They looked so young on the UNIFIL ID photos on the hospital table. Their military numbers started with "IR" for Ireland and the plastic-coated cards were inscribed in Arabic and Hebrew, the languages of the war zone they had come to protect. Each photocopy was stamped mutawafi, Arabic for "dead".
The four dead Irish soldiers leave Sidon at 6.30 this morning for UNIFIL headquarters at Naqqoura and Israel, before the five-hour flight home to Ireland.
Pte Brendan Fitzpatrick would have been 20 next August. Pte Declan Deere would have turned 22 on July 13th, the day before Pte John Murphy would also have reached his 22nd birthday. The two men would have completed their Lebanon duty by then. Matthew Lawlor, soon to be 24 years old, was the eldest of the four Irish soldiers killed on Lebanon's Black Road.
Yesterday morning the young men were alive, about to enjoy the only 2 1/2 weeks of leave they were entitled to during their hard 6 1/2-month stint in southern Lebanon. They were eager to catch yesterday evening's 25-minute Middle East Airlines flight 261, for a sun holiday. It was a soldier's dream turned nightmare, an absurd tragedy sparked by an oil slick that waited in ambush on the Beirut highway.
In a darkened room on the impeccably clean fifth-floor ward of the Hammoud Hospital, Pte John Keohane, the 20-year-old driver of the Toyota Land Cruiser, wore a neck brace and told doctors that his head hurt terribly. Neither Pte Keohane nor the other Irish injured treated at the hospital were in any danger.
"What is really weird is that, of the seven, four died and three were almost uninjured," Dr Hammoud said.
The Army identified a fourth slightly injured man as Gunner Aidan Doyle. Those who were least hurt appear to have been travelling in the cab of the Land Cruiser. One of them, Cpl Andrew O'Connor, a 33-year-old paramedic, was released from the Hammoud Hospital within hours. Those who died were sitting on the built-in benches in the back of the vehicle. Without the protection of the roof, they were more vulnerable. All four died from severe head injuries.
It is thought that the only severely injured survivor, Pte Edward O'Neill (21), was also seated in the open back of the vehicle. Pte O'Neill was to undergo head surgery at Beirut's Sacre Coeur Hospital last night. .
Sgt Celsus Whyte (36), from Ballymacarbury, near Clonmel, lay in the room next to Pte Keohane's. He told me his name was Alan. "What's the name the others call you?" the doctor asked him. "Chalky," he answered. "Everyone in the Army's got a nickname. It's because my surname is Whyte."
No one had told Sgt Whyte that four of his comrades were dead, and I promised doctors not to tell him. They'd informed Sgt Whyte and Pte Keohane only that several of their colleagues were seriously injured, to prepare them for the shock. But Pte Whyte said he never lost consciousness, and so he must have known. Doctors said he was weeping quietly before I arrived.
Sgt Whyte's entire head was bandaged and his right eye was swollen shut. He must have been in pain, but he hadn't lost his sense of humour. "It won't ruin my good looks, will it?" he asked the doctor.
The convoy was composed of six vehicles. Sgt Whyte's Toyota Land Cruiser was the last of the six. Pte Keohane, the driver, apparently saw a man waving his arms to warn him of the oil slick, but too late.
Unlike most of the 30-strong Irish convoy, Sgt Whyte was not holiday-bound. "I was just escorting the lads," he said. "We just hit a patch of diesel and the car went out of control."
The vehicle turned over twice.
In the 21 years since Irish peacekeepers were first deployed in Lebanon, it was the single greatest loss of life, bringing the number of Irishmen who have perished here to 44. As of yesterday, a quarter of Irish deaths in Lebanon have been caused by road accidents.