Military Planning

A short story about an attempt to arrange a visit to see family in Northern Ireland

In 1991, Whilst I was based at HMS Dryad as Quartermaster, I decided to visit relatives in Northern Ireland. My gran was getting old and I didn't think she would be around for much longer so I thought I'd better make the effort.

I spoke to my Divisional Officer who advised me how to apply to travel to Northern Ireland and I filled in the relevant paperwork and handed it in. 

   

Eventually, a signal arrived from HQ Land Forces Northern Ireland regarding my travel intentions and My D.O. came to speak to me about it. Essentially I was granted permission to travel to Strabane in Co. Tyrone but was ordered to report to Rockwood on arrival.   Neither I nor my D.O. had any idea where or even what Rockwood was. In fact, nobody I spoke to had any idea and so I was initially stuck just trying to find out what reporting to Rockwood would actually entail.

   

My D.O. eventually contacted HQLFNI and ascertained that Rockwood was an army barracks in Omagh which is some 20 or so miles from Strabane.  Believing that my Catholic family members in Strabane would likely not be willing to drive to an army barracks in Omagh, I asked my D.O. and other assembled matelots in the guardhouse

 what my travel options would be. Steve Barret, the Leading Seaman Gunner of the armoury, helpfully suggested I could simply fly to Londonderry and get a black cab. Not wishing to be hooded, beaten and shot in the head by an IRA terrorist, I immediately discounted this option.

   

I was then informed by an old hand hanging round the guardhouse that the army provided transport from airports for servicemen and their discreet helpdesk could readily be identified by the civilian clothing, short haircuts and desert boots of those manning it and waiting at it for service. Again, I demured on the grounds that I didn't want to be involved in a mass terror incident.

   My D.O. who had nipped away to his office whilst the brainstorming was going on, returned to inform me that the army also offered a transport service and gave me a number on which they could be reached to arrange transport for myself. This seemed ideal and I duly took the number and dialled the numbers into the telephone handset. Mission accomplished. Except it wasn't.

   At the other end of the phone, the ringing continued for an age until eventually it was answered by someone shouty and apparently pressed for time. I immediately wondered whether I had been given the number for the barrack toilets and had interrupted an important drop off.

   "Hello!" I said cheerily. "My name is Leading Seaman McPherson and I have arranged to visit...." I was cut off in mid flow by the human bellows on the other end.

   

"I'll stop you right there." He interrupted, urgently. "This isn't a secure line." 

"Oh". I replied, puzzled. "Well I was given this number by HQLFNI to ring and arrange transport."

"Well they've given you the wrong number. This isn't the number you want. The number you want is..." He sounded irritated but proceeded to give me another telephone number which was, he assured me, the actual secure line to arrange transport in Northern Ireland.

   I thanked him for his help and hung up, leaving him to his ablutions and promptly entered the numbers he had given me into the telephone. After a similar lengthy wait, the phone was answered by another shouty person and I began to recount my reason for calling once again.

 

  "I'll stop you right there!" He said with rather more urgency than I was expecting.

"This isn't a secure line!" I immediately began to strain my hearing to ascertain whether there was the sound of barely concealed sniggering in the background. There wasn't, but the lack of  nasal, childish giggling being unsuccessfully stifled from behind the loosely closed fingers of a hurriedly raised hand did nothing to assuage my suspicion that I was being made the victim of a prank.

  

Again, I assured the person on the other end of the line that I had been given this number by a colleague of his at HQLFNI and that I needed to arrange transport. He advised me not to give any more details of my travel plans but then gave me a third number to call, assuring me  that this would indeed be the number I needed to call and arrange transport for myself.

 

I thanked him for his assistance and replaced the handset in its' cradle, thus ending what would turn out to be my last conversation with anyone from HQLFNI.   I entered the number I had been given into the telephone and waited until eventually the 

ringing tone began which continued until I ran out of patience and hung up the call. Over a period of two weeks, I rang the number repeatedly at different times of the day and night and was only ever rewarded for my efforts with the eternally disappointing sound of an unanswered  call until, one morning, at 03:00, I rang the number and it was engaged.

   I gave up and cancelled my plans to travel, which turned out to be quite fortuitous as the week I was supposed to be there, there were two separate bombings and a terrorist attack in Strabane.

 

   I didn't go to Northern Ireland until after I left the navy and travelled over with my 

family in early 1995. I drove my own car and went on the ferry. I didn't report to Rockwood or go anywhere near Omagh.