healthy, but inevitable. What would any of these men have done if they had sat in the wide dock of the Crown Court in Crumlin Road? Would thay have bounced back and erased the memory of the mili- tary escort across the city each morning and afternoon, and the stern-lipped warders with the keys and chains and trun- cheons? The whisky helped the memories to run, and with the clock chimes Johnny's attention to the jokes and anecdotes became weaker, was replaced. What did these men know of trial for murder?
Nothing, Johnny, but that's not their fault. And they were doing their best to make him forget. But they knew… of course they bloody knew.
The court of the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. A high and red-painted ceiling, ornate moulding, hanging lights, a garish wallpaper, layers of scrubbed duck green paint over the dock and the benches for the lawyers and the journalists and the public. The Lord Chief Justice, without hostility or kindness, asking and probing, writing his answers with a creaking pen. Counsel for the prosecution, the disbelief at his raised eyebrows and the voice that carried the quiet, incisive questions. The father of the girl and her brothers, all in a line, all hunched and staring at Johnny, their eyes never leaving him, all loathing him for the irreplaceable loss that he had brought to their home. Carter and Pierce and Smithson knew of it. Mawby would have read the file, read of the accusation and the defence before he sent his minions to bring Johnny to London. To bring the poor fool who would do what he was told so that he might regain his stature as a free man.
Pathetic and snivelling they seemed to him now, his court- room explanations.
'It's different when you're sitting here, things don't happen the way you've put it, not when you're on the ground…'
' It happened very quickly. It's not like being sat in a cinema and watching it on a screen…'
'Yes I did think at the time that the person I fired on was holding a gun.
I thought that my life was endangered, my life and those of the men who were with me…'
' I was confronting an armed terrorist, that's all I thought…'
And the deathly hush of disbelief. Always the unforgiving silence in the court and the wait for the Lord Chief Justice to look up from his ledger and for Counsel to frame his next question. A desperate quiet focused on the man who sat in the low witness box in a clean shirt and plain tie and a sports jacket.
Counsel turning the screw, driving it deeper. 'The suggestion I put to you, Captain Donoghue, is that you believed your military rank and the special nature of your duties put you above the law. I suggest that you wilfully ignored the standard procedure of issuing a challenge before opening fire. I suggest that you were prepared to shoot dead any person, terrorist or civilian who approached the cache.'
'It wasn't like that…'
What was it like, Johnny? Johnny still and damp in the bracken and under the bramble of the hedge, and the figure bending at the fox hole, the flicker of the plastic fertiliser sack as it was drawn clear, the bag pushed back into the hole. The figure rising short and lightweight onto the feet and then the gun presented to him… not a gun, Johnny, a col-lapsible umbrella. One shot from the Armalite, half a scream and a tumbling shape. Got the fucking pig, the corporal behind him said. Radio for Quick Reaction Force. Land- Rover in the lane within ten minutes, and a voice calling from a farm house in the hill, calling a girl's name in panic and desperate fear.
Pierce drawled through his story, acting out the parts with his eyes and his hands. '… he liked the Grammar School boys best, reckoned he stood a better chance of buggering them, because they weren't part of the scene at Trinity, they'd be frightened of getting packed off home. He was a cheeky old turnip. One chap came along to read an essay when he'd a late date afterwards at the Nurses' Home, he was smothered in after shave and talc. The old fellow went quite bananas, hardly gave the lad time to get his script out of the bag.. '
Maeve O'Connor shot through the right breast, stone dead. Johnny heaving his guts into the hedge. Why a girl, for the love of God? The corporal whimpering like a badger with a leg in a gin trap. The tongueless journey in the Land- Rover to Keady police station. The telephone message from Brigade headquarters; say nothing, sign nothing, name and rank and nothing more. The arrival of the Army Legal Service officer, and the men from Special Investigation Branch and the
faces of contempt and disapproval and Johnny not shaved for three days and needing a hot meal and a clean bed.
Smithson shook his shoulders in laughter as he talked. '… for a pound of sausages you could find a biddy who would actually chuck her old man out of bed and send him to sit downstairs to wait till you'd finished.
And when you came down the stairs then he'd thank you for coming and say that he hoped you'd call again. Bloody marvellous time we had
…'
The girl's cousin had found the cache. A combat jacket, a black beret, a Luger pistol, a packet of industrial detonators. Found it when out with the farm dog that had sniffed at the hole. Reported it, and a Catholic too.
Done his duty as a citizen. And the family had talked of it inside their home and Maeve O'Connor had heard the chat when she'd gone to her Auntie for supper, and she was a child and she was curious and no one had thought it necessary to warn the family to stay clear. Maeve O'Connor with a pale and pretty face and freckles and a smear of terror, shot and killed because Johnny Donoghue hadn't challenged, had believed he was fighting a war, had thought a teenage shadow was his enemy. On trial for murder, facing the full majesty of the law, with a life sentence to serve if the case went against him. j
They don't care, these people. Charles Mawby and Henry Carter and Adrian Pierce and Harry Smithson, they don't give a shit. There's a job to be done in Germany, and Johnny's the one they want for it.
'You're very quiet, Johnny,' boomed Mawby.
'Don't expect him to compete with Harry,' said Carter.
'You'll have one for the stairs?' Mawby surged forward with the bottle.
'Just one more, a small one. Then it'll be my bedtime.'
'Quite right.' Mawby was filling Johnny's glass. 'A dose o Pierce and Smithson does more damage than a litre of this poison.'
They all laughed and Johnny with them. He had the righ to join them, hadn't he? He was on the team, integral to it And in the morning the work would start.
In his darkened bedroom Willi heard the feet on the stair case, and the voices that drifted through his door. He curle‹ under his sheet and blankets to find warmth.
The changes in the household had not been explained t(him. Carter had merely said that new men would meet hin in the morning, bringing new questions, that he must answe them as best he could. Perhaps in the morning he would ask again when Lizzie and he would be reunited. But he asked that each day and the answer was always vague and no one would give him a definite date. Why did they want to know of his father?
Why was his father the only subject that Carter had discussed for two days? What was their interest in an old man? The noise had died in the house, but the climb to bed by the company from below had wakened Willi, left his mind clear and alert. Sleep would come hard for him now.
He dressed fast, fingers fumbling with the buttons of his tunic. Frantic and quick and hurrying because he had looked at his watch and dived from the bed. And she had been faster, drawing on her pants and fastening her skirt, thrust- ing a sweater over her head, ignoring her tumbled hair.
'They'll kill me if I miss the train,' he muttered as if from her he might find relief from the punishment.
'Keep your feet still,' Jutte snapped, knotting his boot laces, catching the contagion of his fear.
Ulf Becker turned towards the bed, dishevelled and disturbed, creased and used. 'Will they come back?'
'Not till tomorrow, I told you. I'd do it later.'
'I'll get extra duties for a month.'
The girl grabbed at her small handbag. Together they fllung themselves through the front door, Ulf stumbling with the weight of his canvas issue grip bag. Running down the stairs because it was always too long to wait for the lift, running and hoping that they met no one, running into the night air and feeling the draught of the wind catch at their laces.
Hand in hand on the pavement and then the girl's hesitation, she pulling one way, he another.
'We should take the U-Bahn to Alexander Platz, then the S-Bahn.. '
'We don't have time, we have to run to the S-Bahn.' Ulf's anger rose as the cool of the evening sobered him.
'It is quicker to go to Schilling Strasse and the U-Bahn.'
'We have to go direct to the S-Bahn.' Ulf shouting his argument and using his strength till the girl allowed
