By David Hall
I was listening to the radio this morning. The Four Apostles — Matthew, Mark, Ringo and John — were singing "It was 20 years ago today ..."
Well, maybe not exactly 20 years ago, and certainly not exactly this date, but you get the idea.
At the time, I was young, foolish, idealistic and "under detention". I was also underground, underfed and undergoing a session of sensory deprivation. People who pay to be put in float tanks for good of their souls, bank accounts and corporate images should try the real thing.
Northern Ireland 20 years ago was very much like — well, very much like Northern Ireland today. A province (okay, Ulster is the province) of heart-rending beauty and gut-wrenching ugliness, where roughly 3% of the population (official British figure) can't be prevented from being "disaffected" (official British Newspeak) by 10,000 regular army soldiers, 6500 members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, 8000 police officers and 4500 part-time police officers. That's a ratio of about 7:1 "peacekeepers" to "disaffected persons". How's that for efficiency?
Back to the sensory deprivation, or SD as it's affectionately known by its practitioners and victims.
I'd been picked up after an "incident" in which a comrade was killed and I was too badly shocked to do other than mutter "I'm sorry" over and over again to the brutal and licentious soldiery who surrounded me. Having failed to drive to the British from the Land of Saints and Scholars by blowing up an electricity substation in County Armagh, I was bundled, not too unkindly, into a helicopter and ferried God knows where. Details are hazy, and I've no desire to recall them through retrogressive hypnosis, drug therapy or rebirthing — though I tend to wax lyrical when I'm drunk.
After a few desultory questions (Who are you? Why are you? What the fucking hell do you think you were doing?), which I answered as eloquently as I could (Get fucked. Fuck off. Driving the minions of Perfidious Albion from the Emerald-Green Purlieus of Holy Mother Ireland), I was transferred by bus — I swear, a bright blue single deck Ulsterbus — to another barracks, taken down several flights of stairs, stripped naked and left for a couple of hours. Nice of them to give me time to get my story straight, I thought.
But the Brits weren't interested in a story. They had two bodies — one dead, one shit-scared — and were interested in "good press". Or at least in a media release along the lines of "Our glorious freedom-loving Peoples Army today, with the aid of the glorious freedom-loving peoples police, detained important factions of the hateful anti-democratic terrorist forces ..."
But — they didn't ask me anything. They'd got hold of a live, honest-to-Jesus, dyed-in-the-wool, glass-blown terrorist, and all they wanted to do was hurt him.
So. After my couple (I think) of hours' meditation, two large, low-browed Royal Marines came into the room (cell, place of incarceration, whatever), assisted me to my feet by the application of boots to my body, and requested me to stand three feet from the wall opposite the door, on my toes, place my arms above my head, and lean forward. In American parlance — assume the position.
This meant I was spread-eagled, fingers touching the wall, and not particularly comfortable. (I would like to say that during this I was —shouting patriotic slogans and hurling defiance at the forces of occupation. However, I was actually demanding food, clothing and a solicitor — in my best Oxford accent). Unmoved, Britain's hardy sons put a hood, made of evil-smelling hessian, over my head, drawstring tight around my throat. I couldn't see, it was difficult to breathe, but, boy, could I hear.
I heard them telling me not to move. Then they hit me in the kidneys with hard things that hurt a lot. Of course, I moved, — downwards. That didn't please the RMs, and they showed it by booting me back into "the position", encouraging me with cries like, "Stand up you Mick cunt, or you are fucking dead". I complied.
Then the noise started. Not loud, at least not loud enough to burst your eardrums, but constant, pervasive and passive. I didn't listen to it, I heard it. It was there, and so was I, and damned if either of us was going to get out of there. Gratis, I was being treated to a regimen of painful posture combined with zero sensory input. Apart from white noise. Imagine Hell designed by Walt Disney, except you can't see it, only feel and hear.
White noise is fascinating. It fascinated me for hours. (White noise, by the way, is what you get if you've tuned in to Channel Zilch on the radio, or what you wake up to if you've fallen asleep in front of the TV, sort of like Sophie Lee only with less meaning.)
It's funny, but spread-eagled against a wall, in total darkness, getting only half the amount of oxygen you usually do, having your kidneys whacked from time to time, pissing and shitting yourself, the only sound in your universe a sort of nightmare tinnitus — well, it doesn't do much for your self-esteem or intellectual processes. At least, it didn't for mine.
I didn't go into fugue, dream of home, formulate plans for revenge or do anything other than hope it might end. Although I could hear fine, I don't think the incoherent whimpers, moans and occasional curses could really be heard outside my hood world. Not even when done in my best Oxford accent. The sheer impotence was the worst thing, even counting the ugly things they did to my testicles.
In fiction, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Bulldog Drummond, Modesty Blaise, etc, escape in the "In one mighty bound he was free" mode. Sorry. They let me go. Really. Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die. After about 50 hours of hospitality, the Brits let me go. Don't ask why. Maybe it was my faultless Oxford accent ... "Gosh, golly, I say, you rotters" ... (although at the time the chief of staff of the Provisional IRA was an Englishman from the Midlands who rejoiced in the name of Sean MacStiophan, a Gaelicisation, if such a word exists, of Ian Stevens). Maybe they'd believed me when I'd said I was sorry. Maybe they didn't the bootnecks who kept hitting me, or maybe the white noise tape broke.
In any case, I hadn't told them a thing, except "Ouch", "Get fucked", "Please, no", and "Ouch" again.
In hindsight, I assume they released me so they could follow me to what they imagined would be the fount of all anti-British activity in Northern Ireland. Only I didn't know where it was. Sorry again.
Anyway, I was dumped, stark naked, in the middle of Hanna Street, just off the Skankhill Road (a very Protestant area), not feeling too good about myself, in the wee small hours. Luckily, I didn't look like an IRA gunman. I looked like a naked drunk, and when I finally staggered into a (Protestant) mission, they gave me a blanket, a cup of tea and a lecture on the evils of drink.
After two days in the Mater Hospital, where I discovered how long I'd been "missing on active service", and a further two weeks pissing blood, I was fine. I even took part in another "incident" or two over the next couple of years. You can see today how successful those "incidents" were.
Twenty years later, I'm 40, I'm safe, I'm in Australia. I never go to Mother Mo Criodh Irish Nights. My blood still boils (okay, simmers) at the thought of British occupation. I can laugh — or at least smile wryly — at myself, and even my dead comrades (and I know they join in).
But I can't listen to the ABC after "Advance Australia", and even the hissing of the waves on the beach makes me shudder a bit.