the Savage Day (1972)

by Jack - Simon Vaughn 02 Higgins

  I lit a cigarette and, turning to flick the match through the open window on my left, found Binnie standing there as if turned to stone, the face contorted into a mask of agony, such suffering in the eyes as I never hope to see again.

  I put a hand on his shoulder which seemed to bring him back to life. He looked up at me in a strange, dazed way then turned and walked away along the deck.

  We raised Rathlin Island just before four a.m., although I could only catch a glimpse of the lighthouse intermittently, due to the bad visibility. From then on we were in enemy waters, so to speak, and I had both Norah Murphy and Binnie join me in the wheel-house for a final briefing.

  She seemed entirely recovered and so did he. I could not imagine for one moment that he would have told her that he had over-heard our conversation, or ever would, but in that bleak undertaker's coat of his he certainly looked his old grim self again as he leaned over the chart.

  I traced our course with a pencil. 'Here we are. Another ten minutes and we round Crag Island and start the run-in to the coast. The channel through the reef is clearly marked and good deep water.'

  'Bloody Passage,' Norah Murphy said. 'Is that it?'

  I nodded. 'Apparently one of the biggest ships in the Spanish Armada went down there. According to old documents, the bodies floated in for weeks.' I glanced at my watch. 'It's four-twenty now and we're due in at five. First light's around six-fifteen, which gives us plenty of time to get in and out. Let's hope your people are on time.'

  'They will be,' she said.

  'Once we're into the passage I'll have to kill the deck lights, so I want both you and Binnie in the prow to look for the signal. A red light at two-second intervals on the minute or three blasts on a foghorn on the minute if visibility is really bad.'

  Which it was, there was no doubt about that, as we crept in towards the shore, the engine throttled right back to the merest murmur. Not that it was particularly dangerous, even when I switched off the deck and mast-head lights, for Bloody Passage was a good hundred yards across so there was little chance of coming to harm.

  We were close now, very close and I strained my eyes into the darkness looking for that light, but it was hopeless in all that mist and rain. And then as I leaned out of the side window, a foghorn sounded three times in the distance.

  Binnie appeared at the door. 'Did you hear that, Major?'

  I nodded and replied on our own foghorn with exactly the same signal. I told Binnie to return to the prow, throttled back and coasted in gently. The foghorn sounded again, very close now which surprised me, for by my reckoning we still had a good quarter of a mile to go.

  I replied again as agreed and in the same moment some strange instinct, product, I suppose, of several years of rather hard living, told me that something was very wrong indeed. Too late, of course, for a moment later, a searchlight picked us out of the darkness, there was a rumble of engines breaking into life and an MTB cut across our bow.

  I was aware of the white ensign fluttering bravely in the dim light and then the sudden menacing chatter of a heavy machine-gun above our heads.

  As I ducked instinctively, she cut in again and an officer on the bridge called through a loud-hailer, 'I'm coming aboard. Heave to or I sink you.'

  Norah Murphy appeared in the doorway at the same moment. 'What are we going to do?' she demanded.

  'I should have thought that was obvious.'

  I cut the engines, switched on the deck lights and lit a cigarette. Binnie had moved along the deck and was standing outside the open window.

  I said, 'Remember, boy, no heroics. Nothing to be gained.'

  As the MTB came alongside, a couple of ratings jumped down to our deck, a line was thrown and quickly secured. The standard sub-machine-gun in general use by the Royal Navy is the Sterling, so it was something of a surprise when a Petty Officer appeared at the rail above holding a Thompson gun ready for action, the 1921 model with the hundred drum magazine. The officer appeared beside him, a big man in a standard reefer coat and peaked cap, a pair of night glasses slung about his neck.

  Norah Murphy sucked in her breath sharply. 'My God,' she said. 'Frank Barry.'

  It was a name I'd heard before and then I remembered. My cell on Skarthos and the Brigadier briefing me on the IRA and its various splinter groups. Fanatical fringe elements who wanted to blow up every thing in sight and the worst of the lot were Frank Barry's Sons of Erin.

  He leaned over the rail and grinned down at her. 'In the flesh and twice as handsome. Good night to you, Norah Murphy.'

  Binnie made a sudden, convulsive movement and Barry said genially, 'I wouldn't, Binnie, me old love. Tim Pat here would cut you in half.'

  One of the two ratings who had already boarded relieved Binnie of his Browning.

  I leaned out of the window and said softly, 'Friends of yours, Binnie?'

  'Friends?' he said bitterly. 'Major, I wouldn't cut that bloody lot down if they were hanging.'

  6

  Bloody Passage

  The man with the Thompson gun, the one dressed as a Petty Officer whom Barry had called Tim Pat, came over the rail to confront us. On closer inspection he proved to have only one eye, but otherwise bore a distinct resemblance to the great Victor McLaglen in one of those roles where he looks ready to clear the bar of some waterfront saloon on his own at any moment.

  Barry dropped down beside him, a handsome, lean-faced man with one side of his mouth hooked into a slight, perpetual half smile as if permanently amused by the world and its inhabitants.

  'God save the good work, Norah.' He took off his cap and turned a cheek towards her. 'Have you got a kiss for me?'

  Binnie swung a punch at him which Barry blocked easily and Tim Pat got an arm about the boy's throat and squeezed.

  'I've told you before, Norah,' Barry said, shaking his head. 'You should never use a boy when a man's work is needed.'

  I think she could have killed him then. Certainly she looked capable of it, eyes hot in that pale face of hers, but always there was that iron control. God knows what was needed to break her, but I doubted whether Barry was capable.

  He shrugged, lit a cigarette, turning to me as he flicked the match over the rail. 'Now you, Major,' he said, 'look like a sensible man to me.'

  'And where exactly does that get us?'

  'To you telling me where you've got the stuff stowed away. We'll find it in the end, but I'd rather it was sooner than later and Tim Pat here's the terrible impatient one if he's kept waiting.'

  Which seemed more than likely from the look of him, so I volunteered the necessary information.

  'That's what I like about the English,' he said. 'You're always so bloody reasonable.' He nodded to Tim Pat. 'Put them in the aft cabin for the time being and let's get moving. I want that gear transferred and us out of it in fifteen minutes at the outside.'

  He snapped his fingers and another half a dozen men, all in British naval uniform, came over the rail, but by then Tim Pat was already herding us towards the companionway. He took us below, shoved us into the big aft cabin and locked us in.

  I stood at the door listening to the bustle in the saloon, then turned to face my companions. 'And who might this little lot be?'

  'The walking ape is Tim Pat Keogh,' Binnie said violently, 'and one of these days ...'

  'Cool it, Binnie,' Norah Murphy cut in on him sharply. 'That kind of talk isn't going to help one little bit.' She turned back to me. 'The boss man is Frank Barry. He was my uncle's right-hand man until six or seven months ago, then he decided to go his own way.'

  'What is he - a Provo?'

  She shook her head. 'No, he runs his own show. The Sons of Erin, they call themselves. I believe there was a revolutionary organization under that name in Fenian times.'

  'He seems to be remarkably well informed,' I said. 'What else do he and his men get up to besides this kind of thing?'

  'They'd shoot the Pope if they thought it was necessary,' Binnie said.

  I glanced at Nora
h Murphy in some surprise and she shrugged. 'And they're all good Catholic boys except for Barry himself. Remember the Stern gang in Palestine? Well, the Sons of Erin are exactly the same. They believe in the purity of violence if the cause is just.'

  'So anything goes? The bomb in the cafe? Women, kids, the lot?'

  'That's the general idea.'

  'Well, it's a point of view, I suppose.'

  'Not in my book, it isn't,' Binnie said quietly. 'There's got to be another way - has to be or there's no point to any of it.'

  Which was the kind of remark that had roughly the same effect on one as being hit by a very light truck. The Brigadier had once accused me of being the last of the romantics, but I wasn't even in the running for that title with Binnie around.

  The door opened and Frank Barry appeared, a bottle of my Jameson in one hand, four tin mugs from the galley hanging from his fingers. Behind him, they were passing the Lahtis out of the other cabin and up the companionway.

  'By God, Major Vaughan, but you deal in good stuff and I don't just mean your whiskey,' he said. 'Those Lahtis are the meanest-looking thing I've seen in many a long day. I can't wait to try one out on a Weasel armoured car.'

  'We aim to please,' I said. 'The motto of the firm.'

  'I only hope you've had your money.'

  He splashed whiskey into all four mugs. Norah and Binnie stood firm, but it seemed to me likely to be cold where I was going so I emptied one at a swallow and helped myself to another.

  The Small Man won't be pleased by this night's work,' Barry said to Norah.

  'At a guess I'd say he'll have your hide and nail it to the door.'

  'Chance would be a fine thing.'

  He toasted her, mug raised, that slight mocking smile hooked firmly into place, an immensely likeable human being in every way or so he appeared at that first meeting, and it seemed to me more than a probability that he would be the end of me in the near future if I did not get to him first.

  Tim Pat appeared in the doorway behind him. 'We're ready to go, Frank.'

  Barry drained his mug, then turned casually without another word to us. 'Bring them up,' he said and went out.

  Norah followed him and I paused long enough to let Binnie go in front of me. As we went up the companionway I stumbled against him as if losing my footing and muttered quickly, 'We'll only get one chance, if that, so be ready.'

  He didn't even glance over his shoulder as he moved out on deck and Tim Pat gave me a shove after him. Barry was standing by the rail, lighting another cigarette with some difficulty because of the heavy rain.

  He nodded to Tim Pat. 'Get Norah on board. We haven't much time.'

  She rushed forward as if to argue and Tim Pat handed his Thompson to one of the other men, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her bodily over the rail of the MTB. Then he climbed up to join her.

  Binnie and I stood waiting for sentence in the heavy rain. There was only Barry, and the two original ratings who had first boarded us left now, one of them holding the Thompson.

  'Now what?' I said.

  Barry shrugged. 'That depends.' He turned to Binnie. 'I could use you, boy. You're still the best natural shot with a handgun I ever did see.'

  Binnie's hair was plastered to his forehead and he looked very young. He said quietly, but so clearly that everyone on the MTB must have heard it, 'I wouldn't sit on your deathbed.'

  Barry didn't stop smiling for a moment. Simply shrugged. 'All right, Major, get back in the wheelhouse, start her up and move out to sea again. We'll follow and when I give the signal, you'll cut your engines and open the sea cocks.'

  He clambered up over the MTB's rail. One of the ratings rammed a Browning into my side so I took the hint and moved along the deck into the wheelhouse.

  The MTB's powerful engines rumbled into life. The Browning dug pointedly into my ribs again and I pressed the starter button and looked out of the side window. Barry was walking across the deck to the short ladder which led up to the bridge. Norah ran after him and grabbed him by the arm.

  I heard her cry, 'No, you shan't. I won't let you.'

  He had her by both arms now and laughed softly as she started to struggle. 'By God, Norah, but you have your nerve. All right, just to please you.' He turned to Tim Pat Keogh. 'I've changed my mind about Binnie. Pipe him on board.'

  I leaned out of the window. 'And what about me, then?'

  He paused half way up the ladder and turned to smile at me. 'Why, damn me, Major, but I just took it for granted that the sum total of any real captain's ambition was to go down with his ship.'

  'We definitely operate on the same wave-length. That's exactly what I thought you'd say,' I called, and added cheerfully, 'The big moment, Binnie.'

  I put my left hand on the wheel, my right went under the chart table, found my secret button and pressed. The flap fell and I had the Mauser and shot my guard through the head at point-blank range, all in one continuous movement.

  The silencer was really very effective, the only noise a dull thud audible at a range of three yards. The other guard was in the process of urging Binnie towards the rail, prodding him with the barrel of the Thompson.

  I called softly, 'Binnie,' and shot the man in the back of the head and he went down like a stone falling.

  In the instant, as if by magic, Binnie had the Thompson in his hands, was already firing as he turned, catching the man who was standing by Norah Murphy with a long burst that drove him right back across the deck of the MTB and over the far rail.

  Then he went for Barry who was still pulling hard for the top of the ladder. There was a flash of yellow oilskins on the far side of the rail, Binnie stopped firing as Norah Murphy ran, crouching, then scrambled over.

  As she reached the safety of our decks he started to fire again, but by then Barry was over the top of the ladder and into the safety of the wheelhouse. A moment later, the engine note deepened as someone gave it full throttle and the MTB surged away into the darkness.

  A burst of sub-machine-gun fire came our way and I ducked as one of the side windows in the wheelhouse shattered. Binnie kept on firing until the Thompson jammed. He tossed it to the deck with a curse and stood listening, in the sudden silence, to the sound of the MTB's engines fading into the distance.

  I replaced the Mauser in its clip, shoved the flap back into place and went out on deck. Norah Murphy crouched by the rail on one knee, her face buried against her arm. I touched her gently on the shoulder and she looked up at me, a great weariness in her eyes.

  'You had a gun?' I nodded. 'But I don't understand. I thought they searched?'

  'They did.'

  I pulled her to her feet and Binnie said, 'By God, but you're the close one, Major, and I didn't hear a damn thing.'

  'You wouldn't.'

  'I'd have had them if the Thompson hadn't jammed.'

  He kicked it towards me and I picked it up and tossed it over the rail. 'A bad habit they had, the early ones. Now let's get rid of the evidence.' I turned to Norah Murphy. 'Pump some water up and get the deck swabbed down. Make sure you clean off any bloodstains.'

  'My God,' she said, a kind of horror on her face. 'You must be the great original cold-blooded bastard of all time.'

  'That's me,' I said. 'And don't forget the broken glass in the wheelhouse. You'll find a broom in the galley.'

  Whatever she felt, she turned to after that and Binnie and I dealt with the two guards, stripping their bodies of any obvious identification before putting them over the rail. Then I went back to the wheelhouse and examined the chart quickly.

  Norah was sweeping the last of the glass out and paused. 'Now what?'

  'We need a place to hole up in for a few hours,' I told her. 'Time to breathe again and work out the next move before we put in to Stramore.' I found what I was looking for a moment later. 'This looks like it. Small island called Magil ten miles out. Uninhabited and a nice secluded spot to anchor in. Horseshoe Bay.'

  Binnie was still at the rail at the spot where we
had thrown the two bodies over. From where I stood it looked as if he was praying, which didn't seem all that probable - or did it?

  I leaned out of the window and called, 'We're getting out of here.'

  He turned and nodded. I switched off the deck lights, took the Kathleen round in a tight circle and headed out to sea again.

  Magil was everything I could have hoped for and Horseshoe Bay proved an excellent anchorage, being almost landlocked. It was still dark when we arrived, but dawn wasn't very far away and there was a kind of pale luminosity to everything in spite of the heavy rain when I went out on deck.

  When I went below, Binnie and Norah Murphy were sitting on either side of the saloon table, heads together.

  'Secrets?' I said cheerfully. 'From me? Now I call that very naughty.'

  I got the Jameson and a glass out. Norah said harshly, 'Don't you ever drink anything else? I've heard of starting early, but this is ridiculous. At least let me get you something to eat.'

  'Later,' I said. 'After I've had a good four hours' sleep you can wake me with another of those bacon sandwiches of yours.'

  I moved towards the aft cabin and she said angrily, 'For God's sake, Vaughan, cut out the funny stuff. We've got to decide what to do.'

  'What about?' I said, and poured myself a large Jameson which for some reason, probably the time of day as she had so kindly pointed out, tasted foul.

  'The guns,' she said. 'What else? You are the most infuriating man I've ever met.'

  'All right,' I said. 'If you want to talk, let's talk, although I would have thought it simple enough. You'll want to get in touch with your Small Man to see about another consignment and I can assure you the price has gone up after last night's little fracas. The Royal Navy and ten years inside is one thing, but your friend Barry and his bloody Sons of Erin are quite another.'