The Savage Day

Jack Higgins

Contents

1. Execution Day

2. Meyer

3. Night Sounds

4. In Harm’s Way

5. Storm Warning

6. Bloody Passage

7. When that man is dead and gone

8. Interrogation

9. Spanish Head

10. Run for your Life

11. The Small Man

12. The Race North

13. May You Die in Ireland

14. Dark Waters

15. Fire from Heaven

Between two groups of men that want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds I see no remedy except force… It seems to me that every society rests on the death of men.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

ONE - Execution Day

They were getting ready to shoot somebody in the inner courtyard, which meant it was Monday because Monday was execution day.

Although my own cell was on the other side of the building, I recognized the signs: a disturbance from those cells in the vicinity from which some prisoners could actually witness the whole proceeding, and then the drums rolling. The commandant liked that.

There was silence, a shouted command, a volley of rifle fire. After a while, the drums started again, a steady beat accompanying the cortege as the dead man was wheeled away, for the commandant liked to preserve the niceties, even on Skarthos, one of the most unlovely places I have visited in my life. A bate rock in the Aegean with an old Turkish fort on top of it containing three thousand political detainees, four hundred troops to guard them and me.

I’d had a month of it, which was exactly four weeks too long and the situation wasn’t improved by the knowledge that some of the others had spent up to two years there without any kind of trial. A prisoner told me on exercise one day that the name of the place was derived from some classical Greek root meaning barren, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest.

Through the bars of my cell you could see the mainland, a smudge on the horizon in the heat haze. Occasionally there was a ship, but too far away to be interesting, for the Greek Navy ensured that most craft gave the place a wide berth. If I craned my head to the left when I peered out there was rock, thorn bushes to the right. Otherwise there was nothing and nothing to do except lie on the straw mattress on the floor, which was exactly what I was doing on that May morning when everything changed.

There was the grate of the key in the lock quite unexpectedly as the midday meal wasn’t served for another three hours, then the door opened and one of the sergeants moved in.

He stirred me with his foot. “Better get up, my friend. Someone to see you.”

Hope springing eternal, I scrambled to my feet as my visitor was ushered in. He was about fifty or so at a guess, medium height, good shoulders, a snow-white moustache, beautifully clipped and trimmed, very blue eyes. He wore a panama, lightweight cream suit, an Academy tie and carried a cane.

He was, or had been, a high ranking officer in the army, I was never more certain of anything in my life. After all, it takes an old soldier to know one.

I almost brought my heels together and he smiled broadly. “At ease, Major. At ease.”

He looked about the cell with some distaste, poked at the bucket in the corner with his cane and grimaced. “You really have got yourself into one hell of a bloody mess, haven’t you ?”

“Are you from the British Embassy in Athens ?” I asked.

He pulled the only stool forward, dusted it and sat down. “They can’t do a thing for you in Athens, Vaughan. You’re going to rot here till the colonels decide to try you. I’ve spoken to the people concerned. In their opinion, you’ll get fifteen years if you’re lucky. Possibly twenty.”

“Thanks very much,” I said. “Most comforting.”

He took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and threw them across. “What do you expect? Guns for the rebels, midnight landings on lonely beaches.” He shook his head. “”What are you, anyway? The last of the romantics?“

“I’d love to think so,” I said. But as it happens, there would have been five thousand pounds waiting for me in Nicosia if I’d pulled it off.“

He nodded. “So I understand.”

I leaned against the wall by the window and looked him over. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Name’s Ferguson,” he said. “Brigadier Harry Ferguson, Royal Corps of Transport.”

Which I doubted, or at least the Corps of Transport bit, for with all due deference to that essential and important branch of the British Army, he just didn’t look the type.

“Simon Vaughan,” I said. “Of course, you’ll know that.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But then I probably know you better than you know yourself.”

I couldn’t let that one pass. “Try me.”

“Fair enough.” He clasped both hands over the knob of his cane. “Fine record at the Academy, second lieutenant in Korea with the Duke’s. You earned a good MC on the Hook, then got knocked off on patrol and spent just over a year in a Chinese prison camp.”

“Very good.”

“According to your file, you successfully withstood the usual brainwashing techniques to which all prisoners were subjected. It was noted, however, that it had left you with a slight tendency to the use of Marxist dialectic in argument.”

“Well, as the old master put it,” I said, “life is the actions of men in pursuit of their ends. You can’t deny that.”

“I liked that book you wrote for the War House after Korea,” he said. ‘A New Concept of Revolutionary Warfare. Aroused a lot of talk at the time. Of course the way you kept quoting from Mao Tse Tung worried a lot of people, but you were right.“

“I nearly always am,” I said. “It’s rather depressing. So few other people seem to realize the fact.”

He carried straight on as if I hadn’t spoken. “That book got you a transfer to Military Intelligence, where you specialized in handling subversives, revolutionary movements generally and so on. The Communists in Malaya, six months chasing Mau Mau in Kenya, then Cyprus and the EOKA. The DSO at the end of that little lot, plus a bullet in the back that nearly finished things.”

“Pitcher to the well,” I said. “You know how it is.”

“And then Borneo and the row with the Indonesians. You commanded a company of native irregulars there and enjoyed great success.”

“Naturally,” I said. “Because we fought the guerrillas on exactly their own terms. The only way,”

“Quite right, and now the climax of the tragedy. March 1963, to be precise. The area around Kota Baru was rotten with Communist terrorists. The powers that be told you to go in and clear them out once and for all.”

“And no one can say I failed to do that,” I said with some bitterness.

“What was it the papers called you. The Beast of Selengar? A man who ordered the shooting of many prisoners, who interrogated and tortured captives in custody. I suppose it was your medals that saved you and that year in prison camp must have been useful. The psychiatrists managed to do a lot with that. At least you weren’t cashiered.”

“Previous gallant conduct,” I said. “Must remember his father. Do what we can.”

“And since then, what have we ? A mercenary in Trucial Oman and the Yemen. Three months doing the same thing in the Sudan and lucky to get out with your life. Since 1966, you’ve worked as an agent for several arms dealers, mostly legitimate. Thwaite and Simpson, Franz Baumann, Mackenzie Brown and Julius Meyer amongst others.”

“Nothing wrong with that. The British Government makes several hundred million pounds a year out of the manufacture and sale of arms.”

“Only they don’t try to run them into someone else’s country by night to give aid and succour to the enemies of the official government.”

“Come off it,” I said. “That’s exactly what they’ve been doing for years.”

He laughed and slapped his knee with one hand. “Damn it all, Vaughan, but I like you. I really do.”

“What, the Beast of Selengar?”

“Good God, boy, do you think I was born yesterday? I know what happened out there. What really happened. You were told to clear the last terrorist out of Kota Baru and you did just that. A little ruthlessly perhaps, but you did it. Your superiors heaved a sigh of relief, then threw you to the wolves.“

“Leaving me with the satisfaction of knowing that I did my duty.”

He smiled. “I can see we’re going to get along just fine. Did I tell you I knew your father ?”

I’m sure you did,“ I said. ”But just now I’d much rather know what in the hell you’re after, Brigadier.“

“I want you to come and work for me. In exchange, I’ll get you out of here. The slate wiped clean.” ‘Just like that?“

“Quite reasonable people to deal with, the Greeks, if one knows how.”

“And what would I have to do in return ?” ‘Oh, that’s simple,“ he said. I’d like you to take on the IRA in Northern Ireland for us.”

Which was the kind of remark calculated to take the wind out of anyone’s sails and I stared at him incredulously.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I can’t think of anyone better qualified. Look at it this way. You spent years in Intelligence working against urban guerrillas, Marxists, anarchists, revolutionaries of every sort, the whole bagshoot. You know how their minds work. You’re perfectly at home fighting the kind of war where the battlefield is back alleys and rooftops. You’re tough, resourceful and quite ruthless, which you’ll need to be if you’re to survive five minutes with this lot, believe me.”

“Nothing like making it sound attractive.”

“And then, you do have one or two special qualifications, you must admit that. You speak Irish, I understand, thanks to your mother, which is more than most Irishmen do. And then there was that uncle of yours. The one who commanded a flying column for the IRA in the old days.“

“Michael Fitzgerald,” I said. “The Schoolmaster of Stradballa.”

He raised his eyebrows at that one. “My God, but they do like their legends, don’t they ? On the other hand, the fact that you’re a half-and-half must surely be some advantage.”

“You mean it might help me to understand what goes on in those rather simple peasant minds ?”

He wasn’t in the least put out. “I must say I’m damned if I can sometimes.”

“Which is exactly why they’ve been trying to kick us out for the past seven hundred years.”

He raised his eyebrows at that and there was a touch of frost in his voice. “An interesting remark, Vaughan. One which certainly makes me wonder exactly where you stand on this question.”

“I don’t take sides,” I said. “Not any more. Just tell me what you expect. If I can justify it to myself, I’ll take it on.”

“And if you can’t, you’ll sit here for another fifteen years ?” He shook his head. “Oh, I doubt that, Major. I doubt that very much indeed.”

And there was the rub, for I did myself. I took another of his cigarettes and said wearily, “All right, Brigadier, what’s it all about?”

==========

“The Army is at war with the IRA, it’s as simple as that.”

“Or as complicated.”

“Exactly. When we first moved troops in during ‘69 it was to protect a Catholic minority who had certain just grievances, one must admit that.”

“And since then?”

“The worst kind of escalation. Palestine, Aden, Cyprus. Exactly the same only worse. Increasing violence, planned assassinations, the kind of mad bombing incidents that usually harm innocent civilians more than the Army.”

“The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize,” I said. “The only way a small country can take on an empire and win. That was one of Michael Collins’s favourite sayings.”

I’m not surprised. To make things even more difficult at the moment, the IRA itself is split down the middle. One half call themselves official and seem to have swung rather to the left politically.“

“How far?”

“As far as you like. The other lot, the pure nationalists, Provisional, Proves, Bradyites, call them what you like, are the ones who are supposed to be responsible for all the physical action.”

“And aren’t they?”

“Not at all. The official IRA is just as much in favour of violence when it suits them. And then there are the splinter groups. Fanatical fringe elements who want to shoot everyone in sight. The worst of that little lot is a group called the Sons of Erin led by a man called Frank Barry.”

“And what about the other side ? I asked. ”The Ulster Volunteer Force?“

“Don’t even mention them,” he said feelingly. “If they ever decide to take a hand, it will be civil war and the kind of bloodbath that would be simply too hideous to contemplate. No, the immediate task is to defeat terrorism. That’s the Army’s job. It’s up to the politicians to sort things out afterwards.“

“And what am I supposed to be able to achieve that the whole of Military Intelligence can’t?”

“Everything or nothing. It all depends. The IRA needs money if it’s to be in a position to buy arms on anything like a large enough scale. They got their hands on some in rather a big way about five weeks ago.”

“What happened?”

“The night mail boat from Belfast to Glasgow was hijacked by half-a-dozen men.”

“Who were they? Proves ?”

“No, they were led by a man we’ve been after for years. A real old-timer. Must be sixty if he’s a day. Michael Cork. The Small Man, they call him. Another of those Irish jokes as he’s reputed to be over six feet in height.”

“Reputed?”

“Except for a two-year sentence when he was seventeen or eighteen, he hasn’t been in custody since. He did spend a considerable period in America, but the simple truth is we haven’t the slightest idea what he looks like.”

“So what happened on the mail boat ?”

“Cork and his men forced the captain to rendezvous off the coast with a fifty-foot diesel motor yacht. They offloaded just over half a million pounds’ worth of gold bullion.”

“And slipped quietly away into the night?”

“Not quite. They clashed with a Royal Navy MTB early the following morning near Rathlin Island, but managed to get away under cover of fog, though the officer in command thinks they were in a sinking condition.”

Were they sighted anywhere else?“

“A rubber dinghy was found on a beach near Stramore, which is a fishing port on the mainland coast south of Rathlin, and several bodies were washed up during the week that followed.“

“And you think Michael Cork survived ?”

“We know he did. In fact, thanks to that grand old Irish institution, the informer, we know exactly what happened. Cork was the only survivor. He sank the boat in a place of his own choosing, landed near Stramore in that rubber dinghy and promptly disappeared with his usual sleight of hand.”

I moved to the window and looked out over the blue Aegean and thought of that boat lying on the bottom up there in those cold grey northern waters.

“He could do a lot with that kind of money.”

“An approach has already been made in his name to a London-based arms dealer who had the sense to contact the proper authorities at once.”

“Who was it? Anyone I know?”

“Julius Meyer. You’ve acted for him on several occasions in the past, I believe.”

“Old Meyer?” I laughed out loud. “Now there’s a slippery customer if you like. I wonder why they chose him?”

“Oh, I should have thought he had just the right kind of shady reputation,” the Brigadier said. “He’s been in trouble often enough, God knows. There was all that fuss with the Spanish Government last year when it came out that he’d been selling guns to the Free Basque movement. He was on every front page in the country for a day or two. The kind of thing interested parties would remember.”

Which made sense. I said, “And where do I fit in ?”

“You simply do exactly what you’ve done in the past. Act as Meyer’s agent in this matter. They should find you perfectly acceptable. After all, your past stinks to high heaven very satisfactorily.“

"Nice of you to say so. And what if I’m asked to act in a mercenary capacity? To give instruction in the handling of certain weapons. That can sometimes happen, you know.“

“I hope it does. I want you in there up to your ears, as close to the heart of things as possible, because we want that gold, Vaughan. We can’t allow them to hang on to a bank like that, so that’s your primary task. To find out exactly where it is.”

“Anything else?”

“Any information you can glean about the Organization, faces, names, places. All that goes without saying, and it would be rather nice if you could get Michael Cork for us if the opportunity arises, or indeed anyone else of similar persuasion that you meet along the way.”

I said slowly, “And what exactly do you mean by ”get“?”

“Don’t fool about with me, boy,” he said, and there was iron in his voice. “You know exactly what I mean. If Cork and his friends want to play these kind of games then they must accept the consequences.”

“I see. And where does Meyer fit into all this ?”

“He’ll co-operate in full. Go to Northern Ireland when necessary. Assist you in any way he can.”

“And how did you achieve that small miracle? As I remember Meyer, he was always for the quiet life.”

“A simple question of the annual renewal of his licence to trade in arms,” the Brigadier said. “There is one thing I must stress, by the way. Although you will be paid the remuneration plus allowances suitable to your rank, there can be no question of your being restored to the active list officially.”

“In other words, if I land up in the gutter with a bullet through the head, I’m just another corpse?”

“Exactly.” He stood up briskly and adjusted his panama. “But I’ve really talked for quite long enough and the governor’s laid on an MTB to run me back to Athens in half an hour. So what’s it to be? A little action and passion or another fifteen years of this ?”

He gestured around the cell with his cane. I said, “Do I really have a choice ?”

“Sensible lad,” He smiled broadly and rapped on the door. “We’d better get moving then.”

“What, now?”

“I brought a signed release paper with me from Athens.”

“You were that certain ?”

He shrugged. “Let’s say it seemed more than likely that you’d see things my way.”

The key turned in the lock and the door opened, the sergeant saluted formally and stood to one side.

The Brigadier started forward and I said, “Just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You did say Royal Corps of Transport?”

He smiled beautifully. “A most essential part of the Service, my dear Simon. I should have thought you would have recognized that. Now come along. We really are going to cut it most awfully fine for the RAF plane I’ve laid on from Athens.”

So it was Simon now ? He moved out into the corridor and the sergeant stood waiting patiently as I glanced around the cell. The prospect was not exactly bright, but after all, anything was better than this.

He called my name impatiently once more from halfway up the stairs, I moved out and the door clanged shut behind me.

TWO - Meyer

I first met Julius Meyer in one of the smaller of the Trucial Oman States in June, 1966. A place called Rubat, which boasted a sultan, one port town and around forty thousand square miles of very unattractive desert which was inhabited by what are usually referred to in military circles as dissident tribesmen.

The whole place had little to commend it except its oil, which did mean that besides the sultan’s three Rolls-Royces, two Mercedes and one Cadillac, our American friends not being so popular in the area that year, he could also afford a Chief of Police and I was glad of the work, however temporary the political situation made it look.

I was called up to the palace in a hurry one afternoon by the sultan’s chief minister, Hamal, who also happened to be his nephew. The whole thing was something of a surprise as it was the sort of place where nobody made a move during the heat of the day.

When I went into his office, I found him seated at his desk opposite Meyer. I never did know Meyer’s age for he was one of those men who looked a permanent sixty.

Hamal said, “Ah, Major Vaughan, this is Mr Julius Meyer.”

“Mr Meyer,” I said politely.

“You will arrest him immediately and hold him in close confinement at central police headquarters until you hear from me.”

Meyer peered shortsightedly at me through steel-rimmed spectacles. With his shock of untidy grey hair, the fraying collar, the shabby linen suit, he looked more like an unsuccessful musician than anything else. It was much later when I discovered that all these things were supposed to make him look poor, which he certainly was not.

“What’s the charge?” I asked.

Import of arms without a licence. I’ll give you the details later Now get him out of here. I’ve got work to do.“

On the way to town in the jeep, Meyer wiped sweat from his face ceaselessly. “A terrible, terrible thing all this deceit in life, my friend,” he said at one point. “I mean, it’s really getting to the stage where one can’t trust anybody.”

“Would you by any chance be referring to our respected Chief Minister ?” I asked him.

He became extremely agitated, flapping his arms up and down like some great shabby white bird. “I came in from Djibouti this morning with five thousand MI carbines, all in excellent condition, perfect goods. Fifty Bren guns, twenty thousand rounds of ammunition, all to his order.“

“What happened?”

“You know what happened. He refuses to pay, has me arrested.” He glanced at me furtively, tried to smile and failed miserably. “This charge. What happens if he can make it stick? What’s the penalty?”

“This was a British colony for years so they favour hanging. The Sultan likes to put on a public show in the main square, just to encourage the others.”

“My God!” He groaned in anguish. “From now on, I use an agent, I swear it.”

Which, in other circumstances, would have made me laugh out loud.

==========

I had Meyer locked up, as per instructions, then went to my office and gave the whole business very careful thought which, knowing my Hamal, took all of five minutes.

Having reached the inescapable conclusion that there was something very rotten indeed in the state of Rubat, I left the office and drove down to the waterfront where I checked that our brand new fifty-foot diesel police launch was ready for sea, tanks full.

The bank, unfortunately, was closed, so I went immediately to my rather pleasant little house on the edge of town and recovered from the corner of the garden by the cistern, the steel cash box containing five thousand dollars mad money put by for a rainy day.

As I started back to town, there was a rattle of machine-gun fire from the general direction of the palace, which was comforting, if only because it proved that my judgement was still unimpaired, Rubat, the heat and the atmosphere of general decay notwithstanding.

I called in at police headquarters on my way down to the harbour and discovered, without any particular sense of surprise, that there wasn’t a man left in the place except Meyer, whom I found standing at the window of his cell listening to the sound of small arms fire when I unlocked the door.

He turned immediately and there was a certain relief on his face when he saw who it was. “Hamal ?” he enquired.

“He never was one to let the grass grow under his feet,” I said. “Comes of having been a prefect at Winchester. You don’t look too good. I suggest a long sea voyage.”

He almost fell over himself in his eagerness to get past me through the door.

==========

As we moved out of harbour, a column of black smoke ascended into the hot afternoon air from the palace. Standing beside me in the wheelhouse, Meyer shook his head and sighed.

“We live in an uncertain world, my friend.” And then, dismissing Rubat and its affairs completely, he went on, “How good is this boat? Can we reach Djibouti?”

“Easily.”

“Excellent. I have first class contacts there. We can even sell the boat. Some slight recompense for my loss and I’ve a little matter of business coming up in the Somali Republic that you might be able to help me with.”

What sort of business ?“

“The two thousand pounds a month kind,” he replied calmly.

Which was enough to shut anyone up. He produced a small cassette tape-recorder from one of his pockets, put it on the chart table and turned it on.

The band which started playing had the unmistakably nostalgic sound of the ‘thirties and so did the singer who joined in a few minutes later, assuring me that Every Day’s A Lucky Day. There was complete repose on Meyer’s face as he listened.

I said, “Who in the hell is that?” ‘Al Bowlly,“ he said simply. ”The best there ever was,“ The start of a beautiful friendship in more ways than one.

==========

I was reminded of that first meeting when I went down to Meyer’s Wapping warehouse on the morning following my arrival back in England from Greece, courtesy of Ferguson and RAF Transport Command, and for the most obvious of reasons. When I opened the little judas gate in the main entrance and stepped inside, Al Bowlly’s voice drifted like some ghostly echo out of the half-darkness to tell me that Everything I Have Is Yours.

It was strangely appropriate, considering the setting, for in that one warehouse Meyer really did have just about every possible thing you could think of in the arms line. In fact, it had always been a source of mystery to me how he managed to cope with the fire department inspectors, for on occasion he had enough explosives in there to blow up a sizeable part of London.

“Meyer, are you there?” I called, puzzled by the lack of staff.

I moved through the gloom between two rows of shelving crammed with boxes of .303 ammunition and rifle grenades. There was a flight of steel steps leading up to a landing above, more shelves, rows and rows of old Enfields.

Al Bowlly faded and Meyer appeared at the rail. Who is it?“

He had that usual rather hunted look about him as if he expected the Gestapo to descend at any moment, which at one time in his youth had been a distinct possibility. He wore the same steel-rimmed spectacles he’d had on at our first meeting and the crumpled blue suit was well up to his usual standard of shabbiness.

“Simon ?” he said. “Is that you ?”

He started down the steps. I said, “Where is everyone ?”

“I gave them the day off. Thought it best when Ferguson telephoned. Where is he, by the way?”

“He’ll be along.”

He took off his glasses, polished them, put them back on and inspected me thoroughly. “They didn’t lean on you too hard in that place?”

“Skarthos?” I shook my head. “Just being there was enough. How’s business ?”

He spread his hands in an inimitable gesture and led the way towards his office at the other end of the warehouse. “How can I complain? The world gets more violent day by day.”

We went into the tiny cluttered office and he produced a bottle of the cheapest possible British sherry and poured the ritual couple of drinks. It tasted like sweet varnish, but I got it down manfully.

“This man Ferguson,” he said as he finished. “A devil. A cold-blooded, calculating devil.”

“He certainly knows what he wants.”

“He blackmailed me, Simon. Me, a citizen all these years. I pay my taxes, don’t I? I behave myself. When these Irish nutcases approach me to do a deal, I go to the authorities straight away.”

“Highly commendable,” I said and poured myself another glass of that dreadful sherry.

“And what thanks do I get? This Ferguson walks in here and gives me the business. Either I play the game the way he wants it or I lose my licence to trade. Is that fair ? Is that British justice ?“

“Sounds like a pretty recognizable facsimile of it to me,” I told him.

He was almost angry, but not quite. “Why is everything such a big joke to you, Simon? Is our present situation funny ? Is death funny ?”

“The sensible man’s way of staying sane in a world gone mad,” I said.

He considered the point and managed one of those funny little smiles of his. “Maybe you’ve got something there. I’ll try it - I’ll definitely try it, but what about Ferguson ?”

“He’ll be along. You’ll know the worst soon enough.” I sat on the edge of his desk and helped myself to one of the Turkish cigarettes he kept in a sandalwood box for special customers. “What have you got that works with a silencer ? Really works.”

He was all business now. “Handgun or what?”

“And sub-machine-gun.”

“We’ll go downstairs,” he said. “I think I can fix you up.”

==========

The Mk IIS Sten sub-machine-gun was especially developed during the war for use with commando units and resistance groups. It was also used with considerable success by British troops on night patrol work during the Korean war.

It was, indeed still is, a remarkable weapon, its silencing unit absorbing the noise of the bullet explosions to an amazing degree. The only sound when firing is the clicking of the bolt as it goes backwards and forwards and this can seldom be heard beyond a range of twenty yards or so.

Many more were manufactured than is generally realized and as they were quite unique in their field, the reason for the lack of production over the years has always been something of a mystery to me.

The one I held in my hands in Meyer’s basement firing range was a mint specimen. There was a row of targets at the far end, life-size replicas of charging soldiers of indeterminate nationality, all wearing camouflaged uniforms. I emptied a thirty-two round magazine into the first five, working from left to right. It was an uncomfortably eerie experience to see the bullets shredding the target and to hear only the clicking of the bolt.

Meyer said, “Remember, full automatic only in a real emergency. They tend to overheat otherwise.”

A superfluous piece of information as I’d used the things in action in Korea, but I contented myself with laying the Sten down and saying mildly, “What about a handgun ?”

I thought he looked pleased with himself and I saw why a moment later when he produced a tin box, opened it and took out what appeared to be a normal automatic pistol, except that the barrel was of a rather strange design.

“I could get a packet from any collector for this little item,” he said. “Chinese Communist silenced pistol. 7.65 mm.”

It was certainly new to me. “How does it work?”

It was ingenious enough. Used as a semi-automatic, there was only the sound of the slide reciprocating and the cartridge cases ejecting, but it could also be used to fire a single shot with complete silence.

I tried a couple of rounds. Meyer said, “You like it?”

Before we could take it any further, there was a foot on the stairs and Ferguson moved out of the darkness. He was wearing a dark grey double-breasted suit, Academy tie, bowler hat and carried a briefcase.

“So there you are,” he said. “What’s all this ?”

He came forward and put his briefcase down on the table, then he took the pistol from me, sighted casually and fired. The result was as I might have expected. No fancy shooting through the shoulder or hand. Just a bullet dead centre in the belly, painful but certain.

He put the gun down on the table and glanced at his watch. “I’ve got exactly ten minutes, then I must be on my way to the War House so let’s get down to business. Meyer, have you filled him in on your end yet?”

“You told me to wait.”

I’m here now.“

“Okay.” Meyer shrugged and turned to me. “I had a final meeting with the London agent for these people yesterday. I’ve told him it would be possible to run the stuff over from Oban.”

“Possible ?” I said. “That must be the understatement of this or any other year.”

Meyer carried straight on as if I hadn’t interrupted. “I’ve arranged for you to act as my agent in the matter. There’s to be a preliminary meeting in Belfast on Monday night. They’re expecting both of us.”

“Who are?”

I’m not certain. Possibly this official IRA leader himself, Michael Cork.“

I glanced at the Brigadier. “Your Small Man ?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but we don’t really know. All we can say for certain is that you should get some sort of direct lead to him, whatever happens.”

“And what do I do between now and Monday?”

“Go to Oban and get hold of the right kind of boat.” He opened the briefcase and took out an envelope which he pushed across the table. “You’ll find a thousand pounds in there. Let’s call it working capital.” He turned to Meyer. I’m aware that such an amount is small beer to a man of your assets, Mr Meyer, but we wanted to be fair.“

Meyer’s hand fastened on the envelope. “Money is important, Brigadier, let nobody fool you. I never turned down a grand in my life.”

Ferguson turned back to me. It seemed to me that the most obvious place for your landing when you make the run will be the north Antrim coast, so Meyer will rent a house in the area. He’ll act as a link man between us once you’ve arrived and are in the thick of it.“ ‘You intend to be there yourself?” ’Somewhere at hand, just in case I’m needed, but one thing must be stressed. On no account are you to approach the military or police authorities in the area.“ No matter what happens ?”

You’re on your own, Simon,“ he said. "Better get used to the idea. I’ll help all I can at the right moment, but until then…‘

“I think I get the drift,” I said. “This is one of those jolly little operations that will have everybody from cabinet level down clapping their hands with glee if it works.”

“And howling for your blood if it doesn’t,” he said and patted me on the shoulder. “But I have every confidence in you, Simon. It’s going to work, you’ll see.”

At the moment, I can’t think of a single reason why it should, but thanks for the vote of confidence.“

He dosed his briefcase and picked it up. “Just remember one thing. Michael Cork may be what some people would term an old-fashioned revolutionary and I think they’re probably right. In other words, he and his kind don’t approve of the indiscriminate slaughter of the innocent for political ends.“

“But he’ll kill me if he has to, is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Without a second’s hesitation.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Must rush now, but do promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

‘Get yourself a decent gun.“ He picked up the silenced pistol, weighed it in his hand and dropped it on the table. ”Load of Hong Kong rubbish.“

“This one is by way of Peking,” I told him.

“All the bloody same,” he said cheerfully and faded into the darkness. We heard him on the stair for a moment and then he was gone.

Meyer walked up and down, flapping his arms again, extremely agitated. “He makes me feel so uncomfortable. Why does he make me feel this way ?”

“He went to what some people would term the right school. You didn’t.”

“Rubbish,” he said. “You went to the right schools and with you I feel fine.”

“My mother was Irish,” I said. “You’re forgetting. My one saving grace.” I tried another couple of shots with the Chinese pistol and shook my head. “Ferguson is right. Put this back in the Christmas cracker where you found it and get me a real gun.”

“Such as?”

“What about a Mauser 7.63 mm Model 1932 with the bulbous silencer? The kind they manufactured for German counter-intelligence during the second war. There must still be one or two around ?”

“Why not ask me for the gold from my teeth while you’re about it ? It’s impossible. Where will I find such a thing these days?”

“Oh, you’ll manage,” I said. “You always do.” I held out my hand. “If you’ll give me my share of the loot I’ll be on my way. Oban is not just another station on the Brighton line, you know. It’s on the north-west coast of Scotland.”

“Do I need a geography lesson?”

He counted out five hundred pounds, grumbling, sweat on his face as there always was when he handled money. I stowed it away in my inside breast pocket,

“When will you be back?” he asked.

"I'll try for the day after tomorrow.“

He followed me up the stairs and we paused at the door of his office. He said awkwardly, “Look after yourself then.”

It was as near as he could get to any demonstration of affection. I said, “Don’t I always ?”

As I walked away, he went into his office and a moment later Al Bowlly was giving me a musical farewell all the way to the door.

THREE - Night Sounds

They started shooting again as I turned the corner, the rattle of small arms fire drifting across the water through the fog from somewhere in the heart of the city. It was echoed almost immediately by a heavy machine-gun. Probably an armoured car opening up with its Browning in reply.

Belfast night sounds. Common enough these days, God knows, but over here on this part of the docks it was as quiet as the grave. Only the gurgle of water amongst the wharf pilings to accompany me as I moved along the cobbled street past a row of warehouses.

I didn’t see a soul, which was hardly surprising for it was the sort of place to be hurried through if it had to be visited at all and they’d obviously had their troubles.

Most of the street-lamps were smashed, a warehouse a little further on had been burnt to the ground, and at one point rubble and broken glass carpeted the street.

I picked my way through and found what I was looking for on the next corner, a large Victorian public house, the light in its windows the first sign of life I’d seen in the whole area.

The name was etched in acid on the frosted glass panel by the entrance: Cohan’s Select Bar. An arguable point from the look of the place, but I pushed open the door and went in anyway.

I found myself in a long narrow room, the far end shrouded in shadow. There was a small coal fire on the left, two or three tables and some chairs, and not much else except the old marble-topped bar with a mirror behind it that must have been quite something when clipper ships still used Belfast docks. Now it was cracked in a dozen places, the gold leaf on the ornate frame flaking away to reveal cheap plaster. As used by life as the man who leaned against the beer pumps reading a newspaper.

He looked older than he probably was, but that would be the drink if the breath on him was anything to go by. The neck above the collarless shirt was seamed with dirt and he scratched the stubble on his chin nervously as he watched me approach.

He managed a smile when I was close enough. “Good night to you, sir. And what’s it to be?”

“Oh, a Jameson, I think,” I said. “A large one. The kind of night for it.”

He went very still, staring at me, mouth gaping a little and he was no longer smiling. “English, is it?” he whispered. That’s right. Another of those fascist beasts from across the water, although I suppose that depends upon which side you’re on.“

I put a cigarette in my mouth and he produced a box of matches hastily and gave me a light, his hands shaking. I held his wrist to steady the flame.

“You’re quiet enough in here in all conscience. Where is everybody ?”

There was a movement behind me, the softest of footfalls, wind over grass in a forest at nightfall, no more than that. Someone said quietly, “And who but a fool would be abroad at night in times like these when he could be safe home, Major?”

He had emerged from the shadows at the end of the room, hands deep in the pockets of a dark blue double-breasted Melton overcoat of a kind much favoured by undertakers, the collar turned up about his neck.

Five foot two or three at the most, I took him for little more than a boy in years at least, although the white devil’s face on him beneath the peak of the tweed cap, the dark eyes that seemed perpetually fixed on eternity, hinted at something more. A soul in torment if ever I’d seen one.

“You’re a long way from Kerry,” I said.

“And how would you be knowing that?”

“I mind the accent, isn’t that what they say ? My mother, God rest her, was from Stradballa.”

Something moved in his eyes then. Surprise, I suppose, although I was to learn that he seldom responded with any kind of emotion to anything. In any event, before he could reply, a voice called softly from the shadows, “Bring the major down here, Binnie.”

There was a row of wooden booths, each with its own frosted glass door to ensure privacy, another relic of Victorian times. A young woman sat at a table in the end one. She wore an old trenchcoat and headscarf, but it was difficult to see much more than that.

Binnie ran his hands over me from behind, presumably looking for some sort of concealed weapon, giving me no more than three opportunities of jumping him had I been so disposed.

“Satisfied ?” I demanded. He moved back and I turned to the girl. “Simon Vaughan.”

"I know who you are well enough.“ ‘And there you have the advantage of me.” ’Norah Murphy.“

More American than Irish to judge from the voice. An evening for surprises. I said, “And are you for the Oban boat, Miss Murphy?” ‘And back again.“

Which disposed of the formalities satisfactorily and I pulled a chair back from the table and sat down.

I offered her a cigarette and, when I gave her a light, the match flaring in my cupped hands pulled her face out of the shadows for a moment. Dark, empty eyes, high cheekbones, a wide, rather sensual mouth.

As the match died she said, “You seem surprised.” ‘I suppose I expected a man.“

“Your sort would,” she said with a trace of bitterness. “Ah, the arrogant Englishman, you mean ? The toe of his boot for a dog and a whip for a woman. Isn’t that the saying ? I would have thought it had possibilities.”

She surprised me by laughing although I suspect it was in spite of herself. “Give the man his whiskey, Binnie, and make sure it’s a Jameson. The Major always drinks Jameson.”

He moved to the bar. I said, “Who’s your friend?” ‘His name is Gallagher, Major Vaughan. Binnie Gallagher.“

“Young for his trade.”

“But old for his age.”

He put the bottle and single glass on the table and leaned against the partition at one side, arms folded. I poured a drink and said, “Well, now, Miss Murphy, you seem to know all about me.”

“Simon Vaughan, born 1931, Delhi. Father a colonel in the Indian Army. Mother, Irish.”

“More shame to her,” I put in.

She ignored the remark and carried on. “Winchester, Sandhurst. Military Cross with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in Korea, 1953. They must have been proud of you at the Academy. Officer, gentleman, murderer.”

The American accent was more noticeable now along with the anger in her voice. There was a rather obvious pause as they both waited for some sort of reaction. When I moved, it was only to reach for the whiskey bottle, but it was enough for Binnie whose hand was inside his coat on the instant.

“Watch yourself,” he said.

“I can handle this one,” she replied.

I couldn’t be certain that the whole thing wasn’t some prearranged ploy intended simply to test me, but the fact that they’d spoken in Irish was interesting and it occurred to me that if the Murphy girl knew as much about me as she seemed to she would be well aware that I spoke the language rather well myself, thanks to my mother.

I poured another drink and said to Binnie in Irish, “How old are you, boy?”

He answered in a kind of reflex, “Nineteen.”

“If you’re faced with a search, you can always dump a gun fast, but a shoulder holster…‘ I shook my head. ”Get rid of it or you won’t see twenty.“

There was something in his eyes again, but it was the girl who answered for him, in English this time. “You should listen to the Major, Binnie. He’s had a lot of practice at that kind of thing.”

“You said something about my being a murderer?” I said.

“Borneo, 1963. A place called Selengar. You had fourteen guerrillas executed whose only crime was fighting for the freedom of their country.”

“A debatable point considering the fact that they were all Communist Chinese,” I said.

She ignored me completely. “Then there was a Mr Hui Li whom you had tortured and beaten for several hours. Shot while trying to escape. The newspapers called you the Beast of Selengar, but the War Office didn’t want a stink so they put the lid on tight.”

I actually managed a smile. “Poor Simon Vaughan. Never did really recover from the eighteen months he spent in that Chinese prison camp in Korea.”

“So they didn’t actually cashier you. They eased you out.”

“Only the mud stuck.” ‘And now you sell guns.“

“To people like you.” I raised my glass and said gaily, “Up the Republic.” ‘Exactly,“ she said.

“Then what are we complaining about?” I took the rest of my whiskey down carefully. “Mr Meyer is waiting to see you not far from here. He simply wanted me to meet you first as a - a precautionary measure.”

“We know exactly where Mr Meyer is staying. In a hotel in Lurgan Street. You have room fifty-three at the Grand Central.”

“Only the best,” I said. “It’s that public school education, you see. Now poor old Meyer, on the other hand, can never forget getting out of Germany in what he stood up in back in ‘38 so he saves his money.“

Behind us the outside door burst open and a group of young men entered the bar.

==========

There were four of them, all dressed exactly alike in leather boots, jeans and donkey jackets. Some sort of uniform, I suppose, a sign that you belonged. That it was everyone else who was the outsider. The faces and the manner of them as they swaggered in told all. Vicious young animals of a type to be found in any large city in the world from Belfast to Delhi and back again.

They were trouble and the barman knew it, his face sagging as they paused inside the door to look round, then started towards the bar, a red-haired lad of seventeen or eighteen leading the way, a smile on his face of entirely the wrong sort.

“Quiet tonight" he said cheerfully when he got close.

The barman nodded nervously. “What can I get you ?”

The red-haired boy stood, hands on the bar, his friends ranged behind him. “We’re collecting for the new church hall at St Michael’s. Everyone else in the district’s chipping in and we knew you wouldn’t like to be left out.” He glanced around the bar again. “We were going to ask for fifty, but I can see things aren’t so good so we’ll make it twenty-five quid and leave it at that.”

One of his friends reached over the bar, helped himself to a pint pot and pumped out a beer.

The barman said slowly. “They aren’t building any church hall at St Mick’s.”

The red-haired boy glanced at his friends enquiringly, then nodded gravely. “Fair enough,” he said. “The truth, then. We’re from the IRA. We’re collecting for the Organization. More guns to fight the bloody British Army with. We need every penny we can get.“

“God save us,” the barman said. “But there isn’t three quid in the till. I’ve never known trade as bad.”

The red-haired boy slapped him solidly across the face, sending him back against the shelves, three or four glasses bouncing to the floor.

“Twenty-five quid,” he said. “Or we smash the place up. Take your choice.”

Binnie Gallagher brushed past me like a wraith. He moved in behind them without a word. He stood there waiting, shoulders hunched, the hands thrust deep into the pockets of the dark overcoat.

The red-haired boy saw him first and turned slowly. “And who the hell might you be, little man ?”

Binnie looked up and I saw him clearly in the mirror, dark eyes burning in that white face. The four of them eased round a little, ready to move in on him and I reached for the bottle of Jameson.

Norah Murphy put a hand on my arm. “He doesn’t need you,” she said quietly.

“My dear girl, I only wanted a drink,” I murmured and poured myself another.

“The IRA, is it?” Binnie said.

The red-haired boy glanced at his friends, for the first time slightly uncertain. “What’s it to you ?”

“I’m a lieutenant in the North Tyrone Brigade myself,” Binnie said. “Who are you lads ?”

One of them made a break for the door on the instant and incrediblys a gun was in Binnie’s left hand, a 9 mm Browning automatic that looked like British Army issue to me. With that gun in his hand, he became another person entirely. A man to frighten the devil himself. A natural born killer if ever I’d seen one.

The four of them cowered against the bar, utterly terrified. Binnie said coldly, “Lads are out in the streets tonight spilling their blood for Ireland and bastards like you spit on their good name.”

“For Christ’s sake,” the red-haired boy said. “We didn’t mean no harm.”

Binnie kicked him in the crutch, the boy sagged at the knees, turned and clutched at the bar with one hand to stop himself from falling. Binnie reversed his grip on the Browning, the butt rose and fell like a hammer on the back of that outstretched hand and I heard the bones crack. The boy gave a terrible groan and slipped to the floor, half-fainting, at the feet of his horrified companions.

Binnie’s right foot swung back as if to finish him off with a kick in the side of the head and Norah Murphy called sharply, “That’s enough.”

He stepped back instantly like a well-trained dog and stood watching, the Browning flat against his left thigh. Norah Murphy moved past me and went to join them and I noticed that she was carrying in her right hand a square, flat case which she placed on the bar.

Tick him up,“ she said.

The injured boy’s companions did as they were told, holding him between them while she examined the hand. I poured myself another Jameson and joined the group as she opened the case. The most interesting item on display was a stethoscope and she rummaged around and finally produced a large triangular sling which she tied about the boy’s neck to support the injured hand.

“Take him into Casualty at the Infirmary,” she said. “He’ll need a plaster cast.”

“And keep your mouth shut,” Binnie put in.

They went out on the run, the injured boy’s feet dragging between them. The door closed and there was only the silence.

As Norah Murphy reached for the case I said, “Is that just a front or the real thing?”

“Would Harvard Medical School be good enough for you?” she demanded.

“Fascinating,” I said. “Our friend here breaks them up and you put them together again. That’s what I call teamwork.”

She didn’t like that for she turned very pale and snapped the fastener of her case together angrily, but I think she had determined not to lose her temper.

“All right, Major Vaughan,” she said. “I don’t like you either. Shall we go ?”

She moved towards the door. I turned and placed my glass on the counter in front of the barman, who was standing there waiting for God knows what axe to fell. Binnie said, You’ve seen nothing, heard nothing. All right?“

There was no need to threaten and the poor wretch nodded dumbly, his lip trembling. And then, quite suddenly, he collapsed across the bar and started to cry.

Binnie surprised me then by patting him on the shoulder and saying with astonishing gentleness, “Better times coming, Da. Just you see.”

But if the barman believed that, then I was the only sane man in a world gone mad.

==========

It had started to rain and fog rolled in across the docks as we moved along the waterfront, Norah Murphy at my side, Binnie bringing up the rear rather obviously. Neither of them said a word until we were perhaps half way to our destination when Norah Murphy paused at the end of a mean street of terrace houses and turned to Binnie. “I’ve a patient I must see here. I promised to drop a prescription in this evening. Five minutes.”

She ignored me and walked away down the street, pausing at the third or fourth door to knock briskly. She was admitted almost at once and Binnie and I moved into the shelter of an arched passageway between two houses. I offered him a cigarette which he refused. I lit one myself and leaned against the wall.

After a while he said, “Your mother - what was her maiden name ?”

“Fitzgerald,” I told him. “Nuala Fitzgerald.”

He turned, his face a pale shadow in the darkness. “There was a man of the same name schoolmaster at Stradballa during the Troubles.”

“Her elder brother,” I said.

He leaned closer as if trying to see my face. “You, a bloody Englishman, are the nephew of Michael Fitzgerald, the Schoolmaster of Stradballa?”

“I suppose I must be. Why should that be so hard to take?”

“But he was a great hero,” Binnie said. “He commanded the Stradballa flying column. When the Tans came to take him, he was teaching at the school. Because of the children he went outside and shot it out in the open, one against fifteen, and got clean away.”

“I know,” I said. “A real hero of the revolution. All for the Cause only he never wanted it to end, Binnie, that was his trouble. Executed during the Civil War by the Free State Government. I always found that part of the story rather ironic myself, or had you forgotten that after they’d got rid of the English, the Irish set about knocking each other off with even greater enthusiasm ?

I could not see the expression on his face, yet the tension in him was something tangible between us.

I said, “Don’t try it, boy. As the Americans would say, you’re out of your league. Compared to me, you’re just a bloody amateur.”

“Is that a fact now, Major?” he said softly.

“Another thing,” I said. “Dr Murphy wouldn’t like it and we can’t have that now, can we ?”

She settled the matter for us by reappearing at that precise moment. She sensed that something was wrong at once and paused.

“What is it?”

“A slight difference of opinion, that’s all,” I told her. “Binnie’s just discovered I’m related to a piece of grand old Irish history and it sticks in his throat - or didn’t you know?”

“I knew,” she said coldly.

“I thought you would,” I said. “The interesting thing is, why didn’t you tell him?”

I didn’t give her a chance to reply and cut the whole business short by moving off into the fog briskly in the general direction of Lurgan Street.

==========

The hotel didn’t have a great deal to commend it, but then neither did Lurgan Street. A row of decaying terrace houses, a shop or two and a couple of pubs making as unattractive a sight as I have ever seen.

The hotel itself was little more than a lodging-house of a type to be found near the docks of any large port, catering mainly for sailors or prostitutes in need of a room for an hour or two. It had been constructed by simply joining three terrace houses together and sticking a sign above the door of one of them.

A merchant navy officer came out as we approached and clutched at the railings for support. A girl of eighteen or so in a black plastic mac emerged behind him, straightened his cap and got a hand under his elbow to help him down the steps.

She looked us over without the slightest sense of shame and I smiled and nodded. “Good night, a colleen. God save the good work.”

The laughter bubbled out of her. “God save you kindly.”

They went off down the street together, the sailor breaking into a reasonably unprintable song and I shook my head. “Oh, the pity of it, a fine Catholic girl to come to that.”

Binnie looked as if he would have liked to put a bullet into me, but Norah Murphy showed no reaction at all except to say, “Could we possibly get on with it, Major Vaughan ? My time is limited.”

We went up the steps and into the narrow hallway. There was a desk of sorts to one side at the bottom of the stairs and an old white-haired man in a faded alpaca jacket dozed behind it, his chin in one hand.

There seemed little point in waking him and I led the way up to the first landing. Meyer had room seven at the end of the corridor and when I paused to knock, we could hear music clearly from inside, strangely plaintive, something of the night in it,

Norah Murphy frowned. °What on earth is it?“

“Al Bowlly,” I said simply.

“Al who?”

“You mean you’ve never heard of Al Bowlly, Doctor ? Why, he’s indisputably number one in the hit parade to any person of taste and judgement, or he would be if he hadn’t been killed in the London Blitz in 1941. Meyer listens to nothing else. Carries a cassette tape-recorder with him everywhere.“

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

I shook my head. “You’re now listening to Moonlight on the Highway, probably the best thing he ever did. Recorded with the Joe Loss orchestra on the 21st March, 1938. You see, I’ve become something of an expert myself.”

The door opened and Meyer appeared. “Ah, Simon.”

“Dr Murphy,” I said. “And Mr Gallagher. This is Mr Meyer.” I closed the door and Meyer, who could speak impeccable English when it suited him, started to act the bewildered Middle-European.

“But I don’t understand. I was expecting to meet a Mr Cork, commanding the official IRA forces in Northern Ireland.”

I walked to the window and lit a cigarette, aware of Binnie leaning against the door, hands in his pockets. It was raining harder than ever outside, bouncing from the cobblestones.

Norah Murphy said, “I am empowered to act for Michael Cork.”

“You were to provide five thousand pounds in cash as an evidence of good faith. Where is it, please ?”

She opened her case, took out an envelope and threw it on the bed. “Count it, please, Simon,” Meyer said.

Al Bowlly was working his way through I double dare you as I reached for the envelope and Norah Murphy said quickly, “Don’t waste your time, Major. There’s only a thousand there.”

There was a moment of distinct tension as Meyer reached for the tape-recorder and cut Al Bowlly dead. “And the other four?” ‘We wanted to be absolutely certain, that’s all. It’s ready and waiting, no more than ten minutes’ walk from here.“

He thought about it for a moment, then nodded briefly. “All right. To business. Please sit down.”

He offered her the only chair and sat on the edge of the bed himself.

“Will you have any difficulty in meeting our requirements ?” she asked.

“The rifles will be no trouble at all. I am in the happy position of being able to offer you five hundred Chinese AK 47’s, probably the finest assault rifle in the world today. Extensively used by the Viet Cong in Vietnam.”

“I’m aware of that,” she said a trifle impatiently. “And the other items ?”

“Grenades are no problem and we can offer you an excellent range of sub-machine-guns. The early Thompsons still make a great deal of noise, but I would personally recommend you to try the Israeli Uzi. A remarkably efficient weapon. Absolutely first class, don’t you agree, Simon ?”

“Oh, the best,” I said cheerfully. “There’s a grip safety which stops it firing if dropped, so we find it goes particularly well with the peasant trade. They’re usually inclined to be rather clumsy.”

She didn’t even bother to look at me. “And armour-piercing weapons?” she said. We asked for those most particularly.“

“Rather more difficult, I’m afraid,” Meyer told her.

But we must have them.“ She clenched her right hand and hammered it against her knee, the knuckles white. ”They are absolutely essential if we are to win the battle in the streets. Petrol bombs make a spectacular show on colour television, Mr Meyer, but they seldom do more than blister the paint of a Saracen armoured car.“

Meyer sighed heavily. “I can deliver between eighty and one hundred and twenty Lahti 20 mm semi-automatic anti-tank cannons. It’s a Finnish gun. Not used by any Western Powers as far as I know.” ‘Is it efficient ? Will it do the job ?“ ’Ask the Major. He’s the expert.” She turned to me and I shrugged. “Any gun is only as good as the man using it, but as a matter of interest, someone broke into a bank in New York back in 1965 using a Lahti. Blasted a hole through twenty inches of concrete and steel. One round in the right place will open up a Saracen like a tin can.”

She nodded, that hand still clenched, a strange, wild gleam in her eye. “You’ve used them? You’ve had experience of them in action, I mean ?”

“In one of the Trucial Oman States and the Yemen.”

She turned to Meyer. “You must guarantee competent instruction in their use. Agreed?”

She didn’t look at me. There was no need. Meyer nodded. “Major Vaughan will be happy to oblige, but for one week only and our fee will be an additional two thousand pounds on that agreed for the first consignment.” ‘Making twenty-seven thousand in all ?“ she said. Meyer took off his glasses and started to polish them with a soiled handkerchief. ”Good, then we can proceed as provisionally agreed with your representative in London. I have hired a thirty-foot motor cruiser, berthed at Oban at the present time, rigged for deep-sea fishing. Major Vaughan will leave next Thursday afternoon at high tide and will attempt the run with the first consignment.“

“And where is it to be landed ?” she asked.

Which was my department I said, “There’s a small fishing port called Stramore on the coast directly south from Rathlin Island. There’s a secluded inlet with a good beach about five miles east. Our informant has been running whiskey in there from the Republic for the past five years without being caught so we should be all right. Your end is to make sure you have reliable people and transport on the spot to pick the stuff up and get the hell out of it fast.“ ‘And what do you do ?”

“Comply with my sailing instructions and call in at Stramore. I’ll contact you there.”

She frowned as if thinking about it and Meyer said calmly, “Is it to your satisfaction ?”

“Oh yes, I think so.” She nodded slowly. “Except for one thing. Binnie and I go with him.”

Meyer looked at me in beautifully simulated bewilderment and spread his hand in another of those Middle-European gestures. “But my dear young lady, it simply is not on.” ‘Why not?“

“Because this is an extremely hazardous undertaking. Because of an institution known as the British Royal Navy which patrols the Ulster coast regularly these days with its MTBs. If challenged, Major Vaughan still stands some sort of a chance of getting away. He is an expert at underwater work. He carries frogman’s equipment. An aqualung. He can take his chances over the side. With you along, the whole situation would be different.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can rely on Major Vaughan to see that the Royal Navy don’t catch us.” She stood up and held out her hand. “We’ll see you next Thursday in Oban then, Mr Meyer.”

Meyer sighed, waved his arms about helplessly, then took her hand. “You’re a very determined young woman.

You will not forget, however, that you owe me four thousand pounds.“

“How could I ?” She turned to me, When you’re ready, Major.“

Binnie opened the door for us and I followed her out and as we went down the corridor Al Bowlly launched into Goodnight but not goodbye.

FOUR - In Harm’s Way

As we went down the steps to the street, a Land-Rover swept out of the fog followed by another, very close behind. They had been stripped to the bare essentials so that the driver and the three soldiers who crouched in the rear of each vehicle behind him were completely exposed. They were paratroopers, efficient, tough-looking young men, in red berets and flak jackets, their sub-machine-guns held ready for instant action.

They disappeared into the fog and Binnie spat into the gutter in disgust. “Would you look at that now, just asking to be chopped down, the dumb bastards. What wouldn’t I give for a Thompson gun and one crack at them.”

“It would be your last,” I said. “They know exactly what they’re doing, believe me. They perfected that open display technique in Aden. The crew of each vehicle looks after the other and without armour plating to get in their way, they can return fire instantly if attacked.“

“Bloody SS,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, they’re not, Binnie. Most of them are lads around your own age, trying to do a dirty job the best way they know how.”

He frowned, and for some reason my remark seemed to shut him up. Norah Murphy didn’t say a word, but led the way briskly, turning from one street into another without hesitation.

Within a few minutes we came to a main road. There was a church on the other side, the Sacred Heart according to the board, a Victorian monstrosity in yellow brick which squatted in the rain behind a fringe of iron railings. There were lights in the windows, the sound of an organ, and people emerged from the open door in one and twos to pause for a moment before plunging into the heavy rain.

As we crossed the road, a priest came out of the porch and stood on the top step trying to open his umbrella. He was a tall, rather frail-looking man in a cassock and black raincoat and wore a broad-brimmed shovel hat that made it difficult to see his face.

He got the umbrella up, started down the steps and paused suddenly. “Dr Murphy,” he called. Is that you?“

Norah Murphy turned quickly. “Hello, Father Mac,” she said, and then added in a low voice, 'I'll only be a moment. The woman I saw earlier is one of his parishioners.“

Binnie and I moved into the shelter of a doorway and she went under the shelter of the priest’s umbrella. He glanced towards us once and nodded, a gentle, kindly man of sixty or so. Norah Murphy held his umbrella and talked to him while he took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and wiped rain from them with a handkerchief.

Finally he replaced the spectacles and nodded. “Fine, my dear, just fine,” he said and took a package from his raincoat pocket. “Give her that when you next see her and tell her I’ll be along in the morning.”

He touched his hat and walked away into the fog. Norah Murphy watched him go then turned and tossed the package to me so unexpectedly that I barely caught it. “Four thousand pounds, Major Vaughan.”

I weighed the package in my two hands. “I didn’t think the Church was taking sides these days.”

“It isn’t.”

“Then who in the hell was that ?”

Binnie laughed out loud and Norah Murphy smiled. “Why, that was Michael Cork, Major Vaughan,” she said sweetly and walked away.

==========

Which was certainly one for the book. The package was too bulky to fit in any pocket so I pushed it inside the front of my trenchcoat and buttoned the flap as I followed her, Binnie keeping pace with me.

She waited for us on the corner of a reasonably busy intersection, four roads meeting to form a small square. There were lots of people about, most of them emerging from a large supermarket on our left which was ablaze with light to catch the evening trade, soft music, of the kind which is reputed to induce the right mood to buy, drifting out through the entrance.

There was a certain amount of traffic about, private cars mostly, nosing out of the fog, pausing at the pedestrian crossing, then passing on.

It was a typical street scene of the kind you’d expect to find in any large industrial city, except for one thing. There was a police station on the other side of the square, a modern building in concrete and glass and the entrance was protected by a sandbagged machine-gun post manned by Highlanders in Glengarry bonnets and flak jackets.

Norah Murphy leaned against the railings, clutching her case in both hands. “Occupied Belfast, Major. How do you like it?”

“I’ve seen worse,” I said.

Two men came round the corner in a hurry, one of them bumping into Binnie, who fended him off angrily. “Would you look where you’re going, now?” he demanded, holding the man by the arm.

He was not much older than Binnie, with a thin, narrow-jawed face and wild eyes, and he wore an old trilby hat. He carried an attache case in his right hand and tried to pull away. His companion was a different proposition altogether, a tall, heavily built man in a raincoat and cloth cap. He was at least forty and had a craggy, pugnacious face.

“Leave him be,” he snarled, pulling Binnie round by the shoulder and then his mouth gaped. “Jesus, Binnie, you couldn’t have picked a worse spot. Get the hell out of it‘

He pulled at his companion, they turned and hurried across the square through the traffic.

“Trouble ?” Norah Murphy demanded.

Binnie grabbed her by the arm and nodded. “The big fella’s Gerry Lucas. I don’t know the other. They’re Bradys.”

Which being the Belfast nickname for members of the Provisional branch of the ERA was enough to make anyone move fast. We were already too late. A couple of cars had halted at the pedestrian crossing and a woman in a headscarf was half-way across pushing a pram in front of her, a little girl of five or six trotting beside her. A young couple shared an umbrella behind.

Lucas and his friend reached the opposite pavement and paused behind a parked car, where Lucas produced a Schmeisser machine pistol from beneath his raincoat and sprayed the machine-gun post.

In the same moment, his friend ran out into the open and tossed the attache case in an arc through the rain and muffed things disastrously, for instead of dropping inside the machine-gun post, the case bounced from the sandbags to the gutter.

The two of them ran like hell for the shelter of the nearest side street and made it, the Highlanders being unable to open up with their machine-gun for the simple reason that the square seemed to be suddenly filled with panic-stricken people running everywhere.

The case exploded a split second later, taking out half of the front of the machine-gun post, dissolving every window in the square in a snowstorm of flying glass.

People were running, screaming, some on their hands and knees, faces streaming with blood, cut by the flying glass. One of the cars at the pedestrian crossing had been blown on to its side, the crossing itself had been swept clean.

Norah Murphy ran out into the square in what I believe was a purely reflex action and Binnie and I followed her towards the car which had turned over. A man was trying to climb out through the shattered side window, his face streaked with blood. I hauled him through and he slipped to the ground and rolled over on his back.

The woman who had been pushing the pram on the pedestrian crossing, was sprawled across the bonnet of the second car, half the clothes torn off her. From the condition of the rest of her she couldn’t be anything else but dead. The young couple who had been behind her were in the gutter on the far side of the road, people clustering round.

The pram was miraculously intact, lying against the wall, but when I righted it, the condition of the baby still strapped inside, was beyond description. The only good thing one could say was that death must have been instantaneous.

Norah Murphy was on her knees in the gutter beside the little girl who only a few moments before had gaily trotted beside her sister’s pram. She was badly injured, smeared with blood and dust, but still alive.

Norah opened her case and took out a hypodermic. As troops emerged cautiously from the police station she gave the child an injection and said calmly, “Get out of it, Binnie, before they cordon off the whole area. Get to Kelly’s if you can. Take the Major with you. He’s too valuable to lose now. I’ll see you there later.”

Binnie gazed down at the child, those dark eyes blazing, and then he did a strange thing. He reached for one of the limp hands and held it tightly for a moment.

“The bastards,” he said softly.

A Saracen swept into the square on the far side and braked to a halt, effectively blocking the street.

“Will you get out of it, Binnie,” she said.

I jerked him to his feet. He stood looking down for a moment, not at her, but at the child, then turned and moved across the square away from the Saracen without a word. I went after him quickly and he turned into a narrow alley and started to run. I followed at his heels and we twisted and turned through a dark rabbit warren of mean streets, the sounds from the square growing fainter although never actually fading away altogether.

We finally came to the banks of a narrow canal of some description, moved along the towpath past an old iron footbridge and turned into an entry. There was a high wooden gate at the end with a lamp bracketed to the wall above it. A faded sign read Kelly’s for Scrap. Binnie opened the judas and I followed him through.

There was a small yard inside, another lamp high on the wall of the house giving plenty of illumination, which made sense for all sorts of reasons if this was a place of refuge, as I suspected.

Binnie knocked on the back door. After a while, steps approached and he said in a low voice, “It’s me, Binnie.”

A bolt was withdrawn, the door opened. An old woman stood revealed, very old, with milk-white blind eyes and a shawl across her shoulders.

“It’s me, Mrs Kelly,” Binnie said. “With a friend.”

She reached for his face, cupped it in her hands for a moment, then smiled without a word, turned and led the way inside.

When she opened the door at the end of the passage into the kitchen, Lucas and the bomb-thrower were standing shoulder to shoulder on the other side of the table, Lucas holding the Schmeisser at the ready, his friend clutching an old .45 Webley revolver that looked too big for him.

“Well, would you look at this now?” Binnie said. “Rats will find a hole, so they say.” He spat on the floor. “You did a fine job on the women and children back there.”

The youth with the Webley turned wildly. “I told you,” he said and Lucas struck him across the mouth, his eyes never leaving Binnie.

“Shut your mouth, Riley, and you just watch it, Binnie, or you might get some of the same. Who’s your friend?“

“None of your affair.”

“And what if I decide to make it mine?”

“Don’t mind me,” I put in.

For the first time Lucas lost some of that iron composure of his. He stared at me in astonishment. “A bloody Englishman, is it?”

“Or as much an Irishman as de Valera,” I said. “It depends on your point of view.”

“He’s here on business for the Small Man,” Binnie said. “For Cork himself, so keep your nose out of it.”

They confronted each other for another tense moment, then the old lady slipped in between them without a word and placed a pot of tea in the centre of the table. Lucas turned away angrily and I sat down against the wall and lit a cigarette. I offered Binnie one, but he refused. The old lady brought us a cup of tea each then moved to the others.

“She doesn’t have much to say for herself,” I observed.

“She wouldn’t,” Binnie replied. “Being dumb as well as blind.”

He stared into space, something close to pain in his eyes, thinking of that child whose hand he had held, I suspect.

I said, “Remember what you were saying about my uncle coming out of the schoolhouse so the children wouldn’t be harmed, to shoot it out with the Tans like a man?”

He turned to me with a frown. “So what?

I said gently, “Times have changed, haven’t they, Binnie?”

He stood up, walked over to the other side of the room and sat down with his back to me.

I suppose it must have been all of two hours before there was a knock at the door. They all had a gun out on the instant, including Binnie, and waited while the old lady went to the door. Norah Murphy came into the kitchen. She paused, her eyes narrowing as she recognized Lucas, then she placed her case on the table.

I’d love a cup of tea, Ma,“ she said in Irish as Mrs Kelly followed her in.

She was as crisp and incisive as she had been at our first meeting. It was as if nothing had happened in between at all and yet the skirts of her trenchcoat were stained with blood. I wondered if anything would ever really touch her. Binnie said, “What happened ?” ‘I helped out till the ambulances arrived.“ ’How many were killed ?” Lucas demanded. “Five,” she said and turned to me. “I’ll have that cigarette now, Major.”

“And soldiers ?” Young Riley leaned on the table with both hands, his eyes wilder than ever. “How many soldiers ?”

Norah Murphy turned from the match I held for her and blew out a long column of smoke.

“And who might you be?” she enquired.

"Dennis Riley, ma’am,“ he said in a low voice.

“Well then, Dennis Riley, you really will have to put in some practice before your next free show. The score this time was a mother and her two children and a couple of eighteen-year-olds who’d just got engaged. No soldiers, I’m afraid.”

Riley collapsed into a chair and Binnie said quietly, “The little girl - she died, then ?” ‘I’m afraid so.“ He turned to Lucas and Riley and the look on his face was the same look I had seen in the pub earlier when he had confronted the hooligans.

“Women and kids now, is it?” He kicked the table over, the Browning was in his hand by a kind of magic. “You bloody bastards, here’s for the two of you.”

Norah Murphy had his arm up as he fired, a bullet ploughing through the ceiling. She slapped him across the cheek. He turned, a strange, dazed look on his face, and she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him as one might shake a recalcitrant child.

“What’s done is done, Binnie. Quarrelling like this amongst ourselves won’t help now.”

Lucas stood with his back against the wall, the Schmeisser ready, no more than a hairsbreadth away from cutting loose with it. Riley scrabbled on the floor at his feet for the Webley which he had lost when the table went over.

“Better to move on from here,” Norah Murphy said. “All of us and the sooner the better. Someone might have heard that shot.” She turned to Mrs Kelly. “I’m sorry, Ma.“

The old woman smiled and touched her face. I said,

“How are we going to work it?”

She shrugged. “We’ll have to split up, naturally. Better to take your chances on your own, Major. Did you notice a footbridge over the canal on your way here?”

“I did.”

“Cross over, take the towpath for a couple of hundred yards and a narrow passageway brings you into Delph Lane. Half a mile along that and you’ll be in the centre of the city.”

“Why in the hell should he go first?” Lucas demanded.

She totally ignored him and said to Binnie. “We ought to leave separately. It would be the sensible thing.”

“And how would I explain the loss of his niece to Michael Cork if anything happened to you ?”

Which was an interesting disclosure. She actually smiled for him, then turned to me. ‘OS you go, then, Major.“

The old woman went out ahead of me. I turned in the doorway. “Up the Republic,” I said. “Right up!” Then I closed the door gently and moved along the passage.

Mrs Kelly had the door open, and beyond in the yard rain fell in a silver curtain through the lamplight.

I turned up my collar. “Thanks for everything.”

There was a strangely uncertain look to her, a slight frown on her face as if there was something here she did not understand. The milk-white eyes stared past me vacantly and her fingers reached to touch my cheeks, to trace the line of my mouth.

And they found what they were searching for, those fingers, and fear blossomed on her face, the kind that a child might feel standing at the top of the stairs, aware of some nameless horror, some presence in the darkness below.

I said gently in Irish, “This is not on you, old woman. None of it.”

She pushed me out into the rain and closed the door.

==========

I found a dark corner of shadows near the footbridge with some bushes reaching over the wall above to give me some sort of shelter. I couldn’t smoke. The smell would have been too distinctive on the damp air, so I waited as I had waited in other places than this. Different lands, hotter climates, but always the same situation.

There was the sound of cautious footsteps and a moment later, two figures emerged from the alley. Binnie and Norah. I saw them clearly in the light of the lamp as they went up the steps to the bridge. Their footsteps boomed hollowly for a moment, then faded as they passed along the other side.

I returned to my waiting. Strange the tricks memory plays. The heavy rain, I suppose, reminding me of the monsoon. Borneo, Kota Baru, the ruins of the village, the stench of burning flesh, acrid smoke heavy on the rain, the dead schoolchildren. They, too, had been butchered for a cause, just like the little girl and her sister in the square tonight. The same story in so many places.

A stone rattled in the alleyway and they emerged a moment later. Lucas was well out in front. He stood under the lamp, then went up the steps to the footbridge alone, probably to test the ground.

Eiley paused in the shadows and waited no more than a couple of yards from me. I took him from behind with the simplest of headlocks, snapping his neck so quickly that he had no chance to make even the slightest cry.

I lowered him gently to the ground, found the Webley in his coat pocket, picked up his old trilby and pulled it on. Then I moved towards the bridge.

Lucas was half-way across. “Will you get your bloody finger out, Dennis,” he called softly.

I went up the steps head down so that it was only at the last moment instinct told him something was wrong and he swung to face me.

I said, “You’re a big man with women and kids, Lucas. How do you feel now ?”

He was trying to get the Schmeisser out from underneath his coat when I shot him in the right shoulder, the heavy bullet turning him round in a circle. The other two shots shattered his spine, driving him across the handrail of the bridge to hang, head-down.

His raincoat started to smoulder, there was a tiny tongue of flame. I leaned down, got him by the ankles with one hand and tipped him over. Then I tossed the Webley and the trilby after him and continued accross the bridge.

FIVE - Storm Warning

Most of Oban seemed to be enveloped in a damp, clinging mist when I went out on deck and there was rain on the wind, which was hardly surprising for it had been threatening ever since my arrival two days previously.

Beyond Kerrera, the waters of the Firth of Lome, when one could see them at all, seemed reasonably troubled and things generally looked as if they might get worse before they got better. Hardly the most comforting of thoughts with the prospect of the kind of passage by night I had in front of me.

For the moment, I was snug enough, anchored fifty yards from the main jetty. I made a quick check to make certain that all my lines were secure and was just going to go below when a taxi pulled up on the jetty and Meyer got out.

He didn’t bother to wave. Simply descended a flight of stone steps to the water’s edge and stood waiting, so I dropped over the side into the rubber dinghy, started the outboard motor and went to get him.

He looked distinctly out of place in his black Homburg and old Burberry raincoat, a parcel under one arm, a briefcase in his other hand, and he obviously felt it.

Is it safe, this thing ?“ he demanded, peering anxiously through his spectacles at the dinghy. ”As houses,“I said taking the briefcase he passed to me. He hung on to the parcel, stepped gingerly into the dinghy and sat down in the prow. As we moved towards the motor cruiser, he turned to have a look at her. ”Are you satisfied ?“ ‘Couldn’t be better.”

“The Kathleen, isn’t that what they call her ? I must say she doesn’t look much.”

“Which is exactly why I chose her,” I said.

We bumped against the hull, I went up the short ladder and over the rail with the line. As I turned to help Meyer a curtain of rain drifted across the harbour. He darted for the shelter of the companionway and I followed him down to the saloon.

“What about some breakfast?” I said as he took off his coat and hat.

“Breakfast?” He looked at me blankly. But it’s almost noon.“

“So I got up late.” I shrugged. “All right, tea then.” I went into the galley and as I put on the kettle, Al Bowlly broke into It’s all forgotten now. When I went back into the saloon, Meyer was sitting at the table lighting one of the fat Dutch cigars he favoured, the little cassette tape-recorder in front of him.

When are our friends due?“

I glanced at my watch. “About an hour. You’re late. What kept you?”

“The Brigadier came to see me before I left so I had to get a later plane.”

“What did he want?”

“A final briefing, that’s all. He’s flying to Northern Ireland himself this afternoon to be on hand in case he’s needed.”

The kettle started to whistle in the galley so I went in to make the tea. Meyer followed and leaned in the doorway, watching me.

“Perhaps I’m tired or maybe it’s just that I’m getting old and I didn’t sleep so good last night and that’s always a bad sign with me.”

I poured milk and tea into two enamel mugs, topped them up with a largish measure of Jameson and handed him one. “What are you trying to say, Meyer ?”

“I don’t feel so good about this, Simon.”

“Like you said, you’re tired, that’s all.”

He shook his head violently. “You know me. I get an instinct for these things and I’m never wrong. The first time I felt like this was when I was seventeen years of age back in 1938.”

“I know,” I said. “You’ve told me often enough. You got out of Munich half an hour before the Gestapo came to arrest you. Your uncle and aunt wouldn’t listen and died in Dachau.”

He made a violent gesture, tea slopping out of his mug. T)on’t mock me, Simon. What about that time in Casablanca? If you hadn’t listened to me then and left on the next plane they’d have arrested both of us.“

"All right, so you’ve got second sight.“ I moved past him into the saloon.”Have you tried telling the Brigadier you don’t feel so good about things.

He shrugged helplessly and sat down at the table opposite me. “How do we get into such situations, Simon? It’s crazy.”

“Because we didn’t have any choice,” I said. “It’s as simple as that. Did you bring what I asked ?”

“In the parcel.” I started to unwrap it and he added, “Where’s the cargo?”

“The Lahtis are in the aft cabin. You’re sitting on the Uzis.”

I removed the last of the brown paper and opened the flat cardboard box it contained. Inside there was several pounds of what looked like children’s Plasticine, but was in fact a new and rather effective plastic explosive called ARI 7. There was a box of chemical fuses to go with it.

There was also a cloth bundle tied with string, which when I opened it contained several clips of ammunition and a Mauser automatic pistol with a rather strange bulbous barrel.

“That damn thing’s almost a museum piece,” Meyer observed as I hefted it on one hand. “You’ve no idea the trouble I had finding one.”

“I know,” I said. “But it’s still the only really effective silenced handgun ever made.” I picked up the box and stood. “Let’s go up top. I want to show you something.”

It was raining harder than ever when we went out on deck. I led the way into the wheelhouse, put the box down on the chart table, reached underneath and pressed a spring catch. A flap fell down which held a Mark IIS Sten. There were several other spring clips and a shelf behind.

‘A slight improvement I said. “This is what kept me up so late last night.”

I put the ARI 7 on the back shelf with the fuses and spare ammunition clips, loaded the Mauser and fitted it into place, then pushed the flap up out of sight.

“Very neat,” Meyer observed.

“Nothing like being prepared.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ll have to be away soon. I’ve got a hire car laid on by a local garage. They’re going to run me down to Abbotsinch. I’ll catch the evening plane to Belfast from there.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. 'I'll get straight to the house I’ve rented and wait to hear from you.“

“You’d better show me where it is.”

I got out the right map for him and he found it soon enough. “Here we are. About ten miles out of Stramore on this road. Randall Cottage. It’s right at the end of a farm track beside a small wood. A bit tumbledown, but rather nice. The sort of place they rent to holidaymakers in the season. Here’s the telephone number.”

It was easy enough to remember. I rolled the slip of paper into a ball and flipped it out through the side window. “What did you tea the agent ?”

“I said I was a writer. Belfast was beginning to get me down and I felt in urgent need of a little peace and quiet. I used the name Berger, by the way, just in case.”

I nodded. It all sounds pretty neat to me.“

He looked out across the Firth a trifle dubiously as rain drummed against the roof of the cabin with renewed vigour. “Do you really think you’ll get across tonight ? It doesn’t look too good.”

“According to the Met forecast, things should ease up considerably during the early evening, and even if they don’t, we’ll still make it. This boat was built to stand most things.“

There was a sudden hail across the water. ‘Kathleen, ahoy!“

Norah Murphy and Binnie Gallagher were standing on the jetty beside a taxi.

Meyer said, “Take me across with you and I’ll be on my way. I don’t want to talk to her any more than I can help.”

He went below to get his hat and coat and when he returned he was stowing Al Bowlly away in his briefcase. I helped him over the rail, slipped the line and joined him.

His face was very pale as I started the outboard. I said, “Look, it’s going to be all right. I promise you.”

“Is that so ?” he demanded. “Then tell me why I feel like I’m lying in my grave listening to earth rattling against the lid of my coffin.”

I couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would have done any good. In any case, we were already coming in to the steps at the bottom of the jetty.

I stayed to tie up the dinghy and Meyer went up ahead of me to where Norah Murphy and Binnie waited beside the taxi. The boy was dressed exactly as he had been on that rather memorable night in Belfast, but Norah Murphy herself was all togged up for Cowes week in a yellow oilskin. Underneath she wore a navy blue Guernsey sweater, slacks and rubber boots.

Meyer turned to me as I arrived. “I’m just making my excuses to Dr Murphy, Simon, but I really must get moving now or I’ll miss my plane.”

"I'll be seeing you soon,“ I said and shook hands. He got into the taxi quickly. The driver passed out a suitcase to Binnie, then drove away.

Norah Murphy said coolly, “So here we are again, Major.”

“So it would appear.”

I led the way down the steps to the dinghy and Binnie followed with the case. He didn’t look too happy, but he got in after a moment’s hesitation and sat in the prow. Norah Murphy perched herself in the stern beside me.

As we pulled away she said casually, “It’s going to be a dirty night. Is the boat up to it ?”

“Have you done much sailing?”

“One of my aunts was married to a retired sea captain. They had a house near Cape Cod.”

“Then you should have learned by now not to be taken in by top show. Take the Kathleen. Underneath that rather drab coat of grey paint there’s a steel hull by Akerboon.”

“Only the best.” She looked suitably impressed. “How is she powered ?”

Penta petrol engine. Twin screws. She’ll do about twenty-five knots at full stretch. Depth sounder, radar, automatic steering. She’s got the lot.“

I cut the motor and we coasted in. Norah Murphy took the line and went over the rail nimbly enough. Binnie was nothing like so agile and from the look on his face it was obvious that he was going to have a bad night of it whatever happened.

He was like a fish out of water. In fact, I doubt if he had ever been on a boat, certainly a small boat of that type, in his life before. When he took off that sinister black overcoat of his he looked younger than ever and the clothes he wore didn’t help. A stiff white collar a size too large for him, a knitted tie and an ill-fitting double-breasted suit of clerical grey.

Norah Murphy opened one of the saloon cupboards to hang the coat up for him and found a neopryne wet suit, flippers and mask and an aqualung inside.

She turned, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t tell me you still intend to go over the rail if the situation arises.” 'I'll take you with me if I do, I promise.“ She put the suitcase on the table, opened it and took out Binnie’s Browning automatic. She held it in her right hand for a moment, looking at me, eyes narrowed slightly, then she tossed it to Binnie who was sitting down on one of the bench seats.

“Damn you, Vaughan,” she said rather petulantly. I never know which way to take you. You smile all the time. It isn’t natural,“

“Well, you’ve got to admit the world’s a funny old place, love,” I said. “Definitely a laugh a minute.”

I went into the galley, got the bottle of Jameson and three mugs. When I returned she was sitting on the opposite side of the table from Binnie smoking a cigarette. “Whiskey?” I said. “It’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid.” She nodded, but Binnie shook his head. Admittedly we were dancing about a bit, for quite a ground swell was building up inside the harbour, but he already looked ghastly. God knows what it was going to do to him when we ventured into the open sea.

Norah Murphy said, “Where’s the cargo?” I told her and she nodded. “What are we carrying ?”

“Fifty Lahti anti-tank cannon and fifty sub-machine-guns.”

She sat up straight, frowning deeply. “What goes on here? I expected more. A great deal more.”

Impossible in a boat this size,“ I said. ”Those Lahtis are seven feet long. Have a look in the aft cabin and see for yourself. It will take a couple of trips to get all your first order across.“

She went into the aft cabin. After a while she came back and sat down, picking up her mug again.

“Another thing,” I said. “If we’re challenged, if this boat is searched, we don’t stand a cat in hell’s chance, you realize that. As I’m not one of those captains who relishes the idea of going down with the ship, I’d appreciate it if you’d make it clear to Billy the Kid, here, that we don’t want any heroics.”

Poor Binnie couldn’t even manage a scowl. He got up suddenly and made for the companionway.

Norah Murphy said, I’m afraid he isn’t much of a sailor. What time do we leave?“

“I’ve decided to make it a little later than I’d intended. Five o’clock or even six. Give this weather a chance to clear a little.”

“You’re the captain. What about your friend Meyer? Will we be seeing him again?”

“I should imagine so - when the right time comes.”

Binnie stumbled down the companionway and clutched at the wall to keep his balance. I said, “Never mind, Binnie. They say Nelson was sick every time ne went to sea. Still, I don’t suppose that’s much comfort. Your lot didn’t have much time for him either, did they?”

He ignored me completely and disappeared into the aft cabin. I started for the companionway and Norah Murphy moved round the table to block my way. She seemed genuinely angry.

“Were you born a thoroughgoing bastard, Vaughan, of do you just work at it?”

The boat rocked hard, throwing her against me so I did the obvious thing and kissed her. It was hardly all systems go, but I’d known worse.

When I finally released her, she shrugged, that strangely cruel mouth of hers twisted scornfully. “Only fair, Major,” she observed.

Now who’s being a bastard ?“ I said and went up the companionway fast.

==========

We left just before six that evening and although the weather hadn’t improved all that much, at least it hadn’t got any worse. As I pressed the starter and the engines rattled into life, the wheelhouse door opened, a flurry of wind lifting the chart like a sail, and Norah Murphy came in.

She stood at my elbow peering into the gloom of evening. “What’s the forecast?”

“Nothing to get worked up about. Three to four winds with rain squalls. A light sea fog in the Rathlin Island area just before dawn.”

“That should be useful,” she said. “Can I take the wheel?”

“Later. How’s Binnie ?”

“Flat on his back. I’d better go and make sure he’s all right. I’ll see you later.”

The door closed behind her and I took ‘Kathleen out through the harbour entrance in a long sweeping curve into the Firth.

The masthead light began to swing rhythmically from side to side as the swell started to roll beneath us and spray scattered across the window. A couple of points to starboard I could see the outline of a steamer against the slate grey evening sky and her red and green navigation lights were clearly visible.

I reduced speed to twelve knots and we plunged forward into the gathering darkness, the sound of the engines a muted throbbing on the night air.

It must have been close to eleven o’clock when she returned. The door opened softly and she came in with a tray. I could smell the coffee and something more. The delicious scent of fried bacon.

I’m sorry, Vaughan,“ she said. I fell asleep. I’ve brought you some coffee and a bacon sandwich. Where are we?”

“Well on the way,” I said. “There’s Islay over there to the east of us. You can see a light occasionally between rain squalls.”

“I’ll spell you if you like.”

“No need. I can put her on automatic pilot.”

I checked the course, altered it a point to starboard, then locked the steering. When I turned and reached for my sandwich I found her watching me, a slight frown on her face.

“You know, I can’t figure you, Vaughan. Not for one single minute.”

“In what way?”

She lit a cigarette and turned to peer out into the darkness. “Oh, the Beast of Selengar bit.”

“My finest hour,” I said. “Believe me, MGM couldn’t have improved on the part.”

And I had made her angry again. “For God’s sake, can’t you ever be serious ?”

“All right, keep your shirt on. What do you want to know ? The gory details ?”

“Only if it’s the truth, no matter how unpleasant.”

“And what’s that ?” I demanded and found that for no accountable reason, my throat had gone dry. I swallowed some of the coffee quickly, burning my mouth, and put the mug down on the chart table. “All right, you asked for it.”

I sat down on the swivel chair, unlocked the automatic steering mechanism and took the wheel again.

“There was an area in Borneo around Kota Baru that was absolutely controlled by terrorists back in 1963 and most of them were Chinese Communist infiltrators, not locals. They terrorized the whole area. Burned villages wholesale, coerced the Dyaks into helping them by butchering every second man and woman in some of the villages they took, just to encourage the others.” ‘And they put you in to do something about it?“ I was supposed to be an expert on that kind of thing so they gave me command of a company of irregulars, Dyak scouts, and told me to clean out the stable and not come back till I’d done it.” ’A direct order?“

“Not on paper - not in those terms. We didn’t have much luck at first. They burned two or three more villages, in one case after herding over fifty men, women and children into a longhouse beforehand. Finally, they burned the mission at Kota Baru, raped and murdered four nuns and eighteen young girls. That was it as far as I was concerned.” ‘What did you do?“

“Got lucky. An informer tipped me off that a Chinese merchant in Selengar named Hui Li was a Communist agent. I arrested him, and when he refused to talk I handed him over to the Dyaks.”

There was no horror on her face and her voice was quite calm as she said, “To torture him ?”

“Dyaks can be very persuasive. He only lasted a couple of hours, then he told me where the group I’d been chasing were holed up.” ‘And did you get them?

“Eventually. They’d split into two which didn’t help, but we managed it.”

“They said you shot your prisoners ?”

“Only during the final pursuit, when I was hard on the heels of the second group. Prisoners would have delayed me.”

“I see.” She nodded with a kind of clinical detachment on her face. “And Mr Hui Li?”

“Shot trying to escape.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

I laughed, and without the slightest bitterness. “Absolutely true and that’s the most ironic part of it. I was quite prepared to take him down to the coast and let him stand trial, but he tried to make a break for it the night before we left,”

There was silence for a while. I opened a window and took a deep breath of fresh sea air.

“Look, what I did to him he would have done to me. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, a favourite tag of Michael Collins, but Lenin said it first and it’s on page one of every Communist handbook on revolutionary warfare. You can only fight that kind of fire with fire.”

“You ruined yourself,” she said and there was a strange, savage, concerned note in her voice. “You fool, you threw everything away. Career, reputation, everything, and for what?”

“I did what had to be done,” I said. “Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Aden. I’d seen it all and I was tired of people justifying the murder of the innocent by pleading that it was all in the name of the revolution. When I finished, there was no more terror by night in Kota Baru. No more butchering of little girls. That should count for something, God knows.”

I was surprised at the feeling in my voice, the way my hands were shaking. I stood up and pulled her forward roughly. “You wanted to take the wheel. It’s all yours. Stay on this course and wake me in three hours. Before if the weather changes.”

She grabbed my sleeve, “I’m sorry, Vaughan, I really am.”

“You live long enough, you get over anything,” I said. “I’ve learnt that.”

Or so I told myself as I went below. Perhaps if I repeated it often enough, I might really come to believe it.

==========

I slept on one of the saloon bench seats and when I awakened it was almost three o’clock. Binnie was snoring steadily in the aft cabin. I peered in and found him flat on his back, collar and tie undone, mouth open. I left him to it and went up the companionway.

There was quite a sea and cold spray stung my face as I moved along the heaving deck and opened the wheel-house door. Norah Murphy was standing at the wheel, her face disembodied in the compass light.

“How are things going?” I asked.

“Fine. There’s been a sea running for about half an hour now.”

I glanced out. “Likely to get worse before it gets better. I’ll take over.”

She made way for me, her body brushing mine as we squeezed past each other. “I don’t think I could sleep now if I wanted to.”

“All right,” I said. “Make some more tea and come back. Things might get interesting. And check the forecast on the radio.”

I increased speed, racing the heavy weather that threatened from the east and the waves grew rougher, rocking Kathleen from side to side. Visibility was rotten, utter darkness on every hand except for a slight phosphorescence from the sea. Norah Murphy seemed to be taking her time, but when she returned, she brought more bacon sandwiches as well as the tea.

“The forecast wasn’t too bad,” she said. Wind moderating, intermittent rain squalls.“

“Anything else ?”

“Some fog patches towards dawn, but nothing to worry about.”

I helped myself to a sandwich. “How’s the boy wonder ?”

She didn’t like that, I could see, but she kept her temper and handed me a mug. “He’s sitting up now in the saloon. I gave him tea with something in it. He’ll be all right.”

“Let’s hope so. He could be needed.”

She said, “Let me tell you about Binnie Gallagher, Major Vaughan. During the rioting that broke out in Belfast in August 1969 an Orange mob led by B Specials Would have burned the Falls Road to the ground, chased out every Catholic family who lived there - or worse. They were prevented by a handful of IRA men who took to the streets led by Michael Cork himself.”

“The Small Man again? And Binnie was one of that lot?”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually impressed?” ‘Oh, but I am,“ I said. ”They did a hell of a good job that night, those men. A great ploy, as my mother would have said. And Binnie was one of them? He must have been all of sixteen.“

“He was staying with an aunt in the area. She gave him an old revolver, a war souvenir of her dead husband’s, and Binnie went in search of the Small Man. Fought at his right hand during the whole of that terrible night. He’s been his shadow ever since. His most trusted aide.”

“Which explains why he guards the great man’s niece.” She lit a couple of cigarettes and passed one to me. I said, “How does an American come to be mixed up in all this anyway ?”

“It’s simple enough. My father spent around seventeen years in one kind of British prison or another, if you add up all his sentences. I was thirteen when he was finally released and we emigrated to the States to join my Uncle Michael. A new life, so we thought, but too late for my father. He was a sick man when they released him. He died three years later.”

“And you never forgave them ?”

“They might as well have hanged him.

“And you decided you ought to take up where he left off?”

“We have a right to be free,” she said. “The people of Ulster have been denied their nationhood too long.”

It sounded like the first two sentences of some ill-written political pamphlet and probably was.

I said, “Look, what happened in August ‘69 was a bad business, which was exactly why the Army was brought in. To protect the Catholic minority while the necessary political changes were put in hand, and it was working until the IRA got up to their old tricks again.”

I wonder what your uncle would have thought if he could have heard you say that.“

“The dear old Schoolmaster of Stradbalk?” I said. "Binnie’s particular hero ? The saint who wouldn’t see the children harmed at any price? He doesn’t exist. He’s a myth. No revolutionary leader could act like he was supposed to and survive.“

“What are you trying to say?” she said. “Amongst other things, that he had at least forty people executed, including several British officers, in reprisal for the execution of IRA men - a pretty dubious action morally, I would have thought On one particularly unsavoury occasion, he was responsible for the shooting of a seventy-eight-year-old woman who was thought to have passed on information to the police.“

In the light of the binnacle, her right fist was clenched so tightly that the knuckles gleamed white. “In revolutionary warfare, these things have to be done" she said. ”There is no other choice.“

“Have you tried telling Binnie that?” I said. “Or hadn’t it occurred to you that that boy really believes with all his heart that it can be done with clean hands ? I saw him at Ma Kelly’s, remember. He’d have killed those two Proves himself if you hadn’t stopped him, because he couldn’t stomach what they’d done.”

“Binnie is an idealist,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong in that. He’d lay down his life for Ireland without a second’s hesitation.”

I’d have thought it more desirable all round if he’d lived for her,“ I said. ”But then that’s just my opinion.“

“And why in the hell should he take any notice of that ?” she demanded. “Who are you, anyway, Vaughan? A failure, a renegade who’s willing to turn on his own side for the sake of a pound or two.”

“That’s me,” I said. “Simon Vaughan, your friendly arms salesman.”

I was smiling again although it was something of an effort and she couldn’t stand that. “You arrogant bastard,” she said angrily. “At least we’ll have something to show for our struggles, people like Binnie and me.”

“I know,” I said. “A land of standing corpses.

She moved very close, a curious glitter in her eye, and her voice was a sort of hoarse whisper. “Better that than what we had. I’d rather see the city of Belfast burn like a funeral pyre than go back to what we had.“

And suddenly, for no sensible reason, I knew that I was close to the heart of things where she was concerned. I said calmly, “And what was that, Norah? Tell me.” There was a kind of vacant look on her face. The voice changed, became noticeably more Belfast than American, and there was a lost, little-girl touch to it that chilled my blood.

“When my father was released from jail that last time, he didn’t want any more trouble so he dropped out of sight till we were ready to leave for America. They came to our house looking for him several times.” ‘Who did?“ I said.

“The B specials. One night while they were interrogating my mother, one of them took me out into the back yard. He said he believed there might be arms in the shed.”

My stomach tightened as if to receive a blow. I said, “And were there?”

“I was thirteen,” she said. “Remember that. He made me lie down on some old sacking. When he was finished, he told me there was no point in trying to tell anyone because I wouldn’t be believed. And he made threats against my mother and the family. He said he wouldn’t be responsible for what might happen…‘

There was a longish silence, the splutter of rain against the glass. She said, “You’re the first person I’ve told, Vaughan. The only one. Not even a priest. Isn’t that the strange thing ?”

I said hoarsely, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry ?” And at that she exploded, broke apart at the seams. “By God, I’ll see them in hell, Vaughan, every last one of them, for what they did to me, do you understand ?”

She stumbled outside, the door slammed. It occurred to me then, and not for the first time, that there were occasions when I despaired of humanity. And yet there was no sense of personal involvement and any pity I felt was not so much for Norah Murphy as for that wretched, frightened little girl in the back yard of that house in Belfast so many years ago.

I lit a cigarette and, turning to flick the match through the open window on my left, found Binnie standing there as if turned to stone, the face contorted into a mask of agony, such suffering in the eyes as I never hope to see again.

I put a hand on his shoulder which seemed to bring him back to life. He looked up at me in a strange, dazed way then turned and walked away along the deck.

==========

We raised Rathlin Island just before four a.m., although I could only catch a glimpse of the lighthouse intermittently, due to the bad visibility. From then on we were in enemy waters, so to speak, and I had both Norah Murphy and Binnie join me in the wheelhouse for a final briefing.

She seemed entirely recovered and so did he. I could not imagine for one moment that he would have told her that he had overheard our conversation, or ever would, but in that bleak undertaker’s coat of his he certainly looked his old grim self again as he leaned over the chart.

I traced our course with a pencil. “Here we are. Another ten minutes and we round Crag Island and start the run-in to the coast. The channel through the reef is clearly marked and good deep water.”

“Bloody Passage,” Norah Murphy said. Is that it?

I nodded. “Apparently one of the biggest ships in the Spanish Armada went down there. According to old documents, the bodies floated in for weeks.“ I glanced at my watch. ”It’s four-twenty now and we’re due in at five. First light’s around six-fifteen, which gives us plenty of time to get in and out. Let’s hope your people are on time.“

“They will be,” she said.

“Once we’re into the passage I’ll have to kill the deck lights, so I want both you and Binnie in the prow to look for the signal. A red light at two-second intervals on the minute or three blasts on a foghorn on the minute if visibility is really bad.”

Which it was, there was no doubt about that, as we crept in towards the shore, the engine throttled right back to the merest murmur. Not that it was particularly dangerous, even when I switched off the deck and masthead lights, for Bloody Passage was a good hundred yards across so there was little chance of coming to harm.

We were close now, very close and I strained my eyes into the darkness looking for that light, but it was hopeless in all that mist and rain. And then as I leaned out of the side window, a foghorn sounded three times in the distance.

Binnie appeared at the door. T)id you hear that, Major?“

I nodded and replied on our own foghorn with exactly the same signal. I told Binnie to return to the prow, throttled back and coasted in gently. The foghorn sounded again, very close now which surprised me, for by my reckoning we still had a good quarter of a mile to go-

I replied again as agreed and in the same moment some strange instinct, product, I suppose, of several years of rather hard living, told me that something was very wrong indeed. Too late, of course, for a moment later, a searchlight picked us out of the darkness, there was a rumble of engines breaking into life and an MTB cut across our bow.

I was aware of the white ensign fluttering bravely in the dim light and then the sudden menacing chatter of a heavy machine-gun above our heads.

As I ducked instinctively, she cut in again and an officer on the bridge called through a loud-hailer, I’m coming aboard. Heave to or I sink you.“

Norah Murphy appeared in the doorway at the same moment. “What are we going to do?” she demanded.

“I should have thought that was obvious.”

I cut the engines, switched on the deck lights and lit a cigarette. Binnie had moved along the deck and was standing outside the open window.

I said, “Remember, boy, no heroics. Nothing to be gained.”

As the MTB came alongside, a couple of ratings jumped down to our deck, a line was thrown and quickly secured. The standard sub-machine-gun in general use by the Royal Navy is the Sterling, so it was something of a surprise when a Petty Officer appeared at the tail above holding a Thompson gun ready for action, the 1921 model with the hundred drum magazine. The officer appeared beside him, a big man in a standard reefer coat and peaked cap, a pair of night glasses slung about his neck.

Norah Murphy sucked in her breath sharply. “My God,” she said. “Frank Barry.”

It was a name I’d heard before and then I remembered. My cell on Skarthos and the Brigadier briefing me on the IRA and its various splinter groups. Fanatical fringe elements who wanted to blow up every thing in sight and the worst of the lot were Frank Barry’s Sons of Erin.

He leaned over the rail and grinned down at her. “In the flesh and twice as handsome. Good night to you, Norah Murphy.“

Binnie made a sudden, convulsive movement and Barry said genially, “I wouldn’t, Binnie, me old love. Tim Pat here would cut you in half.”

One of the two ratings who had already boarded relieved Binnie of his Browning.

I leaned out of the window and said softly, “Friends of yours, Binnie?”

“Friends ?” he said bitterly. “Major, I wouldn’t cut that bloody lot down if they were hanging.”

SIX - Bloody Passage

The man with the Thompson gun, the one dressed as a Petty Officer whom Barry had called Tim Pat, came over the rail to confront us. On closer inspection he proved to have only one eye, but otherwise bore a distinct resemblance to the great Victor McLaglen in one of those roles where he looks ready to clear the bar of some waterfront saloon on his own at any moment.

Barry dropped down beside him, a handsome, lean-faced man with one side of his mouth hooked into a slight, perpetual half smile as if permanently amused by the world and its inhabitants.

“God save the good work, Norah.” He took off his cap and turned a cheek towards her. “Have you got a kiss for me?

Binnie swung a punch at him which Barry blocked easily and Tim Pat got an arm about the boy’s throat and squeezed. “I’ve told you before, Norah" Barry said, shaking his head. ”You should never use a boy when a man’s work is needed."

I think she could have killed him then. Certainly she looked capable of it, eyes hot in that pale face of hers, but always there was that iron control. God knows what was needed to break her, but I doubted whether Barry was capable.

He shrugged, lit a cigarette, turning to me as he flicked the match over the rail. “Now you, Major" he said, ”look like a sensible man to me."

“And where exactly does that get us ?” ‘To you telling me where you’ve got the stuff stowed away. We’ll find it in the end, but I’d rather it was sooner than later and Tim Pat here’s the terrible impatient one if he’s kept waiting."

Which seemed more than likely from the look of him, so I volunteered the necessary information.

“That’s what I like about the English" he said. ”You’re always so bloody reasonable.“ He nodded to Tim Pat. ”Put them in the aft cabin for the time being and let’s get moving. I want that gear transferred and us out of it in fifteen minutes at the outside."

He snapped his fingers and another half a dozen men, all in British naval uniform, came over the rail, but by then Tim Pat was already herding us towards the companionway. He took us below, shoved us into the big aft cabin and locked us in.

I stood at the door listening to the bustle in the saloon, then turned to face my companions. “And who might this little lot be?”

“The walking ape is Tim Pat Keogh,” Binnie said violently, “and one of these days…‘

“Cool it, Binnie,” Norah Murphy cut in on him sharply. “That kind of talk isn’t going to help one little bit.” She turned back to me. “The boss man is Frank Barry. He was my uncle’s right-hand man until six or seven months ago, then he decided to go his own way.”

‘What is he - a Provo?“

She shook her head. “No, he runs his own show. The Sons of Erin, they call themselves. I believe there was a revolutionary organization under that name in Fenian times.”

“He seems to be remarkably well informed,” I said. “What else do he and his men get up to besides this kind of thing?”

“They’d shoot the Pope if they thought it was necessary,” Binnie said.

I glanced at Norah Murphy in some surprise and she shrugged. “And they’re all good Catholic boys except for Barry himself. Remember the Stern gang in Palestine? Well, the Sons of Erin are exactly the same. They believe in the purity of violence if the cause is just.”

“So anything goes? The bomb in the cafe? Women, kids, the lot?”

“That’s the general idea.” ‘Well, it’s a point of view, I suppose.“ Not in my book, it isn’t,” Binnie said quietly. “There’s got to be another way - has to be or there’s no point to any of it.”

Which was the kind of remark that had roughly the same effect on one as being hit by a very light truck. The Brigadier had once accused me of being the last of the romantics, but I wasn’t even in the running for that title with Binnie around.

The door opened and Frank Barry appeared, a bottle of my Jameson in one hand, four tin mugs from the galley hanging from his fingers. Behind him, they were passing the Lahtis out of the other cabin and up the companionway.

“By God, Major Vaughan, but you deal in good stuff and I don’t just mean your whiskey,” he said. “Those Lahtis are the meanest-looking thing I’ve seen in many a long day. I can’t wait to try one out on a Weasel armoured car.”

“We aim to please,” I said. “The motto of the firm.”

“I only hope you’ve had your money.”

He splashed whiskey into all four mugs. Norah and Binnie stood firm, but it seemed to me likely to be cold where I was going so I emptied one at a swallow and helped myself to another.

“The Small Man won’t be pleased by this night’s work,” Barry said to Norah.

“At a guess I’d say he’ll have your hide and nail it to the door.”

“Chance would be a fine thing.”

He toasted her, mug raised, that slight mocking smile hooked firmly into place, an immensely likeable human being in every way or so he appeared at that first meeting, and it seemed to me more than a probability that he would be the end of me in the near future if I did not get to him first.

Tim Pat appeared in the doorway behind him. “We’re ready to go, Frank.”

Barry drained his mug, then turned casually without another word to us. “Bring them up,” he said and went out.

Norah followed him and I paused long enough to let Binnie go in front of me. As we went up the companion-way I stumbled against him as if losing my footing and muttered quickly, “We’ll only get one chance, if that, so be ready.”

He didn’t even glance over his shoulder as he moved out on deck and Tim Pat gave me a shove after him. Barry was standing by the rail, lighting another cigarette with some difficulty because of the heavy rain.

He nodded to Tim Pat. “Get Norah on board. We haven’t much time.”

She rushed forward as if to argue and Tim Pat handed his Thompson to one of the other men, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her bodily over the rail of the MTB. Then he climbed up to join her.

Binnie and I stood waiting for sentence in the heavy rain. There was only Barry, and the two original ratings who had first boarded us left now, one of them holding the Thompson.

“Now what ?” I said.

Barry shrugged. “That depends.” He turned to Binnie. “I could use you, boy. You’re still the best natural shot with a handgun I ever did see.”

Binnie’s hair was plastered to his forehead and he looked very young. He said quietly, but so clearly that everyone on the MTB must have heard it, “I wouldn’t sit on your deathbed.”

Barry didn’t stop smiling for a moment. Simply shrugged. “All right, Major, get back in the wheelhouse, start her up and move out to sea again. We’ll follow and when I give the signal, you’ll cut your engines and open the sea cocks.”

He clambered up over the MTB’s rail. One of the ratings rammed a Browning into my side so I took the hint and moved along the deck into the wheel-house.

The MTB’s powerful engines rumbled into life. The Browning dug pointedly into my ribs again and I pressed the starter button and looked out of the side window. Barry was walking across the deck to the short ladder which led up to the bridge. Norah ran after him and grabbed him by the arm.

I heard her cry, “No, you shan’t. I won’t let you.” He had her by both arms now and laughed softly as she started to struggle. “By God, Norah, but you have your nerve. All right, just to please you.” He turned to Tim Pat Keogh. “I’ve changed my mind about Binnie. Pipe him on board.”

I leaned out of the window. “And what about me, then?”

He paused half way up the ladder and turned to smile at me. “Why, damn me, Major, but I just took it for granted that the sum total of any real captain’s ambition was to go down with his ship.”

“We definitely operate on the same wavelength. That’s exactly what I thought you’d say,” I called, and added cheerfully, “The big moment, Binnie.”

I put my left hand on the wheel, my right went under the chart table, found my secret button and pressed. The flap fell and I had the Mauser and shot my guard through the head at point-blank range, all in one continuous movement.

The silencer was really very effective, the only noise a dull thud audible at a range of three yards. The other guard was in the process of urging Binnie towards the rail, prodding him with the barrel of the Thompson.

I called softly, “Binnie,” and shot the man in the back of the head and he went down like a stone falling.

In the instant, as if by magic, Binnie had the Thompson in his hands, was already firing as he turned, catching the man who was standing by Norah Murphy with a long burst that drove him right back across the deck of the MTB and over the far rail.

Then he went for Barry who was still pulling hard for the top of the ladder. There was a flash of yellow oilskins on the far side of the rail, Binnie stopped firing as Norah Murphy ran, crouching, then scrambled over.

As she reached the safety of our decks he started to fire again, but by then Barry was over the top of the ladder and into the safety of the wheelhouse. A moment later, the engine note deepened as someone gave it full throttle and the MTB surged away into the darkness.

A burst of sub-machine-gun fire came our way and I ducked as one of the side windows in the wheelhouse shattered. Binnie kept on firing until the Thompson jammed. He tossed it to the deck with a curse and stood listening, in the sudden silence, to the sound of the MTB’s engines fading into the distance.

==========

I replaced the Mauser in its clip, shoved the flap back into place and went out on deck. Norah Murphy crouched by the rail on one knee, her face buried against her arm. I touched her gently on the shoulder and she looked up at me, a great weariness in her eyes.

“You had a gun ?” I nodded. “But I don’t understand. I thought they searched?”

“They did.”

I pulled her to her feet and Binnie said, By God, but you’re the close one, Major, and I didn’t hear a damn thing.“

“You wouldn’t.”

“I’d have had them if the Thompson hadn’t jammed.”

He kicked it towards me and I picked it up and tossed it over the rail. “A bad habit they had, the early ones.

Now let’s get rid of the evidence.“ I turned to Norah Murphy. Tump some water up and get the deck swabbed down. Make sure you clean off any bloodstains.”

“My God,” she said, a kind of horror on her face. “You must be the great original cold-blooded bastard of all time.”

“That’s me,” I said. “And don’t forget the broken glass in the wheelhouse. You’ll find a broom in the galley.”

Whatever she felt, she turned to after that and Binnie and I deal with the two guards, stripping their bodies of any obvious identification before putting them over the rail. Then I went back to the wheelhouse and examined the chart quickly.

Norah was sweeping the last of the glass out and paused. “Now what?”

“We need a place to hole up in for a few hours,” I told her. “Time to breathe again and work out the next move before we put in to Stramore.” I found what I was looking for a moment later. “This looks like it. Small island called Magil ten miles out. Uninhabited and a nice secluded spot to anchor in. Horseshoe Bay.”

Binnie was still at the rail at the spot where we had thrown the two bodies over. From where I stood it looked as if he was praying, which didn’t seem all that probable - or did it ?

I leaned out of the window and called, “We’re getting out of here.”

He turned and nodded. I switched off the deck lights, took the Kathleen round in a tight circle and headed out to sea again.

==========

Magil was everything I could have hoped for and Horseshoe Bay proved an excellent anchorage, being almost landlocked. It was still dark when we arrived, but dawn wasn’t very far away and there was a kind of pale luminosity to everything in spite of the heavy rain when I went out on deck.

When I went below, Binnie and Norah Murphy were sitting on either side of the saloon table, heads together.

“Secrets?” I said cheerfully. “From me? Now I call that very naughty.”

I got the Jameson and a glass out. Norah said harshly, “Don’t you ever drink anything else ? I’ve heard of starting early, but this is ridiculous. At least let me get you something to eat.”

“Later,” I said. “After I’ve had a good four hours’ sleep you can wake me with another of those bacon sandwiches of yours.”

I moved towards the aft cabin and she said angrily, “For God’s sake, Vaughan, cut out the funny stuff. We’ve got to decide what to do.”

“What about?” I said, and poured myself a large Jameson which for some reason, probably the time of day as she had so kindly pointed out, tasted foul.

“The guns,” she said. “What else? You are the most infuriating man I’ve ever met.”

“AH right,” I said. “If you want to talk, let’s talk, although I would have thought it simple enough. You’ll want to get in touch with your Small Man to see about another consignment and I can assure you the price has gone up after last night’s little fracas. The Royal Navy and ten years inside is one thing, but your friend Barry and his bloody Sons of Erin are quite another.” She glanced at me, white-faced. “How much?” ‘A subject for discussion.“ I poured myself another drink. ”On the other hand, maybe you don’t have the funds.“

We have the funds,“ she said.

I tossed back the whiskey, most of which, like the previous one, had actually gone down the leg of my left gumboot, and tried to sound slightly tight when I laughed.

“I just bet you have.” I poured another drink, spilling a little. “Maybe we’ll ask for gold this time. Something solid to hang on to in this changing world of ours.”

Binnie’s hand went inside his coat where the Browning once more safely nestled and Norah Murphy said fiercely, “What in the hell are you getting at ?”

“Oh, come off it, angel,” I said. “I know the Small Man was behind that bullion raid on the Glasgow mail boat. Word gets around. How much did he get away with? Half a million, or were they exaggerating ?”

They both sat there staring at me and I got to my feet. “Anyway, you go and see your uncle when we get in and I’ll have a word with Meyer. We’ll sort something out, you’ll see. Can I go to bed now ?”

She sat there staring at me and I moved towards the aft cabin, chuckling away to myself. When I reached the door I said, “You know it really is very funny, whichever way you look at it. I’d love to see Frank Barry’s face when he checks those sub-machine-guns and the Lahtis and finds the firing pins are missing.”

Her hands tightened on the edge of the table and there was a look of incredulity on her face. “What are you talking about?” she whispered.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you ?” I said. “Meyer’s got them. One of those little tricks of the trade we find useful, life being such a cruel hard business on occasion, especially in our game.”

There was a look of unholy joy on Binnie’s face and he slammed a hand down hard across the table. “By Christ, Major Vaughan, but you’re the man for me. For God’s sake take the oath and join us and we’ll have the entire thing under wraps in six months.“

“Sorry, old lad,” I said. “I don’t take sides, not any more. Ask the good doctor, she’ll tell you.”

And then Norah Murphy did the most incredible thing. She started to laugh helplessly, which was so unexpected that I closed the cabin door and actually poured myself a whiskey which I drank. Then I lay down on one of the bunks and, as is usual with the wicked and depraved of this world, was plunged at once into a deep and refreshing sleep.

SEVEN - When that man is dead and gone

We came into Stramore just after noon. It was still raining, but the mist had cleared and according to the forecast brighter weather was on the way. Stramore was little more than a village really, the sort of place which had lived off the fish for years and was now doing better out of weekend yachtsmen.

Except for the side window missing in the wheelhouse and the odd chip where a bullet had splintered the woodwork, we showed little sign of the skirmish with Barry and his men. We anchored off the main jetty and used the dinghy to go ashore.

I arranged to meet Norah Murphy and Binnie in the local pub after I’d reported to the harbourmaster, which was only an excuse for I had something much more important to do.

I found a telephone-box up a back street and dialled the number Meyer had given me. It was somehow surprising to hear the receiver picked up at the other end almost instantly, to hear the familiar voice, Al Bowlly belting out Everything I have is yours in the background.

“Randall Cottage. Mr Berger here.”

“Mr Berger ?” I said. “You asked me to contact you the moment I got in about that consignment I was handling for you.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Everything all right?”

“I’m afraid not. Another carrier insisted on taking over the goods en route.”

His voice didn’t even flicker. “That is unfortunate. I think I’ll have to contact my principal about this. Can you come to see me ?”

“Any time you say.”

“All right. Give me a couple of hours. I’ll expect you around three-thirty.”

The receiver clicked into place, cutting Al Bowlly dead and I left the phone-box and moved back towards the waterfront. I wondered if he would have the Brigadier there by the time I arrived. It should prove an interesting meeting, or so I told myself as I turned the corner and walked towards the pub where I’d arranged to meet Norah and Binnie.

They were sitting in the snug by a roaring fire, a plate of meat sandwiches between them, pickles in a jar and two glasses of cold lager.

“And what am I supposed to do? Live off my fat?” I demanded as I sat down.

Norah reached for a small handbell and tang it and a pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman appeared a moment later with another plate of sandwiches.

Was it the lager, sir, like the others ?“ she asked.

“That’s it,” I said.

She brought it and disappeared. Norah Murphy said, “Satisfied?”

“For the moment.”

“And what did your friend Meyer have to say?” I tried to look puzzled and she frowned in exasperation. “Oh, be your age, Vaughan. It stood out a mile why you wanted to be alone. Did you think I was born yesterday?”

"Never that,“ I said and held up my hands. ”All right, I surrender.“

“So when are you seeing him?” I told her and she frowned. “Why the delay?”

“I don’t know. He’s got things to do. It’s only a couple of hours, after all, and we can reach him quickly enough. The place he’s taken is no more than ten miles from here. What about your end of things ?”

“Oh, that’s all taken care of. I’ve been doing some telephoning too.” She glanced at her watch. “In fact, I’ll have to get moving. I’m being picked up outside the schoolhouse in fifteen minutes by the local brigade commander. It was his people who were waiting for us on the beach last night. He wasn’t too pleased.”

“I can imagine. Will you be seeing your uncle?

“I’m not sure. I don’t know where he is at the moment, though I think they’ll have arranged for me to speak to him on the phone.”

I emptied my glass and Binnie picked it up without a word, went behind the bar and got me another.

Norah Murphy put a cigarette in her mouth. As I gave her a light, the match flaring in my cupped hands, I said, I’m surprised at you, smoking those things and you a doctor.“

She seemed puzzled, a slight frown on her face, then glanced at the cigarette and laughed, that distinctive harsh laugh of hers. “Oh, what the hell, Vaughan, we’ll all be dead soon enough.”

In a sense, I had a moment of genuine insight there, saw deeper than I had seen before certainly, but we were on dangerous ground and I had to go carefully. I said, “What will you do when it’s all over?” ‘Over?“ She stared at me blankly. ”What in the hell are you talking about?“

“But you’re going to win, aren’t you, you and your friends ? You must believe that or there wouldn’t be any point to any of it. I simply wondered what you would do when it was all over and everything was back to normal.” She sat there staring at me, caught in some timeless moment like a fly in amber, unable to answer me for the simple and inescapable reason that there was only one answer.

I nodded slowly. “You remind me of that uncle of mine.” Binnie put the pint of lager down on the table. “What was it they called him again, Binnie? The Schoolmaster of Stradballa?”

“That’s it, Major.”

I turned to Norah Murphy and said gently, but with considerable cruelty for all that, “He never wanted it to-end, either. It was his whole life, you see. Trenchcoats and Thompson guns, action by night, a wonderful, violent game. He enjoyed it, Norah, if that’s the right word. It was the only way he wanted to live his life - just like you.”

She was white-faced, trembling, a kind of agony in her eyes, and she turned it all on me. “I fight for a cause, Major. I’ll die for it if necessary and proud to, like thousands before me.“ She placed both hands flat on the table and leaned towards me. ”What did you ever believe in, Major Simon bloody Vaughan ? What did you kill for ?“

“You mean what was my excuse, don’t you ?” I nodded. “Oh, yes, Doctor, we all need one of those.”

She sat back in the chair, still trembling and I said softly, “You’ll be late for the pick-up. Better get going.”

She took a deep breath as if to pull herself together and stood up. “I want Binnie to go with you.”

“Don’t you trust me ?”

“Not particularly, and I’d like the address and telephone number of this place where your friend Meyer is staying. I’ll phone you at four o’clock. Whatever happens, don’t leave till you hear from me.” She turned to Binnie. I’m counting on you to see that he does as he’s told, Binnie.“

He looked more troubled than I’d ever seen him, torn between the two of us, I suspect, for it had become more than obvious that the events of the previous night had considerably enlarged his respect for me. On the other hand, he loved Norah Murphy in his own pure way. She had been put into his charge by the Small Man, he would die, if necessary, to protect her. It was as simple, or as complicated, as that.

A great deal of this Norah Murphy saw and her mouth tightened. I wrote Meyer’s address and phone number on a scrap of paper and gave it to her.

“Ask for Mr Berger" I said. ”If anything goes adrift, we’ll meet back at the boat.“

She said nothing. Simply glanced at the piece of paper briefly, dropped it into the fire and walked out.

Binnie said, “When I was a kid on my Da’s farm in Kerry I had the best-looking red setter you ever paw.”

I tried some more lager. “Is that so ?”

“There was a little flatcoat retriever bitch on the next place and whenever he went over there, she used to take lumps out of him. You’ve never seen the like.” There was a heavy pause and he went on, “When he was run over by the milk lorry one morning, she lay in a corner, that little bitch, for a week or more. Would neither drink nor eat. Now wasn’t that the strange thing ?”

“Not at all,” I said. “It’s really quite simple. She was a woman. Now get the hell out of here with your homespun philosophy and hire us a car at the local garage. I’ll wait here for you.”

“Leave it to me, Major,” he said, his face expressionless, and went out.

The door closed with a soft whuff, wind lifted a paper off the bar, the fire flared up.

What was my reason for killing? That’s what she had said. I tried to think of Kota Baru, of the burned-out mission, the stink of roasting flesh. It had seemed enough at the time - more than enough, but there was nothing real to it any more. It was an echo from an ancient dream, something that had never happened.

And then it was quiet. So quiet that I could hear the clock ticking on the mantelpiece, and for no logical reason whatsoever my stomach tightened, dead men’s fingers seemed to crawl across my skin and I suddenly knew exactly what Meyer meant by having a bad feeling.

==========

There had been no car available at the town’s only garage, but Binnie had managed to borrow an old Ford pick-up truck from them, probably by invoking the name of the Organization although I didn’t enquire too closely into that.

He did the driving and I sat back and smoked a cigarette and stared morosely into the driving rain. It was a pleasant enough ride. Green fields, high hedges, rolling farmland, with here and there grey stone walls that had once been the boundaries of the great estates or still were.

He had picked up an ordnance survey map of the area and I found Randall Cottage again. The track leading to it was perhaps a quarter of a mile long and the place was entirely surrounded by trees. The right kind of hidey hole for an old fox like Meyer.

I gave Binnie the sign when we were close and he started to slow. A car was parked on the grass verge at the side of the road a hundred yards from the turning, a large green Vauxhall estate with no one inside.

God knows why, that instinct again for bad news, I suppose, the product of having lived entirely the wrong sort of life, but something was wrong, I’d never been more certain of anything. I clapped a hand on Binnie’s shoulder and told him to pull up.

I got out of the car, walked back to the Vauxhall and peered inside. The doors were locked and everything seemed normal enough. Rooks called in the elm trees beyond the wall that enclosed the plantation and Randall Cottage.

I walked back to the van through the rain and Binnie got out to meet me. “What’s up ?”

“That car,” I said. “It worries me. It could be that it’s simply broken down and the driver’s walking on to the next village for help. Pigs could also fly.”

“On the other hand,” he said slowly, “if someone wanted to walk up to the cottage quiet like…‘

“That’s right‘

“So what do we do about it ?”

I gave the matter some thought and then I told him.

==========

The track to the cottage wasn’t doing the van’s springs much good and I stayed in bottom gear, sliding from one pothole to the next in the heavy rain. It was a gloomy sort of place, that wood, choked with undergrowth, pine trees un-thinned over the years cutting out all light.

The track took a sharp right turn that brought me out into a clearing suddenly and there was Randall Cottage, a colonial style wooden bungalow with a wide verandah running along the front.

It was unexpectedly large but quite dilapidated, and the paved section at the foot of the verandah steps was badly overgrown with grass and weeds of every description.

As I got out of the van, thunder rumbled overhead, a strange, menacing sound and the sky went very dark, so that standing there in the clearing amongst the trees, it seemed as if the day was drawing to a close and darkness was about to fall.

I went up the steps and knocked on the front door which stood slightly ajar. “Heh, Meyer, are you there ?” I called cheerfully.

There was no reply, but when I pushed the door wide, Al Bowlly sounded faintly and rather eerily from somewhere at the rear of the house.

The song he was singing was a number he’s reputed to have dedicated to Adolf Hitler. It was the last thing he ever recorded, because a couple of weeks later he was killed by a bomb during the London Blitz. None of which was calculated to make me feel any happier as I moved in and advanced along a dark, musty corridor, following the sound of the music.

The door at the far end stood wide and I paused on the threshold. There were french windows on the far side, curtains partially drawn so that the room was half in darkness. Meyer sat in a chair beside a table on which the cassette tape-recorder was playing.

“Heh, Meyer,” I said. “What in the hell are you up to ?”

And then I moved close enough to see that he was tied to the chair. I tilted his chin and his eyes stared up at me blankly, fixed in death. His cheeks were badly blistered, probably from repeated application of a cigarette-lighter flame. There was froth on his lips. He’d had a bad heart for some time now. It seemed pretty obvious what had happened.

Poor old Meyer. To escape the Gestapo by the skin of his teeth so young and all these years later to end in roughly the same way. And yet I was not particularly angry, not filled with any killing rage, for anger stems from frustration and I knew, with complete certainty, that Meyer would not go unavenged for long.

The door slammed behind me as I had expected and when I turned, Tim Pat Keogh was standing there, flanked by two hard-looking men in reefer coats who both held revolvers in their hands.

“Surprise, surprise,” Tim Pat said and he laughed. “This just isn’t your day, Major.”

“Did you have to do that to him ?” I asked.

“A tough old bastard, I’ll give him that, but then I wanted him to tell me where those firing pins were and he was stubborn as Kelly’s mule.”

One of his friends came forward and ran his hands over me so inexpertly that I could have taken him and the gun in his hand in any number of ways, but there was no need.

He moved back, slipping his gun in his pocket, and the three of them faced me. “Where’s Binnie, then, Major ?” Tim Pat demanded. “Did you lose him on the way ?”

The french windows swung in with a splintering crash, the curtains were torn aside and Binnie stood there, crouching, the Browning ready in his left hand.

There was a sudden silence, the one curtain remaining fluttered in the wind, rain pattered into the room. Thunder rumbled on the horizon of things.

Binnie said coldly, “Here I am, you bastard."

Tim Pat’s breath went out of him in a dying fall. “Well, would you look at that now?”

One of the other two men was still holding his gun. Binnie extended the Browning suddenly, the revolver dropped to the floor, the hands went up.

“What about Mr Meyer?”

“Look for yourself.” I pulled Meyer’s head back.

A glance was enough. The boy’s eyes became empty, devoid of all feeling for a moment, the same look as on that first night in Belfast, and then something moved there, some cold spark, and the look on his face was terrible to see.

“You did this ?” he said in a strange dead voice. “In the name of Ireland ?”

“For God’s sake, Binnie,” Tim Pat protested. “The ould bugger wouldn’t open his mouth. Now what in the hell could I do?”

Binnie’s glance flickered once again to Meyer, the man with his hands raised dropped to one knee and grabbed for his revolver. In the same moment, Tim Pat and the other man went for their guns.

One of the finest shots in the world once put five .38 specials into a playing card at fifteen feet in half a second. He would have met his match in Binnie Gallagher. His first bullet caught the man who had dropped to one knee between the eyes, he put two into the head of the other one that could not have had more than two fingers’ span between them.

Tim Pat fired once through the pocket of his raincoat, then a bullet shattered his right arm. He bounced back against the wall, staggered forward, mouth agape, and blundered out through the french windows.

Binnie let him reach the bottom of the steps, start across the lawn, then shot him three times in the back so quickly that to anyone other than an expert it must have sounded like one shot.

Al Bowlly was into Moonlight on the Highway now. I switched off the cassette recorder, than I walked past Binnie and went down the steps. Tim Pat lay on his face. I turned him over and felt in his pocket for the gun. It was a Smith and Wesson automatic and when I pulled it out, a piece of cloth came with it.

Binnie stood over me, reloading the Browning. I held up the Smith and Wesson. “Let that be a lesson to you. Never fire an automatic from your pocket. The slide usually catches on the lining so you can only guarantee to get your first shot off, just like our friend here.”

“You learn something new every day" he said.

From inside the house the phone started ringing. I went back in at once and found it in the darkness of the hall on a small table.

I lifted the receiver and said, “Randall Cottage?"

Norah Murphy’s harsh, distinctive voice sounded at the other end. “Who is this ?”

“Vaughan."

“Is Meyer there ?”

“Only in a manner of speaking. I’m afraid the opposition got there first. Three of them.

There was silence for a moment and then she said, “You’re all right - both of you ?”

“Fine,” I said. “Binnie handled it with his usual efficiency. I hope our friends have got funeral insurance. This one’s going to be expensive for them. Where shall we meet?”

“Back at the boat" she said. ”I can be there in fifteen minutes. We’ll talk then.“

The receiver clicked into place and I hung up and turned to Binnie. “All right, back to Stramore.”

We went out into the rain and I paused beside the van, “Are you okay ? Do you want me to drive ?”

“God save us, why shouldn’t I, Major ? I’m fit as a hare. You sit back and enjoy your cigarette.”

As we went down the farm track, his hands were steady as a rock on the wheel.

==========

The green Vauxhall still waited on the grass verge at the side of the road as we passed, would probably stand there for some time before anyone thought to do any checking, although that was not all that probable in times like these.

About five miles out of Stramore we had a puncture in the offside rear tyre. Binnie managed to pull into a lay-by and we got out together to fix it, only to discover that while there was a reasonably serviceable spare, there was no jack.

He gave the offending wheel an angry kick. “Would you look at that ? Two quid that dirty bowser took off me. Wait, now, till I see him. We’ll be having a word and maybe more.”

We started to walk side by side in the heavy rain. I wasn’t particularly put out at what had happened. I needed a time to think and this was as good a chance as any. I had a problem on my hands - a hell of a problem. Meyer had been the pipeline to the Brigadier, had probably spoken to him as soon as he had heard from me if Tim Pat Keogh and his friends had given him time.

So now I was nicely adrift, for the Brigadier had made it plain that under no circumstances was I to get involved with the military. Whichever way you looked at it, it seemed obvious that if I was ever to get in touch with him at all, which seemed pretty essential now, I would have to disregard that part of my instructions.

I suppose we had been walking for about half an hour when we were picked up by a travelling shop. The driver was going to Stramore and was happy to take us there if we didn’t mind a roundabout route as he had calls to make at a couple of farms on the way.

The end result was that we were a good two hours later into Stramore than I had calculated and it was past six o’clock when the van dropped us at the edge of town. We had to pass the garage on the way down to the harbour and as it was still open, Binnie went in and I waited for him. Five minutes later he emerged, face grim.

“What happened?” I asked him.

He held up two one pound notes. “He saw reason,” he said. “A decent enough man with the facts before him.”

I wondered if the Browning had figured in the proceedings, but that was none of my affair. We went down the narrow cobbled street together and turned along the front.

Binnie tugged at my sleeve quickly. “The boat’s gone.”

He was right enough, but when we went down to the jetty itself, we found the Kathleen moored at the bottom of a flight of wide stone steps on the far side.

“Now what in the hell would she do that for ?” Binnie asked.

I led the way down the steps without replying. There was something wrong here, I sensed that, but in view of the time and place, it didn’t seem likely to be anything to do with Frank Barry and his merry men.

We reached the concrete landing strip at the bottom and I called, “Norah ? Are you there ?”

She screamed high and clear from inside the cabin, “Run for it, Vaughan. Run for it.”

But we were already too late. A couple of stripped-down Land-Rovers roared along the jetty in the same instant and a moment later there were at least eight paratroopers lining the jetty above us plus the same number of submachine-guns pointing in our direction. Binnie’s hand was already inside his coat and I barely had time to grab his arm before he could draw.

“I told you before, boy, no heroics. There’s no percentage in it. There’ll be another time.”

He looked at me, eyes glazed, that strange, dazed expression on his face again, and by then they were down the steps and on to us.

They put us up against the wall and none too gently, which was only to be expected, legs astraddle for the search. The sergeant in charge found the Browning, of course, but nothing on me.

After that, we waited until someone said, “All right, Sergeant, turn them round.”

A young paratrooper captain was standing by the wheelhouse wearing red beret, camouflaged uniform and flak jacket, just like his men. He was holding the Browning in one hand. Norah Murphy stood beside him, her face very white.

The captain had the lazy, rather amiable face of the kind of man who usually turns out to be as tough as old boots underneath. He looked me over with a sort of mild curiosity.

You are Major Simon Vaughan?“

“That’s right, Captain.”

I laid a slight emphasis on my use of his handle which he didn’t fail to notice for he smiled faintly. “Your wheel-house would appear to have been in the wars, Major. Window gone, wood splintered and a couple of nine millimetre rounds embedded in one panel. Would you care to comment?”

“It was a rough trip" I said. ”Or didn’t you hear the weather report?“

He shrugged. “Under the circumstances, I have no alternative but to take you all into custody.”

Norah Murphy said, I’m an American citizen. I demand to see my consul.“

“At the earliest possible moment, ma’am,” he assured her gravely.

Another vehicle turned on to the jetty and braked to a halt above us. I heard a door slam and a cheerful, familiar voice called, “Now then, Stacey, what’s all this? What have we got here ?”

The captain sprang to attention and gave the kind of salute that even the Guards only reserve for very senior officers as the Brigadier came down the steps resplendent in camouflaged uniform, flak jacket and dark blue beret, a Browning in the holster on his right hip, a swagger stick in his left hand.

EIGHT - Interrogation

In happier times Stramore had only needed one constable, which meant that the local police post was a tiny affair. Little more than an office and single cell which from the look of it had been constructed to accommodate all the local drunks at the same time. It was clean enough, with green-painted brick walls, four iron cot beds and a single narrow window, heavily barred as was to be expected.

The door was unlocked by the police constable and Captain Stacey led the way in. “I’m sorry we can’t offer separate accommodation in your case, Dr Murphy,” he said. “But it won’t be for long. Tonight at the most. I would anticipate moving you first thing in the morning.”

Norah Murphy said calmly, “I’m not going anywhere till I hear from the American consul.”

Stacey saluted and turned to leave. Binnie and I had both been handcuffed and I held out my hands. “What about these ?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve had my orders.”

The door closed, the key turned. I moved to the window, and tried to peer outside, but there was nothing to see for the glass was misted with rain and it was almost dark.

Norah Murphy said softly, “Are we wired for sound ?”