A Soldier's Tale Ch. 04

We were part of a four man brick, which is what the Army call a four-man foot patrol, and we were walking the streets of a hard republican area called Ballymurphy. The local nickname was the bullring. It was named this for two reasons, firstly the streets were all built in a circular fashion, so you were for ever going around in circles, and the second, more sinister reason was that just like a normal bullring, you were never sure if you were going to exit in the same state you entered.

Our Army base from which we conducted the patrols was in a loyalist area and over looked the bullring. We would normally exit the base from one of the many rear exits and patrol though the friendly loyalist areas before suddenly running across the wide main road that separated the two sides and try and catch then bad guys out.

Sometimes we caught them and sometimes they caught us.

We were patrolling the loyalist side, just mentally switching on and cursing the fact that the whole civilian world would be settling down to watch live aid and we would just be doing the same thing as we did yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. We were spread out, two men on each side of the street, the guys at the rear taking it in turns to walk backwards, sometimes it felt like you had spent months walking backwards, but today I was lucky, I was front man along with Billy, and my mind was already planning things.

As we came level with a shop, a little girl aged about seven or eight ran out and bumped right into Billy, dropping her bag of sweets.

As Billy bent down to help her pick them up, the guys at the rear started jeering him "wow, going for the young ones now Billy?"

I waited to see if Billy would respond, but he pretended not to hear and carried on talking to the little girl before moving onwards.

We came to the end of the safe area and got ready, crouching down behind gates and garden walls..

We watched the traffic, looking for any gaps, because we weren't going to be doing any green cross codes.

"Go for it" Billy shouted and we all ran like hell across the road, some cars beeped their horns, some swerved to avoid us, but we were all across the road and in the hard area, the traffic was the least of our problems now, for the next three hours it would be petrol bombs, street riots and snipers we would have to think about.

The traffic could wait, well until it was time to cross back over again anyway.

We moved deeper into the bullring. It was pretty quiet at the moment, maybe Live Aid was keeping them all inside, all the better for us if it was.

"Time for a VCP" said Billy, meaning it was time for us to conduct a quick vehicle check point on any local traffic, stopping cars, finding out the identity of the driver, any passengers and where they were going. It was all good information that could help us plot the habits of the locals.

As the brick commander, Billy had the radio, which meant I would flag down the cars, the other two would cover me while I checked the identity, and Billy would radio in to the base camp with the registration plate. It was my job to try and spot any dodgy looking cars or occupants and flag them down.

Well, that was my job with any other brick commander.

Not with Billy.

Billy was special.

I waved the first couple of cars though, they weren't suitable, but the third car certainly was. I stepped out into the road, making sure the driver saw me and waved him down to the side. Billy stepped forward to read the number plate before sending it to Alpha, the base camp.

"Th Th Three Th Three Charlie to Alpha, car check, reg number Tw Tw Two Tw tw two seven, T T Tango whisky mike

Yep, billy had the worst stutter I had ever heard, and we all picked out cars that had number plates he would struggle over.

Silly bugger never did realise it either.

Still, if you cant take a joke, you shouldn't have signed up.

After five minutes, it was time to move on, the word would soon get around that we were conducting check points and either the kids would come out to hurl abuse and stones, or the gunmen might decide to make things a little bit hot for us.

"Want to make this the last one?" I shouted across to Billy as a car came closer.

There wasn't any answer, and so I shouted again, keeping an eye on the car that was almost upon us.

Still no answer.

I looked across and saw Billy slowly fall to his knees.

I hadn't heard a shot, not distinctive crack of the bullet passing close by, nothing at all.

Running across to Billy whilst shouting to the other two guys to cover me, I grabbed my by the collar of his combat jacket and dragged him behind a garden wall. It would give us cover for a little while, until I sorted things out. I quickly looked him over, looking for gun shots wounds, signs of bleeding but found nothing, and then when I realised he was choking, his face was red, he was scrabbling at his throat and his eyes had started bulging. I quickly got behind him and started to hammer on his back, but his flak jacket, designed to save his life from shrapnel was now absorbing all my blows. I tried to undo his jacket so I could squeeze him, anything to try and dislodge the blockage, but again, all the bulky equipment that we carried was making it more and more likely he was going to die in my arms.

I remember thinking that a choking person could only survive three minutes without oxygen before becoming brain dead, and with Billy coming from Newcastle, it would probably be less.

I called Alpha up on the radio, informing them of our location, the situation and the fact we needed a trained medic.

Alpha informed us they would be on scene as soon as possible, but couldn't give us a time.

By now, Billy only had a minute left, maybe less.

I shouted across to one of the other lads and he ran across the road to join me.

Cars were slowing down now, drivers with thick local accents were shouting that they hoped Billy would die.

As the lad joined me, I told him to grab Billy's hands and hold on tight. I pulled out my bayonet and grabbed a ball point pen, all standard issue kit, and quickly sharpened a point on the pen.

Finding the Adams apple on Billy's throat was easy, then I felt the smaller bump just below it. The gap in the middle was what I was aiming for. I sliced in an up and downwards motion trying to avoid the blood vessels; I didn't want even more problems. Once I had cut into him, his breathing eased, the oxygen was getting into his lungs below whatever was causing the obstruction. I slid the ball point pen in to keep the airway open and told the guy with me to watch for the ambulance and medic.

Four minutes later the medic arrived on the scene, Billy still couldn't talk but his breathing was a lot better even though the object was still there. The medic pulled out some forceps and probed deep in Bill's throat before pulling them out with a small red circular object gripped by them.

My mind flashed back to the little girl and I burst out laughing.

"Fuck me Billy, only you could come to Belfast and nearly get killed by a fucking gobstopper."