Our little Italian adventure was laughed off by the squadron,
something more serious was afoot, we were at war. The Falklands war had kicked off and we all
waited for our orders. As we were
perhaps the most southerly unit, at that time, many of us expected to be moving
a bit more south, in fact quite a bit more.
For some reason I always think of a large game board featuring the world. Although one incident may be happening at that
moment, such as the Falklands, each player had to position the remainder of
their forces, as we said in the air force, to cover their six o clock. Cyprus became a staging post for thousands of
troops heading South.
A certain sobriety descended on the squadron. We were sitting outside the mess having a lunch
time beer when some Rock Apes came out to, well; if the truth be told, they
came out to start a fight with us. These
guys had read far too many war comics, they were the real ‘blood guts gore
veins in their teeth I wanna kill’, breed.
Plus they were quite drunk, which didn’t help matters. The head drunk was a six foot six tall Scouser. Shaved head, even his spit had muscles and tattoos. He broke two beer bottles, placed the bases
on the ground and began to perform press-ups with his hands over the broken
bases. By the time he had completed his
exercises we were gone.
We were told that we were to stay in Cyprus. The Russians had a permanent fleet of ‘trawlers’
around Cyprus which were basically spy ships, listening posts. When we arrived there was something in the
region of twenty five trawlers. The moment
the war started the number of trawlers in the Med went up to over one hundred
and twenty. They were constantly trying
to get our crews to speak to them; we knew that most forms of communication
would be intercepted. At least we had
our Falcon Codes, even the Russians couldn’t break them.
John Zammo and I were sharing a room. We spent a long time discussing how we should
spend our time. Many troops heading
south were quite ‘pumped up’ and with the addition of strong drink, punch ups were
becoming the order of the day as members
of one unit wanted to prove how much tougher they were than some other unit. John and I came up with a cracker of an idea,
the theatre club. No member of our
squadron, in fact no roughie toughie in their right mind would be seen dead in
a theatre club. It was settled. We would allow the squadron chaps to carouse
to their hearts content in the mess while we would gently pass the time in the theatre
club.
We wandered over to the theatre club and were impressed. It surely was a corner of calm. The barman was
an old friend from Watton so we settled in and enjoyed a few drinks. As we were leaving, my friend informed me that
there was a good-bye party on the Saturday night. There would be a barbeque and dancing and
free drink all night long. Oh, and by
the way, it was a toga party. We told no
one and were quite pleased that we had managed to slip in with the permanent staff
almost unnoticed. Work wise most people kept
their heads down and then somebody just had to go and spoil the peace.
Part of my job was to plot the approximate position of some
of these spy trawlers so that our crews knew to steer clear of them. One crew flying along was contacted by a
trawler. The Russians were always trying
to establish contact and this one claimed that he was an aircraft enthusiast. He pleaded with the crew to fly past his ship
so that he could take a photograph for his ‘collection album please sir.’ The aircrew on 92 squadron were always
perfect gentlemen so had to oblige and did fly past the trawler. In fact they were so accommodating they flew
as close as they possibly could to the trawler.
Perhaps if they hadn’t have been going supersonic the fellow may have
got a better photograph.
Seems that every valve on their spy ship exploded and a
diplomatic incident quickly evolved. Nothing
to do with us, we had a toga party to attend.
On the evening in question John and I took a sheet from our beds, cut a
hole for our heads, secured the garment with a belt and on the way to the theatre
club ripped branches from various bushes and made our headgear. It was a fantastic night. I haven’t a clue who the farewell party was
for, or who paid for all the drink and nosh, but thank you. About midnight I managed to find the bar,
which was proving difficult even though it was only ten feet away from our
table.
I ordered two brandy sours and was shocked to be asked for a
few hundred mills. “I thought the drinks
were free all night?” I asked. “They were,”
I was told. “But they’ve run out.” It would appear that everyone had the same
idea concerning the free drink. I reached
around for my wallet to discover that it wasn’t there. I explained my predicament to the barman who
waved me away. It may have been no
problem to him but I suddenly realised that it was a huge problem for me. I told John that I had lost my wallet and he
too realised the seriousness of the situation.
In my wallet was the combinations for the safes, which contained all the
war codes and guides, plus battle orders for the NATO air defence network.
Cyprus was bristling with people who weren’t there; there
were even aircraft flying every day,that were not there. The place was full of spooks and spies,
special forces and God only knows what else.
Because of the sensitivity of the information I had no choice but to
report myself for a failure in security.
I telephoned the police and reported the fact that I had lost my wallet;
it was only when I explained what the wallet contained that the copper, on the
other end of the telephone, seemed to take a blind bit of notice of me. He asked me if I understood what this would
mean. Unfortunately I did.
The only other person who had the safe combination was the security
officer; he would have to be called out as would the squadron commander. Because of the seriousness of the incident
the station security officer would have to be called out and the station
commander. All the safe combinations
would have to be changed and NATO would have to be informed so that they could
decide which codes and procedures should have to be changed if our security had
been breached. The copper told me to
return to my room and wait for further instruction.
John and I went back to our room and poor John knew that just
through being associated with me he was in deep shit too. We lay on our pits and let the alcohol take
over. I have to say that military police
do not have very good manners. Rather than
knock on our bedroom door and wait to be invited in they stormed in and began
tapping the metal ends of the beds with their batons. With our attention gained, they demanded to
know who Morris was. I admitted to being
myself and complied with their orders to get dressed and get outside in double
quick time. John had to come with me.
I opened my locker to pull some clothes on as pitching up in
a bed sheet might not be seen as being appropriately dressed. On lifting a clean shirt from my locker my
heart sank for sitting there, where I had hidden it, was my wallet. There’s no point in taking your wallet to a
free drink event, especially when it contains such important information, it would
be safer and more sensible to leave it in a secure locker in a locked room. I could see the deep and dark hole they were
going to throw me in open up beneath my feet.
I told John who expressed his belief that I was a fecking idiot or words
to that effect.
We went down to the waiting police and climbed in to the back
of their land rover. I was wondering
where they were taking us as we were driving away from the technical site and
heading in to the married quarters patch.
My heart sank, for this meant that it would be MI6 at least who would be
questioning us. The land rover pulled up
outside a small bungalow and we were told to get out. We were told to approach the front door and
the land rover reversed away.
I knocked on the front door.
It swung open and an RAF copper was standing there with two bottles of
beer. As he said “Morris you little bastard,”
I got the feeling that I knew him. I took
the beer and had a swig. “I knew it was
you the moment you called last night,” said the copper. “I’ll never forget your voice.” Then it dawned on me, for the fellow had a
Dublin accent. It was the copper from
Valley who I had refused to snitch on. “I
owe you a big favour from Valley,” he said, confirming my assumption. “But what about…?” “I bet
you found your fecking wallet this morning,” he said, and I nodded, feeling the
lump in my back pocket just to be sure.
“Come on then,” he says.
“Let’s have a bit of breakfast.” “But
what about the report?” “Listen,” he
says. “I didn’t report a thing, there’s
nothing in writing. I knew you were drunk
and had probably left your wallet in your locker. You did the right thing though, and for all
these years I’ve wanted to be able to pay you back, so we’re even.” I promise you. I have never been so lucky in all my life and
perhaps there is some truth when they say ‘what goes around comes around.’ But perhaps more importantly, I had
discovered that perhaps not all military policemen were a bad lot.
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