Civvies

by Lynda La Plante

  Dillon and his squad – Jimmy, Harry, Taffy and six Toms – stand next to the guardpost, watching. They've been out for four hours, 'tabbing around the cuds' as the Paras call patrolling the countryside, and they are good and wet and miserable, and to add further insult, the Bedford RL hasn't shown up, which is a real pisser.

  Dillon glances at his watch, unnecessarily, for the third time. The truck is two minutes later than it was the last time he looked. He says to Jimmy, 'Go check where our ruddy transport is, it's half-past seven!'

  The next car is a real old banger, more rust than bodywork, two teenagers inside. Same procedure as before. Made to stand, hands on heads, away from the vehicle, four rifles trained on them while the search team go to work. To vary the monotony, however, this time they decide to chuck everything inside the car, including clothing and personal belongings, onto the muddy road. A green plastic holdall is tipped out – gym kit, Adidas trainers, bodybuilding magazines, CDs, videos, a Japanese computer game and cassette tapes. The glove compartment is swept clean, the boot emptied. Then the boys are shoved up against the car, arms spreadeagled on the bonnet, legs kicked apart, while they are body searched.

  The drivers waiting in line are becoming impatient. One or two hanging out, waving and cursing, others sounding their horns. This makes the same difference as before, which is nil. Twenty-one hundred hours is approaching at its own sweet pace, and a few curses and car horns won't make it get here any quicker.

  One of the teenagers says something, or is thought to have said something, or perhaps he just happens to have that kind of face. He gets a rifle butt in the kidneys and slumps to his knees, clutching his back. The three soldiers stand in a tight circle around him and his companion, crowding them a little, as if egging them on, as if eager for an opportunity, waiting in hopeful expectancy for a show of retaliation, no matter how feeble. Meanwhile the drizzle comes down, the light fades by the minute, the car horns toot, and Dillon and his lads stamp their feet to keep the circulation going.

  Jimmy returns, a sour expression under the streaky brown camouflage cream on his face. 'It's broken down, 'bout five miles back,' he tells Dillon disgustedly. 'We can start on foot, they'll pick us up soon as they got a replacement.'

  'Shit!' Dillon shakes his head. 'Okay, right lads, fall in.'

  Moaning and cursing, the squad forms two lines and moves out from the guardpost. As they pass the soldiers on duty, a barrage of friendly, filthy insults is exchanged; there isn't much love lost between the regular infantry and the Paras, but they have to keep up the appearance of unity for the sake of the locals.

  Bringing up the rear, Jimmy bends down and lets the air out of one of the car's front tyres, gives the two boys a cheery wink, and goes on his way.

  CHAPTER 31

  Capes glistening, the squad trudges on, rifles at forty-five degrees pointing to the ground, gloved hands curled round the trigger guards, ready for action. The gloves have padded knuckles and fingers, except for the trigger finger, to allow maximum feel and sensitivity. There is dissension in the ranks, grumbles and moans, and Dillon is getting a mite fed-up with it. He bellows over his shoulder:

  'It's not my fault the ruddy truck's broken down – we just gotta head back to base, there's no changeover!'

  He's ready for a shower and a hot meal as much as any of them, but if they've got to tab another five miles, that's all there is to it. No point the fat knackers grousing.

  Peering ahead into the gloom, Dillon raises his hand, makes a gentle up-and-down motion. In taking a corner too fast, a dilapidated old farm truck with a few bales of hay in the back has skidded on the muddy road and got its front offside wheel bogged down in the ditch. A coat held over her head, a woman stands watching two young lads stuffing their sodden jackets under the wheels to provide traction. She gets up into the cab, and with a grinding of gears, revving like crazy, tries to reverse onto the road. The wheels spin, mud flying, and it's clear that if the woman perseveres till Doomsday, she's not going to make it.

  Dillon inspects the hedgerows on either side of the lane. He fans his arm, and the squad splits into two.

  'Just check it out, lads. If it's okay we can bum a lift back. Jimmy, take the rear.' Dillon waves Harry on. 'Left side… you lads to the front.'

  The two young farm boys turn as the squad warily approaches. Hair stuck to their heads like shiny black caps, they stare at the men with flat, expressionless eyes. Dillon walks past them to the cab. He waits for the nod from Harry, gets it, and the thumbs-up from Taffy. All clear. The woman looks down at him. She has long greying hair, darkened to the roots by rainwater, limp strands trailing over the collar of her saturated coat.

  'You want a hand, love?' Dillon holds up four fingers, motions four of the Toms to the front of the truck. Two down in the ditch, two on the road, they put their shoulders to it, the woman pressing down hard on the accelerator. The truck shifts a few inches, rolls down again, and with a final heave judders out of the ditch and onto the road, belching blue smoke.

  If Dillon is expecting a nod, or even a word of thanks, he is sadly mistaken. The woman jerks her head to the two farm boys, holding their sodden jackets like bundles of wet washing.

  'Can you give us a lift, about five miles up the road, love?' Dillon asks, pleasantly enough.

  The woman ignores him. 'Get in,' she tells the boys. 'Now!'

  'Bitch!' Jimmy says, standing at Dillon's shoulder. And as the two boys move to the cab, gives a muttered, 'Frank, you see their drivin' licence?'

  Dillon puts his hand out, restraining one of the boys as he's about to climb aboard. 'Just a second, son, how old are you?'

  The boy tenses, looks down at Dillon's gloved hand. For a moment nobody moves, the clinging veil of drizzle shrouding the motionless figures of the two boys and the soldiers in grey murk. Nothing is said, no overt action taken, but a change has taken place. Everyone senses it. The farm boys are edgy, eyes flickering nervously. The Toms have spread themselves out in a circle, weapons raised, training them on the truck. This is bandit country and the enemy is everywhere, and it doesn't pay to forget it, not even for an instant. As NITAT training for a tour of the Province has drummed into them so they can recite it in their sleep: 'Why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from the mistakes of others?'

  Stepping back, Dillon makes a sign. It is a standard drill, and the men perform it as an automatic reflex. It is rapid, short, brutally efficient. Without ceremony the boys are manhandled against the side of the truck, faces bashed into the wooden slats, arms twisted behind their backs, legs kicked apart. Dillon steps back in, grabs a full fistful of hair, yanks the boy's head around.

  'Check inside the truck,' he orders Jimmy, and to the boy, whose terrified eyes are rolling in their sockets, showing the whites, 'An' you look at me, look at me Name, age, address. Now!'

  Dillon unhooks his thirty-four-centimetre long metal flashlight and hits the boy in the face with it, then shines the light directly into his eyes

  'Leave him alone, dear God!' the woman screams from the cab. She leaps down, coat billowing around her. She kicks out at Dillon, face twisted in a rage of anguish that is pitiful in its sheer helplessness. 'Dear God, just leave us alone, they're just kids…'

  Dillon lets go of the boy and with the back of his hand slaps the woman so hard across the face that she is knocked reeling into the side of the truck. He grabs the boy by the collar, drags him to the front of the truck. Harry and Taffy are sorting out the other one. They have him pinioned between them, a shrimp between two whales, an arm apiece, their two faces an inch either side of the boy's, shouting into his ears, 'Name age address, Name age address, Name age address.'

  Dillon has the young boy bent backwards over the mudguard, arm across his throat. The boy is choking, turning blue. In a croaking whisper he gasps out, 'Lee Farm, I'm sixteen… what have I done, leave us alone… Ronan… me name's Ronan Shaw…'

  With two Toms covering him from the road, Jimmy has climbed up into the ba
ck of the truck. Rifle up in the firing position, he unclips his flashlight and shines it over the bales of straw. He crouches on one knee, directing the beam into the gaps underneath and between the bales. Jimmy stiffens as he sees something move. Not a trick of the light, not just a shadow, he's damn sure of that. Vaulting backwards off the truck, Jimmy rams the rifle butt into his shoulder and pumps off half a mag. The shots crack and reverberate over the empty dark fields, rolling away like distant thunder. Something shrieks.

  Dillon appears at the run, eyes dark, glittering, under the leather rim of his Red Beret.

  'Jimmy?… Jimmy?!'

  A thin, shrill yelping sets their teeth on edge. Holding onto the side of the truck, the woman swings her face towards them, mouth bleeding, and starts screeching, 'Bastards, bastards, it's the dog, you filth, you scum, it's the dog!'

  In the flashlight beams the long narrow head lifts up and falls back. It tries again, gets its head up, paws scrabbling feebly, and slides down again, slipping in its own blood. The rough rope halter around the dog's neck, tied to the back of the cab, gleams wet and dark red.

  'It's their dog, Jimmy,' Dillon says in a low voice. 'What the fuck have you done?'

  'It moved!' Jimmy retorts indignantly. 'It was hidden under the straw.'

  'Put it out of its misery. Do it!' Dillon glares at him, and then his grim face suddenly cracks in a smile. 'They should've given us a lift, so sod 'em.'

  He walks back to where the woman is tending to the farm boys, dabbing at their cuts with a soiled rag. Both are scared witless, both crying openly. The woman gives Dillon a look of venomous hatred. He shoves her towards the cab, signals the three of them to get in. From the back of the truck the piteous whimpering of the dog is cut short by a single shot. Dillon wafts his hand. 'On your way, go on, get moving.'

  The engine roars, and as the truck moves off, the woman leans out. Her face has a wild, tortured look, framed by long grey hair straggling in the breeze. 'I hope you all die of cancer,' she says into Dillon's eyes, and spits at him.

  Dillon runs alongside the truck, keeping pace, shouting up at her, 'I remember your face, bitch! You hear me, move, go on, get out!'

  The truck disappears into the gloom, its single faulty tail-light flickering dimly. The squad trudges on through the heavy drizzle. Only four miles to go. Jimmy catches up to Dillon. After a minute or so, sloshing side by side through the mud, he says, 'They must have been headin' for the Lifford.' Dillon looks at him. Jimmy nods, an impish smile lurking at the corner of his mouth. 'The dog, it was a greyhound!'

  'Be in their stew tonight,' Dillon says, eyes straight ahead, ploughing on. 'Animals all of them.'

  Ten minutes later the best sight of the night, a Bedford RL lumbers into view. Everybody yells, fists in the air, Dillon included, and all give the driver their choicest repertoire of foul abuse as he rumbles up, flashing his lights.

  Clutching her fur collar, the woman stared up into Dillon's face. She was visibly shaking, hair bouncing on her shoulders. 'You dirty bastards, they're pissin' over the railings, animals…'

  'I'm sorry, okay.' Dillon held up his hand. 'I'll go an' quieten 'em down.'

  'I know who you are, Frank Dillon!' the woman suddenly said. She pointed an accusing finger. 'I'm gonna call the police.'

  Shaking his head, and feeling it start to spin, Dillon moved to the top of the stairwell. Holding out both hands in appeasement, he stumbled down a step or two, and the woman dodged back as if a pan of boiling water had been tipped over her foot.

  'Don't come near me!'

  Dillon swayed on the steps the lethal mixture of keg bitter, brown ale, lager, Scotch and Tina Turner combining and igniting in his brain like nitroglycerine. He tried to turn back, missed his footing, and slumped instead against the wall, his face scraping the concrete. Down on his knees, cheek pressed to the wall, Dillon whispered in a voice near as dammit to weeping, 'I got two kids… I got two kids.'

  CHAPTER 32

  Falls Road District. Belfast. March 1988.

  It is night, the streets are quiet, the pubs and clubs emptied and dispersed nearly an hour ago. A cold wind blows along the street of terraced houses, each with its tiny square of garden bordered by a low brick wall, rattles the chip papers in the gutter. A garden gate creaks, four hunched shapes scuttle in, flatten themselves like limpets to the front wall of the house. A light burns above behind floral bedroom curtains, a glow from the hallway through the stained-glass fanlight above the door. Crouching close to the wall, the brick is chill and damp against Dillon's cheek. He checks the illuminated dial of his watch. The green second-hand creeps into the third quadrant. Very slowly he eases himself up and looks back to the corner of the street. A single ruby-red light winks from the driver's aperture, telling him that the APC is in position, ready to move in.

  Once more Dillon looks at his watch, for the last time. The green hand sweeps away the final seconds. Dillon gives the signal.

  Jimmy steps up and with one swing of the sledgehammer smashes the front door open. The armoured personnel carrier is already at the gate, the rest of the squad piling out, the alsatians straining on their short leashes, soldiers in visored helmets deploying along the street. At the kerb, a lance-corporal speaks into a shortwave walkie-talkie, confirming to the 21/C that entry has been effected.

  The hallway of the small terraced house is suddenly packed with bodies. A woman with cropped dark hair and a narrow pinched face stands screaming at the foot of the stairs, arms held wide barring access; a pregnancy in its seventh month makes a bulge like a bowling ball in her quilted housecoat.

  'No, please, dear God no!' The woman retreats one step up but keeps her scrawny grip on the banister. 'Oh, God help me please, don't harm my kids… there's just children upstairs.'

  'How many upstairs, who's upstairs?' Dillon barks at her. He grips her arm tight, shaking her. 'Gimme their names, ages, come on!'

  From the living-room and kitchen, the sounds of drawers being wrenched out, cupboard doors flung open, their contents scattered, ornaments swept off shelves, crockery breaking.

  'I swear before God it's just my kids,' the woman weeps, her eyes pleading with Dillon.

  Jimmy comes through waving a family allowance book.

  'She's got seven bastards, eldest is seventeen, one fifteen, an' two twelve-year olds, rest are girls.'

  'Get away from the stairs.' Dillon twists her arm, prising her grip from the banister. 'I said move it!' He turns, gives a curt nod to the four Toms crowding in through the front door. 'Back up, move up.' Roughly shoving her aside, Dillon cautiously mounts the stairs, clicking the firing control of his rifle to automatic, a live one up the spout, ready to fire.

  'You got any lodgers, eh?' The woman lies slumped on the stairs, stretched out. 'Answer me!'

  The woman shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. Feebly she tries to grasp hold of Dillon's trouser-leg. He kicks her away without looking. In a broken voice she pleads with him, 'Ah no, please, they're just children. Please don't, they've done nothing wrong…'

  Jimmy laughs, dangling the family allowance book in front of her. She makes a grab for it. Holding it tauntingly out of reach, he rips it to shreds and sprinkles the scraps over her.

  'You scum!' The woman's face breaks out in ugly red blotches. 'I got seven kids to feed, how long you think it's gonna take for me to get that renewed… please why don't you tell me what you want, please!'

  From up above comes the sound of doors banging, scampering feet on the bedroom floor, the terrified screams of children. Furniture is being moved, wardrobe doors crashing open, the tinkling of breaking glass.

  Harry wanders in from the kitchen, shaking his head. Jimmy gives him the nod. 'Out in front, get the flagstones up.' He shouts upstairs, 'Everything kosher down here, Frank!'

  Dillon leans over the banister. 'Get the bitch up here!'

  Jimmy grabs the pregnant woman under the armpit and force-marches her up the stairs, practically dragging her on her knees the la
st few steps. The front bedroom has been ransacked, the mattress ripped apart, bedding thrown into a corner. The contents of the dressing-table and wardrobe are strewn over the floor. A little glass shelf and its collection of religious pictures and icons lie broken and trampled behind the door.

  Jimmy crunches through the debris, his bent arm hooked under the sobbing woman's arm, half-supporting her. Harry comes in behind, his square bulk filling the doorframe.

  Dillon points. 'Get the baby out.'

  In its crib, an eighteen-month old baby with a halo of golden curls, thumb tucked into its rosebud mouth, sleeps peacefully through it all.

  'Leave her be, you scum!' The woman flails her arm helplessly, but Dillon is well out of range. 'There's nothin' here – leave her! Don't you touch her!'

  Jimmy swings her forward. 'Do what he says, tart! What are you, a breedin' machine, a real slag, aren't you – get the kid out.'

  'I'll get the police, you soldiers you got no right, no right to do this!'

  Dillon beckons Harry over and together they approach the crib. Jimmy restrains the woman, who wants to scream yet daren't, for fear of waking the child. Harry looks underneath and round the back of the crib while Dillon feels gingerly along the edge of the mattress. He eases the covers back. The baby's eyes open, she blinks and focuses, and starts to bawl. The mother screams and claws to go to her. Jimmy hauls her straining body to the door. Harry lifts out the crying, wriggling baby and Dillon removes the pillow and mattress, prods and feels at them, tosses them down.

  Out on the landing, Dillon says, 'Get a neighbour, we'll take the tart in for questioning.'

  The rest of squad waiting in the hallway shake their heads as Dillon comes downstairs. Behind them they have left a wrecked house, and nothing to show for it. Stepping over the torn-up paving stones, Dillon gives the wipe-out signal. The soldiers deployed along the street start to gather in, the APC throttles up, the dog-handlers rein in the alsatians.