Once A Pilgrim: a breathtaking, pulse-pounding SAS thriller
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Scouse Parry chuckled again.
Off to the left, near the main gate and in the shadow of the base’s massive walls, a group of soldiers – members of 7 Platoon, C Company of the 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment – stood around, stamping their feet against the cold, breath forming clouds, waiting on the order to load their weapons.
Two Snatch Land Rovers and a grey armoured RUC Hotspur idled in the background, blue diesel exhaust drifting slowly over the white-frosted tarmac.
Two policemen leaned against their wagon, carbines slung round necks, smoking cigarettes and talking quietly about a young WPC one of them had his eye on.
Occasional laughter erupted from the soldiers; one started coughing violently and cursed and threw away a butt.
It was going to be a long day: patrolling and setting up VCPs in Ballymurphy, Andersonstown, and Turf Lodge till long after dark, and finishing with a shift change for the RUC at Springfield Road, before a return to the relative safety of Whiterock.
All in the shadow of the Provisional IRA’s murderous bombers and gunmen.
‘I’ll go over and have a word,’ said Carr. ‘Wind him up a bit.’
‘Go easy on him,’ said Parry, with a smile. ‘Five minutes.’
Carr strolled across the asphalt to where 2Lt Guy de Vere was bent over the map, trying to cram the different areas of the city – shaded orange for the Protestant sectors, green for the Catholic – into his memory.
‘You alright there, boss?’ said Carr.
De Vere turned to look at him. He felt oddly intimidated by the hard-faced Scottish NCO, despite being several years older and senior in rank. He couldn’t decide whether it was down to Carr’s undeniable physical presence – he had a Desperate Dan jaw, broad shoulders and merciless eyes – or his brooding silence. The man had barely said a word to him before now, and what he did say was said in such a thick accent that subtitles would have been useful.
At least the blokes seemed to understand what he wanted.
‘Fine, thanks, corporal,’ he said. ‘I was just having a last minute refresher.’
Carr’s face was an expressionless mask, his mouth hidden by a drooping, bandito moustache of the sort the men seemed to favour.
‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Mean fucking streets out there.’
‘Yes,’ said Guy de Vere, slightly nervously.
A month earlier, the Paras had lost three A Coy men to a remote-controlled bomb hidden in a ruined cottage down near Mayobridge: the city just beyond the gates was every bit as hostile.
De Vere was fresh out of the box, new in the battalion, and in the Province, and today’s was his first patrol, on his first tour. He was nominally in charge, but really his role was to watch everything that Scouse Parry and John Carr did and said, and learn.
Not all that long ago, he’d been enjoying a lucrative career as an investment banker in Hong Kong. But, vaguely unsatisfied with life, he’d chucked all that in to come home and do something more meaningful with his life – a decision which had left his Toms shaking their heads in wonderment when they’d found out about it.
Half an hour earlier, Carr had seen de Vere take a wander up into one of the sangars overlooking the streets outside, and he tried to imagine what the officer was thinking.
Probably:
Last year I was earning six figures and living the dream.
Now I’m in a shithole where half the population wants to take my bastard head off.
What the fuck have I done?
‘Boss, you’re doing top cover,’ said Carr. ‘It’ll give you a better look around so’s you can understand the Area of Operations.’
Plus, it’ll do you some fucking good to go through what the lowest, youngest, newest crow in the multiple goes through, he thought.
De Vere nodded. He didn’t fancy top cover one bit – you spent the whole day exposed, on offer to whoever wanted to have a pop – but he didn’t show it.
‘Right you are, lance corporal,’ he said.
‘Main thing is, keep your eyes peeled for that RPG cunt down on Kennedy Way,’ said Carr. ‘He’s an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire. Knows what he’s about.’
De Vere nodded again: he’d had that worrying piece of information stuck into his head a few times in a series of scary briefings.
‘If he gets one off and it hits the wagon, that’ll seriously ruin your day,’ said the Scot, with a cheerful grin. ‘You’ll be lucky if it only takes your legs off.’
De Vere pushed his shoulders back. He thought for a moment about the journey up from Palace Barracks the previous evening. That had been bad enough, and it had been in the back of a Saracen, a purpose-built armoured vehicle with sixteen mil of steel protecting him. Hot, and claustrophobic, but at the end of the day sixteen mil was sixteen fucking mil. The Snatch was a lot more vulnerable.
‘I’ll keep my eyes peeled, corporal,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’
‘Good,’ said Carr. He looked at the second lieutenant more closely. ‘You okay, boss?’ he said. ‘You look a bit white.’
‘I’m fine, Lance Corporal Carr.’
Carr felt for him, momentarily. He remembered his own first time out of the gate: he was a fighter by nature, but even his arse had been going a little.
‘Listen,’ he said, leaning in closer and lowering his voice. ‘Everyone shits themselves the first time. The trick is, dinnae let the blokes see.’ He looked over at the Toms. ‘It’ll be fine. The RA have got snipers, but they’re shite. I’ve never heard of anyone being hit in a moving vehicle. And that cunt with the RPG?’ He looked at the young officer’s rifle. ‘You see the fucker, just give him the good news with that.’
He threw back his head and laughed, and at that de Vere felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He looked at Carr: at a shade over six feet tall, and thick-set and hard-eyed, he held his loaded 6.5kg SA80 rifle like it was a toy, and wore his parachute smock folded back at the sides in a style the men favoured. His helmet was covered in camouflage scrim held in place with a thick black rubber band. All in all, he looked very ‘ally’ – the current Para Reg slang for cool.
‘Thanks, Carr,’ he said. ‘Much appreciated.’
‘Nae problem, boss. Just another day. It gets a lot easier after this one.’
‘John,’ shouted Scouse Parry, from across the yard. ‘Get ready to roll.’
‘Aye, Scouse,’ yelled Carr. ‘Two minutes.’ Then he looked at the soldiers. ‘You lot!’ he barked, in his thick Edinburgh growl. ‘Let’s start fucking sparking! First three to the loading bay!’
Three Toms made their way over and stood pointing their weapons casually into the bay.
‘Load!’ said Carr.
The soldiers went slickly through the drill, checking their safeties, inserting a magazine, securing their pouches, hands gripping front stocks.
‘Make ready!’
The sound of three SA80s being cocked, racking a live round into the chamber. Three sets of eyes and thumbs re-checking three safety catches.
‘Mount up!’
They stepped away from the loading bay and walked to their vehicle.
‘Next group. Come on, get a frigging move on!’ snapped Carr. He looked over at de Vere. ‘Then it’s you and me, boss!’ he shouted, in a voice that almost sounded like an order. ‘Let’s get weaving. No time to think about your girlfriend.’
‘I don’t have a girlfriend, lance corporal,’ said de Vere, his voice higher and reedier than normal.
He realised immediately that he had responded too quickly, too sharply.
He hadn’t meant it, but stress does funny things to people.
‘Boyfriend then, is it, boss?’ said Carr, with a broad grin. ‘I mean, equal opportunities and all that. And you being a public schoolboy.’
From across the yard, Carr heard Scouse Parry cackle.
He saw de Vere open his mouth to speak, and then shut it, and force a grin.
Good boy, he thought. You’re learning.
A moment later, Carr and de Vere made their own weapons ready, and Parry walked over.
‘My vehicle first then, boss,’ said Parry, to de Vere. ‘Then the RUC, then you and Carr. Eyes on stalks, eh?’
Parry walked off to the front Land Rover, whistling tunelessly, nodding at the RUC and chivvying his driver and Toms aboard.
Carr watched Guy de Vere bend his tall frame to get up on top and then climbed into his own vehicle.
He looked at his driver, a young Cornish private called Shaun Morris.
‘This new rupert’s shitting himself, Shaun,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Long way from the playing fields of Eton.’
‘Where’s that?’ said Morris.
‘Never mind,’ said Carr.
Up ahead, Parry was running through a final check, making sure everyone was on-board.
Then he looked toward the men manning the gate.
‘Get it open,’ he shouted, and stepped into the vehicle, shutting the armoured door behind him.
And then his driver put the vehicle into gear, and they all headed out through the gates.
4.
IT’S A BIG THING, to kill a man in cold blood.
So Gerard Casey had slept badly in the little back bedroom in the terraced house in Lenadoon Avenue, a mile or two distant from Whiterock.
He’d woken up at 5am in the middle of some kind of sweating nightmare, and since then he’d been sitting on the edge of his bed, watching the red digits on his clock radio move slowly onwards.
Nearly six now.
He sparked up another Red Band and grimaced as he sucked down a lungful of cheap, bitter smoke.
Right leg jiggling on the frayed carpet.
Sure, you’ll be fucking fine, Gerry, Sean had said, a day or two earlier. The first time’s the hardest. But after that it gets easy.
His older brother, ‘Sick Sean’ Casey. An Active Service Unit member, a soldier in A Company in the 1st Battalion of the Provisional IRA’s grandly-titled ‘Belfast Brigade’, and a proven and tested killer.
Gerard stared at the U2 poster hiding the peeling woodchip paper on the wall opposite.
Bono, in that fucking silly hat and them fucking silly shades.
I can’t close my eyes and make it go away, either.
Guts churning, he stubbed the fag out in the loaded Harp ashtray on his little bedside table and stood up, pulling the grey kecks out of his arse.
Went to his chest of drawers and took out a pair of jeans.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking slightly.
‘Get a grip,’ he said to himself. ‘Fucking twelve hours yet.’
He put the jeans back and selected another, older pair.
He’d be burning every scrap of clothing on his body later on, and he didn’t want to be getting rid of his only pair of 501s.
The old Wranglers, they could go.
He bent down, stepped into them, and pulled on a plain black T-shirt.
Looked out his bedroom window.
Four days to Christmas, and there were trees and lights in half the front windows in the street.
Across the rooftops he could see the raised security tower of Woodbourne police station.
Things had been different in the area since the Paras had taken over. Those bastards didn’t fuck around, and God help you if a patrol caught you late at night. They’d kicked the shit out of one of the main players the other week, put him in hospital good and proper. Then they’d spray-painted the wall of his house with 3 PARA WE OWN THE NIGHT.
The police had done fuck all about it, even though an official assault complaint had been put in.
The peelers laughed about it, so they did. He’d heard talk of it in the Davitts.
Treat us like second-class citizens, so they fucking do.
He looked at the tower and shivered, and for a moment he had an eerie feeling that he was being watched.
He shook his head.
Paranoia.
Better get used to that, Gerry.
He was brought back to reality with the banging of a fist on the front door.
A second later, another bang.
Louder this time.
‘Would you ever piss off!’ yelled Gerard’s mother, from her pit down the landing.
‘It’s alright, ma,’ shouted Gerard. ‘It’s just Sean.’
His mother said something muffled and angry, the hangover making her head thump, but Gerard had already cracked open his window.
‘Stop banging the fucking door,’ he hissed. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
In the dawn-dark street below stood Sean, hopping from foot to foot, blowing on his hands, dressed for the cold.
Sean was Gerard’s way in to the RA.
His recruiting sergeant.
He wanted it, did Gerry. He wanted to be a Republican foot soldier, like Sean.
He wanted the respect, the attention, the name.
The women.
Who hardly gave him a second glance, now, but would be all over him like a rash once he made his bones.
But he also knew that he was crossing a line.
Right here, right now, he was just another wee civvie standing in his back bedroom.
By the time he was back in this room tonight he’d have crossed over into another world, a world from which there was no way back.
He felt anxious.
The paranoia was back.
5.
AT EXACTLY THE MOMENT that Gerard Casey opened his window, another alarm clock sounded.
This one was on a cheap Formica bedside table, next to the head of a young man in a very similar bedroom, in an all-but identical terraced house, about five miles distant as the crow flies.
Only five miles, but Northland Street was a world away from Lenadoon Avenue. It might as well have been a different country, and in a way it was: to get there, you’d to wade through rivers of blood.
The young man in Northland Street – William ‘Billy’ Jones – opened one eye, clicked off the alarm clock, and groaned.
He was glad of the money that came with his recent promotion, but he missed the extra couple of hours’ kip.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he half-rolled, half-fell out of bed and onto his knees.
From there, he stood up and stumbled into the bathroom for a piss, and then stumbled back to his bedroom to pull on his uniform.
Black trousers, white shirt.
He fished a badge saying ‘Assistant Manager’ from his trouser pocket, and pinned it on his chest.
Stifling a yawn, he crept slowly downstairs to the kitchen, trying to be as quiet as possible.
His da’ would have been out with the boys until the wee small hours, and he was not a man to annoy when he was hungover, his da’.
Not a man to annoy at any time: Billy Jones Senior was a leading commander in the Ulster Volunteer Force, and a violent man with a hair-trigger temper and a light-heavyweight’s physique. He wasn’t shy of using his hands, even now his son was twenty.
Billy Senior was a dyed-in-the-wool bigot, for whom the only good Catholic was a dead one. Billy Junior bore no such hatred. He’d flatly refused to get involved with the UVF, and Billy Senior had made it quite clear that he despised the boy for it. He was a coward, a traitor, a taig-lover…
Christ. Billy Junior smiled guiltily to himself as he reached up for the cornflakes. If only the old bastard knew.
He was seeing a Catholic girl, a pretty wee thing called Colleen who worked in the bar. They’d had to keep the whole thing secret – his da’ would kill him if he found out, definitely kick him out the house, and hers wouldn’t take it much better. The sooner the two of them could save up the money to get the fuck out of this Godforsaken city, and move in somewhere together… London, maybe. Maybe the States. Somewhere that it didn’t matter whether or not you believed in the Virgin Mary, or thought the sun shone out of King Billy’s arse, or cared what football team anyone supported.
Colleen had hinted that she wanted to get married, settle down, have kiddies.
He imagined a big family wedding.
His old man would go proper mental.
A fucking papist wedding in a fucking Fenian church?
Red-faced, veins bulging, steroid-popping eyeballs sweeping over everyone in the other pews.
And then the reception… Billy Senior and his brothers on the lager and scotch, her da’ and his brothers on the Guinness and vodka chasers…
Fuck me, but it would be a bloodbath.
Nah, they’d be living together. Somewhere a very long way away.
Hey, maybe they’d get wed in Vegas? Just the two of them.
An Elvis wedding.
He grinned, put his bowl in the sink and slipped on his favourite red adidas jacket.
Upstairs, he could hear the old man snoring.
He’d see Colleen tonight when their shifts overlapped.
Not for long. Just a kiss and a wee cuddle.
Five minutes alone.
Go back later to walk her home.
It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
And it wouldn’t always be like this.
6.
BILLY HAD LET himself in at the front of Robinson’s just after eight.
Switched on the lights and the heating.
Ran his hand down the length of the dark wood bar to check it wasn’t sticky and breathed in the mixture of stale fags, spilt beer, and Pledge spray polish.
He walked to the office at the back of the pub.
Looked at the notebook to see if the night manager had left anything.
They were running short of Carling Black Label.
One of the bar staff had given her notice, but temporary cover was being arranged – one of the lads, his younger sister had done a bit of bar work before.
All good. No problems.
Humming tunelessly to himself, he went into the kitchen and from there down into the cellar to double check the lager stocks.
At just after nine o’clock, he went back to the front door to let in Stephen and Laura, the cook and barmaid who were on that morning.
‘Alright guys?’ he said, with a broad smile. ‘Is it cold enough for ye, is it?’
For a moment, he stood in the doorway, smelling the frosty air, and looking up and down the street.
His last morning on earth, and he had no idea.
7.
LATE MORNING, and the Paras and their RUC colleagues were pulled up in the middle of Ballygomartin Road, right on the western edge of the city, putting in a VCP.
John Carr had finally allowed 2Lt de Vere to come down from top cover, and now the two men were standing side-by-side.
De Vere was standing to Carr’s left, watching him out of the corner of his eye, and mimicking his stance and movements, sometimes consciously, sometimes without even knowing he was doing it.
Carr in turn had been watching the young officer all morning, assessing him, looking for weaknesses.
He was no-one’s idea of a class warrior – though his father was a staunch Communist – but he was only human, and he defied any working class Scotsman not to get a wee bit ticked off by the chinless Old Etonians the Army kept putting in charge.
But it was like anything: some were shite and some were okay, and, to be fair to the beanpole next to him, this one didn’t seem too bad.
Completely fucking clueless, obviously, but there were just a few signs that he might have the makings.
For starters, he’d stayed up top throughout without even the hint of a complaint, and when they’d gone down Kennedy Way he’d got a proper game face on, his rifle into his shoulder, covering his arcs. True, he hadn’t had any filthy nappies lobbed at him, but there’d been a few stones thrown and more than a few insults shouted in his direction, especially when they’d been down by the Bombay Street peace line early doors, and he’d taken it all in his stride, unflinchingly. Carr had known plenty of new ruperts who’d shown a lot less backbone.
They’d been doing VCPs for four hours now, give or take, and had pulled over plenty of cars. Sometimes the vehicles were searched, and sometimes the drivers just got spoken to for a few moments and then waved on. Carr could see that the apparent randomness of it was confusing de Vere, but at least he had the honesty and good sense to realise that he was out of his depth. Credit to him, he was doing his best human sponge act, trying to soak up the signs and tells and little indicators that Carr, Parry and the police officers were working on.
Their vehicle was in the middle of the current checkpoint, pushed out into the opposite side of the road to create a chicane between the police Hotspur to the front and Mick Parry’s Land Rover to the rear.
The traffic was light, and in a lull Carr turned to look at de Vere.
‘Alright, then, boss?’ he said, surprising the officer. ‘Coping, are we?’
‘Just about, corporal,’ said de Vere, gripping his SA80 a little tighter. ‘Thank you.’
‘We got shot at down here last week,’ said Carr, casually. He nodded at a distant block of flats. ‘Fella with an Armalite had a pop from over there.’
De Vere followed his gaze.
‘Missed the top of Keogh’s head by three or four inches,’ said Carr, deadpan. ‘Now, someone as tall as you…’
De Vere looked at him, careful to stand at his full height.
‘I don’t…’ he started to say, but Carr cut him off.
‘Customer coming, boss,’ said Carr. ‘We havenae time to stand here gossiping.’
An old purple Morris Marina up ahead was being flagged down by the RUC, and its driver was pulling over as directed – a sensible move, with the eyes and rifles of several stony-faced members of the 3 Para multiple trained on him. Enough people had been shot for driving through checkpoints that you had to be off your face on drugs or drink, or deeply stupid, or a member of PIRA with weapons on board and no other options, to try it.
Carr waited until the car had come to a halt and the driver had switched off the engine and was showing his hands.
He looked at de Vere. ‘This one’s an old hand, boss,’ he said. ‘Conor Gilfillan. Bomb-maker. He’ll have nothing on him, but we should fuck him about a bit. You can have a word. Off you go.’
De Vere swallowed hard. ‘Right-ho,’ he said, and walked over to the Marina, making a wind-your-window-down motion with his hand.
He leaned in and looked at Gilfillan, a weaselly-faced little man with piggy eyes and several day’s growth.
‘Can I ask where you’re going please, sir?’ said de Vere. ‘And I’d like to have a look in your boot if I may?’
Gilfillan stared at him with ill-disguised contempt. ‘Sure, this is a free country, is it not?’ he said. ‘What fucking business is it of yours where I’m going?’
Carr leaned in past de Vere and rammed his gloved hand between Gilfillan’s legs.
Grabbed his balls, and squeezed.
Hard.
‘Answer the officer’s question, you RA cunt,’ he said, applying yet more pressure.
The bomb-maker’s eyes were almost popping out of his head, and both his hands were on Carr’s wrist, trying in vain to pull him away.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Fuck.’
Half an hour later, a chastened Gilfillan was finally allowed on his way, after apologising to Guy de Vere for his rudeness and watching the Paras conduct a thorough but fruitless search of his vehicle.
‘Never mind May I look in your boot please, sir, boss,’ said Carr, phlegmatically, as he watched the Marina disappear. ‘That’s how you handle cunts like him. You’re never going to make a friend of the fucker, so why bother trying?’
De Vere nodded.
Just then, a woman pushing a toddler in a buggy walked past.
She didn’t break stride, or look at them, but out of the corner of her mouth she said, ‘You look after yourselves, lads. It’s a good job you’re doing.’
Carr watched the young second lieutenant follow her with his eyes, and then the look of surprise which came over his face.
‘What?’ said Carr, eyebrows raised. ‘You think they all hate us?’
‘No,’ said de Vere. ‘Obviously not, but…’
‘We get a lot of that,’ said Carr, turning to look down the road, eyes sweeping for threats. ‘Most people here are no different to most people anywhere. They just want to live their lives, and they know us and the RUC’s the only thing stopping a massacre.’