The Trojan boy

TWO

Kevin O’Donnel was dying and like so many at such times, he was unprepared for death and struggled to say so much before it was too late. Martin O'Neill cradled the dying man's head in his arms and tried to comfort him but he was too badly hurt himself to be of much use and blood flowed freely from a shattered left arm. It started to rain, turning the pools of red a muddy brown and plastering the men's hair to their heads as they huddled in their backstreet doorway.

'I'm thirsty,' croaked O'Donnell, but there was only the summer rain to moisten his parched lips.

O'Neill looked up sharply as he heard the shrill sound of a whistle in the distance. Next would come the clatter of army boots and the revving of laboured engines as the British combed the area. O'Donnell had heard the sound too and reacted with new urgency.

'Listen… Listen to me. There's an envelope in the safe at the Long House. Get it, hide it, let no one else see it. Promise me?'

'I promise.'

There was a trickle of blood at the corner of O'Donnell's mouth and a gurgling sound from his throat that said his lungs were filling up. He gripped O'Neill's lapel and pulled him closer. 'One… last order.'

O'Neill brought his ear close to hear it then sat upright and repeated, as if in a daze, the words he had just heard.

‘That's right,’ O'Donnell gasped. 'Obey it…'

O'Neill nodded dumbly as O'Donnell's head fell back and he was dead.

O'Neill clutched his wounded arm to his side as he struggled to his feet. The shouting was coming closer but the pain in his arm was becoming unbearable. He set off down the lane but had to stop as light-headedness blurred his vision, for he had lost too much blood. Knowing that he was in imminent danger of passing out he knelt down in another doorway and put his head on the ground to restore the blood supply to his brain. He had to make a decision.

The British had already achieved a major victory. They had killed Kevin O'Donnell, the IRA’s senior commander in Belfast and, whether they knew it or not, the most listened-to voice on the war council. They must not take him alive as well, for he knew too much and the British would make him talk, of that he was sure. There was no level of bravery that could stand up to modern interrogation techniques and only a fool would believe differently. By the time that sound machine had scrambled his brain he would be ready to kiss the Queen's arse and recite nursery rhymes for the Duke. There was no real decision to make. He would have to take his own life.

The ultimate test of loyalty had come and here, in a dark street in Belfast with the rain pouring down, his life would come to an end. Had it been worthwhile? Would anyone miss him? And what of O'Donnell's last order? Had the dying man taken leave of his senses? Surely he could not have meant it? But he had, O'Neill was sure of that. He had seen O'Donnell's eyes when he had said it and the man had been perfectly lucid. But now it seemed to be academic anyway for circumstances were dictating that he would be in no position to carry it out. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his pistol.

The pain from his arm was becoming unbearable and O'Neill knew that he could not remain conscious for much longer. Just as long as he could pull the trigger. His vision blurred again as he tried to focus on the meagre output from a faulty streetlight on the other side of the lane. The filament dissolved in the rain to form a misty halo that grew and grew until it swallowed him up and all was quiet.

There was a smell of fried onions when O'Neill awoke and he could hear the yells of children playing. His first black thought that he might be inside a British prison was allayed for the moment, for prisons did not smell of fried onions. They smelt of cabbage and urine. And they did not sound of children, they clanged and echoed. A stab of pain from his arm made him consider a hospital but that idea did not gel either. It did not feel like a hospital because it was cold. Hospitals were not cold. They had the heated dryness of a hairdresser's and the smell of a school sick room.

O'Neill started to shiver then found that he could not stop. The involuntary convulsions stirred his arm to new extremes of pain and made him cry out as he clutched at it to minimise the effects of the tremor.

A woman came into the room and hurried over to him, alarmed at what she saw. 'Easy,' she soothed, pushing him back gently on to the pillow. 'You're all right. You're safe now. Try to relax.'

O'Neill searched the woman's face and found reassurance. The convulsions became more intermittent, each one being met by the woman's renewed insistence that all was well. O'Neill thought that she looked about forty-five but had to admit that the truth could have lain anywhere from twenty-five upwards. The lines around her eyes and the thickness of her waistline said that she led the kind of life that brought age early to a woman. Her fingers smelled of nicotine as she brought the blanket up to his chin.

'Where am I?' O'Neill asked.

'The Flats.'

O'Neill's eyes asked the question.

The Doonan Flats. My husband and his brother brought you here.'

'But the Doonan…'

'I know, they're a good bit away from where they found you but that's probably all to the good.'

'How did they find me?'

'They were out drinking. What else! They were over in Clancy's when they heard that the Brits were on the warpath. Someone had seen two of ours in Tannahill Road, so Con, that's my man, said that he knew where they would be making for. He was brought up round there, see. He would go lend a hand. He and his brother drove through the backstreets in Michael's car and, unfortunately, they found you.'

'That was brave of them.'

'Brave!' scoffed the woman. 'It was bloody stupid. It was Guinness not bravery!'

'You're not for a free Ireland then?'

'Free Ireland! Now what would I be doing with high-sounding phrases like that? I want a decent house, I want a job for Con, I want a future for my kids. These are the things I'm interested in.'

'And don't you think that you'd get these things in a free Ireland?' asked O'Neill.

'Governments are governments. They are politicians and they don't give a stuff for the likes of me, whoever they are.'

'If you feel that way why didn't you turn me in?'

The woman threw back her head and laughed bitterly. ‘Turn you in?' she exclaimed. 'Me, a Catholic woman living in the Doonan, turn in a Provo? Do you think I'm mental or something?'

O'Neill conceded the point silently and tried to raise himself on to his good elbow. He said, 'If you will just give me a hand, I'll be getting out your road.'

Political considerations became personal ones. The woman said, 'You will do no such thing. Besides, Con and Michael have gone to get medical help for you.' She saw the look of alarm appear in O'Neill's eyes and added, 'Don't worry. They’re daft but not that daft. There's a woman, used to be a district nurse, her brother's in the Maze, she's quite safe.'

Thanks,' said O'Neill.

The woman sat down on the edge of the bed, her face showing the signs of strain that the last few hours had brought. 'Would you like a cup of tea?' she asked quietly.

‘I’d love one.'

The woman's husband returned, accompanied by his brother and a small woman in her fifties. In her hand she carried a battered leather case.

'Connor McShane,' announced the man holding out his hand but taking it back in embarrassment as he realised that O'Neill was in no position to accept it. O'Neill nodded.

'And this is my brother Pat.' The smaller of the two men grinned and O'Neill nodded again.

'And this here is Mrs O'Hara. She's going to have a look at your arm.'

'I'm obliged to you,' said O'Neill.

The woman did not smile but put down her case and took off her coat while the rest retreated to a respectful distance. She gingerly started to cut away the blood-caked sleeve of O'Neill's shirt with scissors that seemed none too sharp judging by the difficulty she was having. O'Neill watched what she was doing impassively but was afraid inside for he feared that the bullet had shattered the bone.

'I'll need some water,' said the woman. 'His shirt is stuck to the wound. I'll have to bathe it free.' McShane's wife left the room and returned a few minutes later with some warm water in a bowl.

This will hurt,’ said the nurse as she began teasing the cloth away from O'Neill's arm. A sharp intake of breath from O'Neill verified it. He was watching the faces of the onlookers when his shirt was finally freed from the wound and saw them wince. He looked down to see the smashed pulp of tissue and bone that had been his left elbow and felt despair threaten.

The nurse's shoulders sagged. 'You need a hospital,’ she said.

'No hospital,’ replied O'Neill.

There's nothing I can do for you.'

That's what they always say in the pictures before they go and patch it up anyway,’ said O'Neill with a desperate attempt at humour.

The nurse's face showed both cynicism and pity. 'Not in your case,’ she said. 'Your arm will have to come off.'

The fact that O'Neill, only a few short hours before, had been preparing to take his own life did not seem to matter now as he was stricken by the thought of mutilation. In his mind he could see the empty sleeve, turned up and secured with a safety pin which would rust with the passing of time. He could see the little stump at bedtime, flapping like the useless wing of a penguin.

The hell was all inside O'Neill's head. Outwardly he was calm but he saw that McShane was construing this as bravery. The man's face was bursting with emotion as he turned to his brother and said, 'See! What did I tell you? With one arm they are still more than a match for these Brit bastards.'

McShane came over to O'Neill's bedside and knelt like an adoring shepherd. 'I tell you, mister,’ he said to O'Neill. 'When I saw you in that doorway preparing to take on the Brits single-handed, I've never felt so proud in my life.'

O'Neill looked at the man. Should he tell him the truth? Tell him that he had never had any intention of taking anyone on single-handed? Tell him that he had, in fact, been preparing to blow his own brains out because this was the real world and the real world was a long way from a John Wayne film? Tell him that the real struggle was for professionals not romantics, it was for men who calculated the odds with their brains not their hearts, men who figured out risk against return? O'Neill decided that there was no point in telling him anything. Let the myths flourish with the folk songs. After all, the British had television.

'Can you fix me up so I can move out of here?' O'Neill asked the nurse.

I’ll do what I can but it will just be a case of covering the whole mess up and strapping your arm to your body. We'll keep the tourniquet on but you'll have to remember to release it at intervals or gangrene will set in.’

The nurse cleaned up the wound before smothering it in white dressing. O'Neill was exhausted for it had been an agonising fifteen minutes, during which the woman seemed to have consistently sought out the most sensitive areas to linger over and probe and prod for bone fragments. Suppressed anger and frustration had welled up inside him like the rolling waves of a rising tide, till now he felt too weak to move.

'He will have to rest for a bit,’ said the nurse as she packed her case.

'We can take him where he wants to go later tonight,’ said McShane.

'No.’ said O'Neill weakly. 'You've done enough. Phone this number.' He recited a series of digits. Tell them that you have a parcel ready for collection, then tell them what they want to know.'

'You can rely on us,’ said McShane.

Two men came for O'Neill at nine in the evening. Any later and the risk of a spot check would have been greater, but at that time the traffic was just right. McShane and his brother stood on either side of the doorway like football fans seeing their team out of the tunnel. O'Neill stopped and thanked them both.

'Anything for a free Ireland,’ said McShane self-consciously.

'Don't go selling your story to a newspaper now, will you?' said one of the men who had come for O'Neill.

McShane laughed nervously for he had seen the veiled threat. O'Neill looked at McShane's wife and saw that she had not bothered to laugh. Thank you as well, missus,' he said.

'You're welcome,' said the woman as she turned away.

The dark blue Bedford van took off from the kerb and the driver said to O'Neill, 'We can't take you home. The Brits know you're missing. They turned your place over last night.'

'What about Kathleen?'

'Your sister told them that you were away for a few days but they turned it over anyway.'

'So where are we going?'

The Long House. They've got a doctor for you.'

'I want to see Kathleen.'

'It's difficult. The Brits are watching your house all the time.'

The army?'

The woman at number seventeen has a new lodger, works the boats.. you know the game.'

'At least it's predictable,' said O'Neill.

'We'll try to set up some kind of decoy so that your sister can slip away.'

‘Thanks.'

The Long House was a warehouse. It was owned by a wholesale newsagency that distributed stationery, magazines and periodicals throughout the north and as such, with the ephemeral nature of news, it was ideal cover for the IRA with delivery vans coming and going at all hours. They had been using the building successfully for two years without problem, utilising its extensive cellarage for administration, meetings at top level and, when the circumstances dictated it, for living quarters. Circumstances dictated that O'Neill stay there for the present.

The doctor was already in the room when O'Neill was helped in by the two men who had brought him. They laid him gently on the table as the doctor continued to scrub his hands and forearms in the sink.

The thought of someone else poking and prodding at his wound prompted O'Neill to ask, 'Can you give me something? The pain's bad.'

'You'll feel better in a moment,' said the doctor, drying his hands and picking up a syringe.

The tiny prick of the needle was followed by a warm feeling of well-being and peace which spread inexorably through O'Neill's body, bringing a tranquillity that he had seldom experienced. He did not feel drowsy, more weightless, as if he were floating in a world free from pain and care.

'How's that?' asked the doctor.

'What did you give me?' asked O'Neill.

The doctor told him.

'I can see the attraction, ’replied O'Neill.

'You do know that your arm will have to come off?' asked the doctor.

‘The nurse told me.'

The Bairn says I have to do it here. We can't risk a hospital with what you know.’

‘I’d like to see my sister.’

‘The Bairn says no, not until after.'

'There might not be an after. That's why I want to see her.'

‘The Bairn says no.' 'Bastard,’ said O'Neill softly.

'He's taken over from O'Donnell,’ said the doctor. 'He's the new commander.'

Finbarr Kell, known as The Bairn to everyone within the organisation, but never to his face, scared O'Neill. For years he had been convinced that Kell was a hopeless psychopath but, within the organisation, his credentials were impeccable and he had risen relentlessly until now he was their new commander. O'Neill had never known anyone so lacking in compassion of any kind.

Kell seemed to O'Neill to have been born to violence and baptised in hatred. When this was combined with a street cunning that would have made him the envy of a New York street gang and a brain that was devious to the point of genius, Kell inspired fear in all who came to know him.

Hatred, cunning and the bravery of a lion had made The Bairn a living legend. His exploits were the stuff of folklore, or at least they had been until a bomb that he had been setting had gone off prematurely. The blast had fractured his spine and blown off both legs but he had survived, and survived to rise within the organisation.

Since the loss of his legs Kell had been transported around in a contraption that resembled a pram, hence the nickname The Bairn. If Kell had ever possessed the tiniest spark of decency it had been totally extinguished by the accident. He was a cold, cruel man, feared, loathed, but always obeyed. The thought that now he would no longer be subject to the moderating influence of Kevin O'Donnell was not one that O'Neill could take any pleasure in. As the anaesthetic took effect he thought of O'Donnell's last order.

Through a sea of pain O'Neill could hear voices. They were far away, as if he were at the bottom of a well and the voices were at the top, but he could hear what they were saying.

'Probably won't make it through the night…'

'Surgical shock too much in his condition…'

'Desperately weak…'

'No blood to give him

‘The Bairn's coming down just in case he comes round.'

'What about his sister?'

‘The Bairn says no.'

O'Neill tried to open his eyes but found that he could not. He concentrated hard but still to no effect. It was ridiculous. He was conscious but trapped inside a body that refused to respond to any instruction he issued. He could feel nothing except a burning pain coming from his left arm, but that was the thing that was not there any more. Perhaps he was dead? It was a big disappointment if he was for he was still there, damn it! Locked inside a useless hulk of flesh. Good God, he would be able to hear everything at his own funeral, the volley of shots, the patter of earth on the lid of the coffin and then nothing, endless, eternal, black nothing. But he would still be there!

O'Neill's brain rebelled violently at the thought and sent a tremor down his right side. The tremor shook him free like an air bubble that had been trapped at the foot of a pond and he surfaced to open his eyes.

'Doctor!' said a voice. 'He's coming round.'

A shadow moved over the light and the voice of the doctor said, 'How are you feeling?'

Another voice said in rasping tones, 'Move! I have to speak to him.'

O'Neill recognised the voice as Finbarr Kell's. He struggled against the intransigence of his lips but to no avail. He was falling into blackness again. Down, down, down. Perhaps there would be sunshine when he stopped falling. That would be nice, sunshine… grass… flowers.

O'Neill was unconscious for the better part of two days while his body struggled to scrape by on the borderline oxygen supply that his vastly depleted blood volume could transport. On the third day he was through the crisis and started to get better and Kell came back to the Long House in the evening. O'Neill heard the squeak of the pram wheels as Nelligan, Kell's constant minder, manoeuvred him through the door to park him at the foot of the bed.

There was a long moment when neither man spoke but just looked at each other. Kell's head had always struck O'Neill as being too big for his body but he supposed that this was an illusion created by his legless torso. Nevertheless it seemed as if all the pores on Kell's face were quite discernible as the cold eyes, magnified by strong, rimless glasses, surveyed him under a hairless head.

'Well, Martin, it seems that even an intellectual has given up something for the cause at last, eh?' said Kell eyeing O'Neill's bandaged stump. He seemed pleased with his joke.

'I'm no intellectual, Finbarr.'

Kell smiled but there was no humour in it. 'Of course you are,' he said softly. 'All that book learning… of course you are.'

O'Neill stayed silent.

'What went wrong?' asked Kell.

'The Brits knew we were coming. They were waiting for us.'

'Bastards!' spat Kell. Then they were tipped off?'

'Must have been,' said O'Neill.

'Any ideas?'

'No.'

'I'll find the bastard if it's the last thing I do,' said Kell in a way that utterly convinced O'Neill that he would.

'Meanwhile I need the keys to the safe. Do you know where they are?'

'No,’ lied O'Neill. He had a promise to keep before he handed them over. 'Have you checked O'Donnell's room?'

Kell looked at him as if he were mentally defective. 'Of course I've checked O'Donnell's room,' he rasped.

‘They'll turn up', said O'Neill.

'No doubt,' said Kell with a look that sent shivers down O'Neill's spine.

'I'd like to see my sister,' said O'Neill.

'Ah yes, the schoolteacher sister.' Kell smiled and O'Neill thought that he looked even more evil when he did that. 'I don't want her coming here. It's too risky.'

'I heard that there's a Brit plant in the street?'

‘There was. Arm got caught in a hawser winch at the docks. Tore him in half.' Kell smiled again.

'What's to happen to me?' asked O'Neill.

‘The cottage at Cladeen. It will be safe there and your sister can look after you.'

‘Thanks.'

'Anything for my men… Martin.'

The doctor changed the dressing on O'Neill's stump in the morning and seemed optimistic that the risk of infection had passed. He advised waiting another day at the Long House but O'Neill was adamant that he be taken to Cladeen and in the end the doctor agreed. O'Neill travelled in one of the news vans, an uncomfortable journey that lasted three hours, but the thought of fresh air and quiet countryside sustained him.

There was a chill in the evening air when they arrived at the loughside cottage and Neill saw smoke rise from the chimney as they turned off the road to negotiate the narrow track leading to the water's edge. The van started to lurch on the rough surface and O'Neill stopped it, saying that he would rather walk, it would be easier on his arm. He watched while the driver reversed the van up the track, and nodded goodbye before continuing on down to the cottage where Kathleen was waiting. She came to meet him.

'So you came back then?'

'Most of me,’ said O'Neill, nodding to his left shoulder.

Tears started to run down Kathleen O'Neill's face as she looked at O'Neill's bandaged stump.

'Don't,’ said O'Neill softly.

Kathleen came towards him and put her head on his chest. 'I knew it would come to this,’ she said. 'I always knew.'

They went inside the house and O'Neill sat down while Kathleen made tea. 'Or would you like something stronger?' she asked.

‘Tea will be fine.'

As O'Neill sipped his tea Kathleen looked at him and said, 'It's going to be over now, isn't it?'

O'Neill shrugged and said, 'You don't retire from the organisation, you know that. They don't give you an electric toaster and a Teasmade and wish you well with the roses. It's a commitment for life, or until we win freedom.'

'A political commitment! I'm just saying that it's time you left the field, especially now that Kell is in charge.'

'You know then?'

'All Belfast knows.’

'I'm tired,’ said O'Neill.

'Rest then. We'll talk later.'

The subject of O'Neill's 'retirement' came up again as he and Kathleen walked by the lough on the following evening.

'Have you thought about what I said?' asked Kathleen.

O'Neill said that he had.

'Well then?'

'There's something I have to do.'

'Oh there's always going to be something you have to do!' said Kathleen angrily. 'What kind of a life do you think this is? Do you think I enjoy being Martin O'Neill's sister? Do you think I enjoy having soldiers storm into my house whenever they feel like it? Do you think I enjoyed losing every boyfriend I ever had because of who I was? Do you? Do you think I enjoy having parents whisper behind my back and wonder just what kind of woman is teaching their children?'

O'Neill was taken aback at the outburst. 'I thought you understood,’ he said weakly.

Kathleen looked at O'Neill holding the stump of his arm and relented. 'Oh I do,’ she conceded. 'But enough is enough. You can't go on like this. I can't go on like this. You're crip…'

'Crippled,’ said O'Neill, completing the word.

'Yes, crippled,’ said Kathleen quietly. 'You've done your bit. Call it a day.'

'Perhaps you're right,’ said O'Neill.

'Do you mean that?'

'I really do have one more thing to do. It was O'Donnell's last order to me. I promised him just as I am promising you.'

'What was it?'

'You know better than that.’

O'Neill withdrew his arm from the bedclothes and looked at his watch, now painfully aware that it was on his right wrist. He angled it so that it caught the moonlight coming in through the bedroom window. It was three in the morning and he could not sleep for there was too much on his mind. Uppermost was the problem of the safe in the Long House and how he was going to be able to get the envelope from it. He got up quietly and crossed to the window to look out at the waters of the lough. Would the contents of the envelope help him to understand the nature of the order? he wondered. Please God that they would for he was by no means confident that he could carry out such an order without understanding the reason behind it.

There would have to be a reason, a good reason, for O'Neill had never been very good at assuming the good intentions of his superiors. In fact, he had discovered some years before that he possessed entirely the wrong mentality for military life of any sort. He had discovered within himself an inherent weakness that had made him uneasy in the field ever since. As he stood in the pale grey moonlight he thought back to that day, the day of the ambush.

O'Neill and six others had been returning to their farmhouse hideout after an operation near the border and, as always when they returned, they were approaching with caution in case an ambush had been laid for them.

O'Neill had ordered the others to wait while he himself had gone on alone to investigate. As he had lain in the grass watching the huddle of cottages a child had run out into the yard. It had waddled across the dirt with its nose running and a full nappy impeding its knock-kneed gait. O'Neill had waited for its mother to come out and get it but she had not. Instead she had called to it from inside the house and there had been fear in her voice. Fear that had warned O'Neill that she was not alone.

Quite suddenly a British Paratroops officer had come out from the cottage and sprinted over to the child to sweep it up into his arms. He was turning to take it back to its mother when he saw O'Neill pointing the gun at him and froze in his tracks. Their eyes met as O'Neill prepared to fire but did not.

Thinking that O'Neill's reluctance had to do with the child he was holding and, rather than use it as a shield, the officer had put it down gently and shooed it away from him. He had then stood up to face death. The simple gesture of humanity had not been lost on O'Neill. He had lowered the weapon and indicated with the muzzle that the officer should finish what he had started. He had seen the look of puzzlement in the man's eyes and then the slight nod as he picked up the child again and disappeared into the house. O'Neill had returned to tell his group that the hideout had been blown. They could not use it any longer. Humanity or weakness? The question had remained unanswered within O'Neill all these years.