‘All right, Paddy, take your time. Joe here has already told me some of it but I want you to tell me what happened. You’re amongst friends here, Paddy, so you tell me what you think happened.’
Doyle watched Maguire rise from his seat and leave the room. He also noticed that Maguire had taken his rifle. Doyle was alone with the two men. Suddenly he felt very frightened and very alone. His hands began to tremble. He slurped his tea nervously and began to talk.
CHAPTER 8
Drumlish, County Longford
‘YOU BEEN OUT long?’ Purton asked, disturbing Flynn’s strange sense of nostalgia as he sat nestled amongst the huddled Tommies. It was almost as if he had come home again after a long absence; he sort of felt like he belonged even though he knew he didn’t.
‘Last year. Since January 1919,’ Flynn replied, without looking at the wizened old private.
‘I was at Wipers, what about you?’ Purton continued, valiantly trying to spark up a conversation with Flynn. He was reluctant to talk; he wasn’t sure why, he just was. Maybe it was because McNamara was glaring at them with ill-concealed hatred. The less the IRA knew about him the better, Flynn thought, sensing that behind his empty dark eyes the IRA man was calculating the odds, waiting for his chance to make a break for it.
Around them, squaddies sat chatting quietly, smoking, and eventually Purton leant over and offered Flynn a cigarette. Reaching for it, Flynn glanced at the dead gunman’s foot poking out from under the gas cape and couldn’t help noticing that they were well-made boots. A flicker of a smile crossed his face. During the war, boots like that would have been long gone by now.
‘Bloody traitor!’ McNamara shrieked, unable to control himself when he saw Flynn smile. His boot lashed out and caught the policeman across the shin. ‘You’ll see how funny this is when I get out of here! You’re a dead man, you bastard!’ Clutching his shin, Flynn’s eye twitched as he studied the gunman’s face.
A soldier drove his rifle butt hard into the side of McNamara’s head and he dropped like a stone beneath a flurry of blows. ‘Leave him!’ Flynn shouted, shoving the soldier back before heaving McNamara back onto the bench, his head lolling, blood gushing from his nose and mouth.
‘Be a good boy, Paddy, and sit still!’ Purton said to McNamara and then, realizing that Flynn was also Irish, added, ‘No offence, mate.’ Flynn just shook his head slowly and said nothing.
‘Judas!’ McNamara hissed, as he regained his senses. ‘You should be ashamed to call yourself Irish, selling your country to the bloody English!’
‘I warned you!’ Purton snapped, raising his bony fist, but Flynn seized his forearm.
‘Leave him,’ Flynn said quietly, then released the soldier’s arm and sat back to look at McNamara. He met his gaze and spoke quietly. ‘There is only one person here who should be ashamed,’ he said, ‘and it’s not me. So Ireland is a better place for murdering a lonely old man, eh? You’ll build a better country on a pile of corpses, will you?’
The IRA man stared at him sullenly and resolved that he would kill this traitor the first chance that he got but first he needed an opportunity to make a break for it. He looked down at his brother’s corpse and said a silent prayer to himself. ‘I’ll pay the bastards back, Jerry,’ he mouthed silently, ‘if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll make sure they all bloody pay.’ The silence that followed was oppressive and Flynn felt strangely relieved when the convoy bumped into Drumlish: he was almost home.
‘How on earth do you put up with a dump like this?’ Purton asked Flynn.
‘It’s not so bad, they’re good people.’ Flynn glanced at McNamara. ‘Saving a few bad apples and …’
‘Piss off back to Dublin, you jackeen shite,’ McNamara spat, recognizing Flynn’s Dublin accent.
‘Oi, matey, I bloody told you once!’ Purton barked, as he firmly burrowed his size ten boot into the prisoner’s shin with a solid thunk. McNamara shrieked and clutched his leg in pain. ‘Flaming jessie, hark at him shrieking like a girlie!’ Purton laughed and the squaddies joined in.
‘Well, so much for national solidarity, eh?’ Flynn added as McNamara, smarting from the pain and mockery, scowled at him.
Strains of soldiers singing ‘We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here’ wafted from ahead as the convoy trundled down Main Street and Flynn caught a glimpse of the pretty redhead, Kathleen, strolling down the street chatting to her mother, an older version of herself. The girl looked up and smiled when she noticed Flynn in the lorry. He nodded briefly.
McNamara saw the girl wave and a cruel, mocking smile tugged at his mouth as he made a mental note to get word out about the girl with her wavy red hair. There was obviously something going on between her and the Dubliner and maybe she would provide the opportunity for him to wreak his revenge. If she was anything to do with the policeman he would make sure that she lived to regret it. McNamara noticed that the policeman was watching him.
‘So tell me what gives you the right to go shooting people then?’ Flynn finally asked.
‘The Irish people, that’s who, and the government of the Irish republic,’ McNamara replied sullenly.
‘Jesus,’ Flynn snorted, ‘the government of the Irish republic, elected by whom? If round here is anything to go by, the election was a fix. I don’t remember Sinn Féin saying anything about turning the country into a bloody slaughterhouse either!’ Before McNamara could reply, the lorry crunched to a halt outside the bullet-scarred RIC barracks and Flynn saw Sergeant Willson hurrying down the path. Lieutenant Crawford had already sprung out of the lead vehicle and was striding purposefully towards Willson, meeting him halfway.
‘Good afternoon, sir!’ Flynn heard Willson say earnestly, giving the officer a brisk salute. ‘Sergeant Willson,’ he added, offering his hand to the officer.
Crawford shook his hand firmly and replied, ‘Lieutenant Crawford, First East Yorks.’
Flynn jumped out of the tender to join the two men who were now engrossed in a heated conversation. As he approached he overheard Crawford regaling what had transpired at Muldoon’s farm. ‘Constable Flynn!’ Willson said, looking worried. ‘How’s Jim? Will he live? Mr Crawford here says he’s shot up bad.’
Flynn nodded. ‘Yes, but I have an awful feeling that he’ll be losing his leg. His knee is broken. The medical orderly said that he’d live but I can’t see him coming back.’
Willson hung his head and sighed wearily, the worries of the world suddenly on his shoulders. ‘And us a man down already. Now we’re two men down.’
Crawford butted in. ‘If it’s any consolation, Sergeant, he is in good hands. Our doc’s a pretty decent fellow – he’ll do his best for your chap, you’ll see.’
‘Old Tom was dead when we got there,’ Flynn continued. ‘Jim got one of them though. Mr Crawford’s lads here caught another one. He’s in the back of that wagon there, Sergeant. Won’t say who he is. Perhaps you know him?’
Willson sniffed disdainfully at the corpse under the gas cape. ‘That’s Jerry McNamara,’ Willson said. ‘Nasty piece of work. And that’s his younger brother Mick. Right pair of troublemakers they are. Well, c’mon, Mick, me boy, let’s get you in the cells.’ Crawford shook his head, raising his cane to block Willson’s way.
‘I’m sorry, Sergeant, but he belongs to the army for the time being.’
Behind them O’Neill was coming down the barracks’ path and he sidled up to Flynn. ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ the Ulsterman asked, cocking his head towards Willson and Crawford’s heated discussion. Flynn could tell that O’Neill had obviously just finished bulling his boots yet again and his uniform was sharply pressed, making him look every inch the guardsman he used to be.
‘The Shinners shot Jim. He’s in a bad way but I think he’ll live,’ Flynn said. O’Neill nodded gravely. ‘You know, Gary, I feel like I let him down.’
O’Neill raised his hand. ‘Now don’t even go there, Kevin, you know better. Christ, you and me, we’ve seen eno
ugh of this nonsense. There was nothing you could do about it and you know it. He just got unlucky, that’s all.’
Flynn nodded, still unconvinced. He felt guilty that he had not done enough to keep O’Leary safe just like he felt guilty about all the others he thought he’d let down during the war.
Suddenly, Willson stomped past Flynn and O’Neill, cursing. He was livid. Flynn heard the tenders’ engines spluttering back to life and watched Crawford climb back into the lead vehicle. He guessed that as McNamara was still sitting next to Purton in the back of the second lorry that Willson had lost the custody battle.
The IRA man stared down at Flynn. ‘I’ll get you, you little shite,’ McNamara sneered at Flynn. Purton smacked him hard with the back of his hand. ‘Shut it, Paddy!’ Purton hissed before smiling down at Flynn and adding, ‘No offence, mate,’ once again.
Crawford waved cheerily as the convoy lurched off in the direction of Longford and, as the soldiers departed, the clouds parted once more and the sun struggled to warm the fast-fading day. Pale sunbeams danced across the puddles, reflecting off the dull brown steel shutters newly supplied by the local railway company to protect the windows and those behind them from IRA bullets. It was a funny place to call home, thought Flynn.
CHAPTER 9
Drumlish, County Longford
‘LET’S GET YOU inside.’ O’Neill smiled, placing a reassuring hand on Flynn’s shoulder. ‘You look like shit.’
‘Cheers,’ Flynn replied with a wry smile and the two policemen plodded back towards the noise of Willson slamming about the duty room, muttering darkly to himself about soldiers.
‘Flynn!’ Willson shouted. ‘Get yourself in here! I need a full report and I need it now!’ He flung a blank incident report form down on the duty desk. ‘Right, lads,’ he continued, fighting back his frustration. ‘Constable O’Neill, I need you to take a statement from Constable Flynn here before I telegraph District and let them know what has happened. Tell me, boys, are all army officers like that little gobshite?’
Both old soldiers laughed as Willson stomped off to see his wife without waiting for a response. Flynn had never seen the usually stoic Willson so incandescent with rage before but then he’d never seen anyone defy the sergeant in the heart of his own little fiefdom before either. O’Neill sighed, settled in the duty chair and picked up his pen. ‘He’ll be fine,’ he said quietly as he pulled out an incident report form. ‘Let’s go over what happened then.’ He dipped his pen in the inkwell and sat poised to jot down notes.
Flynn looked out of the window and watched the fading light as dusk inched its way inexorably into the precincts of the town. O’Neill looked up from his scribbling and looked at Flynn. ‘We’ll be after closing the shutters up soon,’ O’Neill said. The Ulsterman paused in thought. ‘It reminds me of being back in a dug-out with these shutters.’
Flynn smiled wearily. ‘It’s a pretty cushy dug-out we have here, Gary, and you know it. We’ve bivvyed in worse. Well, I know I have.’
O’Neill laughed. ‘But it’s a dug-out nonetheless, Kevin, my boy.’
In the end it took O’Neill just over half an hour to take down Flynn’s statement and then the Ulsterman strolled off to telegraph District HQ in Longford at the post office.
‘Do you think you should be going out on your own?’ Flynn had asked.
‘Ach, I’ll be all right, I’m from Antrim,’ O’Neill had replied dismissively as he strapped on his pistol belt and headed for the door. ‘Any Fenian who crosses my path will wish he’d not, Kevin, my boy,’ he’d added with a reassuring smile and stepped out into the darkening street.
Wearily, Flynn climbed up the stairs and walked into the dormitory he shared with the others. He looked at O’Leary’s bunk, knowing that his colleague would never be sleeping in it again. In a strange way he would miss O’Leary’s sawmill snoring and constant nocturnal flatulence. It’s funny what you got used to, he mused as he slid open his bedside cabinet drawer and pulled out his worn hipflask. He unscrewed the cap and took a long swig of poteen; the fiery spirit burned his throat. He took a second long gulp before closing the cap and tossing it onto his bed. ‘You really are getting too old for this shit,’ he said to himself as he got up and pulled an old cardboard Army suitcase from under his bed.
It felt strange to be wearing civilian clothes again and he barely recognized the face that stared back at him from the mirror as he pulled on his old beige trenchcoat and battered hat. The brim cast a deep shadow over his face, masking his eyes as he slipped his revolver into one pocket and his hipflask into the other. The stairs creaked as he picked his way down them and it struck him how disturbingly quiet his footfalls were in shoes rather than hobnail boots.
It was cold beneath the glittering stars strewn across the empty heavens and Flynn’s thoughts were clouded. He needed to think, to decide what to do next. He turned up his collar against the breeze and slipped into the shadows. The gravel crunched beneath his feet, letting them take him where they would.
They took him to Cairn Hill, an ancient Bronze Age burial mount that overshadowed Drumlish, which unsurprisingly for the time of day was deserted. Flynn lost all track of time as he sat alone atop the old pile of rocks, staring into the darkness, all whispering noise and dancing shadows. The poteen sustained the illusion of warmth as he replayed the day’s events over and over again. Could it have been different? It was a stupid question. What was done was done and there was nothing he could do about it but he always got scared after the event.
Darkness flowed over him as he watched the glittering lights of the village dancing below. He realized that he had never really looked at the place after sunset. It was beautiful. Since the IRA attack on the barracks it was too dangerous to go wandering about at night, especially on your own, and suddenly Flynn felt very foolish. He took another swig of poteen. He didn’t like the dark, the shadows brought back too many memories, memories that he fought hard to bury; memories that only drink seemed to fend off.
He had looked into the abyss and knew that it had also gazed into him, soiling him somehow. He hated what he had become, what he had done. He had dreamt of peace and yet still it evaded him. He shivered, it felt like he was lying out in no man’s land awaiting his prey and his joints seemed to ache in recollection. Everything was a mess. Yet life had somehow been simpler during the war: you were either alive or dead. It was black and white and at least you knew who the enemy was, not like now.
A soft crunch in the undergrowth startled him and Flynn leapt to his feet, yanking his revolver from his pocket, pointing it at the centre of the shape that was looming out of the shadows. Click! He cocked the weapon and snapped, ‘Who’s there?’
‘Are you always waving your weapon at people in the dark?’ a mischievous female voice quipped as the shadow stepped closer. Flynn tensed, his eye twitching as the moonlight reflected from the stranger’s smile.
CHAPTER 10
Cairn Hill, Drumlish, County Longford
‘HELLO, CONSTABLE FLYNN,’ Kathleen said, looking up at Flynn silhouetted against the night sky. She ignored the gun. ‘And how are you? I thought you might be wanting some company, so I’ve brought a thermos of tea,’ she added with a smile.
‘Evening, Miss Moore, I’m tearing away,’ Flynn laughed, feeling suddenly calm as he self-consciously uncocked his gun and slipped it quietly back into his coat pocket. The girl sat down and then patted the grass.
‘Come on, Constable Flynn. Sit yourself down here.’
He could smell her as he sat and she quickly poured a steaming cup full of tea. She handed it to Flynn, who accepted it without a word, their hands grazing as he took it. He held the Bakelite mug to his lips and breathed in the aroma. It was hot and sweet and he savoured its warmth before swallowing. It never ceased to amaze him how the simplest pleasures could often be the best; a dry pair of socks or a sheltered spot out of the icy wind, so unappreciated by those who had never experienced the privations of prolonged exposure to the elements.
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‘They’re saying in the village that the IRA have shot old Tom Muldoon. Bernie Carolan told my da that he seen a dead body under a blanket,’ she said with a sigh. ‘So much suffering,’ she added quietly and Flynn turned to look at her, drinking in the details of her face in the gloom.
‘You know,’ he began without knowing quite why, ‘I hate guns, hate them. I had enough of them in the war.’
‘But you’ve shot people?’ she asked. ‘You peelers have your guns too,’ she added.
‘You know, it’s a terrible thing to see a man shot,’ he said quietly, avoiding giving a direct answer. ‘To take away everything from him: his past, present, his future. Everything he could be. You know what I’m saying, everything, a terrible thing.’ He sighed. ‘Jesus, of course you don’t, why should you?’ He sipped his tea.
‘Was it bad?’ Kathleen asked as she propped her chin on her knees, watching him drain the last of his tea. In the halflight she could just make out his features as he fiddled with the now-empty cup. Flynn didn’t know whether she meant the war or Muldoon’s farm and he struggled to find the words to answer her. They felt like lead in his mouth. Kathleen smiled quietly. ‘You know they say that some men don’t like to talk about the war.’
‘It’s not that,’ he replied.
‘What is it then?’ she asked.
He thought for a moment. How could she understand what it is like to scrape human flesh from the welts of your boots or try to get to sleep with the cries of dying men ringing in your ears? To eat and live amongst the dead and kill without giving it a second thought. How could she understand? He shivered. How could anyone understand? Why the hell should they?
‘You know when I speak to folk like O’Neill, words seem to come so easily, but …’ He hesitated. She placed her hand on his thigh. It was warm. She looked up and traced the line of the scar across the side of his face. The skin tingled and self-consciously he began to draw back.
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