Evil for Evil: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

by James R Benn

  "But what did you hear?"

  "Never mind. Drink with me or go, but stop asking questions that will only cause trouble." We were nearing the bank, and his eyes searched the street for anyone watching.

  "Sorry, Micheal. Thanks, and don't worry."

  "Someone should worry about you, Yank. I hope there's one who does."

  CHAPTER * TWENTY THREE

  SO DO I, I thought as I drove out of Armagh, leaving the red brick and limestone buildings behind, the countryside opening up in brilliant greens once more as the sun filtered through gray clouds. Was Diana worrying about me now, or was she too busy being outfitted in French clothes, learning a new identity, being tested over and over again? Shouldn't I worry more about her, as she might be about to parachute into occupied Europe? It would be a waste of time, I told myself. I might not ever see her again, and if I did, we'd have a rocky time of it. It was all so far away--Jerusalem, the SOE, Uncle Ike--that it felt as if I could put it aside and forget about it for a while. The cool air, the emerald green landscape, it was so different from the life we'd shared the past few months. Had that life been real? Had we turned to each other to see a living face, someone who was not dead, drowned, or dying? Or was ours a fantasy of wartime, to fool ourselves into thinking we had a future?

  Part of me said that was wrong. The memories of Diana were too vivid, her draw too strong. I'd come to understand that exposure to so much death made life more valuable. Love could be an antidote, a surety against being swallowed up by the war and left for dead, unmourned, far from home. What kind of life could Diana and I expect if we found ourselves alive in peacetime? Would there be an embarrassed silence as we tried to make small talk? No more dinners with generals, secret missions, shared agonies, or thrilling news from the front to form the substance of our days. Who would we be? A Boston cop and a cop's wife? An English lady and her American husband, on her father's country estate? I couldn't imagine either life.

  I put it out of my mind as I drove through small villages, southeast toward Newry and the coast. First Markethill, with its neat white-painted brick buildings facing each other across the road, a pub anchoring one end of the village and a church the other. I waited outside of town for a parade of cows to cross the road, as men brought them in from a field into enclosures, where an auction was going on. The automobiles and trucks were old and well used, maybe because of the shortage of new vehicles for civilians, or perhaps because these were thrifty folk. Either way, business had to be good with the U.S. Army paying to feed thousands. Food was rationed for the civilians here as it was in England, and it must be tempting to take advantage of the black market and the food being smuggled in from the Republic, where there was no rationing.

  Animal and vehicle traffic lightened as I drove. Through Whitecross, with one pub, a blacksmith's, and a few shops, all gone before I had a chance to slow down. Then to Forkill, a little village with an odd-sounding name stuck between two large hilltops. Beyond was the border. I parked the jeep near the town center and stretched my legs, checking my watch. It was late afternoon, and the sun was at my back, casting a long shadow on the road. I unfolded my map and laid it open on the hood, holding it down. A cool breeze flapped at the corners.

  I was trying to figure out how long it would have taken the BAR thieves to get the truck over the border, unload it, and leave it outside Omeath. There was only one way to get to that stretch of border from Ballykinler, and that was along the coast. The Mournes blocked any other route. So they would've driven out of the base, through Clough, where they stopped to kill Eddie Mahoney and dump his body, then on through Newcastle, south along the coast, passing through Annalong and Kilkeel, then west to drive along Carlingford Lough, a bay about fifteen miles long that formed part of the border with the Republic of Ireland. Then a few more miles, north into Newry, where they'd cross the river, drive south for a while, and cross the border just east of where I was standing. Omeath was the first town across the border. So that's where they would have unloaded the BARs and ditched Jenkins's truck. It would have been time to get rid of it, since Jenkins would have reported it stolen.

  "You lost, Yank?" a voice from behind me asked. I turned to see an RUC constable and an older fellow looking over my shoulder. The constable was young, reminding me of my kid brother Danny. He still had freckles across the bridge of his nose, and his skin was fair. The older guy was short, with a weather-beaten face that spoke of long, hard hours outdoors. He wore the usual collarless, once-white shirt, vest, and shabby jacket.

  "I just wanted to make sure I didn't cross over the border by accident," I said. "Don't want to spend the rest of the war in an internment camp." Actually, the thought was kind of appealing but I knew it wasn't in the cards.

  "Well, you be careful then," the constable said. "You take the right turn there and it's only a hop and a skip to the crossing. They wouldn't let you in, though, not with that uniform on."

  "It's guarded?"

  "Aye, by the customs officers on our side, and the Garda on theirs. There's some smuggling of foodstuffs and other rationed items, so it's well manned."

  "Aye, some," said the older fellow with a wink.

  "There's probably places where you could cross over without going through all that paperwork. If you knew the back roads and all," I ventured.

  "Sure," said the constable, "but that's what they pay me for, isn't it? To keep an eye on things like that."

  "You've only got two eyes, John," the older man said. "There's a dozen places a man could cross where no one would see."

  "Aye, that's true."

  "What about a truck? A big delivery truck?"

  "Ach, that's different now," the old fellow said. "A truck of any size would have to keep to the roads. It's all farmland or grazing pastures here. Each field is bounded by rocks and trees; there'd be no way for a truck to get through. A man on a horse or pulling a donkey, now that's more like it. But a truck, no."

  "I'd take Kieran's word for it," said the constable. "He seems to have a good supply of butter on hand." They both chuckled, and I got the idea that a little free trade over the border was not high on the list of crimes to be tracked down. I explained why I was asking questions without going into detail. I gave them both a description of Jenkins's truck and the date of the heist. Neither had seen a truck matching my description.

  "They left it empty outside of Omeath, so it probably came through here."

  "Why do you say that?" asked Kieran.

  "Aye, why wouldn't they take the ferry, coming from Newcastle direction?" John added. They both looked at me as if I were daft.

  "The ferry?"

  "Aye," said John. "Look here, on your map. There's a ferry that runs from Warrenpoint to Omeath, direct across the lough. There'd be no need to make a big loop all around Newry."

  He was right. It would shorten the trip and keep them out of a big city, where the RUC was more likely to have heard about the theft.

  "The ferry has to be guarded as well, right?"

  "Aye, same as here. Customs on our side, Garda on theirs. What was in the truck anyway?"

  "Fifty automatic weapons."

  Kieran whistled.

  "I don't think our customs lads would miss that. Or the Garda. If that truck went over on the ferry or down our road, it was empty," John said with certainty.

  "Then where are the guns?" I asked, not expecting an answer.

  "Well, I'd say somewhere between where they were taken and the ferry," Kieran said, rubbing his chin for all he was worth. "Wouldn't you, John?"

  "Unless the driver knew of an unguarded crossing to our west, down Crossmaglen way. Or the weapons might have been transferred to pack animals and brought over."

  "Fifty Browning Automatic Rifles and over two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition," I said. "That would require a sizable herd."

  "Aye, I'm not saying it's likely now. Odd though," John said. "Why would they send an empty stolen truck across the border?"

  "Not on a whim," I
said. "For a purpose."

  "Still," Kieran said, "it could be done. Drive the truck to a farm, transfer the guns and all to a tractor maybe. Then across the fields to another farm in the Republic and onto another truck. Or else buried all nice and tidy."

  "Not that you would know of such things," John said.

  "There was a time I did," Kieran said. "But I'll speak no more of those days. All the best, Yank." With a wave of the hand, he left us.

  "Sounds like he knows a few secrets," I said.

  "My father--he was in the RUC too--says Kieran was one of the local IRA boys, and that he was sure they traded shots during the war. A decent man, though, law-abiding once the fight was over."

  "Except for the butter."

  "Well, there's laws and then there's plain common sense, now isn't there?"

  "You'd get no argument from me or my father either."

  "Are you a policeman in America?"

  "Yes. Family business for me, too."

  "So you know how it is then. Sometimes you save a lot of trouble by looking the other way, when the only law that's broken is one preventing a man from putting food on his family's table."

  "Must help keep the peace to think that."

  "It's like letting pressure off a steam valve," John said. "Keep things all bottled up and sooner or later it will blow up in your face. If I let the boys run around the hills and get themselves all tuckered out bringing butter and sugar home to the missus, then they don't have time for other mischief."

  "Too bad you don't work up near Ballykinler. Too damn much mischief up there."

  He gave me directions to Newry, told me to follow the Newry Canal south, and keep on the road to Warrenpoint, where the ferry docked along Carlingford Lough. As I drove out of town on a narrow country road I thought about John's theory of law enforcement. It sounded smart, especially along the border where the population was more heavily Catholic, and the IRA could slip across and back with ease. How many men would it take to haul all those arms and all that ammo on their backs or slung over ponies? A lot, especially since there had been no trace of the crates found. Boxes of ammunition and crates of BARs were heavy, and a big group of men and animals were bound to attract attention. Maybe at the ferry, someone would remember something. Maybe.

  I FOLLOWED THE canal, and as it widened into Carlingford Lough, I was looking a few hundred yards into the Republic of Ireland. Free of the British, land of my ancestors, brought forth in blood. I felt my heart should stir, that I might see ghosts of the martyrs floating above the sacred ground of free Eire. But I didn't. Instead, I felt cold and tired, the fairy tales of my youth dispelled forever. I remembered the day I'd decided there were no leprechauns. I'd long before figured out Santa Claus but made believe I hadn't so I wouldn't tip off my kid brother. But leprechauns had remained real and vivid in my imagination, the distance only increasing the mystery of their hidden world, until that day when my childish imagination gave way to hard logic. The same thing was happening now with those other fairy tales, the Robin Hood stories of dashing IRA boys outwitting the clumsy and heavy-handed Brits by night. I'd discovered that they didn't always fool the English, and if they were caught, the consequences were terrible. And when they did elude the enemy, their antagonisms festered, and one day a little girl would see her father gunned down, or a bomb would explode in a movie house, killing and maiming happy couples. Because a man turned in on himself, nursing secret hates on the mother's milk of religion and revenge. Maybe women too. Slaine O'Brien had to have her reasons for wearing the uniform of the British Empire at the Irish Desk of MI-5.

  I felt guilty, wishing God hadn't given me the sense to see two sides of a thing. It had been so easy before, daydreaming of my return to Ireland, to wreak the vengeance Granddad Liam had ordained. I was certain he had every right to do so. But did he have the right to hand it down? Would I?

  I shook off those thoughts, as certain of damnation for thinking them as I was for having impure notions in church. Which, now that I thought about it, I'd often been unable to stop for a minute when I was younger, no matter how hard I had tried to conjure up visions of red pitchforks and rivers of molten lava. Maybe merely thinking wasn't really a sin. If it was, it pretty much didn't matter by this point.

  The road along the river curved to reveal Warrenpoint, a cluster of buildings around a single church steeple huddled along the waterfront. The setting sun lit the gray, heavy clouds drifting across the darkening blue sky, the last, sideways light of the day reflecting off the white buildings' gables and turrets. Fields and hills rose emerald green beyond, ascending slowly up the distant Mountains of Mourne. It took away my breath--the beauty of the land, the sun-washed cluster of homes and shops, the ebbing tide-- like something I'd known all my life but never opened my eyes to. Brits and borders be damned. I had come home, home to Ireland.

  I drove slowly, not wanting to miss a thing. A few pedestrians walked along a promenade, and the occasional automobile drove by in the other lane. It was quiet, the lazy kind of quiet that comes at low tide when the day's work is done and the boats are all tied up, waiting for the next tide to lift them. Small sailboats and fishing boats were moored along the quay, and ahead I saw a boat launch, a concrete roadway leading into the muck and rocks where the water had receded. A flat-bottomed boat, big enough for a large truck, sat at the end, tied to a mooring and canted at an odd angle, waiting for the tide to set her straight.

  I parked the jeep next to McCabe's Market, where two Union Jacks fluttered defiantly in the quickening breeze. Mr. McCabe was evidently a proud Unionist, defining his territory at this outpost of the Ulster border. I walked across the street to the broad sidewalk that paralleled the quay. A couple of kids played along the water's edge, squawking each time their feet slid on a slippery stone and dipped into the cold water. A few people strolled by, in no great hurry. The view across the lough to Omeath was stunning, and even at low tide the water glistened with colors, greens from the fields and blue from the sky rippling across waves and currents. It was beautiful all right but I wasn't here for the view. I watched the ferry for a minute, saw no movement, and headed back to the jeep, thinking I should look for the local RUC station.

  I heard the sound of boots on pavement as a column of British soldiers marched out of a side street and headed my way. The few folks out on the sidewalk didn't pay any attention but the two kids scampered up from the waterline, hooting and whistling at the twenty or so young men who trooped by, led by a gray-haired sergeant who held his head high and his back straight. They were unarmed and seemed sheepish as they worked to keep in step and not look at their young tormentors.

  "Home Guard," said a voice from behind me. It came from a small, wiry man, standing in the open doorway of McCabe's Market. He wore a white apron and a pencil stub stuck out from one ear, half hidden by curly hair going gray. His sleeves were rolled up above the elbow, and from the muscles in his forearms it looked like he was used to hoisting sides of beef or sacks of flour all day. "They like wearing a uniform without the likelihood of getting it all filled with holes."

  "That sounds good to me," I said.

  "Sounds good to any soldier who stands a chance of facing the enemy. Like I did in the last war, and like you may in this one, Yank. But those fellas? Most of them joined up after America came into the war, when any real danger of Jerry landing here was long gone."

  "Are you the owner?" I asked, pointing to the sign above his head.

  "Aye. Malcolm McCabe. And you are?"

  "Lieutenant Billy Boyle, Mr. McCabe." I stuck out my hand and waited to see if he'd take it. With the English flag flying from his store and a name that sounded Scots-Irish, I wondered if he'd take the hand of a Boyle.

  "Pleased to meet you," he said with no hesitation. His grip was strong. "That's the rank I ended with, back in the days of the Ulster Division. Went in a private, made sergeant before we shipped out, and then once we lost most of our officers, I found myself leading a platoon in time for the Ba
ttle of the Somme. Imagine if I'd stayed home and joined the Home Guard? Wouldn't be able to live with myself."

  "There's no draft in Northern Ireland, right?"

  "That's right, we almost had riots in Belfast when they talked of conscription. Too many of your lot, if you don't mind me sayin' so, declared they wouldn't fight for England. And too many of my lot, and I don't mind sayin' it, didn't care to see Catholics trained and armed. Might give 'em ideas once they were done with the war, that's what they thought."

  "What do you think?"

  "You been in the war yet, Lieutenant?"

  "I have."

  "Well, I'll tell you then. There's nothing like a healthy dose of carnage to reduce your appetite for more. For any sane man, that is. I say they should have raised a few divisions of Catholics and Protestants together, never mind if they're Nationalist or Unionist, IRA or Red Hand. Put 'em together so their lives depended one upon the other. Given 'em a common enemy, let 'em kill Germans until they'd had their fill of it. Know what I mean?"

  "Best plan I've heard yet."

  "Ah, well, no one listens to an old shopkeeper," McCabe said, lighting a pipe and pulling on it until he was satisfied with the glow in the bowl. "What brings you here, Lieutenant? Seeing the sights?"

  "I'm investigating an arms theft from the army base at Ballykinler."

  "And how does that lead you to Warrenpoint?"

  "That ferry," I said, pointing to the boat at the end of the ramp. "I think the truck that was used took that ferry across to the Republic."

  "Sure, that could be. The MacDonald brothers run it. They can fit a good-sized lorry on it. But the RUC on our side and the customs or the Garda across the lough, they'd check the load. How many guns were taken?"

  "Fifty Browning Automatic Rifles, lots of ammo."

  "Well, Lieutenant Boyle, there's no way a truck loaded with that much armament went over unnoticed. They search the produce when they bring some over for my shop."