The Gun and Noddy

Cyprus.
One year I had The Gun, a heavy beastly thing to lug around but with a marvelously satisfying BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG when one held the trigger in for a second or so. The policy was to share the gun around the section so everyone had a go at the jiff. But I wanted to keep ahold of it to be some kind of hero I think. I was fit in those days. So I had the gun and kept it for the week. The week began with the whole lot of us being trucked to the exercise area - Episkopi, an area of rocky, dusty hills, rutted barren fields, steep valleys and deep thorny creeks. Dry and hot. And the first battle was expected to take place at Pissouri beach.
My brother once told me that he was on exercise once in Germany when it was so cold the water froze in the canteens and they couldn't extract a drop. I told him that in Cyprus the water had evaporated from our canteens. It could have too.
Pissouri beach. There was a hill. Hamburger Hill or Biggin Hill, or Hill 26 or whatever, it didn't matter to us we just had to sit on in and repel all boarders. It wasn't a great hill, just another small rise in the landscape with gentle slopes one side of which eased down to the sea where it changed to smooth pebbles which chuckled together at each wave. In the past there were landing craft up Pissouri beach with hoards of drenched men charging up the slopes. Apparently the budget wouldn't stretch to that now, much to the relief of those men.
Hot-Dog Hill. Our section was to defend one side of the hill while around were placed 2 other sections. The Gun - me and a no. 2, the ammo box carrier and loader, were in a hole, and our colleagues, the rifles were in other holes out there on the side of the hill. We waited. A sergeant came up and told us to make a sight plan; ranges, landmarks, peripheries, etc. We did this with much use of the military language previously learned:
'Range 200 metres, slightly left of axis, small bush, to be known as "small bush", seen?!'
'seen!'
'300 metres, half-right of axis, ruined building, to be known as "ruined building", seen?!'
'seen!'
Thus it continued with "tree", "bar", for there was one at 400m, right of axis, actually the only thing distinguishing "bar" from "ruined building" was the Coca-Cola and Keo beer signs in rusted tin; and "donkey" (tethered to a tree stump, 200 metres, slightly right). We waited.
'Could we brew up?' Shouted to a rifle in an adjacent hole, this was passed on around the hill until the reply came back, 'Yes, we could'.
No. 2 lit the stove and promptly lost his eye brows due to a faulty gas canister. The tea was strong and the T-bags were giant and looked like press-on panty towels. To pass the time I painted eyebrows on No. 2 with cam-cream.
At last, in the darkness, the attack came; it was a relief. Even more of a relief as it was on the other side of the hill. Our colleagues were getting shat on, we just had to sit and cringe and watch the fireworks. What if they were overrun? The enemy would come swarming over the top. I'm sure we'd be warned beforehand. Even so no. 2 and I resolved to sit facing opposite directions, one up, one down the hill. No screaming hoards came over the top of the hill and after half an hour or so of bangs and sporadic shooting things settled down again. The rest of the night passed quietly and we were able to take it in turns to doze. Before dawn however, a sergeant came around to tell us, ever so quietly that as we weren't involved in the night's activities our section was to go out and ambush a section which was believed to be approaching the hill on one of the many tracks. So off we trots down and around the hill, in single file with someone, who we presumed knew the way, leading.
After some 30 minutes of walking we reached the spot were the ambush was to take place. There were whispered voices giving instructions to lie and wait. I couldn't see a damn thing but lay down anyway, right on a thorny bush. Sure enough, after 15 minutes or so of waiting, there came the sound of approaching men, it could have been goats but there was something distinctly mannish in the sound and no clunking bells. There was the hiss then bang of a thunderflash followed by clattering rifle fire and people shouting, and more distinctly someone shouting 'Get that gun going! Where's that fucking gun?!', that's me and I still couldn't see a damn thing, it was then, in an instant, that I realized I was facing in the complete opposite direction. The voice was still quite insistent about the fucking gun. What he meant by this grand title I suppose, is that if you're on the other end of it - you're fucked. There was no time to suppose, I had to execute a 180o turn while lying flat in a dry thorn bush, in as short a time as possible. This feat being accomplished, the great Fucking Gun began its bloody work. BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG, pause, BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG, aarrrhh! The adrenaline rush! I love killing people! BANG-BANG-BANG. This whole sequence lasted no longer that 3 or 4 minutes before we were up and running with people still yelling and lobbing thunderflashes around. Those things scare the hell out of me. Back on the hill, we counted our loses. None.
Thus the hill having been successfully defended, we were trucked to a spot were we, as half-sections, would walk miles, through a series of checkpoints to another, much bigger hill, the base camp. The walk was 12 miles but due to the terrain it was about triple that.
Hot. PT was at 6am. When everyone was at last roused from their bashers the call went out to assemble at the edge of the ridge to look across, or down into the narrow valley which lay before our feet.
'See that door over there?'. It was pink; apparently last year it was blue. Few words of command were necessary, us being military automatons. Just a very loud 'Go!', pronounced in an Army PT instructor voice so it comes out as 'Gooh!'.
The door or The Door, or more accurately The Pink Door (formerly The Blue Door), stood at the base of a gnarled tree. The tree was half way up the other side of the valley. We had to go and knock on The Door. To see if anybody was in presumably.
I reached The Door, behind quite a few other people of course, and in front of quite a few other people too. Everyone clamoring to knock on the door at the same time. Half way back, the less fit element were immensely dismayed to see that those who had reached the top were on their way back down for a second try (but there's nobody in, we told you!). This is when the breath gives out, I'm dead, but that's no excuse, keep going. And I still had The Gun. Gun, this is Door, Door, Gun.
'Knock, knock' (again)
'Who's there?'
Turn around, head back up; cries of 'no it can't be true!' and 'oh-no!' and just plain, 'aaaaarrrrrggghhhh!!'. They were coming down again. Some of the Great Unfit ran back up with the leading group and claiming three times and fooling the screaming buffoons above. Anyway running back the third time there were only ten or twelve honest men. I was one of the honest.
I love PT ra-ra-ra.

Catterick January 1986
Cold. Section attacks in deep snow drifts. On the walk back, breaths coming in great gasps and visible in the cold air, I saw a sock and a field dressing lying in the snow, somebody didn't pack and secure their kidney pouches well enough, ha ha ! serves them right! They were mine, oops.
We dug shell scrapes, that's a kind of shallow trench, in frozen ground. And waited. During these exercises we waited a lot and never knew what to expect. I always expected attack and having to stand to. Thus it was at 6 a.m. in the shell scrape, awaiting the cry of 'stand to!' when I suddenly needed the bathroom. Needed the bathroom is putting it very politely, there was no bathroom in miles. I had to take a shit. This was a desperate situation, stand to is usually at dawn, and I had to go, pretty damn quick. What if the cry went up while I was in the act of? It was still dark, I was in a fearful dilemma, to go or not to go? I went. Creeping out of the scrape, I went forward, if they came, they'd fall over me, that would be embarrassing. They didn't come. It was a great relief. It was a great relief.
State Black meant that we had to put on our respirators, not gas masks, respirators. We were already in full Nuclear Biological and Chemical (NBC) warfare gear, 'Noddy Suits'. So State Black was Noddy Suits and Darth Vader. Try sleeping dressed as Noddy and Darth Vader.
In a tent made from a stretched rain cape.
In minus 10.
The attack came that morning. Mortar bombs, spiced with deadly chemicals in the midst of our encampment. We were expecting it of course and had to 'crash out'. 'Crash out' means gather everything up as quickly as possible and make a well-organized withdrawal to a pre-arranged meeting point. Yeah, really easy, at 4 a.m. with falling bombs; this is well-organized chaos. We got it together and set out on the compass bearing heading for the RV point in an orderly rabble. My eye glasses were fogged up, I had a face you could fry an egg on, it would be a sweaty egg. Could hardly breathe. So I lifted the respirator to freshen up a bit.
'You're dead then', said a voice beside the track. One of the marshalls. I had lifted the respirator right infront of one of the marshalls. Breathed in lung-fulls of nerve- gas laden air. I became paralized, vomited, twitched then died. Again. And lost another couple of hundred points from my 1000 point maximum for Battle Camp.
Catterick
We trained, in a field, lobbing dummy grenades. Legs apart, looking across your left shoulder, hold the bomb in front of you, chest level, elbows out. Left hand with the index finger though the ring, ready to pull, right hand clutching the heavy egg. Jerk your arms straight so that you pull the ring and you stand 'star shaped' (don't stand like this too long, it's now ticking away). Dip the right knee and lean to the right slightly then straighten up lobbing the grenade overhead in a long arc, at the same time shouting 'Grenade!', then hit the deck and cover your head. Thus trained in the art of grenade lobbing we removed to the Grenade Range for the real thing. One enters the throwing point through a short, zig-zaggy corridor, this is incase of a fumbled throw and the grenade lands inside the wall separating the throwing point and the small field of sand and rubber tyres. If this happens the instructor hurriedly shoves the embarrassed thrower out of the throwing point. This was all demonstrated to us, including a fumbled throw using dummy grenades, while we stood on top of one of the sheltering bunkers. It's a little scary throwing real grenades. There's always the thought that one might just hit the top of the wall, which is about six feet high, and come bouncing back in; I was scared one would hit a rubber tyre and come bouncing back in. Still the instructors are trained for all eventualities. But has it ever really happened? Would they really now what to do, or just panic?
When it was over, and we'd each lobbed three grenades and killed hundreds of Communists, Argentineans, Arabs, IRA and rubber tyres, the trucks had disappeared and we had to run back. We knew this was going to happen, it's part of the programme. But everybody still secretly hopes the trucks will still be there when we come off the ranges. It's eight miles back to camp.

Northern Ireland
We entered 'tin-can alley', what a stupid name. Tin-can alley wasn't an alley at all, it was a village, only it wasn't real, everything in it was mock-up; pubs, shops, houses, clubs, and a village square. When I say it was mock-up, I don't mean it was card-board cut-out, like the place the townsfolk built in Blazing Saddles, oh no, it was brick, concrete and tarmac. The people in it were cut-outs and dummies. The first dummy we saw was a young lady de-robing herself in an upstairs window; while we were gawking, another dummy appeared in the window of an opposite house and shot us all. Start again. We were shot again several times walking through the village. And we in turn shot several bandits and innocent women and children who alternately appeared round street corners, in suddenly flung open doors and in upstairs windows. There was a pub. We went in. It had no beer.
A few weeks later I was at Belfast docks with a rifle and a helmet waiting for the ferry to come in and wondering if anyone would appear in an upstairs window. Keep moving around, go from concrete post to the corner of that shed, dum-de-dum. Walk casually backward looking up and around, dum-de-dum dum bullet in the chest. All it needed was a quick phone call.
'Hey, d'ye want to get on down hore, there's a few wee men wi gons rait hore at the dacks'.
And they could be there in a few minutes in a black cab. If you're in the army never take a black cab in Belfast.