Gilliatt nodded, transferring his gaze to the narrow, cobbled street down which they had come. It was empty except for a thin dog relieving itself and an old woman in black framed by an open doorway. She might have been watching them. A vague boil of grey smoke hung a few streets away from them. Devlin's shop.
Maureen breathed in deeply but the breath became a sob. Gilliatt moved his arm around her shoulders but she shrugged it off violently.
'Why, Michael — why?'
'I don't know, Maureen.' He studied her face, seeing the grief just below the tight mask of shock. There'd be no time for the grief to come out, he knew. She'd be too intent on survival. He almost regretted that she would have to become, emotionally, part of his secret, amputated world. Regretted it for her sake. 'Come on, we've no time to spare on it now. We'll head northeast, then change direction and head for Carrigfadda. They won't be able to follow us by car, not even by bicycle.' He was grinning again, and the sight of the expression angered Gilliatt unreasonably, or perhaps simply gave rise to misgivings about trusting his life to a man so evidently reckless. But he controlled his anger, and merely nodded. 'Come on, then.'
McBride began to run over the bridge, waving them to follow. The narrow road wound between two low lumps of higher ground, vanishing like a false trail. Gilliatt was aware how perilous everything was, how unlikely survival. Maureen moved away from him, aware of the shivering possessing his body. She began to run after McBride.
The first shot plucked stone chips from the bridge just as Gilliatt took his first few steps, and the bullet whined away harmlessly. Gilliatt became frozen, unable to move, as if the bullet had entered his body or was some shouted imperative. McBride, looking back to the bridge, saw the Englishman's fear possess him.
'Peter, come on!' There were two men with rifles at the edge of the village. Small puffs of smoke appeared even as bullets buzzed near them. Gilliatt still did not move. Stone spattered on his jacket as another bullet ricocheted from the parapet of the bridge. 'Get down!' he snapped at Maureen, and she sank into the shallow ditch at the side of the road in an attitude of prayer. McBride, head down, ran back to the bridge, moving as swiftly as he could, bent almost double below the level of the stonework. He grabbed Gilliatt's jacket, heaving him off-balance — the man was as stiff as a wooden crate — pulling him down beside him. The angle of the road to the bridge hid them momentarily from the riflemen. Gilliatt seemed shaken out of a trance.
'Thanks.'
'Come on, keep low and move fast.'
McBride scuttled ahead of Gilliatt. Three shots nipped through the air above the bridge as McBride paused, then straightened and ran. Gilliatt followed him. McBride's arm ached intolerably from the damage of the grenade fragment and the effort of dragging Gilliatt down into the cover of the bridge. Maureen clambered out of the ditch as they heard the noise of a small car accelerating. McBride grabbed Maureen's arm, hurrying her up the road. The car's engine idled, presumably while their two closest pursuers climbed on board, then they heard it accelerate again.
They laboured up the slope of the road. A field fell away from them towards the stream.
'Down there!' McBride yelled, pointing towards the stream through a gate in the high hedge. 'Come on!' There was a desperation close to enjoyment in his voice.
Maureen swiftly opened the white gate. A grazing cow confronted her fearfully, great brown eyes puzzled and nervous. As she began running, it turned and lumbered away towards the rest of the small dairy herd shuffling away to her left. She felt her heart struggling for space with her ragged breaths in her chest cavity, felt herself choking but pushed on, leaning backwards as the slope of the field threatened her. Gilliatt caught up with her, his face grim. She did not worry about Michael behind them. She invested him with an expertise that approximated to omniscience. She could just hear the labouring car above the pound of her feet and blood. The herd was scampering in a dozen startled directions.
Shots rang out, and bullets buzzed around her. There was an ignorant confidence about her body. She had never seen a bullet or a bullet wound. Gilliatt flinched at each report, each passage of a bullet through the air near them. Then, closer, a heavy revolver sounded twice, and there was a distant, insect cry. Then, almost immediately, McBride was running alongside them, yelling.
'Spread out, spread out!' He veered off to the right himself, and Maureen went to her left. 'Run zig-zag!' McBride gave the instructions without panic, with no sense of danger. If bullets hit them, his voice suggested, it would be like drowning in a shallow stream or swimming pool. Maureen tried to run first to left then to right, watching for betraying tussocks of grass that would trip her, sprain something.
Then she lost her balance, and the stream was cold up to her knees, and her hands plunged into the water as she tried to keep upright. She felt smooth, slimy stones, twisted around, and Gilliatt grabbed her and stopped her from falling headlong. She felt herself shivering against him, his own body shaking with effort, his heart pounding. She looked behind her, following his gaze. McBride was alongside them in the water. Three men were coming down the slope of the field, leaving something in a fawn raincoat lying near the tall hedge, perhaps blown there by the wind, brown paper or something. She felt her thoughts slipping in and out of self-deception. Michael had killed one of them — brown paper—
'Where now?' Gilliatt asked, his voice thick with phlegm. He spat to clear his mouth, and Maureen watched the phlegm move away and dissipate on the surface of the stream. McBride looked around him.
Two more men — both of them dressed in reefer jackets and carrying machine-pistols — entered the field at its southern corner, back by the bridge. For the moment they were out of range and he discounted them except as a direction in which he could not go.
'Up there,' he said, pointing towards the rising ground to the north-west of the village. The sweep of his arm took in the pencil of smoke still rising from Ross Carbery in the still grey air. Rainspots, as if occasioned by the fire and the necessity of water, splashed on the back of his hand, spattered gently against the faces of all three of them. 'Some bloody mist is what we need,' McBride muttered. 'Get going!'
Gilliatt hauled Maureen out of the stream, and they began running again. She grabbed hold of his hand as she almost lost balance, and held onto it as they began labouring up the slope again towards another tall hedge marking the field's northern boundary. The noises of the rifles seemed distant and harmless. The rain fell more steadily, dampening their hair and faces. Neither of them gave any thought to McBride, except when the reports of the revolver impinged unwelcomely on them.
Gilliatt pushed her through the gate, and she huddled into the ditch, her breathing stertorous and always threatening not to come at all. Gilliatt touched her shoulder, and she nodded because her mouth was too full for words. Then Gilliatt stood up, and she remembered with a moan that Michael was still behind them; the realization sprang on her like guilt. Gilliatt, prompted by her cry, sensed the revolver stuck uselessly into his waistband, a hard cancerous lump against his stomach. The drizzle soaked him, but refreshed him at the same time. He climbed out of the ditch, and saw McBride perhaps thirty or forty yards from him, arm out like a duellist, firing two shots back at the men who had reached the stream. One of them held his left arm limply at his side, as if he had no further use for it. A second man was kneeling, taking aim, and the third was crouching against the near bank of the stream. A tableau that he seemed to bring to life as he drew the revolver and took aim. It was an impossible distance, even in the windless conditions, but he squeezed the trigger more as a distraction. He was aware of the box of shells misshaping his left pocket, and confidently fired three more shots towards the stream. The pursuers were sufficiently distracted to seek the shelter of the stream's bank. McBride was toiling up the last of the slope to the hedge. The two men in reefer jackets were cutting the angle of the field towards them, but warily keeping out of range.
'Master race, eh?' McBride said as he leaned against him for a moment, controlling his breathing. 'Take no chances, let the local lads get themselves killed.'
'You think they're German?'
'With those guns, yes.' But McBride had lost interest already. He looked behind them, northwards. The land sloped down again towards the trees of a wood. The outliers were mere hundreds of yards from them. 'Come on, then. No rest for the wicked.'
Maureen climbed out of the ditch, shaking off their aid, and they ran together towards the dark trees. The main road beyond the wood gleamed grey and wet like a boundary.
McBride remembered the first time he and Maureen had made love in the insect-clamorous wood, one summer afternoon, her body cool only for a moment before he pressed down upon her, her face white and wondering and nervous. He wondered whether she remembered the occasion.
