CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"I'll see Grady home," Tom said. "In this state, he'll never make it alone."
"He hasn't said a word, this half hour," I said, looking at my watch.
"He told you about the Lewis gun, did he?"
"Yes. Is it true?"
"Too true, lad. It ruined him. And what little spirit it left, Mick the Master finished off. They call him a patriot, but he was a right bastard, I'll tell you. And that comes from one who fought at his side. Grady doesn't tell his story often, but when he does, it leaves the black dog hanging over him."
"Did you fight against the British or the antitreaty IRA?"
"I fought the English, after fighting with them against the Turks. But after that I couldn't bring myself to shoot down my mates in the IRA. When they partitioned the north, I put my rifle down and settled for life as I found it. Grady never could. Couldn't leave, and most folks here wouldn't forgive. The three boys the Black and Tans killed were all local, all well liked."
"It's easy to judge a man, isn't it? Makes people feel so good." I rubbed my eyes, the weariness of the day, or the smoky peat, almost forcing me to weep.
"Aye. Come, Billy, my new friend. One for the road, on the house," Tom said, placing a plain bottle on the bar, along with two glasses. "Local brew this is-poteen, we call it. Whiskey with the taste of the land in it. Blood and rain is what I call it."
"Blood and rain," I said, as we clinked our glasses. The whiskey smelled like damp earth and oak leaves, a little musty and sharp tasting on my tongue. It burned my throat and warmed my stomach.
"What do you think?" Tom asked, corking the bottle.
"I think it's the best thing I ever tasted, and Ireland is nothing like I ever imagined."
"Aye. I imagine I'd feel the same if I went to America. I'd expect gangsters, cowboys, and Indians on every corner. Now I've got to close this place. Help me get Grady into the cart, while I hitch up me horse."
Grady went with us like an obedient child, and I helped him onto the small two-wheeled cart as Tom put a sturdy bog pony into the harness, leading him from a lean-to shelter. When he was done, Tom climbed onto the cart and gathered up the reins, nodding good night to me. Grady stirred a bit, as if suddenly awakened.
"Mind how you go now," he said, and then his chin slumped to his chest. I slapped the pony on its rump, and the cart clattered off, the sound of hooves and wooden wheels on hardpack filling the damp night air. Soon they were gone, and I was alone in a strange land of blood and rain, where fairy tales and fratricide were as common as green grass. I kicked a stone and walked to my jeep, an aching tiredness reaching up from my boots to my skull.
I drove in the moonlight, a thin slit of yellow from the taped headlights dancing over the roadway. The wind felt fresh on my face, and it reminded me of a piece of poetry my dad used to recite about the Wild Geese, the Irish exiles who for centuries fought against the English in European armies far from their homes.
The whole night long we dream of you, and waking think we're there,
Vain dream, and foolish waking, we never shall see Clare.
The wind is wild to-night, there's battle in the air;
The wind is from the west, and it seems to blow from Clare.
Dad was big on poetry and reading. He'd recite the poems he liked the best, storing them up, and letting loose down at the tavern once the crowd had thinned out. He had plenty of them, but the vain dreams and foolish wakings of the boys from Clare always made me sad. Now my home was far away in the west, and I wondered if I'd dream of it tonight. Or Diana. Perhaps in some dark and dangerous place, alone and scared, she was feeling the wind from home. I missed her, more than I'd allowed myself to know.
I AWOKE IN my quarters shivering. It was dark and cold in the Quonset hut. My head hurt, and my eyes were gritty from the effects of smoke and shame for my countrymen. I lit a fire, blowing on the flames in the small stove until the wood scraps caught and flickering yellow light filled the room. I drank long gulps from a canteen, the water cold and metallic on my tongue.
What was I missing? The question kept playing over and over in my tired, aching head. How could I get close to the IRA when anyone who mentioned them could expect to earn a pound the hard way? There had to be another approach, something I hadn't thought of. Carrick didn't seem to have anything solid to go on either. Was he holding back? But why? To protect someone? Not the IRA, or any Catholic, for that matter. Jenkins? The Red Hand? Maybe. But I had no way of knowing if Carrick actually had any information I didn't. He didn't seem to be a friend of any extremists. But he had promised to check out his informants and those run by the British. It would be interesting to find out why Mahoney had been executed. If he wasn't a traitor to the IRA, then why had he been killed?
Thornton? I'd have to ask him in the morning why he'd held back about Carrick requesting Brennan's files, and try to figure out if he was on the level about getting a combat command or if he was trying to position himself farther to the rear when the shooting started. But so what if he was? No law against saving your own skin.
Heck? He was a wild card. He obviously wanted to step up the command ladder but again, no law against looking out for number one. I wasn't sure he'd done any more actual investigating than Thornton. Yet Lasner had told me Heck went through paperwork in the communications center. That was something at least. Maybe I should ask him what he found. Maybe he'd tell me if I asked nicely. Or arrest me.
Wait a minute. I tried to think back to exactly what Lasner had said Heck was looking for. He hadn't said anything specific, just that Heck had been looking through receipts and bills of lading. But what did that have to do with BARs? There would have been one bill of lading when the freight shipment of weapons came in and that was it. So what was Heck looking for? Lasner had made it sound like he was pawing through stacks of paper.
I drank some more water and tried to think it through. Nothing made sense. What could Heck be looking for here that had anything to do with the BAR theft at Ballykinler or Sam Burnham being murdered at Killough? And had Sam been the real target at Killough? Or had it been me?
I climbed back into my sleeping bag and tried to keep the wooden supports on the canvas cot from digging into my ribs. Tomorrow, I thought, tomorrow talk to Lasner about those papers. Go see Jenkins about the truck. And Thornton, something about Thornton twitched at the back of my mind as a steady rain drummed on the curved corrugated steel, lulling me to sleep, images of shattered windows and blood red curtains filling my dreams.
DEW HUNG HEAVY on the grass and clung to my boots as I walked from the mess tent to the communications center. White clouds to the east were parted by the sun, which cast the shadows of fir trees over the camp. The air was rich with a damp, green aroma and I breathed it in deeply. The cool air cleared my head.
There was something wrong with the paperwork, there had to be. Only thing was, I was fairly certain it didn't have anything to do with the weapons theft. There wasn't any reason to sift through stacks of receipts, shipping orders, and bills of lading to solve that crime. The other thing I was certain of, since I had asked one of the cooks who had given me a ride the other night, was that this mess facility didn't use any local produce. All grub was courtesy of Uncle Sam. But Ballykinler was a much bigger base. This was only a headquarters camp, and there was no place to store fresh foodstuffs. That might be important if my hunch was right.
"Good morning, Lieutenant," Sergeant Lasner said as I entered his communications center. "I heard about your close call yesterday. It's too bad about Sam Burnham."
"Real bad," I said. "News travels fast."