The Savage Day - Jack Higgins [62]
'So it would seem.'
'That's the bloody British Army for you.' He snapped his fingers and took us down the centre of the road, overtaking everything in sight.
I said mildly, 'Not so much of the bloody, Binnie. I used to be a part of it, remember.'
He glanced at me, surprise on his face as if he had genuinely forgotten, and then he laughed out loud. 'But not now, Major. Now, you're one of us. Christ, but you'll be taking the oath next. It's all that's needed.'
He started to sing the Soldier's Song at the top of his voice, hardly the most appropriate of choices considering he was wearing a British uniform, and concentrated on his driving. I lit a cigarette and sat back, the Sterling across my knees.
I wondered what kind of face he'd show me at that final, fatal moment when, as they used to say in the old melodramas, all was revealed? He would very probably make me kill him, if only to save my own skin, something I very definitely did not want to do.
Binnie and I had come a long way since that first night in Cohan's Select Bar in Belfast and I'd learned one very important thing. The IRA didn't just consist of bomb-happy Provos and Frank Barry and company. There were genuine idealists there also in the Pearse and Connolly tradition. Always would be. People like the Small Man, God rest him, and Binnie Gallagher.
Whether one agreed with them or not, they were honest men who believed passionately that they were engaged in a struggle for which the stake was nothing less than the freedom of their country.
They would lay down their lives if necessary, they would kill soldiers, but not children - never that. Whatever happened, they wanted to be able to face it with clean hands and a little honour. Their tragedy was that in this kind of war that just was not possible.
Frank Barry, of course, was a different proposition altogether, which brought me right back to the Brigadier and Norah Murphy and the present situation at Spanish Head.
The Brigadier had told me quite clearly that I was to avoid contact with the military on any official level at all costs, and it seemed to me that no purpose was to be gained by disregarding his instructions in the present circumstances. If the Guards Parachute Company itself was dropped in on Spanish Head, the Brigadier and Norah would be the first to go.
Not that I believed for one moment that Barry would keep his promise and release the girl, and the Brigadier, of course, had never been a party to the agreement in the first place.
No, whichever way you looked at it, the only thing to do was to go in and play it by ear in the hope of extracting every possible advantage from the fact that I had something he wanted very badly indeed.
We were somewhere past Londonderry on the coast road before we ran into any kind of trouble and when it came, it was from the most unexpected quarter.
We went round a bend and Binnie had to brake hard for the road in front of us was jammed with vehicles. In the distance I could see the roofs of houses amongst the trees and smoke drifted across them in a black pall.
There were two or three isolated shots followed by the rattle of a sub-machine-gun as Binnie pulled out to by-pass the line of traffic. I heard confused shouting faintly in the distance.
'This doesn't look good,' I said. 'Is there a way round?'
'No, there's a central square to the place and everything goes through it.'
I told him to keep on going and we reached the out-skirts of the village to find a couple of MP Land-Rovers blocking one half of the road. As Binnie braked to a halt, a corporal came forward and saluted.
I said, 'What's going on in there?'
'Riot situation, sir. Local police arrested a youth they found painting slogans on the walls of the church hall. After half an hour, a mob collected outside the police barracks demanding he should be freed. When the petrol bombs started coming in they sent for us.'
'Who's handling it?'
'Half a company of Highlanders, sir, but there