England's Janissary

  Cautiously, he edged along the alleyway towards the street, every nerve straining. At least he was alive, not just breathing, but alive, alive in the way that you can only be when death is possibly a heartbeat away. He squatted down low and peered around the corner into Mellifont Avenue. The brown touring car was parked on the other side of the street, about fifty feet away, and if he could only make it there and get it started before Flynn and O’Neill came out of the house he’d be away, scot free.

  Slowly, O’Neill rose to his feet and stepped lightly into the road, his weapon held low, out of sight but ready at his side. As he crossed the street he saw someone slumped in the doorway, his face obscured by a bloody swathe of cloth. O’Neill continued walking cautiously towards the driver’s side door, pointing his gun at the man.

  Maguire opened his eye. It took him a second or two to register that there was a man in the street by the car and it took a second longer again to register that the man was armed and maybe a fraction longer for it to sink in that it was O’Neill. He didn’t move.

  O’Neill turned away from Maguire and fumbled with the driver’s side door. Maguire carefully picked up the gun in his lap and slowly lifted it so that it was pointing at O’Neill. His hand was trembling as he took up the pressure on the trigger. O’Neill felt something slam into his shoulder, hurling him into the side of the car, catching his face on the edge of the door as he fell to his knees. He put his hand up to his left shoulder and grunted and felt the blood seeping through his torn jacket. He could move his arm so the bullet hadn’t shattered his shoulder. O’Neill looked around to see Maguire levering himself to his feet and staggering down the steps towards him, his gun held out threateningly. O’Neill slowly began to raise his own weapon.

  ‘Go on, just try it!’ Maguire barked. ‘I won’t miss next time.’ O’Neill sighed and let the pistol drop to the cobbles with a thud and slumped against the car, just as a khaki armoured lorry swung around the corner. Thank God, Maguire thought. The army had arrived.

  Sitting anxiously in the front passenger seat of the armoured lorry, Sergeant Grey didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on, only that there was some garbled message about a shooting on the seafront. ‘Stop!’ Grey barked at the driver as the vehicle skidded across Mellifont Avenue’s cobbles, slewing to a halt in the middle of the street. He could see two men, one sat with his back to a parked brown car and another standing over him, his head wrapped in a bloody bandage, pointing a gun at the sitting man’s head. Grey jumped out of the cab, his hobnails crunching on the cobbles. ‘Debus! Enemy front!’ he shouted and several more soldiers tumbled out of the back, in a well-rehearsed drill, clutching rifles with bayonets fixed, glittering in the morning sun. They swiftly formed a skirmish line across the street, pointing their rifles at Maguire and O’Neill like a firing squad. Maguire looked at the sergeant and was about to speak.

  ‘Help!’ O’Neill shrieked. ‘I’m a policeman and this man is trying to kill me!’

  ‘Don’t move or I fire!’ Sergeant Grey shouted firmly. ‘Put down the weapon. Put it down now!’ Maguire hesitated momentarily and then let the gun fall to the ground. ‘Put your hands up!’ the NCO ordered and Maguire slowly raised his arms above his head. It was only then that Grey noticed the swathe of bandages on the man’s left hand.

  ‘Thank God you’ve got here. I thought he was going to kill me, so I did!’ O’Neill said, as he began to struggle to his feet.

  ‘Stay down!’ Grey barked at O’Neill, who slumped back down. ‘Herriot! Garbut! Get their weapons!’ the sergeant commanded and two soldiers, weapons ready, cautiously approached O’Neill and Maguire, kicking the discarded handguns away from the two men.

  ‘Don’t listen to him …’ Maguire began.

  ‘Shut it, Paddy!’ Grey barked.

  ‘I’m a policeman. Constable Gary O’Neill, RIC special operations. Look …’ He began to reach into his jacket.

  ‘Stay still!’ Grey barked again, his bayonet a foot or so from O’Neill’s face. O’Neill froze and moved his hand gently away from his body. ‘Garbut.’ The sergeant looked at one of the soldiers and then nodded at O’Neill. Private Garbut groped inside O’Neill’s jacket and tugged his warrant card from his inside pocket and flipped it open.

  ‘Look, Sarge,’ Garbut said, showing the card to Grey. ‘He is a copper.’

  Grey pointed at another soldier with a Red Cross satchel slung over his shoulder and beckoned the man over. ‘Davies, take care of Constable O’Neill.’ He turned to Maguire and drove his rifle butt into his side, sending him crashing on to the floor. Fresh blood wept through his bandages. ‘Get this piece of Shinner shit over by the wagon.’ Maguire lay panting, weighing up his options, but he knew had none.

  O’Neill was on his feet, wiggling his fingers, testing his arm; it hurt like hell but at least he could move it. He smiled as one of the soldiers handed him his .38 police revolver and when Sergeant Grey asked him what was going on he tucked it into the waistband of his trousers and began to explain.

  Maguire stood by the lorry staring at him with barely disguised hatred. O’Neill groaned and clutched his shoulder. ‘There’s an IRA gunman in there. This one shot me as he was making a break for it. If you hadn’t got here, well …’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘He’s a bit of a mess,’ Grey said, looking at Maguire.

  ‘Dead on. He tried to get me with a grenade but cocked it up. I think my partner is still in there.’ O’Neill sagged against the car and groaned, exaggerating his weakened state.

  ‘Quick, Davies, you can drive. Take this car and get the constable to hospital. Move it!’ Grey shouted as he bundled O’Neill into the back of the car. Davies started the engine and the vehicle, the touring car, lurched off down the road and seconds later it was around the corner and away. Grey was unsure what to do next.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots rang out in rapid succession from inside the house and Grey and his soldiers instinctively scattered for cover in the doorways and gates of the neighbouring houses. Maguire didn’t move. He shook his head slowly and Grey thought he could see a trace of a smile, causing him to angrily sprint over to Maguire and backhand him across the face. A tear of blood trickled down the Irishman’s cheek. ‘What’s so funny, you Fenian shit? Who’s inside? Tell me now!’

  ‘Ask him!’ Maguire said, flicking his head towards the front door of the house, and as Grey looked around he saw a bloodied man standing in the doorway holding a blood-soaked young woman in his arms. He was holding something out in front of him at arm’s length.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ the man called. ‘I’m a policeman!’

  ‘Stand still!’ Grey ordered, nervously pointing his rifle at the couple in the doorway.

  Flynn pulled Kathleen up short and raised his hands slowly above his head as unthreateningly as possible. ‘My name is Constable Kevin Flynn. I’m RIC! Special operations! Don’t shoot!’

  ‘Come down slowly and keep your hands where I can see them,’ Grey ordered and Flynn walked slowly down the steps, followed by Kathleen, holding out his warrant card for the sergeant to see. Grey scanned it quickly and relaxed. Flynn dropped his arms and gathered Kathleen, trembling, back into them, comforting her quietly, stroking her hair.

  Flynn looked at Maguire and where the car should be and then back at Grey. ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘We stopped this one from shooting your oppo. It’s all right, one of my men has taken him to hospital. I hope you don’t mind us using your car?’

  ‘That is my oppo, as you put it, Sergeant,’ Flynn snapped and Maguire smiled, waving his bloody hand at Sergeant Grey. ‘The man you’ve sent to hospital is a bloody IRA spy!’ Sergeant Grey’s face went ashen as the awful truth of what he had done sank in.

  O’Neill placed the pistol against the back of Davies’s head. ‘Pull over here, sonny.’ Davies stopped the car. ‘Now get out and leave the engine running. Face the wall and keep your hands above your head.’ Davies’s knees felt weak as he climbed out of
the car and stood facing a brick wall. His mind’s eye kept seeing his brains dripping down it and he felt sick. ‘Now run!’ O’Neill ordered coldly and the soldier ran back the way they had come. O’Neill climbed into the driver’s seat and, tucking his gun underneath his right thigh, he drove back towards the middle of Dublin.

  CHAPTER 42

  Sunday, 21 November 1920, Dublin Castle

  ‘JESUS CHRIST, THIRTEEN flaming dead that we know of and another six wounded! What a bloody mess.’ Head Constable Eugene Igoe slumped back in his chair and looked at Flynn. The city was in chaos. It had been a bad day. ‘How the hell did the Shinners know where our men were?’

  Flynn looked down at the head constable in confusion. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The IRA found out where several of our people were staying and about nine o’clock this morning they shot seventeen of them. Like I said, at least thirteen are dead, so far. God knows how many of the wounded won’t make it through the night. Thankfully, most of the people they shot weren’t doing intelligence work, but too many for comfort were!’

  ‘How did they find them?’ Flynn asked again.

  ‘Because they were sloppy, because they underestimated the flaming enemy, because there are too many little shites like O’Neill and McElligott feeding information to the bloody enemy, that’s why. I tell you what; things will be bloody different when I get this new unit of Winter’s up and running.’ Flynn’s jaw dropped with genuine shock. ‘For Christ’s sake, Constable Flynn, you don’t think this is the end of it, do you? Two Auxiliaries were gunned down in Northumberland Street and, as you can imagine, the bloody Auxies are none too pleased, I can tell you. Worse still, a load of them and some of our boys—’ he meant members of the regular RIC ‘—went over to the GAA game at Croke Park this afternoon. The last I heard, there were fourteen dead and Christ knows how many wounded there. One report puts it up at over eighty.’

  ‘I guess that explains all the fuss out on the streets,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Oh, it gets better! Our lads caught one of the IRA bastards in Lower Mount Street, shot him through the ankle. Would have been better if it’d been the head, but that’s life, eh? We did have Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, the so-called brigadier and vice brigadier of the Dublin Brigade and some fella called Conor Clune in custody as well.’

  ‘Did have?’

  Igoe looked up, his face drawn and weary as he spoke. ‘Aye, did have. All three were shot whilst trying to escape earlier this evening in the Castle guardroom. Mary mother of God, the newspapers are going to have a field day over this. I can see it now …’ He spread out his hands above his head. ‘You don’t have to be the sharpest pencil in the box to work out they’ll be calling it “Bloody Sunday” before the blasted day is out!’

  ‘I suppose that explains all the soldiers and Auxies racing about when I got back from Kingstown,’ Flynn said.

  ‘Ah, yes, Kingstown.’ Igoe looked up at Flynn. ‘I gather that O’Neill got away?’ Flynn nodded. ‘At least, I hear that you got one of the murdering bastards. What was his name …’ He picked up a sheet of typed paper. ‘McNamara. Michael McNamara. Nasty piece of work, so I hear. Well, he’ll be up to no mischief anymore. Well done for that. How is the girl, Miss Moore? I gather it was her aunt that this McNamara murdered?’

  ‘She’s downstairs with a policewoman. McNamara turned the bloody house into an abattoir. Christ, it was like being back in the trenches. She’s pretty shaken but hopefully she’ll pull through. Jesus, I hope so.’ Igoe gave him one of those concerned looks that all policemen learned to give to members of the public when discussing upsetting events but Flynn saw straight through it, understanding exactly why Igoe was doing it.

  ‘Where’s the brigadier?’ Flynn asked, looking around.

  ‘Where do you think? He’s in a meeting with the rest of the grown-ups to try and work out what we do next to get out of this flaming mess. Rather him than me or you, eh? That’s why he gets paid what he does. Let’s hope all of this doesn’t spook the frock coats in Whitehall into doing something bloody stupid and selling out to the murdering Fenian bastards, eh?’ Igoe looked out of the window into the Lower Castle Yard where another couple of army lorries loaded with soldiers were getting ready to set off on another sweep of central Dublin.

  ‘How is Maguire? I hear that he got cut up pretty bad.’

  ‘The doctors are looking at him now. He caught some shrapnel from a grenade and, well, let’s say he’ll not be winning any beauty competitions but at least he’ll live.’

  ‘That’s good news, at least. Now that the IRA have managed to knacker the brigadier’s intelligence network for the time being we need to be pretty bloody quick-smart setting up a new one. This time will be different, by Christ it will – we need to use Irishmen not bloody English army officers who’ve read too much bloody Kipling. This isn’t some bloody great game, it’s a war, a nasty, brutal, shitty little war and it will take men like me, you and Maguire to win it – in short, people who know how the Fenians think. I want you and Maguire to join my new intelligence unit. What do you say?’

  It was getting dark when Flynn entered the Lower Castle Yard and the dull orange lamps cast deep shadows around its perimeter. The courtyard was empty and Kathleen sat alone on a low wall near the gate with a voluminous overcoat draped over her shoulders, her wavy red hair blowing gently in the evening breeze as she stared at her feet. She looked deep in thought. Turning up the collar of his coat, Flynn walked towards her, his feet crunching on the gravel. She looked up as he approached and pushed a wayward curl from her face, forcing a smile. He couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was. He noticed that they had found her some clean clothes and thanked God that the blood was gone from her face and hands.

  ‘Let’s get you out of here,’ Flynn said. ‘You can stay with my parents.’

  ‘What then?’ Kathleen asked.

  She stood up and, taking his hands in her own, pressed her head against his chest, her damp red hair ruffling in the breeze. She smelt of soap.

  ‘You know, Kathleen Moore, I love you,’ he said quietly.

  She smiled and kissed him.

  EPILOGUE

  Monday, 5 December 1921, Cadogan Gardens, Kensington, London

  SPECIAL BRANCH DETECTIVE Sergeant Kevin Flynn had a clear view of the front door of 15 Cadogan Gardens as he leant against the black iron railings on the corner with Cadogan Street and fiddled with the unfamiliar gold band on his right-hand ring finger. He didn’t try to hide, there was no point; the occupants of the house knew full well he was watching them. After all, it was his job.

  A car pulled up outside the house and Flynn shifted position slightly to get a clearer view as the front door opened and Michael Collins stepped out into the street and looked around, before plonking his hat on his head. Except for the moustache he now sported, he was the spitting image of the photographs Flynn had seen on RIC circulars and montages of wanted rebels.

  He was tall and round faced – every inch the ‘Big Fellah’ his nickname suggested. He nodded at Flynn and, smiling, climbed into the car. It felt strange standing there watching the man who had masterminded so much mayhem and bloodshed over the previous two years. There was a time when Flynn would have tried to arrest him but everything had changed since the ceasefire in July and, as many Irish unionists feared, it was obvious that the British were doing their damnedest to extract themselves from Ireland on the best terms possible by fêting Collins like some sort of celebrity.

  ‘How times have changed, eh? Mick Collins here in London, who’d have thought it.’ The middle-class Dublin tones surprised Flynn here in Kensington and he instantly feared the worst as his hand wrapped around the butt of the gun hidden in his coat pocket. He began to draw as he turned on the speaker. ‘There’s no need for that, Sergeant Flynn. The war’s over, after all.’ The man looked about twenty-three but seemed much older, his thin face careworn and tired behind his neatly clipped military moustache. Everything about the man was vaguel
y familiar, like some distant memory, yet Flynn couldn’t quite place the voice or the face.

  ‘What brings a Dub to Kensington?’ Flynn asked cautiously.

  ‘Same thing that brought you here, I suspect.’

  For a brief moment Flynn thought that the stranger was a policeman, like him; perhaps that was why he thought he recognized him. The front door opened and three men, members of Collins’ personal staff, stepped into the street and began to climb into the car. Suddenly, the last man stopped and looked around, scanning the street, until he saw Flynn and his new companion on the corner. ‘Emmet! Will you get over here, there’s work to be done!’

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute, Liam!’ the man shouted back and suddenly the penny dropped. Flynn realized who he was talking to. Liam Tobin, the man who’d shouted, along with Ned Broy and Liam McGrath, had already climbed into the car but the fourth member of Collins’ team was standing next to him. It had been almost five years since he’d seen him this close but it was him, he knew it was him; he was older but it was definitely him, the young lieutenant that he’d first seen cradling the corpse of Tom Kettle in a fetid trench outside Ginchy. It was Emmet Dalton, Collins’ military advisor and head of security.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Sergeant Flynn,’ Dalton said with a smile, ‘and I’m glad you survived it all – the war and this bloody mess. How times have changed, eh? I’ve heard a lot about you over the last year. You’ve made quite a name for yourself and it’s a shame you’ll be out of a job soon. You know where we’re going?’ Flynn shook his head; he was paid to report what went on at Cadogan Gardens. What went on anywhere else was of little concern to him and as for what Collins and the other Irish delegation did elsewhere, that was well above his pay grade. ‘Mick’s off to sign a treaty with the British and, if all goes well, it looks like this time tomorrow this bloody war could really be over. Ireland will be free at last,’ Dalton said.