(Original copy) GWEN Campbell is craning her head, eyes anxiously scanning the faces of the soldiers pouring off the bus. In her arms is a tiny bundle, Finlay, 10-weeks-old, fast asleep, fingers crammed into his mouth, born while his father Lorne was thousands of miles away, fighting a war in Iraq. Gwen spots him, eyes lighting up, and she is pushing her way through the crowd towards the tanned figure in his desert combats. They meet, kiss, he takes Finlay in his arms, the baby he has never seen, cradles him for the first time. There were times when Gwen feared she would never see this moment. In the first weeks of the war, when she was still heavily pregnant, she would sit up into the early hours of the morning, glued to the television, devouring every snippet of news, every success and every setback. After a while, she stopped, the fear and anguish too much to bear. She waited for Finlay to be born, lay in the hospital bed alone with her new son, envied the mother in the next bed whose husband could share her joy. Terrifed that maybe this precious moment they are sharing would never come. Unable even to talk to Lorne on the telephone, she tried to get word to him through the army to let him know he was a father. Lorne, just arrived in Basra, read the news in the print out of a radio message. "He was ecstatic that the baby was born and that he was alright but I was heartbroken that he missed it," she says. "We tried to get him home but it was never going to happen." Gwen, 31-years-old, petite and blonde, dressed in a beige top and check skirt, is fighting to control the emotions that her voice betrays. "I have never known fear like that in my life, the thought of Lorne never meeting his son was too awful to think about," she says. "There were things happening every day, British and American soldiers were being killed, it wasn't being morbid any more, it was fact. "In the beginning I was glued to the news, I was staying up to 2am or 3am to the point where I was going to make myself ill. In the end I stopped watching the news and only watched the teatime news. I just hoped that their training prepared them for this." Waiting for Lorne to step off the bus, she is not sure what she will do. "I'm probably going to cry," she says, although she didn't, not at first, not while everyone was watching them. "I can't wait to share our baby with him. I have hated every minute of him being away." Finlay arrived two days early, before those in Basra were given permission to make phone calls home again. Gwen rang the British Forces Broadcasting Service to ask them to put out a message on the radio to let Lorne know he was a father. He missed it, but the battalion managed to get a signal through to let him know the good news. Back in Germany though, the girl from East Calder was on her own. "It was very hard because the lady next to me, her husband was there sharing it, and Lorne ould not do that. "I just desperately wanted him to be there, but I knew he wouldn't be." Not that Lorne did not try. Before he went away, he recorded himself readig a Jack and the Beanstalk story book, and Gwen played it to the growing bump every day until the birth, and afterwards to Finlay, hoping that he would learn to recognise his father's coice. She lay him on Lorne's T-shirts, hoping that he would learn to recognise the smell of his father. "He did everything he could do," she says. "Before, if something had happened, I would have had nothing to show for 13 years of marriage but now I had something very precious." And now Lorne, 34-years-old, a tough company sergeant major from Perth, is cradling the sleeping Finlay in his arms. "I'm not quite sure how I'm feeling," he says. "But it is a good feeling. It's going to take a couple of days to sink in. I know I'm a dad but I haven't done this dad thing." Gwen, smiling madly, is holding on to him, gazing at the new father and his child. "My world has been upside down," she says. "I'm just looking forward to having him to myself for a while." All over the parade ground, the scenes are repeated. Six babies have been born to fathers who, until this moment, have never seen their children. For many of those stepping off the buses, it had been their first taste of combat. Those waiting for them wondered if the mebn they were about to be reunited with would be the same men who left so many months ago. The plane bringing them back from Iraq had landed only an hour earlier. The white and blue Boeing 747 taxied slowly to a halt on the apron at Hanover airport. Steps were pushed forward, two pipers began to play and finally the doors, front and centre, swung open. As the men of the 1st Battalion Black Watch stepped out into the sunshine of a German afternoon the smiles and the looks on their faces said everything that needed to be said: It was finally over. Young men, many of whom had never fought in a war before, or even fired a bullet in anger, simply relieved to have made it through to the end. At tmes it had felt as if the whole world was against them, wanted them dead. Then came the peacekeeping, trying to put back together the broken city of Basra, the threat of danger never quite receeding. Now it was behind them. All that separated them from those they had left behind was a short drive to the barracks at Fallingbostel. In the arrivals hall, words from the brigadier, Paul Gibson, who had flown in by helicopter to greet them. They had fought professionally and had upheld the very highest standards of the Black Watch. Their reputation was second to none, he told them. Well done. In the bus back to the barracks barely an hour away they gazed out of the windows at the unfamiliar scenery. Grass, trees, fields of grain, so very different to the dusty streets of Basra and the barren, sunbaked wasteland that surrounded it. And then they were driving through the gates of the barracks whith its white and ochre buildings and red roofs, the children's swings and toys standing on the tidy lawns. Banners were hung from windows and there, in front of them, a small marquee set out beside the parade ground, and wives and girlfriends and children all waiting excitedly to catch the first glimpse of the man they had waited so long to see. The children held ballloons and flags, a couple of Warrior armoured vehicles stood on the parade ground, painted not in the desert camouflage but in the more familiar green and black. As each man alighted from his bus, he scanned the crowd for a familiar face. There were hugs, kisses, children jumping up excitedly to greet their fathers. Those with no-one to meet them grabbed a can of beer from the stack in front of the open-sided marquee. Among the fathers clutching new-born children, Jim Mathieson, a 31-year-old sergeant from Arbroath. In his arms, Aird, two weeks old. He had come home for the birth, but had to go back again straight afterwards, leaving wife Margaret to look after the baby. "It's good to be home for good," he says. "I've got a month before leave, getting my life sorted out." Getting used to life away from the fighting had been the hard part, he said. "It was a bit strange going from war fighting to peace - one moment we were trying to kill each other, the next we were trying to save them. I don't think any other army in the world could have it." To make life more confortable, they chipped in their own cash, buying a television, DVD, fridges and freezers to make their temporary Basra home more confortable. Captain Justin Prowse, 26, was just looking forward to seeing his fiancee, Emma Stephenson, 26, and enjoying a little dose of normality. The couple are due to marry next month. "I'm going to go home, have a couple of bottles of beer, a bath and watch TV," he said.

(Original news copy) THE deaths of six British military policemen in Iraq was a huge blow but did not represent the true situation in the British-run area of the country, one of the most senior officers in the region said yesterday. Lieutenant Colonel Mike Riddell-Webster, commanding officer of the Black Watch, said people in the Basra area remained generally friendly towards the British toops. But speaking as the Black Watch flew out of the Gulf and back to their barracks in Germany, he said that although most of the looting had stopped, the British forces still faced difficulties maintaining law and order, with murders and kidnapping still a serious probem. "The situation continues to improve but we have still handed over some problems. Security is not perfect but it is more disorganised crime than organised," he said. "The looting is more or less finished but it is murder and kidnapping which are still a problem." During the campaign the Black Watch was at the heart of the fighting in the south of Iraq, and was instrumental in the final capture of Basra. Despite facing much sterner opposition than was anticipated, they only lost one soldier, Barry Stephen, who was killed by a rocket propelled grenade as he manned a machine gun in an attempt to fight off one attack. Yesterday 331 soldiers from the Black Watch flew back in to Hanover after nearly five months in the Gulf. In an emotional homecoming they were greeted by their loved ones as they stepped off the buses laid on to take them back to their base in Fallingbostel. For six of the returning soldiers whose wives gave birth while they were in Iraq, it was the first time they had seen their children. Lt Col Riddell-Webster, who comanded the Black Watch battle group, praised the work of the 1,275 troops under his command, but conceeded that they were pleased to be back home. "For one extraordinary fornight the Black Watch Battle Group maintained a flat out pace in an atmospere of uncertainty and danger, fighting and irregular but determined militia. At the end of that fortnight, without pause, the Battle Group switched to maintaining a peace and providing security for the inhabitants of basra, a process that continued for nearly a further three months. Whatever your views of the war, no-one in the Black Watch Battle Group will forget the joy with which our arrival was received by the vast majority of the population, the degree of squalor endured by the same people and efforts made by us to make their town a better place and their life more rewarding. The resurrection of Iraq will take much longer than we were there, but at least we made a start. "It has been a demanding, exciting, tiring, at times tragic four months, We are delighted to be coming home." He said that the situation in Basra remained pro-British: "People are still desperately keen to make this work. They are very much behind us and our efforts to get local policing going again," he said. And he maintained that the problems experienced further north around al Amarah with the search for weapons which followed the end of a two week gun amnesty were not prevalent throughout the region. "People said they were used to being searched and that they expected it," he said. "We had been taking quite a hard line before the gun amnesty and I don't thnk that has changed much." But he said the deaths of the six military police officers had come as a shock to all those in Basra. "We were about 50 miles from where it happened and it came as a huge blow, but the situtation in Basra seems to be contained. I am sure that if something like that was coming we would have heard about it." Privately, though, many of the soldiers arriving back in Germany yesterday were relieved to be out of Iraq and away from what remains an uncertain situation. Their efforts during the war won praise from Brigadier Paul Gibson, one of the senior British officers in Germany. Flying in by helicopter to welcome the Black Watch home, he said they had been involved in one of the most significant UK military operations in years. "Your reputation as a battle group is second to none," he told them. "You fought with professionalism, determination and compassion." He said the operations in which they had been involved were "simply superb" and had been watched by millions of people around the world. And it was their ability to adapt to the changing situation that had earned them the greatest respect, he said. When they abandoned their body armour and helmets, and the red hackle of the Black Watch was seen on the streets of southern Iraq it was very reassuring not only for people watching on television but also for people living in the region. "You have fought professionally and to the highest traditions of the Black Watch, " he said. Soldiers will return to regular duties for a couple of weeks to help them acclimatise before they are given a month's leave.