Field of Blood (8 page)

would be the Commanding Officer again when they left the Province,

but in Belfast he could be Sunray.

`He's positive,' Ferris said firmly.

`Has to be watertight.' Sunray sat at his desk.

`Can't afford a mistake, on a thing like this.' The 2 i/c was by the

door.

Ìf it's a Roger it's something of a coup.' The Intelligence Officer held

in his folded hands the VDU print‐out concerning Sean Pius McAnally. `He's absolutely positive,' Ferris said again. `He'd have to be.'

`He'd have to swear to it in court.'

'S.O.P. would be to bring in our friends in bottle‐green ... but we just might lift him ourselves.'

`Fusilier Jones will swear that the man I questioned yesterday in the Drive, Turf

Lodge, and gave his name as Sean Pius McAnally, was the same man that he saw

in the back seat of the car that we failed to stop in Divis Street this morning,'

Ferris said. `That's the beginning and the end of Fusilier Jones's statement.'

`Steady, David, you did damn well this morning. Fast professional thinking, damn

well done.' Sunray's accolade.

Ìt's identified from the R.P.G. attack location as the getaway car ... It would be a hell of a thing for the Battalion, sir, if we nailed a

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**Johnny for murder. Could be the high spot of the tour ...' The Intelligence Officer's enthusiasm.

`Not a lot of thanks we get from R.U.C. these days, they'd be on their bended knees for this one.' The 2 i/c's cunning.

Ferris thought of the moment when he had seen the Armalite barrel spitting from

the window of the Ford, the moment of terror, and the moment he thought he

would die. He could feel the scrapes on his knees and elbows. He hadn't seen the

face in the back seat of the car, he had only seen the black barrel of the Armalite.

`Right, Standard Operating Procedure's that we inform R.U.C. of our suspicions

concerning McAnally . . .' Sunray was lighting his pipe.

`Police presence isn't essential for the arrest.'

`We can do it under Section 14. There's no problem.'

The face of the man burgeoned into Ferris's mind. The scrappy ginger hair, the nervy eyes, the slack chin, the mouth in the half‐smile that tried to please.

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`Your platoon'll do it, David, 0200 hours tomorrow morning. It'll be an excellent

show for your platoon ... and bloody well done.'

Àre we going to have a surveillance detail on the house, sir?' Ferris asked.

`What for?'

Ferris blinked, seemed so obvious. `So we know he's there, sir, when we go in.'

`No surveillance. We don't have that capability, not in Turf Lodge. Stand a damn

sight better chance of lousing it if I put men into the Drive, kicking dustbins over.

We go in cold because that's best.'

`Yes, sir.'

Ànd bloody well done, David.'

They had left their transport, two Pigs and a landrover, at the junction of the Drive and the Parade. They would leg it to Number 63. Blackened faces and hands. Rifles cocked, one up. Quiet padding feet. The glow of the image

intensifier night sights carried by the marksmen. Twenty men briefed on their positions in the outer perimeter and the inner perimeter, four more with Ferris for the snatch. Always bloody raining, and the haze of mist cloud sneaking in from the fields at the foot of the mountain to blanket Turf Lodge. No street lights; the street lights had been knocked out in '71, Internment, and replaced; knocked out again in the Queen's visit rioting, and replaced; knocked out again in

the Hunger Strike fighting of '81, and abandoned.

A pace behind Ferris was Fusilier Jones, loping along like he was heading for Wembley, like he had a Cup bloody Final goal on the end of his boot.

Only it wasn't a game in Ferris's book. It was going to snatch a man

out of his house in the dark of the night, strip him from his bed, tear him away

from his wife and kids. It was going to put a murderer into a cell for a life sentence. Some. bloody game. If it was a game then it was a dirty bloody game.

Number 63. His platoon sergeant was beside Ferris.

Ferris heard the whisper. Àll ready ... let's get the shit out of his wanker.'

He had woken the moment before the explosion of the front door caving in. He

had sat up, straight up, the moment before the screech of the front door's lock

being smashed clear of the door post. He felt Roisin stir beside him. She'd four Bacardi cokes in her to his six Stouts, she moved drowsily.

McAnally heard the oaths from the foot of the stairs. Baby Sean's pram was always outside the door in the day, brought into the hall at night, no other place

for it ... Mother of Christ, fucking English oath.

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He wore a Marks vest, nothing else. He heaved himself out of the bed, dragging

the sheet and blankets with him. He saw the white blur of Roisin's thighs, and her

stomach. He crashed into Baby Sean's cot and was out of the door before the baby had screamed. From the landing he saw the torch at the bottom of the stairs, and a dark shadow figure wrestling with the pram. He saw the torch beam

dive forward towards the stairs.

`Freeze, McAnally . . .'

The yell blasted at his ears. He charged into the back bedroom, jumped on Young

Gerard's bed, stumbled on Little Patty's body, reached the window, ripped at the

cotton curtains. He had no thought but flight, to run and to survive. He heard the

thunder of boots on the staircase, sounds amplified and magnified by the tininess

of the back bedroom.

His fingers found the window catch, he heaved it up, pushed the window open.

Night air closed on his gut and his privates. Light flooded into the room. He saw

the terror shape of the soldier charging into the room. He saw Young Gerard rise

up from his bed and grapple with the soldier. He saw the soldier cuff the boy away. As the soldier lunged for him, McAnally jumped.

He was dazed, stunned.

He hit the small flat roof of the kitchen, bounced, scraped his shins and thighs and stomach on the roof guttering. He toppled down onto the concrete slabs beside the kitchen door. A leg was caught between the frame of Young Gerard's

bicycle. He could see the bicycle, see its colours. The light from the back bedroom lit the small square backyard. He was clear of the bicycle when he saw

the soldiers materializing from

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**the shadows, from behind the coal bunker, from behind the kids' swing, from

the shadow by the back fence.

McAnally kicked the first soldier who reached him. The bare instep of his foot hacked into the soldier's groin. Above him he saw Roisin dark‐framed in the back

bedroom window and flailing at a squaddie with Baby Sean's yellow plastic pot.

The soldier bent double in front of him. Scream, cunt ... but the soldier only moaned. He lashed with his fist at the soldier who came from the side and his knuckles caught the rim of a helmet. A rifle stock hammered into the back of his

skull. A boot cracked into his shin. A soldier dived on him as he fell, and McAnally groped and found the man's cheeks and eyes and raked them with his nails. He

fought with his hands and with his teeth and with his feet as the blows fell on 41

him, clubbed down on his body. He heard the pain shouts of the soldiers, and further off the screams of Young Gerard and the anger of his Roisin. He fought

only for survival. He lost the feel of pain. He lost the sight of the soldiers. He lost the sounds of the voices of Young Gerard and his Roisin.

A numbness in his body and a mist in his eyes and wads in his ears. He saw the

indistinct shapes of the legs that stood over him. `For Christ's sake, pack it in ...'

He felt the blood on his head and running from his lip. `That's a prisoner, for Christ's sake.'

The officer stood over him.

`He is a prisoner and he will be treated as a prisoner ...'

The soldiers were in a ring beyond his reach. And he now was beyond theirs.

`You're soldiers, you're on active service not in a bloody pub brawl.

Sergeant, this man is not to be touched. Come here, Jones.'

The officer had taken hold of McAnally's wrist, held it securely. He

shone a torch into McAnally's face, blinding him. `That's him, Mr Ferris, that's the one I saw.' The torch was switched off.

The officer said, `Sean Pius McAnally, I am arresting you under Section 14 of the

Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1978. You are not obliged to

answer any questions other than those relating to your identity ... You'd better get some clothes on, Mr McAnally. You won't be hurt, you're in my custody.'

After what he had done the morning before, they could have beaten the life out

of him. He had seen the car on the telly before he had taken Roisin to the bar, seen the car wreck and the photographs of 'Tenner' Simpson and two detectives.

He had heard the tributes ... they could have battered him to death for what he

had done.

The officer led him back into the kitchen. McAnally covered his groin.

4

A little before three Ferris was back in the Mess.

He had been on the go for close on twenty‐one hours, but he'd had to tell his story, laconically in the style of the Regiment, to the 1.0. and the Bravo Company

Commander and separately to Armstrong and Wilkins with whom he shared his

room. He could have done without the accolade treatment after he had checked

his prisoner into police custody and the Springfield Road cells.

There was a handwritten note from Sunray. Èxcellently done, a most creditable

night for the Battalion, fast professional soldiering. Congratulations, Townsend.'

He'd have to go through it all again in the morning for Sunray.

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He had two glasses of orange juice, and then the 1.0. told him that there was a

detective coming up from Castlereagh, a chap called Rennie, and would he wait

up for him.

He was left to wait in the Mess, stretched out on the sofa, able to doze.

The Company Commander had been gushing, the 1.0. had been cool, Armstrong

and Wilkins had been jealous as tom‐cats. He hadn't spoken of the

sledgehammer attack on a wet rotten front door, nor of being snagged in the hall

by a pram that stank of nappy urine, nor of pounding up the carpetless stairs, nor

of a kiddie of seven or eight years who had taken on the soldiers to help his father, nor of a proud woman who had spat her hatred at his men. He didn't think

they'd want to know.

Sam might want to know. When he'd finished with the detective, and had a hell

of a sleep, and a bath if he could find any hot water, he'd write to her. He was thinking of Sam, drowsily and happily, when the ceiling light billowed across the

Mess.,

Àre you Mr Ferris?' The scrape of the Belfast accent.

Ferris sat up. `That's me.'

It was a huge man that towered over him, his size accentuated by Ferris's position

on the sofa.

Ì'm Rennie . . . Detective Chief Inspector Rennie . . .'

He spoke the words slowly, as if the rank gave him pride. Ferris sat up, rubbed his

eyes.

`Howard Rennie, Castlereagh ... I hear you buggers have been fartarsing with us .

. .'

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**Ì beg your pardon ...?' Ferris yawned. The Mess was bloody arctic. He stood,

and tucked his shirt down into his trouser waist.

`The police lift men in Belfast these days, if you didn't know. The military provide support, if requested. I can do without clever buggers.'

`You've no right to come in here, into our Mess, with that sort of language on your face.'

Ì like a man out of his bed, into the landrover, down to Castlereagh, while he's

still asleep. I like him stripped and weighed and checked and in his cell before he's had time to think. I have to work on him, young fellow, and I've shit all time to do it, as you'd know if you took the trouble to read the P. of T. Act, and what doesn't help me is him sitting in a cell here getting used to the fact he's in the cage. As I 43

see it, young fellow, getting my friend into the Interrogation Room in the right frame of mind is more important than your fucking Colonel getting a back slap from his General. Got it?'

Ferris thought he liked the man. He was laughing quietly. `Got it .. round here, Mr

Rennie, you might believe that the capture of old McAnally added up to the final

victory.'

It was a big weathered face that confronted Ferris. There was no crack of a smile.

The hairs of the moustache were splayed out. There was a nick from a fast shave

on the throat. The breath was of cigarettes and gin. The ceiling light glowed on

the high forehead. `Tomorrow, if I can take the time off from "old McAnally", I'll have two funerals to go to, good friends, so I'm not in the mood for a laugh in your Mess. I want McAnally now, I want you and the lad who identified him down

at Castlereagh in the afternoon for statements.'

`He's already in police custody, why don't you just bloody take him?

'There's a form for these things. He's going to appear in court, long after you've

been ferried out and back to war games in Germany. Long after you've gone some smart lawyer will be putting the arrest procedure under a 'scope. You won't