Evil for Evil: A Billy Boyle World War II Mystery

by James R Benn

  "Mick the Master told us we'd become famous among the IRA chiefs. The Black and Tans hunted for us but no one could tell them a thing. That was bad for those the bastards questioned, since they didn't stop until they got what they wanted. If you had nothin' to give, then too bad for you. But that's not the point. Do you know what a Lewis gun is?"

  "Sure. British machine gun."

  "Aye. Lightweight, easy to move and set up. Perfect for an ambush. Spray the lead vehicle and it stops dead, with the others bunched up behind. We wanted one, and the IRA command gave it us. They also sent crates of Enfields for us to hide, since we kept our secrets so well. We had our own arms dump, hidden in the ruins of a burned-out house in the hills. It was there we hid the Lewis gun, its ammunition, and the rifles. We took the Lewis gun out often, and let me tell you, it was a frightful thing to see so many men killed so quick. I was nearly ashamed of myself at how I enjoyed seeing them Black and Tans go down. I cheered, I have to say. That Lewis gun, it made all the difference. It was my job to keep it clean and well oiled. I knew it better than anyone."

  Grady stopped, raised the glass to his lips, frowned, and put it down. He shook his head, his eyes narrowing. I thought he might weep. He rubbed his thin fingertips over his eyes, sighing as he did.

  "The peat, you know. It's a lovely aroma, but it stings the eyes, it does. I shouldn't complain, though, it keeps me warm and I make some money with it when there's no other work."

  "You dig peat?"

  "Aye, in the bog back of my place. Dig it, cut it, dry it, haul it to my croft, stack it in ricks high as a man, and sell it to folks all around here. My peat is glorious, black as coal, the best in County Down."

  "Sounds like hard work," I said. He nodded in agreement as he took a drink, smacked his lips, and set the glass down.

  "Now where was I? The Lewis gun, aye. One night, we set up outside the RUC station in Downpatrick. We were waiting for a patrol to come back. Didn't have the Lewis gun on that job, it was to be a quick volley with the rifles, and then disappear. It was a good plan but we had no luck that night. The police came on as we thought they would, and we cut them down. What we didn't know was that a column of Black and Tans were on the road behind us, makin' for the station themselves. They heard the gunshots and came on at a run. I took a bullet in the leg. Two other boys were shot dead, the rest got away. I was draggin' myself after them when the bastards got me."

  "Last call," Tom said from the bar. I waved him off, and waited for Grady to go on.

  "They beat me somethin' fierce, which I can understand. They brought a doctor in for my leg, and then I knew I was in deep trouble. They weren't going to kill me, which meant they had somethin' worse in mind. They wanted the arms dump, you know. A British officer came into my cell, and he knew more about us than I thought he would. He knew of the Lewis gun, of course, but he also knew of the arms dump. He didn't know Mick the Master so he must've got that from someone higher up than him. It was the arms dump they wanted."

  "They did that to your hands?"

  "That British officer weren't no toff, I'll tell you. He didn't mind some work with pliers. He had me tied to a chair, my hands bound to the arms. Then he pulled the first nail before he even asked a question, just to show me he meant business, so he said."

  He stopped for another drink. The two men left the pub, a cold wind blowing into the room as they opened the door.

  "Then he asked me where the arms dump was. I didn't answer, so he went to work on the next finger." Grady looked at his left hand, and winced at the memory. "He told me he was doin' me a favor, starting on this hand, so I could save my right hand if I wanted to. I told him the joke was on him, I'm left-handed. We actually laughed, can you believe it? He said I should tell them everything right then, that no one lasted through ten fingers anyway."

  "But you did."

  "Oh, Billy Boyle, it was terrible, I tell you. But there was the Lewis gun, and I couldn't give it up. The rifles, yes, on the second finger I would've taken them there myself. If not for the Lewis gun, I would've told them all. It was hard work on the officer, and as he moved to the other hand, he grew angry. I was screaming bloody murder, and that got him all worked up too. Finally, there was only one thumb left untouched, and the pain was unbearable. He took to smashing each finger after the nail was pulled, and that hurt like the devil and wouldn't stop either. I couldn't help myself. I told them, I gave up the Lewis gun."

  Grady took a drink, one swallow, then another.

  "I gave up the Lewis gun. That officer was so mad I hadn't done it sooner that he took the last nail just for spite. To teach me a lesson, he said."

  "I'm sorry," I said. I didn't know what else to say.

  "Well, that weren't the worst of it. The next day they put me in a truck and gathered up some prisoners from other stations, to take us all to some prison or other they had set up. The convoy was ambushed, and the sound of a Lewis gun broke my heart. But I got away in the confusion. I hid out and made contact with one of my cell. But Mick the Master would have none of me. He knew I'd talked, since the Black and Tans had cleared out the arms dump and killed three lads who happened to be there. He drummed me out of the IRA and told me I was lucky he didn't put a bullet in my head."

  "You went through all that, and he kicked you out?"

  "That he did. And after the treaty was signed he let it be known what I'd done. I was persona non grata, as they say."

  "He sounds like a son of a bitch."

  "A hard man, aye. Those were hard times, as are these."

  "You don't sound angry," I said, wishing I'd ordered my own whiskey at last call.

  "I was, for a long time. Now I find myself thinking about the Lewis gun most of all. As if maybe it was recompense, for everything I'd done with it, all the lives I took, even though they were Black and Tans for the most part. If I hadn't hung on to it, this wouldn't have happened to my hands. To Mick the Master, ten fingernails or one, it made no difference."

  "What happened to him?"

  "He was protreaty, so he joined the new Free Irish State police. The antitreaty IRA ambushed and shot him. It was a bad end for all."

  "You weren't involved in the Civil War?"

  "No, it took me a while to recuperate. When I did, I tried to find the antitreaty boys, since I thought all of our own country is what we deserved. But around here, no one wanted me. Mick the Master had poisoned the well, and even his new enemies remembered I'd been the one to give up the Lewis gun. To this very day, there's folks here who won't speak to me."

  "Why didn't you move south, to the Republic?"

  "Strange as it may sound, this is home, I couldn't leave. Even with all the bad memories and too damn many Loyalists about. It's not so bad if I keep to myself and do what work comes my way. Ah, but if not for the Lewis gun . . ."

  We sat together for a long time and said nothing else as the echo of Grady's last sentence, uttered with a sigh and a glance at his terrible fingertips, slowly died between us.

  CHAPTER * FOURTEEN

  "I'LL SEE GRADY home," Tom said. "In this state, he'll never make it alone."

  "He hasn't said a word, this half hour," I said, looking at my watch.

  "He told you about the Lewis gun, did he?"

  "Yes. Is it true?"

  "Too true, lad. It ruined him. And what little spirit it left, Mick the Master finished off. They call him a patriot, but he was a right bastard, I'll tell you. And that comes from one who fought at his side. Grady doesn't tell his story often, but when he does, it leaves the black dog hanging over him."

  "Did you fight against the British or the antitreaty IRA?"

  "I fought the English, after fighting with them against the Turks. But after that I couldn't bring myself to shoot down my mates in the IRA. When they partitioned the north, I put my rifle down and settled for life as I found it. Grady never could. Couldn't leave, and most folks here wouldn't forgive. The three boys the Black and Tans killed were all local, all well liked."

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nbsp; "It's easy to judge a man, isn't it? Makes people feel so good." I rubbed my eyes, the weariness of the day, or the smoky peat, almost forcing me to weep.

  "Aye. Come, Billy, my new friend. One for the road, on the house," Tom said, placing a plain bottle on the bar, along with two glasses. "Local brew this is--poteen, we call it. Whiskey with the taste of the land in it. Blood and rain is what I call it."

  "Blood and rain," I said, as we clinked our glasses. The whiskey smelled like damp earth and oak leaves, a little musty and sharp tasting on my tongue. It burned my throat and warmed my stomach.

  "What do you think?" Tom asked, corking the bottle.

  "I think it's the best thing I ever tasted, and Ireland is nothing like I ever imagined."

  "Aye. I imagine I'd feel the same if I went to America. I'd expect gangsters, cowboys, and Indians on every corner. Now I've got to close this place. Help me get Grady into the cart, while I hitch up me horse."

  Grady went with us like an obedient child, and I helped him onto the small two-wheeled cart as Tom put a sturdy bog pony into the harness, leading him from a lean-to shelter. When he was done, Tom climbed onto the cart and gathered up the reins, nodding good night to me. Grady stirred a bit, as if suddenly awakened.

  "Mind how you go now," he said, and then his chin slumped to his chest. I slapped the pony on its rump, and the cart clattered off, the sound of hooves and wooden wheels on hardpack filling the damp night air. Soon they were gone, and I was alone in a strange land of blood and rain, where fairy tales and fratricide were as common as green grass. I kicked a stone and walked to my jeep, an aching tiredness reaching up from my boots to my skull.

  I drove in the moonlight, a thin slit of yellow from the taped headlights dancing over the roadway. The wind felt fresh on my face, and it reminded me of a piece of poetry my dad used to recite about the Wild Geese, the Irish exiles who for centuries fought against the English in European armies far from their homes.

  The whole night long we dream of you, and waking think we're there,

  Vain dream, and foolish waking, we never shall see Clare.

  The wind is wild to-night, there's battle in the air;

  The wind is from the west, and it seems to blow from Clare.

  Dad was big on poetry and reading. He'd recite the poems he liked the best, storing them up, and letting loose down at the tavern once the crowd had thinned out. He had plenty of them, but the vain dreams and foolish wakings of the boys from Clare always made me sad. Now my home was far away in the west, and I wondered if I'd dream of it tonight. Or Diana. Perhaps in some dark and dangerous place, alone and scared, she was feeling the wind from home. I missed her, more than I'd allowed myself to know.

  I AWOKE IN my quarters shivering. It was dark and cold in the Quonset hut. My head hurt, and my eyes were gritty from the effects of smoke and shame for my countrymen. I lit a fire, blowing on the flames in the small stove until the wood scraps caught and flickering yellow light filled the room. I drank long gulps from a canteen, the water cold and metallic on my tongue.

  What was I missing? The question kept playing over and over in my tired, aching head. How could I get close to the IRA when anyone who mentioned them could expect to earn a pound the hard way? There had to be another approach, something I hadn't thought of. Carrick didn't seem to have anything solid to go on either. Was he holding back? But why? To protect someone? Not the IRA, or any Catholic, for that matter. Jenkins? The Red Hand? Maybe. But I had no way of knowing if Carrick actually had any information I didn't. He didn't seem to be a friend of any extremists. But he had promised to check out his informants and those run by the British. It would be interesting to find out why Mahoney had been executed. If he wasn't a traitor to the IRA, then why had he been killed?

  Thornton? I'd have to ask him in the morning why he'd held back about Carrick requesting Brennan's files, and try to figure out if he was on the level about getting a combat command or if he was trying to position himself farther to the rear when the shooting started. But so what if he was? No law against saving your own skin.

  Heck? He was a wild card. He obviously wanted to step up the command ladder but again, no law against looking out for number one. I wasn't sure he'd done any more actual investigating than Thornton. Yet Lasner had told me Heck went through paperwork in the communications center. That was something at least. Maybe I should ask him what he found. Maybe he'd tell me if I asked nicely. Or arrest me.

  Wait a minute. I tried to think back to exactly what Lasner had said Heck was looking for. He hadn't said anything specific, just that Heck had been looking through receipts and bills of lading. But what did that have to do with BARs? There would have been one bill of lading when the freight shipment of weapons came in and that was it. So what was Heck looking for? Lasner had made it sound like he was pawing through stacks of paper.

  I drank some more water and tried to think it through. Nothing made sense. What could Heck be looking for here that had anything to do with the BAR theft at Ballykinler or Sam Burnham being murdered at Killough? And had Sam been the real target at Killough? Or had it been me?

  I climbed back into my sleeping bag and tried to keep the wooden supports on the canvas cot from digging into my ribs. Tomorrow, I thought, tomorrow talk to Lasner about those papers. Go see Jenkins about the truck. And Thornton, something about Thornton twitched at the back of my mind as a steady rain drummed on the curved corrugated steel, lulling me to sleep, images of shattered windows and blood red curtains filling my dreams.

  DEW HUNG HEAVY on the grass and clung to my boots as I walked from the mess tent to the communications center. White clouds to the east were parted by the sun, which cast the shadows of fir trees over the camp. The air was rich with a damp, green aroma and I breathed it in deeply. The cool air cleared my head.

  There was something wrong with the paperwork, there had to be. Only thing was, I was fairly certain it didn't have anything to do with the weapons theft. There wasn't any reason to sift through stacks of receipts, shipping orders, and bills of lading to solve that crime. The other thing I was certain of, since I had asked one of the cooks who had given me a ride the other night, was that this mess facility didn't use any local produce. All grub was courtesy of Uncle Sam. But Ballykinler was a much bigger base. This was only a headquarters camp, and there was no place to store fresh foodstuffs. That might be important if my hunch was right.

  "Good morning, Lieutenant," Sergeant Lasner said as I entered his communications center. "I heard about your close call yesterday. It's too bad about Sam Burnham."

  "Real bad," I said. "News travels fast."

  "This is the communications center," Lasner said, "sir." He looked offended that anyone would doubt he was well informed.

  "When was Major Thornton told?"

  "I told him myself last night, as soon as the message came in from Ballykinler about the ambulance going for his body."

  "What did he say?"

  "I don't recall exactly, Lieutenant. Something about it being horrible. Why?"

  "Did he ask about me?"

  "Not a word. What exactly is this about?"

  "Nothing, Sarge, nothing at all. Listen, can you show me the files Heck was looking through, the ones you told me about?"

  "No, I can't."

  "Why?"

  "They're gone. I had them all boxed up too. It took one of the clerks all day to sort things out after Heck pulled papers from every file cabinet we have. It was a mess. But we straightened it out and put everything back in the right order. Then Major Thornton came by asking what Heck had been looking for. I showed him the box and he took it."

  "Why?" I asked. It seemed to be the only question I could come up with.

  "Because he's a major, and I'm a noncom."

  There was nothing to say to that.

  I walked to the main building, heading for Thornton's office. GIs in fatigues and packs stood around outside, waiting for someone to order them to march somewhere for no discernible reason. Cler
ks clutching files and flimsies scuttled in and out, moving the paperwork that kept a division in red tape. So much paper, so many forms and orders, it was paperwork that kept the wheels turning, and if you knew how to work it, you could get just about anything you wanted, especially if it could be painted green.

  But you could get other things too, and if you were part of a unit bivouacked in one place temporarily, then you could count on paperwork getting lost or tossed as nonessential, when your next destination was an invasion beach. I was taking a gamble, but I was ready to give odds that Thornton and Brennan, along with Jenkins, were tangled up in something that had nothing to do with BARs or the IRA. I'd been righter than I thought when I goaded Heck about not having a single lead. He didn't; he wasn't even trying to find who took the BARs. He probably knew he was out of his depth there. But his interest in bills of lading and the like told me he was onto something, something that was more in his line.

  I was steamed at being sidetracked but that didn't mean I couldn't make time to deal with the source of my anger. I was nearing Thornton's office, my mind racing with ideas on how best to take this major down, when out strolled Sergeant Pete Brennan, whistling a tune, his hands in his pockets as if he didn't have a care in the world.

  "Hi, Lieutenant, how are you doing?"

  "What do you mean, how am I doing? Aren't you going to be court-martialed?"

  "No, no," Brennan said, waving his hand back and forth. "That was all a little misunderstanding. The major and I are copacetic. I gotta get back now."

  "Wait a minute," I said, grabbing him by the arm. "I know what's going on here. Between you, Thornton, and Jenkins." I wasn't as sure as I sounded, but sounding sure was a good technique for rattling suspects. "Tell me, Pete, what do you have on Thornton?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, his voice lowered to a whisper. "Now let me go."

  "You're playing a dangerous game," I said. "Not with Thornton but with Jenkins. If he's involved, you could be in big trouble."