Field of Blood (5 page)

and the Brigade Officers, all the martyrs of the Organization. He knew what the

Brit squaddies called it, they called Milltown thèhome for retired gunmen'.

Fucking

26

27

**young, weren't they, all the boys in the Republican plot. Sean Pius McAnally hadn't wanted to join them, so he'd run down south. He still didn't want to keep

them company, but he was going to see the Chief. Hands deep in his pockets, chin hard on his chest, cold, and shivering.

Half way up the Whiterock Drive he saw ahead of him the boy who smoked and

sat on the bonnet of a car. He reckoned the boy was twelve or thirteen years old,

and he was wearing the local uniform of close‐cut hair, a windcheater and jeans

and high laced 'Docs'. He reckoned the boy four or five years older than Young Gerard. The bugger was playing truant. He wondered whether his Gerard would

be running messages for the Organization in four or five years. And if in four or

five years his son was out of class and on a street corner for the Provos, then would his Da be shouting? Like father, like son. And if his son grew up and shot a

Brit, or smashed a peeler, then would his Da be shaking his head and telling him

`Fucking well done, boy'? He wondered what future his son had that was beyond

22

the walls of the Kesh and the stones of the Milltown cemetery. He didn't think like that often, only when he was down. But a man who had blinded a Brit and taken out a constable could hardly cuff his son on the ear if the kid wanted to follow his father into the Organization.

McAnally saw the frank admiration in the boy's eyes. He felt better, stronger.

Ìnto Westrock Gardens, take the left, on the left‐hand side the second from the

end.'

`Thanks.'

The boy grinned, pleased, and ran. McAnally saw that he had a school bag with

him. Shit, couriering for the Provos before playground time. He saw Young Gerard's face and bit the flesh of his thumb to shift the pain.

The door of the small red‐brick house was opened for him by a grandmother. She

was old enough to be a grandmother, and in the hall was a playpen with a baby

trapped in it. The woman had curlers in her thin hair and a Sweet Afton blowing a

cloud from the side of her mouth, and she wore fluffy slippers that had once been

pink, and she shouted over the noise of her vacuum cleaner. Ìn the back room.

You'll take a cuppa?'

He sat in the back room for half an hour. He cleaned his nails, he pinched hairs

from his nostrils. Over and over again he planned his refusal to the Chief.

Through the thin walls of the house he heard the front door's bell. He was standing when they came in with his hands held across his crotch, and he felt he

was a bloody felon.

`Morning, Gingy. Good to see you. Long time.'

McAnally knew him, riot well but he knew him. A cold, hard fucker,. those that knew him well said he was. They'd met in the bars after

McAnally had come out of the Kesh. They'd known each other when McAnally was a big man who was on the R.P.G.‐7 A.S.U. This was the Chief. There were three men behind him. None of them kids, none of them the prison fodder that

were the Volunteers. Brigade men. Men that the Mirror called the Godfathers.

The Chief wore a black donkey jacket with the collar up and round his cheeks, and

he had a flat cap down over his eyes. His fingers were fidgeting, couldn't help himself. McAnally smiled. He had on the end of his tongue the name that the Chief was called. He was called 'Windsy'. Not to his face, but behind his back. It

was said that he lived off Chinese takeaway, noodles and rice and spare ribs, and

that was why 'Windsy'. Be a brave bugger, or a daft bugger, who would call him

that to his face. A fierce face, power and authority jutting from the little that McAnally could see of it.

23

`Yes, it's been a long time.'

`When was it you went away, Gingy, how long?' A grating nasal voice.

`Two years.'

`They all need a rest ... those that can get it. You'll be well rested now.'

McAnally put his hands on his hips. He stood at his full height, and he was three

inches shorter than the Chief. He smelled the soya.

Ì quit . . .' McAnally said.

`No, Gingy, you rested.'

Ì said that I'd quit ... that's what I meant, you know how it is.'

Ì don't fucking know how it is. You rested. There's boys here, brilliant boys, who'd give a lot for two weeks resting, not two years but two weeks. It's tiring fighting the war, Gingy, more tiring than resting for two years.'

The Chief smiled. What showed of his face was pale except for the ruddy scar across his nose. A soldier's baton had done that back in '71. The story had it that

seven soldiers had been needed to hold him down, and all swinging the batons,

and him alone with his fists. A bit of myth was needed by a man if he was to make

C.O. of Belfast Brigade.

`The boys came to see you, Gingy, you told them to piss themselves. They spelled out the plan. They tell me that you said it was a crazy suicide plan . . .'

McAnally blurted, `To stand in the Crumlin, daylight, with the R.P.G., too right that's suicide.'

`My plan, Gingy, you farted on my plan,' the Chief said, and his voice was little more than a whisper.

Christ ... McAnally saw the cold smile on the Chief's mouth. A little joke between

the two of them, not shared by the three men behind the Chief. Bitter, pinched

faces, hard, killing faces ... Christ.

`Perhaps the plan wasn't explained that well, Gingy.'

`Perhaps it wasn't,' McAnally said bleakly.

28

29

**`Missus ... Missus ...' The Chief's voice bellowed in the room, and

his face never turned away from McAnally. `Tea for five would be nice.' There was

a muffled reply. Ì'll leave the tray at the door.' The Chief lit a cigarette, and belched with the first drag.

`You're going to do it, Gingy, because I'm going to ask you to do it.' `Why me?

'Gingy, there was a time when we had ten R.P.Gs up here, five in Belfast. When

you went for your rest two years ago there were three R.P.Gs here. Now we have

24

one. One for Belfast, Derry and South Armagh. You know how many projectiles

we have now? Right now I've got one projectile in Belfast. I've got Chief of Staff

and Army Council breathing on me. If I don't use it, then I'll be ordered to ship it out, send it where it can be used. It's not like your day any more, the R.P.G. isn't for police wagons and Brit pigs, the R.P.G.'s too precious for that. Are you listening to me, Gingy?

'I'm listening.'

`My plan, the plan you said was a bad plan, is to use the R.P.G. so's the bang's heard across the Six Counties, and across the Twenty‐six Counties, and right across the bloody waters to the States. My plan says that the biggest bang comes

in the Crumlin Road tomorrow morning. My plan says that you, Gingy, you make

that bang.'

McAnally saw the bright diamonds of the Chief's eyes under the shadow of his cap. He saw the spittle at the sides of the mouth that was close to his.

`Why me?

'That's what you said when the boys came to see you. You said, why did it have to

be you, why couldn't it be some other bugger, that's what you said. I tell you. You

were the firer on the R.P.G. You were the Belfast R.P.G. team. You had four shots

of practice across the border in Donegal before you took the army Pig, before you took the police landrover. You had the training, and you delivered. Bloody good you were, Gingy. Two firings, two hits.

`There were four on your team that had the training. Now I've got one warhead,

one firing chance, and no chance of training a team like you had. My last two got

lifted, you were told that ... What happened to the four on your team, Gingy, the

team you had when you quit? Tell me what happened to them?'

McAnally said, `Shay got himself shot, peelers had him. Chicko's in

the Kesh on a tenner. Gerry blew his face off, mixing ...' Ànd you were the fourth, Gingy, and you were the best.' Ì quit,' McAnally said.

Ànd you changed your mind,' the Chief grinned. There was a light knock at the

door.

`Thank you, Missus.' •

One of the men who stood behind the Chief opened the door and

lifted in the tray and kicked the door shut behind him. He set the tray on the table, and began to pour. The baby was shouting happily in the hallway.

The Chief took from his jacket a folded Ordnance Survey map of Greater Belfast,

spread it out on the floor and knelt beside it.

25

`Come on down, Gingy, inch to 300 yards. When I've talked you through it, tell me then if it's still a crazy plan.'

McAnally sank down on his haunches. The Soya smell was foul. He swallowed hard.

`You're the only one who can do it for me, Gingy. That's why it's you.'

The Chief slapped his fist across McAnally's shoulders and one of the others put a

mug of tea in his hand.

`Come.'

The Intelligence Officer was sitting in his usual posture, chair tilted on the back

two legs, shoes on his desk. He nearly always managed to spend his day in shoes,

as if it were a perk of the job along with staying in his office with the gas stove on while the likes of Ferris were out tramping the streets of West Belfast. Battalion

Headquarters worked out of the back of the Springfield Road R.U.C. station.

Captain Jason Perceval had done well for himself. Intelligence Officer was a good

number. He had an office big enough for his desk and chair, plus an easy chair,

plus his VDU, plus a table for his portable television set. His walls were papered

with the photographs of escaped prisoners and activists gone underground, what

he called the OTRs, those On The Run.

He had been reading, and he placed the papers upside down on his desk as if Ferris represented a security risk.

`What can do, David?'

The telephone rang. The Intelligence Officer grimaced as if to explain the pressure of work, picked up the receiver.

`Wait one, David ... Yes, yes ... There's someone with me. Call me back, please.

Five minutes ... Now, what can do, David?'

Ferris often wondered where Jason Perceval had learned his language, and where

he had learned that toothy smile that was meant to charm.

`Just came across a new face today, thought you might like to have it.'

`Very conscientious ... What new face and where?'

The majority of the Battalion officers were Grammar School or Comprehensive,

different to ten years back, sign of new times. The minority had been privately educated. Ferris thought the minority were bloody anxious to point up the difference.

30

31

26

**`Gave his name as Sean McAnally, address as 63 The Drive, Turf Lodge . . .'

`Doesn't ring with me.'

Ìf you're not interested . . .'

Ì didn't hear myself say I wasn't interested. No need to scratch. Tell.'

`Sean McAnally, aged about thirty, fair hair, ginger really, says he works down in

the Republic. Wife is Roisin, she's full time up here with the kids. My platoon hadn't come across him before. He was in a car we stopped at a VCP two nights

ago, the car was cleared. That's all.'

`Kind of you, squire.'

The Intelligence Officer lifted his chair across the room to the table and the Visual Display Unit. He flicked the switch, animated the screen, and started to type.

Ferris watched as the Intelligence Officer eased his chair back, waited for the Headquarters computer to throw them some information, and lit himself a black

papered Sobranie.

Ì'm all for HumInt,' the Intelligence Officer said easily. ÈlInt's got a place in things, but HumInt's what scores ...'

The screen began to fill. Ferris disliked the military's jargon. Human Intelligence

in Ferris's book was simply observation, and Electronic Intelligence was

mechanical surveillance.

`Bit of a bullseye, David. Very good. McAnally, Sean Pius. Born 1955. Fianna Youth cadre. Aggro brat. Thought to be A.S.U. member in Turf Lodge and

Ballymurphy through to mid‐seventies. Done on possession of firearms in '76. No

statement, written or verbal. Five years in the Lazy Kay. Wasn't on the dirty protest, didn't wipe his shit on the walls. Wasn't on the list of those wanting to slim for Ireland, not a Hunger Striker. Came out and went back to his old ways,

but sharp enough never to have been incriminated, never found in flagrante, and

never informed against either. Two years ago he went south. The law have checked him out down there, the word came back that he'd cut his links.

Probably just back to give his lady a touch of the tickler ...'

Àre they able to cut their links, do you think?'

`Perhaps, perhaps not ... That's why it's useful to hear your news.'

`He looked as if he could have messed his pants when I had him over.'

`You're not starting to feel sorry for the vermin, David? 'He was pretty pathetic.'

Jason Perceval looked keenly at David Ferris. `Your job's soldiering, laddie, not feeling sorry for them.'

Ì only said that he looked pathetic.'