Peeler (3 page)

‘That’s an order.’

O’Keefe turned and was about to approach the front door of the barracks when the grating of metal hasps and lifting bolts stopped him, and the gate creaked open on its hinges under the power of a Black and Tan constable named Finch. O’Keefe waited until the Tender and the men were safely inside and the gates locked shut, watching as Finch accepted a light for his cigarette from one of the Essex soldiers. There was nothing approaching contrition or shame about the man. O’Keefe stepped forward, rage charging his blood. ‘You,’ he said to the Essex, ‘help them with the body.’

Finch raised his eyebrows at the soldier and turned lazily towards O’Keefe.

‘Where were you, Constable?’ O’Keefe asked. ‘We were in full view in the street for the last five minutes.’

Finch let smoke trail from a half-smile. He had a hard, thin face, dark eyes and at least two days of sandy stubble on his jaw. He was of average height – several inches shorter than O’Keefe – and on the thin side, but possessed the wiry strength and speed of a boxer. O’Keefe had often seen him sparring with his mates in the courtyard and had been grudgingly respectful.

‘I was in the jakes if you must know,’ Finch said. His accent was heavy Cockney. ‘Sitting out ’ere on watch and nowhere for a man to shite. Do me a favour, mate. And nobody fucking came when I called ’em.’

O’Keefe noted the man’s uniform tunic was unbuttoned at the neck and dusted with cigarette ash. The Black and Tans wore the regular, dark-green uniforms of the RIC, but had acquired their name when they had arrived eight months earlier and there had been a shortage of full police uniforms. They had been kitted out with surplus army khaki tunics and RIC bottle-green trousers or, in some cases, the reverse. Some wit in Limerick had noted the similarity they bore to a local pack of hunting dogs – the Black and Tans – and they had been graced with the name. Many of these men – from England, Scotland and Wales – were war veterans. They had probably been brave soldiers, a credit to the Crown. It didn’t make them good police constables. Not by a long shot. Most Irish RIC men reckoned the Limerick hounds would have served better.

O’Keefe holstered his Webley, deliberately fastening shut the holster’s clasp, unsure of what he might do if the gun was in his hand. ‘You’re aware, Constable, that in the army you’d be shot for quitting your post?’

Finch dragged on his cigarette and exhaled a thin stream of smoke. O’Keefe noticed Logan and Keane and some of the soldiers from the Tender gathered on the cobbles to watch the dressing down. Finch appraised the crowd as well and smiled like a music hall man on the verge of a dirty punchline.

‘And
you’re
aware, mate, this ain’t the bloody army …’

O’Keefe threw a sharp jab, crushing the cigarette butt against Finch’s lips, sparks showering the Tan’s tunic, the
thap
of knuckles on flesh and bone and tooth. Finch staggered back, bumping the sandbagged guard post, knocking down several of the bags, one of them bursting, bleeding sand onto the cobbles. He righted himself, wiping ash and tobacco off his lips, a claret trickle from his upper lip, smiling again, his eyes locked on O’Keefe’s. He brushed down his tunic and presented himself in a loose approximation of parade rest. ‘Right, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Point taken.’

O’Keefe held his gaze on the Tan for a long moment, his right hand on the butt of his Webley, then turned away, confident for the moment that, with the crowd present, he’d be safe enough showing the Tan his back. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Refill that bag and replace the others, Constable.’

In reception, O’Keefe greeted the constable on barrack orderly duty – another Tan. He received a grunt in reply, the man never looking up from his days’ old copy of the
Sporting News
, his feet propped on a chair in front of the fire. O’Keefe considered hauling the man up but left it, stepping behind the reception desk and reflecting that, for all the fortress-like exterior that was Ballycarleton barracks, there was a paper thin structure within. Discipline and morale, once two words synonymous with the RIC – making it the model for police forces from Canada to Burma – had descended to the point where guard posts were left idle and sergeants thumped constables in full view of other men. His own morale, he thought, was hardly model, his discipline more habit than virtue.
Discipline
. He laughed to himself, thankful he had managed to avoid cutting his knuckles on Finch’s teeth.

In the converted cupboard behind reception, he used the wireless to contact the British naval communications post at Bandon army barracks. They in turn would radio 6th Division HQ at Victoria barracks in Cork city, forwarding on O’Keefe’s request for the services of an army surgeon to perform a post-mortem examination on the body. It was an indirect process, but necessary. Dogs in the street knew that the telephone, telegraph and postal services were infested with rebel spies. Telephone operators were demons for gossip at the best of times. Since the shooting had started, this propensity had been pressed into lethal service.

***

If Liam Farrell had been a better soldier, he never would have become involved in the case of the body found on the hillside.

‘You’ve done fine work in the Newcestown Company, Farrell. Fine work for the Cork 1st as a student as well. Grand fine work. But the flying column is a different pot on the fire.’

Farrell was standing before Tom Barry in the kitchen of the O’Sullivan house. The O’Sullivans were an old republican family in the Ahilina area of West Cork and the elderly Mr O’Sullivan had taken many the whack of an RIC baton across his skull in the days of the Land League actions of the last century. He had purchased the twenty-acre farm in the acts of redistribution that followed the Land War. Now O’Sullivan allowed the land to be used as a safe house and training camp solely, it seemed to Farrell, for the purpose of having men around to argue with as to who were the greater Irish patriots – O’Sullivan himself and his few remaining Land Leaguer comrades or ‘ye new shower of fellas, not having mettle enough to cut down weeds and nettles’. The IRA men who used the house humoured the old man, telling him that things were only getting started; that soon there’d be much cutting done and it wouldn’t be nettles falling under the swing of their scythes.

The house served that week as HQ for the 3rd West Cork Brigade IRA flying column training camp. Outside the house Farrell could hear a section of Volunteers marching drill. A lump rose in his throat. The past week he had been among those drilling, listening to lectures on tactics, practising close formation movement and rapid retreat, engaging in mock battles in the hedges, the furious clacking of dry-fired rifles like kindling taking light. It had been a week of what he’d always dreamt of: training to fight for his country, for the freedom of his people. And now it had come to this.

Tom Barry – with his small dark eyes and oiled dark hair unruly on his forehead – served as Training Officer for the 3rd West Cork Brigade. He was in command of the exercise that week, despite the presence in the camp of Charlie Hurley, the Brigade Commandant, and Seán Brennan, Brigade Intelligence Officer. Both sat with Barry at the table.

Had Farrell been thinking of anything other than his dismissal from flying column duty, he might have wondered about the presence of two high-ranking officers such as Hurley and Brennan, both in attendance at the passing out of a week’s training camp. The two of them in the same place at the same time was a risk. Raiding parties of British soldiers had twice come within two miles of the farm in the past week.

‘Mr Hurley … ’

‘Call me Charlie, Liam, for the love of Christ. How long have I known you, boy?’

Hurley smiled at Farrell. He was a kindly man, despite his aggressive reputation, and seemed older than his twenty-eight years, a fine net of wrinkles about his eyes, flecks of grey in his light brown hair.

‘Charlie, I’ve been on two raids already. Ten revolvers, six Enfields and God only knows how many rounds of .303 and .455 from the ambush on that army section. And not a shot fired.’

Barry cut in. ‘Probably a good thing that, going by your shooting.’

Hurley smiled benignly at the interjection. Tom Barry was a harsh, intimidating figure. Farrell could picture him in the deserts of Mesopotamia, gutting enemy assassins with a trench knife, boxing street fighters from his regiment. The IRA viewed most former members of the British army as spies, informers. Many were shot and very few were allowed into the ranks of the IRA. Barry had been welcomed with open arms. Admired and feared by those who served with him and those who fought against him, at that moment Farrell felt only hatred for the man.

‘I … we all here recognise what you’ve done as a Volunteer,’ Barry continued. ‘But I need men who can shoot straight. Even with your specs on, Farrell, you came nowhere near to hitting any of the targets today from any range. Static targets. Sure, what would you do if they were moving?’

Farrell was aware of his failings. His eyesight was poor and he was a slight, unfit twenty-one-year-old. The Lee-Enfield rifle was heavy and seemed a wayward, stubborn weapon for forging a nation. It refused the commands he gave it, kicked and bruised his shoulder, flung lead high and away from the paper targets pinned to hay bales on the firing range. Only four live rounds per man for musketry training. Given more, Farrell felt he would improve.

‘Charlie?’ Farrell could hear the pleading in his voice and shame warred with the desperation he felt. His face burned with it and tears welled in his eyes.

Seán Brennan, who until now had been a silent observer, spoke. ‘You were reading law in Cork, Mr Farrell?’

Compared to the rest of the men, Brennan – in his mid-forties – seemed ancient to Farrell. He had greying hair and the face and solemn demeanour of an undertaker.

‘Yes, sir. And I scouted for D Company, 1st Corks while I was at college. I gave up my studies last June to devote myself to the Volunteers. I went back to Newcestown and have been active since.’

Brennan nodded and lifted a paper from the table, appearing to read from it. ‘You were in your third year?’

‘Yes, sir. But … ’

There was a brisk knock on the door. Without waiting for an invitation to enter, two men Farrell had never seen before came into the kitchen. They brought in with them the cold and damp of late November along with an unkempt, wild smell, as if they’d been living rough.

‘Jesus, the cold of it. Would you not put on a fire, Tom? You’d think it was bullets you were burning, ye mean bastard ye.’ The man shed his filched British army field coat and tossed it over the back of a free chair. He then opened the breach and removed the live round from the box magazine of his Enfield, rolling the .303 round carelessly onto the table in front of Barry.

‘See,’ he said. ‘Nine more in the box. Count ’em if you doubt me.’

Farrell was surprised at the easy familiarity with which the man spoke to Tom Barry. The IRA were more informal about rank and title than a conventional standing army, its members made up of lads who had been friends for years, had played football together, courted one another’s sisters and worked one another’s farms. Men were democratically elected to lead sections, companies and battalions. The trappings of rank were largely absent, and some officers were even elected out of command if their leadership was found wanting by their men. Still, it was unnerving to Farrell to see the returned stranger so undaunted by Barry.

‘It’s not bullets, but it’s not our peat and coal to burn either, Donal. You need to remember that when you’re billeting in the homes of the good people of Ireland, boy.’

The man winked at Hurley across the table. ‘Well then, do you think the good people of Ireland would spring for a cup of tae for a man’s spent the last two days sprawled out in bog water on a hillside, Tom?’

Hurley cracked a smile. Noticing Farrell, the man called Donal flicked a friendly salute his way. Farrell nodded in response, not feeling part of the banter, already outside it. He watched as the second man carefully removed his trenchcoat and a pair of field glasses from around his neck, hanging them both from a peg on the back of the kitchen door. He removed the live round from his rifle – an American-made P14 Enfield, fitted with a sniper’s scope – leaned it against the wall and pulled the last free chair up to the table. ‘Tom, Charlie,’ he said. ‘And
Monsieur
Brennan, still with us thank God. Make us a cup as well, Donal, if you can stop your messing long enough.’ He nodded at Farrell.

The first man took the kettle from its hook in the fireplace, testing its heat with his hands. ‘Jesus, I’d like to, Mickeen, but you’d be hard pressed to make mud with this.’

Barry sighed and smiled. ‘Farrell, would you fetch a few sods for the fire? I think I might just shoot Donal Cahill here if he doesn’t get his tea.’

Farrell could have resented the order – one minute, firing an Enfield on the range and the next, demoted to fetching turf – but the spirit of the times presided against it. The truth was he’d seen Barry himself fetch turf and coal, and make tea for the men. Charlie Hurley was known for giving up his bed to men coming in from a long stretch of scouting.

When he returned to the house, one of the Cumann na mBan girls was cutting thick slices of bread at the sideboard, slathering them with butter from the O’Sullivan’s larder. Barry was speaking.

‘… and they passed by the same time, each day?’

‘Same time, same road,’ the man called Mickeen Cope said. ‘Two lorryloads. Nine men in each and moving fast.’

‘Like hell’s own riders, by fuck – sorry Aoife,’ Cahill apologised to the young woman.

Farrell placed the turf in a loose pyramid on the fire and stood to leave. He decided on a last appeal. ‘Tom, Charlie, I can do another camp.’

Brennan spoke first. ‘There’ll be no need for that, Liam. We’ve other things we’ll be needing you for, boy. Sit down there and listen.’

Farrell did as he was told while Brennan turned in his chair. ‘We’ll get our own tea, Aoife. Your mother will thank me some day for sparing your ears the injury.’