The Trojan boy

by Ken McClure

  The ultimate test of loyalty had come and here, in a dark street in Belfast with the rain pouring down, his life would come to an end. Had it been worthwhile? Would anyone miss him? And what of O'Donnell's last order? Had the dying man taken leave of his senses? Surely he could not have meant it? But he had, O'Neill was sure of that. He had seen O'Donnell's eyes when he had said it and the man had been perfectly lucid. But now it seemed to be academic anyway for circumstances were dictating that he would be in no position to carry it out. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his pistol.

  The pain from his arm was becoming unbearable and O'Neill knew that he could not remain conscious for much longer. Just as long as he could pull the trigger. His vision blurred again as he tried to focus on the meagre output from a faulty streetlight on the other side of the lane. The filament dissolved in the rain to form a misty halo that grew and grew until it swallowed him up and all was quiet.

  There was a smell of fried onions when O'Neill awoke and he could hear the yells of children playing. His first black thought that he might be inside a British prison was allayed for the moment, for prisons did not smell of fried onions. They smelt of cabbage and urine. And they did not sound of children, they clanged and echoed. A stab of pain from his arm made him consider a hospital but that idea did not gel either. It did not feel like a hospital because it was cold. Hospitals were not cold. They had the heated dryness of a hairdresser's and the smell of a school sick room.

  O'Neill started to shiver then found that he could not stop. The involuntary convulsions stirred his arm to new extremes of pain and made him cry out as he clutched at it to minimise the effects of the tremor.

  A woman came into the room and hurried over to him, alarmed at what she saw. 'Easy,' she soothed, pushing him back gently on to the pillow. 'You're all right. You're safe now. Try to relax.'

  O'Neill searched the woman's face and found reassurance. The convulsions became more intermittent, each one being met by the woman's renewed insistence that all was well. O'Neill thought that she looked about forty-five but had to admit that the truth could have lain anywhere from twenty-five upwards. The lines around her eyes and the thickness of her waistline said that she led the kind of life that brought age early to a woman. Her fingers smelled of nicotine as she brought the blanket up to his chin.

  'Where am I?' O'Neill asked.

  'The Flats.'

  O'Neill's eyes asked the question.

  The Doonan Flats. My husband and his brother brought you here.'

  'But the Doonan…'

  'I know, they're a good bit away from where they found you but that's probably all to the good.'

  'How did they find me?'

  'They were out drinking. What else! They were over in Clancy's when they heard that the Brits were on the warpath. Someone had seen two of ours in Tannahill Road, so Con, that's my man, said that he knew where they would be making for. He was brought up round there, see. He would go lend a hand. He and his brother drove through the backstreets in Michael's car and, unfortunately, they found you.'

  'That was brave of them.'

  'Brave!' scoffed the woman. 'It was bloody stupid. It was Guinness not bravery!'

  'You're not for a free Ireland then?'

  'Free Ireland! Now what would I be doing with high-sounding phrases like that? I want a decent house, I want a job for Con, I want a future for my kids. These are the things I'm interested in.'

  'And don't you think that you'd get these things in a free Ireland?' asked O'Neill.

  'Governments are governments. They are politicians and they don't give a stuff for the likes of me, whoever they are.'

  'If you feel that way why didn't you turn me in?'

  The woman threw back her head and laughed bitterly. ‘Turn you in?' she exclaimed. 'Me, a Catholic woman living in the Doonan, turn in a Provo? Do you think I'm mental or something?'

  O'Neill conceded the point silently and tried to raise himself on to his good elbow. He said, 'If you will just give me a hand, I'll be getting out your road.'

  Political considerations became personal ones. The woman said, 'You will do no such thing. Besides, Con and Michael have gone to get medical help for you.' She saw the look of alarm appear in O'Neill's eyes and added, 'Don't worry. They’re daft but not that daft. There's a woman, used to be a district nurse, her brother's in the Maze, she's quite safe.'

  Thanks,' said O'Neill.

  The woman sat down on the edge of the bed, her face showing the signs of strain that the last few hours had brought. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' she asked quietly.

  ‘I’d love one.'

  The woman's husband returned, accompanied by his brother and a small woman in her fifties. In her hand she carried a battered leather case.

  'Connor McShane,' announced the man holding out his hand but taking it back in embarrassment as he realised that O'Neill was in no position to accept it. O'Neill nodded.

  'And this is my brother Pat.' The smaller of the two men grinned and O'Neill nodded again.

  'And this here is Mrs O'Hara. She's going to have a look at your arm.'

  'I'm obliged to you,' said O'Neill.

  The woman did not smile but put down her case and took off her coat while the rest retreated to a respectful distance. She gingerly started to cut away the blood-caked sleeve of O'Neill's shirt with scissors that seemed none too sharp judging by the difficulty she was having. O'Neill watched what she was doing impassively but was afraid inside for he feared that the bullet had shattered the bone.

  'I'll need some water,' said the woman. 'His shirt is stuck to the wound. I'll have to bathe it free.' McShane's wife left the room and returned a few minutes later with some warm water in a bowl.

  This will hurt,’ said the nurse as she began teasing the cloth away from O'Neill's arm. A sharp intake of breath from O'Neill verified it. He was watching the faces of the onlookers when his shirt was finally freed from the wound and saw them wince. He looked down to see the smashed pulp of tissue and bone that had been his left elbow and felt despair threaten.

  The nurse's shoulders sagged. 'You need a hospital,’ she said.

  'No hospital,’ replied O'Neill.

  There's nothing I can do for you.'

  That's what they always say in the pictures before they go and patch it up anyway,’ said O'Neill with a desperate attempt at humour.

  The nurse's face showed both cynicism and pity. 'Not in your case,’ she said. 'Your arm will have to come off.'

  The fact that O'Neill, only a few short hours before, had been preparing to take his own life did not seem to matter now as he was stricken by the thought of mutilation. In his mind he could see the empty sleeve, turned up and secured with a safety pin which would rust with the passing of time. He could see the little stump at bedtime, flapping like the useless wing of a penguin.

  The hell was all inside O'Neill's head. Outwardly he was calm but he saw that McShane was construing this as bravery. The man's face was bursting with emotion as he turned to his brother and said, 'See! What did I tell you? With one arm they are still more than a match for these Brit bastards.'

  McShane came over to O'Neill's bedside and knelt like an adoring shepherd. 'I tell you, mister,’ he said to O'Neill. 'When I saw you in that doorway preparing to take on the Brits single-handed, I've never felt so proud in my life.'

  O'Neill looked at the man. Should he tell him the truth? Tell him that he had never had any intention of taking anyone on single-handed? Tell him that he had, in fact, been preparing to blow his own brains out because this was the real world and the real world was a long way from a John Wayne film? Tell him that the real struggle was for professionals not romantics, it was for men who calculated the odds with their brains not their hearts, men who figured out risk against return? O'Neill decided that there was no point in telling him anything. Let the myths flourish with the folk songs. After all, the British had television.

  'Can you fix me up so I can move out of here?' O'Neill aske
d the nurse.

  I’ll do what I can but it will just be a case of covering the whole mess up and strapping your arm to your body. We'll keep the tourniquet on but you'll have to remember to release it at intervals or gangrene will set in.’

  The nurse cleaned up the wound before smothering it in white dressing. O'Neill was exhausted for it had been an agonising fifteen minutes, during which the woman seemed to have consistently sought out the most sensitive areas to linger over and probe and prod for bone fragments. Suppressed anger and frustration had welled up inside him like the rolling waves of a rising tide, till now he felt too weak to move.

  'He will have to rest for a bit,’ said the nurse as she packed her case.

  'We can take him where he wants to go later tonight,’ said McShane.

  'No.’ said O'Neill weakly. 'You've done enough. Phone this number.' He recited a series of digits. Tell them that you have a parcel ready for collection, then tell them what they want to know.'

  'You can rely on us,’ said McShane.

  Two men came for O'Neill at nine in the evening. Any later and the risk of a spot check would have been greater, but at that time the traffic was just right. McShane and his brother stood on either side of the doorway like football fans seeing their team out of the tunnel. O'Neill stopped and thanked them both.

  'Anything for a free Ireland,’ said McShane self-consciously.

  'Don't go selling your story to a newspaper now, will you?' said one of the men who had come for O'Neill.

  McShane laughed nervously for he had seen the veiled threat. O'Neill looked at McShane's wife and saw that she had not bothered to laugh. Thank you as well, missus,' he said.

  'You're welcome,' said the woman as she turned away.

  The dark blue Bedford van took off from the kerb and the driver said to O'Neill, 'We can't take you home. The Brits know you're missing. They turned your place over last night.'

  'What about Kathleen?'

  'Your sister told them that you were away for a few days but they turned it over anyway.'

  'So where are we going?'

  The Long House. They've got a doctor for you.'

  'I want to see Kathleen.'

  'It's difficult. The Brits are watching your house all the time.'

  The army?'

  The woman at number seventeen has a new lodger, works the boats.. you know the game.'

  'At least it's predictable,' said O'Neill.

  'We'll try to set up some kind of decoy so that your sister can slip away.'

  ‘Thanks.'

  The Long House was a warehouse. It was owned by a wholesale newsagency that distributed stationery, magazines and periodicals throughout the north and as such, with the ephemeral nature of news, it was ideal cover for the IRA with delivery vans coming and going at all hours. They had been using the building successfully for two years without problem, utilising its extensive cellarage for administration, meetings at top level and, when the circumstances dictated it, for living quarters. Circumstances dictated that O'Neill stay there for the present.

  The doctor was already in the room when O'Neill was helped in by the two men who had brought him. They laid him gently on the table as the doctor continued to scrub his hands and forearms in the sink.

  The thought of someone else poking and prodding at his wound prompted O'Neill to ask, 'Can you give me something? The pain's bad.'

  'You'll feel better in a moment,' said the doctor, drying his hands and picking up a syringe.

  The tiny prick of the needle was followed by a warm feeling of well-being and peace which spread inexorably through O'Neill's body, bringing a tranquillity that he had seldom experienced. He did not feel drowsy, more weightless, as if he were floating in a world free from pain and care.

  'How's that?' asked the doctor.

  'What did you give me?' asked O'Neill.

  The doctor told him.

  'I can see the attraction, ’replied O'Neill.

  'You do know that your arm will have to come off?' asked the doctor.

  ‘The nurse told me.'

  The Bairn says I have to do it here. We can't risk a hospital with what you know.’

  ‘I’d like to see my sister.’

  ‘The Bairn says no, not until after.'

  'There might not be an after. That's why I want to see her.'

  ‘The Bairn says no.' 'Bastard,’ said O'Neill softly.

  'He's taken over from O'Donnell,’ said the doctor. 'He's the new commander.'

  Finbarr Kell, known as The Bairn to everyone within the organisation, but never to his face, scared O'Neill. For years he had been convinced that Kell was a hopeless psychopath but, within the organisation, his credentials were impeccable and he had risen relentlessly until now he was their new commander. O'Neill had never known anyone so lacking in compassion of any kind.

  Kell seemed to O'Neill to have been born to violence and baptised in hatred. When this was combined with a street cunning that would have made him the envy of a New York street gang and a brain that was devious to the point of genius, Kell inspired fear in all who came to know him.

  Hatred, cunning and the bravery of a lion had made The Bairn a living legend. His exploits were the stuff of folklore, or at least they had been until a bomb that he had been setting had gone off prematurely. The blast had fractured his spine and blown off both legs but he had survived, and survived to rise within the organisation.

  Since the loss of his legs Kell had been transported around in a contraption that resembled a pram, hence the nickname The Bairn. If Kell had ever possessed the tiniest spark of decency it had been totally extinguished by the accident. He was a cold, cruel man, feared, loathed, but always obeyed. The thought that now he would no longer be subject to the moderating influence of Kevin O'Donnell was not one that O'Neill could take any pleasure in. As the anaesthetic took effect he thought of O'Donnell's last order.

  Through a sea of pain O'Neill could hear voices. They were far away, as if he were at the bottom of a well and the voices were at the top, but he could hear what they were saying.

  'Probably won't make it through the night…'

  'Surgical shock too much in his condition…'

  'Desperately weak…'

  'No blood to give him

  ‘The Bairn's coming down just in case he comes round.'

  'What about his sister?'

  ‘The Bairn says no.'

  O'Neill tried to open his eyes but found that he could not. He concentrated hard but still to no effect. It was ridiculous. He was conscious but trapped inside a body that refused to respond to any instruction he issued. He could feel nothing except a burning pain coming from his left arm, but that was the thing that was not there any more. Perhaps he was dead? It was a big disappointment if he was for he was still there, damn it! Locked inside a useless hulk of flesh. Good God, he would be able to hear everything at his own funeral, the volley of shots, the patter of earth on the lid of the coffin and then nothing, endless, eternal, black nothing. But he would still be there!

  O'Neill's brain rebelled violently at the thought and sent a tremor down his right side. The tremor shook him free like an air bubble that had been trapped at the foot of a pond and he surfaced to open his eyes.

  'Doctor!' said a voice. 'He's coming round.'

  A shadow moved over the light and the voice of the doctor said, 'How are you feeling?'

  Another voice said in rasping tones, 'Move! I have to speak to him.'

  O'Neill recognised the voice as Finbarr Kell's. He struggled against the intransigence of his lips but to no avail. He was falling into blackness again. Down, down, down. Perhaps there would be sunshine when he stopped falling. That would be nice, sunshine… grass… flowers.

  O'Neill was unconscious for the better part of two days while his body struggled to scrape by on the borderline oxygen supply that his vastly depleted blood volume could transport. On the third day he was through the crisis and started to get better and Kell came back to the Long House
in the evening. O'Neill heard the squeak of the pram wheels as Nelligan, Kell's constant minder, manoeuvred him through the door to park him at the foot of the bed.

  There was a long moment when neither man spoke but just looked at each other. Kell's head had always struck O'Neill as being too big for his body but he supposed that this was an illusion created by his legless torso. Nevertheless it seemed as if all the pores on Kell's face were quite discernible as the cold eyes, magnified by strong, rimless glasses, surveyed him under a hairless head.

  'Well, Martin, it seems that even an intellectual has given up something for the cause at last, eh?' said Kell eyeing O'Neill's bandaged stump. He seemed pleased with his joke.

  'I'm no intellectual, Finbarr.'

  Kell smiled but there was no humour in it. 'Of course you are,' he said softly. 'All that book learning… of course you are.'

  O'Neill stayed silent.

  'What went wrong?' asked Kell.

  'The Brits knew we were coming. They were waiting for us.'

  'Bastards!' spat Kell. Then they were tipped off?'

  'Must have been,' said O'Neill.

  'Any ideas?'

  'No.'

  'I'll find the bastard if it's the last thing I do,' said Kell in a way that utterly convinced O'Neill that he would.

  'Meanwhile I need the keys to the safe. Do you know where they are?'

  'No,’ lied O'Neill. He had a promise to keep before he handed them over. 'Have you checked O'Donnell's room?'

  Kell looked at him as if he were mentally defective. 'Of course I've checked O'Donnell's room,' he rasped.

  ‘They'll turn up', said O'Neill.

  'No doubt,' said Kell with a look that sent shivers down O'Neill's spine.

  'I'd like to see my sister,' said O'Neill.