Free The Loose Screw by Jim Dawkins Page B

Tiny and I got on really well. She could only have been about eight years old when I first met her, but I used to get more letters from her than I did from Natasha sometimes, and she always looked pleased to see me when I came home on leave.
    I was to see Natasha once more before I left for my first tour of Northern Ireland when I met her in The Napier Tavern in Greenwich. She told me later that she was trying to see if we could make another go of it at that meeting, but the truth of it was that I was still hurting after our last parting and couldn't bear to go through the same feelings again. We both parted that night and hoped that the other would subsequently make the first contact. For some possibly childish, stubborn reason, neither of us did. It was to be an act I would live to regret forever and it would be some nine years later before we would see each other again.
    Around November 1988 the battalion began its Northern Ireland training in preparation for the forthcoming tour to Fermanagh. I for one found this training the best thing I had done in the army to date. It was training for real to prepare us for a real-life scenario unlike the usual made up 'Russian' enemy we seemed to be fighting a constant battle with on training areas all over England.
    Just before the training began, I had another pleasant surprise in the form of the arrival of my other old pals, Simon Long and Steve Fairs at Dover. Simon had been posted in from Germany to join the battalions REME detachment, and Steve had volunteered his services from the Third Battalion Royal Green Jackets to help our own battalion get up to strength for the Ireland tour. This was great -the old gang was back in business. Simon's mum, Trisha, was none too pleased when she heard that all her 'boys' were going to Ireland together and didn't stop worrying or lighting candles at her local Catholic church for us until we all returned safely.
    The training itself was split into three phases. Phase one was the live firing phase during which we fired all manner of different weapons on a wide variety of different ranges at the army ranges along the beaches at Lydd and Hythe. Phase two was the urban warfare training, which comprised endlessly practising how to patrol in built-up areas and react to various incidents and threats and learning various other tasks that we would need to carry out such as setting up vehicle checkpoints and searching both people and vehicles. The final phase was to be held in the bleak Norfolk countryside where we would master the art of rural patrolling and reacting to various incidents in conditions similar to those we would encounter in Fermanagh.
    For the purpose of patrolling in Northern Ireland each platoon is split into two groups, one led by the platoon sergeant and one by the platoon commander. These two groups in turn are split into four-man teams made up of a lance or full corporal and three riflemen. My team was under our new platoon sergeant, Stan Bowes, who like myself was from south London but unlike myself was an excellent boxer who actually trained the very successful battalion boxing team for a number of years. He was also a very good soldier with many years of experience and previous tours of Ireland under his belt, so as a relatively inexperienced platoon we could not have wished for a better man to lead us. My team commander for the forthcoming tour was Corporal 'Ginge' Naylor, a highly experienced and dedicated man who truly loved the army and as such was both an excellent soldier and an extremely good and loyal friend. Ginge was an inspiration to us as a relatively young and inexperienced team, and we were to learn a lot from him and he was to become one of my closest and most trusted friends.
    Some years later I was devastated to receive the news that Ginge had collapsed and died in Cyprus while performing a short three-mile run while undergoing a rigorous personal training programme in preparation for his participation in