Sunday '72

Sunday ‘72

I stood at the corner of Rossville and William with an umbrella, staring at the leaden sky which seized the morning sunlight over Derry. The biting January wind had made me wished I had brought gloves, and the cold rain had greeted my return to the Bogside with an almost pernicious air. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. The marine smell of the River Foyle and the Northern Sea filled my nostrils and expanded my lungs with an unforgettable scent. I exhaled slowly while my mind tuned in to the sounds that surrounded me: the low hum distant traffic, the harsh pierce of the whistling wind, and finally my granddaughter, Sherry who had managed in her recalcitrant way to let her accompany me on my endeavor.  She shivered and clung on to my coat as the wind began to sting even more.

We continued down Rossville along the sidewalk which was littered with flower petals of various colours and sorts that had been dismantled by the seething Ulster wind. With each step I took closer I felt an inwardly rush to turn—to turn and run back. But I felt if I did that I knew I would never return, and I would prove to myself that I was lesser than the demons I had created.

The streets where partially empty, with only the occasional automobile and cyclists making an appearance. They were too empty for me. I felt as if all of Derry was in hiding, staring at the scarlet “A” I had branded on me that Sunday afternoon some thirty years back. It didn’t feel right being here, I felt intrusive, unworthy. Again I felt that fleeting desire come over me as I stopped less than ten meters from the memorial. There were more flowers than I had anticipated, and from a distance it looked as bouquets were sprouting from the ground up.
“Papa, the pretty flowers, I want to see the flowers.” Sherry whined, reminding me of her presence. I stared down at her and saw her standing on the tip of her toes as she tugged my coat, pointing at the vivid colours ahead. “Flowers Papa.”
I noticed how little had changed in the city that had an erstwhile industrial prominence. Now, as it was in ’72, an unkempt, rustic city that any Irishman would be proud to call home, but any outsider would be apt to pass it over on holiday. A city divided by nationalism and religion, a city embedded with unionist fanatics and peaceful minds who would rather go about their day than hear of another death for a lost cause.  Once this city was at the forefront of the IRA movement, a hotbed for protest in which I can remember all too clearly; the rocks and cocktails, rubber bullets and broken heads.
*
It was too cold for this shite, it really was. My hand was nearly frozen to the handle of the M-14 as the crowd began to fill William and Rossville heading towards Free Derry Corner. Men young and old, women, even the little ones had been dragged into this debauchery by parents too unloving to understand the severity of a problem created by themselves. I had always told myself that the real problem lie with those who couldn’t accept the British in Northern Ireland and not just the Catholics in their entirety, but I never met a catholic who spoke of peace or anything other than a united Ireland.

By five to four, the crowd was near capacity. Several trucks had been brought in and men stood on the back with megaphones speaking in a frenetic manner about the oppression of Catholics by the British, and liberation of Northern Ireland, filling them with false hopes out of the back of a lorry. 
By four the march had dispersed.  Still however, there was a group of small hooligans who launched rocks and fire grates over the barricades. We responded with usual protocol and fired several rounds of rubber bullets while the water cannon was used to suppress the more persistent fools. Purple dye stained and marked the hooligans. At four ten we where given the order to step in front of the barricades and make arrest.
*
I took a few steps forward towards the street corner, looked up across the streets, and then took another few steps to the right. I knew I found the spot because my stomach churned as if the view sparked an atavistic sickness that I felt only on that afternoon, a day I thought I’d never live, even as a soldier in the era of Vietnam. I could still vision the barricades, the people; feel the coldness in the air, an air that was pregnant with ill portents.
The wind picked up again as I stood in the empty street on Free Derry corner, fighting off the urge to grab Sherry and leave the place; escape hell .

*
The crowds tone changed to a deep bellowing of disgust as we made our way past the concrete barricades to make our arrest. More rocks where thrown our way as we rounded the troublemakers up and cuffed them. I remember checking the time before I logged the arrest when two noises every soldier knew rang from nearby. Two rounds fired and the crowd went silent for the longest second. Then more shots where fired as several Paras began unloading rounds and running back behind the barricades.
I panicked as I pointed my rifle and looked for shooters, scanning the crowd for Provos. I searched the windows and the bushes but all I saw where people running, screaming, crying. More shots ripped through the crowd from our side and more men continued firing. There was what seemed an continual shower of ear-crunching explosions, save a brief silence where two men changed magazines before firing again.
I panicked. I pointed my rifle again and fired 19 rounds. Three aimed at a figure in a window that led into an overlooking flat. Sniper? Seven fired towards shrubbery where a group of people lay on their stomachs, whether firing, hit, fearful or already dead to this day I don’t know. Four shots went astray and tagged a lad smeared with purple dye. He fell to the street in a pool of blood.
I kept firing. Five more rounds struck two more individuals; one in a roman collar, the other ran in front of me and left himself helpless. He fell in agony clutching the side of his torso. The shots continued before the order was given to hold fire. What ensued was a terrible afternoon chorus of keening and cries for help. In an instant that lasted twenty minutes 107 high-velocity 7.62mm. shots had been fired by our men, including myself. In the streets of Derry lie dead a baker’s dozen, and eighteen more wounded.
*
In the weeks following Bloody Sunday, the twenty-four soldiers accused of firing and killing the 13, and wounding 18 others, where the subject of an inquiry by Lord Widgery. By him, we were told that the decision “was made in good faith by an experienced officer,” and that we had came under direct fire from demonstrators and snipers. No one could agree that IRA members had made their way into the crowd, and no one could agree that that our Para division was fired upon first. The only agreement was that over twenty minutes we fired and one civilian after another fell to the pavement.

Some 32 years later I finally decided to return to execution grounds of 13 innocent men and women, with my granddaughter, who hopefully will never live to see such violence. Maybe one day she’ll know her papa was a murderer, and she has every right to.  The same right the Irish men and women of Ulster had taken away when the British once again decided they knew what was best for the Irish. Through their words,our words, their acts became just, fair and best by the necessary means. Any criticism was placed as an emotional response to a willful misunderstanding and the English Crown of Thorns was shoved even deeper onto the heads of those in Northern Ireland, and the results of Bloody Sunday was just another fair and just spit in the face by an endless torture I was every much apart of. I’ll never renounce my heritage, or my people; Mancunian and proud. Glory, Glory Man United.
I came back to face my demons and did nothing more. I stood in front of the tall memorial and read the 13 names aloud before reaching into my coat pocket.
“Papa, do you have flowers?”
“Of course I do lass.”