England's Janissary

  ‘I’ll need these if they come after me,’ he muttered, rising painfully to his feet and, without a backward glance, walked out into the farmyard. He knew that he really was a dead man if the IRA caught up with him again, especially as it looked like he had gunned down the young lad. He checked the direction again and after one last rapid all-round look, loped off into the fields. It would have been much quicker to get to Drumlish by road but that way would also increase his chances of recapture, so he kept to the fields and moved slowly behind walls and hedgerows, trying not to spook the sheep or break cover.

  An hour or so later the landscape began to look more familiar and he headed towards a piece of high ground ahead of him. To his left, he caught the sound of a car engine about a hundred yards away on the road and he tucked himself into the cover of a hedge. Gently, he eased off the safety catch and took a few deep breaths. His body ached from his exertions and it had taken him just over two hours to cover four and a half miles. He had to assume that the others had found Maguire and the boy by now. The car passed.

  A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he froze. The undergrowth was moving. He shifted his weight and eased his rifle into his shoulder, holding his breath, straining to listen. A hare burst from its cover and dashed across the field. Somewhere a dog barked. Scared but relieved, he lay still and waited for what seemed like an eternity before cautiously levering himself onto his knees. He sighed in relief. Drumlish nestled below in the hollow between the hills and he carefully rose to his feet. Around him, birds twittered and a gentle breeze caressed his cheek as he stepped off down the hill towards the village.

  It took longer than he had expected to work his way around the edge of the houses, sticking to dead ground until he was close to the barracks, then he cautiously eased himself into the alleyway that led to the back gate and, keeping close to the wall, crept towards it. He fought to stay alert as the black wooden gate drew nearer. During the war, too many men died because they got sloppy at the end of a patrol, assuming they were safe before they really were, and he was determined not to make the same fatal mistake.

  Exhausted, he finally leant against the gatepost and looked up and down the alleyway. He was knackered and starving as he listened to the sound of movement on the other side of the wall. He placed his hand on the gate and pushed. It was locked. ‘Oi! Open this bloody gate!’ he shouted whilst looking fearfully up and down the alley and hammering on the gate with his fist.

  ‘Who is it?’ a voice shouted from the barracks yard. It was O’Neill.

  ‘It’s me, Kevin!’ Flynn shouted. ‘Open up, quick!’

  ‘All right! All right!’ O’Neill called as the bolt rasped from its socket and the Ulsterman peered out. Flynn threw his weight against it and barged past O’Neill, slamming the gate shut behind him.

  ‘Bolt it quick!’ Flynn barked and slumped against the wall, safe at last.

  O’Neill stared in wide-eyed disbelief at Flynn as he bundled in through the gate and stood for a second or two before galvanizing himself into action. ‘Jesus, Kevin, is that yourself? You look like shit!’ he said, staring at Flynn’s battered face and filthy clothes. Reaching over, he gently took the rifle from Flynn’s hands and casually flicked open the breech, ejecting the round. ‘There, that’s better,’ he added as he picked up the discarded bullet and slipped the rifle sling over his shoulder. He helped his exhausted friend towards the back door. ‘We heard about the business over in Granard this morning. Christ, will Willson have a flaming heart attack when he sees you, so he will! We thought that you’d copped it!’

  Flynn grinned at O’Neill and licked his lips. ‘So did I,’ he said wearily, utterly drained, ‘so did I.’

  O’Neill slapped him firmly on the back and laughed. ‘Get yourself inside.’

  ‘They’ve killed Jim,’ Flynn said wearily. ‘One of the Fenians told me they’d killed Jim.’

  O’Neill went white, shocked by the news as he put his arm comfortingly around Flynn’s shoulder. ‘Jesus, I could murder a drink …’ O’Neill muttered, as he pushed Flynn gently towards the back door. ‘Now let’s get inside.’

  CHAPTER 25

  Monday, 1 November 1920, Drumlish RIC Barracks

  THE ROOM WAS thick with the greasy stench of fried bacon mixed with stale sweat and tea. Mrs Willson bustled around the room juggling chipped willow pattern plates of sandwiches oozing thick brown sauce and looking much older than her forty years. She plonked them down onto a table littered with dog-eared files and tatty papers. Her face was etched with strain; life in the barracks was taking its toll on the sergeant’s wife. ‘You’ll feel better with this inside you,’ she said, handing Flynn a plate of sandwiches.

  ‘Thank you very much, Mrs Willson,’ Flynn said as he took the plate. He picked up one of the wedges of bread and bacon and took a massive bite. There was something strangely comforting about bacon sandwiches and after the first swallow he began to feel better. He sank into the depths of the barracks’ only decent armchair outside of Willson’s family quarters. Everything seemed just the way he remembered it, yet already it had changed. He didn’t belong anymore, it wasn’t his barracks and, as he stared at the floor chewing mechanically, he knew that yet again he was an outsider. Just like when he’d come home from the war.

  Flynn took a generous sip of tea, liberally laced with whiskey. It caught in his throat; the fiery cocktail flared in his gut, tingling through his limbs. He felt light-headed; alcohol, even small quantities, always did that to him when he was knackered and he yearned for sleep but knew he couldn’t. He needed to get back to Longford; he needed to find out what had happened to Kelleher; he needed to find out what happened next.

  O’Neill splashed some more whiskey into Flynn’s mug. ‘Bit like old times, eh?’ he soothed with a warming smile but Flynn’s befuddled brain couldn’t quite grasp what he meant. ‘We always got rum in our tea after a patrol. A bit of gunfire on a cold morning – can’t beat it, eh, Kevin, my boy?’ Flynn nodded and attempted to smile as he remembered divvying up rum to his own boys, numbed and exhausted amongst the squalor of the trenches.

  ‘I’ve telephoned County HQ,’ Willson said, referring to the barracks’ new telephone, whilst he perched on the edge of the table, a mug of tea in one hand, a half-eaten sandwich in the other. ‘They’ll be sending some people to collect you later today. I also had a chat with Paddy Carroll, the head constable over in Granard, just to let him know that you’d turned up. He seemed happy with that anyway.’

  He really isn’t up to this, Flynn thought as he looked at Willson’s drawn features and the fear in his eyes. Willson’s cheeks were sallow and, like his wife, he was coping poorly with the strain; after all, his little world had been turned upside-down. It was almost as if someone had taken a jigsaw and thrown all the pieces in the air and he didn’t like it one bit. He could see that the sergeant was counting down the days until he could pack his bags and leave for a new life as a bobby over the water in Liverpool. Indeed, Mrs Willson made no secret of the fact that she was counting the days too.

  ‘So, what the hell happened?’ O’Neill asked.

  Flynn sighed, sat back and told them what had transpired in Granard before he was captured. ‘You know, I still don’t have a clue who was giving Inspector Kelleher his orders,’ Flynn said, ‘but whoever they are, they really aren’t going to be happy with the Shinners doing him in.’

  Willson took another mechanical bite of his sandwich and O’Neill shifted his weight, watching Flynn closely. ‘How do you know that Kelleher’s dead?’ O’Neill asked, aware that neither he nor Willson had mentioned the inspector’s fate. Flynn rubbed his face and ran his fingers through his matted hair, then rasped his hand across his stubbly chin.

  ‘It’s funny, but one of the Shinners told me. He said that Kelleher had been killed. Shot. Do you know what happened? There hadn’t been any shooting before the bastards jumped me!’

  ‘Not really,’ Willson said. ‘When I telephoned Head Cons
table Carroll, he told me that they’ve arrested one of the Kiernan girls.’ He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘Kitty,’ he added. Everyone in the area had heard of the Kiernans because of their business interests but everyone in the constabulary also knew that the entire family were up to their necks in republican politics.

  ‘That’s her, she was Kelleher’s contact,’ Flynn muttered angrily. ‘He told me that she was pretty well connected. As far as we could tell, she’s Mick Collins’ girl. I told him she was trouble, that we couldn’t trust her, but the bloody fool wouldn’t have it and look where it’s got him now. Jesus, I told him!’ he said as he slumped in the chair.

  ‘Easy now, Kevin,’ Willson said, trying to calm Flynn down. ‘The head constable said something about there being no witnesses, so it’s unlikely that they will be able to hold this Kiernan woman for long. Unless you saw anything, then it looks like Kelleher’s killers will get away with it. Gunned down in a public bar and no one to see? Christ, I’m sick to death of this country and that’s a terrible thing to say about your own. I’ll be glad to see the back of it, Kevin, my lad!’

  ‘So, Kevin, what happened to you?’ O’Neill interrupted as he liberally splashed more whiskey into Flynn’s tea. Already it was beginning to make his head spin. ‘’Twas a rare stroke of luck to get away from the Shinners then?’

  ‘It was the damnedest thing,’ Flynn began whilst Willson wiped a smear of bacon grease from his chin with the back of his hand. ‘I must look like shit?’ Flynn muttered.

  ‘You do that, Kevin, my boy, but you were saying?’ O’Neill laughed as he put down the whiskey bottle and swung backwards onto a nearby chair, resting his forearms across its back and watching the Dubliner.

  ‘Like I said, it was the damnedest thing. They took me to an old croft, a right dump, about four miles over thataways—’ He waved off the way he’d come ‘—up in the hills.’ Willson muttered something about thinking he knew where he meant but O’Neill said nothing. ‘I thought that they were going to kill me. Mick McNamara was there—’

  ‘That little shite,’ Willson interrupted but Flynn pressed on regardless.

  ‘For sure, it was him who said he’d shot Jim and if he’d had his way he would have shot me but the fella in charge wouldn’t let him. I don’t know who he was but he seemed to be in charge and the others did what he told them. By Christ, McNamara was put out by it and I don’t think that there is any love lost between the two. You know, I think that he was involved in the attack last January. You know, when we found that thumb in the road. I think it was him, the fella I shot.’

  Willson was nodding along as Flynn spoke but the Dubliner noticed that O’Neill had gone very quiet, his dark, intelligent eyes fixed on Flynn’s face, searching his every gesture, measuring his every expression, studying him intently. ‘Why do you say that?’ O’Neill asked.

  ‘Because, Gary, he didn’t have a thumb on his left hand, just a stump. It was the same fella who tried to scare me and Kelleher off the Kiernan girl in Longford.’ Suddenly, the telephone jangled into life and Willson picked up the handset. Willson seemed to brace up and Flynn could tell that whoever was on the other end of the line outranked him.

  ‘Sergeant Willson … speaking … uh hum … aye … really … very good, sir … I’ll let Sergeant Flynn know.’ Flynn watched him nodding. Willson put the handset down and took a deep breath. ‘That was Head Constable Carroll; he says that they’ve had to let the Kiernan girl go. No evidence, he said. No bloody witnesses. No bloody point.’

  Flynn had never seen Willson so depressed but what struck Flynn was how calmly O’Neill took the news, almost as if he was expecting it. ‘You don’t seem terribly surprised that they let Kitty Kiernan go, Gary,’ he said to O’Neill and he thought that he saw something flicker deep in the Ulsterman’s eyes.

  ‘Not really,’ O’Neill replied dismissively. ‘If, like they say, she’s Mick Collins’ girl, then the frockcoats in the Castle won’t be after provoking the big fella, will they? What would be more likely to get the man to do something drastic than locking up his girl?’

  Flynn nodded. After all, it made sense that the politicians – the frockcoats as they called them – would bend over backwards to placate senior rebels. The police and the army called it the revolving door: the security forces would arrest a known republican and the politicians would order them released in the bizarre belief that it would encourage the rebels to be reasonable and negotiate a deal. Sadly, Flynn thought, the rebels didn’t really reciprocate in kind and, whilst it was true some IRA officers let prisoners go, most of the time the only way out for captured soldiers or policemen was a bullet in the back of the head.

  ‘You reckon it was the frockcoats that did it?’ Flynn asked O’Neill.

  ‘Aye, that I do, Kevin, that I do. Who else, eh?’

  ‘Blasted politicians!’ Willson muttered. ‘That’s what is wrong with this country, too many bloody politicians! The boys over in Granard won’t like it, so they won’t!’ O’Neill laughed and Flynn would have too if it wasn’t for the fact that he was too tired and apathetic to be bothered.

  O’Neill looked back at Flynn. ‘So Kevin, you didn’t say what happened?’

  ‘Like I said, this fella with the one thumb, he seemed in charge. There were four of them: this fella, McNamara and another two. He sent McNamara and one of the others off to get further instructions, so he said. I heard them through a crack in the boards over the window of the room they were keeping me in.’ Flynn massaged his temples. He felt shattered and he was surprised at how hard it was becoming to speak. ‘Then this fella came and told me to follow him and I saw there was just him and this young lad and I thought that my time had come.’

  Flynn paused again and sipped his tea. It was growing cold but the whiskey was still good. He sat back and put the mug on the table next to the empty plate littered with crumbs and grease. ‘It was then that it happened,’ he continued. ‘It was then that he shot the other fella.’

  There was a pause. ‘Who shot the other fella? What other fella?’ Willson looked confused.

  ‘I don’t know who the hell he really is,’ Flynn said, ‘but he saved my life. Said he was on our side but who he works for, buggered if I know! It’s like a bloody great monster with too many bloody heads!’

  ‘What the hell are you on about now?’ Willson asked, confused.

  ‘All this bloody cloak and dagger bollocks!’ Flynn cursed. ‘Who knows who the hell is working for who! For all I know, the bloody man was probably working for Kelleher. Buggered if he told me anything about where he got his information from.’

  ‘And this fella said he was on our side?’ O’Neill asked in astonishment.

  ‘Aye, he did. He also said he was an IRA battalion OC,’ Flynn announced and an awkward silence settled on the room.

  ‘And you don’t know who he is?’ Willson asked.

  ‘Not a clue,’ was all Flynn managed.

  O’Neill jumped as the front door banged open and Flynn didn’t recognize the two constables who stepped into the room. Replacements, Flynn thought as he sank back into his chair. The new arrivals muttered something that Flynn didn’t quite catch as they made their way to the gun room to shed their weapons and get a cup of tea.

  ‘Do you mind if I go and get my head down?’ Flynn asked and Willson helped him up and led him up the stairs to the constables’ dormitory. His limbs felt like lead and his mind was beginning to wander as the adrenalin ebbed from his body. If he’d had the energy he was sure that his hands would have been shaking but even his nerves couldn’t be bothered.

  As Willson plodded back down the stairs he saw his two new constables debriefing O’Neill about their bicycle patrol out to the outlying farms whilst the Ulsterman scribbled notes as usual into the barracks’ occurrence book. Willson knew that he could rely on O’Neill to write it all up and make sure that the paperwork was all up to speed and had already written to HQ recommending that O’Neill be made an acting sergeant and giv
en control of Drumlish barracks when he moved over the water to Liverpool. Willson knew he would be leaving his little fiefdom in safe hands.

  He looked at the clock on the wall and picked up the key from the mantelpiece, opened the glass and wound the mechanism with a gentle grinding noise. As he popped the key back onto the mantelpiece he noticed O’Neill putting his cap on and slipping on his overcoat. ‘And where are you off?’ he asked O’Neill.

  The Ulsterman shrugged. ‘I thought that someone should take a turn around the village and the boys have just got in, so I thought that I’d do it.’

  ‘Aye, off you go then,’ Willson said as he shuffled off to his private quarters at the back of the barracks. O’Neill watched him go then quietly closed the barracks’ front door and, turning up his collar against the cold, walked off towards the post office. He still hadn’t returned when the Auxiliary patrol arrived to take Flynn back to Longford.

  CHAPTER 26

  Monday, 1 November 1920, Kilshrewley, County Longford

  IT WAS DARK by the time Fitzgerald reached Kilshrewley and the stress of the day was beginning to catch up with him. He felt light-headed, his water-logged brogues squelching as he limped up the path towards the flickering lights, and his stomach rumbled loudly as he rapped upon the cottage’s flaking wooden door. The latch rattled and a shard of light slashed the darkness as the door creaked open. A shadowy face peered out and Fitzgerald pushed his way past into the room.

  MacEoin sat quietly by the fire, nursing a glass of whiskey and he looked shattered as he watched Fitzgerald walk towards him. He had a lot on his mind, it had been a hard few days and tomorrow didn’t look like it would be any easier. ‘We got that peeler up by Breaghy,’ Fitzgerald said as he flopped down in a fireside armchair. MacEoin responded with an almost imperceptible, indifferent nod. His face was pale and if Fitzgerald didn’t know any better he’d say he was in shock, his manner distracted.