The physical scars of Constable Mervyn Sharpe tell only part of the story. There is an entry wound on his back from the near-fatal bullet fired by an IRA sniper, and a hollow gash on his upper arm where the same bullet left his body. Both are reminders of the day in 1981 when he was called to examine a hoax bomb in East Belfast. He raises his trouser legs to reveal more gunshot wounds, one to his right leg and two to his left. These were sustained in a separate attack five years earlier during routine night patrol in Strabane.
Mental scars are not as visible and go deeper than bullet marks. The impact of his injuries on his wife and children cannot be measured by the endless skin grafts or the shrapnel still lodged in his leg. "My wife tells me, but I don't remember, that after the second attack, I couldn't sleep without the light on. She says I used to get up in the middle of the night and make the kids get out of their beds to take their schoolbags from the hall . . . it was nerves, I suppose," he says. During this time a bald patch appeared on his wife's head. "The doctor told us it was the stress," he says.
Originally from Fermanagh, but now living in a pretty bungalow in Co Down, Sharpe (54) joined the RUC "to serve the community". He knew the risks when he joined the force in 1972, but says he didn't think about that side of things. The fingers on his right hand are gnarled because of his injuries and he cannot use his right arm but he bustles around his kitchen fetching cups of tea and chocolate biscuits. When he returns, he says he was moved to tears at the ceremony in Hillsborough this week at which Queen Elizabeth awarded the George Cross to the RUC, only the second such organisation to receive the award. What was he thinking at that moment?
"It brought back memories of all the officers I know who were killed or injured . . . you just tried to get on with everybody and do your job," he says.
Almost exactly 20 years ago to the day Queen Elizabeth came to Hillsborough to honour the RUC, Frederick Wilson, a housing officer and member of the RUC Reserve, was killed by the IRA as he walked to work in Belfast city centre. As he stood talking to co-workers, a gunman riding pillion on a motorcycle fired a single shot at close range. The part-time police officer was 43 and married, with two children. Just over 300 officers have been killed during the Troubles and several thousand injured.
The last of those killed was Frankie O'Reilly, who was critically injured in a loyalist bomb attack on October 6th, 1998, in Portadown. He died in a Belfast hospital four weeks later. O'Reilly had three young children and his wife, Janice, represented all widows of RUC officers when she presented flowers to the queen this week. Shortly after her husband died she said: "Frankie considered himself a Christian, not a Protestant or a Catholic . . . he was the just the best." Iona Meyer, chairwoman of the RUC Widows' Association, told reporters that the RUC was "the thin green line" in the North over the years.
Vera Hazlett, the widow of murdered RUC officer James Hazlett, was particularly moved this week. Her husband had been responsible for getting people to safety at the height of the IRA's bombing campaign in the 1970s. He was awarded a medal for bravery when he saved a man by throwing himself on top of him when a bomb went off in Belfast city centre. "Jim would have been a policeman, no matter what," she said, "in the Canadian force, or the Hampshire force, or the gardai." She said her husband had no prejudices: "When he went to a bomb site he didn't ask if you were a Catholic or a Protestant, he was serving the community, that is what he wanted to do."
The most potent image from this week's ceremony came when Constable Paul Slaine received the George Cross on behalf of the RUC. On March 27th, 1992, Slaine was driving a police car through Newry when an IRA mortar was fired at the vehicle. He lost both his legs, and though confined to a wheelchair, returned to the RUC, where he works in the information technology department.
"Every day throughout the Troubles, officers left their homes and families to deal with ordinary tasks, like domestic duties and traffic accidents, knowing there were people out there who wanted to kill them because of the uniform they wore," he said.
RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan said that this was what set his officers apart from other forces around the world. "Anyone who joins the police knows the risks that can occur in the line of duty. But RUC officers are attacked for no other reason than because they chose the police force as a career," he said. Despite this, the RUC press office confirmed the organisation has never had problems recruiting, even at the height of the Troubles.
Speaking after the ceremony, Constable Slaine said he wasn't bitter. He said he didn't feel like a hero, he was a police officer. His thoughts were with the parents and husband of Colleen McMurray, the young police officer who was sitting beside him in the car on the day his own injuries were sustained. The 34-year-old was killed.
At the time the coroner said the following of McMurray's murder: "A young woman from the island of Ireland with the name Colleen McMurray represents an ideal of Irish nationality worldwide. Colleen McMurray was brutally murdered by men who claim to be in pursuit of such an ideal."
And on Black Mountain overlooking Belfast those opposed to the RUC receiving the George Cross had printed the slogan "cross of shame". For those associated with the RUC, this week's award would be more accurately described as a cross of supreme sacrifice.
