LITMIR.BIZ

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address, and before I knew it, I was to be charged with rioting.

      I couldn’t phone anyone at the regiment, as they were all on leave, but went to the RUC station on Spencer Road the next day to make a statement. I met with an inspector who, despite expressing sympathy, told me I shouldn’t have been in the area and that being a soldier made it all the more serious. I was to be reported to the military police at Ebrington Barracks, who would pass on their report to my commanding officer at Bovington. I spent the next two weeks reading and hearing all about the British Army in Derry, the RUC, the thirteen people that had been murdered on Bloody Sunday, the IRA, a guy called Martin McGuinness, and Sinn Féin.

      It was at this time that I discovered that Jim Wray, my classmate and friend, had been one of those murdered by the Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday. I felt sick for days, but worse still was when I found out that Seamus Cusack, my friend from Melmore, had also been shot dead in 1971. People were quite adamant that he had not been armed, was not a member of any organisation and had in fact been murdered. It all seemed insane to me; Derry had gone mad. I couldn’t wait to get out of the city and away to my new posting.

      Back at Bovington, just before the intake returned for autumn 1972, a letter arrived from the military police at Ebrington Barracks addressed to the commanding officer. The chief clerk in the base called me to his office, closed the door and smiled, ‘Look what I got.’ As chief clerk it was his duty to open all mail addressed to the colonel. I pulled my chair closer to his desk as he opened the envelope. He read the letter, which had two documents attached to it, put it down and stared at me looking pensive. ‘I think you’re in trouble,’ he said. It was the report of my alleged rioting in Derry.

      I explained to him what had actually happened and he went off to have a word with the colonel. This wasn’t a very good start to my new job, particularly as I hadn’t even met the colonel yet. As it happened, Colonel Green from the Royal Tank Regiment turned out to be very understanding and told me to forget about it and that he would have a word. In the time I served there it was Colonel Green who took me under his wing, mentored me and taught me how to respond to the trials and tribulations of being his assistant.

      ***

      Mary was a great manager of our finances, and she was able to save enough for us to go back to Derry for Christmas. In early December we did some seasonal shopping and bought a large truck with bricks in it for Mark and a fluffy little teddy bear for Sharon. She was a little young for Christmas, but we promised one another that next year when she better understood the festival she would have a bigger present. Sharon was a lovely, happy baby, and had both of us wrapped around her little finger. Indeed, one night when she was a little restless Mary asked me to fetch the teddy bear to settle her down. But I refused, saying that ‘it will only spoil Christmas Day for her’.

      On the morning of 16 December 1972, the day we were due to set off for Derry, tragedy struck our family. We had packed our cases and loaded the car the night before, ready for an early start. It was frosty that night but the house was warm and we all slept well. I rose first and went down to make Sharon a bottle while Mary got Mark and Sharon out of bed and dressed. I was standing by the cooker when I heard an almighty scream from upstairs. I dropped the kettle and ran to see what had happened. As I reached the doorway of Sharon’s little room, Mary was screaming at the top of her voice and shaking uncontrollably. I grabbed her by the waist to stop her. ‘Mary, for God’s sake what’s wrong?’ She turned and, with tears streaming down her face, pointed towards Sharon’s cot. I stepped past her and walked over to where my baby lay. I touched Sharon’s cold face and lifted her into my arms. She wasn’t breathing, so I laid her on the floor, tilted her head back and began giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation. Mary knelt beside me, rubbing the back of Sharon’s small, cold hand and whispering encouraging words, ‘That’s it, Willie! She’s moving! Keep going!’ After five minutes or so I knew in my heart what Mary didn’t want to believe. Sharon was dead. I lifted her tubby little body and carried her down the stairs.

      ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘run down the lane to John Sawyer’s house and ask them to phone a doctor’. Mary ran out of the front door and I could hear her screaming, ‘Please, somebody help us. Please help us.’ After a minute I checked Sharon’s pulse again but there was no sign of life. I lifted her onto the sofa and covered her with a baby blanket. She looked as though she was asleep. I burst into tears, dropped to my knees beside her, and, holding her tiny limp hand, began shouting at the Sacred Heart picture that hung above the fireplace, ‘No! Please God. No!’ Mary arrived back with Margaret Sawyer, John’s wife, who was a nurse at the local hospital. She pushed past me, went straight over to the sofa and checked Sharon for any signs of life. After checking the lifeless body, Margaret came over and put her arms around us saying, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Mary burst into tears and dropped to her knees shouting, ‘Oh God, no! Please don’t do this to me!’

      A few minutes later the doctor arrived and began examining Sharon. With a big sigh he stood up. ‘I’m afraid the baby is dead,’ he said. Mary collapsed onto the floor again, in a near faint, and when she came around she began screaming. The doctor asked me to hold her while he gave her an injection to sedate her, and after a few minutes Mary was fast asleep.

      ‘Daddy, are we nearly ready?’ said Mark, tugging at my sleeve. Poor Mark, with all that was happening I had forgotten all about him. I lifted him onto my lap and tried to explain what had happened, but at two years of age he just didn’t understand. He walked over to the sofa, where he was used to seeing Sharon lie, bent down and kissed her saying, ‘There now, there now.’ I burst into tears.

      Sometime later two police officers from Dorchester arrived and immediately started asking questions. Who discovered the baby’s body? Where was I at the time? When was the last time I saw her alive? When was she last fed? Who fed her? Have you still got the bottle? Where is the box with the baby food? On and on they went. I was cracking up and by this time Mary was awake and sobbing. Just then Sergeant Crabb, the local bobby, arrived and beckoned his two colleagues to the door. He had a quiet word with them and that was the last that we ever saw of them, although Sergeant Crabb walked us through the same questions, just for the record. Before he left, we asked Sergeant Crabb if he could contact the local police in Derry to deliver the sad news to Mary’s parents. The undertakers in High Street arrived later in a black Ford van and prepared Sharon’s body in the kitchen. Within minutes the undertakers were gone and we three were alone again. Mark had tears in his eyes and I held him. He was too young to say very much but he knew it was bad. I burst into tears, I just wanted to die. I felt so useless. How could God do this to us? I struggled through the rest of the day and managed to get Mary down to the phone box to call her mum. It was one of the most heart-breaking calls I’ve ever witnessed.

      Mary was unable to go to the funeral and couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Sharon being buried in the cold December ground. At the funeral parlour, the clerk gave me some wreaths, one from Colonel Green and his wife, another from Del Wennel, one from Jock and Steph, and one from Sergeant Crabb. Sharon’s small white coffin was lifted into the back of a black car normally used for weddings. I sat beside the coffin and we drove the short distance to the cemetery, just outside Dorchester. It was a very cold frosty morning, and it was at times like this that I realised the value of having your family and friends around you. Instead, here I was in England in a graveyard in the middle of nowhere, standing over a muddy hole in the ground. Beside me stood the old gravedigger and the local priest, Irishman Father Flynn, who was also padre to the local prison. The three of us gathered to celebrate the short life of Sharon Carlin. I felt so ashamed, she deserved better than this. I held back tears as the priest began his oration, white smoke from his breath rising into the frosty morning air as he prayed. The old gravedigger stood beside him, leaning on a shovel with his head bowed and his cap in his hand. The sound of crows echoed around the cemetery. ‘There always seems to be bloody crows at funerals,’ I thought. Within minutes the ceremony was nearing its end and we began lowering Sharon’s small white coffin into the ground. After a few more prayers the priest shook my hand and hobbled off to his car.

      I stood there, staring down at the silver cross on the coffin lid. When the first lump of muddy earth hit the casket I fell to my knees, sobbing like a baby. Until then I had been fairly strong, but the sound and sight of the earth on the coffin’s

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