The Savage Day

‘Quiet tonight,’ he said cheerfully when he got close.

The barman nodded nervously. ‘What can I get you?’

The red-haired boy stood, hands on the bar, his friends ranged behind him. ‘We’re collecting for the new church hall at St Michael’s. Everyone else in the district’s chipping in and we knew you wouldn’t like to be left out.’ He glanced around the bar again. ‘We were going to ask for fifty, but I can see things aren’t so good so we’ll make it twenty-five quid and leave it at that.’

One of his friends reached over the bar, helped himself to a pint pot and pumped out a beer.

The barman said slowly. ‘They aren’t building any church hall at St Mick’s.’

The red-haired boy glanced at his friends enquiringly, then nodded gravely. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘The truth, then. We’re from the IRA. We’re collecting for the Organization. More guns to fight the bloody British Army with. We need every penny we can get.’

‘God save us,’ the barman said. ‘But there isn’t three quid in the till. I’ve never known trade as bad.’

The red-haired boy slapped him solidly across the face, sending him back against the shelves, three or four glasses bouncing to the floor.

‘Twenty-five quid,’ he said. ‘Or we smash the place up. Take your choice.’

Binnie Gallagher brushed past me like a wraith. He moved in behind them without a word. He stood there waiting, shoulders hunched, the hands thrust deep into the pockets of the dark overcoat.

The red-haired boy saw him first and turned slowly. ‘And who the hell might you be, little man?’

Binnie looked up and I saw him clearly in the mirror, dark eyes burning in that white face. The four of them eased round a little, ready to move in on him and I reached for the bottle of Jameson.

Norah Murphy put a hand on my arm. ‘He doesn’t need you,’ she said quietly.

‘My dear girl, I only wanted a drink,’ I murmured and poured myself another.

‘The IRA, is it?’ Binnie said.

The red-haired boy glanced at his friends, for the first time slightly uncertain. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘I’m a lieutenant in the North Tyrone Brigade myself,’ Binnie said. ‘Who are you lads?’

One of them made a break for the door on the instant and incredibly, a gun was in Binnie’s left hand, a 9 mm Browning automatic that looked like British Army issue to me. With that gun in his hand, he became another person entirely. A man to frighten the devil himself. A natural born killer if ever I’d seen one.

The four of them cowered against the bar, utterly terrified. Binnie said coldly, ‘Lads are out in the streets tonight spilling their blood for Ireland and bastards like you spit on their good name.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ the red-haired boy said. ‘We didn’t mean no harm.’

Binnie kicked him in the crutch, the boy sagged at the knees, turned and clutched at the bar with one hand to stop himself from falling. Binnie reversed his grip on the Browning, the butt rose and fell like a hammer on the back of that outstretched hand and I heard the bones crack. The boy gave a terrible groan and slipped to the floor, half-fainting, at the feet of his horrified companions.

Binnie’s right foot swung back as if to finish him off with a kick in the side of the head and Norah Murphy called sharply, ‘That’s enough.’

He stepped back instantly like a well-trained dog and stood watching, the Browning flat against his left thigh. Norah Murphy moved past me and went to join them and I noticed that she was carrying in her right hand a square, flat case which she placed on the bar.

‘Pick him up,’ she said.

The injured boy’s companions did as they were told, holding him between them while she examined the hand. I poured myself another Jameson and joined the group as she opened the case. The most interesting item on display was a stethoscope and she rummaged around and finally produced a large triangular sling which she tied about the boy’s neck to support the injured hand.

‘Take him into Casualty at the Infirmary,’ she said. ‘He’ll need a plaster cast.’

‘And keep your mouth shut,’ Binnie put in.

They went out on the run, the injured boy’s feet dragging between them. The door closed and there was only the silence.

As Norah Murphy reached for the case I said, ‘Is that just a front or the real thing?’

‘Would Harvard Medical School be good enough for you?’ she demanded.

‘Fascinating,’ I said. ‘Our friend here breaks them up and you put them together again. That’s what I call teamwork.’

She didn’t like that for she turned very pale and snapped the fastener of her case together angrily, but I think she had determined not to lose her temper.

‘All right, Major Vaughan,’ she said. ‘I don’t like you either. Shall we go?’

She moved towards the door. I turned and placed my glass on the counter in front of the barman, who was standing there waiting for God knows what axe to fall.

Binnie said, ‘You’ve seen nothing, heard nothing. All right?’

There was no need to threaten and the poor wretch nodded dumbly, his lip trembling. And then, quite suddenly, he collapsed across the bar and started to cry.

Binnie surprised me then by patting him on the shoulder and saying with astonishing gentleness, ‘Better times coming, Da. Just you see.’

But if the barman believed that, then I was the only sane man in a world gone mad.

It had started to rain and fog rolled in across the docks as we moved along the waterfront, Norah Murphy at my side, Binnie bringing up the rear rather obviously.

Neither of them said a word until we were perhaps half way to our destination when Norah Murphy paused at the end of a mean street of terrace houses and turned to Binnie. ‘I’ve a patient I must see here. I promised to drop a prescription in this evening. Five minutes.’

She ignored me and walked away down the street, pausing at the third or fourth door to knock briskly. She was admitted almost at once and Binnie and I moved into the shelter of an arched passageway between two houses. I offered him a cigarette which he refused. I lit one myself and leaned against the wall.

After a while he said, ‘Your mother – what was her maiden name?’

‘Fitzgerald,’ I told him. ‘Nuala Fitzgerald.’

He turned, his face a pale shadow in the darkness. ‘There was a man of the same name schoolmaster at Stradballa during the Troubles.’

‘Her elder brother,’ I said.

He leaned closer as if trying to see my face. ‘You, a bloody Englishman, are the nephew of Michael Fitzgerald, the Schoolmaster of Stradballa?’

‘I suppose I must be. Why should that be so hard to take?’

‘But he was a great hero,’ Binnie said. ‘He commanded the Stradballa flying column. When the Tans came to take him, he was teaching at the school. Because of the children he went outside and shot it out in the open, one against fifteen, and got clean away.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘A real hero of the revolution. All for the Cause only he never wanted it to end, Binnie, that was his trouble. Executed during the Civil War by the Free State Government. I always found that part of the story rather ironic myself, or had you forgotten that after they’d got rid of the English, the Irish set about knocking each other off with even greater enthusiasm?’

I could not see the expression on his face, yet the tension in him was something tangible between us.

I said, ‘Don’t try it, boy. As the Americans would say, you’re out of your league. Compared to me, you’re just a bloody amateur.’

‘Is that a fact now, Major?’ he said softly.

‘Another thing,’ I said. ‘Dr Murphy wouldn’t like it and we can’t have that now, can we?’

She settled the matter for us by reappearing at that precise moment. She sensed that something was wrong at once and paused.

‘What is it?’

‘A slight difference of opinion, that’s all,’ I told her. ‘Binnie’s just discovered I’m related to a piece of grand old Irish history and it sticks in his throat – or didn’t you know?’

‘I knew,’ she said coldly.

‘I thought you would,’ I said. ‘The interesting thing is, why didn’t you tell him?’

I didn’t give her a chance to reply and cut the whole business short by moving off into the fog briskly in the general direction of Lurgan Street.

The hotel didn’t have a great deal to commend it, but then neither did Lurgan Street. A row of decaying terrace houses, a shop or two and a couple of pubs making as unattractive a sight as I have ever seen.

The hotel itself was little more than a lodging-house of a type to be found near the docks of any large port, catering mainly for sailors or prostitutes in need of a room for an hour or two. It had been constructed by simply joining three terrace houses together and sticking a sign above the door of one of them.

A merchant navy officer came out as we approached and clutched at the railings for support. A girl of eighteen or so in a black plastic mac emerged behind him, straightened his cap and got a hand under his elbow to help him down the steps.

She looked us over without the slightest sense of shame and I smiled and nodded. ‘Good night, a colleen. God save the good work.’

The laughter bubbled out of her. ‘God save you kindly.’

They went off down the street together, the sailor breaking into a reasonably unprintable song and I shook my head. ‘Oh, the pity of it, a fine Catholic girl to come to that.’

Binnie looked as if he would have liked to put a bullet into me, but Norah Murphy showed no reaction at all except to say, ‘Could we possibly get on with it, Major Vaughan? My time is limited.’

We went up the steps and into the narrow hallway. There was a desk of sorts to one side at the bottom of the stairs and an old white-haired man in a faded alpaca jacket dozed behind it, his chin in one hand.

There seemed little point in waking him and I led the way up to the first landing. Meyer had room seven at the end of the corridor and when I paused to knock, we could hear music clearly from inside, strangely plaintive, something of the night in it.

Norah Murphy frowned. ‘What on earth is it?’

‘Al Bowlly,’ I said simply.

‘Al who?’

‘You mean you’ve never heard of Al Bowlly, Doctor? Why, he’s indisputably number one in the hit parade to any person of taste and judgement, or he would be if he hadn’t been killed in the London Blitz in 1941. Meyer listens to nothing else. Carries a cassette tape-recorder with him everywhere.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she said.

I shook my head. ‘You’re now listening to Moonlight on the Highway, probably the best thing he ever did. Recorded with the Joe Loss orchestra on the 21st March, 1938. You see, I’ve become something of an expert myself.’

The door opened and Meyer appeared. ‘Ah, Simon.’

‘Dr Murphy,’ I said. ‘And Mr Gallagher. This is Mr Meyer.’ I closed the door and Meyer, who could speak impeccable English when it suited him, started to act the bewildered Middle-European.

‘But I don’t understand. I was expecting to meet a Mr Cork, commanding the official IRA forces in Northern Ireland.’

I walked to the window and lit a cigarette, aware of Binnie leaning against the door, hands in his pockets. It was raining harder than ever outside, bouncing from the cobblestones.

Norah Murphy said, ‘I am empowered to act for Michael Cork.’

‘You were to provide five thousand pounds in cash as an evidence of good faith. Where is it, please?’

She opened her case, took out an envelope and threw it on the bed. ‘Count it, please, Simon,’ Meyer said.

Al Bowlly was working his way through I double dare you as I reached for the envelope and Norah Murphy said quickly, ‘Don’t waste your time, Major. There’s only a thousand there.’

There was a moment of distinct tension as Meyer reached for the tape-recorder and cut Al Bowlly dead. ‘And the other four?’

‘We wanted to be absolutely certain, that’s all. It’s ready and waiting, no more than ten minutes’ walk from here.’

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded briefly. ‘All right. To business. Please sit down.’

He offered her the only chair and sat on the edge of the bed himself.

‘Will you have any difficulty in meeting our requirements?’ she asked.

‘The rifles will be no trouble at all. I am in the happy position of being able to offer you five hundred Chinese AK 47’s, probably the finest assault rifle in the world today. Extensively used by the Viet Cong in Vietnam.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ she said a trifle impatiently. ‘And the other items?’

‘Grenades are no problem and we can offer you an excellent range of sub-machine-guns. The early Thompsons still make a great deal of noise, but I would personally recommend you to try the Israeli Uzi. A remarkably efficient weapon. Absolutely first class, don’t you agree, Simon?’

‘Oh, the best,’ I said cheerfully. ‘There’s a grip safety which stops it firing if dropped, so we find it goes particularly well with the peasant trade. They’re usually inclined to be rather clumsy.’

She didn’t even bother to look at me. ‘And armour-piercing weapons?’ she said. ‘We asked for those most particularly.’

‘Rather more difficult, I’m afraid,’ Meyer told her.

‘But we must have them.’ She clenched her right hand and hammered it against her knee, the knuckles white. ‘They are absolutely essential if we are to win the battle in the streets. Petrol bombs make a spectacular show on colour television, Mr Meyer, but they seldom do more than blister the paint of a Saracen armoured car.’

Meyer sighed heavily. ‘I can deliver between eighty and one hundred and twenty Lahti 20 mm semi-automatic anti-tank cannons. It’s a Finnish gun. Not used by any Western Powers as far as I know.’

‘Is it efficient? Will it do the job?’

‘Ask the Major. He’s the expert.’

She turned to me and I shrugged. ‘Any gun is only as good as the man using it, but as a matter of interest, someone broke into a bank in New York back in 1965 using a Lahti. Blasted a hole through twenty inches of concrete and steel. One round in the right place will open up a Saracen like a tin can.’

She nodded, that hand still clenched, a strange, wild gleam in her eye. ‘You’ve used them? You’ve had experience of them in action, I mean?’

‘In one of the Trucial Oman States and the Yemen.’

She turned to Meyer. ‘You must guarantee competent instruction in their use. Agreed?’

She didn’t look at me. There was no need. Meyer nodded. ‘Major Vaughan will be happy to oblige, but for one week only and our fee will be an additional two thousand pounds on that agreed for the first consignment.’

‘Making twenty-seven thousand in all?’ she said.

Meyer took off his glasses and started to polish them with a soiled handkerchief. ‘Good, then we can proceed as provisionally agreed with your representative in London. I have hired a thirty-foot motor cruiser, berthed at Oban at the present time, rigged for deep-sea fishing. Major Vaughan will leave next Thursday afternoon at high tide and will attempt the run with the first consignment.’

‘And where is it to be landed?’ she asked.

Which was my department. I said, ‘There’s a small fishing port called Stramore on the coast directly south from Rathlin Island. There’s a secluded inlet with a good beach about five miles east. Our informant has been running whiskey in there from the Republic for the past five years without being caught so we should be all right. Your end is to make sure you have reliable people and transport on the spot to pick the stuff up and get the hell out of it fast.’

‘And what do you do?’

‘Comply with my sailing instructions and call in at Stramore. I’ll contact you there.’

She frowned as if thinking about it and Meyer said calmly, ‘Is it to your satisfaction?’

‘Oh yes, I think so.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Except for one thing. Binnie and I go with him.’

Meyer looked at me in beautifully simulated bewilderment and spread his hand in another of those Middle-European gestures. ‘But my dear young lady, it simply is not on.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because this is an extremely hazardous undertaking. Because of an institution known as the British Royal Navy which patrols the Ulster coast regularly these days with its MTBs. If challenged, Major Vaughan still stands some sort of a chance of getting away. He is an expert at underwater work. He carries frogman’s equipment. An aqualung. He can take his chances over the side. With you along, the whole situation would be different.’

‘Oh, I’m sure we can rely on Major Vaughan to see that the Royal Navy don’t catch us.’ She stood up and held out her hand. ‘We’ll see you next Thursday in Oban then, Mr Meyer.’

Meyer sighed, waved his arms about helplessly, then took her hand. ‘You’re a very determined young woman. You will not forget, however, that you owe me four thousand pounds.’

‘How could I?’ She turned to me. ‘When you’re ready, Major.’

Binnie opened the door for us and I followed her out and as we went down the corridor Al Bowlly launched into Goodnight but not goodbye.

4

In Harm’s Way

As we went down the steps to the street, a Land-Rover swept out of the fog followed by another, very close behind. They had been stripped to the bare essentials so that the driver and the three soldiers who crouched in the rear of each vehicle behind him were completely exposed. They were paratroopers, efficient, tough-looking young men, in red berets and flak jackets, their sub-machine-guns held ready for instant action.

They disappeared into the fog and Binnie spat into the gutter in disgust. ‘Would you look at that now, just asking to be chopped down, the dumb bastards. What wouldn’t I give for a Thompson gun and one crack at them.’

‘It would be your last,’ I said. ‘They know exactly what they’re doing, believe me. They perfected that open display technique in Aden. The crew of each vehicle looks after the other and without armour plating to get in their way, they can return fire instantly if attacked.’

‘Bloody SS,’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘No, they’re not, Binnie. Most of them are lads around your own age, trying to do a dirty job the best way they know how.’

He frowned, and for some reason my remark seemed to shut him up. Norah Murphy didn’t say a word, but led the way briskly, turning from one street into another without hesitation.

Within a few minutes we came to a main road. There was a church on the other side, the Sacred Heart according to the board, a Victorian monstrosity in yellow brick which squatted in the rain behind a fringe of iron railings. There were lights in the windows, the sound of an organ, and people emerged from the open door in ones and twos to pause for a moment before plunging into the heavy rain.

As we crossed the road, a priest came out of the porch and stood on the top step trying to open his umbrella. He was a tall, rather frail-looking man in a cassock and black raincoat and wore a broad-brimmed shovel hat that made it difficult to see his face.

He got the umbrella up, started down the steps and paused suddenly. ‘Dr Murphy,’ he called. ‘Is that you?’

Norah Murphy turned quickly. ‘Hello, Father Mac,’ she said, and then added in a low voice, ‘I’ll only be a moment. The woman I saw earlier is one of his parishioners.’

Binnie and I moved into the shelter of a doorway and she went under the shelter of the priest’s umbrella. He glanced towards us once and nodded, a gentle, kindly man of sixty or so. Norah Murphy held his umbrella and talked to him while he took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and wiped rain from them with a handkerchief.

Finally he replaced the spectacles and nodded. ‘Fine, my dear, just fine,’ he said and took a package from his raincoat pocket. ‘Give her that when you next see her and tell her I’ll be along in the morning.’

He touched his hat and walked away into the fog. Norah Murphy watched him go then turned and tossed the package to me so unexpectedly that I barely caught it. ‘Four thousand pounds, Major Vaughan.’

I weighed the package in my two hands. ‘I didn’t think the Church was taking sides these days.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘Then who in the hell was that?’

Binnie laughed out loud and Norah Murphy smiled. ‘Why, that was Michael Cork, Major Vaughan,’ she said sweetly and walked away.

Which was certainly one for the book. The package was too bulky to fit in any pocket so I pushed it inside the front of my trenchcoat and buttoned the flap as I followed her, Binnie keeping pace with me.

She waited for us on the corner of a reasonably busy intersection, four roads meeting to form a small square. There were lots of people about, most of them emerging from a large supermarket on our left which was ablaze with light to catch the evening trade, soft music, of the kind which is reputed to induce the right mood to buy, drifting out through the entrance.

There was a certain amount of traffic about, private cars mostly, nosing out of the fog, pausing at the pedestrian crossing, then passing on.

It was a typical street scene of the kind you’d expect to find in any large industrial city, except for one thing. There was a police station on the other side of the square, a modern building in concrete and glass and the entrance was protected by a sandbagged machine-gun post manned by Highlanders in Glengarry bonnets and flak jackets.

Norah Murphy leaned against the railings, clutching her case in both hands. ‘Occupied Belfast, Major. How do you like it?’

‘I’ve seen worse,’ I said.

Two men came round the corner in a hurry, one of them bumping into Binnie, who fended him off angrily. ‘Would you look where you’re going, now?’ he demanded, holding the man by the arm.

He was not much older than Binnie, with a thin, narrow-jawed face and wild eyes, and he wore an old trilby hat. He carried an attaché case in his right hand and tried to pull away. His companion was a different proposition altogether, a tall, heavily built man in a raincoat and cloth cap. He was at least forty and had a craggy, pugnacious face.

‘Leave him be,’ he snarled, pulling Binnie round by the shoulder and then his mouth gaped. ‘Jesus, Binnie, you couldn’t have picked a worse spot. Get the hell out of it.’

He pulled at his companion, they turned and hurried across the square through the traffic.

‘Trouble?’ Norah Murphy demanded.

Binnie grabbed her by the arm and nodded. ‘The big fella’s Gerry Lucas. I don’t know the other. They’re Bradys.’

Which being the Belfast nickname for members of the Provisional branch of the IRA was enough to make anyone move fast. We were already too late. A couple of cars had halted at the pedestrian crossing and a woman in a headscarf was half-way across pushing a pram in front of her, a little girl of five or six trotting beside her. A young couple shared an umbrella behind.

Lucas and his friend reached the opposite pavement and paused behind a parked car, where Lucas produced a Schmeisser machine pistol from beneath his raincoat and sprayed the machine-gun post.

In the same moment, his friend ran out into the open and tossed the attaché case in an arc through the rain and muffed things disastrously, for instead of dropping inside the machine-gun post, the case bounced from the sandbags to the gutter.

The two of them ran like hell for the shelter of the nearest side street and made it, the Highlanders being unable to open up with their machine-gun for the simple reason that the square seemed to be suddenly filled with panic-stricken people running everywhere.