The Sixteen Read online

  ‘’Ere ’eard the good news, Geordie?’ he said in his strong cockney accent.

  ‘Wh-what’s that?’ The only good news I could be given was that they were shipping me back home!

  ‘They’re only settin’ us bloomin’ free this weekend. We can go down to the bloody beach on our own! Well, that’s not strictly true, there ’as to be at least three of us, an’ one of us will ’ave to carry a rifle. You coming, mate?’ I shook my head. ‘You’ll ’ave to come otherwise we won’t be able to go, there ’as to be three of us! C’mon, it’ll be a larf!’

  Some great news! It certainly didn’t cheer me up; all I wanted was to get back home, away from the heat, the flies, the smells and the deadly dull routine which had set in during our first couple of weeks at the camp. So far, we hadn’t been given any proper recreational time since we arrived and so this first ‘weekend off’ was an eagerly anticipated event, and most of the guys wanted to go to the local beach about a couple of miles from the camp.

  Although in general I got on well with people, I wasn’t really ‘one of the lads’ – I didn’t fit in. I didn’t drink at all, had never tasted the stuff, whereas they all drank a lot. I was very self-conscious about my stammer and tended to keep to myself. I was also very disillusioned with army life, which to me appeared to consist of endless navvy work, then going out to get blind drunk afterwards. Luckily, the two lads I shared a tent with, Bill and Dave, were good fun. The three of us got on very well and shared a lot of laughs.

  The two of them kept on at me, pestering me to go with them.

  ‘Come on, Geordie, it’ll be a laugh!’

  ‘C’mon, mate, ’ave some fun!’

  In the end they convinced me to go with them and so, when Saturday morning came, we grabbed a couple of blankets to take with us, as we’d been warned that the sand got so hot you couldn’t lie on it. Before we were allowed to leave the camp, we had to report to the ‘stupid little sergeant’ who woke us every morning. He gave us a lecture on what to expect when we got to the beach and what time we had to be back. Then he went on about making sure that we kept covered up and didn’t get badly sunburned, or fire the damned rifle by mistake. Though what the hell they thought we’d be able to do with the three rounds we’d been issued, was beyond me!

  After this lengthy talk, he eventually let us go and as we left the camp we felt as though we had just been let out of prison and rejoined ‘normal’ life once more. If it hadn’t been for the fact that we were carrying a rifle, we could easily have forgotten that we were soldiers. We were just a group of young lads laughing and joking together as we walked along, cheered by the prospect of having some ordinary fun.

  We were all wearing standard army-issue shorts, short-sleeved army shirts, white socks and black sandshoes. The shorts were horrendous – huge, baggy things that flapped around our knees like something a music-hall comedian would wear. In an attempt to get these terrible things to look half decent, most of the lads paid a local Greek bloke to take them in; this reduced the flapping effect and made them look a helluva lot smarter. Unfortunately, as new arrivals, we hadn’t been given the opportunity to either buy any suitable clothes or have these alterations done yet, so we flapped our way along the hot dusty road.

  It took about twenty minutes to get down to the beach, which was a couple of miles away at Episkopi. There were troops everywhere, all heading in the same general direction. Those of us who’d only recently left Britain in the middle of winter were still becoming acclimatised to the weather and to us it was baking hot, yet the summer hadn’t even started in earnest yet. We couldn’t get to the beach quickly enough. All we wanted to do was get into the water to cool ourselves down.

  Eventually, we came to a fairly long tunnel that had been blasted through the huge rock cliffs. On the top of these rock faces were a number of houses, which were used as married quarters. The tunnel was dark and dank, but once we got through to the other side a beautiful, golden sandy beach appeared in front of us. The sea was an incredibly bright blue colour that I had never seen before, its surface sparkling and glinting in the fierce sunlight. It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie.

  The long, wide golden bay stretched off into the distance to the left of the tunnel and formed a crescent-shaped bowl that was surrounded on three sides by steep, craggy cliffs. Also to the left of the tunnel, and some way from its entrance, was a golf course for officers’ use only. The track from the tunnel continued, across a wide area lightly covered with scrub, towards a cluster of huts standing on the beach itself. These huts sold refreshments, cold drinks and hot dogs, although God knows it was hot enough without hot food too. You had to run like hell over the beach to the water, as the sand was so hot it actually burnt the soles of your feet.

  The layout of the beach was just as the sergeant had described it, divided into sections: one for officers and their families near to the tunnel, one for other ranks, and a further section for families and children out of sight of the surrounding hills and possible snipers.

  Apparently, there had been a number of occasions where shots had been fired at servicemen on the beach and we’d been told to keep the rifle with us at all times. This meant one of us carrying the rifle just in case we had to defend ourselves and taking it in turns to keep watch while the others swam, and was the reason we’d been warned to always go swimming in groups of at least three.

  We made our way along the crowded beach, away from the officers’ area, and found a spot about one hundred yards from one of the refreshment huts, which was covered with ‘Coca-Cola’ signs. By the time I’d laid the blankets out on the sand, Bill had already stripped down to his trunks and run off towards the sea.

  ‘Stay ’ere, Geordie, with the rifle an’ our gear,’ Dave said. ‘I’ll go an’ get some cold drinks an’ sandwiches. We can go an’ join ’im later!’

  I lay on the blanket using Bill’s clothes as a pillow, and idly watched a nearby group of blokes who were playing a noisy game of volleyball. Dave was only away a few minutes but when he got back sweat was pouring from him. He plonked down on the blanket beside me.

  ‘Gordon Bennett,’ he panted. ‘It’s hot enough to fry a bleedin’ egg!’

  ‘Well, wh-why don’t you go and join B-bill for a s-s-swim, the w-water looks g-great?’ I told him. ‘I’ll w-watch our g-gear and go when you g-get back b-but don’t b-be all day, I don’t w-want to b-be roasted alive!’

  ‘Okay, Geordie. Cheers, mate.’ He winked and ran off.

  I sipped the ice-cold drink and rubbed the bottle across my forehead and chest to help cool me down. For the first time since I’d arrived on the island, things were starting to look up a bit and I thought that if this was the way most weekends were going to be spent, then my time in the army might not be too bad after all. Although I felt a little more relaxed, I was still very homesick and missed my mother and sisters a great deal. Knowing that it would be at least eighteen months before I saw them again just made it worse: a year-and-a-half on this godforsaken island!

  I finished my drink and lay back. It was growing even hotter now and the beach was packed with groups of off-duty servicemen lounging about while others played football or volleyball, and in the cordoned-off family area, the married men sunbathed and picnicked with their families. It was very easy to spot any new arrivals from England: they were generally lily-white and looked like ghosts and until the three of us had arrived on the beach we’d imagined that our newly acquired suntans made us look like bronzed Hollywood film stars. But now looking around at the host of well-tanned bodies, I could see that Dave, Bill and I still easily fell into the ‘ghost’ category!

  Getting sunburned was considered a serious offence and NCOs constantly warned us about the dangers of getting burnt, and how much damage the strong sun, and its reflection off the sand and sea, could do to our eyes. To help prevent this, we’d each obtained what passed in those days for army-issue sunglasses.

  These consisted of a long piece of celluloid with a v-shap
ed cut-out and a small hole at each end through which a rubber band was tied. When you put the band over your head, with the ‘v’ inverted over the bridge of your nose, the plastic wrapped around your cheeks and shielded your eyes very effectively. Generally, drivers of motorcycles and open vehicles used these as protection against dust and insects, but the plastic in theirs was clear, unlike the pair that I now put on. These had been modified and the clear strip replaced by an almost opaque layer of dark, bottle-green plastic. In fact, they were so dark that I could barely make out the nearby game of volleyball and the guys playing it, who now only appeared as shadows, while the rest of the beach disappeared into a green haze.

  A figure emerged from the direction of the volleyball game and came into my line of vision, gradually growing larger and larger as it neared me. I watched him lazily until, eventually, he blocked out the sunlight, casting a shadow over me. I removed the sunglasses in order to see him better but at first couldn’t make out his features as the sun was behind him.

  ‘Hiya, John, or should I say Geordie!’ he said as he flopped down beside me on the edge of the blanket.

  Before I could speak, he raised his hand and said, ‘Don’t say anything. Just listen for a moment. Do you remember a chap talking to you in the gym back in Blighty during your basic training? He told you that you would be contacted in Stratford, but something happened back then and we couldn’t make contact with you at that time, then your lot were shipped over here. Well, Geordie, I am that contact!’

  I’d never seen him before and the fact that he knew my name took me by surprise. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about at first, then suddenly it came back to me and I remembered.

  ‘Oh, th-that’s r-right. Y-y-y-es, I r-remember the g-guy,’ I stammered.

  My eyes had acclimatised to the bright sunlight by now and I saw him clearly for the first time. He was an extremely fit, good-looking bloke, deeply suntanned and dressed like the rest of us in army-issue shorts, although his had been tailored to fit him very well.

  ‘How would you like to have a change, a chance to do something more exciting?’ He paused before carrying on. ‘Think about it for a moment, would you like a drink?’

  ‘W-well, y-yes, OK,’ I replied as he stood up and dashed off.

  I didn’t know what to think! I wasn’t quite sure just what he meant by ‘excitement’ but I was so fed up with the way things were going anyway, I’d have done anything to get out of the boring routine back at camp and the nightmare prospect of another eighteen months of the same stretching ahead of me. From what he’d said, I had visions of maybe being transferred to an active unit where, perhaps, I might be patrolling the streets. I felt that anything would be better than what I was currently doing but I didn’t understand why he would need to meet me so secretly for that.

  As I looked over to where he stood at the Coke stand my mam’s words came to me: ‘Shy bairns get nowt, John. If you don’t push yourself you won’t get anywhere.’

  I watched the guy now running back towards me, a Coke bottle in each hand, and in that brief moment decided to take a chance and go along with whatever he said when he returned. What had I to lose?

  ‘Y-yeah, OK, I’ll g-give it a g-go!’ I told him before he had time to sit down or speak.

  He smiled slowly and handed me one of the cold bottles.

  ‘Great stuff! Right, we’ll be in touch soon. Catch you later!’ And with that ran off in the same direction he’d come from.

  I was surprised at him leaving so quickly as I’d expected him to tell me more and maybe arrange the date and time for another meeting. I stood up and looked around to see if I could see him anywhere but he’d completely disappeared. Replacing my sunglasses, I lay back on the blanket and thought about our odd conversation. I got the impression that he could have been an officer as he was very well spoken and sounded well educated and confident. But I knew absolutely nothing about him and really he’d told me little more than the guy in the gym back at Wrexham had.

  For security reasons, we’d been warned to be extremely cautious in our dealings with strangers and what we discussed with them. There was a lot of terrorist activity on the island and spies and infiltrators were all around, looking for information which could be useful to them. But, for some strange reason that I couldn’t explain, I instinctively felt that I could trust this guy. Besides, I thought, he must have something to do with the army otherwise how was he going to be able to change things for me. It was weird though, the way in which he’d known all about the guy who’d spoken to me back at Wrexham and the supposed contact at Stratford-on-Avon.

  Just then, Bill and Dave ran up the beach and flopped down beside me on the blanket breaking my chain of thought.

  ‘Eeh t’water’s great, Geordie, you want t’get in there!’ Bill said.

  ‘’Oo was that geezer you were talking to?’ Dave asked casually as he dried himself down.

  ‘Oh, him. He’s j-just one of the lads from the c-c-camp, Dave,’ I replied, which apparently satisfied their curiosity, as they didn’t pursue the matter further and the whole thing was so strange that I pushed it to the back of my mind.

  It was very hot now and my turn to go for a swim, and the shimmering sea looked so cool and inviting. So leaving them in charge of the rifle, I headed over the scorching sand down to the water.

  Everyone was having a good time, noisily playing games, splashing one another and generally larking about in the warm water – so different from the North Sea, which was freezing even at the height of summer. I’d borrowed a pair of flippers and, putting them on, swam out to a wooden pontoon anchored a little way off the beach from where people were diving into the crystal-clear water.

  There were a number of porpoises (or dolphins – I never could tell the difference) swimming around the pontoon. They really seemed to enjoy being near to the people swimming and bumped into us with their noses. Now and then, someone would shout ‘Shark!’ for a joke and everyone in the water would panic and frantically look around for the telltale dorsal fins. For all I knew, the porpoises could well have been sharks and, at first, they scared the life out of me!

  The three of us stayed on the beach until the end of the day when everyone gradually began to pack up their belongings and head back to the camp. As the light quickly began to fade, we reluctantly prepared to leave too – our day of freedom seemed to have been so short. Still stripped to the waist, we headed back towards the camp through the cool, dark tunnel, our voices echoing as we laughed and joked. It was still very warm and we walked along to the sound of crickets chirping in the velvety night air. In the distance, the lights at the camp gates shone brightly while the rest of the camp remained in virtual darkness, lit only by a few scattered light bulbs.

  As we walked back up the dusty track, Dave and Bill chatted to one another, discussing whether to go to the NAAFI when they got back and I began to think again of my conversation with the man on the beach. The total strangeness of it all really hit me. It was weird to think that someone could be ‘watching me’ all of the time, as the guy had implied. I went over and over what he’d said in my mind, as Bill and Dave chatted on by my side. By the time we reached our tent, I realised just how chuffed I was to have been singled out this way; to be considered a bit special by someone. Although unsure of what it was all about, I was also quite excited at the thought of having the opportunity to do something ‘different’.

  It was a warm sticky night and I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. The conversation on the beach kept on going through my mind. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me: the plane I’d been travelling in from England had been forced to make an emergency landing in Malta and as a result our original destination of Beirut had been changed, which was how we’d ended up in Cyprus. Or so we believed, you could never tell with the army.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I thought, ‘how did he know that I would be here? Would he have made contact with me in Beirut if I’d ended up there? Had that been the original plan? Who the hell are
these people and how did they get all this information? And just why have they chosen me?’

  I spent a restless night worrying about just who I might be dealing with and what I was possibly getting myself into. My brain buzzed with a hundred-and-one questions and I couldn’t sleep.

  During the early hours there was a loud commotion from a nearby tent, a lot of screaming and yelling. The racket jolted me out of a fitful doze and I rolled out of bed to see what was going on. But, in my haste, I’d completely forgotten about the mosquito net over my bunk and immediately became entangled in it as I stood up. Struggling to break free of the damn thing, I tripped over the duckboards on the ground, overbalanced and landed heavily in a heap on top of Bill, who was sound asleep in one of the other bunks. He instantly woke up in a major panic.

  ‘Wh-what is it? What’s going on, Geordie, what’s happening, what’s that noise outside, are we being attacked or what?’

  ‘G-give us time, Bill, m-man, I’m t-trying to g-get out of this flaming n-net!’

  Eventually I managed to rip a hole in the material, and peered out through the tent flaps. Two guards were dragging a guy from a nearby tent and judging by the racket he was making, he was in agony. As they passed beneath the light in the middle of the Parade Square I saw what looked like a huge balloon on his back. In fact, the majority of his back was covered in one enormous blister, which made him look like the hunchback, Quasimodo.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, Geordie?’ Bill asked again.

  ‘Christ, Bill, you w-wanna s-see the size of the b-blister on this g-guy’s b–back!’ I replied.

  ‘Serve t’noisy bugger right,’ Bill grumbled. ‘We were warned about getting burnt. He’s in trouble now; he’ll be in for a court martial. At least we might be able to get some bloody kip.’ And, satisfied that we weren’t about to be attacked by terrorists, he lay back down and went back to sleep.