‘That night, Kevin slept cuddled around me to keep me warm. As I fell into a deep sleep, I worked out that in thirty hours of crawling I had taken twelve syrettes of quarter-grain morphine. Plus one the next day, waiting for the casevac. That makes thirteen!’
‘I don’t understand it, Iain,’ I said. ‘Thirteen syrettes! You should have been dead! A medic stood up in training wing and told us that the human body can only take three syrettes of morphine. One more, and you would be dead!’
‘What a way to go though! Quite a pleasant death really – beautiful surroundings, no pain, mind floating, lying back and thinking of Scotland, all of that lovely McEwan’s Export I would never taste again, wondering if anyone would ever find my body!’
The night wore on and Iain left for home. I got up and headed for the bar to get Paddy and myself a last drink. I brushed against Jim Mackay – the mayor of Hereford and a prominent local businessman – who was propping up the bar. This man was rather unusual in that, while taking full advantage of the benefits of free enterprise, he retained staunch socialist views. He saw no contradiction – he was practising the revolution from within, a subversive hearts-and-minds campaign, death by a thousand cuts to the capitalist culture. He never lost an opportunity to spread the gospel. As I placed my order, he picked up a collection tin from the bar and rattled it under my face. ‘Are you not going to make a contribution to the miners’ strike fund?’ He began to bait me right away.
In a flash the glow of camaraderie and humour was gone. I was back into the cold reality of my career, the daily confrontation with danger that the last few hours had reminded me of only too vividly. ‘Not on your frigging life. Do you think I’ve been fighting the Queen’s enemies for the last twenty years, watching my mates get wounded and killed, risking my neck daily to make Britain a safe place to live in, just so that the Arthur Scargills of this world can hold the country to ransom!? I was biting like a hungry salmon – a dangerous mistake.
‘Risking your neck! Your lot didn’t do anything in the Falklands!’
‘Didn’t do anything! We played a crucial part in the whole thing, and what’s more, we lost twenty lads down there!’ I was now on the hook.
‘You shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was just a bluff, a political manoeuvre by Maggie Thatcher.’ He was beginning to reel me in.
‘I suppose your crowd would have let the Argies run riot in the Falklands like yer darling Harold sold us down the river in Aden and let the Commies take over.’
Just as I was nearing the net, he lost his nerve, ran out of brain and began to resort to brawn. ‘Come on outside, we’ll settle this on the lawn.’
Paddy was now at the bar and tried to intervene. ‘Don’t be stupid, fella. If I were you, I wouldn’t go outside, even in a tank, with my mate here.’
‘He doesn’t scare me,’ sneered the businessman.
‘You’re too old,’ I said sarcastically as I paid for the drinks.
‘Who’s too old? I’ll bloody well show you who’s too old,’ roared the businessman, taking his jacket off.
At this point, thoughts of the Red Mill Inn and all the drama in Hong Kong flashed across my mind. More importantly, so did the more recent events that had taken place at the B Squadron OC’s wedding a few months earlier. The OC was marrying one of the daughters of David Shepherd, the famous artist who had done two fine paintings of Mirbat and the Embassy siege. All of B Squadron had been invited. It was a very smart occasion – everyone in ceremonial uniform and finery. The reception was in full swing when I spotted Carl, on whom I’d been looking for an opportunity to exact retribution for some time. Carl had been on the piss one night, staggered into the basha and for no reason whatever decided to set about Malcolm, the clerk, nearly veteran of the Embassy siege. He just beat him up while he was sleeping in his bed! If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s bullies. So at the wedding reception I decided to take Carl unawares, just as he’d done to Malcolm.
I went over to him and challenged him to a friendly arm-wrestling contest. We sat down, rolled up our sleeves, locked our hands and started to grapple. After a while I let Carl think he was getting the better of me. I allowed my arm to be pushed nearly onto the table. Just as he was eagerly scenting victory, I brought up my free hand from under the table and punched him square in the face. ‘That one’s for Malcolm,’ I said. Carl crashed over backwards. A big punch-up ensued. Tables and chairs were sent crashing and women screamed as we rolled over the floor and out through the marquee entrance into the garden. I taught Carl a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
To commemorate the occasion, I later thought of suggesting to David Shepherd that he might like to do a wedding portrait of the OC and his new bride holding hands, standing at the marquee entrance gazing romantically into each other’s eyes, with Carl and me in the background slogging it out in the rhododendrons. I don’t think David Shepherd would have been amused. The OC certainly wasn’t. He had me up on Colonel’s orders for the second time. I was given a severe warning and put on probation.
Since I was on probation, the scenario now developing with the businessman did not look at all healthy. I’ve been in this situation before, I thought to myself, I’ve got to get out of here. I pushed the businessman’s shaking fist abruptly to one side and, like a bull going for a red cloak, I started for the door. As I stormed blindly past Paddy, I knocked his shoulder. Paddy lost his balance, crashed into a partition and ended up on the floor with blood streaming from his nose. By this time, I was out of the door, into my Capri and away into the night.
The next morning, I was on Colonel’s orders for the third time! If looks could kill, the Colonel would have been convicted of mass murder. He was incandescent with rage. He stabbed his forefinger angrily on his desk to emphasize his outrage. A note of incredulity sounded in his voice. ‘You assaulted and verbally abused a respected member of Hereford society. You struck one of your colleagues a blow to the face…’
It was no use protesting. On paper, my case looked hopeless: RTU’d for Hong Kong, put on probation for the OC’s wedding fracas and now this. Surely I was finished? I interjected a sharp ‘sir’ at appropriate moments to show a reaction, to show acceptance of the point being made, and a softer ‘sir’ to intone a note of query or a request for further classification.
‘…and before you even try a plea of mitigation, you can forget it. I don’t want to hear any feeble excuses. I don’t want to hear any litany of extenuating arguments. What I expect from the men in this regiment is nothing short of the best – at all times, in all places, in all circumstances. Anything less that that and we fail. And if we fail, we call attention to ourselves, and in our book, that’s the worst possible crime…’
He leaned forward across his desk. ‘You are irredeemable. Your behaviour makes Neanderthal Man look like the epitome of sophistication…’
He leaned back in this chair again, arms folded, decisive, his voice lower now. ‘You are a time bomb, trooper, a time bomb just waiting to explode. I’m taking a risk, a huge risk, I know that. You seem determined to ruin yourself. But I’m sending you down to Woolwich Hospital to see if the medics can make any sense of you, to see if they can take your brain apart bit by bit until they find the fuse.’
He let out a deep, weary sigh and reached for a pen. His voice now took on a more threatening tone. ‘I’m warning you. One false step at Woolwich and you are finished – finished for good this time.’
16
Frustration
Finished for good? Not if I could help it. I was lying in my bed in Ward 11, going over the game plan in my mind. Tomorrow was the big one, the chief psychiatrist. It all depended on one man, a civilian at that – a civilian in charge of the mental health of the British Army! I was determined not to give in, not to let go of the values and ideals I’d lived for all this time, my identity, my self-respect, forged in the flames of the battlefield. I owed it to my fallen comrades to pull through.