When Shadows Fall

by Paul Reid

  Adam didn’t reply. They stayed in tense silence after that, and when they were nearing the county border, he said, “You can be on your way in a bit.”

  “About time,” the sergeant snorted, regaining his pluck. “And you’ll regret fucking with me today, mate. You’re going to be a hunted man. I’ll see to it.”

  “Mortified to have caused offence, old chap.”

  “And what’s more, get used to what you saw back there. We run things here. Not that old tart, and not any cabbage-chewing paddy like you.” He hawked up a gob of phlegm and projected it across the windscreen.

  “Charming,” Adam murmured.

  “Dumb Irish monkey. My patience is running thin. When do I get out?”

  “No time like the present.” Without warning Adam reached across and opened the driver’s door. The sergeant bellowed.

  “What are you doing, you crazy—”

  “Thanks for the chat.” Adam put a hand on his shoulder and shoved. The car’s speed had bled off but they were still covering over thirty miles an hour, and the man bounced once on the hard surface before tumbling into the bushes nearby. Adam slipped himself across and took control of the wheel. When he looked back he saw two legs sticking out from the growth, unmoving.

  We’ll see who runs things from now on, boyo.

  Wind and rain sheared off the Wicklow mountains and rattled the chimney pots of the isolated farmhouse. It was late evening, and Larry Mulligan had ordered his companion, Frankie Doyle, to pile up a blazing turf fire against the draughts that hounded the corridors, with cups of Bovril and a bottle of Jameson to keep in the warmth. Beside the hearth a copper kettle simmered. There was no electricity up here in the hills, so candles had been placed round the room to lift the shadows. Outside, through the windows, it was impenetrably black.

  Mulligan knew these hills. His father had taught him to hunt and poach here when he was a boy. He’d been an only child, and after his mother had died giving him birth, old Laurence Mulligan raised him on his own. Fenian songs by the firelight, tales of Brian Boru and Fionn mac Cumhaill, the importance of being a man, fists, knives, and guns, and centuries-old survival tricks.

  In the 1880s their English landlord instigated a clearing of his lands in Wicklow for grazing, and thus Mulligan father and son were put upon the road. Spurning the charity of friends and relatives, Laurence Mulligan confidently declared that they would walk to Connaught, the westernmost province of Ireland. There, he’d told the young Larry, the land was poor but with plenty of acreage for any fellow who’d work it.

  “To hell or to Connaught, is what Cromwell told us. But there’s not a field in Ireland that won’t break to my spade,” he said cheerfully. “Isn’t that right, my son?”

  “Yes, Da. When will we get there?”

  Laurence Mulligan died in late September, after they’d spent a full day trudging the roads through Westmeath. That night they huddled together in their rags, bellies shrunk from hunger, and more naked to the rain than all the pigs and cattle they had counted along the way. They’d lain down beneath a tree to shelter from the weather, and Laurence Mulligan did not wake the following morning. For a while, young Larry sat beside the body. He was nine years old. Some hours later, he rose up, faced back in the direction of Wicklow, and began walking home. He never knew what became of his father’s body. Perhaps the local priest had ordered it buried. Perhaps nobody had even noticed it. Perhaps stray dogs had picked it clean. Perhaps the bones still lay out there, in that ditch.

  Mulligan grew up in the mountains of Wicklow, running like a wild animal between hill and glen and night and day. Sometimes there was food and slumber in the farmstead of a worrying relative or a sympathetic farmer’s wife. Other times, he’d snare a rabbit, build a fire, fashion a spit. Wash and drink at an icy spring.

  But he never forgot his father’s tales of these mountains.

  Our mountains.

  The English are trying to take them from us, my son. But I’ll never let the English take what’s ours. Will you fight with me?

  I will, Da.

  When you’re older, son.

  I want to fight now, Da.

  The fire gave a belch of pungent smoke. There was a slight shake in Frankie Doyle’s hand as he rummaged it with a poker.

  “Hear that, Larry? That’s a storm to wake the dead.” He was a week past his twenty-first birthday and his anxiety was evident. “A bad night for it, Larry, that’s all I’m saying. A bad night.”

  Sitting back in an age-worn armchair, Mulligan swallowed a little whiskey and studied the younger man. “You’re nervous, Frankie. But that’s not a bad thing. That’ll keep you alert. And we’re counting upon your particular skills, as you know.”

  Frankie glanced at the clock on the mantle. “I’ve been watching those hands all evening, and they’ve barely moved. Odd, isn’t it?”

  “You leave the clock to its own business, Frankie. Time will move fast enough in the end, you can be sure of it.”

  But Frankie looked unhappy. “You said we’ll be fine. We will, though, won’t we?”

  “Of course. It’s a police barracks in the middle of nowhere. I’ve done this kind of job many times.”

  The door out in the hallway opened then, and the room was filled with a blast of wintry air. Another man appeared, carrying a basket of turf. He shrugged off his coat and went to warm himself by the fire. “Cursed weather, lads. Wouldn’t it be a grand country if only we could roof it?”

  “Frankie, get some of that turf in,” Mulligan ordered. “Thomas, has Joe moved the guns up?”

  “He has, Larry. They’re in the barn at Cleary’s farm, snug and dry. We’ll be there by five.”

  “That’ll give us a few hours’ kip, then.” Larry sat up in the armchair and winced at the sudden stab of pain. He touched his neck.

  “Jesus, Larry,” Thomas murmured, “perhaps you shouldn’t be heading out on this job at all.”

  “It’s fine,” Mulligan grunted. “Just a bit tender. Christ, it was only a scratch.”

  The “scratch” had actually lost him several pints of blood after the shooting, and he would have died if a nurse socialising in Hogan’s Tavern at the time hadn’t been able to stitch it with a sewing needle and some fish-gut from the shop. There had followed several weeks of painful convalescence, and while the wound had almost fully healed, certain movements could still cause a nasty sting.

  “A desperate thing, all the same.” Frankie shook his head. “Some young one having a pop at you like that.”

  “Never you mind.” Mulligan spat into the fire. “That matter will be addressed, I can assure you. For now, however, keep your minds on the task ahead. Did you watch the barracks this week like I asked, Thomas?”

  “Yes, Larry. They’ve thrown up a wire and timber fence, but nothing too grand for a decent set of cutters. There was a light on and a few bicycles round the side. As far as I could see they haven’t shifted the stash yet.”

  “Good. Then let’s make this a productive night’s work.”

  They managed a few hours of sleep under old blankets, and before dawn they rose, drank some reheated coffee, and left the farmhouse. The rain had eased and moonlight lit the sheep track as they came down the mountain. The countryside was silent in the night but for rustling trees and raindrops. They reached a barn at the edge of a boggy meadow where a whistle from Mulligan drew the appearance of eight or nine shapes, slinking out like spectres from their cave.

  “The guns are inside, Larry,” one of them spoke quietly.

  “Good man, Joe, pass them round. How much ammunition have we got? Jesus, lads, use it clever. God knows when I’ll have it replaced.”

  Once the weapons were distributed, they marched a few miles through the fields until they reached a bridge crossing a shallow stream. Here they took a brief rest.

  “It’s about another mile up the road,” Mulligan told them. “Every man knows what he’s about. Make it quick and calm, but like I explained before, we need to sen
d messages to London. You’re all in line with that?”

  There was a mumble of assent.

  “That’s the way.” Mulligan clasped the revolver in his belt.

  They took another minute to regain their breath, then without further talk they trudged on. It was still too early for daylight and the trees shrouded the road against the moon. The band of men stole silently along, like wraiths in the mist. Gun holsters bounced lightly against hips.

  A few minutes later, the barracks came into view.

  “Easy, Frankie, take your time.”

  After they’d cut the wire fence, Mulligan and the others held back. Young Frankie was the expert at homemade explosives, and earlier he’d moulded a small lump of gelignite into a wooden box with a mercury fulminate blasting cap and a waxed cord fuse. There were no lights on inside the barracks. The policemen stationed there would be asleep at this time, an hour still before dawn. Frankie placed the incendiary under the double-locked oak door, teased out the fuse, and lit a match. The restless wind moaned, and the match was extinguished just as fast.

  “Stubborn hoor,” Frankie grunted. He cupped his hand and tried it again. The fuse caught. Quickly he rose to his feet and sprinted into cover nearby. For several long seconds the flame flickered and hissed its way towards the explosive material inside the box. The men held their breath.

  Frankie had built the bomb well.

  With a flash and a boom, the door was blown free of its hinges and disappeared into a billow of black smoke.

  “Go,” Mulligan roared.

  The party advanced in pairs across the grass, pistols cocked, and stormed inside the barracks. Mulligan had a lantern; it took only moments to establish that the ground floor was empty.

  “They’ll be in bed,” he warned. “Get up there quickly, before they arm.”

  Bodies charged up the wooden stairs with all the stealth of a stampeding herd. The upper floors were searched, beds overturned. In the noise a pistol fired and the bullet slammed into woodwork.

  “That’s a wardrobe, you fool, not a copper,” growled a voice.

  Room by room they carried through their search, finding no one. It was clear that, apart from themselves, the entire barracks was empty.

  “No peelers, Larry.” Frankie gasped for breath.

  Mulligan looked around, confused. The barracks had been occupied round the clock for months. Even Thomas had confirmed it during the week. He swore.

  “To hell with it. Who cares? Let’s just get the guns and be gone.”

  They went below again, to where his informant had described a cellar full of weapons and ammunition. They found the trapdoor without much difficulty in a dusty backroom, and Mulligan told Frankie to break the padlock.

  “But there’s none, Larry,” Frankie said.

  “What?”

  “It’s not locked.”

  Mulligan hesitated. Why wouldn’t the cellar be locked? He began to sense that something was wrong. “Open it, then. Hurry.”

  Frankie and Thomas climbed down. It took only seconds for them to reemerge. “It’s empty, Larry. There’s nothing but rats down there.”

  Mulligan paced across the floor, then back again, his mind jumbled. “What’s going on? I don’t fucking believe this.” It made no sense. His informant was rock solid, he knew that. The information was good. So what had changed?

  “Larry.” One of the men guarding the door called him. “That noise will have woken folk in the area. We’d want to be getting out of here.”

  Anger swelled his veins. “No damned coppers, no damned guns. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” He spat on the floor and kicked a chair. “All right, fuck it, let’s just go.”

  They tramped out of the building, muttering to each other, the entire exercise now a hopeless waste of energy. Mulligan led with his shoulders hunched and arms swinging, the way he held himself when he wanted to beat somebody to death.

  He was the only one who spotted it.

  The flash of moonlight upon metal in the trees, a fleeting thing. He saw it for an instant only, but long enough to recognise it as a gun barrel. For that brief moment he was paralysed by inaction, unable to react in time.

  A second later, the night erupted into a maelstrom of fire and violence.

  Major Edmund Tanner commanded the Third Battalion Cameron Highlanders, presently stationed in County Wicklow pending their posting to the more volatile county of Cork. Tanner was forty-seven years old, a Glaswegian by birth, and a veteran of the Boer and Great Wars. In South Africa as a young captain he’d earned a formidable reputation for his bloody-minded pursuit of the Boer guerrilla bands hounding the Transvaal, while he was awarded the Victoria Cross and a promotion to major for his actions with the Machine Gun Corps at Ypres in France in 1917.

  Major Tanner loathed Ireland. A falling out with a commanding officer had stalled his promotion to lieutenant-colonel and had instead earned him a secondment to the Cameron Highlanders across the Irish Sea, to this priest-ridden backwater, reduced to holding the hands of policemen as they chased paddy rebels, a humiliation for a man of his experience and ability. But duty was duty and a week earlier a despatch from a detective in Dublin Castle had landed on his desk, instructing him with regards to the apprehension of a highly wanted and highly dangerous IRA brigade commander. Tanner’s instincts were stirred. Weeks of monotonous patrols through the bogs and hills had dulled his mind, and the prospect of a mission that he could sink his teeth into was hugely appetising.

  “Captain Atkins,” his voice rasped in the bushes despite his attempts to whisper, “that front section is in the moonlight. Move them back five feet.”

  The captain nodded and disappeared through the undergrowth.

  They were hidden deep in cover opposite the police barracks, concealed by the night and the tangled vegetation. The ambush had been laid nearly ten hours before, for they couldn’t be sure of the rebels’ exact timing, but raids like the one the rebels were planning were usually executed in the dead of night, and so here Tanner’s unit now waited.

  “Remember,” he said when Captain Atkins returned, “we’re not to move until they’ve accessed the building. That’s our ticket. Let the bastards get inside and string their own nooses.”

  “Yes, Major. I have the men warned.”

  The detective’s orders from Dublin Castle had advised, and emphasised, that the primary target was one Larry Mulligan, wanted for murder and the direction of seditious activities against the Crown. Dead or alive, he had to be taken. The others were mere cannon fodder, unimportant. Mulligan was the prize.

  Tanner had perused the file carefully back at quarters. It included a photograph of the target, which gave him a useful impression of the man he was hunting. Squat-necked, big-nosed, and muscular, Mulligan looked every inch the murderous Irish blackguard that one found in all the backwoods and drinking dens of this foul island. However, he wasn’t just another knuckle-brained thug if the background reports were to be believed. Far more sinister than that, he was known to be the planner and executor of a series of devastating attacks on military and police personnel in the north Wicklow and south Dublin areas, his name on a list of high-ranking IRA leaders that the British government was desperate to apprehend.

  “Quarter to six, Major,” Captain Atkins murmured, adjusting the rifle on his knees for balance. “Another hour or so till light. You think they’ll come?”

  Tanner peered through the trees, his moustache twitching as he debated the question. “I don’t know, Captain. I bloody well hope so.”

  The silence that rested over the wooded slope was intensified by the darkness. The men in cover didn’t speak, didn’t so much as move. Tanner liked this. As a boy he’d stalked deer for hunters in the Scottish Highlands. He knew about stealth and patience. He kept his eyes on the road, watching for stir of the quarry. The night slid on.

  And finally they came.

  From his vantage spot, Tanner spied several men approaching quietly along the road, armed with
rifles and revolvers. There were perhaps a dozen in all, and the stolid, brawny figure in their midst Tanner guessed to be Mulligan.

  “Hold for my order,” he hissed at Atkins. “Let them about their business.”

  The party of raiders moved briskly, filing along the perimeter wall of the barracks while one of their number crept as far as the door and planted something on the ground. After he had taken refuge, a sharp blast reduced the door to a splintered wreckage. The raiders poured in. Tanner could hear their rough feet stomping about as they searched the building.

  “As you please, Captain,” he said.

  Captain Atkins crept forward and ordered the men at the roadside to ready and take aim. After a few moments the IRA must have realised they’d been duped, for they reemerged from the barracks looking thoroughly disgruntled. Tanner saw Mulligan in front. His lips curled into a sly smile.

  “Fire!” roared Atkins.

  In near-perfect unison the soldiers loosed a fusillade, shattering the night’s tranquillity in a screaming volley of lead. The bodies across the road twisted and danced and chips of granite flew off the walls. Screams of agony rang out, and the soldiers reloaded and kept firing. When the calamitous noise finally settled, none of the raiders was still standing.

  “Cease fire!”

  Tanner took out his revolver and advanced with his men. Blood spatters stained the ground and barracks wall, and the first few targets he saw were clearly dead. However, a few moans and whimpers could be heard from elsewhere.

  “Disarm the wounded, move it,” Captain Atkins barked. Tanner looked for Mulligan. The IRA leader had been right in the path of that first fusillade, and he couldn’t have made it far.

  Aha, there you are.

  He spotted Mulligan lying round the side of the barracks, face down and unmoving. The rogue had almost made it, until the bullets cut him down midflight. Tanner slapped his haunches in satisfaction. “Excellent. Job done. Move the dead back to the truck, Captain Atkins. The peelers will want to identify them in the morning.”