England's Janissary

  King frowned at him in obvious confusion. ‘Are you after making a bloody sandwich or something? What about Brogan here?’ he protested.

  ‘Just do it! I know what I’m doing, trust me!’ he shouted, galvanizing King into action as more bullets smacked into the cottage and smashed through already shattered windows, making the tattered curtains flap like shell-torn battle flags. King half crawled, half ran out of the pantry clutching a tatty roll of greaseproof paper and a battered jar of Henry Tate and Son black treacle, his eyes shining in triumph. ‘You keep their heads down,’ Flynn shouted and shoved a carbine into King’s good hand before grabbing the paper and treacle. He knelt down next to Brogan and quickly examined the entry wound, wiping away the smear of blood before tearing a rough square of greaseproof paper from the roll.

  Next he daubed thick lines of treacle on three of its four edges and as blood began to froth from the hole in Brogan’s chest he slapped the patch down over the wound. Then he ripped a strip of cloth from a nearby tablecloth and wound it like a bandage around the wounded man’s chest. Satisfied with his work, he looked up to see King staring at him in confusion. ‘It’s something I learnt in the war. The patch will stop air being sucked into his chest and collapsing his lungs. The open end will let the air out when he exhales and hopefully he’ll still be alive when this is all over,’ Flynn explained, as he tied off the bandage and checked to see if Brogan had any other injuries. Thankfully he did not.

  McNamara slipped across the road in an attempt to work his way closer to the back of the cottage. He had seen the policemen retreat into the building and he was sure that the last one had been the object of his hatred, Constable Flynn. This was his chance to finish it once and for all. ‘Christ almighty!’ he yelped as a bullet clipped the wall by his head, showering him with masonry dust as he frantically looked around, trying to locate where the shot had come from, praying it wasn’t from one of his own side.

  Glancing up, he saw a shape in the cottage’s upstairs window and ducked back behind the garden wall, trying to make himself as small as possible. Risking another look, the policeman’s carbine barked again, chipping the mortar next to his cheek. He squealed and banged his temple against the wall in his rush to take cover. He was pinned down and he knew it. If he tried to go forward he would die so he did the only thing he could do in the circumstances and wormed his way back to the road.

  ‘What are you doing?’ MacEoin snapped after watching McNamara work his way back to the road and over to the command post.

  He looked at his commander in frustration. ‘It’s no good. They’ve got the back covered. The bastards nearly blew my head off.’ McNamara couldn’t work out why MacEoin looked so angry and disappointed and the gunman hoped that it wasn’t because they hadn’t succeeded in killing him after all.

  MacEoin was irate. One of the peelers was definitely dead, sprawled across the front seat of the van with his brains leaking out, but at least two more if not three were holed up in one of the cottages across the way. True, they were pinned down but MacEoin knew that the element of surprise had gone. The ambush had already dragged on too long and he knew that it would only be a matter of time before the noise of the fighting attracted attention and then the whole wrath of the British and their cursed Empire would begin to crash down on him.

  He had wanted a quick kill and the last thing he needed was a real ruck; he simply didn’t have enough men for a stand-up fight against a relief column. Bitterly he gave the mail car one long baleful look, his informant had been pretty adamant that it contained something important but he knew he would have to let it go. The policemen in the cottage had a clear line of fire to the vehicle and he knew it would be suicide to try and reach it as long as they were there.

  ‘Damn!’ he spat and both Fitzgerald and Hegarty gave him a brief sidelong glance before resuming their sporadic pot shots at the cottage. MacEoin leant against the wall, trying to think. His clothes stank of sweat and cordite and reluctantly he pulled his whistle from his pocket and slowly placed it in his mouth. He blew a long, loud blast and to his delight the firing stopped. ‘Thank God,’ MacEoin muttered, pleased that his men had enough discipline to cease fire and begin to withdraw in an orderly fashion. At least the Brits had been sent a clear message, which was something.

  On the outskirts of the village Doyle heard the whistle blast and a tide of relief washed over him. It was over. ‘Come on, let’s go!’ he said to his boys and led them to the north of the village, skirting the backs of the squat houses. In a way the ambush had been an anti-climax, albeit a welcome one. ‘Maybe next time, lads,’ he said in an attempt to cheer up his lads, who seemed genuinely disappointed at not firing a shot in anger, although he could tell that for all the huffing and puffing they were probably as relieved as he was that they hadn’t been drawn into the shooting.

  Doyle caught a glimpse of the bullet-riddled wreckage of the mail car, with its shattered windscreen, shredded wheels and rag-doll corpse hanging from the cab. Thick bloodstains slid down the side of the vehicle and discoloured the dirt road next to a discarded police carbine. Mesmerized, one of his boys slowed down, staring wide-eyed at the unfamiliar detritus of battle. It was the first time that the boy, Ed Riley, had ever seen a corpse and his eyes were drawn to it like a moth to a candle. Doyle hadn’t got used to it either but he had a job to do and forced himself to look away as a bullet flew past his head. ‘Jakers! Ed, keep moving! Keep moving or you’ll get us all killed,’ Doyle shouted, chivvying them on as another bullet zipped past – too close for comfort.

  ‘Well done, lads!’ MacEoin called as Doyle and his detachment trotted by. ‘You done good!’ Doyle could see that MacEoin looked exhausted, drained, his rifle hanging loosely at the trail in his hand. ‘Keep going! Make for the rendezvous.’ Doyle nodded, pleased with MacEoin’s praise, pleased that he had been noticed by his hero as he stopped at the edge of the road to help his boys over the wall into the field beyond. The grass was wet on his boots and the sun had just slipped behind a long grey cloud as he led them away across the field to the rendezvous point in the distance.

  Wearily MacEoin watched Doyle and his men go. They were the last and as he summoned up his last reserves of energy he poked his head back into the cottage that had acted as his command post. ‘Brendan, give them a few more and then shift!’ Without looking, Fitzgerald nodded and emptied the last rounds from his weapon into the side of the cottage before rising and running past his boss, off into the fields after Doyle. MacEoin took one last look around. His eyes fell on the mail car and he sighed before finally turning and following his men.

  Squatting beneath a shattered window, Flynn heard the whistle blast as he held his carbine rifle across his chest. He fumbled through his pockets for another clip of ammunition and panted for breath, desperately trying to oxygenate his blood sufficiently to move. He felt drained, exhausted. A rapid succession of shots thudded into the front of the cottage and he cringed, trying to make himself as small as possible and melt into the floor. Then there was a ringing silence and he slowly raised his head to peer over the windowsill, half expecting to draw a flurry of shots. He could hear men moving and muffled shouting, then quiet. Then a lone figure emerged from the side of the cottage opposite, the one where most of the firing had come from, and dashed across the road followed seconds later by another man, stocky, clad in a brown suit and a flat cap clutching a .303 at the trail. The man stopped at the side of the road and looked back towards the crossroads.

  The wreckage obscured Flynn’s view but he was sure that the man was the blacksmith he’d talked to in Balinalee. It would seem that O’Neill had been wrong when he said that the blacksmith had been all talk and no action and Flynn shifted his position, trying ineffectually to line up his sights on the man. He stood up to get a better aim but the man had already gone.

  It was painfully quiet and high-pitched tinnitus rang in Flynn’s ears. He was conscious of the sweat soaking his armpits and a bead trickled down his temple. His rag
ged breathing was just about under control and he suddenly felt a savage craving for a cigarette. He glanced at his wristwatch, a souvenir of the trenches, but the adrenalin coursing through him blurred his vision. Blinking hard, he tried to focus on the watch face and then gave up as he waited below the window, straining to hear.

  ‘I think they’ve gone,’ he finally called to King as he walked towards the cottage door. His nerves were alive, half expecting a shot to cut short his efforts as he grasped the door handle and eased the bullet-scarred door open, letting in dusty talons of sunlight. Hesitantly his foot slid over the threshold.

  ‘Be careful, Kevin,’ King said, as he came down the stairs and slumped into a chair, exhausted, as the strength drained from his knees. Flynn could feel his eyes on his back and his hands began to shake slightly as he lifted his carbine into the ready position and, holding his breath, stepped into the street. The verdant hills were strangely quiet after the chaos of battle, disturbed only by the gentle rustling of leaves and the forlorn flap of laundry in the breeze.

  Four miles away in Drumlish, Willson froze in mid step. It didn’t register at first that the faint popping noise wafting on the breeze over the hills from the direction of Gaigue was the sound of distant gunfire. ‘Jesus Christ!’ he wailed as the penny dropped and he broke into an undignified sprint towards the post office and its telegraph office.

  Drumlish’s balding middle-aged postmaster, Peter O’Brien, was counting his stock of first-class postage stamps when Willson burst through the door, red faced and gulping for air. ‘Mr O’Brien! The telegraph!’ Willson spluttered incoherently. O’Brien looked confused and Willson jabbed a finger at the telegraph office door. ‘I need you to send a cable to HQ in Longford! Tell them that it sounds like shooting up at Gaigue. I think the IRA has ambushed my boys!’

  ‘Are you sure, Sergeant Willson?’ O’Brien sputtered in disbelief.

  Gasping like a landed fish, Willson bellowed, ‘Just do it!’

  O’Brien snapped out of his torpor and dashed into the telegraph office, leaving the sergeant contorted with fear as he listened to the incessant crackle of gunfire in the distance. He prayed that District HQ would respond quickly to his call. Half an hour later, the Auxiliaries arrived.

  CHAPTER 17

  M Company HQ, RIC Auxiliary Division, Longford

  FLYNN WATCHED THE billowing blue-grey trail of tobacco smoke wisp from the ashtray as he cradled another chipped enamel mug of tea in both hands. The mug, as expected, was uncomfortably hot and as ever he toyed with putting it down or enduring the exquisite agony for a few moments more. The pain was comforting. It reminded him of nights when the bitter cold leeched through the studs of his hobnail boots. When it was so cold he’d stuffed his hands in the crotch of his trousers to keep warm. It reminded him of anything except Mullan’s dead face staring at him like a landed fish. But every time he closed his eyes it was there.

  ‘Is that everything?’ the plain clothes detective asked, tapping Flynn’s statement. He held out a pen. ‘Sign here then and I’ll take it to see the inspector.’ Flynn signed and then, popping the papers in a brown card folder, the detective stood up and left the room, leaving him alone. From his seat Flynn looked out of the flaking iron-framed window and placed the mug on the table. The glass was cobwebbed and filthy and outside he could see RIC Auxiliaries checking their weapons and chatting without a care in the world. Some played cricket up against a wall whilst behind them men in overalls hosed down a row of dark blue RIC Crossley Tenders. The place looked more like a military barracks than the police station it was supposed to be.

  He remembered the day he had been walking along Main Street with Reidy when he’d got his first sight of the Auxiliaries. They rolled into Drumlish at the regulation seven miles per hour, Lewis guns and .303s bristling from their Crossleys, exuding an air of menace. ‘Who on earth are they? I didn’t know the jocks had a regiment near here?’ Flynn asked, confused by their khaki Balmoral bonnets and army surplus uniforms.

  ‘They, Kevin, my boy, are the Auxies,’ Reidy replied. ‘They’ve set up camp in Longford. A rum bunch if you ask me.’ Several Auxiliaries had waved at them as they rumbled by and Flynn had noticed that they were all wearing army officers’ uniforms with medal ribbons splashed in abundance across their worn tunics. Some had pistols slung low, strapped to their thighs like Wild West gunslingers, all were armed to the teeth, ex-army officers recruited to take the fight to the IRA. ‘They get a pound a day, all in,’ Reidy continued and Flynn whistled in amazement.

  ‘Sure, that’s serious money!’ Flynn said.

  ‘Isn’t it just. There isn’t enough room in Phoenix Park to cope with the numbers so they train them in Gormanstown instead,’ Reidy continued.

  ‘They any good?’ Flynn asked.

  ‘As peelers they’re lousy,’ Reidy snorted, ‘but at putting the fear of God up the Shinners they’re second to none!’

  ‘What brings them here? You would have thought that they’d have had enough of guns in the war?’

  Reidy paused before he replied, ‘I guess the war spoiled most of them for civilian life. Look at them, youngsters the lot of them, little more than boys really. Besides, there’s not much call for gunmen when there isn’t a war on.’

  Flynn had the uncomfortable feeling that Reidy had meant him as well, a gunman looking for a war, when suddenly the crunch of hobnails on the gravel outside punctured his thoughts and he watched two Auxiliaries stroll past the window. ‘Then he shouted, “I’ve lost my leg”, and his mate turned round and said, “no you haven’t Smithy, it’s over here”,’ one of them said before they both burst into fits of raucous laughter. Like all of the Auxiliaries he’d seen, they had cigarettes hanging from their lips. They were a tough-looking bunch; ‘Tudor’s Toughs’ they called themselves, in honour of their founder Major General Sir Henry Tudor.

  A slight breeze came in through the open window, making sheets of green, pink and white paper flutter gently on the green baize noticeboard that filled the opposite wall. It was like any number of noticeboards in barracks all over the empire, ordering and regulating the Crown’s minions across the globe. As he stubbed out his cigarette, pushing the now cold mug of tea away, the door burst open, making Flynn start. Jerking his head up, he started to rise when he saw a young RIC district inspector enter and stop in front of him. The man’s eyes were deep, dark and strangely expressionless, like those of a man who had seen too much and at odds with his boyish, unaffected grin.

  ‘Good afternoon, Constable Flynn,’ he said, in a crisp Irish public-school accent. ‘Please, don’t get up, it’s a pleasure to meet you at long last,’ he added, waving Flynn back into his seat. Flynn felt a little alarmed that the officer seemed so pleased to meet him ‘at long last’. He couldn’t help but notice that the inspector’s uniform was expensive, immaculately tailored and that he moved with the grace of a natural athlete. He had the look of a rugby player about him, Flynn thought.

  ‘My name is DI Kelleher, Philip Kelleher,’ the man said as he plonked a pair of black leather gloves, his Gieves and Hawkes cap and a blackthorn cane onto the table before flopping languidly into a chair opposite. He looked about twenty-three by Flynn’s estimation, and he couldn’t help notice the colourful line of ribbons for the Military Cross, War and Victory medals on his tunic. Like Flynn he was a child of the trenches. Like Flynn he had come of age in the trenches.

  Kelleher grunted as he ferreted through his pocket and eventually pulled out an expensive-looking silver cigarette case engraved with the Prince of Wales feathers. He deftly flicked it open and offered Flynn a cigarette, exposing the crisp, fresh-laundered double cuff of his shirt and an enamelled Castleknock College cufflink. Flynn took a cigarette. Never turn down freebies, especially from an officer, he thought as he looked at Kelleher. ‘Thank you, sir!’ he said.

  ‘You have something for me?’ Kelleher said. It was more of a statement than a question and Flynn suddenly remembered the packet Willson had given him earlie
r that morning.

  ‘Yes, sir, I believe I have,’ Flynn replied, pulling the packet from his pocket and sliding it across the table. Kelleher looked at it and then, picking it up, he examined the seal. It was unopened. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what is it?’ Flynn asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing you need to concern yourself about, for the moment anyway,’ Kelleher said as he casually popped the packet into his own tunic pocket, closing the matter before helping himself to a cigarette. There was a faint whiff of petrol as he flipped open a metal lighter and lit Flynn’s cigarette. The smoke tasted pleasant, unlike the raw cheap ration-pack coffin nails he had got used to. It was obvious that even in his smokes the officer had expensive tastes.

  ‘I read your report by the way,’ the officer said, changing the subject as he blew out a long stream of smoke and tapped the beige folder he had tossed onto the table next to his cap. ‘You know, you write well …’ He left ‘for an enlisted man’ unsaid but Flynn could sense him say it all the same. ‘It really is good stuff, unlike most reports I read. Bad business, Constable Mullan buying the farm like that, eh, but fortunately the other chaps will pull through. That was quick thinking on your part, sorting Constable Brogan out like that. Constable Reidy has been singing your praises all afternoon!’

  ‘It was nothing sir, just something I learnt in the army,’ Flynn interjected.

  ‘Come, come, Constable, you’re far too modest. Most chaps would have gone to pieces but you kept your head. I like that.’ He smiled. ‘I want you to know that Mullan will probably get a posthumous Constabulary Medal on the strength of it. Not much, I know, for getting killed but better than nothing, eh? And it will help his family when it comes to pensions, et cetera.’ He smiled cautiously.