I nodded. There was nothing I could say.
The CO leafed through some papers on his desk. ‘The pity of it is, you were doing very well until then. I’ve got some positive reports here. You were making an excellent comeback after your various problems. Now you’ve gone and blown it.’
He put his thumbs to his cheekbones and his fingers to his temples, staring down at the desk-top as though his head was aching. ‘If I RTU’d you, you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Would you?’
I shook my head.
‘By rights, you should be RTU’d. If a thing like this got out it could do tremendous damage to the Regiment. But in view of what you went through in the Gulf, and losing your wife, we’re prepared to give you another chance. At the same time, to show I’m not condoning what you did, I’m putting you on a three months’ warning. As you know, any slip-ups during that period, and you’ll be out.
‘Also, I’m going to fine you heavily. I’ve discussed your case with the Director in London, and he’s instructed me to fine you £2,500. I’ve got no alternative. Is there anything you want to say?’
Again I shook my head. The fine was fearsome — a whole month’s pay, which I knew would be stopped at source. That month, there’d simply be nothing coming into my account.
‘You’re to take a week off, while things settle down,’ the CO was saying. ‘You live out, don’t you? Well, keep out of camp for that time. The most important thing is that nobody else should know what has happened. If you have to say anything, say there was a personality clash, as a result of which you had to come home. If what you did leaks out, that’ll constitute an offence under your three months’ warning. Understood?’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Don’t forget: the bottom line is that you’ve got to pull yourself together properly. From now on you’re really going to be watched. If you want to survive, you’ll have to get your finger out.’
By the time all that was over, it was early afternoon. I reckoned Tracy would already be back at Keeper’s Cottage, so I phoned her there. She was amazed to hear that I was in Hereford. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘Come over for a day?’
‘For good,’ I said. ‘Things have changed a bit. I’ll tell you when I see you. I’m heading out now.’
‘Why didn’t you phone last night?’
‘I couldn’t. Tell you in a minute.’
It seemed incredible that I’d said goodbye to her at Belfast City Airport less than twenty-four hours earlier. Half my life seemed to have gone by since then.
I was going to call for a taxi. Then I thought about my fine and changed my mind. After a while I managed to press one of the cooks into making a diversion on his way home and giving me a lift. I even made him stop at a flower shop while I ran in. There I had to curb my natural extravagance again, and forgo the big bouquet that I fancied most. Hounded by the thought of my empty bank balance, I settled for six red roses.
The first thing Tracy said to me was, ‘You went back after him, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you got lifted.’
‘How on earth d’you know that?’
‘It’s written all over your face.’
‘It’d better not be. I’ve been sworn to silence about what happened.’
‘You can tell me, anyway.’
I told her. The hardest thing was to admit that I’d deliberately deceived her about my intentions, that I’d been planning to go back on the attack even before she and Tim had left. Although I didn’t say it, I felt it was nearly as bad as if I’d gone off and screwed some other woman the second she was out of my sight. All I could do was apologize, and promise that that was the end of deception between us.
Tracy was fantastically forgiving — even if there was a touch of the schoolmarm in her when she said, ‘Well, that’ll teach you to mess about.’ Then she took me to see Tim, who was playing in the sitting room. ‘Look!’ she called out cheerfully. ‘Here’s your dad come home. Isn’t that lovely!’
TEN
All through the next week I was way up and way down. Part of the time I felt incredible relief at being clear of Northern Ireland, at having escaped from that cesspool of hatred and fear. It felt great to be away from the dark, horrible, underhand warfare practised by the scumbags of the PIRA.
At other times I was desolate at having let my mates down. I kept thinking of Pat, stuck over the water for another nine months, and Mike, no longer pink or punk, but still bearing the scars of Farrell’s Rotty on his right shoulder.
The fact that the head-shed had been lenient with me didn’t lessen my feeling of shame and degradation. Privately, I reckoned the mainspring of their attitude was fear that, if they did get rid of me, I would start mouthing off about the Regiment to outsiders. They’d calculated that it would be safer all round to keep me where I was.
The last thing I wanted was to go back to my parent unit, the Parachute Regiment. For a couple of days I seriously considered leaving the army altogether, and to test the water about civilian jobs I phoned two guys who’d got out the year before. Neither was particularly encouraging. Both had gone into forms of BG work — bodyguarding — but both said that, although the jobs were ‘well paid, they were also boring as hell.
One was retained by an Arab sheikh, and although he spent most of his time twiddling his thumbs, he had to be prepared to take off for any corner of the globe the instant the phone rang. The other had signed up with a crazy Dutch family of millionaires who lived in mortal fear of having their two boys kidnapped. Father and mother were both nutty as fruitcakes, constantly feuding with each other, but it sounded as if the kids needed a shrink even worse than the parents. They refused to do what they were told, couldn’t sleep in the dark, ate junk food at all hours of the day and night, and did nothing but lie around watching videos, the more violent the better. The idea of working for people like that turned me right off, and as I had no other ideas about what I could do, I decided I’d better stay put.
More than that, I realized how much the Regiment meant to me — how hard it had been to get in, how much I had put into the years of training, how much I’d lose if I left. Before I’d gone off the rails my prospects had been excellent — and now I became determined to do my best for myself, as well as repay the trust the Regiment had put in me. That meant ditching all thoughts of becoming a rogue warrior and consigning my idea of revenge to the past. Besides, what would I achieve if I did drop Farrell? I’d have a murder on my hands — and it wouldn’t bring Kath back.
Two people in particular made me determined to soldier on. One was Tracy, who was emerging as more and more of a star with every day that passed. On the surface she carried on as if nothing had happened — going in to work at the Med Centre, taking Tim to the camp playschool, cooking for us in the evening — but underneath the surface she was giving me phenomenal moral support. I know it sounds stupid, but I was amazed that someone of such slender physique and sunny personality could have such resources of strength inside her. It made me feel humble, first that I had made such a boob myself, and second that I had underrated her.
My other saviour was Tony. As I’d predicted, he had sailed through selection, and was now a fully-fledged member of D Squadron. He immediately heard on the grapevine that I’d come back, and blew into the cottage for coffee on Sunday morning. There was no way I could conceal what had happened from him, so we went for a hike through the woods around one of my jogging circuits, and I told him the story.
His reaction was positive, to say the least. Far from criticizing what I’d done, he lamented the fact that I hadn’t quite succeeded. ‘Maybe I could go get him for you,’ he suggested, when I described the layout of the forest, the OP in the gorse, the perimeter fence and the house. ‘Now we know exactly where he is, maybe I should line up a deer-hunting trip over there. You said there are deer in those woods? OK. I get a hunting permit and go over. Then I have the right weapon to take him out from up the hill, without going near the house. What about that?’