Contact by A. F. N. Clarke Page A

your children all die. I hope some big nigger's fucking your wife, God rot your soul."
    "Oh yes, Father, we know and have enjoyed the hospitality of the people. " Does he really believe this crap? He's still talking.
    "I know some of the lads like to have a bit of fun every now and again, but that is understan dable." I wonder if I'm hearing right or that something has tripped my brain and jumbled all the words around.
    "Now with the Catholics, it's different of course. They are born with a violent nature. They must be stopped and the only way is for you to go in and shoot the ringleaders. We know who they are and if you don't do it then there are people here who will. Never you fear." Wow, some man of God this.
    "What we need are the B. Specials back again."
    This really is beginning to get to me and if it wasn't for the fact that I had been ordered to talk to the guy and "be nice, Clarke , be nice, " then he would have been out on his ear a long time ago. That's Belfast. Everything arse about face. Nothing normal any more. Ignore it or go gently loopy.
    An N.C.O. in Flax Street Mill went into the vehicle park and blew his brains out with a pistol. One of my soldiers was posted to a desk job when he was found to be talking to himself in an O.P. He had cocked his rifle and was waiting to shoot anyone that happened to be walking down the street. Eighteen and cracking. We have a catch phrase going round the Company: "You can't crack me, I'm a rubber duck." Everyone walking around quacking at each other.
    Quack, quack. It's even found its way onto the Battalion radio net, to be accompanied by that famous character, the "phantom whistler"! The Battalion Ops officer is going spare. The ducks and the phantom whistler even answer routine radio checks. All measures to stamp out the breach in radio discipline fail. The ducks and phantom whistler live on to provide amusement to the lads and fuel the anger of the idiots on the Ops. Desk. Hearts and minds. Ours this time. Quack, quack.
    Clive is selling me battleships at three in the morning. I'm deciding on the colour and optional extras. Both of us fantasising on an air strike straight down the Shankill Road, complete with mortars and a tank for good measure. After all, we don't want any survivors, do we.
    As time drags on, the whole camp is praying for a contact. For an opportunity to shoot at anything on the street, pump lead into any living thing and watch the blood flow. Toms sitting in their overcrowded rooms putting more powder into baton rounds to give them more poke; some insert pins and broken razor blades into the rubber rounds. Buckshee rounds have had the heads filed down for a dum-dum effect, naughty, naughty, but who's to know when there are so many spare rounds of ammunition floating about. Lead-filled truncheons, magnum revolvers, one bloke has even got a Bowie knife. Most of the N.C.O. s and officers are aware that these things are around and if they aren't, then they shouldn't be doing the job. We have spent months and years training, learning from pamphlets called "Shoot to Kill", "Fighting in Built-up Areas" and others. So now, we're let loose on the streets trained to the eyeballs, waiting for a suitable opportunity to let everything rip.
    A few kills would be nice at this stage, good for morale, good to inject some new life into the jaded senses of the Company. Listen to me, rambling on about how a few deaths will solve the man-management problems. I know I'm thinking these things but no longer seem to care. Let's do it. Let's stir it a bit.
    Thinking back to the ten o'clock news and the piece of film about a car bomb in the city. One of the toms was on an S.P.G. patrol when the warning came through and was busy clearing the area when the thing went off. The film shows him walking casually down the street when it blows and he is engulfed by a cloud of smoke and dust, to emerge a few seconds later still walking casually along.
    "Just look at that," he cries. "Holy