Field of Blood (49 page)

`What I said is the bloody truth,' McAnally said.

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In the early morning dark the patrol slipped out of the Springfield barracks. Eight

men, shadowed and silent figures, jogging between the doorways, crouching in

cover. And raining over West Belfast.

The Bravo company officer had suggested that the patrol should be a Mobile.

Ferris had requested that they should be on foot. The company commander had

cocked his head in surprise, but made no objection. Each day that he had not been out on patrol had been worse for Ferris. There had been the Hastings Street

visit, and then the day on the range where he'd shot like a blind pig, and there had been the day when the local scribbler from the North East had come to Springfield to writèhome town stories' of the squaddies and she'd been fifty and

fat and thought it a bloody adventure to get as far as the barracks. The police station and the range and the minding of the reporter had kept Ferris off the streets. Each day had been worse than the one before.

On his upper body were his vest and his shirt and his heavy knit sweater and his

camouflage tunic and his flak jacket, and he was shivering. In the first sprint across the Springfield Road from the gates he had nearly dropped his rifle, and he

had stumbled down into his first cover and torn the skin from his knees. If a squaddie had come to him and said he was shit scared of stepping outside the barracks' perimeter, Ferris would have played the good officer, and slapped him

cheerfully on the shoulder, and told him there was nothing to fear, and that he

was a member of a highly trained group of young men, that his back was always

covered, and not to talk such crap. If an officer was afraid then he was a case of

L.M.F. You couldn't hide Lack of Moral Fibre. All the Battalion would know that

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David Ferris had been categorized as L.M.F. Right down to Fusilier Jones they'd

know. His mother and his father would know. And Sam would know.

David Ferris didn't think he had the balls to go to the Commanding Officer and

request a transfer, on the grounds that he was a possible specific target. So he led his foot patrol out into the warren of West Belfast, and each time he was stationary the foresight of his rifle flickered on the rooftops and the chimneys and down the dark unlit alleyways.

He didn't think of Sam. He didn't think of Gingy, nor of Rennie who had telephoned to request his presence at a hotel bar on Friday evening. He didn't think of twenty‐one more days in Belfast before the Battalion up‐sticked for home.

Dangerous to think of anything but the shadows of the doorways and the

marksman's possible hiding places, and the plastic bags and the dustbins and the

lengths of discarded piping.

The patrol found two youths acting as though they were about to teach

themselves a lesson in larceny, and over the radio they whistled up a police wagon, and handed the brats over along with their bag of tools.

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**They were almost into Ballymurphy when, high on the Springfield, there was

the crash of a single shot. Ferris was aware of his men flinging themselves to the

pavements, crawling towards shadow. Outgoing, from one of his own. And then

the swearing from across the road, and the section corporal giving out, and then

running across the road to where Ferris lay.

`That silly cunt Conville, Mr Ferris. Tripped over an old push chair, and his thumb

flicked off the safety. Accidental Discharge ...'

Ferris hauled himself up. He tried to keep his voice flat and calm. `Thank you, corporal. Make a note of the details. It'll have to be reported.'

`Wouldn't have thought so, sir,' the section corporal said easily. `There's a few rounds spare from the range ...'

`Don't know what's the matter with the bugger, mind you keep your eye on him.

And mind you make up his ammo.'

`Best way, sir. Wouldn't want 3 Platoon knowing, never hear the bloody end of it.'

When the shot had been fired he had been terrified. He banged the sharp corner

of his magazine into his knee‐cap. Pain was preferable to fear.

The morning was coming, the light was hazing through the streets as the patrol

entered Turf Lodge.

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She slid her legs off the bed and reached for her dressing gown and slipped it over her shoulders.

Frankie was on his back, snoring, the blankets lying low on his bare stomach.

It had been Roisin's first night back in her old house. The workmen had been the

previous morning and finished the repairs to the windows and the door, days bloody late and a piss awful job they'd made of it, and the van had come in the

afternoon with her furniture. Not one of the neighbours had stirred a fist to help

her move her furniture, and she'd been struggling on her own, and with Young Gerard, when Frankie had appeared on his bicycle. He'd parked the bicycle round

the back, with his bucket and his ladder, and he'd shifted the furniture with her.

And his bicycle and his ladder and his bucket were still round the back, against the kitchen wall.

She'd surprised herself because it hadn't seemed that important to her, going up

the stairs with Frankie Conroy, him going to bed with her and settling onto Sean's

side like he had the right to be there. She'd reminded him of what she had said in

his car. Nobody took her trousers off her, she took them off when she wanted them off. She'd thought she wanted Frankie Conroy in her bed that night. Not that important,

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not a big deal, when she'd carried Baby Sean out of her bed and put him down

with Little Patty. He was a clumsy sod, and he wasn't clean, but he'd been good

to them. God knows where she and her Ma would have found the money for the

Christmas tree and the lights. They'd have been without if Frankie hadn't showed. And he'd bought the supper that night, before she'd taken him up the stairs. He'd given Young Gerard the money to run down to the chipper van, four

cod and six chips. They'd had a good crack round the table, and even Young Gerard had smiled. Young Gerard liked the big fellow. And there wasn't a man who she should be keeping herself for, not since she'd taken the taxi and her kids

away from Thiepval Barracks.

It was good to be back in her house even if the workmen had made a bloody awful job of it. It was good to have a man in her bed even if he bloody snored.

She pulled back the curtain.

The soldier crouched by her front gate, and he must have seen the curtain move

because his rifle swung to aim at the window. She saw the grin explode on the soldier's face and pulled the dressing gown tight around her. Then saw Ferris.

`Sean's friend,' she said, to herself out loud.

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`What's you say?' Frankie propped himself up on his elbow.

Ì said, it's Gingy's friend.'

She spoke her husband's name flatly, as if he were gone from her, as if he had never been part of her.

She saw Ferris's face, and his hollow deep‐set eyes, and the way his rifle barrel traversed over the rooftop above her before he went away up the road, a loping

loose stride.

Frankie was beside her, white‐skinned, naked, bulging his stomach against the window sill. Together they watched the officer's back until it was gone from their

sight.

Frankie left her at the window. He dressed fast.

`What's your bloody hurry?' She didn't turn to look at him.

Ì've got to be away.'

`Where to?

'Limerick . . .'

`Down south?

'I'll call by when I'm back.'

She heard him go down the stairs and into the kitchen. She heard him open the

back door. She heard the squeaking of his bicycle and the ring of his bucket in the

hall.

Frankie Conroy rode away down the Drive, away from the patrol, wobbling on his

bicycle because he balanced his ladder on the handlebars, a shadow figure in the

early morning light.

* 257

**Thursday, early. January's wet low cloud hovering on the Crumlin Court House.

They had to be in the Crumlin for the Preliminary because the city centre Magistrate's court on Chichester Street didn't have the capacity to hold so many

defendants.

A few minutes before 10 a.m., the prisoners filed into the dock. They'd had to squeeze their way up the stairs from the basement cells, because there was a prison officer flanking each of them, and more prison officers waiting for them in

the dock, and the dock itself was ringed by uniformed policemen. There were policemen at each corner of the courtroom, and two cradled their carbines, and

some rested their hands on the handles of their holstered hand guns.

As each of the prisoners came up the steps, appeared at the back of the dock, there was clapping from the public gallery where the friends and relatives were

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herded close together. More policemen in the public gallery. The prisoners were

at this moment stars greeted by their faithful admirers.

The barristers and solicitors and clerks gathered together in the sectarian knots

of Defence and Prosecution, and talked earnestly and quietly and seemed to make the pretence that this was an everyday occasion, not special. Every seat taken on the hard wood benches of the journalists, their sharpened pencils laid out with new shorthand notebooks.

The prisoners talked loudly amongst themselves and waved back to the public gallery. All except one made a show of cheerfulness and bravado and

camaraderie. The Chief was alone. The Chief didn't look up to the gallery, didn't

acknowledge the particular ripple of applause that greeted his entry into the dock. The Chief allowed his chin to be on his chest and his shoulders to droop.

It would be different on Monday. There wouldn't be the clapping and the

applause and the waving on Monday. On Monday all eyes would be on the small

low door at the back of the courtroom through which the witness would come.

There would be a tension and expectancy on Monday, because Sean Pius

McAnally must come through that door on his way to the witness box to

supergrass on the Brigade and Battalion officers of Belfast's Provisionals.

There was a straightbacked wooden chair, not taken, against the wall of the courtroom, to the left of where the Magistrate would sit and below his raised dais.

20

Ferris had the billet to himself. Armstrong was on early stag in Ops, Wilkins was

taking his turn on the range.

Soft disc jockey patter and the easy music through the ply‐board partitions that

separated this billet from half a dozen like it.

He lay in bed, the notepad on his pillow, writing to Sam.

My dearest Sam,

It's been a pretty soft week. I've had masses of time to think about you, to think

about us. I want us to make the announcement as soon as I can get you to a shop

and get you the RING.

I've got a really soft week coming up. From Monday I'm going to sit in court and

hear the supergrass give his evidence. They've got some daft idea that if he can

see me while he's in the witness box he'll have the guts to go through with it. He's flying in tonight from England and I'm being taken off for a few drinks with him,

which means I'll be dumped back here legless. If you didn't know what he'd done,

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you'd say that he's quite a fair chap really. He's wrecked himself. I shouldn't really have got involved, but you get no choice.

I was talking to our Sky Pilot, and he put in a bid to do us in the Depot chapel ‐

we'll talk about it. I showed him your picture ‐ he said you had child‐bearing hips!

See you soon, Sam, see you at home, see you away from this awful place. Look

after those hips.

Lots of love,

David

He put the single sheet of paper in a coarse brown envelope, licked down the flap

and addressed it.

He shaved carefully that morning, as if there was to be a special purpose for the

day. He thought his face was that of an old man. He saw the worry lines when the

razor was close to his mouth, and he saw that his eyes were sunken. He shouldn't

have recognized the bloody face in the mirror. He had to shave with great care

because the blade was new and his fingers shook.

He went to the Mess, and at the mahogany table he hid himself behind a newspaper and drank three cups of coffee.

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**`David, jolly good, glad I've caught you.' The Adjutant breezed towards him.

`What are you on today?

'Rennie, the detective, is picking me up this evening ‐ he cleared it with you.'

`This evening . . . what about today?'

He said heavily, Ì've a mobile going out in the morning, in the

afternoon I've two sections for foot patrol.'

Èxcellent ... you're out yourself this afternoon.'

He hesitated. Ì'm not sure yet ... I've got Rennie coming.' `Rennie's this evening.

Whatever you do this evening, kindly remem

ber that for today you are a member of 2 R.R.F. You won't need a

whole day off to ready yourself for junketing with the police.'