by David Roy
‘Cunt!’, he shouted, lunging again. The distant overseers watched, only mild interest registering on their faces. Sam still had the crow bar in his hand and moved out of the way trying not to hit Tucker with it. The latter’s wild punch hit Sam, squarely on the upper arm and deadened it. The other men shouted at him to stop but he was a whirling, spitting demon who could only be assuaged by seeing his enemy flattened and beaten. No-one seemed to be on Tucker’s side but no-one was ready to step in either and Sam feared that he was going to get a real going over. One of the spectators shouted, ‘hit him with the crowbar, Sam!’ and Sam, hefted it as if he would do so. Somehow even with Tucker about to attack again he couldn’t quite bring himself to strike with such a deadly weapon.
‘Fuckin’ bastard’ growled the maniac, firing a heavyweight right cross that glanced Sam’s jaw. Only his quick reactions spared him a break but he realised too that dodging the punches was not going to be enough.
‘I’m warnin’ ye Tucker. Y’either stop or get yer face smashed in wi’ this.’
‘Wanker!’, he spat as the next punch came in. Sam held the steel bar up with both hands and his assailant’s punch crunched directly into it with a sickening crack of bone that made everyone, even Sam wince. Tucker howled in agony and Sam hoped that now he would stop. The alternative - an even angrier attacker - didn’t bear thinking about, but unfortunately that was what he had to contend with. Holding his ruined hand Tucker charged headfirst at Sam, intending to bring his head up at the last minute so as to smash the latter’s jaw…. but Sam was ready and swiped him aside with something like a tennis stroke. This time the crow bar caught Tucker under the chin and felled him as a bullet fells a charging rhino. He toppled heavily with a grunt and a wail as pain cascaded in upon pain.
‘Finish him, Sam!’, shouted Roy.
‘No-one’ll know’, shouted one of the others. Tucker howled in agony, writhing on the ground like a wounded beast.
Sam looked up at the overseers. Both men casually turned away, a clear signal. Sam looked at Roy Boyd. The big farmer nodded.
‘Do it.’
Sam looked at the crumpled ginger form at his feet. Tucker rocked backwards and forwards as if in a trance-like state of prayer. Little noises emanated from his stricken body - swearing, groans and grunts.
‘Do it!’
Sam raised the crow bar above his head and brought it down in one movement. The back of Tucker’s skull split like a coconut and the noises stopped. There was silence for a moment. Sam thought about what he had done. He was a murderer now.
‘I’ve murdered him’, he said, dispassionately.
‘You’re only a murderer if you get caught’, said one of the ex-cons, a burglar called Tim Hanlon.
‘Let’s get him into this hole and cover it up’, said Roy and a group of men immediately took the body and tossed it into the course of the pipe way. They stood back to look at the body for a second as Sam glanced at the two overseers. Both were smoking. One shouted, ‘okay’ - almost the first time that either of them had been heard to speak.
‘Get the next bit of pipe in and we can have a rest, lads, I think’, said Roy. They walked over to the huge concrete tube and began rolling it into place.
‘Maybe you could carry on mixing that concrete, Sam?’, he added.
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘I can’t believe what I just did, Roy.’
‘Don’t worry about it. He had it comin’ to him and no-one’s goin’ to say anything.’
'I still can’t believe it, though.’
‘You’ve killed people before….’
‘Aye but….’
‘Aye but nothin’. He probably deserved more than anyone else you’ve killed. He was a bastard and no-one’ll miss him.’
‘The guards saw it.’
‘Not really. If they’d wanted to stop it they would’ve. They’re glad to see the back of him. He used to steal from everyone but nobody could ever prove it. He used to carry tales to the Germans…. not just about us but about the guards as well. They all had it in for him. Notice that no-one has missed him?’ Sam nodded. ‘That’s cos they’re markin’ him present. Tomorrow morning’ - that’s when he’ll be marked down as absent. It’ll be as if he just didn’t come in to work. And no-one will care. People disappear all the time.’
Sam listened to the words but it all seemed too simple. Certainly, the world was now a different place but could you really kill a man and escape justice so easily? More to the point, would the Germans, with their penchant for record keeping and order, simply allow someone to cease to exist. Fine, they did it when it suited them but this was a different matter. He was sure that this must somehow come back to haunt him. He would spend the rest of his days looking over his shoulder, waiting to be caught.
The Submarine
The submarine slipped unnoticed into Belfast Lough and broke the water, its shark’s fin conning tower rising blackly and silently into the night air. The hatch opened and two crewmen clambered out, hauling a black dinghy onto the deck. It began to inflate with a loud hiss of compressed air that was deafening to the men on the deck and silent to those on shore. The agent climbed up last and slithered into the dinghy clutching the paddle that would bring him inshore. Beneath his jacket he had a Browning pistol and, in a sealed, waterproof envelope, a set of orders for the dead letter box. He knew he might be caught and he knew he might be too late to achieve his goal. He had some idea about the desperate nature of the situation. Churchill wasn’t a man prone to exaggeration.
Sam slept badly that night. A couple of bottles of stout had got him off to sleep quickly but then he woke in the early hours and the doubts came rushing into his mind as if filling the thoughtless void left by his unconscious state. When the milk bottles rattled on the door step he was still awake. The normality of the milk delivery jarred somewhat with the fact that he was now a murderer. Tiredly he washed and dressed, then skipped breakfast to meet the bus that took him out to the site. The other men looked as wan and depressed as him but there was a difference - they hadn’t just killed someone.
They filed off at the gates, watched by two bored sentries. Sam was pondering the nature of the German's security measures, when a hand clapped him on the shoulder. He turned quickly, his heart beating faster.
‘Oh, hi Roy’, he said relieved.
‘Bit jumpy, aren’t you?’
‘Well, you know why.’
‘No’, he said simply. ‘Nothing happened.’ They walked in silence for a moment. Their breath described white clouds in the eerie, arc-lit gloom.
‘Christ look at that’, said someone to the back of their weary file. As one, the men raised their heads and cast their glance over the lough to see the outline of a gigantic vessel steaming out to sea.
‘Bismarck.’
‘Is it?’
‘Must be.’
‘Some ship that.’
‘Looks like a British aircraft carrier to me’, said one of the men.
‘How the hell would you know’, chided another.
‘I was on HMS Illustrious, that’s how. I know what a Royal Navy carrier looks like, thank you very much.’
‘So, the Bismarck is just a British design built for the Germans?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Well fuck that!’
It was a sight both magnificent and depressing in equal measure. One of the overseers shouted to the group to make their way in to work and they shuffled off in his direction. The men worked with no mention of the previous day’s events. At one point a German officer appeared and snooped around but nothing was said and he left again without taking any real interest in what the men were doing. Inwardly, Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Had he, in fact, got away with it? Roy looked over at him as if reading his mind. He winked like a conspirator and then resumed hauling the huge pipe section into place.
Lunch was soup and bread, brought out in a huge, insulated flask. The soup was hot and nutritious, the b
read fresh. It went some way to keeping the men content. They chatted about inconsequential things. The most popular topic of conversation was the rumour that the football league was going to start up again now that most of the players had been released from POW camps. The old rivalries had surfaced just at the mention of such a thing.
‘Things are gettin’ back to normal’, said Sam, joining in with the spirit of things. He was surprised at the dark look given to him by Roy.
After lunch the men smoked and chatted some more.
‘Fancy a walk?’, said the big Antrim farmer.
‘Aye, okay’, replied Sam. The overseers barely spared them a glance as they rose, cigarettes in hand, and began to stroll. Sam imagined that they would walk down to the water’s edge but Roy turned sharply right and walked inland - leisurely enough but with some purpose in mind.
‘This way’, he ordered.
Sam followed. Well, not exactly followed. He walked next to Roy aware that he was tacitly under instruction to do so, to be there, to walk in that direction. It was quite clear and most alarming to realise that he was following orders from this unexpected source. Roy carried the ‘relaxed stroll’ look off with aplomb but to Sam it was clear that this was anything but what it appeared to be. All the time Roy smoked and gesticulated animatedly, keeping a light tone in his voice as he spoke.
‘We’re just heading up to the start point of the pipe we’ve laid’, he said. ‘The main thing is to act natural. As we walk back I need you to count how many paces we take and then we walk right down to the water’s edge - you keep counting all the way - stop and turn back. You can stop counting when we get down to the water. Got it?’ Sam nodded, confused. ‘I’ll explain all this someday.’ They headed to a point about two hundred yards short of the main gate and then turned just as the sentries there straightened and began to take an interest in them.
‘One, two, three, four, five….’
‘I’m not so sure about things getting back to normal y’know’, said Roy. His tone was light, his message ominous.
‘Six, seven, eight, nine, ten….’
‘I mean, it’s good about the football an’all’.
‘Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen….’
‘But there’s more to life.’
‘Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty….’
‘People wonder when it’s going to go wrong’.
‘Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three….’
‘Or the ones who are thinking about things wonder, should I say.'
‘Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six….’
‘But a load just want to stick their heads in the sand’.
‘Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine….’
‘It’s not going to carry on like this’.
‘Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three….’
‘It’s okay now. The Germans are being nice to us’.
‘Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six….’
‘But people want to be free.’ He paused.
‘Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-four, forty-five….’
‘As soon as people start getting agitated about things’.
‘Forty-six, forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine…’
‘They come down on us like a ton of bricks.’
‘Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four….’
‘Plenty of folk have just ‘disappeared’ already.’
‘Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven, fifty-eight….’
‘They don’t care if plenty more join them.’
‘Fifty-nine, sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-three….’
‘Nearly there.’
‘Sixty-four.’ They both stopped and stared out across the lough at the distant Carrickfergus castle. It stood like a symbol of the time when Britain could defend itself. ‘Sixty-four, Roy. Are you going to tell me what this was all about?’
‘No.’
‘It’s better under the Germans’, she said. The wind tugged at the ends of the scarf which she wore to keep her hair in place. ‘In some ways. Everyone has a job and money. There’s enough food. The trains and buses are running on time. There are things in the shops.’
‘But can you afford to buy them?’, asked Sam.
‘Sometimes. It’s always been hard to afford things.’
‘But what about your freedom?’
‘Freedom!’, she scoffed. ‘Who’s ever been free? Really. There’s always someone tellin’ you what to do, where to go, where not to go. It’s not that different under the Germans.’ She looked at him earnestly. ‘Except they mean it. You don’t get away with things.’
‘And what about the people who just disappeared? You agree with that?’
‘Of course, not but that’s all finished now. They got the people they wanted and…. well, they’re leaving the rest of us alone.’
Sam picked up a stick and threw it back down the hill. Max ran after it, his legs a grey blur. Sam wished that the dog didn’t have such a German sounding name. Obviously, his Mum and Dad had not foreseen the events which would over-run their lives when thinking of a name for their pet. Mind you they could hardly change it now. The poor animal would never understand if they changed his name to Winston or George.
‘But what if you had had someone taken away?’
‘Then I wouldn’t feel this way about it, Sam’, she said, clearly exasperated. ‘But I didn’t. So, things are okay.’
‘And the people who fought the war? What about them?’
‘Sam…. that’s all finished. The war is lost. We don’t have any heroes or any need for them. It’s terrible and insulting to you maybe, but that is the reality of it. The Germans won. They tell us what to do and if we do it we get to live our lives. If we don’t then….’ They cleared the trees and walked to the top of the hill. Max, tired now, trotted along behind them. She knew that none of what she said was what he’d wanted to hear…. but she owed it to him to be honest. She cared about him, maybe loved him and took his arm. He resisted but only a little and then, together, they turned and looked out over Belfast Lough. A freighter, grey and red with a thin plume of smoke from its single funnel made ponderous progress into Belfast. They watched it and a little tug which chugged out to sea to meet a larger ship. Sam pointed to a patch of new land edging the sea on the other coast.
‘That’s where I’ve been working.’ Nancy followed the invisible line stretching out from his finger tip. ‘Reclaimed land, they call it. All sorts of stuff dumped in there and then soil over the top. I think they're going to build something on it but I don’t know what.’
‘You see. You’ve got a job, at least, haven’t you Sam? Good money coming in.’
‘I wouldn’t say it was good money, exactly. And I had a job before.’
‘Well, obviously that job came to an end. You can hardly be surprised at that. This is the way it is from now on in. It’s as if you’re trying to resist it but there’s no point. You can’t change it. You can only make things worse for you or your family. You’ll make yourself ill worrying about it and for what? Lots of people care about you’, she said and then added sheepishly, unsure how he would react, ‘I care about you.’
‘Do you?’
‘I’ve just bloody said so, haven’t I?’
Sam was pleased at the words but unsure how to reply. Fortunately, Nancy realised this and gave him a playful hug.
‘We could have a future together. Get married. House. Kids. All that’, she said.
It sounded good. Cosy and safe. Probably all he’d ever wanted when he thought about it. She was looking right at him now hoping for some sort of answer, a sign, an acknowledgement…. anything. But for reasons which he couldn’t even begin to explain to himself, much less to her, he knew it wouldn’t happen. Not yet. Maybe never.
Without ceremony they hauled the last pipe section into place and cemented it.
‘What now I wonder?’, said Sam.
/>
‘Hopefully, they’ll have more work for us’, said Roy. ‘I mean they’re obviously going to build something here so they’ll still need labourers, you would think.’
As they spoke, a convoy of lorries roared past spitting up gravel and sending swirling clouds of dust dancing through the air. The lorries carried pallets of bricks, iron girders and sacks of cement. They were followed in by a cavalcade of plant equipment; diggers, bulldozers, graders, cranes and machines to which neither man could ascribe a name or function. Through the noise they faintly heard the klaxon that summoned the workers to the office and joined the stream of men which began heading that way.
‘There is more work for those of you who are interested’, said the project engineer. He smiled as he spoke, thinking that the news was good and pushed his glasses up to the bridge of his nose as if surprised that they weren’t there already. ‘For those of you who have worked for us for some time there will be an increase in pay and all the other benefits will still apply.’ At this time a few brows furrowed as the men tried to think of exactly which benefits he was talking about. He went through some vague details, giving nothing away and then dismissed the men informally. They were finished for the day but could return tomorrow if they chose.
Sam quizzed Roy one last time - or at least he tried to.
‘So, what are they building, big fella?’
‘God knows’, came the dismissive reply. A slight smile played at the corners of his mouth, just the movement of a sleeping butterfly, to indicate that he knew much more than he would admit.
‘Bollocks.’
‘You don’t want to know, Sam. Not if you don’t need to.’
‘How do you know I don’t need to?’ They were almost out of the gates now. The sentries looked at them with no interest at all. Even German soldiers switched off their vigilance sometimes.