Irish-British war (part 2)

At the time I was in charge of convoys transporting truckloads of artillery ammunition from the main magazine in the Curragh Camp, co. Kildare, to Gormanstown Camp in county Meath about 35 miles from the Northern Ireland border. There were many ironies in this charade. My speciality was ‘field artillery’ and our most modern guns were 25-pounders from the Second World War and Brandt 120 mm mortars. The transport for moving the ammunition and weapons was unreliable as they were rusty old antiques covered in lots of green paint to keep the rust together and make them look good. The tyre paint hid the cracks in the rubber reasonably well; it’s amazing what make-up can do when it’s imaginatively and cleverly applied, paint is cheaper than new transport and make-up is cheaper than a face-lift.
Our heavy-duty artillery trucks for pulling low loaders were called ‘Matadors’ and had last seen service in the North African desert during those dark days, when it was full of foxes and desert rats.
The driver’s cab had been beautifully crafted in timber by a qualified master craftsman who had served his time. This work had been completed a long, long time ago by a carpenter called Joseph, who was a decent hardworking man and who worked all the hours – God sent him. He was not a ‘fly by night’, quick fix merchant grabbing the fast buck and doing a runner – this was not his style.
Himself and the missus, Mary, were expecting their first child at Christmas and they wanted to get enough money together in order to get a mortgage on a new house and move in before the festive season, so their new baby would have a proper home.
If you were a driver you didn’t need to join a ‘keep fit’ club, as the traction unit weighted about 9 tons and there was no power steering. I was unable to turn the steering wheel on the slow corners without standing up and even ‘Iron Mike’ would have difficulty engaging the clutch. These brutes were far from the days of power assisted steering and automatic gearboxes with tiptronic mode. They were built by men for men. Robots had no part in building these mean machines.Most of our transport would be lucky to cover half a dozen furlongs and get past the first few fences, never mind an MOT – model of trash. However we had large stocks of ammunition, but the poor Air Corps and Navy were destitute and were destined for the poor house.