sunlight split the gray clouds drifting out over the Irish Sea. Thick, green grass grew along the sides of the boreen on the wooded hillside, which descended to the main road running along the coastline. The wet ground smelled fertile, the warmth drawing out odors of loam, pine, and sheep dung as a breeze from the sea salted the air. Gray stone cottages dotted emerald fields encompassed by stone walls, every rock the same uniform color and size, as if they came out of the ground ready-made for building fences and thick cottage walls. I squinted my eyes against the welcome sun as I caught the smell of smoke from a house close to the narrow road. It wasn't wood smoke, I was sure. It was more of a musty, green leaf smell, and I realized it must be peat. There wasn't a tree thicker than my arm in sight, and except for the small pine forest I'd left, there had hardly been any trees anywhere I'd passed. Another reminder that even though this country looked and felt familiar, far more familiar than North Africa or Sicily, it was still a foreign land, a land of strange habits and ancient hatreds, a place my ancestors had come from and of which I knew little but fables and stories.
Brennan was an Irish name, a Catholic name. Not that there weren't Irish Protestants, and a few who weren't pro-British-the IRA even had some Protestant members-but historically, the Irish were Catholic, and religion had been a weapon used against them for hundreds of years. The only reason any Protestant was in Ireland now was because the English had sent them here generations ago, to rule the land by taking it away from the natives, who all happened to be Catholic. The British had called them papists, and passed laws eliminating all rights to land and life. Those laws were now gone but the memory of them hung in the air that every Protestant and Catholic on this island breathed, reminding them of the wars, wrongs, and oppressions their people had borne. So a Brennan suspected by a Carrick of any crime here could expect little sympathy and less justice. The RUC wouldn't have jurisdiction on a U.S. Army base, but if Brennan was a suspect and went into town for a drink at the wrong local pub, he could disappear out the back door faster than you could say Red Hand.
The road to Ballykinler took me back through the town of Newcastle, past the railroad station at the edge of town, as its brick clock tower chimed eleven. I turned inland, skirting the bay where I'd landed in the seaplane, then headed through the small village of Clough, where I saw the Lug o' the Tub Pub, the joint where Grady O'Brick spent most evenings, and where I hoped to have a chat with the old man tonight. From Clough, the land rose up, a small plateau with views of the Mourne Mountains across the bay to the south and the Irish Sea to the east. The U.S. Army depot was at the highest point, a flat, windswept stretch of land enclosed in barbed wire. Thornton's pass got me in without a question, and I followed signs for the Ordnance Depot, navigating through muddy lanes between rows of long barracks buildings. GIs were everywhere, doing calisthenics and close order drill, whitewashing rocks to serve as path markers, all the usual chickenshit routine of army life.
The Ordnance Depot was at the center of the camp, surrounded by its own barbed wire fence. Two guards stood at this gate; they scrutinized my papers much more carefully than the guards at the main gate had. I looked at the fence; the wood posts were new, fresh cut. The earth was still turned over where the postholes had been dug. Somebody had learned something from all this.
'Go on in, sir,' a corporal said after he checked my ID against my face. 'The lieutenant is expecting you.'
'Is he?' I said, and drove to a small parking area at the end of a long wooden building. It was sturdier than the others, built on a stone foundation, and twice as wide. At the far end was a loading dock and room for trucks to back up. Easy access, or at least it had been.
'Lieutenant Boyle?' The voice came from the doorway, where a tall, thin fellow wearing the silver bars of a first lieutenant stood, slightly stooped to fit within the door frame.
'That's me,' I said as I got out of the jeep. 'I heard you were expecting me.'
'Major Thornton is eager to have this mess cleared up,' he said as he held the door open for me.
'I know. He wants his BARs back, Lieutenant…?'
'Jacobson, Saul Jacobson. Come on in.'
I followed him into his office through a room of small desks, big filing cabinets, and four clerks running between them, beating on typewriters and stacking forms. He shut the door behind me, not that the plywood divider would do much for privacy. His desk was a table stacked with papers, bearing in and out baskets and two telephones. Half a dozen clipboards, marked with dates, hung on the wall behind him.
'How long have you been in charge here, Lieutenant Jacobson?'
'Call me Saul, OK? We're just a couple of lieutenants here, aren't we?'
'Sure. I'm Billy. You're a first lieutenant, though. I didn't know if you were a stickler for the formalities of rank.' He didn't seem to be. His face was friendly and open, his dark eyes darting at the documents on his desk, then to me, giving me his attention while still drawn to his tasks.
'Hardly. These are brand-new,' he said, tapping his silver bars with his long fingers. 'Got promoted when Thornton transferred me here. I was a lowly second louie like you, personnel officer for the regiment. Then they lifted the BARs, and suddenly there was an opening here.'
'Where's the previous officer in charge?'
'Beats me. Busted to private, shipped out. Italy, some say. Others say back to the States. Hard to say which is worse.'
'It is? Why?' I asked.
'Stan Hayes was a good man. Is a good man, I should say. It would break his heart to have come this far and not get into the fight.'
'It might do worse to his heart if he's in it. Italy is pretty rough.'
'You know for a fact?'
'I've been there,' I said, and let the silence fill in the gap between us. Personally, I hoped Private Stan Hayes was peeling potatoes stateside somewhere, where he could grow to be an old man reminiscing about how he'd missed the big show. But I knew it was probably eating at him, and he'd be thinking his life was over, when in fact it had likely been saved.
'In any case,' Saul said, glancing through the papers on his desk, 'he's gone.' He picked up a folder, then put it down. His hands were smooth and clean, his nails filed evenly. He might have been a year or two younger than me but he'd probably look a lot older real quick after dodging bullets and shrapnel.
'Yeah, just what I like to find when I'm investigating a week-old crime. One of the key people whisked out of the country.'
'No one thought he had anything to do with it,' Saul said.
'Maybe not, but that doesn't mean he didn't know something or that he hadn't noticed something odd before the theft, something he might not even have realized. Now I'll have to go back to Italy or stateside to find him. One is undesirable, the other impossible.'
'All I can tell you is that he thought he was being made the scapegoat, being blamed for lax security. You and I know that responsibility goes higher than a lieutenant's rank.'
'It doesn't reach too high either, from my experience. I'm sure everyone from the rank of major on up was glad to see him gone.'
'You mean Major Thornton?'
'You tell me,' I said.
'No, I don't see it that way. Thornton's not that kind of guy.'
'You said it was Thornton who transferred you here.'
'And promoted me, yeah, but that's not why I said that.'
'OK, OK,' I said. 'No offense meant, just asking questions.'
'I guess that's your job. It is, isn't it? Thornton said you were sent by the Allied High Command.' Saul sounded impressed, which was good, since I wanted his cooperation.
'Yes. The British especially are nervous about the IRA working with the Germans. This arms theft could mean something is in the works.'
'Let me know what I can do to help.'
'First tell me if you've heard or seen anything outside the ordinary. Any rumors about who was involved, scuttlebutt of any kind?'
'Of every kind,' he said. 'That the people who took the BARs were German agents, for one. That two GIs were found shot in Downpatrick and. 30 caliber shell casings were found nearby. That an RUC car was shot up in Banbridge, that a farmer outside of Clough was seen shooting rabbits with a BAR, that a German sub came into the bay and landed commandos. You want more?'
