the Savage Day - Simon Vaughn 02 (v5)

by Jack Higgins

  The first few miles were uneventful enough. Several military vehicles passed us going the other way, but we didn't run into a road block until we reached the outskirts of Plumbridge. There was the usual line of vehicles and Cork moved to join on at the end.

  I said, 'We're on military business, aren't we? Straight through to the head of the queue.'

  He didn't argue, simply pulled out of line and did as I told him. As a young sergeant came forward, I leaned out of the window. He took one look at those Major's crowns and sprang to attention.

  'For God's sake, clear a way for us, Sergeant,' I said. 'We're due in Stramore in half an hour to make a most important identification.'

  It worked like a charm. They pulled aside the barrier and the spiked chain they had across the road a yard or two further on to rip open the tyres of anyone who tried to barge their way through.

  'Now I know what they mean by audacity,' Cork said.

  We were already moving out into the countryside and Binnie laughed delightedly. 'It worked. It actually worked.'

  I think it was at that precise moment that the rear nearside tyre burst. Not that we were in any danger considering the relatively slow speed at which we were travelling. The Morris wobbled slightly, but responded to the wheel reasonably enough as Cork turned in towards the grass verge.

  'What they used to call Lags' Luck when I was in prison,' he said as he switched off the engine.

  'Never mind that,' I said. 'Let's have that wheel off and the spare on and out of here double quick. I've somehow got a feeling that it's healthier to stay on the move.'

  Binnie handled the jack while I got the spare out of the boot. As I wheeled it round to him, a Land-Rover passed us going towards Plumbridge. It vanished into the mist, but a moment later reappeared, reversing towards us.

  The driver got out and came round to join us. He was no more than eighteen or nineteen. A lance-corporal in the Royal Corps of Transport.

  He saluted smartly. 'Anything I can do, sir?'

  His attitude was natural enough at the sight of a Major getting his hands dirty. I made the first mistake by trying to get rid of him. 'No, everything's under control, Corporal, off you go.'

  There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He hesitated, then leaned down to Binnie who reacted violently. 'You heard what he said, didn't you? Clear off.'

  It was an understandable reaction to stress, but delivered as it was in that fine Kerry accent of his, it compounded my original error.

  The corporal hesitated, seemed about to speak, then thought better of it. He saluted punctiliously, then moved back to the Land-Rover. He started to get inside, or so it seemed, then turned and I saw that he was holding a Sterling.

  'I'd like to see your identity card if you don't mind, sir,' he said firmly.

  'Now look here,' I said.

  Binnie straightened slowly and the lad, who knew his business, I'll say that for him, said, 'Hands on top of the car.'

  Cork walked straight towards him, a puzzled smile on his face. 'For heaven's sake, young man,' he said, 'control yourself. You're making a terrible mistake.'

  'Stand back,' the young corporal said. 'I warn you.'

  But he had hesitated for that one fatal second that seemed to give Cork his opportunity. He flung himself forward, clutching at the Sterling. There was the briefest of struggles. I had already taken a couple of strides to join him when there was a single shot. Cork staggered back with a terrible cry and fell on his back.

  I put a fist into the corporal's stomach and a knee in his face as he doubled over that laid him unconscious at the side of the Land-Rover and was better than a bullet in the head from Binnie.

  He was already on his knees beside Cork, who was obviously in great pain and barely conscious, blood on his lips. I ripped open the front of his cassock and looked inside. It was enough.

  'Is it bad?' Binnie demanded.

  'Not good. From the looks of it, I'd say he's been shot through the lungs. He needs a doctor badly. Where's the nearest hospital? Stramore?'

  'And life imprisonment if he pulls through?' Binnie said.

  'Have you got a better idea?'

  'We could try to get him over the border into the Republic'

  'That's crazy. Even if we could pull it off, it's too far. There isn't time. He needs skilled treatment as soon as possible.'

  'Twelve miles,' he said, clutching my flak jacket. 'That's all, and I know a farm track south of Clady that runs clear into the Republic. There's a hospital no more than three miles on the other side run by the Little Sisters of Pity. They'll take him in.'

  One thing was certain. Another vehicle might appear from the mist at any moment so whatever we were going to do had to be done fast. 'Right, get him into the Land-Rover,' I said.

  We lifted him in between us, putting him out of sight behind the rear seat, then I got out again, knelt beside the unconscious corporal and tied his hands behind his back with his belt.

  Binnie joined me as I finished. 'What are we going to do with him?'

  'We'll have to take him with us. Can't afford to have anybody find him too soon.'

  Binnie's anger boiled over suddenly and he kicked the unconscious man in the side. 'If he got his deserts, I'd put a bullet in him.'

  'For God's sake, get his feet and shut up,' I said. 'If you want your precious Small Man to live, you'd better get him where we're going fast.'

  We bundled the corporal into the Land-Rover, putting him on the floor between the front and rear seats. I got into the back with Cork and left the driving to Binnie.

  I wasn't really conscious of the passing of time although I was aware that wherever we were going, we were going there very fast indeed. I was too occupied with keeping Cork as upright as possible, an essential where lung wounds are concerned. I had found the vehicle's first-aid box easily enough and held a field dressing over the wound tightly in an effort to staunch the bleeding.

  Gradually his condition grew worse. All colour had faded from his face, the breathing sounded terrible and there was a kind of gurgling inside his chest as he inhaled, one of the nastiest sounds I have ever heard.

  As I say, I was not conscious of the passage of time and yet I realize now that until that moment, I had not spoken a word to Binnie since we had left the scene of the shooting.

  Blood trickled from the corner of Cork's mouth and I said desperately, 'For God's sake, Binnie, when do we reach the border. The man's dying on us.'

  'Hang on to your hat, Major,' he replied over his shoulder. 'For the past mile and a half you've been inside the Republic.'

  12

  The Race North

  The convent looked more like a seventeenth-century country house than anything else, which was very probably what it had once been. It was surrounded by a fifteen-foot wall of mellow brick and the main gate was closed.

  Binnie braked to a halt, jumped out and pulled on a bell-rope. After a while, a small judas opened and a nun peered out. It was not unknown for British patrols to cross the ill-marked border in error on occasion, which probably explained the expression of shocked amazement on her face at the sight of the uniform.

  'Good heavens, young man, don't you realize where you are? You're in the Irish Republic. Turn round and go back where you came from this instant.'

  'For God's sake, Sister, will you listen to me?' Binnie demanded. 'We're not what we seem. We've a man near dying in the back here.'

  She came through the gate without hesitation and approached the Land-Rover. Binnie ran in front of her and got the rear door open. She looked in and was immediately confronted with the sight of the wounded man held upright in my arms. He chose that exact moment to cough, blood spurting from his mouth.

  She turned and ran, picking up her skirts, the gates swung open a moment later, and Binnie drove into the courtyard.

  The ante-room was surprisingly well furnished with padded leather club chairs and a selection of magazines laid out on a coffee table. There was a glass partition at one side a
nd I could see into the reception room where they had taken Cork. He lay on a trolley covered with a blanket and four nuns in nursing uniform busied themselves in giving him a blood transfusion, amongst other things.

  The door opened and another nun appeared, a tall, plain-looking woman in her forties. The others got out of her way fast and she examined him.

  Within a moment or so she was giving orders and Cork was being wheeled out, one nun keeping pace with the trolley, the bottle of blood held high. The one who had examined him turned to glance at us through the glass wall, then followed them out. A moment later, the door opened behind us and she entered.

  'I am Sister Teresa, Mother Superior here.' Her voice was well-bred, pleasant, more English than Irish. Very definitely someone who had known the better things of life, and I wondered, in a strange, detached way, what her story was. What had she given up for this?

  There was an edge to her voice when she spoke again. 'Who are you?'

  Binnie glanced at me briefly, then shrugged. 'IRA, from across the border.'

  'And that man in there? Is he a priest?' He shook his head and she went on, 'Who is he, then?'

  'Michael Cork,' I said. 'Otherwise known as the Small Man. Perhaps you know of him?'

  Her eyes widened, closed briefly, then opened again. 'I have heard of Mr Cork. He is extremely ill. The bullet has penetrated the left lung and lodged under the shoulder-blade. I think the heart has also been touched, but I can't be sure until I operate.'

  'You operate?' Binnie said, taking a step towards her.

  'I would imagine so,' she replied calmly. 'I am senior surgeon here and a case like this requires experience.'

  'The bullet was fired at point blank range, Sister,' I informed her.

  'I had imagined that must be so from the powder burns. What calibre?'

  'Nine millimetre. Sterling sub-machine-gun.'

  She nodded. 'Thank you. You must excuse me now.'

  Binnie caught her sleeve. As she turned, he said, 'No need to inform the authorities about this, is there, Sister?'

  'On the contrary,' she said. 'The moment more pressing matters are taken care of I shall make it my first duty to inform the area military commander of Mr Cork's presence. You gentlemen, I presume, will have had the good sense to take yourselves back where you came from by then.'

  'We'd like to stay for a while, Sister,' I said. 'Until after the operation, if you've no objection?'

  She hesitated, then made her decision. 'Very well, I'll send for you when it's all over.' She opened the door, paused, a hand on the knob and turned to Binnie who had slumped into a chair, shoulders bowed. 'I spent five years at a mission hospital in the Congo, young man, so gunshot wounds are not unknown to me. A small prayer might be in order, however.'

  But I was long past that kind of thing myself. Perhaps there was a God who cared, although from my own experience, I doubted it. But I knew a professional when I saw one and beyond any shadow of a doubt, if Sister Teresa couldn't save him, no one could.

  I left Binnie and went out to the Land-Rover to check on our prisoner. When I opened the door I found that he was not only conscious again, but had managed to roll over on his back. His face was streaked with dried blood and his nose, from the look of it, was very possibly broken.

  He looked up at me, dazed and more than a little frightened. 'Where am I?'

  I said, 'You're on the wrong side of the Border in the hands of the IRA. Lie very still and quiet, there's a good lad, and you might come out of this with a whole skin.'

  He seemed to shrink inside himself. I got up and went back to the ante-room.

  We weren't left alone for very long. After twenty minutes or so, a nun appeared and took us down the corridor to a washroom where we could clean up. Then we were taken to a large dining-room with several rows of tables. We had the whole place to ourselves, two nuns standing patiently by to serve us while we ate.

  Afterwards, we were escorted back to the ante-room. It was a long wait, in fact, a good two hours before a nun appeared and beckoned us.

  We followed her along the corridor to another small room at the far end. Again there was a glass wall, this time looking in at a side ward. There were half a dozen beds, but only one occupant, Michael Cork, and he was in an oxygen tent.

  A couple of nuns knelt at the end of the bed in prayer, two more leaned over the patient. One of them turned and came towards us. It was Sister Teresa and she still wore a surgeon's white cap and gown, a mask suspended around her neck.

  She looked tired, lines etched deeply from either side of her nose to the limits of her mouth. I think I knew what she was going to say even before she opened the glass door and joined us.

  'He's going to be all right?' Binnie said.

  'On the contrary,' she told him calmly. 'He's going to die and very soon now. As I had feared, there was damage to the heart as well as to the lungs, but much worse than I would have thought possible.'

  Binnie turned away. I said, 'He's a good man, Sister. A fine man. I know the Church does not approve of the IRA's actions, but he deserves a priest.'

  'I've sent for one,' she said simply. 'But first, he wishes to speak to you.'

  'Are you certain?'

  'He is quite rational though very weak. He said I was to bring the Major quickly. There isn't much time.'

  She opened the glass door and I followed her through. I paused beside the oxygen tent and waited, the voices of the nuns in prayer a soft murmur. Cork opened his eyes and looked up at me. Sister Teresa unzipped the plastic flap that we might speak.

  'I'm going, Vaughan,' he whispered. 'At the end of things at last and full of doubts. I'm not sure if I've been right. If it's all been worth while. Do you follow me?'

  'I think so.'

  'Connolly and Pearse - Big Mick Collins. They were names to conjure with, but what came after? Did it really measure up to their sacrifice?' He closed his eyes. 'I could have been wrong all these years. I can't risk another death on my conscience.'

  'Norah?' I said.

  He opened his eyes. 'Get back to Stramore if you have to walk through hell to do it. Tell Barry that if he wants that bloody gold he'll have to swim for it. It's six fathoms down in the middle of Horseshoe Bay on Magil Island. That's where I sank the launch. I haven't been back since.'

  Which was interesting, and for a second I got a flash of the place again in my mind's eye as I had last seen it, grey, windswept and lonely beneath the barren rocks of the island in the morning rain.

  He stared up at me in mute appeal. 'I'll see to it,' I said and something made me add in Irish, 'I'll settle Barry for you, Small Man.'

  His eyes opened again. 'Who are you, boy? What are you?'

  I said nothing and he continued to stare up at me, a slight frown on his face and then his eyes widened and I think a kind of understanding dawned.

  'Holy Saints,' he said. 'There's irony for you. My God, but I call that rich.'

  He started to laugh weakly and Sister Teresa pulled me gently away. 'Please leave now,' she said. 'As you promised.'

  'Of course, Sister.'

  She turned back to the bed as the priest was ushered in and I went into the ante-room and took Binnie by the arm. 'Let's get out of here. No sense in prolonging the agony.'

  He looked once towards the bed where the priest leaned over Cork, turned and walked out. I followed him along the corridor and out of the front door to the courtyard, where the Land-Rover still waited at the bottom of the steps.

  Binnie said, 'What now?'

  'Stramore,' I said. 'Where else?'

  His eyes widened. 'He told you, then, where the stuff is?'

  'Not ten miles from Spanish Head. Remember that island we stopped at yesterday morning - Magil? He sank the launch in the bay there.'

  Binnie glanced at his watch, then slammed a fist against his thigh in a kind of impotent fury. 'Much good will it do us.'

  His despair was absolute, which was understandable enough. He had just lost the one man he respected a
bove all others, was now faced with the knowledge that Norah Murphy would almost certainly end the same way, and there was nothing he could do about it.

  'No chance of reaching Stramore by six o'clock now, Major. No chance at all.'

  'Oh yes, there is,' I said. 'If we don't waste time dodging round the back country, stay on main roads all the way.'

  'But how?' he demanded. 'It's asking to be lifted.'

  'Bluff, Binnie,' I said. 'Two paratroopers in an army Land-Rover taking a chance on the Queen's Highway. Does the prospect please you?'

  He laughed suddenly, much more his old self again. 'By God, Major, but there are times when I think you're very probably the Devil himself.'

  I opened the rear door and pulled the young corporal up and out into the open. He seemed unsteady on his feet, the skin around the swollen nose and eyes blackening into bruises. I sat him down carefully on the convent steps.

  Binnie said, 'What are we going to do with him?'

  'Leave him here. By the time the nuns have patched him up and fed him and reported his presence to the Garda, it'll be evening. He can't do us any harm, but if we're going, we've got to go now.'

  The nun on the gates had got them open. As we drove through I called, 'We've left you another patient back there on the steps, Sister. Tell Sister Teresa I'm sorry.'

  Her mouth opened as if she was trying to say something, but by then it was too late and we were out into the road and away. Five minutes later we bumped over the farm track that took us into Ulster and turned along the road to Strabane.

  The streets of Strabane were jammed with traffic and there seemed to be road blocks everywhere, which was pretty much what I had expected. The authorities must have known for some considerable time that we were not in the wreckage of that burned-out Cortina at the bottom of the ravine.

  Getting through proved unbelievably easy for the obvious reason that there were soldiers everywhere and we were just two more. I told Binnie to simply blast his way through, which he did, on several occasions taking to the pavement to get past lines of cars and trucks waiting their turn.