the Savage Day (1972)

by Jack - Simon Vaughn 02 Higgins

  'I'll try for the day after tomorrow.'

  He followed me up the stairs and we paused at the door of his office. He said awkwardly, 'Look after yourself, then.'

  It was as near as he could get to any demonstration of affection. I said, 'Don't I always?'

  As I walked away, he went into his office and a moment later Al Bowlly was giving me a musical farewell all the way to the door.

  3

  Night Sounds

  They started shooting again as I turned the corner, the rattle of small arms fire drifting across the water through the fog from somewhere in the heart of the city. It was echoed almost immediately by a heavy machine-gun. Probably an armoured car opening up with its Browning in reply.

  Belfast night sounds. Common enough these days, God knows, but over here on this part of the docks it was as quiet as the grave. Only the gurgle of water amongst the wharf pilings to accompany me as I moved along the cobbled street past a row of warehouses.

  I didn't see a soul, which was hardly surprising for it was the sort of place to be hurried through if it had to be visited at all and they'd obviously had their troubles. Most of the street-lamps were smashed, a warehouse a little further on had been burnt to the ground, and at one point rubble and broken glass carpeted the street.

  I picked my way through and found what I was looking for on the next corner, a large Victorian public house, the light in its windows the first sign of life I'd seen in the whole area.

  The name was etched in acid on the frosted glass panel by the entrance: Cohan's Select Bar. An arguable point from the look of the place, but I pushed open the door and went in anyway.

  I found myself in a long narrow room, the far end shrouded in shadow. There was a small coal fire on the left, two or three tables and some chairs, and not much else except the old marble-topped bar with a mirror behind it that must have been quite something when clipper ships still used Belfast docks. Now it was cracked in a dozen places, the gold leaf on the ornate frame flaking away to reveal cheap plaster. As used by life as the man who leaned against the beer pumps reading a newspaper.

  He looked older than he probably was, but that would be the drink if the breath on him was anything to go by. The neck above the collarless shirt was seamed with dirt and he scratched the stubble on his chin nervously as he watched me approach.

  He managed a smile when I was close enough. 'Good night to you, sir. And what's it to be?'

  'Oh, a Jameson, I think,' I said. 'A large one. The kind of night for it.'

  He went very still, staring at me, mouth gaping a little and he was no longer smiling.

  'English, is it?' he whispered.

  'That's right. Another of those fascist beasts from across the water, although I suppose that depends upon which side you're on.'

  I put a cigarette in my mouth and he produced a box of matches hastily and gave me a light, his hands shaking. I held his wrist to steady the flame.

  'You're quiet enough in here in all conscience. Where is everybody?'

  There was a movement behind me, the softest of footfalls, wind over grass in a forest at nightfall, no more than that. Someone said quietly, 'And who but a fool would be abroad at night in times like these when he could be safe home, Major?'

  He had emerged from the shadows at the end of the room, hands deep in the pockets of a dark blue double-breasted Melton overcoat of a kind much favoured by undertakers, the collar turned up about his neck.

  Five foot two or three at the most, I took him for little more than a boy in years at least, although the white devil's face on him beneath the peak of the tweed cap, the dark eyes that seemed perpetually fixed on eternity, hinted at something more. A soul in torment if ever I'd seen one.

  'You're a long way from Kerry,' I said.

  'And how would you be knowing that?'

  'I mind the accent, isn't that what they say? My mother, God rest her, was from Stradballa.'

  Something moved in his eyes then. Surprise, I suppose, although I was to learn that he seldom responded with any kind of emotion to anything. In any event, before he could reply, a voice called softly from the shadows, 'Bring the major down here, Binnie.'

  There was a row of wooden booths, each with its own frosted glass door to ensure privacy, another relic of Victorian times. A young woman sat at a table in the end one. She wore an old trenchcoat and headscarf, but it was difficult to see much more than that.

  Binnie ran his hands over me from behind, presumably looking for some sort of concealed weapon, giving me no more than three opportunities of jumping him had I been so disposed.

  'Satisfied?' I demanded. He moved back and I turned to the girl. 'Simon Vaughan.'

  'I know who you are well enough.'

  'And there you have the advantage of me.'

  'Norah Murphy.'

  More American than Irish to judge from the voice. An evening for surprises. I said, 'And are you for the Oban boat, Miss Murphy?'

  'And back again.'

  Which disposed of the formalities satisfactorily and I pulled a chair back from the table and sat down.

  I offered her a cigarette and, when I gave her a light, the match flaring in my cupped hands pulled her face out of the shadows for a moment. Dark, empty eyes, high cheek-bones, a wide, rather sensual mouth.

  As the match died she said, 'You seem surprised.'

  'I suppose I expected a man.'

  'Your sort would,' she said with a trace of bitterness.

  'Ah, the arrogant Englishman, you mean? The toe of his boot for a dog and a whip for a woman. Isn't that the saying? I would have thought it had possibilities.'

  She surprised me by laughing although I suspect it was in spite of herself. 'Give the man his whiskey, Binnie, and make sure it's a Jameson. The Major always drinks Jameson.'

  He moved to the bar. I said, 'Who's your friend?'

  'His name is Gallagher, Major Vaughan. Binnie Gallagher.'

  'Young for his trade.'

  'But old for his age.'

  He put the bottle and single glass on the table and leaned against the partition at one side, arms folded. I poured a drink and said, 'Well, now, Miss Murphy, you seem to know all about me.'

  'Simon Vaughan, born 1931, Delhi. Father a colonel in the Indian Army. Mother, Irish.'

  'More shame to her,' I put in.

  She ignored the remark and carried on. 'Winchester, Sandhurst. Military Cross with the Duke of Wellington's Regiment in Korea, 1953. They must have been proud of you at the Academy. Officer, gentleman, murderer.'

  The American accent was more noticeable now along with the anger in her voice. There was a rather obvious pause as they both waited for some sort of reaction. When I moved, it was only to reach for the whiskey bottle, but it was enough for Binnie whose hand was inside his coat on the instant.

  'Watch yourself,' he said.

  'I can handle this one,' she replied.

  I couldn't be certain that the whole thing wasn't some prearranged ploy intended simply to test me, but the fact that they'd spoken in Irish was interesting and it occurred to me that if the Murphy girl knew as much about me as she seemed to she would be well aware that I spoke the language rather well myself, thanks to my mother.

  I poured another drink and said to Binnie in Irish, 'How old are you, boy?'

  He answered in a kind of reflex, 'Nineteen.'

  'If you're faced with a search, you can always dump a gun fast, but a shoulder holster ...' I shook my head. 'Get rid of it or you won't see twenty.'

  There was something in his eyes again, but it was the girl who answered for him, in English this time. 'You should listen to the Major, Binnie. He's had a lot of practice at that kind of thing.'

  'You said something about my being a murderer?' I said.

  'Borneo, 1963. A place called Selengar. You had fourteen guerrillas executed whose only crime was fighting for the freedom of their country.'

  'A debatable point considering the fact that they were all Communist Chinese,' I sai
d.

  She ignored me completely. 'Then there was a Mr Hui Li whom you had tortured and beaten for several hours. Shot while trying to escape. The newspapers called you the Beast of Selengar, but the War Office didn't want a stink so they put the lid on tight.'

  I actually managed a smile. 'Poor Simon Vaughan. Never did really recover from the eighteen months he spent in that Chinese prison camp in Korea.'

  'So they didn't actually cashier you. They eased you out.'

  'Only the mud stuck.'

  'And now you sell guns.'

  'To people like you.' I raised my glass and said gaily, 'Up the Republic.'

  'Exactly,' she said.

  'Then what are we complaining about?' I took the rest of my whiskey down carefully. 'Mr Meyer is waiting to see you not far from here. He simply wanted me to meet you first as a - a precautionary measure.'

  'We know exactly where Mr Meyer is staying. In a hotel in Lurgan Street. You have room fifty-three at the Grand Central.'

  'Only the best,' I said. 'It's that public school education, you see. Now poor old Meyer, on the other hand, can never forget getting out of Germany in what he stood up in back in '38 so he saves his money.'

  Behind us the outside door burst open and a group of young men entered the bar.

  There were four of them, all dressed exactly alike in leather boots, jeans and donkey jackets. Some sort of uniform, I suppose, a sign that you belonged. That it was everyone else who was the outsider. The faces and the manner of them as they swaggered in told all. Vicious young animals of a type to be found in any large city in the world from Belfast to Delhi and back again.

  They were trouble and the barman knew it, his face sagging as they paused inside the door to look round, then started towards the bar, a red-haired lad of seventeen or eighteen leading the way, a smile on his face of entirely the wrong sort.

  '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.