England's Janissary

  ‘Oh, great! You want me to hide under the sink.’

  ‘Shut up and get in!’ O’Brien hissed as he shoved O’Neill into the small space. Thud! O’Neill banged his head on the way in and cursed as the back of the cupboard gave way. Before he knew it, he had plunged into a cramped, dark hidey-hole. The hatch squeaked shut as he landed with a soft thud on a pile of hessian sacking and wriggled into a roughly upright position.

  His nostrils were full of the smell of burnt cordite, gun oil and slightly rotted potatoes. His heart was in his mouth as he crouched in the darkness, waiting, and he heard the kitchen door bang open and the sound of several pairs of boots stamping around. There was shouting and an English voice shouted, ‘Where did he go?’ He heard O’Brien say, ‘That way! Be careful, he’s got a gun, I think he must be out of his mind!’, and then the sound of the hobnailed boots receded until he was left all alone in the silence, the silence and darkness. Time lost all meaning in the darkness, with only tinnitus and the pounding of blood in his ears for company. He was afraid, like a cornered fox waiting to be torn apart by the hounds, but worse, much worse than that he felt claustrophobic in the dark, the stifling dark, as he fought the urge to burst out of the cupboard and gulp in the fresh air.

  He had been buried by a shell at Loos and as he lay entombed in the wet clay he had felt the same terror welling up in him that he felt now. He was buried alive, entombed, forgotten, left to drown in the earth. He could even feel the sticky clay filling into his nose and mouth, drowning him, sucking him slowly, inexorably down to hell. He was soaked in sweat. He felt like screaming but even now he was paralyzed with fear.

  Flynn stood outside the post office as Purton and his men emerged from the front door. ‘Well, any sign?’ Flynn asked.

  The corporal looked dejected. ‘He’s gone. The postmaster said he saw him legging it off into the fields. With just the eight of us, we don’t have a hope in hell of catching him. It’s like he vanished into thin air!’

  A look of bitter disappointment flashed briefly across Flynn’s face. ‘Thanks, Corporal Purton, you and your boys did your best. It can’t be helped that he’s given us the slip. Me and Mr Maguire here need to get back to Longford pretty bloody pronto, so I’d appreciate it if you could give us a lift back to HQ. After that you’d better get back to your unit. I should imagine that your OC will be wondering what has become of you.’

  Purton smiled. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get you back to Longford, Sar’nt, and if it keeps me and my boys out of the fight for a bit longer, then so much the better.’ He grinned.

  Flynn turned to Willson. ‘O’Neill is a slippery little bastard and dangerous to boot. You keep an eye out for him and if you see him be bloody careful, do you hear? I’m not so sure about O’Brien either, come to think of it. It seems strange that he could get out the back of the post office and get away scot free. Disappeared into thin air? I wonder. I think you need to keep an eye on him as well.’

  ‘But O’Brien seems a decent enough sort,’ Willson replied.

  ‘So did O’Neill and look at him,’ Flynn retorted.

  ‘Good point!’ Willson said, before adding, ‘I’ll be keeping an eye out for both of them. Don’t you worry about me.’

  As Flynn climbed onto the waiting lorry, he could see people beginning to poke their heads out of doorways to see what the commotion was. He banged on the back of the driver’s cab as Maguire flopped down beside him and offered him a cigarette. ‘All right, Corporal, let’s go,’ Flynn shouted and the lorry lurched off in a flurry of crunching of gears, towards Longford.

  Suddenly, O’Neill’s world was flooded with light that lanced at his eyes like needles and his hand instinctively groped for the pistol at his waist as a head thrust its way through the hatchway. It took a few seconds for him to realize it was O’Brien.

  ‘They’ve gone!’ the postmaster announced and O’Neill relaxed slightly before barging his way past, out of the confines of his hiding place. Predictably, he banged his head on the way out, collapsing onto the kitchen floor in a rumpled heap. He rubbed his sore head and gulped for air. The knot of fear inside him was beginning to unravel and it took several minutes before he felt composed enough to speak. ‘Now get me out of here!’ he eventually said.

  CHAPTER 34

  Gaigue, County Longford

  ‘I REALLY CAN’T BELIEVE that the British don’t know that we do this,’ O’Brien said, shaking his head while steaming open yet another brown OHMS envelope. ‘Bugger!’ he cursed as the steam scolded his fingertips. It was an unglamorous job but a vital one. He hated steaming open envelopes but he knew that MacEoin counted on him to intercept anything that the RIC, civil service or British army were dumb enough to put into the local postal system.

  The faintest hint of a smile cut across McNamara’s face and he chuckled to himself quietly, like some sort of malignant leprechaun. O’Neill paused and looked up from what he was reading. ‘And what are you chuckling about?’ O’Neill rasped. God knows, he didn’t feel like smiling, he could hardly believe that it was only just over a week since Kelleher had been shot and his entire world had imploded as a result. He was a wanted man on the run; worse still MacEoin had him riffling through the post until things quietened down.

  ‘This!’ McNamara said triumphantly, tossing a letter across the table at O’Neill. The Ulsterman put down the piece of paper he was holding and looked down at the unfolded piece of notepaper covered in neat, round, girlish handwritten script.

  ‘It’s a letter … and?’ he said, none the wiser, and McNamara rolled his eyes irritably; he was finding it hard to contain his anger and impatience.

  ‘It’s from that Moore bitch, the whore who’s been shagging your mucker Flynn.’

  O’Neill shrugged. ‘And?’

  ‘This could be what we need to flush the bastard out and pay him back for everything he’s done to both of us, him and that traitor Maguire. Bastards killed my brother Jerry and kiboshed your cover between them!’ Everything that McNamara said was true but O’Neill still looked blank. ‘Read it then!’ McNamara said tersely, stabbing the letter with his index finger impatiently.

  O’Neill picked up the letter and ran his eye over it. ‘So? I still don’t get it …’ O’Neill said, looking in askance at McNamara. ‘It just says how much she misses Flynn and that she still loves him, the usual wet love-letter bollocks! Besides being stupid enough to persist with her stupid flirtations, what earthly use is this to us?’

  ‘Jaysus, if everyone in Ulster is as thick as you, then how the bloody hell did you planters get us off our land?’ McNamara said bitterly and O’Neill felt his cheeks momentarily flush with anger. He’d turned his back on his own community to fight for the republic and was getting sick of sectarian jibes, the bane of Irish unity.

  ‘Probably because the culchie croppy eejits up nort’ were t’icker!’ he snapped, in a thick stage-Irish accent. For a moment O’Brien was afraid that the two men would come to blows but McNamara seemed content to let O’Neill’s barbed quip pass, for the time being anyway.

  ‘I’ll tell you what earthly use it is to us, Gary, my boy. It’ll flush Flynn out from whichever stone he’s hiding under, that’s why,’ McNamara said triumphantly, his eyes flushed with excitement and a look that made O’Neill think that he was expecting a round of applause and a fanfare as well.

  ‘But she still thinks he’s in Drumlish. Look, she’s even addressed it to him at the barracks,’ O’Neill replied, still obviously puzzled by McNamara’s drift.

  McNamara sighed heavily: ‘We don’t need to know where Flynn is, do we? All we need to do is make sure that he gets this letter and then he’ll be off to Kingstown to see his bit of skirt, then we’ve got him. All we have to do is get down there and wait for the shite to show up, then we cap him and his shagabout! He may even let us know where Maguire has gone before we send him on his way.’

  O’Neill felt uncomfortable looking at the manic gleam in McNamara’s eyes. ‘Christ, do you pick your mom
ents, Mick! Haven’t you noticed that ever since Kelleher and Cooney were shot, the Brits have been on the rampage round here? Didn’t it take Sean three days to get the bloody army out of Ballinalee and since they hanged Kevin Barry, the rest of the country is like a bloody tinder box. If Mulcahy and Collins wanted a frigging war, then they’ve bloody well got one and you seriously think that right now Sean will give a toss about where Flynn and his girlfriend, or even Maguire, are? Besides, Kingstown is in the Dublin Brigade area. If he’s down there, then dealing with him will be their business, not ours.’

  ‘Give it here!’ McNamara snapped testily as he snatched back Kathleen’s letter and scribbled down the Kingstown address on a scrap of paper, which he stuffed in his jacket pocket. ‘Here, O’Brien,’ he called imperiously, waving the letter in O’Brien’s general direction, ‘put this back in its envelope and make sure it gets delivered. The bloody peelers will make sure that it gets where it’s going.’ Without a word, O’Brien took the letter and popped it back into its envelope before gumming down the flap. He really didn’t like McNamara much and was becoming convinced that the man was mad and silently prayed that he would be off soon.

  ‘You leave Sean to me,’ McNamara said knowingly, breaking into a broad, disconcerting grin. O’Neill ignored him, pretending to read the letter that he had been looking at before McNamara interrupted him. It was addressed to a place called Scotland House, a false address used by British intelligence for informers to anonymously send information about republicans. O’Neill shook his head and sighed; the fool who’d written the letter had signed his name and even written his address. McNamara stood up abruptly and picked up his coat from over the back of a chair. ‘I’m off to see Sean with this,’ he announced and pulled on his coat, fishing his cap from its pocket.

  ‘You’d best take this,’ O’Neill said as he handed McNamara the informer’s letter. As the door slammed shut behind McNamara, O’Neill felt a twinge of guilt. He knew that he had just sentenced its author to death and that as soon as MacEoin saw the letter there would be another grieving widow, fatherless children even, in the county – but war was war, and if there was another empty bed in the county that night, then so be it.

  On the outskirts of Ballinalee a burnt-out police Crossley Tender partially blocked the Longford Road and an eerie silence hung over the town. Empty cartridge cases lay scattered in the street and broken glass crunched beneath McNamara’s feet as he strode towards Rose Cottage, MacEoin’s home and temporary HQ during the gunfight that was already being fêted by republican propagandists as the Battle of Ballinalee. No doubt it would make a cracking ballad, McNamara thought.

  Despite the lull, no one really had a clue what was going on – battles were like that. The IRA attack on the RIC barracks had locked the place down behind its steel shutters but MacEoin had no idea whether he had inflicted any casualties. His boys had also forced the British troops to pull back out of the village but, deep down, he knew it was only a temporary respite. They would be back; it was only a matter of time.

  McNamara pushed open the front door of Rose Cottage and was shocked at how drawn, pale and just plain exhausted MacEoin looked. ‘It’s all quiet in the town,’ McNamara said with a smile but MacEoin barely looked up from the half-written report that he held in his trembling hand. An un-drunk cup of tea stood cold on the table next to an equally untouched sandwich and the exhausted MacEoin’s eyes were red and rheumy, his face dark with stubble. ‘You look like you could use some sleep, boss,’ he added.

  ‘Me and everyone else,’ MacEoin replied, before picking up his pen and adding a few words to the report. ‘The final casualty reports haven’t come in yet, we’ve a few missing still, but it looks like none of the boys were killed. That’s something anyway, but I don’t know what damage we’ve done to the bloody Brits either.’ MacEoin paused for a moment. ‘What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were helping O’Neill and O’Brien censor the mail.’

  ‘That I was, Sean,’ McNamara replied, ‘but something has come up.’ He tossed the informer’s letter onto the desk and waited for MacEoin to read it. The blacksmith gave it a quick once-over and handed it over to his deputy, Sean Connolly, who was sat across the table from him.

  ‘Deal with it, Sean, please,’ he said and Connolly quickly glanced at the letter before folding it up and putting it in his pocket. He rose and left the room without a word. ‘Is there anything else?’ MacEoin asked McNamara, who was still hovering in the room expectantly.

  ‘It’s Maguire and Flynn. I think I know where to find them,’ McNamara said.

  MacEoin looked up and, rubbing his reddened eyes, replied, ‘It will have to wait – there is too much going on and I need every man here to keep the bloody Tans under control, Mick!’ McNamara felt a surge of disappointment course through him and MacEoin began to question whether he really needed such a hothead around in the next couple of days. ‘Where are they?’ MacEoin finally asked.

  ‘Dublin,’ McNamara replied.

  The blacksmith rubbed his chin for a moment. ‘Tell you what, Mick, it may well be your lucky day. When I sent word to GHQ about all the shenanigans going on over here, Frankie Thornton sent word that he would like to have a wee chat with my man Gary O’Neill and see if there is anything more we can get out of him. Tell you what, Mick. You take Gary down to Dublin – there’s a train out of Mullingar tomorrow. Take him to Vaughan’s hotel; they’ll know where to find Frankie. Hand him over, tell the Dublin boys what you know about Maguire and Flynn and get your arse back here PDQ, understand?’

  ‘Would I be doing anything I wasn’t meant to,’ McNamara replied as a broad, evil grin slashed across his face. ‘I’ll get your man O’Neill to GHQ for you and be back before you even begin to miss me!’ MacEoin was too tired to talk further and picked up his pen to add a few more words to his report. When he looked up next, McNamara was already gone.

  CHAPTER 35

  Dublin

  ‘AND YOU REALLY have no idea where they have got to?’ Emmet Dalton asked Frank Thornton as he took a deep breath of damp evening Dublin air through the open window. Thornton stubbed out his cigarette in a battered tin ashtray.

  ‘Nope, not a clue,’ he replied.

  Dalton turned and gave him a quizzical look. ‘Hmm, should I be worried that no one knows where he is?’

  ‘To be honest, Ginchy,’ Thornton said, using Dalton’s nickname, ‘I don’t really know. When I spoke to Sean last he said he’d sent Mick McNamara to Vaughan’s a few days ago. He should have shown up a few days ago, but the thing is, there’s been no sign of him. No sign of O’Neill either.’

  ‘Have the Brits got them, do you know?’ Dalton asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Thornton said. ‘If the Brits had got them, I’d’ve heard something. My people are all over the place.’

  ‘So where are they? Should I be worried? Should we be worried?’

  Thornton raised his hand to calm Dalton. ‘To be honest, Ginchy, I don’t really know. According to Sean, this McNamara fella’s been going off the rails since his brother was killed by the Brits …’ Thornton paused. ‘He blames Maguire and some peeler called Flynn and Sean seems to think that he might be looking for them.’ Dalton gave him a quizzical look. ‘Joe Maguire, Commandant Joe Maguire, the treacherous shite from Longford who turned out to be a Brit spy.’

  ‘Ah, that Maguire,’ Dalton said slowly.

  ‘Aye, that Maguire, and this Flynn fella, the one who was working with the fella that Sean shot at the Kiernan pub, you know, Inspector Kelleher. Anyway, McNamara has got it into his head that these two did for his brother and Sean thinks that he might be going after them.’

  ‘Do we know where Maguire and Flynn are?’ Dalton asked.

  ‘Haven’t a clue,’ Thornton said, ‘but when Sean last saw McNamara, he was babbling on that he knew where they were, or at least, he seemed to think he knew how to find them and my guess is that they are somewhere in the city.’

  ‘Blast!’ Dalton mutte
red. ‘The last thing we need is someone out of control on some sort of bloody vendetta, not now.’

  ‘Do we tell Mick?’ Thornton asked.

  Dalton stared back out of the window and massaged his temples as he wrestled with his decision. ‘No, we don’t tell Mick, he’s got enough on his plate as it is. Tell you what, Frankie, keep an ear to the ground and try and find this McNamara chappie and, when you do, make sure that he doesn’t get a chance to do anything stupid.’

  Gary O’Neill was distinctly unimpressed with his surroundings: a dingy room deep in the heart of one of Dublin’s notorious insanitary slums as far as he could tell. He felt dirty just sitting there and McNamara insisted that he keep away from the equally tarnished windows, just in case he was seen. He could hear children playing in the street and the ceiling groaned and thudded under the constant squeaking of rusty bedsprings and forced squeals of passion in the prostitute’s room above that had kept him awake half the night. Worse still, the entire crumbling edifice stank of damp and decay, like a pile of rotting cabbage mixed with urine and stewed.

  ‘Are you sure Sean said to wait here?’ O’Neill asked McNamara, who was sprawled out on the sagging flea-bitten mattress of the decrepit bed. For a moment O’Neill thought that McNamara was asleep but then the man stirred and pulled the cap from over his eyes.

  ‘Aye, he did that,’ McNamara grunted before slumping back onto the bed, resuming his nap. O’Neill risked a look out of the dirt-encrusted window at the street below and watched the filthy urchins splashing gleefully in the suspiciously brown liquid that overflowed in the gutter at the side of the road. Further up the street a couple of older boys were hoofing an old tin can back and forth in an approximation of football. Suddenly, the boys scattered to the roadside as a couple of army lorries careered around the corner into the street.