Bandit Country. Peter Corrigan

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       Prologue

      South Armagh, 3 July 1989

      The foot patrol moved quietly down the starlit street. There were four of them, forming a ‘brick’. They made up a single fire team. The point man kept his SA-80 assault rifle in the crook of his shoulder, eyes glinting in his darkly camouflaged face as he scanned surrounding windows, doors and alleyways.

      Behind the point came the fire team’s commander, a corporal. Hung on the left side of his chest was a PRC 349 radio. It had a range of only a few kilometres, but the patrol was not far from home. The corporal had the 349 set on whisper mode. Its twin microphones were strapped to his throat and he edged a finger in between them, silently cursing the way they irritated his skin.

      Behind the corporal came the gunner, armed with a Light Support Weapon. Similar to an SA-80, it had a longer barrel and a bipod to steady it.

      The rear man was walking backwards, checking the street the patrol had just walked through. The men were in staggered file, two on each side of the road, covering each other as they made their way back to the safety of the Security Forces Base. It was pitch-dark, and they avoided the few street-lights that still worked in that part of the village. All of them had the needle in the sights of their weapons turned on so that it was a luminous line, helping them to pick out targets at night.

      They were near the centre of the village now. The locals had whitewashed all the walls so that a patrolling soldier would stand out more clearly against them. That was the worst part.

      A dog barked, and they all paused to listen, hunkering down in doorways. Nothing worse than a restless fucking dog; it told the locals they had visitors.

      The barking stopped. The corporal waved a hand and they were on their way again.

      The centre of Crossmaglen had a small, open square. Crossing it was the most dangerous part of any patrol. It had to be done quickly as the whitewashed house walls offered no concealment. As the brick paused on the edge of the square the point man looked back at his commander. The corporal nodded and took up a firing position, as did the other two men.

      The point man set off across the square at a sprint. He was halfway across when there was a sharp crack, startlingly loud in the still night air. The point man seemed to be knocked backwards. He fell heavily on to his back and then lay still.

      For a second the rest of the fire team was frozen, disbelieving. Then the corporal began shouting.

      ‘Sniper! Anyone see the flash?’

      ‘Not a fucking thing, Corp.’

      ‘Ian’s out there – we’ve got to go and get him! Gunner, set up the LSW for suppressive fire. Mike, we’re going to run out there and bring him in, OK?’

      When the gunner was on the ground, with the LSW’s stock in his shoulder, the other two soldiers dashed out into the open.

      Immediately there was the sound of automatic fire. Tarmac was blown around their legs as the bullets thumped down around them. The point man lay in a pool of shining liquid. His chest looked as though someone had broken it open to have a look inside. Behind them, the LSW gunner opened up on automatic. Suddenly the little square was deafening with the sound of gunfire. Red streaks sped through the air and ricocheted off walls: the tracer in the LSW magazine. A series of flashes came from an alleyway opening off the square, and there was the unmistakable bark of an AK47, somehow lighter than the single shot that had felled the point man.

      ‘Come on, Mike. Grab his legs.’

      ‘He’s dead, Corp!’

      ‘Grab his fucking legs, like I tell you!’

      They staggered back across the square with their comrade’s body slung between them like a sack. The firing had stopped. All around, lights were flicking on at windows. There was the sound of doors banging.

      ‘Get a fucking field-dressing on him, Mike. Gunner, did you see where that bastard is?’

      ‘Saw the muzzle flash, Corp. But I think he’s bugged out now. The locals will be all over us in a minute though.’

      The corporal swore viciously, then thumbed the pressel-switch of the 349.

      ‘Hello, Zero, this is Oscar One One Charlie. Contact, over.’

      The far-away voice crackled back over the single earphone.

      ‘Zero, send over.’

      ‘One One Charlie, contact 0230, corner of…’ – the corporal looked round wildly – ‘corner of Hogan’s Avenue and Cross square. One own casualty, at least two enemy with automatic weapons. I think they’ve bugged out. Request QRF and medic for casevac, over.’

      ‘Roger, One One Charlie. QRF on its way, over.’

      ‘Roger out.’

      The corporal bent over his injured point man. ‘How is he, Mike?’

      The other soldier was ripping up field-dressings furiously and stuffing them into the huge chest wound.

      ‘Fucking bullet went right through his trauma plate, Corp – right fucking through and went out the other side. What the hell kind of weapon was that?’

      The soldiers all wore flak-jackets, and covering their hearts front and rear were two-inch-thick ‘trauma plates’ of solid Kevlar. These stopped most normal bullets, even those fired by a 7.62mm Kalashnikov AK47.

      ‘It’s that bastard sniper. He got us again.’ The corporal was livid with fury. ‘The bastard did it again,’ he repeated.

      There was a loud banging in the night, the metallic clatter of dustbin lids being smashed repeatedly on the ground. Crossmaglen’s square was filling up with people.

      The sound of engines roaring up other streets. A siren blaring. The flicker of blue lights. A Quick Reaction Force was on its way.

      ‘He’s gone, Corp. Poor bugger never had a chance.’

      Armoured Landrovers, both green and slate-grey, powered into the square, scattering the approaching mob. The locals were shouting and cheering now – they had seen the little knot of men on the corner, the body on the ground. They knew what had happened.

      ‘Nine-nil, nine-nil, nine-nil,’ they chanted, laughing. Even when baton-wielding soldiers and RUC men poured out of the Landrovers to force them back, they continued jeering.

      ‘Nineteen years old,’ the corporal said. ‘His first tour. Jesus Christ.’

      He closed the blood-filled eyes of the boy on the ground.

      The Border Fox had struck again.