The Small Dog With a Big Personality (2 page)

Of course talking to a dog was quite different and it was here, in an environment of fear and hostility, that Rats came into contact with British soldiers for the first time. Like them he often patrolled the Ardross estate on the outskirts of Crossmaglen. It was his territory and where he ate and slept, although there was nothing visible to eat or to sleep on. The grim grey houses looked in on each other as if they were ganging up on anyone who dared step too close. Certainly the soldiers experienced a palpable sense of intimidation from each net-curtained window. There was rare comfort to be found there for a stray dog either, although Rats never gave up hope and never deviated from his daily routine: first an early morning tour of the houses, paying particular attention to the odd one or two where he had found or scrounged a scrap in the past.

Tour complete he headed for the wasteland that stretched like a no-man’s land beyond the houses. Nothing more than a bare patch of earth this place had once known grass and maybe there had even been a
playground for the children, but neglect and the persistent Irish rain had reduced it to part scrubland and quagmire. Tethered piebald horses left to fend for themselves dragged their dry lips over the ground in the hope that they could conjure up a blade of grass to eat. And stray dogs snapped at their hooves for sport. Rats set himself apart from the pack. He was always his own dog and that’s one reason why he endeared himself to the soldiers.

He could have attached himself to any of the British soldiers that served in Crossmaglen, and maybe he did in part, but the history of this mascot dog started to be plotted in 1978 thanks to 42 Commando Royal Marines. The regiment, assigned its six-month tour of duty in Armagh, decided to tolerate the playful antics of this persistent little dog and it all began with bootlaces. Rats loved them and the men admired this playful rust-coloured puppy-like animal for stepping forward and fearlessly lunging at the soldiers’ big black boots and making a grab for the long laces. The locals may have wondered why such a small dog didn’t fear a kick from those boots but he didn’t. It was fun and fun
was a big part of Rats’s personality. Anyone asked to give their first impressions of Rats would say ‘scruffy’! Then dirty, flea-ridden, revolting, determined, cheeky, charming, happy, intelligent and loyal to his friends. He was all of that and so much more besides. Corgi-like in looks and stature, Rats stood about eighteen inches off the ground on four sturdy legs. His body was as bristly as a broom head and his fox-like face was topped off by a pair of fox-like ears. And where he wasn’t coloured copper and brown on the top he was (after a bath) a dazzling white on his chest and underbelly. What 42 Commando saw when they first met Rats was the muddy, scruffy version, and not a puppy at all but a dog that had already seen six or seven years of life in the bomb-scarred border town. This dog had been born into the Troubles.

To find such a happy little dog in such a dismal place was a pleasant surprise to the soldiers, who had soon became accustomed to being largely ignored by the human residents of the town. The game of tugging bootlaces with this playful stray became a regular feature of the patrol of Ardross. After a short while the soldiers
even looked for the cheeky brown mongrel. They told their comrades to look out for him too. They didn’t need to feed him; he was happy to have their attention and he gave them a cheerful respite from their isolated duties. But it was Rats who decided that he was going to stay with his new friends and one day he simply followed them ‘home’.

Home, to the outside world, did not have many fireside comforts. The high steel fences, rolls of barbed wire and concrete towers of the British Army base in County Armagh looked forbidding by day and night. The site took in the old police station, which was clad with sheets of corrugated iron and hidden behind thick walls of barbed wire to protect the helipad. Offices, accommodation and the cookhouse shared the confines of the narrow building which just about had room for a small brown dog. His first bed was a blanket on the floor of the briefing room. His second bed was any vacant or warm and occupied bunk he could squeeze into.

It didn’t take long for Rats to settle in and soon he was a constant member of the Army’s daily patrols. He
had an unusual waddle rather than a walk but it didn’t hamper his speed in following the soldiers. His loyalty to his soldier friends was instant and he was quick to learn that he could be useful to the troops. When he was out on manoeuvres Rats would sense the approach of strangers and warned the soldiers with a soft growl. His canine sense of hearing being so much more acute than a human’s, the advance warning saved lives in an ambush situation. Soon Rats’s reputation as a lucky mascot spread and he was in demand by almost all brick commanders. Some saw a dog as a liability rather than an asset to a patrol, but one good experience with the dog was enough to convince them of Rats’s loyalty.

Regiments came and went in Crossmaglen. Faces changed with the arrival and departure of the ever-present helicopters that flew from dawn to dusk between six locations. Company commanders came over from the mainland four or five days ahead of their men. They had probably spent three or four months familiarizing themselves with the terrain and the problems they would face on arrival. Section commanders would be in position a week before the start of their
tour and finally the men of the three platoons that would form each company on duty arrived on site. The airlifting and dropping of the men was well rehearsed for security and accuracy: the helicopter dropped eight men in and lifted eight men out and repeated this until the operation was complete. As the men of 42 Commando Royal Marines departed in October 1978 they handed over to 2 Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, and brick commander Sergeant Kevin Kinton was one of two non-commissioned officers (NCOs) in the advance party. He was heading in for his first tour of Northern Ireland.

Like most soldiers arriving for the first time, the view of Crossmaglen from the relative safety of the helicopter made him wonder how it could be the same place his colleagues had described as a ‘hell on earth’. It looked so peaceful, not a soul on the streets and no sign of the dangers he had been preparing for. As his helicopter descended towards the helipad Kinton saw two Marines waiting to take their places on the ride out and two dogs waiting patiently in the shadow of the rotor blades. One was a large black Labrador, who was later
introduced as Fleabus, and the other a small, scruffy brown mongrel with perky ears and what looked like a grin on his face. Neither dog moved as Kinton landed and ran from the helicopter.

Following his orders he dumped his kit on his bunk, collected boots, flak jacket and battle kit from stores and made ready for duty. He left the base through the huge metal gates and took his first ground-level look at Crossmaglen. It looked less like the cosy village he had seen from the air. But that first night seemed quiet on the streets as the soldiers set up vehicle checkpoints – always a necessary security measure while the Army was carrying out a transfer of kit and building supplies, known as an Op Tonnage, from Belfast. The town was closed down. It was the only way to ensure the safety of the Army vehicles on the road. That night, Kinton caught sight of the little brown dog he had seen earlier at the helipad. This time he was at the heels of a Marine. The sight of the man, never mind that he was in battle dress, with a dog at his side, seemed so normal. Kinton recalled: ‘I thought, how could death and danger be equated with such a familiar sight?’

After two hours on duty Kinton could sleep for two before going back to his duties on the vehicle checkpoint. In the morning his company commander, Major Charles Woodrow QGM, requested Kinton report to the Marine brick commander he was to replace. The Marine knew there was only one way to explain the complexities and the dangers of patrolling the streets of Crossmaglen and that was to go out there. Two Marines and Grenadiers Sergeant Kinton and Sergeant Keith Regan, the medic, made up the brick that morning. And there was one addition: the brown dog who jogged jauntily at the commander’s feet.

The Saracen armoured car, or Scarrycan, that Kinton had seen in position by a derelict house the night before had only just moved away as his patrol approached. It crossed his mind that the Opposition (Army speak for the IRA) had no time to enter the house after the Scarrycan left. It seemed more vital to move away from the telegraph pole on the opposite side of the road where fresh earth lay at the base. It was a gamble. Always a gamble. A bomb could be
hidden by the house, or a mine could be placed at the base of the pole or both could be safe. As he walked past the entrance to the house he suddenly became aware of the silence and, like a premonition, he realized that the fresh earth had been laid on purpose to push the soldiers towards the house. In the instant of this thought, Kinton was thrown aside by an explosion. Two gas containers had been packed with explosives and left outside. Probably they had been detonated by someone watching the soldiers approach the house. It was that callous. A cloud of black smoke and debris swirled in the air. Nearby Sergeant Regan scrambled to his feet and saw a wounded Marine lying to his right. As the company medic, Regan went into action, despite his own injuries, packing and dressing the man’s wounds, and with help from Kinton and the Marine brick commander he was made ready to board the Quick Reaction Force helicopter that had landed in a nearby field.

As the helicopter swept into the sky bound for Belfast hospital, the local school bell rang and the children poured out into the playground. Normal life
existed in the midst of the fear and bloodshed. It was as if Crossmaglen operated two parallel lives and times. But where was that small brown dog?

After making sure the injured had received the necessary medical attention, Major Woodrow returned to the scene of the blast to walk the land. He was looking for clues that could lead to the bombers. It was the first day of the Grenadier Guards’ tour and they had been involved in an ambush even before the handover had been completed. One Marine and a Guardsman lay in hospital – the Marine, named Weedon, later died of his wounds – and now the major had discovered a trail of blood. He knew it would not be human, as everyone had been accounted for. Could this be the blood of one of the unfortunate stray dogs that roamed the streets, ever hopeful of food? The trail died away to nothing.

Two days later Major Woodrow was making a routine visit to the medical hut when who should he see but the little brown dog that had accompanied the patrol on the day of the ambush. It transpired that he had been badly injured in the blast but had found his
way back to the base where Sergeant Tim Fielding had found him lying just inside the perimeter fence. A dog lover and seasoned soldier, Fielding took the dog in his arms and carried him to the medical hut in the hope that the medic was equally fond of dogs. He found Sergeant Regan. Regan examined and stitched the hole in the dog’s side and tended to the cuts on his ears. Patched, stitched and swathed in bandages the little dog was now more crêpe bandage than brown fur. But he was in safe hands and, probably for the first time in his life, he was somewhere he could genuinely call home.

Over the next four days the new recruit slept on his makeshift bed in the medical hut or on one of the bunks in the 18-man dormitory. He was not his usual perky self and for once showed little interest in what was happening around him. Fielding tended to the dog’s every need but became very concerned when he refused to eat. Major Woodrow, a dog lover himself, recognized how close Fielding was becoming to the injured stray and how the dog’s welfare was dominating his off-duty hours.

Aware that taking the dog off the street could be a potential problem if he was a local family’s pet, Major Woodrow conducted an investigation. The word on the street confirmed that the dog had been a stray for some time and showed no attachment to anyone, other than the soldiers. The company commander felt a sense of relief. He hadn’t relished the idea of telling Fielding that the dog had to be expelled from the barracks. Clearly the little chap had already had a good effect on the men. He had once been their playful friend and now he had suffered as they were suffering. He had been injured in the line of duty with his fellow soldiers. He was to them, a soldier dog.

But to many of the men he had become something more than that. Major Woodrow recalls: ‘In times of adversity you can confide in a dog in a way you feel you cannot in another human being for fear of being thought weak or stupid. Fortunately Rat was very sensitive to human emotion and so he saw your fear before you felt it. He was good for the men because he never judged anyone and he never failed to provide comfort when it was needed. It was good just to have him around.’

And so the British Army base in Crossmaglen adopted the scruffy little brown dog. That meant it was time to give him a name.

Although the dog came to be known as Rats, the Grenadier Guards who adopted him still insist that his name was Rat, in the singular. But everyone has their own version of why the choice of name. ‘Rat seemed a good name for the dog but for many different reasons,’ explains Major Woodrow. ‘He will always be Rat to us because, quite simply, he looked like a rat. Also he was very dirty and had some filthy habits when we first met him. On top of that he liked chasing rodents in the
barracks, which was very useful, although he was not overly successful and he was bitten more than once. Some will tell you that his name is short for “rations” and certainly this dog loved his food.’

As soon as he had made a full recovery Rat was allowed to wander where he liked. His priority on his first night out of hospital was to find a cosy bed. No one minded the dog sharing their bunk so he was given the choice of all 18. Rat took one look at the three tiers of brutally rigid accommodation and skipped jauntily past all of them, making a beeline for the single bed in the company commander’s room, where he stopped briefly to relieve himself and then moved on. It was a good job the major took it in good humour. It helped that back home he was the proud owner of Willoughby, a basset hound, and understood the idiosyncrasies of canine behaviour; otherwise Rat would have had the shortest career ever in the British Army. But one thing was for sure, he had to have a bed he could call his own even if he preferred to share with Tim Fielding. No one wanted Rat leaving his calling card on their bed!