43

ON 24 OCTOBER 2003 WO Spence packed up the Baha Mousa case file and exhibits. They were placed in boxes and taken to Basra International Airport, loaded on to a Boeing C-17 transporter plane and flown back to SIB headquarters in Britain.

Members of 1QLR also packed up their equipment and readied themselves to vacate Battle Group Main. Officers and men had finished their work in Iraq. A few months in one of the most dangerous places on earth and chased out with investigations and allegations hanging over many in the regiment. There must have been very mixed feelings about the end of their mission. Some were proud to have fought and come through unharmed, at least physically. They would have stories to last them years of reunions. There must have been a sense of foreboding too. The weeks of interviews and questions and RMP officers prying into their lives in Basra might be drawing to a close, but they were unresolved. Sure, some of them had been plucked out of their midst without warning and with frightening speed, disappeared almost. They were first in line. But would that be the end? Surely they couldn’t believe that. They weren’t that naïve. They would have known that returning to Catterick Barracks would not protect them from scrutiny. It can’t have been an appetising prospect for any of them, officers or men.

WO Spence followed the case documents and 1QLR home. Captain Gale Nugent, who had overseen the investigation from its inception, took the same flight back to Britain. Their tours of duty in Iraq had ended. The investigation had hardly begun.