“Uh-huh.” Smiley’s head drooped.
Davy grabbed the key to separate it from the rest. He felt himself start to sweat. Christ, that had been a near thing.
He stood and watched as Sean Donovan used his pillowcase to blindfold and gag the guard. Sean offered Davy his hand. “You done good, Davy,” and Davy knew it for the lie it was, but took the hand, amazed at its dryness. Donovan hadn’t worried his head one bit about what they’d nearly had to do.
“Now, Davy, put on his uniform and stick the gun in the pocket. As soon as you’re dressed, we’ll take him down to the holding area.”
Davy changed and pocketed the .25.
He could hear Mr. Smiley snuffling behind his gag.
Sean said, “Good. Some of the lads that have volunteered to stay behind can mind Smiley. We’ve to get a move on and get ourselves down to the lobby.”
“Right.” Davy turned to follow Sean, who was hustling Smiley along the corridor, hesitated, then turned back to pull Jimmy’s letter and Fiona’s picture from his old jacket and shove them into the inside pocket of his guards’ tunic.
* * *
Inside the Communications Centre, Officer John Adams heard the ruckus outside the Circle. He got to his feet, walked to the bulletproof window, and peered through. “Holy Mother of Jesus…” He turned and tried to race to the master switch. Gerard Kelly, now holding one of the other smuggled .25s, blocked his way.
“Out of my way, Kelly.” He lunged at the prisoner.
Kelly shot Officer Adams in the head, then bent over the console to activate the switches to open the gates in H-7. He thought it had been decent of the Brits to put a label on each one. He stepped over the crumpled form on the floor, slipped out of the control room, and pushed the button on the outside wall to close the steel door behind him.
The other screws inside H-7 heard the shot. They went quietly after that and were bundled into cells, stripped of their uniforms, and trussed up as Mr. Smiley had been. Some of the inmates selected to escape changed into discarded uniforms. Terrified officers were forced at gun- or chisel point to hand over their car keys, give the registration numbers of their vehicles, and the numbers of their places in the guards’ car park—outside the perimeter wall.
The screws were handed over to the rear guard—Provo prisoners who had been ordered to stay behind to prevent the hapless warders from raising the alarm until the men going out would be well away.
As far as the staff of the Kesh outside H-7 knew, the only noise from that part of the complex had been the calls of “Bumper.” Inside the H-block, the plan was going like clockwork, its timing down to the minute.
* * *
Outside the complex, Hughie Wilson stopped the lorry at the first of two security barriers he had to pass before he could finally deliver the meals to the lodge at H-7. He recognized the guard who was strolling from the gate lodge toward the barriers. Hughie pounded his fist on the outside of the driver’s door and stuck his head through the window. “Can you get on with it, for fuck’s sake, Archie?”
Archie grinned up at the driver. “Take your hurry in your hand, Hughie. Show me your pass.”
“Here.”
“Fair enough.” Archie grinned. “Going fishing when you’re finished?” He swung the first barrier up.
“If I ever get done here.” Hughie forced the lorry to crawl after Archie. “I seen a clatter of cars in the car park outside, lads walking to the Tally Lodge. Some of the new shift coming on duty must be right keen buggers to arrive early for work.”
“Not half as keen as the off-duty lads, me included, to get out.” Archie strained to raise the second barrier. “This fucking thing’s always sticking. Give me a hand, will you?”
Hughie jumped from his cab to lend his weight. “Aw, shite,” he said, as he saw two guards leave the Tally Lodge behind him and walk toward the barrier. “I’m going to hit shift change. With them going off still here and them coming on arriving, there’ll be more guards in here than fucking prisoners. I’m never going to get out of the place.”
The barrier started to swing up.
“Go ahead,” Archie yelled. “If you get in before they start giving the changeover reports, you’ll get your papers signed and get away yet.”
“Right.” Hughie climbed back in and banged the truck into gear. He checked the time, two forty. He might make it, but now he was well and truly late.
* * *
In the holding area, the stay-behind volunteers kept watch over the screws. One Provo read from a prewritten document entitled “To All Prison Staff Who Have Been Arrested by Republican POWs on Sun 25th Sept.”:
What has taken place here today was a carefully planned exercise to cause the release of a substantial number of POWs. The block is now under our control. If anyone has been assaulted or injured, it has been as a result of his refusal to cooperate with us. It is not our intention to settle old scores, ill treat or degrade any of you, regardless of your past. Though should anyone try to underestimate us or wish to try to challenge our position, he or they will be severely dealt with.
As the man continued reading, a young, fair-haired guard whose left eye was bruised and swollen shut began to cry. Two of his captors laughed at him. One of them waved a chisel under the youngster’s nose. “Just you be a good wee lad now. We don’t want anything to fuck up the escape. You just listen to what your man with the paper has to say.”
The man reading the document continued:
Should any member of the prison administration ill treat, victimize, or commit any acts of perjury against Republican POWs in any follow-up enquiries, judicial or otherwise, they will forfeit their lives …
The sobbing of the young guard with the black eye drowned the rest of the text.
* * *
Davy was breathing heavily when he and Sean Donovan reached the lobby. Eamon; Bic McFarlane, Provo Officer Commanding; Bobby Storey, the man in charge of the escape; and Brendan McGuinness, once Officer Commanding the 1st Battalion, Belfast Brigade, and Davy’s immediate superior, were all waiting. Despite his avowal to distance himself from the Provos, Davy almost saluted.
Eamon grinned at Davy and held up one thumb.
“You got Smiley?” McFarlane asked.
“Aye,” said Davy, “and I have his keys.” He held them up. “I needed a bit of help from Sean.” A bit? If it hadn’t been for Sean …
“Screwed things up again, McCutcheon?” Brendan McGuinness sneered.
Davy ignored him. This wasn’t the time to settle old scores. The important thing was to get out before the screws in the rest of the Kesh twigged to what was going on.
McFarlane said, “I heard a shot. Was that you, Davy?”
“No.”
“I just hope to God the screws in the other H-blocks or in the guard towers didn’t hear it.” McFarlane turned to Bobby Storey. “What do you reckon?”
“If they had heard it, there’d be sirens going off, screws by the dozen running over to H-7, but the place is quiet. I think we’re near home and dry.”
Nearly home, Davy thought. He heard McFarlane bark, “Gimme the keys.”
Davy handed over the key ring. “That one there.”
“Right. You lot wait here.” McFarlane picked up his cleaning gear and used the key to let himself out.
Davy waited and looked at the four men round him. They wore civilian clothes, not prisoners’ uniforms—the outward sign that the wearer was a common criminal, not a political prisoner. The British government had agreed to let IRA prisoners wear civilian clothes after the hunger strikes. And a bloody good thing, too. It would make it harder for the Security Forces to track down the escapees.
Except—he looked at his dark blue tunic, blue shirt, and blue trousers—except for him and those other men who would be dressed like guards.
“Dead on,” said Eamon. “If the buggers suspected anything, they’d never’ve let Bic in there.”
Davy watched McFarlane disappear into the guard’s office
and reappear, heading back to the lobby, the Gate Lodge officer in front. The pair halted, and Davy could see the revolver pressed into the small of the screw’s back.
“Right,” said McFarlane, “the rest of you, into the Gate Lodge. I’ll get this shite out of his uniform. Gerard Kelly’ll be along in a minute. He’s going to need it.”
“What’ve we to do?” Davy asked.
“The ones without uniforms, hide. You sit up like the regular guard. The bugger driving our food lorry’ll think you’re a new man. He’ll not suspect nothing. He has to check in at the H-7 Gate Lodge, and when he does, Brendan and Sean’ll see to him.” He turned to Bobby Storey. “Should that fucking lorry not be here by now?”
“It’ll be here,” Storey said. “The six of us had better get into the Gate Lodge before it is. Come on.”
Davy followed the other five out of the lobby and into the Gate Lodge. They crouched on the floor. He sat in the guard’s chair. Dear God, but he’d sweated like a pig in that tussle with Mr. Smiley and the rush down to the lobby. The arse of his trousers stuck to his backside, and he could feel large damp patches under his armpits. His smell was sour, and the other men stank, too, but at the moment that was the least of their worries. He ignored the stink and peered out through the window of the office. Half a mile away, the perimeter wall loomed, its gun towers manned by British soldiers.
Davy studied the Tally Lodge in the wall, a deep arch, its outer gate hidden from the view of anyone not looking directly inside. There was a gate lodge built into the thick wall beneath the arch, and the screws in there controlled the only gate in the Kesh leading to the outside world. There were other gates to pass, he knew, but the Tally was the last barrier between him and freedom. He saw two uniformed guards pass through and stroll across the open space between the perimeter wall and the H-blocks.
Where were they going? He’d no idea, but it didn’t matter anyway, even if they came to H-7, because, according to Eamon, the plan called for another thirty-two of the most senior Provo prisoners to assemble here once their advance party had secured the food lorry. There’d be enough prisoners in the lodge by then to handle a couple of extra screws in H-7.
He just wished the lorry would get there. Davy and the rest would pile into it and be taken to the Tally Lodge. Once its gates had been opened, they’d all be driven away.
One hundred more prisoners would try to break out on foot from here. They’d have to cross open space under the eyes of the soldiers in the watchtowers. Groups of men in their ordinary clothes would be escorted by other inmates in stolen guards’ uniforms. The organizers believed the troops would assume that these were more routine work parties. Davy hoped to God for the sake of those men that the leaders of the breakout were right.
He stared at the nearest watchtower. Two khaki-clad soldiers were on duty. One was leaning on the low parapet, watching the two guards cross the open space. As far as Davy could tell, the other was reading something. Their machine gun was unattended, its barrel in its perforated external air-cooling jacket pointing lazily at the sky above.
Those soldiers were bored. They must have pulled sentry duty a hundred times. Men like that would be slow to respond, and Davy hoped that when things started to happen they wouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary until it was too late. He knew that even if they did, it would be to the advantage of the senior men in the lorry. It should be on its way, as it would be every Sunday. The sentries would ignore it and concentrate on what was happening inside the perimeter wall. That’s what Eamon had said.
Davy felt disappointed by how cynically the senior officers planned to use one hundred of their own volunteers as live decoys, but inwardly blessed Eamon for arranging that he, Davy, would be in the lorry, not left to walk across the compound with the others. He comforted himself with the thought that if the walkers did manage to get outside the wall, there was a fighting chance that, as they’d been instructed, they would be able to steal cars from the guards’ car park. That’s why they’d forced the captured guards to give up their car keys and their parking spot and plate numbers. If they did succeed, they were to scatter through the length and breadth of Northern Ireland.
Davy heard movement behind him and turned to see Gerard Kelly leading a large group of men into the room.
“’Bout ye, Gerard,” Bic McFarlane said. “No problems?”
Kelly scowled. “I’d to shoot your man Adams.”
“You kill him?”
“Dunno. He was lying on the floor with blood coming out of his head when I locked him in the Control Centre.”
Davy closed his eyes and pictured George Smiley with a shattered head. It was a good thing it hadn’t come to that. A goose walked over Davy’s grave.
“Tough,” said Bic, his voice matter-of-fact. “But you’re OK?”
“Aye, certainly.”
“Dead on. Now get that there uniform on you.”
Kelly began to change.
Davy watched as Brendan McGuinness moved to the trussed Gate Lodge officer and kicked him in the ribs while saying, “You hear that, you shite? Adams got his. One peep out of you and you’ll get it, too.”
The guard grunted through his gag. His eyes widened.
McGuinness pulled back his boot.
Davy slipped off his chair and stepped between them. “Leave the man be.”
“Who the fuck are you to be giving me orders, McCutcheon?”
Davy stood rock solid and stared McGuinness down.
A sound like a gunshot ripped through the room. Davy swung from McGuinness and stared through the window. A high-sided lorry was approaching. Behind it was a cloud of blue smoke. The bloody thing must have backfired.
“The lorry’s coming,” he said, his voice level, not betraying the racing of his heart. Davy wiped his palms on the legs of Mr. Smiley’s blue serge pants.
Eamon called from where he was hiding, “See, Davy. I told you it would be grand.”
Davy hoped to God Eamon was right. He looked out and saw that the two screws were strolling toward another block, H-6, as if they hadn’t a care in the world. He wished he felt as carefree as they seemed.
CHAPTER 24
TYRONE. SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1983
All the cares of the world weighed on Sammy McCandless’s narrow shoulders. Not even watching Erin coming toward him could cheer him up. Fretting about being found out every waking hour, aye, and hours when he should have been asleep, was bad enough, but since Cal popped into Sammy’s cottage this morning his nerves had been as stretched tight as the strings of an overtuned fiddle. Cal said Erin wanted to see Sammy this afternoon. Did she really want to talk to him about going after the Brits?
He propped his bicycle against the wall of the O’Byrnes’ farmhouse, picked his nose, bent, and snatched off his bicycle clips. What the hell did she want to see him for on a Sunday? Was it about Fiach?
Cal had told Sammy about the lad’s death. The news, terrible enough, had given Sammy one hell of a shock that had settled down to a nagging headache. It had hit him hard because he’d had no notion of what had happened on Saturday. Sammy had been keeping to himself lately. He’d stayed home all day trying to fix a leak in his roof. He hadn’t even bothered going down to the pub on Saturday night. At least if he’d had a few, he’d have earned the ache above his eyes, but he’d not seen nobody since Friday, not until Cal had come and, without as much as a “How are you, Sam?” had said, as calmly as if he was remarking that it was nice that the sun was shining, “The Brits got the Ballydornan arms dump in the wee hours yesterday morning.”
“They what?” Sammy bloody near shit himself. “You’re having me on,” he said, hoping to Christ that Cal was making some kind of stupid joke.
“No, I’m not.” His eyes held no humour.
It was no joke. “Did Fiach get…?”
“They got him.” Sammy noticed the quaver in Cal’s voice.
“They lifted him?” Pray God, for Fiach’s sake, that was all. But if there had b
een an ambush, Cal or Erin would know someone had grassed. That fucking Spud had promised that he’d not go after the weapons if it might compromise Sammy.
“He’s dead.” Cal’s voice was as dark and cold as a trout pool in the Strule.
“What? Dead? Mother of God.” No. He couldn’t be. At that moment Sammy reckoned he was dead.
“Och, Holy Jesus. I’m … I’m very sorry, so I am.” For Fiach or for himself? And if he was sorry for himself, was it because now he must carry the guilt of Fiach’s death along with his shame for having been turned, or was it because he was terrified that he might have been rumbled? “What happened, Cal?”
“The peelers were round at our place yesterday. They said … they said it was just a routine patrol.”
Did Cal not believe them?
“They said they saw someone acting suspicious. He fired at them. They fired back. The suspect got himself killed.” Cal’s voice was as acid as unripe rhubarb.
Sammy stared at Cal’s face. One of his eyelids twitched. His eyes were red-rimmed. “Do you think that’s what happened?” Did Cal not believe the police account? If he didn’t, and, more importantly, if Erin didn’t … Sammy could see himself, head shattered, his Judas money in his hand. He shuddered. He had to know what the O’Byrnes were thinking. Sammy glanced at the open doorway. Try to sound natural, he told himself, and said, “It must’ve been something like that. Nobody knew about the arms but us and none of us would have squealed.”
He knew it was risky even sowing those seeds in Cal’s mind. Neither Cal nor Erin would have touted so that only left him as a suspect. It was chancy half-raising the subject, but he had to know what Cal believed. Sammy measured the distance to the door. One hint that Cal suspected, and he’d be out through there like a whippet. He hadn’t a clue where he’d go, but he’d make a run for it. His headache pounded. He moved closer to the door and stared at Cal.
“I think…” Cal curled his lip. “I think for once maybe the buggers are telling the truth. Erin’s not so sure.”
“What’s she not sure about?” Sammy started to sidle sideways. He could see the sunlight on the grass outside, desperately wanted to feel its warmth. He felt cold as a witch’s tit in the cottage.
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