A soldier shouted into the truck, “Clear out! Quick! Move it!”
A few men scrambled over and around Sheila, and she heard the sounds of blows, shouts, and cries as the men left the truck. A voice cried out, “Take it easy, I’m an old man.” A young boy clad in pajamas crawled over her and tumbled to the ground. The RUC guard was kicking everyone toward the tailgate now, like a trash man sweeping the floor of his truck clean at the dump. Someone pulled her out by her legs, and she fell on the soft, wet earth. She tried to stand but was knocked down.
“Crawl! Crawl, you bastards!”
She picked up her head and saw two lines of paratrooper boots. She crawled as quickly as she could between the gauntlet as blows fell on her back and buttocks. A few of the men made obscene remarks as she passed by on her hands and knees, but the blows were light and the obscenities were shouted by boyish, embarrassed voices, which somehow made it all the more obscene.
At the end of the gauntlet two soldiers picked her up and pushed her into a long Nissen hut. An officer with a swagger stick pointed to an open door, and the soldiers pushed her onto the floor of a small room and shut the door as they left. She looked up from where she lay in the center of the tiny cubicle.
A matron stood behind a camp table. “Strip. Come on, you little tramp. Stand up and take them off.”
Within minutes she was stripped and searched and was wearing a gray prison dress and prison underwear. She could hear blows being struck outside the small cubicle and cries and shouts as the harvest of the sweep was processed— transformed from sleeping civilians into gray, terrified internees.
Sheila Malone had no doubt that a good number of them were guilty of some kind of anti-British or antigovernment activity. A few were actually IRA. A smaller number might even be arsonists or bombers … or murderers like herself. There was a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of internment within ninety days if you didn’t crack and confess to something. But if they had something on you—something as serious as murder … Before she could gather her thoughts and begin to formulate what she was going to say, someone placed a hood over her head and she was pushed through a door that closed behind her.
A voice shouted directly in her ear, and she jumped. “I said, spell your name, bitch!”
She tried to spell it but found to her surprise that she could not. Someone laughed.
Another voice shouted, “Stupid cunt!”
A third voice screamed in her other ear. “So, you shot two of our boys, did you?”
There it was. They knew. She felt her legs begin to shake.
“Answer me, you little murdering cunt!”
“N-n-no.”
“What? Don’t lie to us, you cowardly, murdering bitch. Like to shoot men in the back, do you? Now it’s your turn!”
She felt something poke her in the back of the head and heard the sound of a pistol cocking. The hammer fell home and made a loud, metallic thud. She jumped and someone laughed again. “Next time it won’t be empty, bitch.”
She felt sweat gather on her brow and soak the black hood.
“All right. Pull up your dress. That’s right. All the way!”
She pulled her skirt up and stood motionless as someone pulled her pants down to her ankles.
After an hour of pain, insults, humiliation, and leering laughter, the three interrogators seemed to get bored. She was certain now that they were just fishing, and she could almost picture being released at dawn.
“Fix yourself up.”
She let her aching arms fall and bent over to pull up her pants. Before she straightened up she heard the three men leave the room as two other people entered. The hood was pulled from her head, and the bright lights half-blinded her. The man who had taken the hood moved to the side and sat in a chair just out of range of her vision. She focused her eyes straight ahead.
A young British army officer, a major, sat in a chair behind a small camp desk in the center of the windowless room. “Sit down, Miss Malone.”
She walked stiffly toward a stool in front of the desk and sat slowly. Her buttocks hurt so much that she would almost rather have remained standing. She choked down a sob and steadied her breathing.
“Yes, you can have a bed as soon as we finish this.” The major smiled. “My name is Martin. Bartholomew Martin.”
“Yes … I’ve heard of you.”
“Really? Good things, I trust.”
She leaned forward and looked into his eyes. “Listen Major Martin, I was beaten and sexually abused.”
He shuffled some papers. “We’ll discuss all of that as soon as we finish with this.” He picked out one sheet of paper. “Here it is. A search of your room has uncovered a pistol and a satchel of gelignite. Enough to blow up the whole block.” He looked at her. “That’s a dreadful thing to keep in your aunt’s home. I’m afraid she may be in trouble now as well.”
“There was no gun or explosives in my room, and you know it.”
He drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk. “Whether they were there or not is hardly the point, Miss Malone. The point is that my report says a gun and explosives were found, and in Ulster there is not a great deal of difference between the charges and the realities. In fact, they are the same. Do you follow me?”
She didn’t answer.
“All right,” said the major. “That’s not important. What is important,” he continued as he stared into her eyes, “are the murders of Sergeant Thomas Shelby and Private Alan Harding.”
She stared back at his eyes and displayed no emotion, but her stomach heaved. They had her, and she was fairly certain she knew how they had gotten her.
“I believe you know a Liam Coogan, Miss Malone. An associate of yours. He’s turned Queen’s evidence.” An odd half smile passed over his face. “I’m afraid we’ve got you now.”
“If you know so goddamned much, why did your men—”
“Oh, they’re not my men. They’re paratroop lads. Served with Harding and Shelby. Brought them here for the occasion. I’m in Intelligence, of course.” Major Martin’s voice changed, became more intimate. “You’re damned lucky they didn’t kill you.”
Sheila Malone considered her situation. Even under normal British law she would probably be convicted on Coogan’s testimony. Then why had she been arrested under the Special Powers Act? Why had they bothered to plant a gun and explosives in her room? Major Martin was after something else.
Martin stared at her, then cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, there is no capital punishment for murder in our enlightened kingdom. However, we’re going to try something new. We’re going to try to get an indictment for treason—I think we can safely say that the Provisional Irish Republican Army, of which you are a member, has committed treason toward the Crown.”
He looked down at an open book in front of him. “‘Acts that constitute treason. Paragraph 811—Levies war against the Sovereign in her realm….’ I think you fill that bill nicely.” He pulled the book closer and read, “‘Paragraph 812—The essence of the offense of treason lies in the violation of the allegiance owed to the Sovereign….’ And Paragraph 813 is my favorite. It says simply”—he looked at her without reading from the book—“‘The punishment for treason is death by hanging.’” He stressed the last words and looked for a reaction, but there was none. “It was Mr. Churchill, commenting on the Irish uprising of 1916, who said, ‘The grass grows green on the battlefield, but never on the scaffold.’ It’s time we started hanging Irish traitors again. You first. And beside you on the scaffold will be your sister, Maureen.”
She sat up. “My sister? Why … ?”
“Coogan says she was there as well. You, your sister, and her lover, Brian Flynn.”