Rifle Butt Diplomacy

 
The Rifle Butt Diplomats



We were sent home from the Borneo war of the so-called Confrontation in September 1963 and looked forward to some peace at home. We got peace but not for long. In the spring of 1964 trouble in our then colony of British Guiana suddenly flared. A river ferry had been blown up and a lot of people killed. Some were torn apart by the blast others were drowned and fed the Piranhas .Unrest was growing by the day and urgent action was needed. Few of us had ever heard of the country none of us could point to it on a map. South America was all we were told ‘people are killing each other and we've got to sort it.’ Shit I thought here we go again.
 
BG, as we called it, was divided along ethnic lines. People of African descent and people of East Indian heritage lived uneasily side by side. The Africans referred to the Indians as 'Coolies' and the Indians called the Africans 'Monkeys.'

The local police and the British Guiana Volunteer Force, part time thugs who posed as soldiers, were all of African descent. Murders, rapes and robberies were a daily occurrence. Killings were usually by shotgun or three foot cane cutting machetes called a cutlass's. The police stood by and watched it happen if the victims were Indian (Which mostly they were.)

We patrolled the streets of the capital Georgetown in a motley collection of vehicles we’d commandeered. Sergeant Major Fred’s briefing made me feel uncomfortable. ‘No round up the spout, safety catches kept on. Do not shoot the locals unless you have no choice. This ain’t Borneo you hairy arsed bastards.’  He had a sweet nature our Fred.
There were a couple of bombings in Georgetown, half a dozen dead but nothing too serious.

The first really bad incident came when we got a message of a bar fight in an outlying village. By the time we got there the ground floor of the bar was well ablaze. Fierce flames were running through the ground floor windows and licking under the wide wooden veranda.

The Indian couple who owned the bar were beside themselves wailing and trying desperately to get back in. It wasn't possible. Then at an open upstairs window a little girl of about six and her younger brother appeared. I’d never heard screams like it before and hope I never will again. The flames were making a loud crackling racket but above the din came their thin, high pitched screams, a soul-piercing sound of terror and utter despair. There was nothing we could do. Many of the blokes who had kids themselves were openly weeping. It was heartbreaking. Then with a crash a huge cloud of sparks erupted upwards. The floor had collapsed, the kids disappeared and the screams stopped abruptly.

There were to be many other nasty incidents in the months that followed. It got so I needed a drink of rum before going on patrol then some more when I came back in. Tom was affected pretty badly poor sod and was often drunk. We’d stick him in the back of the patrol vehicle and leave him there keeping him out of sight of the officers.

It wasn't all bad in BG though, far from it. We did a lot of things in the community like repairing bridges, fixing school roofs and playing football and cricket with local lads; hearts and minds stuff. We were invited to ‘jump up’s’ (parties) and met a lot of beautiful girls who were very ‘generous’ towards us. We just wished to hell these buggers would stop killing each other.

In 1968, three years after we’d returned home, Tom was medically discharged as unfit for further service. He’d gotten drunk one too many times, this time slashing his wrists. The ‘Troubles’ were starting in Northern Ireland then and, as an ex-soldier and a Catholic, he couldn't go home. He married a lovely lady but it ended in divorce. He couldn't hold a job down; he kept getting drunk and beating her up. Tom finally drank himself to death in 1992.

After my service in BG I thought I was going mad. I kept having nightmares, flashbacks and feelings of rage. I sometimes took it out on my family though I was never violent towards them. I ended up divorced and quite right, too. I wrote a poem about BG, it seemed to help putting it on paper like emptying the shit out of myself. It’s not much as poems go but it served its purpose.

The Rifle Butt Diplomats

I was twenty two naive and a little scared
For many dangers we had shared
Felt pity for the souls not spared
Dead in a ditch from shotgun wounds
Cutlass’s hacked the life from others

Mother and daughter lying raped, draped
Across a blood soaked bed
One with her throat cut one with no head
Their bodies silently accuse the sky
We were innocent. Why God, why?

Police all of one ethnicity, look on without pity
No point us arresting when no one’s attesting
To the crimes of these awful times
We try to make sense of it all
Answer each urgent call

Been in a war before but nothing like this
Can't sleep, can’t dismiss
Nightmare visions of my days
We soldiers became cynical, clinical
Administering justice of our own

We'd thump a head, break a bone
Rifle butt diplomacy it’s called
And, if you’re appalled,
Tough shit!
This was the reality of it:
 
We meet a man laughing in the street
Waving a cutlass, high on rum
Says ‘man I'm glad you've come
I ‘it me neighbour wit me cutlass
An’ im ‘and fell off ‘

He shows us the hand, starts to laugh
‘Damn, ‘im only a coolie man’
If we arrest him
He’s out in hours
But for this moment he’s all ours

Big Bill’s as mad as hell
Slams down his rifle butt
Upon the man's naked foot
I hear the scream, the crack of bone
I whack his head, he falls with a groan
“So you maim a man then brag and scoff?
Let’s hear you laugh that fucker off”

Me? I'm a peace keeper so it's said
With demons living in my head
Drink a bottle of rum ‘most every day
But those demons still won’t go away
And even after all these years
Sometimes, like now, I'm reduced to tears
What the hell was it all for?
British Guiana ‘64

Years later, at a veterans’ reunion, I was talking to an old friend. He mentioned he'd had similar reactions to mine. He said it was something called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I’d never heard of it at the time. It occurred to me whilst writing this that perhaps, in a way, we soldiers had been victims, too.