of the road I saw a man violently throttling a woman.
“Stop,” I ordered the driver of the Land Rover. “Did anybody see that?”
“See what,” came the collective reply.
“Nobody saw a man strangling a woman?”
“No,” they all said as if I was seeing things. I nearly doubted myself and thought that I was suffering a burn out or such like. I jumped out of the vehicle and ran back to the side road whilst the rest of the section in well-trained movements deployed around me in a defensive mode.

Sure enough, as I sprinted to the street a large man with his hands was indeed throttling a woman who’d sagged at the knees in collapse.

Without thinking, I ran at the murderer and smacked him hard in the face, immediately letting the woman crumple to the floor. The man became abusive and chucked a right-hander at me. I hit him again and he went down, meanwhile someone was attending to the stricken woman. She started coughing and rubbing the large welts on her neck. The man sat up and started cursing incoherently at me and I told him firmly to keep quiet. The lady was helped to her feet and inspected for damage; at that point the man stood up and started acting very aggressively toward me.

“One more word and you get arrested,” I said and prodded his chest with my finger.
Next thing I knew a heavy handbag clouted my head with the accompanying yell of, “Leave my 'fecking' husband alone, you British bastard you.” With that the woman put her arm through her husband’s and walked off into the night. It was only the demented laughter of my section that finally got me out of my stunned stupor.
 “What is it with this crazy place,” I yelled and scratched my head.

“ Hello, Whisky One, One Charlie, report to this junction and assist the situation. A group of people are congregating outside a house and have asked for military assistance, over.” I confirmed the junction and raced the Land Rovers to the scene. On arrival, I was quickly informed by a group of worried neighbors that the occupant of a house, an elderly man, hadn’t been seen for a couple of days. I radioed the news to headquarters and gave an opinion that it wasn’t a ‘set up'. “I’m going to break down the door and enter,” I explained to HQ.

The door opened smartly with the aid of an energetic run and the assistance of a sized 9 DMS boot, I entered the house. ‘Always start from the top of a house when searching a house’ was my brief. Keeping my section vigilantly outside on guard, I crept up the musty smelling stairway, and I felt a source of peace and tranquility invading my senses. I’d learned to trust my honed senses a lot more when the danger abounded  and I felt safe in the old house. Entering the bedroom, a scene never to be forgotten was soon to be engraved upon my memory. An elderly man, wearing an old fashioned nightcap, looking perfectly at peace, lay dead in his bed with his spirit departed to a better place like heaven, hopefully. Many other inhabitants of this beleaguered country would never have the luxury of such a peaceful death. I spent a few moments in reflection alone with him and closed his eyes.

I didn’t understand religion then and having studied it fervently since, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is much mystery and too much bigotry attached to this profound subject. Was Northern Ireland about religion?

“Away home youse British Protestant pigs,” yelled one annoyed Catholic lady defending her doorstep on her street. Now religion was a bit mysterious to me, as I’ve mentioned. I hadn’t been baptized and had only been to church as a cub scout because the church hall housed the cub pack. The church was old fashioned, and exceedingly dull. Church in that format definitely wasn’t for me, though I loved Jesus and his endearing ideologies of life. In short I wasn’t able to commute to this woman any sensible religious dialogue. Mac could though.
“You’re calling me a British Protestant pig, lady?”
“Aye.”
“I’m a Catholic, same as you,” said Mac in his broad Scottish accent.
“Yeah, but you’re a British Catholic, there’s a big difference, so there is.”
“Actually, I’m an Irish Catholic. Born in Dublin, raised in Glasgow, Irish through-and-through and I attend church every Sunday.”

A deafening silence ensued before her door slammed shut with a resounding smack

Although the tour wasn’t as rough as the previous years people were still being shot and blown up in the province at a devastatingly and horrific regular interludes. One day after hearing the atrocious banging of a high velocity round being fired within our vicinity I immediately set up a VCP as per the procedure on the Crumlin Road and stopped possible escaping gunmen. The radio traffic was heavy as expected but it became horrible when it became known that a fellow Marine had been zapped just a mile a way. Our VCP saluted the ambulance carrying the body of James Macklin as it hurtled past us toward the Royal Victoria Hospital. James had died from a high velocity bullet ricochet fired at his Land Rover. The terrors and the expectations of death in the province even in a quieter year were still so damned high.

Part of our duty entailed guarding the Larne Power Station, but as it happened it was a fairly well looked forward to detail because it was quiet and the food was decent, even though the section commander, i.e., me, cooked the meal. Larne, Belfast and  the rest of Northern Ireland as a whole is a beautiful area with a lot of wonderful people, worthy of better scripts than the troubles illustrate. When one travels around the country you wonder at the betrayal of former powers that handed down this miserable conflict and its endless suffering. Then no matter how the beauty was rationalised trouble was never far away.

“There is a threat to the security of the Larne Power Station. Larne Power Station provides the major source of power to Northern Ireland. There is industrial action and the union want to close down the power station. Make sure you keep it open.”
Once again the senior voice of authority from Belfast had spoken to me from a safe distance whilst I faced a difficult decision. The main gate was situated someway from my mini HQ and I spoke to the Marines at the gate by telephone and asked them how things were.
“It’s getting ugly,” one of them said.
“I’ll be right down to support you,” I replied. What could I do with 8 men, including myself, to solve a union industrial situation? Was I a politician? Was I a negotiator? No, I was an expendable commodity. Looking back at it, it was extremely ironic that I was asked to deal with a union situation. I would have liked to express to my own union the job conditions that besieged me and the rest of the security forces..
Job description"

Being used as a sitting duck, patrolling streets until a sniper zapped you or you stumbled upon a booby trap. Get abused and have nasty heavy and pointed edged things lobbed at you that sometimes they blew up.

Not allowed to open fire until expressing the conditions of a silly yellow card (this yellow card stated that a soldier wasn’t allowed to open fire unless fired upon or any danger to property was anticipated).

Live in crap conditions working up to 18 hours a day and get a massive 72 hours leave in 4 months.

Every time you left the gate there was a chance that a something unpredictable and naughty might happen. Oh, and if you get zapped the chances are that it was a death in vain and if you went home in one piece it was to a zero’s welcome. Perhaps we should have gone on strike.

I’m just having a little cynical vomit at an early 1970’s predicament in the shades of an unpopular conflict, a sort of European Vietnam. Serving in Northern Ireland was as unpopular as holidaying in a leper colony.

Sometimes to brighten up our lives we helped ourselves, if the truth were told, and like all conflicts or troubles it’s no good expressing just a one-sided view.

It did get to the point when we thought that we were just being used as targets whilst the politicians fumbled for a solution. During the 30 years after I left Northern Ireland for the last time, nobody ever said to me, "well done!" at a glorious veterans' reunion. Ever seen a Northern Ireland tribute or memorial to the soldiers where over 450 men and women were killed in vain? Certainly not. It was a place where being killed was not a reference to martyrdom. Be killed and be forgotten was the stark reality. Battles fought in a frenzied short and sweet period with a leaving and coming home filled with pomp and ceremony looked great in the history books. Serving and being killed in Northern Ireland wasn’t quite so heroic.
Being a soldier and saddled with the history and foul politics of a nation's leftover sewage from a few hundred years previously had a stigma. Northern Ireland is a complicated political problem with high voltage emotions on display. Boy, somebody really cocked up years ago.

So what did we do to make our crap accommodation in a miserable conflict without a welcome home ceremony? Bombs and bomb scares were a partial answer to the problem. With us it started when we found an exquisite table lamp inside the perimeter of the unity flats complex.
“Take it back to the grot, it’ll liven the place up.” I ordered. Finder’s keepers, loser’s weepers seemed a poignant rhyme at the time.
A week later a bomb blew up a pub during the night and created a huge fire. No casualties thank God, but boy did we rescue and tuck away a quantity of booze into our Saracen.
“Next time we get a bomb in the city, look for a decent carpet,” some wag laughed. “It’ll keep our feet warm in this crap place.” We joked and planned a beautiful home from home scenario with all of the modern conveniences. We’d acquired other bed lights, a large mirror and even a small painting.

It wasn’t long before bombs in the city scene became reality. I rubbed my eyes with shock as one of my section cavorted down the road carrying a rolled Axminster carpet on his shoulder strutting with a smile as proud as a peacock.
“Put it back you idiot,” I yelled angrily and laughed like a drain afterwards.

So I'd got a union problem at Larne Power Station and I’d been informed by the top brass that we must keep the place open. Okay, look and act the part, no surrender wasn’t that the colloquial term?

Green beret, flak jacket, rifle, federal riot gun, 9 mm Browning, the wooden baton was sleeved inside my jacket; I looked like Rambo on his wedding day.  A few heart-felt words, a bit of force, a bit of one-on-one with the union leader and all was healed. I should have been a politician after all, but I didn’t know how to laugh and plot a downfall at the same.  Anyway, problem solved and all in a days work for a 19-year-old section commander that had been practically booted out of school and steered away from the factory by the managing director.

More fantastic drama was about to unfold for me and the tour wasn’t half way through but that’s another story.

© 2004 Ken Lake