The next one was a close thing. Pig and this new young lad Devlin were waiting around the corner where this UDR reservist stopped in his van every morning to buy his fags from the wee shop. When he was coming back to the car they driv up alongside. Pig’s gun jammed, and the young lad Devlin lost his nerve. Pig grabbed the gun off him but the UDR fella was back in the van and off. Pig jumped out and put what he could through the back window and they saw the van swerve and into the ditch. They drove past and he was twitching away like a dog hit by a car, so Pig put another couple in him and away on. Turned out he’d took the back of his head off with the first shot but it was a chancy thing. After that Pig said he would take a break from pulling the trigger, before somebody else said it to him.
The next one was a squib. He never knew who put it together, but it was delivered to the usual place, and he picked it up all ready in the boot of the car. There’d been a big debate about where to leave it. Drummer McConville was in charge now after Tubs went on the run to the States, and he said that since Enniskillen they had to be extra fucking careful to only get exactly who they were after. That was orders from the very top. In the end it was put in a schoolbag in the hedge, near where they left a massive tanker bomb that was really a dud. The mix had been mixed wrong and it was no good. So they came up with the idea of leaving it near the base to be found and made safe, and then when the soldiers were all congratulating themselves, they’d get a few of them while they did the follow-up search around. That was Sid’s idea. Pig was in the top of a house looking over the base. The wee old woman was tied up downstairs. He’d had to smother her wee dog because it wouldn’t shut up yapping, and then she wouldn’t shut up gurning about the wee dog, so he told Dog to tie her and gag her and promise they’d get her another wee dog when they were done. He had the mobile phone in his hand watching. They were brand new in them days, and it made the whole thing a doddle. He waited till he saw three soldiers go over together, and he pushed the button to dial. He heard it beeping through, and then the ringing tone. And then whoosh. There was no ball of fire like in a film, just a big wind he could feel himself, near put in the window he was watching through, and just for a second he saw the Brits flying back like they were on strings. And it was only a glimpse, but he swore he saw one of them breaking apart as he flew. Literally the arms and legs coming off him and tumbling their own way. He heard later they were finding bits of him in the trees for a week after. Scraping him off the branches before the birds could get at it. Pig was away out the back door and on a motorbike they had waiting. That took them to a garage just up the road where Sid had a car waiting. As long as they drove it nice and slow they’d be grand. Dunging their keks until they were over the border, but loving the buzz at the same time. Stay south for a couple of weeks. All quiet. Job done.
Then Drummer had a heart attack and Pig was put in charge.
Once he was the boss man, he stopped going out on jobs. Stuck to organising. And Achill was right. He’d never taken on the Brits himself, out in the field, man to man. Took a shot at them, and give them as good a chance to get a shot back. He felt that one hard, when he let himself.
Well all that was about to change. Today was the day.
Pat
51
There was a famous story told how the last lot of weapons from the States got into the country, only a few years before. This is a good one. Wait now till you hear.
The whole idea of talks was only starting up in them days and there was a young one on the Dublin team, and she was a real diehard republican, though she kept that to herself. A girleen by the name of June, and she got to be friendly with one of the London boys, a very snappy dresser. Juno and the Paycock, the Dublin crowd used to call the pair of them.
Well. He had a file they were keeping on weapons might be coming in on the sea, sniper rifles from America, heading guess where. The years of evidence, the cases they were building up. And there was a big landing supposed to be due in Donegal. Once he heard the day and the place confirmed, he was to give the nod for an operation to intercept it. They were coming on a freighter, but they would be dropped off the coast and brought in on a dinghy.
But he’d blabbed some of this to her, and give her a wee look at the file, trying to impress, for he had an idea they might become more than friends. And she got a notion in her head that this might be a useful acquaintance to cultivate.
She got him oiled up one night, three sheets to the wind, and just when the crack was really getting going, she said she had to head on. He wouldn’t have it, but she said it was very important. She gave him the quare yarn. Told him she was going to her friends’ house to give them a wee bit of relationship advice. The fella won’t sleep with her any more, is the thing, and I’ve been worried about the pair of them. She told me all their secrets, do you see, what she used to make him do, and you would blush listening to it.
Juno gave him a flavour. It was all true, about these friends, but she’d picked her subject well. There’s nothing like talking to a man about sex like as if it’s nothing to you, to put ideas in his head. He’ll get the notion you’re a goer, and trying it on. It worked a treat.
No hurry, says he. Your friends can wait. Come on back to my place first.
She was having none of it. Are you out of your mind? What if we’re seen? It might look like we’re up to something underhand. There’d be outrage. Can you imagine what the papers would say if they got a hold of it?
But she danced around it, and she got him to suggest going back to a wee hotel, a place you’d never know was there unless you knew it was there. Told him to meet her in a couple of hours. In the meantime, she called in to see the friend in question, for Juno wasn’t a real goer herself, nothing like it. But the friend got the picture, and showed her a couple of tricks. Told her a few more stories. Lent her some stuff. Juno’s jaw was on the floor but she was laughing too. Now she knew just what to do.
A few more drinks in, she handcuffed him to the bed and teased him till he was ready to pop. In and out of the jacks getting dressed up in wigs and big boots, unpacking sex toys out of her wee bag, and saying all what she was going to do with him, and the whole time she never touched him even the once.
And he did pop, all by himself. Passed out right there. The snores of him.
Away she flit and left him there, still handcuffed. Boys, but half the country was going mad trying to find the lad, and while they were all running around like headless chickens, he missed the word from his contact, and the stuff was landed and carried ashore. Job done. Delighted with herself.
It was weeks later, when he heard about the first of a new kind of sniper attack from half a mile away, that he put the pieces together. And boys, but he went for her.
She swore blind she knew nothing about it. And he told her if that was so, she could put him in touch with the loyalists. And she did, to prove a point, and talk about evening up the score. Don’t fucking ask.
Nowadays, the two of them were in the talks still, a bit higher up than in them days. But times had changed, and when they heard the same American connection might be getting active again, they had the same thought together. The both of them got on the blower to each other and agreed to join forces. They pulled whatever strings they had with Washington, and begged them to clamp down hard on any new attempt to bring in stuff from the sea. The wind was blowing the other way.
Washington agreed, but they said they would send an observer. They wanted to be part of this one way or the other. London wasn’t getting all the glory. If there was a good-news story on the way, they wanted their fingerprints on it. Handshakes for the cameras. Keep the Irish lobby onside. An election coming up. Everybody wins.
52
Achill heard the commotion and peeped out the window. He watched a while.
‘Pat! Come here!’
‘Did you call me?’
‘Aye. The state of this. Something’s after happening.’
‘It looks bad all right.’
�
�It’s just exactly what I said. They’ll be back again begging me to fight, wait to you see. You’ll have a queue of them at the door, on their fucking knees. But, here. I just saw Ned’s car go by, and there was a wounded man in the back, I could hear him roaring. I’d swear it was Macken. Go on round to Ned’s place, will you, the new house, and tell me who it is. And straight back here after.’
53
Ned’s house was a lovely gaff. You’d never know to look at him, in the oul anorak. But his young one bought all the latest stuff. She always had a gang of fellas in with ladders and buckets redecorating some room or other. The bedroom got an awful lot of attention.
She’d made a gorgeous big feed for Ned and Macken, served it on the good china, and poured them out a dram. They washed, hot towels rubbing off the worst of it. Burned the overalls and gloves before she did anything else, and the towels with them. Swept up the ash every bit and flushed it down the bog. She knew the drill.
And then Pat was at the door.
‘Will you have a drop of tea?’
‘I daren’t stop. Achill sent me, and you know the temper he has on him. He just wanted to know who it was got hurt, but I can see for myself it’s Macken. I better go and tell him quick. I daren’t cross him.’
‘He has some fucking nerve,’ says Ned. ‘That man has no notion of misery. Does he not know the lot of them, nearly, are lying wounded? Diamond, Sid, Pig himself. Achill’s a good soldier but he has no business pretending he cares what happens the rest of us now. Is he waiting till the Ships itself is in flames and us all lying dead in the road? Some fucking nerve. Wait now till I tell you.
‘The job was going like clockwork. All until Budd let the horsebox go, and it crashed on the gate and just sat there. That was supposed to take the front off the place, and bring swarms of them out like headless chickens. Pig was to take Achill’s part, up on the hill, and pick off as many as he could. He’d be happy with nothing less than double figures. Another Narrow Water, to put in the scales against Dog’s woman, so he could hold his head high again around the country.
‘But the Semtex never went. I’d say they’d been at the stuff in the dump. Do you get me? They were waiting on us. SAS, the works. It was a set-up, a fucking ambush.
‘But Pig took a shot anyhow, and that was it. They opened up on us then, and they must have been firing five minutes solid. Pig himself was first to get hit. Right in the elbow. Nothing too bad, but boys if you’d heard him squealing. You’d have thought he was having a baby. The Other Jack got him away. The peelers took their time. The Brits kept their distance. Too fucking quiet if you ask me. But we took our chances to get clear.
‘Diamond was hit too and hiding out, and Macken on his way in to fix him up took a knock from a plain clothes Brit car, left him lying there. We got the pair of them out, and Macken wound up with me. And then Sid was stuck hiding out in the ditch, three or four hours more, before we found him. He’d scraped the meat right off his ribs with a corner of old corrugated tin was in among the brambles. If you’d seen it. Must have been pure agony.
‘Only Budd got away clean. The team was togging out for the match found him hiding in the changing rooms. And fair play to them, they got a strip on him and in the game. A patrol went right past and he kept hunched over the hurley stick so they didn’t see the height of him. He even put a few over the bar, for good measure.
‘Now the boys are gathering, for the Brits will be combing the country and watching the way to the Ships. I’ve to get Macken up and out of here before they knock on my door. A bad day, no doubt about it, but I may tell you, I’ve seen worse. Far worse. I mind one time we were smuggling cattle over the border, oh, this is donkey’s years ago.’
‘Sorry Ned. It sounds like a class story, honest to God, but I have to get back to Achill.’
And Ned lost the rag altogether.
‘Fucking sit down there, you ignorant wee brat, before I hit you a skelp. Have you forgot the day I came first, myself and Sid, and we asked you and Achill to be part of this here operation? We’d been stood down for months, since the cessation first come in. The two of youse were raring for it, you and Achill both. And the parish priest was in the house, do you mind that? He told you to keep the big man on the straight and narrow, be a wise voice in his ear. But you’re not doing it. Why don’t you try and work on him? You know better than anybody how to get round him. I’ve seen you do it.
‘But if he won’t budge, then for Christ’s sake, get you out there now yourself at least, in his car maybe, with his own hood and coat on you, so the Brits will think he’s afoot, and pull back, and our lads will get a bit of a boost, and maybe buy us an hour or two. Do fucking something. That’s all we need to get ourselves together, and back across the border. The word around that he’s out and about again. It would give a lift to the whole country around. You’re fresh and these boys are flattened, you might even chance a shot back at them. Get a bit of glory for yourself.’
54
Henry should have been happy. The op was a success, officially. They foiled the attack, but the end result was frustration. On paper, it wasn’t an ambush. It was an arrest operation, an observe and react. But everyone knew the ASU were supposed to end up dead. And every one of them was still alive, so far as he could tell. Soon they’d be back in the South, well out of reach. No time to waste.
Polly and Henry took their cars right up to the border. But they saw what damage was done by Ned and the boys. The pothole in the road dug out so you couldn’t get past it. It was thick woods on either side. The vehicles were useless.
The pair of them stared at the map. Henry spoke first.
‘Well, suppose we cross on foot.’
‘If we could guarantee a quick in-out, that’s one thing. But if anything happens, and we’re caught over there, that’s a major diplomatic incident. We could end up in a cell in Dundalk, on trial even. It’s happened before. Ash, in eighty-seven. He drove across into an ambush right by the Ships.’
‘You’ve convinced me. I say it’s a goer. Scout the pub, see what’s what. Dig in if we have to. All we’ve got to do is rattle their cage, coax them back across the border and we can get a clean kill. Then if it goes tits-up, we’re in the clear.’
Polly shook his head, rummaged in his kit.
‘We can’t. I’ll show you. Give me a minute.’
Henry waited. Stripped his weapon, cleaned and oiled it again. No chances.
Polly panted back to his side, all eager.
‘Okay, look. I’ve had them crunch the numbers again up at Science. Aerial recon says we mustn’t. There’s a thirty-five per cent chance of success under these conditions, by mapping the results of previous operations onto the available facts of today. Pooh-pooh it if you want. I know you think I’m a technocrat, and full of shit.’
‘Perfectly put. I go by my gut, and that’s never going to change. I don’t give a rat’s fart what some Whitehall computer says my chances are. I know this ground, and I know these players, and I say the day is ours. Fight hard for Queen and country, that’s the only computer forecast you need in my book. Don’t look so panicked, Polly. You have nothing to fear from any fighting, for I don’t think you know how. Turn tail if you want to turn tail, but don’t be surprised if you get a bullet in the back.’
‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Certainly not. But since you bring it up, it’s worth pointing out you’d never know whose weapon it came from. Mine, as you know, is untraceable by the local plods.’
‘I’m afraid I’ll have to call it in if you take one step over the border. Direct order from London. We don’t take them on. Wait for them to make the next move.’
‘Since when do you receive direct orders from London?’
‘Not everyone is what they seem, Henry, even on our side. Back to base. Right now.’
55
Henry had his own strings to pull. He knew how to goad them out. Take the fight to the enemy. If he couldn’t cross himself, he knew who could.
He put in a call to a local politician of his acquaintance, that very same cousin of Crisis Cunningham’s, a well-known local individual by the name of Mr Paul Bright.
Mr Bright knew just what was called for. He suggested locally that the army could certainly tolerate a show of support from those loyal to the Crown in the neighbouring villages. An Orange Hall had been burned the last month, and the people still felt very bitter about it.
A few more calls were made, words had in the right ears. Up they came, a few of them even wearing sashes and bowlers. Mr Paul Bright himself among them, in a thick black coat, black leather gloves, wee woolly hat. Near looked like he was going out on a job himself. Henry could see known UVF among their numbers too. Off-duty RUC, UDR reservists. And a few of the ordinary decent Protestant folk of the area, who would only stand up to be counted at times of greatest need, when their patience had altogether gone. Quite fed up of walking around this part of the world apologising for their faith and their culture, wondering who was peeping at you and why, feeling like you had a target on your back every time you stepped out the door. Worth turning the tables, once in a while.
Ned was sent word they were on their way up. He knew what this meant. The border sealed. The hammer was coming for them. Bash bash bash. No quarter given. And he knew nothing to do only get down on his two knees and say the rosary. So that’s what he did.
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