Country

by Michael Hughes

  Polly let out a big sigh. He gave Henry a sad wee smile.

  ‘I’ve been putting it off, but it’s time to break it to you. Face it, Henry. Your best days are behind you. Don’t feel bad, the time comes, that’s all. I’ll get you a training post in Hereford. Or you can take on something in the private sector, start investing for the school fees. No, listen. I understand. No hard feelings. You need to accept who you are now. You’ve done your duty, and it’s time to pass the baton. Things are changing here. We have a different approach these days. The word coming from London is kid gloves on the ground. The real work is done on another level. Sneaking around in the field has had its day.’

  Who you are now. Something twisted in him there. He felt it rise up. He would show them. Polly, Anna, Bernard, London, fucking PIRA. All of them.

  ‘My duty? My duty is to take those bastards on.’

  ‘I’ll sign you off.’

  ‘Don’t you fucking dare. I’m going back out tonight, and just try to stop me.’

  ‘I’m signing you off, Henry.’

  ‘I’m sorry, with all the gunfire this morning my hearing is a little below par just now.’

  ‘Stay right where you are. That’s an order, captain.’

  ‘Try to stop me, and see what happens. Just see what happens.’

  ‘I said, that’s an order. Direct from London.’

  62

  On down the road, Dog passed Anthony Rice, Ned’s youngest fella.

  ‘Good man Anthony. I need you to do a wee message for me.’

  ‘Just say the word, fella.’

  ‘It’s no small thing. It’s not been give out yet, but the SAS got Pat.’

  ‘Took him in?’

  ‘Took him out. Emptied him. The whole thing is a massive fuck-up. But that’s where we’re at. So run on down to Achill and tell him. He knows nothing.’

  The face on Anthony. White as a sheet.

  ‘If you’re not up to it, don’t be afraid to say. No bother at all.’

  ‘I’ll go, course I’ll go. But, Jesus, Dog.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’

  ‘Let me tell you a thing, Anthony. You can never tell what’s going to happen. You just can’t. All you can do is what you have to, and then wait and see. But you have to stay on the front foot. The only way to fuck up is to do nothing. That’s all I know anyway.’

  63

  That poor bastard Achill. When he saw Anthony coming, and the face of him, he half knew the score. He’d heard the town centre was sealed off because of an ongoing incident. He couldn’t help thinking the worst. But maybe it was all right. Aye, maybe it was nothing at all.

  Anthony knew better than to try and put a spin on it, or do anything other than say the plain truth.

  ‘I’m awful sorry, Achill.’

  ‘Is it Pat?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘He is. I’m awful sorry, Achill.’

  Achill nodded. He kept nodding. He looked small. He looked shaky.

  ‘Aye, I kind of knew it when I seen you coming. I kind of knew it when I got out of bed this morning. The first time I lay eyes on that good young man I kind of knew it. Whatever my hand touches turns to ash. The fault is my own. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I seen nothing myself. Dog it was sent me down. He says he watched the whole thing, and it was the SAS. They stripped him and left him in the road, and then ran for the hills when they seen Dog and Budd coming. Them two are with him now, keeping dick, waiting till it’s clear to bring him back up here.’

  64

  When the body came up, Achill roared out his grief.

  Anthony held him by the two hands, for he was afraid Achill might take the carving knife and do himself an injury. He was thrashing and bucking on the bed. All his anguish, for his country, his friends, himself, came rioting out.

  The whole street and half the town came by weeping, for everybody loved Pat. The place was soon a wake.

  And in the door with some of the first came Achill’s old friend Theresa. She’d heard when she was having her hair done, a few other women with her. A terrible business. They all said it. That man has no luck at all. Poor Achill. Poor Pat.

  She sat down by Achill and put her hand on his.

  ‘If you take them on, you’re sure to end up the same way.’

  ‘I might as well be dead, for I couldn’t protect that gentle boy.’

  ‘You can’t save everybody.’

  ‘But I’m not trying to, Theresa. I never understood myself till this minute what it was I was even fighting for. All this time I’ve been saying I wouldn’t fight another man’s fight, but it’s for the ones not able to fight themselves that I should be standing up. The trigger men are all going to hell, no doubt about it, Brits and Ra both. But my job is to protect the innocents, adults and children alike, the ones that don’t have the strength to protect themselves.’

  ‘You saw where your fury led the last time. This time might be worse.’

  ‘No, Theresa. I go now to end that murderer, but not for him. For his country. To show them evil doesn’t go unpunished, that there’s consequences to taking the innocence of a quiet wee land and trampling it down. They need to feel the pain we do. They need to see what it is they’ve done, know it in their guts and in their blood. They’ve called it upon themselves. Ireland, free or not, was never the point for me. Budd was right, what he said. It’s about justice. If they’re let think that it’s right to rob the freedom and the dignity of another people, that we accept them as our betters just because they say they are, then we surrender any claim to self-determination. If we don’t fight, then we admit we have nothing worth fighting for. And they showed us how. We fight how they fight. Hard, and dirty. No mercy. So the men they put up to stand in our way have to die. Simple as that.’

  Everybody tugged at his cuff, everybody had a word of comfort to try to ease his heart. But he cared nothing for them. Even Big Sheila, the local Shinner, tough as old boots, she wasn’t shy of coming round him and bending his ear, and he hadn’t the heart to chase her. He had no heart for anything.

  ‘The thing is, Achill, we need answers. Hard proof this was cold-blooded murder, and then we can get that proof to the papers and the TV, and that’ll blow their position out of the water. They say they want peace, and they’re provoking us back to war. It’ll give us the strongest hand we’ve had since Bobby Sands. What do you say?’

  ‘I won’t go naked to them. They have my body armour, my gear, my hood.’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ says Theresa. ‘I’m owed one more favour. I’ll be back by morning with the kit you need.’

  But Big Sheila wouldn’t let it go. ‘If you can show your face some way, Achill. Just to let them know you’re about. To put the fear of God back in them murdering bastards.’

  ‘Spray it down the town, on every gable end. Get them Sniper at Work signs up again. Cover the town in that there message, so it’s all they see when the cold sun is up.’

  It was done the way he said. The signs went up on poles, red triangles round the black silhouette of a man with his fist punching the air, hood on his head, rifle in the other hand. Sniper at Work sprayed on every wall and road. The word was out.

  But Achill wouldn’t leave the body be. He trailed along beside it, sat there while they washed it and got it ready. But he said plain there was to be no proper wake, and definitely no funeral, until he brought an SAS man’s bones back here, to show to Pat.

  ‘You’ll not go in the ground before one of them is meat on the slab. That’s a promise. If it’s the death of me, them cold-blooded cunts will suffer what I have. God forgive me, I lied to your poor oul da when I said I’d keep you safe. My own death is coming fast, but not till I even the score.’

  65

  In the base, the Brits took stock. The printers were chattering away, the phones ringing non-stop, the fax machine squeezing out reams of stuff. Reports and memos, chart
s and graphs, photos and diagrams.

  In the ops room, Polly was at the board, looking very sombre.

  ‘You’ve all seen it. The message is quite clear. He’s back on the scene. Our informers say the same. And that changes things quite dramatically. If previous experience is any guide, then as soon as we appear on the roads, he’ll take his revenge. We can’t keep the media away from that. The end of our hopes for another ceasefire. The leadership in Belfast will have to embrace his actions, for fear of splitting the movement, and then the talks are dead in the water. It’ll put us back ten years at least. I’d prefer to avoid that particular blot on my copybook. So we return to the status quo. There’s no way he’ll take us on solo, it would be madness. We wait it out. Our priority is not to lose a single man, not to provoke the slightest contact, and let the talks proceed. We’re part of a bigger picture, we must forget the local politics.’

  Henry was pacing, fretting. It wasn’t right. It fucking stank.

  ‘Let them win, in other words.’

  ‘Nonsense. Step back from the situation. Show the restraint and maturity we claim to represent in this scenario. Lead by example. Today’s death can be part of an internal republican feud, let’s say. One of our agents in the community will supply some suggestive graffiti in return. I’ll feed something juicy to Fleet Street. And it stokes up the sense that they’re weak and divided, which plays into our hands.’

  ‘This isn’t an information operation, Polly.’

  ‘Henry, when will you learn that everything is an information operation. Everything. Hearts and minds, remember. Our mission in the world is just what it always has been. To civilise. To moderate. To find consensus. And the only way to do it is by example.’

  ‘You seriously think if we play nice, they will?’

  ‘Perhaps. But there are hearts and minds on both sides. Our country needs heroes just as much as they do. That’s where you come in, Henry. We have you marked down. The perfect poster boy. Your name will be a byword for old-fashioned British pluck, if I have my way. That’s our plan of action. You take the hearts, I’ll take the minds.’

  ‘Listen, Polly, just listen. I can take him on right now, before dark. Bring him in. Show him he can’t strut around making threats.’

  ‘Absolutely not. We take defensive positions against the intel of an attack from O’Brien. Give him absolutely no excuse, so if he’s stupid enough to try something, we have the moral high ground.’

  ‘Polly, we already have the moral high ground! We are the moral high ground!’

  ‘Not to the wider world.’

  ‘Then the wider world can kiss my arse!’

  ‘The wider world is what you’re defending, Henry. We don’t get to pick and choose.’

  ‘If you want your hero, then I’ll step up. Bring him in, dead or alive. I have a duty not to be cowed by them. We have the law on our side. If we back down today, we might as well abandon the unionists and pull out tomorrow. The principle is the same. Defend your people. Show them who’s in charge. Engage the enemy, or surrender and go home.’

  ‘It seems you’ve made up your mind.’

  ‘Just give me twenty-four hours, and I’ll give you something juicy for the papers. I’ll give you British pluck. I’ll show the wider world who the real heroes are.’

  ‘I’m taking a dreadful risk.’

  ‘About bloody time. Just give me my head, this once. I won’t let you down.’

  ‘I know you won’t, Henry.’

  66

  The stars were blinking down that night. And if you could swap places, and watch the green country from high up there among them, then you’d see the lights from the Brits there in the base, and more in the next town, and more again, twinkling in a chain across the whole of the border, so many that you’d think you were looking at the night sky itself all over again.

  It was a different town after dark. You’d near think the place itself was snoozing, but few enough were at peace. Though it has to be said, the most of the town had no clear idea of what was happening. And nobody beyond that part of the world had any notion at all.

  And they never would. For it’s very easy to keep a lid on things if you really want to. There was far too much at stake in the talks for a wee skirmish to bring it all down. The Three Monkeys was the word. Besides, most in the place took no real interest, beyond what they saw on the news, and damn sure this never made the news. Oh, there’d be something at the tail end of the bulletin, reports of shots being fired in a certain area, but that was so much blah blah blah to these people. You wouldn’t even take it in, let alone wonder what it was.

  And it wasn’t that the reporters were in on it, or very few of them. No, there was very little leaning went on, though the odd thing would have to be spiked. It was the papers themselves, the higher-ups in the TV and radio. They lived here too, and they all wanted the ceasefire back in place. Good for business, good for families, gives everybody a nice warm glow, spend their money, keep the ads coming in. They were quite happy to tune out a bit of inconvenient unpleasantness, as long as it was down the country and out of the way. Nothing was ever said. Nothing needed to be. Wink wink nudge nudge say no more.

  Achill

  67

  Sunday morning, first light. An orange sky hanging over the green country.

  Theresa found Achill in the chair with his arms wrapped around Pat.

  ‘Son, this one’s gone. Take what I give you. It’s all there.’

  She left a full bag on the ground.

  He shook his head.

  ‘The flies are round him already. I can’t leave him to rot.’

  ‘I’m bringing him to the undertaker myself. They’ll clean him up lovely, do what they do to keep him looking like himself. And when you’re back, you can say a proper goodbye. For now, you have to square things with Pig. Come on, for there’s no way round it.’

  68

  Achill strode out of the town, up towards the Ships. If you’d seen the crowd that watched him. Every man, woman and child ducked out to catch him going by. Ones the age of Ned who hadn’t stirred from their beds this years cracked open a door or a window, and shouted out Good man Achill, and he’d nod to acknowledge each, without once taking his eyes off the road ahead.

  The lounge was packed out. Hanging off the walls. Nobody was missing this.

  Sid and Diamond came in and settled, both on crutches. That quieted the hubbub. Then Pig himself limped down the stairs. Dead silence.

  Achill was waiting. A different man, they all said. He looked older, is what it was. Calmer, too. Ready.

  Had he thought about what he would say, or did he just let it come out? You wouldn’t know with the same fella. But out it did come.

  ‘Till the day I die, I’ll never understand how Pig and myself came to this over a woman. I wish to God she’d got the first bullet in her back, rather than any of you men come to harm. The Brits themselves couldn’t have stitched us up better.

  ‘But I’m not here to stir the pot. I say we leave all that in the past. It’s not right to hold a grudge your whole life, so my fury’s at an end. It’s the Brits that need to be quaking now. All I want to do is kill, and I’m ready to start right this minute.’

  That was the best thing ever they heard. The heart came back into that squad there and then. The place warmed up again. The old team was back.

  Pig didn’t stand, but all hushed to hear.

  ‘A chairde. You listened well there. It’s not right to interrupt a man when he’s saying his piece, for even a great speechifier might stumble at the like of that. So although I’m talking here to one man alone, the rest of you pay close heed.

  ‘And I know well what youse have all been saying about me, blaming me for this whole disaster. But I tell you now, straight out, it’s not my fault. No way. The situation was what it was, and I did what I had to do, given the conditions as I saw them at the time. If I could have seen where it would lead, well. That’s another story. And if I was hoodwinked, then I wa
sn’t the first. Mick Collins himself was tricked by the Brits. Our Lord was conned by Judas. There was that famous story about the old king, I just can’t think of the details now this second. And even when the SAS were up sniffing around this place where they have no business, still the same notion wouldn’t leave me alone. You do what you have to do at the time, and that’s all there is to it.

  ‘But since that’s the way it happened, and I’m the one it happened to, then I’m the one is going to make it right.

  ‘Achill, here I give to you everything Sid told you was yours when he came down to your place the other day. And plenty more besides. If you can spare a wee minute, I’ll bring out some of the other stuff and you can have a look. Boys, wait till you see.’

  They all shifted about. Not too sure where this one was going. Please God not another barney with this pair.

  ‘Do whatever you need to do,’ says Achill. ‘Bring out the stuff or hang on to it, whatever suits yourself, for I’m not going to delay. This whole townland and the green country beyond will know this day the Border Sniper is back in action.’

  There was the quare stirring at that word, but Sid raised his hand. All knew he never took the trouble unless there was good reason, and it would be worth hearing, so they shushed again to listen.

  ‘This is going to be no fast wee job, and these men need a bite to eat first. Nobody can take on the Brits without a full stomach. You start stumbling around, you can’t think straight, you lose the rag at the slightest thing. But a man with a good feed in him will keep his focus and his strength all day. Let’s get some grub on the go, and Pig can bring out the stuff he has for you, so everybody can see. And I don’t mind reminding him, he said he would swear in front of all that he never took advantage of the wee girl, and I know that’s something you want to hear. Achill, away you go and eat inside in Pig’s place, so you don’t feel hard done by in any way. We need to clear the air completely. Pig, I hope you don’t mind me saying this whole shambles should be a lesson to you, to treat other men the way you’d want to be treated yourself. There’s no shame in the boss man holding up his hands and admitting he’s wrong, when he was the one that started it.’