England's Janissary

  ‘Get yourself and the children into the cellar and stay there till I tell you to come out.’ She opened her mouth to speak but hesitated as another bullet thwacked noisily into the front door, splintering the weathered wood. ‘Do it, do it now!’ McLain barked, and his wife nodded before disappearing. He could hear her herding their children into the cellar followed by the thunk of its heavy door banging shut.

  ‘Jim, quick, make sure the back door is locked!’ Flynn shouted. O’Leary just made it, slamming the door and bolting it against a flurry of muffled kicks and curses. It shuddered from the impact of several bullets and then the back yard fell quiet. More glass shattered and lead smacked into woodwork and pinged off stone as O’Neill raced around the barracks, slamming closed the heavy wooden shutters on the ground floor.

  Flynn frantically searched for the armoury keys, his sweat-soaked body beginning to react to the surge of adrenalin and fear that coursed through him. He had hoped that he would never feel like this again in his life. He forced himself to control his breathing and, hands shaking, he unlocked the heavy chain that secured the station’s four carbines to their rack.

  ‘Come on, you bastard! Come on!’ he cursed. Dropping the padlock, he yanked four carbines off their rack and swung them onto his shoulder, tearing the button from his left epaulet. It pinged across the slate floor as he hefted a box of .303-ball ammunition. The handle felt as familiar and as uncomfortable as ever in his hand.

  He momentarily toyed with the idea of taking the box of grenades, but decided against it; the less opportunity he gave the others to blow themselves up the better. It was bad enough that they had to deal with the IRA without giving explosives to men who were barely competent with firearms. He’d leave the bayonets as well. If it got that close then something really had gone seriously wrong!

  ‘Sergeant! O’Neill! O’Leary!’ Flynn shouted as he tossed each man a carbine. They had received rudimentary firearms training at the RIC depot, but only Flynn and O’Neill had ever had to use them in anger. Weapon-handling drills and firing on the ranges were one thing, but using them for real, well, that was another entirely. ‘Gary, with me!’ Flynn shouted, loading his police carbine, a cut-down version of an army .303 rifle, and bounded towards the stair with O’Neill in hot pursuit.

  ‘Eejits with guns! Dublin my arse!’ McLain muttered bitterly, as he hobbled stiff-legged towards the front door to take a peek out of the hatch. Behind him, O’Leary did his best to bite back on his smile at the irony of the sergeant’s comment but the tea towel stuffed down the back of McLain’s trousers and his wincing gait weren’t helping.

  ‘Keep back from the windows and if you see anyone give them a swift couple of rounds. Remember to move after you’ve fired or they’ll get you – you know the form,’ Flynn shouted at O’Neill, who simply nodded and disappeared into the back bedroom.

  Flynn burst into the spartan dormitory. Their kit boxes were stacked against the wall and behind him, a dartboard, obscured by a tatty poster, banged against the door as it swung shut, a cluster of darts skewering a wanted poster for the notorious gunman Dan Breen. McLain had noticed the poster was missing but did not know that the others used it for darts practise. It was Breen who had killed McLain’s friends at Soloheadbeg and, consequently, had a bounty of £1,000 on his head. It was a princely sum by any standards but the problem was that anyone giving information on such a prominent IRA man was unlikely to live long enough to enjoy it.

  Flynn eased himself next to the window, ducking back, as a stray round shattered the glass, flooding the room with bitter night air. Logic dictated that there had to be at least twelve gunmen out there but then the IRA rarely seemed to comply with the basic tenets of the military art and Flynn didn’t know whether to admire or pity the man who was standing pathetically in the middle of the street, imploring them to surrender.

  Watching Maguire wave his arms, Flynn took aim. ‘Ah, got you,’ he muttered as he steadied his breathing and gently squeezed the trigger. Instinctively, Flynn palmed the bolt, re-cocking his rifle and raising it back to his shoulder, but a round brushed past his face and ploughed into the ceiling, dusting him with plaster. Two more shots crashed into the room and Flynn hit the deck.

  ‘You two up there, what’s going on?’ McLain shouted up the stairs.

  ‘Not sure, Sarge, it’s all gone quiet. There’s no movement out back!’ Flynn heard O’Neill reply as another shot crashed through the window.

  ‘They’re still out front!’ Flynn shouted. He felt light-headed as blood pulsed through his ears like waves crashing on a distant shore and he lost all sense of time. A loud bang and a whoosh invaded his thoughts and a red distress flare hung momentarily in the air before drifting gently downwards under its parachute. McLain was summoning help but God knows how long it would take to arrive.

  The flare sucked Flynn back to the squalid trenches and even the tea and bacon sandwich that Mary McLain brought him in the early hours did little to distract him from their awful predicament. He could feel the presence of death. It felt like someone had stuffed an egg whisk into his gut and turned it.

  Maguire knew that he stood out like a turd on a billiard table, haranguing the policemen to give up whilst his men plugged away in impotent frustration at the barracks. Lights were beginning to go on all down the street as the gun battle shattered the tranquillity of the night. ‘Did you shoot at my son, you bloody eejit?’ Maguire looked up in disbelief at the woman who hung from a nearby doorway, shouting at him.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, woman, this is army business! Away with you now!’ he snapped. It was bad enough that the entire attack was turning into a monumental cock-up, without having an audience as well. Cursing, the woman slammed her door. ‘All of you, get back!’ Maguire shouted at the other villagers who had come out to watch and he could see MacEoin and Fitzgerald cajoling them inside as they came down the street.

  ‘Well, this could have gone better,’ Maguire muttered and as he turned back towards the barracks he felt a heavy weight smash into his hand, hurling him to the ground. His arm was numb, as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer, and he couldn’t feel his fingers. He heard the crump of boots next to his head as he lay paralyzed on the damp, wet ground and felt hands tug at his shoulders.

  ‘Joe, are you all right?’ a voice pleaded desperately by his ear and, close by, a rifle barked from the shadows, deafening him as the muzzle-flash blinded him.

  ‘It’s my flaming arm!’ was all he could say as someone dragged him back into the safety of the shadows. The numbness was receding now. Pain! Violent ripples of searing pain shot up his arm straight into his brain and, whilst he couldn’t see his hand, he could feel warm sticky liquid running down it. The air tasted coppery with the tang of blood.

  ‘Me gun!’ Maguire hissed. ‘I’ve dropped me bloody gun.’

  ‘Leave it!’ MacEoin shouted, heaving Maguire to his feet and shoving him towards a waiting volunteer. ‘Get him out of here!’ Maguire felt himself stumbling, half running, half dragged across the damp, dark field to safety. MacEoin ordered Fitzgerald to keep the policemen’s heads down and cover their retreat before dashing off after the others.

  Alone in the dark, time dragged for Fitzgerald and he was just about to give up his lonely vigil when he noticed something moving through one of the upstairs windows. ‘One for the road, eh?’ he muttered as he took aim at the shape and, smiling, squeezed the trigger before slipping away, without a backward glance.

  Flynn allowed himself a flicker of hope as the first weak tendrils of dawn began to grope into Drumlish. If any of the IRA were still there the light would strip them of their cover. He steadied his nerves and squeezing his carbine until his knuckles blanched he poked his head cautiously out of the window. Nothing happened; the street was empty and even the drizzle had gone. His eyes were drawn to a dark stain in the road and what looked like a revolver.

  ‘Here goes nothing,’ he muttered and stood up. On the landing he checked on O’Neill who was slouched
in an armchair, cradling his rifle, relaxed but alert, every inch the combat veteran. ‘Any sign, Gary?’ Flynn asked.

  O’Neill shook his head. ‘I think they’ve done a bunk, Kevin …’ He smacked his lips thoughtfully ‘You know, I could murder a brew and some scoff,’ he said, with studied nonchalance. ‘First things first, though. I need a flaming leak!’

  Flynn forced a smile and went back onto the landing, battling to control the tremors that were building, threatening to seize control of his hands. He always got the shakes after a fight and to be honest he hadn’t met many who didn’t. O’Neill was probably sitting on the bog shaking like a jelly too but at least it was in private.

  Climbing down the stairs, Flynn noticed dusty shafts of light latticing the gloom of the duty room. McLain slouched against the desk, his rifle across its top, keeping his weight off his backside whilst O’Leary slumped by the stove, his blond hair tangled and his face pale with shock. Both men were pallid, unshaven, dishevelled and visibly knackered. McLain looked up with red-rimmed eyes at Flynn, who frankly looked as bad as he felt. ‘And?’ he asked expectantly, his usually round face pinched and drawn with stress.

  ‘Gone,’ was all that Flynn could manage. It sounded inadequate somehow.

  This was the first time for McLain and he fought to control his bladder. At fifty-five he was far too old to be playing cowboys and Indians and too close to retirement to get shot. ‘Does it always feel like this?’ McLain asked tonelessly. ‘Do you ever get used to it?’

  ‘No,’ Flynn said as he eased open the barracks’ door and stepped into the street, nerves jangling, anticipating a bullet. His boots crunched on broken glass as he slowly walked over to the bloody oil-smeared pistol lying on the damp ground. Cautiously, he scanned the area, looking for any signs of life as, all along Main Street, heads poked out of windows and doors and in the distance he could see Father John Keville walking briskly towards him.

  Cautiously he squatted down amongst the soiled brass cartridge cases scattered in the dirt. The front of the barracks was pock-marked, every pane of glass shattered and, cradling his rifle in the crook of his arms, he slowly dropped his eyes. ‘Sergeant!’ Flynn called. ‘Best you come and have a look at this.’

  McLain eased himself out of the front door and, doing his best to conceal his injuries, he stepped gingerly over to Flynn, wincing at every step. O’Neill was at his shoulder, rifle at the trail. ‘Well, Constable Flynn, get yourself over to the post office as quick as you can and telegraph District about last night,’ McLain ordered.

  Flynn looked up and nodded. ‘Very good, Sergeant,’ Flynn replied, barely suppressing a grin as O’Neill winked at him over McLain’s shoulder.

  O’Neill smiled at McLain. ‘Well, someone won’t be thumbing his nose at the law for a while.’ McLain looked puzzled and glanced back at the pistol. Next to it, in a splash of darkening dried blood, lay the remains of a thumb. O’Neill pocketed the pistol and as he picked up the severed digit in his handkerchief, he saw O’Leary, white as a sheet, tumbling out of the barracks’ door.

  ‘Sergeant!’ O’Leary shouted, his voice trembling. ‘They’ve shot Mrs McLain!’

  CHAPTER 3

  Greville Arms Hotel, Granard, County Longford, Ireland

  ‘I’M SUPPOSED TO be in command of you lot, so Christ knows what they’ll be thinking in Dublin!’ MacEoin growled, his mask of studied boyish charm slipping as he struck the table, making the tobacco smoke swirl and the tea cups and stout bottles rattle. He was exhausted and angry and like most senior IRA officers lacked any real training for his job. He was a blacksmith by trade, compact and muscular.

  ‘Aah, you’ll be fine, yer man Mick will see to that!’ the man next to him said, referring to MacEoin’s friend, Michael Collins, the real driving force behind the IRA’s campaign. ‘You know as well as I do that the big fella looks after his own.’

  MacEoin gave the speaker, a local solicitor called Paul McGovern, an angry stare. ‘Those bloody Keystone Kops have made us look like a right bunch of culchie eejits. Mick won’t like that. If you ask me, someone grassed us up. How else could the attack have gone so bloody wrong?’ MacEoin barely contained his anger. He resented the implication that his rank was purely on account of Collins and the others knew that despite his youthful looks he was a hardened, committed and ruthless revolutionary.

  ‘Sod the Keystone Kops, perhaps we should have got Charlie Chaplin to lend a hand? You want to know why we messed up? Because it was an arse plan, that’s why,’ Maguire interjected and the four men at the table looked around at the cigarette-smoke-shrouded speaker slouched in the deep shadows of a floral-embroidered armchair, his hard, dark eyes burning dangerously like coals.

  ‘It was you who mucked it up, Joe, not Charlie fecking Chaplin!’ butted in MacEoin’s right-hand man Sean Connolly. ‘You shot a fecking football and a peeler in the arse! If you hadn’t danced around in the street playing at Tom Mix we could have got the bastards!’

  ‘Don’t try and blame me for your cack-handed plan. It was you and Sean here,’ Maguire growled angrily at MacEoin and Connolly, his face pale and dangerous, ‘who dreamt up this flaming masterplan! ’Twas a bad business with the woman.’ MacEoin darkened like a storm cloud, struggling to ignore Maguire’s barb. ‘How do I know one of yous two didn’t blab about the attack? After all, people are always coming and going from your forge and there’s a constabulary barracks just down the road. You could easily have been overheard!’

  MacEoin snorted. ‘You know damn well that none of my boys would blab to the peelers.’

  Maguire brandished his bandaged hand. ‘But you’d happily say that one of mine did? You know they shot me bloody thumb off! Damned near wrecked the rest of me blasted hand as well. Jesus, just look at it. I don’t see any of yous getting wounded. If one of my boys was a tout I’d know about it!’

  MacEoin laughed. ‘Jesus, don’t we all know it! I guess your thumb is now in Longford helping the peelers with their enquiries!’ Maguire scowled at the weak joke; he didn’t like being laughed at. MacEoin paused again and looked at Maguire. ‘Well, now, I’ve got a few contacts in the constabulary. I think I’ll have a word with some of them and find out whether they were tipped off or not.’

  ‘How do you know you can trust your pet peelers?’ McGovern asked.

  ‘Because I can,’ MacEoin replied tersely.

  ‘I don’t trust peelers,’ Maguire cut in. ‘They’re all the same, even the ones on our side. If they can betray their own I can’t see that they would hesitate to stitch us up when it suits. Once a traitor always a traitor if you ask me!’

  There was a scraping noise outside the door and the men froze suddenly. Lawrence Kiernan, the young owner of the Greville Arms, stood up and walked towards the door. Connolly placed his hand on the pistol in his jacket pocket. McGovern held his breath as Kiernan stretched his hand towards the door knob. The door burst open and an attractive young woman swept into the room carrying a tray of fresh tea and sandwiches, disarming the room with a cheery smile.

  ‘Kitty,’ Kiernan said to his sister, ‘you nearly scared the life out of us!’

  Kitty Kiernan laughed as she looked at their startled faces. ‘Will you just look at the state of you all? You look like you’re plotting a revolution or something,’ she teased, flashing another mischievous smile, knowing full well what they were up to. Besides, she had been listening at the door for the last few minutes.

  ‘Kitty, darling,’ said McGovern, who was married to her sister Helen, ‘what is it we can do for you? You just shouldn’t go sneaking up on people like that. Lord knows what could happen to you.’

  She placed the tea tray on the table in the middle of the room and made a show of tidying up the dirty dishes. ‘I was just wondering whether you were hungry, that’s all.’

  ‘Of course you were, Kitty,’ said MacEoin, ‘but this is army business and your Mick wouldn’t forgive me if you got dragged into it.’ Kitty Kiernan was Mick Collins’ girlfriend.


  ‘I’m sure that Mick would understand that I want to help,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be a glorified camp follower traipsing after the drum,’ she huffed but MacEoin raised his hand.

  ‘Please, Kitty, you do more than enough already and besides Mick really wouldn’t be happy with me if anything did happen to you. Now please, we have business to attend to and it’s best you know nothing about it.’ Kiernan stood by the door holding the handle with barely disguised impatience, waiting for his sister to leave. ‘It’s for your own good,’ he said quietly as she passed and he closed the door as she shot him an angry look.

  Connolly sighed, looking at Sean. ‘Joe may have a point. You don’t think that one of your pet peelers is playing fast and loose with us and spilled the beans about our plans?’

  MacEoin shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so. Only one of them knew anything about it and I can trust him absolutely. No, it wouldn’t be him.’

  Maguire snorted angrily and shook his head. ‘How do you know? What’s so special about this peeler then?’ he asked, leaning forward.

  ‘Trust me,’ was all that MacEoin said, dismissing his questions.

  ‘Whatever went wrong, Sean,’ Connolly continued, ‘we underestimated the opposition. It’s as simple as that. That pompous old duffer McLain wouldn’t have put up a fight if it wasn’t for that new fella. What’s he called, Joe?’ He looked over at Maguire. ‘He’s on your patch. What’s his name?’

  ‘Flynn, I think,’ Maguire replied. ‘Another bloody traitor. He only arrived a week or so ago and I will take great pleasure in helping him retire from his new career at the first opportunity!’ The others laughed.