"Mary Likes Soldiers!"
In one Protestant area we regularly patrolled in Belfast soldiers were frequently invited in for "a cuppa". Perhaps in hindsight it was stupid, if not dangerous. There were regular shootings and incidents and we carried our gas masks, and CS gas grenades besides our usual armoury of Self Loading Rifles and Baton Guns. I don't think we carried our helmets too, but I'm not sure now.
There nine or ten men in my section. My Second in Command was Geoff Lucas. As we strolled down a leafy avenue a middle-aged motherly woman came out of her house and invited us in for a cuppa. I conferred briefly with Geoff and agreed to go in, leaving a couple of blokes outside.
I led the remaining eight blokes into hallway of the terraced house. It was a small house, the staircase was to the right and I saw the feet of another, elderly, woman making her way down as I passed into the living room.
The living room was homely, very tiny and warm. I had to make my way through the furniture, then around the back of a sofa, and then turn back on myself to get to the seats around the coal fire. Dressed in combat kit, flack jacket, wearing webbing and carrying weapons made movement very awkward.
Meanwhile, Geoff Lucas was the last to enter the house, and the elderly woman had reached the bottom of the stairs. She held out her hand to Geoff, who reciprocated. The woman snatched his hand and bent forward and bit him! Geoff was stunned! She then calmly reached her hand out to Pte Mortimer in front of Geoff who drew his hand back in self-defence.
Mortimer and Geoff passed a message up the line of soldiers like Chinese whispers. "She bit Geoff!" "That woman bit Geoff!" "Geoff got bit by the old woman!" Eight of the Light Infantry's finest, armed to the teeth, were now jammed into a small stiflingly hot sitting room, terrified of an old woman aged about 70. The old woman came into the room, with that strange glint in her eyes possessed by some unfortunate mentally disabled folk. She grinned and offered her hand out to eight cringing squaddies.
The middle-aged woman who had invited us into her home appeared from the kitchen with a tray of cups and a teapot. She put them down and smiled affectionately at the other woman and said "Oh, that's Mary," she vaguely made a motion by the side of her head, to indicate mental disorder, "She likes soldiers!"
Yea, we all thought, to eat! |
