"India, roger."
It was Just a matter of hanging around now. After about five minutes we heard Al doing his radio check on his personal comms. We were ready to go.
We were parked up in a little alleyway about three hundred meters from the house, drinking coffee and eating biscuits. There was a pocket scope NVA (night viewing) in the car and occasionally somebody would pick it up and have a look around.
Everything was fine.
We sat in darkness.
Every half hour Ken came on the net. "Hello, all stations, this is Bravo, radio check."
"Delta."
"India."
"Bravo, roger that."
It was quite chilly. My feet were cold, and I started to shiver.
I did my coat up a bit more, and then I became conscious of the wind on my face from the half-open window. I was starting to get a bit tired.
I wanted morning to come so we could get the job over and done with.
It started to get light at about half past seven, and we heard Ken on the net: "That's Bravo going mobile."
He was going to have a cruise around the area to see if there was anything outrageous going on. We knew that Al would soon be coming out.
A couple of minutes later Al came up: "Radio check."
"Bravo, roger that."
"Another five minutes and I'll be going."
"Bravo, roger that."
The Lancia, call sign Bravo, was cruising around but didn't see anything. The plan was that Ken was going to be in front, clearing the area as we moved; Al was going to be in the center, and we'd be backing him from the rear.
"That's me moving out of the house now," Al said.
"Bravo, roger that. India and Delta, acknowledge."
I switched the engine on. Everybody picked up his weapon and held it between his legs, ready to go. All the banter stopped now; this was serious time.
"That's me now at the door."
"Bravo, roger that. Call signs acknowledge."
"Delta."
"India."
"Walking towards the car."
"Bravo."
"That's garage doors open."
"Bravo."
"He's checking the car."
"That's me now in the car."
"Bravo."
"Engine on."
"Bravo."
"Stand by, stand by. That's me now mobile., "Bravo, roger that."
We came up: "That's India mobile."
"Bravo, roger that."
Al drove past us in the car, a top-of-the-range Saab. I fell in behind him, covering his moves from positions where we knew we would be able to get to him as soon as the shoot took place.
Al was giving a running commentary as he was moving along: what cars were coming up, their registrations, how many people were inside, what he could see ahead, what he could see behind him, what speed he was traveling at, whereabouts he was on the road. I had a mental picture of exactly where he was and what was going on around him.
Ken came on the net from his vehicle: "That's a yellow van moving around in the area. It just doesn't look right; it's hanging around the junction for too long. It's a. yellow Enterprise Ulster van. It's gone towards the old Dungannon road and I can't see it now. It's out of sight.
Call signs acknowledge."
Everybody acknowledged. We were all sparked up; it looked as if it might be on.
Ken drove up toward the roundabout and parked up.
He was going to let the Saab and us go past. All of us were looking for this yellow van. It sounded right.
Al, still very calm, was talking into his covert comms.
There's quite a skill in talking while people are looking at you, without their realizing what you're doing.
Even if this van came up in front of him, he would still have to drive up naturally to it, for a number of reasons.
The first was that if he started to slow down and move back, they'd be aware that something was wrong. The second was that if he stayed up close-not exactly nose to tail but almost-then as soon as he saw the barrels come out of the back of the van, he could put his foot down and ram the back of the wagon with three-quarters of a ton of Saab. If that stopped it, all well and good; we could all get out and start shooting.
If not, he could either back off, get out, and start firing or get out and start running. Al was only armed with a pistol.
If there were a couple of boys in the back of the van pointing G3s at him, he wasn't going to be able, to do much in return-unless they were off-balance after being rammed. But if he rammed the vehicle at full pelt there was a possibility that he might damage himself., "That's a Renault five coming towards me now.
That's now past. My Sierra [speed] thirty to thirty-five mph."
I adjusted my speed to maintain distance.
"Bravo, roger that: Sierra thirty to thirty-five."
"That's now approaching Venners Bridge."
"Roger that."
"That's at the bridge, and still towards Henderson's."
"Roger that."
If there is a calm net, there are calm reactions. if there's hollering and shouting on the net, it sparks everybody up; either calmness or tension will radiate to everybody else.
By now Al had passed the roundabout that was manned by the troop, concealed and acting as a cutoff.
We were still backing him-close enough to give protection but far enough away not to stand out.
Everything was still under control except that we didn't know what had happened to the van. The one thing we did know was that Al was there on his own. By now we had passed the roundabout and were well on the way to Dungannon.
Bravo came up: "That's me static at Henderson's."
The Saab passed, and then we passed. If it didn't happen at the roundabout, it was going to be really difficult for them to do anything.
I was slightly pissed off that there was nothing happening. We did so many jobs where we got really revved up, only for nothing to happen.
Al got some speed on and headed down the old Dungannon road. We were still behind him.
Suddenly we heard from the ground call sign: "Stand by, stand by-the van's coming back towards the roundabout! They've missed him, they've missed him! The back windows are out. It's on. He's coming back to you, Bravo."
"Roger that, we will take it, wait out."
Ken and his group were still the other side of the roundabout, and the van was coming toward them at full speed. It seemed that the players had missed Al and didn't realize that he was well down the road to Dungannon. They were probably panicking; if they fucked this up, they'd be in the shit.
Ken could see the van now coming toward them. As far as he was concerned, he was going to take it. He shouted, "Ram it! Take it!"
Ken put his seat belt on, and he was ready to go.
Everyone just hung on and waited for the bang.
As the van came toward him, there was a boy on the front seat firing through the windscreen. Both vehicles swerved, and Ken came to a screeching halt.
The only bangs that happened were the gunfire from the van. The boy was firing at the car as it approached.
They started to take rounds into the windscreen; everyone ducked down as both vehicles missed each other by inches. As the van passed, firing came from the back All three Regiment blokes went to roll out of their vehicle and start firing. They wouldn't have enough time to turn it around. They were taking incoming; it took the back window out and the boys were now firing out of the hole. The best thing was to get out of the way of the vehicle, because that was going to take the majority of the shots.
Ken shouted: "Get out! Get out!"
Eno was in the back, firing away, waiting for the others to get out so he could follow.
Ken had put on his seat belt as the intention had been to have a major crash and take these boys on. In fact it'll saved his life.
Eno, the unflappable, was still putting rounds through the back window.
He fired nice threeround bursts; all he needed'was one of the twenty cigarettes that he smoked every day and he'd have looked like he was having a day out on the range. Ken opened his door and started to get out but was restrained by his belt. -In that instant the door took three or four rounds, just where he would have been standing.
All three were out now, and Ken was on the net giving directions to the rest of the troop. The other two were still firing at the van.
"Contact, contact, contact! That's the van still going straight, that's at the crossroads-India acknowledge."
"India, we have it, wait out."
As soon as we heard that the van was racing down, we screamed around and started driving fast toward the roundabout. Everybody already had his gloves on. Now they started putting their goggles on, too; they knew we were going to start firing through the car.
We could see Ken's car, Bravo, facing us. The boys were starting to sort themselves out and get back in the car. The yellow van was moving off fast. Ken was going to turn around and back us. I put my foot down hard on the floor.
We got in range of the van and opened up on it.
T. he front passenger uses his legs to push himself back against his seat for support as he fires. One of the back men leans between him and the driver and fires through the windscreen.
One boy was firing from the front seat, another from the back.
The barrel of his HK53 was right next to me.
As the 5.56 Armalite rounds went off, my whole body shuddered.
There was a fearsome burst of flame from the muzzle each time, and it was scorching me. My eyes clenched up involuntarily with each round.
Our windscreen had crazed with the first round, but being safety glass, it didn't cave in. I had to lean over to the right-hand side so I could see through a good patch.
We drove toward the van.
There was glass everywhere; my hands were bleeding; everyone was shouting to be heard above the wind rush.
I was trying to keep the car as stable as possible as it sped along so that the fire could be accurate.
"Faster, faster, we're going to lose him!"
We were gagging on cordite fumes. The wind howled through gaps in the glass with weird whistling noises.
Everybody was shouting.
By now Ken and his gang had got back into their wreck of a car and were moving toward the contact.
"Bravo is trying to back you, India."
We were starting to lose him.
"He's going left, he's going left!"
I could see the turning and had to slow down to make sure I could get around. By now we had Bravo backing us. We screamed left on the wrong side of the road that went under the motorway. Suddenly there were roads leading everywhere. We drove. down a steep right-hand bend shouting, "Where the fuck are they?"
Ken got on the net. "You take the first option right; I'll take the second option left. Let's sort this out!"
We started turning into the little roads. Every time we saw somebody we stopped and shouted, "Where's the van? Have you seen the van?"
"That's first option right cleared."
"Roger that."
"Check the next option left."
"Roger that."
In my mind I knew we'd lost them now, but we had to go through the motions. They could be anywhere. Al was halfway to Dungannon; he'd pulled off the road and was waiting.
By now the whole community was out looking to see what was happening.
All they saw was two cars screaming around with no windows and weapons sticking out of them.
Everyone was severely pissed off. Bravo had taken hits; we had fired back without results, apart from the fact that none of us was dead. Al and the target weren't shot, and there were no injuries. A success is doing the job and everybody coming back alive. If a task was technically a success but we had a man down, then to me that would be a failure.
Al Slater did his job well that day. He knew that he was going to be part of the target and that to survive, he'd have to take on the threat on his own, as well as look after the U.D.R man. And all the time he'd have to stick with the attackers, until everybody else could get up with him and take them on.
"You're all wankers," he said to us that night. "I can't see what the problem was. I had a lovely drive into Dungannon."
What Al did showed a lot of bottle and he got the MM for it, but he was doing it because it was his job. It had nothing to do with Queen and country. He wouldn't have looked at it and said, "Hell, this is exciting." He would just have thought, I need to sort my shit out for this one. The fact that there was a possibility of dying wouldn't have particularly worried him. If it had, he'd have been in a different line of work.
Everybody took a job like this extremely seriously. We were talking about people's lives, and we all knew the value of life because we'd all had our Nicky Smiths.
True, we might make light of it and have a laugh at the dead man's auction, when all the man's kit was sold off and the proceeds sent to the next of kin. But bravery didn't come into it; if anyone was doing it for heroics, he'd soon get kicked out. The Regiment didn't want heroes; heroic blokes do things that are unpredictable and put other lives in danger.
The idea was always to let the enemy die for his country, not you for yours.
The op had failed, but that was just one of those things. I wasn't pissed off long term about it. No problem; it would be a long war.