I was finding it hard to concentrate. Half the time my mind was slipping away to Tracy, and the way she’d wrapped her great long legs round me, first round my waist, then round my neck. What a night! And how fantastic that she was hell-bent on taking root in the cottage. To bring myself back to earth, I tried to imagine that I was no longer in the safe, soft Herefordshire countryside, but in some godforsaken corner of Ulster, with fanatical murderers lurking behind every hedge, and Gary Player himself coming to detonate the bomb.
Our magazines might have been loaded with blanks, but all the other details of the exercise were as real as could be. We knew the Det trainees were out as well, tracking the alleged players, but apart from occasional checks on the comms net, nothing happened until about 2.30 a.m. By then the rain had cleared and the night had gone very quiet. Suddenly, a gun-shot cracked off in the woods on the slopes opposite, and echoes rolled away down the valley to our right.
I had my radio in the special pocket of my ops waistcoat, down the left side of my chest. Two small throat-mikes were held in position either side of my Adam’s apple by a choker of elastic. The pressel-switch, or transmission button, was a small rubber dome clipped on to the front of my windproof smock. If ever I found myself so close to the enemy that I couldn’t speak, Control would interrogate me through my earpiece, and I would answer by using different numbers of presses — one for no, two for yes — which came across at the other end as quick bursts of static.
Now I gave it one blip to alert Control.
‘Zero Alpha,’ came the voice of the boss, who I knew was in a command vehicle a couple of miles down the road.
‘Bravo Five-One,’ I said quietly. ‘There’s been a shot fired approximately five hundred metres north of our location.’
‘Roger. Checking. Wait out.’
Before I could say anything else, two more shots rang out. Pat, a yard to my left, came out with, ‘Fucking hell! It’s Arma-fucking-geddon!’ Then, way off in the distance, torches began to flash. A pair of headlights flicked on, and a vehicle went haring along a woodland ride, the beams whipping wildly up and down. Men shouted, and a big dog, maybe a German Shepherd, barked. The sounds were all faint with distance, but clearly coming towards us.
‘Bravo Five-One to all callsigns,’ I said. ‘I think it’s poachers at the squire’s pheasants. Nothing to do with us. But it could be a come-on. Just sit tight.’
Gradually the commotion died down. The vehicle drove off and silence returned. A few minutes later I picked up some movement below. I nudged Pat and brought the butt of the G3 up to my shoulder. But all the kite-sight revealed was a fox, padding up the hedge towards us. The animal came right to the firing-point, stopped, sniffed and cocked its leg against the gate-post. Then it turned through the gate and disappeared to our left.
‘Well I’m buggered!’ muttered Pat. ‘One fox foxtrot towards target!’
At last, soon after three, the Det came on the air. ‘Two X-rays, foxtrot towards your location, nearing zero six zero,’ said a Scottish voice. ‘Three hundred metres from firing-point.’
‘Bravo Five-One, roger.’
My neck crawled. The baddies were not doing anything as straightforward as coming along the lane to the culvert and up the hedge towards us; rather, they were moving in across country, from behind our left shoulders. The slope of the ground meant that we wouldn’t be able to see them until the last moment.
‘X-rays still foxtrot,’ said the Det Scot. ‘Two hundred metres.’
A couple of minutes ticked by. Then, ‘Zero Alpha,’ came the boss’s voice in my ear. ‘Have you got eyes on the X-rays?’
By then they could have been almost on top of us, too close for me to speak. I gave a single punch on my pressel to signify ‘No.’
I lay like a stone, holding my breath, listening. A minute passed, then another. The boss called again and asked the same question. Again I gave him one press.
Where the hell were they? With the utmost caution I turned my head until it was facing backwards like an owl’s. Nobody in sight. Obviously they were waiting out, somewhere very close. We knew that they were there, and they knew that we were there. They were trying to wind us up and push us into making a mistake.
Sod them. On the net I heard the boss asking the Det to check the bearing-to-target they had given. The answer came back confirming it. Still no movement near us.
Then Pat reached out and touched my left arm.
There they were — two black heads and torsos showing against the sky, a few yards off to our left. The pair moved forward in a crouching attitude, so close I could hear the rustle of their clothes.
Gently I raised the butt of the G3 to my shoulder and looked through the kite-sight. The figures showed up in every detail. One was carrying a weapon, a long, and the other had a box-like object slung from his left hand. As I watched they went to ground by the gate-post.
I gave a touch on the pressel.
‘Zero Alpha,’ said the boss. ‘Have you got X-rays on target?’
Two presses.
‘Are they armed?’
Two presses.
‘How far off are they? Less than thirty metres?’
Two presses.
‘Twenty metres?’
Two presses.
‘Three patrol Charlies mobile, direction target,’ said the Det voice. ‘Have you got eyes on them?’
One press. But a moment later I saw them — three Land Rovers driving on sidelights up the lane. This, for me, was the moment of decision. Yes, I told myself, these two guys were definitely a threat. The patrol was within seconds of passing over the culvert. The terrorists were on the firing-point. If we didn’t drop them immediately they’d detonate their bomb, possibly with disastrous results.
‘Stand by, stand by,’ I whispered to Pat. I sensed, rather than saw, him bring the butt of his weapon up into his shoulder. My own rifle sat steady on its bipod. I pushed the safety catch forward to ‘Automatic’. Then at the top of my voice I yelled, ‘ARMY! ARMY! ARMY! HALT OR I FIRE!’
Instantly the pair split, one running right, one left. At the first movement I let rip at the right-hand figure with three short bursts. Pat did the same at the left (I was aware of flame spurting from the muzzle of his rifle). Both players went down and lay still. I gave mine another burst, on the ground, to make sure of him, waited a few seconds, and got back on the radio.
‘Bravo Five-One. Contact! Two terrorists dead. No casualties ourselves. Checking the area. Wait out.’
We had a quick look round, made sure none of the other guys had seen anyone. Then I reported, ‘No other terrorists on target,’ and asked for the QRF — a green army team — to move up to the prearranged rendezvous. I deputed Pat to meet them and explain exactly what had happened. Then I saw that the rest of my team got the hell out; the instructors had hammered into us the fact that in Northern Ireland a crowd gathers immediately at the scene of any incident, and it is bad news if locals see the faces of members of the special forces.
Soon we were away back to base in a couple of the Land Rovers that had acted as the threatened patrol. Behind, on the ground, the alleged terrorists would still be lying where they had fallen, until a photographer had taken pictures of them. Also on the scene would be one of the Regiment acting as the LO (or Liaison Officer) — he’d be directing the QRF, who would cordon off the whole area. Nobody else would be allowed until the arrival of the SOCO, the Scene of Crimes Officer, who was from the RUC. He would measure distances and angles, collect up the cartridge cases and make notes for his report.