"Number Up"
On a warm, sunny July morning whilst I was involuntarily serving in the province as a soldier, I attended the morning briefing as to the patrol tasks of that day. We were to escort a convoy of 'military materials' from an air base to Castlereagh docks via west Belfast. We were told to anticipate an imminent RPG 7 terrorist attack, as they knew we were coming. I felt sick. I couldn't face any breakfast that morning, colonel's parade or not. I looked in the washroom mirror and I thought I saw part of my head was missing. Was this an omen? Two soldiers had been killed that same week. Was my number up? I was thinking about the padre knocking on my parent's house front door saying, "Your son was killed this morning in Northern Ireland. Mind you though, at least we got the convoy through!" All sorts of thoughts were buzzing through my head.
We loaded weapons up and mounted the Land Rovers. As 2IC of the 'brick' and driver, I was trying to keep my composure. I had to be seen as strong especially in front of the younger lads. One of my colleagues, a young trooper, was visibly shaking though not from cold weather. I patted his arm, "Aye up lad. We'll be laughing about this tonight in the bar. Just keep ya chin up and eyes peeled for them rockets". Some time later we arrived safely at the air base and picked up the consignment of the 'materials'. We then headed off for the docks passing a few rock ape v.c.p's on the way. As we moved through west Belfast, I felt I could see and hear for miles. 100% alert. I could feel the hate in the air. Suddenly the Land Rover engine misfired. We were running on 'three pots'." "Hurry, hurry," the lads on 'top cover' were shouting. The engine was making an awful row and we could only maintain about 20mph. Our radio wasn't working properly and we were rear vehicle. We could not signal the front 'landy' to slow down. We were basically a sitting target. Everybody in our Land Rover was swearing at each other. The Land Rover was cutting out and kangaroo-hopping. People on the streets were all laughing at the sight of us four arguing as to who was to blame for the state of the engine. It must have looked like a scene out of the Keystone Kops!
The R.E.M.E eventually got the blame. After about ten minutes of sheer terror we eventually arrived at the docks unscathed and back to our base intact. Later that day when I'd breathed hundreds of sighs of relief and got some time to think about the day, I thought that either we had been very lucky that day or the terrorists were so amused at our predicament that they didn't bother contacting us or that perhaps they had no idea that we would be there escorting such a hazardous cargo. In any case I drew the conclusion that my 'number wasn't up', at least not that day, anyway. GOD BLESS PEACE IN ULSTER.
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