Bandit Country. Peter Corrigan

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      Early nodded. He liked it that way.

      ‘What about our friends the spooks?’ he said, referring to his handlers in the Intelligence Service.

      ‘You’re on leave, seeing a sick auntie. They think you’re back across the water. They’ll be mightily pissed off when the truth comes out though.’

      ‘Fuck them. This is my last caper, James. After this I’m getting out.’

      ‘I’m sorry about Jeff. I take it he’s the reason behind all this.’

      Jeffrey Early had hero-worshipped John and gone into the army as soon as he could, following in his revered older brother’s footsteps. But the Border Fox had killed Jeff three months ago. One bullet, taking off most of his head. Early had not even been able to go to the funeral.

      ‘I want this bastard, James. I really want him.’

      Cordwain nodded. ‘Don’t let hatred cloud your thinking, John. Remember, your job will be identification. I provide the Button Men.’

      ‘Who are they?’

      ‘Charles Boyd for one. You don’t know him, but he’s a good man.’

      ‘I don’t want him tripping over my shadow, James. This South Armagh lot are the most formidable we’ve ever encountered. They sniff the colour green and I’m dead. Tell your man to keep his distance.’

      Cordwain was not happy. ‘They have to provide effective back-up.’

      ‘So long as they don’t compromise me.’

      ‘They won’t. I’ll have a word. Boyd will want to meet you as soon as is practicable.’

      ‘Why, for fuck’s sake?’

      ‘To get a feel of the thing. He wants you to draw him a few pictures.’

      ‘Are you saying he’s still wet behind the ears?’

      Cordwain grinned. ‘A little. He’s out in west Tyrone at the minute, but that op should finish within a day at most.’

      ‘Terrific.’ Early finished his drink and stood up, glancing quickly over the wooden partition of the snug. The bar was still more or less deserted.

      ‘I’ll be in touch.’

      Then he left, exchanging a farewell with the barman as he went. Cordwain lingered a while to leave a gap between them. This had to be the most hare-brained operation he had ever begun. But the men Upstairs had given the go-ahead, and besides, he did not like doing nothing while British soldiers were slaughtered with impunity. Talking once to an officer in the ‘Green Army’, he had been struck by a phase the man had used. ‘We’re just figure 11s, out standing on the streets,’ the officer had said. A ‘figure 11’ was the standard target used on firing ranges. Cordwain did not like the image. It was time the terrorists took a turn at ducking bullets.

      Lieutenant Charles Boyd shifted position minutely to try to get some blood circulating in his cramped and chilled legs. The rain had been pouring down for hours now, reducing visibility and soaking him to the marrow. There were streams of freezing water trickling down the neck of his combat smock and between his buttocks. He was lying in a rapidly deepening puddle with the stock of an Armalite M16 assault rifle close to his cheek. His belt-order dug into his slim waist and his elbows were sinking deeper into peat-black mud.

      ‘July in Tyrone,’ his companion whispered. ‘Jesus fucking Christ. Why didn’t I become a grocer?’

      ‘Shut it, Haymaker.’

      ‘Yes, boss,’ the other man mumbled. The hissing downpour of the rain reduced the chances of their being heard but there was no point in taking risks.

      It was getting on towards evening; the second evening they had spent in the observation post. They were screened by a tangle of alder and willow; behind them a stream gurgled, swollen by the rain. Their camouflaged bergens rested between their ankles.

      They had not moved in thirty-six hours. Boyd began to wonder if the SB had been wrong. He had been tasked to provide a Reactive Observation Post to monitor an arms cache which was to have been visited last night, but no one had shown. The cache was at the base of a tree eighty metres away – they could see it plainly even with the rain. The local ASU, an IRA Active Service Unit of four men, was planning a ‘spectacular’ for the forthcoming Twelfth of July marches. Boyd and his team were to forestall them, and had been discreetly given the go-ahead to use all necessary means to achieve that aim. To Boyd that meant only one thing: any terrorist who approached this cache was going to die. It would give the Unionists something to crow about on their holiday and sweeten relations between them and the Northern Ireland Office. Boyd didn’t give a shit about either, but he wanted to nail this ASU. They had been a thorn in 8 Brigade’s flesh for some months now, though they were not as slick as their colleagues in Armagh.

      Lying beside Boyd was Corporal Kevin ‘Haymaker’ Lewis, so called because of his awesome punch. It was rumoured he had killed an Argie in the Falklands with one blow of his fist. Haymaker was an amiable man, though built like a gorilla. He had the tremendous patience and stamina of the typical SAS trooper, but he loved grousing.

      Hidden some distance to the rear of the pair were Taff Gilmore and Raymond Chandler. All troopers seemed to have some nickname or other. Taff was so called not because he was Welsh but because he had a fine baritone voice which he exercised at every opportunity. And Raymond – well, what else could the lads call someone with the surname Chandler? Some of them, though, called him ‘The Big Sleep’ because of his love of his sleeping bag.

      It was unusual for an officer to accompany an op such as this. SAS officers had on the whole stopped accompanying the other ranks into the field since the death of Captain Richard Westmacott in 1980, gunned down by an M60 machine-gun in Belfast’s Antrim Road. But Boyd loved working in the field – not for him the drudgery of the ops room in some security base. He knew that the men called him ‘our young Rupert’ behind his back, but he also knew that they respected him for his decision.

      God, the bloody rain, the bloody mud, the bloody Provos. The players, as the Army termed the key terrorist figures, were probably warm and safe in their houses. Not for them the misery of this long wait in the rain, the pissing and shitting into plastic bags, the cold tinned food.

      Boyd felt Haymaker tense beside him. His mind had been wandering. The big trooper looked his officer in the eye, then nodded out at the waterlogged meadow with its straggling hedgerows. There was movement out there in the rain, a dark flickering of shadow close to the hedge. Immediately Boyd’s boredom and weariness disappeared. The evening was darkening but it was still too light to use Night Vision Goggles, which made the darkest night into daylight. He squinted, his fist tightening round the pistol-grip of the M16. One thumb gently levered off the safety-catch. The weapon had been cocked long ago, the magazine emptied and cleaned twice in the past thirty-six hours. The M16 was a good weapon for a nice heavy rate of fire, but it was notoriously prone to jamming when dirty.

      Boyd’s boot tapped Haymaker on the ankle. He gave the thumbs down, indicating that the enemy was in sight. Haymaker grinned, rain dripping off his massive, camouflaged face, and sighed down the barrel of his own Armalite. Boyd could hear his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.

      Two men were walking warily up the line of the hedge. This had to be it СКАЧАТЬ