Fishers of Men - The Gripping True Story of a British Undercover Agent in Northern Ireland. Rob Lewis
smashed the inflammable contents immediately spread, and with a loud whooshing noise nearly caught two of our lads who were at the rear of the patrol. As myself and a colleague legged it up the alleyway in pursuit of the missile throwers we were met by a hail of bricks and bottles. We had not had time to put our riot helmets on and Steve, my mate in the chase, took a half house-brick straight in the face. Blood started to gush from his eyelid, and we halted on the corner in a doorway that faced the playground where a gang of about fifty or so teenagers and kids had gathered, ready for us to come into sight. They hurled abuse at us, baiting us to come out in the open. They suddenly bomb-burst in all directions. It was sometimes a ploy among terrorists in the Province to use kids as shields for a shooting. The kids would be given a signal and spread, the terrorists would take a few shots at the army patrol, and then the kids would converge again, blocking any return fire. This time, however, the bomb-burst was due to the rest of our patrol. They had radioed to our two Land-Rovers, which had been carrying out a satellite patrol around the area where we were on foot. The two Land-Rovers sped across the playground, chasing the teenagers – it was quite exciting to watch. As the vehicles pursued the kids they shot off in all directions. One made the mistake of running straight into the alleyway where Steve and I were waiting, and when he was about ten feet away Steve launched a half-brick at him. It caught him in the forehead and he yelled, ‘You fucking bastards,’ and legged it off in the opposite direction. Steve turned to me and laughed out loud, and with obvious satisfaction said, ‘That’ll teach the little bastard.’
The blood on Steve’s face was now looking quite dramatic, and as the Land-Rovers had completed their chase we were picked up and taken back to our base. Steve was taken in to see the duty medic who, after cleaning up the mess on his forehead, told him that a few clips were all that were needed. It looked a lot worse than it actually was because of the great amount of blood that had spread all over the place. The medic told Steve that he would get no compensation for it, though; that was for stitches only. Steve proceeded to tell the medic that if he did not put stitches in he would be needing some himself, so two stitches and a claim for a few hundred pounds later and Steve was a happy bunny. News of the compensation spread like wildfire, and from then on everyone tried to catch a brick. Billy drew the line and demanded that in future everyone would wear helmets at all times; he was not going to have our troop claiming for injuries left, right and centre.
Our troop had a number of minor successes, one of which consisted of an arms find in the area of Haddan’s Quarry, just on the outskirts of Carrickmore. We had split into two sections and our section had decided to take a break in the cover of some shrub only a few yards away from the Quarry but about a hundred yards away from the main road.
As we gathered around to have our tea break, Billy told one of the lads to move about fifty yards further up the hill and keep watch. The bloke concerned took the general-purpose machine gun with him and sauntered off. A few minutes later he returned, and Billy asked him what the fuck he thought he was playing at, to which the guy sarcastically responded that he had found a bag of weapons. Billy told him that he should stop playing the prat and fuck off back up the hill. The bloke turned, shrugged his shoulders, huffed a bit, and walked off. Within a few minutes he was back again with a big grin on his face. He looked at Billy and smugly stated that there were five of them. Billy looked at me and told me to go and have a look to see what was there, and if the lad concerned was waffling I had his full permission to give him a dig. We slowly moved up the hill, and the lad pointed out an area of thicker bushes where I should look. Sure enough there was a large plastic bag about four feet in length with a carry strap tied at both ends leaving a sling in the middle. The contents could easily be carried over the shoulder with the sling. As I was just about to tell Billy to come and have a look, the lad who had found the package cut through the plastic with his machete. I could see what was obviously the barrel of some sort of rifle. I looked at him straight in the eye and told him that he was a complete tosser and not to touch the package again. I would rather go home that evening with a full set of arms and legs.
The troop leader was called on the radio and told to join us at the quarry; his half of the patrol were about half a mile away. When he arrived he was fully briefed on the situation and told about the arms find that had been uncovered. Like most young troop leaders he was highly excitable, and came out with a number of options on how the find should be dealt with. He was a cracking bloke but sometimes needed Billy’s experience to guide him in the right direction. There was only one course of action and that was to bring out the experts to have a look at the contents and leave every decision to them. Within an hour or so the Ordnance Corps bomb disposal officer and his team that dealt with these situations had arrived. The search adviser from the Royal Engineers had been the first bloke to walk up to the find and do his particular business. He came back to us after about half an hour and reported that he had dealt with the possibility of the package being booby-trapped.
The bloke who had slit the pack open looked at me and Billy and made a loud swallowing noise in his throat. His actions earlier could have cost us dearly if the package had been connected to an explosive device. This had been drummed into us time and time again at Sennelager during training before deployment. There was no point in dwelling on the subject – he knew what he had done, and that was enough.
The contents of the bag were made safe and put on display. They consisted of a 7mm SAFN, a .303 Springfield, a .303 SMLE, a Lee-Enfield and a Thompson sub-machine gun. In addition to the weapons there were several magazines appropriate to the find and a mixture of ammunition. The weapons were well greased and wrapped in newspaper within the plastic covering. We headed back to our troop store in camp and the troop leader appeared later with case of beer. There were five weapons not available to the Provisionals any more.
As our party progressed into the small hours we encouraged the troop leader to kick the arse right out of his mess bill and lay on some champagne for the boys. Being the good lad that he was, he agreed that he should as well. He was the typical short-term commissioned officer, probably in for three years as part of the deal with his family, like so many other young officers in the regiment whose careers had been moulded for them from the time they were toddlers. Boarding school, the army, the family business. This particular troop leader and I were quite friendly. He had a really good sense of humour, and was always ready with a fast, witty reply to most situations, which, considering the company he kept, he needed. We were having a chat one afternoon during a patrol and he said that I should instruct the lads to move off the road and into cover for a lunch break. As we both searched around in the kidney pouches of our webbing to see what delights the Army Catering Corps had put together for us, he suddenly turned and asked me if I would like a glass of wine. This was Carrickmore, we were conducting a patrol in a dangerous area of Northern Ireland, and so while the rest of the Province carried out its patrols rigidly and by the book, we had a glass or two of Cabernet Sauvignon with our packed lunch, as only the cavalry would. He asked me if I had any plans for my future in the army, and quite honestly I told him that I figured if I was quick enough in getting my lance-corporal ranking back again I would probably like to make a full-time career of it, and possibly end up becoming a warrant officer and ultimately be commissioned from the ranks. I asked him the same question. He sipped his wine, rubbed his chin and very seriously said that he would be quite happy if he could make lieutenant. He then grinned and said that he doubted he would get that far! He actually left as a captain, and so surpassed his own expectations.
The hunger strikes were in full swing, and over this period ten republican prisoners were to starve themselves to death, becoming martyrs for their cause. Bobby Sands, because of his political position, as MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, was probably the most celebrated of the hunger strikers, and it was expected that the shit would hit the fan when he died. By the end of April 1981 he had been on strike for close to sixty days; he was not expected to last much longer. We had been deployed to Clogher in support of another squadron from our regiment; the general idea was that we would mount observation posts along the border areas as attacks on military installations were expected at the moment that news of Sand’s demise was released. The plan was that we could intercept any terrorists making their way back across the border after any such attacks taking place, or possibly pre-empt them and stop any crossing into the North by the illegal crossing points. We settled into our positions for some long cold nights. The rain soaked us and it was a pretty dismal time. During the late evening