"Severed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kernick Simon)

10

I remember the day so vividly, and always will.

June the nineteenth 1996, a warm if cloudy summer's morning on the back roads of South Armagh, a mile from the town of Crossmaglen, and a few hundred yards from the Irish Republic. There were eight of us travelling in the Saracen armoured personnel carrier and we were responding to reports of suspicious movements at a minor border crossing. Because of the dangers of operating in that area, and the risk of ambush, a second APC containing a further eight members of the platoon was following a short distance behind, while a Lynx helicopter was providing aerial reconnaissance.

You were always a little nervy on any form of op in the bandit country of South Armagh, because this really was the IRA's home territory, but at the same time there was nothing to suggest that this day would be different from any other, and the mood in the back, where I was sitting, was even quite jovial. I remember that we were talking about the football. Euro 96 was on and England had beaten Holland 4-1 in their group match the previous night, which was, to put it bluntly, a surprise result. We'd wanted to paint the scoreline on the side of the APC, just to annoy the locals who we knew would have been rooting desperately for Holland, but this had been vetoed by our OC, Major Ryan, who knew it would be seen as unduly provocative, and would do little to bolster the 'hearts and minds' approach that was now being fostered by the British government in its efforts to get the IRA to declare a second ceasefire.

I was still smoking in those days and I'd just lit a cigarette and was about to add to the debate on England's chances of winning the competition when bang, it happened. Just like that. There was a deafeningly loud roar that seemed to engulf everything around us, followed by a sound like an aluminium can being crumpled, and the APC was lifted into the air before being slammed down on to its side. All six of us in the back were flung around the enclosed space like puppets. We were wearing berets rather than helmets, and I remember smacking my head hard against the ceiling before coming to rest in a twisted heap with someone on top of me.

Thoroughly disorientated, for the first few seconds I wasn't even sure whether I was alive or dead. Everything was utterly still, utterly silent. It's difficult to describe adequately, but it felt like I was unconscious, yet somehow aware of my surroundings. Then my ears began to buzz loudly, and I could just about make out the groans of my comrades, although it sounded like they were coming from a long way away. My eyes had squeezed shut instinctively, and when I opened them I saw that the interior light had gone out and I was in semi-darkness. Acrid-smelling smoke was filling the cab and it was difficult to see. The APC's armour plating was buckled and cracked, and flames licked at a thin jagged tear that ran down the side opposite me; but it had done its job and largely withstood the force of the blast that had knocked it upside down.

The smoke was making me choke and stinging my eyes, while the heat from the flames was burning the soles of my feet, and I felt a burst of claustrophobic panic as I realized that at any moment the fuel tank might blow, burning us all alive in this cramped, dark tomb. I had to get out of there.

The man on top of me was my best mate, Martin 'Lucas' Lukersson, who'd been sitting across from me in the back. As I struggled to get him off me, his eyes opened and he coughed loudly. I didn't ask him if he was all right. In those few seconds, he didn't even cross my mind. Instead, I silently thanked God that of all the people in the back of the APC, I was in the best position – on the opposite side from the bomb and nearest the rear doors.

My hand fumbled desperately for the handle as I breathed in another mouthful of thick smoke, and I yanked it down hard. It wouldn't budge. I yanked again. Still nothing happened. I remember how frightened I was at that point. As the prospect of cremation came just that bit closer.

Someone cried out from further inside the cab. The words were 'help me' and there was a pitying desperation in the voice, as if he knew already that all was lost. Though it was faint, I recognized it as belonging to Jimmy McCabe, a lance corporal from Dunfermline and the only man in the APC pissed off about the fact that England had won the football the previous night. He cried out again, and I'm ashamed to admit that at that moment I didn't give him a second's thought either. Survival was everything.

The flames were growing bigger now as they danced through the gap in the armour. They were the only things I could see through the smoke, although I could hear and feel movement as other men crawled towards the rear doors.

I yanked the handle again, then felt another hand grab it. 'Wrong fucking way,' I heard Lucas gasp, before I realized that everything was upside down, and that's why it wouldn't open.

We pulled it together, and the first of the double doors flew open. I scrambled out, knocking open the other door with my desperate momentum, and rolled over on the tarmac. As I turned back towards the stricken APC, Lucas emerged on his hands and knees through the billowing smoke, followed by a third man I recognized as Private Rob Forbes. I staggered to my feet, keeping hold of my assault rifle, and helped Lucas to his. He looked concussed, but I didn't have time to worry about that now. There were other people to help. I grabbed Rob and managed to get him upright, and then a hand appeared in the gap in the double doors. I got a grip on it and pulled its owner free, dragging him well clear. It was Ben 'Snowy' Mason, another private, so-called because of his prematurely white hair. The back of his flak jacket was on fire, and he was crying out in pain. I hurriedly pulled it off him and threw it to one side while Snowy rolled over, choking.

By now, I was managing to take stock of the scene. We'd been hit by an extremely powerful roadside bomb that had created a deep, wide crater on the grassy bank at the side of the road, and demolished much of the low flint wall bordering a sheep field, behind which the bomb had obviously been hidden. A huge fire was burning, its heat so close and intense that I could feel it blistering my skin. The gouting flames were already setting light to the branches of some oak trees and a huge black plume of smoke stretched up into the sky, obscuring the Lynx helicopter as it circled impotently overhead. At the front of the APC, I could see the top half of Lieutenant Neil Byron as he clambered out of the passenger side of the cab, which was now upright, his face smoke-stained and bloodied. Our eyes met, and his were wide with shock.

And then I found out why. As he lifted his right arm, I saw that it ended in a blackened stump at the elbow, the wound already cauterized. He waved it uselessly in the breeze, staring at it now, unable to comprehend that it was gone, and that for the rest of his life he would be disabled.

I've got to admit that the knowledge that at any moment the APC could blow, killing us all, was at the forefront of my mind. But in those kinds of situations you simply don't dwell on the dangers involved. You've got to get everyone out before you can even think about retreating.

I could tell the lieutenant needed help, and I started towards him, which was when the dull, ringing silence was broken by a single burst of heavy machine-gun fire. The lieutenant's body jerked ferociously and it looked like he was being attacked from below by a shark, then two thick, winding lines of blood flew out of his chest and splattered onto the tarmac, leaving behind two exit holes the size of oranges in his flak jacket.

He didn't make a sound. Not even a peep. He simply slid back into the cab and out of sight, and I never saw him again. That's the nature of violence – its utter suddenness. It can be over in seconds, yet so great is the damage it wreaks that the ramifications often last for ever.

I dived to the ground, alongside Snowy, grabbing Lucas as I did so and dragging him down with me. Rob Forbes, a few feet away, wasn't so lucky. I can't remember if he even moved. We were all still in shock, our reactions slower than usual, and as the next burst of machine-gun fire shattered the silence, I watched as he was lifted off his feet and driven backwards through the air, his rifle clattering to the ground.

The bastards had set a clever trap. They would have known that even a powerful bomb would not destroy an APC completely and that some, if not all, the men inside would be able to evacuate it. But by placing a machine-gun crew nearby with a good view of the ambush point, they could simply pick off the survivors. The brazenness of it was incredible considering that there was a helicopter flying overhead and reinforcements would be on the scene very quickly. It wouldn't have worked if we hadn't been so close to the Irish border, but with barely a few hundred yards to travel before they crossed it and were out of our reach, and with the knowledge that the helicopter was unarmed and therefore unable to fire on them, our attackers obviously considered it a risk worth taking. And Lucas and I were now totally exposed to their fire.

A drainage ditch ran along the other side of the road, and the two of us were facing it. It represented our best chance of cover.

A third burst rang out, the heavy.5-calibre rounds kicking up chippings of tarmac only inches away from where we lay.

'Go! Go! Go!' I howled, leaping to my feet, my hand still gripping Lucas's flak jacket.

I gave him a huge shove and together we charged across the road, limbs flailing, adrenalin pumping through me so fast I felt like I was almost flying. We launched ourselves headlong into the ditch, landing in a foot of muddy, foul-smelling water. I rolled over in it and got to my feet, while Lucas remained on his hands and knees, coughing and spitting out phlegm. The back of his head was bloody and there was a deep gash at the base of his skull. He'd lost his rifle, but I still had mine. I moved over to the edge of the gully and took up a firing stance, trying to pinpoint the machine gunner's position through the assault rifle's sights.

There was a bend in the road about thirty yards up ahead, and a tree-covered slope running up behind it. I thought I caught a glint of metal in there somewhere, but such was the thickness of the tree cover that I couldn't be a hundred per cent sure. The rules of engagement in Northern Ireland were strict: only shoot if you're being directly threatened, and use the minimum force required to neutralize the threat. But the potent combination of adrenalin and the frustration of being attacked by an unseen enemy meant I wasn't really thinking about that. I cracked off half a dozen shots in the direction of where I thought I'd seen the glint of metal, then stopped, my finger tensed on the trigger. There was no return fire. The world was silent once again, save for the angry crackle of the fire across the road.

Meanwhile, Snowy was getting to his feet, using the back of the APC as cover. He had a deep gash on his forehead and he was wiping the blood from his eyes as another of the men, a recently recruited Fijian called Rafo, climbed out of the smoking double doors.

I shouted for the two of them to make a run for the ditch in case the fuel tank ignited.

At that moment, the second APC finally roared into view. I doubt if even a minute had passed since the initial blast, but it felt like hours. The APC drove past us and turned sharply in the road some twenty yards further on, so that it acted as a buffer between the stricken APC and the hostile machine-gun fire.

A second later, the doors flew open and the men inside were disgorged onto the tarmac. The first one I saw was our OC, Major Leo Ryan. He was striding towards me, shouting into a radio and barking orders at the rest of the men, half of whom were following him while the other half took up positions by their own APC, facing in the direction the heavy machine-gun fire had been coming from.

Just the sight of the major filled me with a sense of confidence. You need leaders who inspire you in adverse circumstances, and there were few men better at it than Leo Ryan. He was a tough little bastard with a prematurely silver Bart Simpson-style buzz cut and a pockmarked, scarred face that looked like it had been hewn out of rock by a blind man – the result of some serious grenade shrapnel injuries he'd received as a young lieutenant in the Falklands conflict, during the battle of Goose Green. Even though the grenade blast temporarily blinded him, he still managed to get two of his more seriously wounded men to safety under heavy enemy fire, before rejoining the fighting and making three confirmed enemy kills. He later got the Military Cross for his bravery.

Even with the first APC on fire, and one of his men clearly dead in the road, the major's expression remained utterly calm. His eyes met mine and he yelled something at me. Something that chilled the blood in my veins.

'Out of there! Secondary device!'

Secondary device. The classic terrorist tactic of planting a second bomb that could be detonated while members of the security forces dealt with the first. They'd done that down the road in Warrenpoint in August 1979 in a dual attack that had killed eighteen paratroopers – the biggest single military loss of life during the Troubles. It's easy and effective. And what better place to plant it than in the soft earth of a flooded ditch where survivors of the attack were bound to take shelter?

My heart jumped. Was something down there beneath the water? A mine? A few pounds of Semtex? If there was, in all likelihood it would be detonated by remote control rather than a timer in order to maximize casualties, and with the ambush pretty much at an end and the enemy thinking of making good their escape, that meant any second now.

I flung the assault rifle over my shoulder and turned round fast. Lucas was still on his hands and knees, so I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him out of the muddy water.

'Secondary device,' I snapped. 'We've got to move.'

He stumbled into the ditch wall and I could see that his eyes weren't focusing properly. All my instincts told me just to jump out and get the hell out of there, that in situations like this it's every man for himself, but I couldn't leave him. He was my mate. So I bent down, put a hand between his legs and pushed him up and over the edge. Lucas seemed to realize the urgency of the situation and managed to get to his feet and stagger blindly in the direction of the other APC, while I clambered out after him.

One of the other men came forward to grab him while Major Ryan and the others rushed over to the back of our vehicle. The men took hold of Snowy and Rafo while the major leaned in the double doors, trying to help out whoever was still inside. I started to run over to them, remembering that I hadn't seen Jimmy McCabe come out of there.

Which was the moment there was a loud bang behind me, like a very old car backfiring, and I was sent hurtling forward, crashing and somersaulting over the tarmac like a rag doll, every part of my body feeling like it was on fire. I just had time to think that the major was dead right, there had been a secondary device, before I lost consciousness.

That day was ten years ago, but I will never forget it. I sustained sixteen separate shrapnel injuries, spent three weeks in a military hospital in Belfast, and had to take two months off work. It cost four other men their lives, and gave the IRA a tremendous propaganda victory. Their Active Service Unit – the men who'd attacked us – did indeed escape over the border and for months afterwards the following graffiti appeared round the villages of South Armagh: IRA 4 – Brits 0.

The conflict's long finished now, and already it's turning into ancient history. But one thing hasn't changed: I saved Lucas's life. Without me, he almost certainly would have died.

Which means he owes me. In normal circumstances, I would never hold him to his debt. I like him too much for that. But circumstances are no longer anything close to normal, so today I'm going to call it in.