The Savage Day - Jack Higgins [17]
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A bolt was withdrawn, the door opened.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