Field of Blood (44 page)

the stunning impact of a high velocity round

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**against the magazine of an SLR. No bloody point. He had told them, and made

a laugh of it, that he had slipped on an icy pavement and clipped his nose on the

kerbstone. They'd accepted the explanation, because they knew nothing of the grey world that was Turf Lodge. There had been some of their friends invited round for supper, and the talk at the table had been about everything but Northern Ireland. They wouldn't have discussed cancer or incurable leukaemia at

the supper table, and there was no reason why they should discuss Northern Ireland. His mother had watched over him and seemed to wonder why her boy drank so often and so deeply. After the guests had gone when his mother was in

the kitchen, his father had sidled close to him and asked if `things were alright'

over there, and David had said they were àlright'. There was a sharp nervous smile on his father's face as he had supposed that his son didn't see much of thèdifficulties', and David had said that he never seemed to see anything of thèdifficulties'. Not their war, they hadn't volunteered for warfare across the Irish Sea. His father had made a play of seeming satisfied.

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He had travelled down to London that morning, and crossed London by

underground, and taken a stopping train to a station near Roehampton. It wasn't

a bad day for the last of December, quite a bright sun. Until he had gone through

the front doors the hospital had seemed a fairly decent sort of place. Not that there was anything wrong with the inside of the buildings, it was the people inside that bruised him. They were all of his age, the men who were learning to

walk with artificial limbs, and on crutches, and on sticks, and the men who were

learning to get themselves down a corridor when their eyes were shaded with dark glasses.

`Why didn't you tell me earlier?' Rennie snapped into the telephone. Ì thought we could get over it, and I was wrong . . .' Prentice's voice was faint on the line.

`Have you taken him boozing?'

`He's pissed every night.'

`Get him a woman.'

`He'd run a bloody mile ‐ that's not his problem. His problem is that he's talking

about scratching out.'

`He knows what'll happen to him?

'I've told him, Goss's told him. He's not in the mood to be told.' `Have you talked

money with him?'

`Like we're a couple of investment brokers. It's not about money.' `What in Christ's name is it about?

'He's lost his balls.'

Ìf he ever had any,' Rennie muttered.

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`Come again, Mr Rennie . . .'

Ì said that it's your job to lift him.'

`We can hold him up, Mr Rennie, Goss and me'll hold him up till

he's in the box. When he's in the box and we can't hold him then he'll

fall flat on his bloody face.'

`Will he get better?

'My opinion only, but he'll get worse. My opinion, you have to get him through the Magistrate soonest, it might show there's nowhere else to go but the Crown

Court. Doing his act at the preliminary hearing might just toughen him, steel him

‐ but I wouldn't put money on it ‐ it might just fold him. We're in a bad way.'

,if you let McAnally through your fingers ...'

`You've no call to be threatening me, Mr Rennie.'

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Rennie sat in his office. The telephone in his hand was sheened with the sweat from his palm. New Year's Eve, and the end of the week when he had come near

to forgetting Sean Pius McAnally. New Year's Eve, and he had been hoping to take Gloria to the rugby club for the dinner dance. Just about cleared his desk, when Prentice had rung. He shouldn't have been doubting Prentice. Prentice was

as good as any he had. Prentice had been nursing the problem, hoping it would

go away.

`John, give it me again.'

Ì told you all of it, Mr Rennie.'

`Just give it me again.'

`We let him ring home on Christmas morning, mid‐morning. It couldn't have been worse. His little girl had gone down to McAnally's parents, just down the Drive ‐ this is what Roisin told him ‐ she was chased by some kids. Bloody Christmas morning, and they chased her, they were shouting "Tout's brat" at her, something like that ... she ran into the road. There was this car, it swerved in time. It didn't hit the girl, it frightened the wits out of her. The car hit a hedge. His Missus came out, she was screaming up and down the road, that's what she told

Gingy. The girl wasn't hurt, but she could just as well have been killed ... Gingy caught the lot of it. She'd just got the girl indoors when he rang, she was still hysterical. She told Gingy that if Little Patty had been killed then her blood would have been on his head ... I don't think she meant it, it was just bad luck he phoned when he did.'

`Fucking animals ... right, that's Christmas Day.'

`Next day we let him ring again ‐ we reckoned she'd have calmed down. The boy,

Gerard, picked up the phone. Gingy said who he was and the boy cut him, just cut

the call. They must have left the phone off after that, because Gingy tried twice

more and it was engaged both times.'

Ì see your problem,' Rennie said heavily.

`We gave Gingy the chance to call again last night, late, after the kid would have

been in bed. Gingy dialled it, he went pretty white, he just

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**put the phone down. A fellow answered it ... Gingy won't say who it was ... he

just went to pieces then. Look, this morning we were trying him with his evidence. He was awful. If he were like that in court, up against Counsel, he'd be

massacred.'

`You took your bloody time telling me.'

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Rennie pondered. He was bleak‐faced. He was searching his memory, recalling his last conversation with the Commanding Officer of 2 R.R.F. He remembered what had been said about David Ferris.

`John, where are you tonight?

'Some awful dive that Andy's found.'

Ìn the town?

'Yes.'

`For midnight?

'Yes, we've a hell of a lot to celebrate.'

`What's it called?

'The Midnite Club ‐ you coming over, Mr Rennie?

'Don't fuck me about, boy ... You be in the Midnite, you better be there.'

`That the lot, Mr Rennie?

'It'll be the lot for now.'

Rennie put down the telephone. He began to search in his book for the direct line

to the Commanding Officer of 2 R.R.F.

Alone in his cell, the Chief brooded on what he had learned on that day, the last

day of the year. His lunch tray was on the floor in front of him, untouched.

Mr Pronsias Reilly had made, in the late afternoon, a solicitor's call to his client.

`You'll not credit it of Gingy McAnally, but the word is that he's under the thumb

of a Brit officer, that the officer's got him wrapped round the finger. The officer's what's holding Gingy up ... So the name of the officer was learned ... Frankie Conroy had the name. Frankie went for him, set up a snipe on him, and hit his bloody rifle. Without that officer, McAnally's gone, and Frankie hit the officer's rifle. That was Christmas Eve, and the officer hasn't been seen since. We've lost

track of Gingy, most likely he's across the water, but the officer was the way to

him, and he's not been seen since the snipe . . . If you're to break the charges then Gingy's got to lose that officer. That's about all there is, but I reckoned you'd want to know.'

The Chief had access to newspapers and to a pocket transistor radio. He knew the war was scaled down in his absence, and the absence of the Brigade Staff, and the absence of the Battalion Officers, all in the cells alongside him, there on

the word of Gingy McAnally. The

Organization always hit hard before Christmas, and then allowed a lull, and came

back kicking the New Year in.

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`Why Frankie? Why that donkey on the rifle?' the Chief hissed out of earshot of

the watching prison officer.

`The only one who was interested,' Mr Pronsias Reilly muttered.

`There's plenty of men who wouldn't have hit the rifle.'

`None of them interested enough to try.'

,only Frankie?

'Who you'd depend your freedom on? Only Frankie.'

`He's useless.'

`He's what you've got.'

The Organization was stagnated. It was castrated without the influence of the Chief and his Brigade Staff and his Battalion Officers. He hated to lie on his cell

bunk because then his head was close to the whitewashed wall and the cell seemed to close around him, and his ears seemed to ring with the crash of closing

doors, and the scrape of bolts, and the tinkle of the key chains. He hated to lie on his bed blanket with his head close to the wall because then the knowledge of the

months and years in the Kesh seemed to overwhelm him.

He sat on his bed, and he stared at the door, and he cursed, because the only man

who would champion him was the donkey, Frankie Conroy.

He spent an hour and a half with Sergeant Tunney ... for David Ferris it was a hard

hour and a half, and he tried not to look too often at the scorched raw flesh of the sergeant's face and hands. He told the sergeant what had happened to him, out

in Turf Lodge, and he lied a bit and said they might have hit the bugger with return fire, because that would please the sergeant. He told him about Christmas

Day, and Sunray serving soup for the Fusiliers, and the 2 i/c carving the turkeys,

and the Adjutant dropping a two‐dozen tray of cans and the beer foaming when

the rings were pulled and making a hell of a mess, and Fusilier Jones losing a tooth filling on a 5p piece in the Christmas pudding. When he left, when he touched gently onto Sergeant Tunney's shoulder, he thought there was the

dribble of a tear at his platoon sergeant's eye. He couldn't shake the sergeant's

hand, so he had to touch him on the shoulder, and he couldn't be sure whether it

was tears or not because there was so much mucus and ointment on the

sergeant's face.

`You give the fuckers hell, Mr Ferris, when you get back.'

`We'll leave a few for you, Sergeant Tunney, for when you're with us again.'

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He smiled with as much confidence as he could muster, and he walked out of the

ward.

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**The sergeant's wife was sitting on a hard bench in the corridor. She looked away from him, and he pretended that he hadn't seen her. He thought that each

of the days of the year the Ministry should bring the cameras into the wards and

the corridors of this hospital to record what his father called thèdifficulties' of Northern Ireland. Let the people, the voters, see the real price of keeping the peace in the Province. Let them see the men without legs, without stomachs, without sight, without skin on their faces and hands. The sergeant's wife had the

right to look away from him.

`David . . .'

She was coming down the corridor towards him. His Sam, his girl. A full swinging

skirt. Shined Italian boots. A suede coat open over a cashmere sweater. Long hair

darting golden over her face. His Sam, coming towards him with excitement loud

on her cheeks. She was light in darkness. She was love in a place of misery.

He saw the wide open newspaper that hid from him the face of the sergeant's wife. He was meeting his girl, he was whole. She was waiting on her man, he was

damaged. Fucking Northern Ireland, fucking Belfast ...

`Sorry I'm late, David darling, bloody traffic, God knows where it all comes from.

Heavens you look well. Got your business done?'

She came into his arms. He was embarrassed, Sam wasn't. Sam hugged him,

kissed him. Sam didn't see the newspaper of the sergeant's wife.

He felt the tackiness of her lipstick on his mouth, on his face. He felt the warmth

of her coat on his neck. He felt the shape of her pressed against his chest.

Ìt's wonderful to see you,' Ferris said, into her ear. `Too damned right it's wonderful. You finished? 'Yes.'

She was still kissing him.

`Let's get the hell out. It's got the smell of death, this place.'

His voice would have carried across a parade ground. They walked away together

down the corridor, and from Mrs Tunney.

`We're well fixed up ‐ Christ, you didn't give me much time ... We're going to someone called Penny's for supper ‐ we were at school ‐ lives in Farnham ‐ then

we're going dancing. We're staying at Penny's. Alright?

'Brilliant.'

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`Penny says she's dying to meet you. She says any man that keeps me celibate

must be worth meeting. She's married to an accountant, so no army talk . . .'

He pushed open the rubber doors at the end of the corridor and they came out

into the Reception hallway of the hospital. He kissed her forehead, she kissed him back on the mouth.

`Who were you seeing in there?

'My platoon sergeant.'

`What's his problem?

'He's just a bit ill.'

`You've got to go back tomorrow, to Belfast?'

`Got to.'

`Wouldn't you desert for me?'

In the centre of the Reception hallway, David Ferris held Samantha Forster. Held

her, squeezed her, buried his head in her soft, scented hair. He didn't see the nurses, nor the visitors, nor the doctors.