Gerald Seymour - The Journeyman Tailor

"I went, I was there, I was lucky."

The anger in Mossie was fear. Good act, played well, because the fear was real. The hands came away from his throat. He didn't know whether he was believed. If he was not believed…

The O.C. said, grim, "There was three men shot dead. There was one who ran. The one who ran can't go fast. The one who ran was right in view of the soldiers, past two houses. You tell me, Mossie, because you was there, you tell me why one, only one was able to run from the soldiers. Tell me, Mossie…"

Better when they were shouting, face to face, easier eyeball to eyeball.

He'd had five years to prepare himself to answer the accusation. Five years of churning the question in his mind. Was he a tout? Five years to prepare the answer, and never knowing when the question would come. He had just run, panicked, hadn't even seen the bastard soldier, only heard the crack of the bullet against the wall, then the ricochet whine. The question was with him…

"I don't know."

"You're staying here. You'll stay while I'm gone. You think of running, and you think where you'll go. You run now and that's my answer."

Mossie stood his full height… fight, to fight was the best, fighting for his life.

"You're not fit to lead, you're rubbish. If Jon Jo Donnelly was here.. . You're not fit to be in Jon Jo's shoes."

He saw the loathing in the O.C.'s eyes. "My question, why'd they let you get clear? Just you, why? You run and I've my answer, and Jon Jo isn't here."

Mossie was left in the barn. There was nowhere to run to and there never had been.

The O.C. came back to the barn in the middle of the afternoon, driving his tractor with the trailer bumping behind. The tractor, open-topped and without four-wheel drive, had been in his family since before he was born. He had driven it first when he was too small to sit on the seat and reach the wheel and the pedals. There were hay bales on the trailer.

Standing behind him, gripping his shoulders, was a man who had come from Lurgan in answer to a summons. The O.C. was elaborate and careful because he assumed, always, that he was watched. He assumed always, too, that his enemy had him under surveillance from cameras and from the soldiers of the Close Observation Platoons and from the police of the E. 4 section. He had not met the man from Security before, never had cause. The man wore heavy-framed clear-glass spectacles to disguise his face. If they were under surveillance, it would not be thought unusual, shifting bales of hay.

They splashed through the puddle in the doorway, below the broken guttering. Mossie sat facing the doorway, knees against his chest, arms around his knees.

The O.C. and the man from Lurgan dumped down the bales of hay they had carried inside.

"So, you's Mossie Nugent…"

The man from Lurgan had a voice from far down in his throat.

‘I am.’’

The O.C. watched. Mossie pushed himself up against the wall behind him. It was not for the O.C. to speak, he had called in the security section. He would stand aside wile they trampled through the Brigade.

He lit a cigarette. It was a sort of humiliation that he felt because until a tout was found, until the Brigade was sanitised, he had handed away his control of the war.

"I'm from the security, Mossie, I'm from the security because I've a nose for rats. What I say, Mossie, is that rats are best shot. We had a rat last month and we shot him. To me, touts is rats."

He had thought Mossie Nugent great, a fine and careful intelligence officer. He didn't know the working of South Down Brigade or the Mid Ulster Brigade, but he had once been on a hit with the Derry Brigade and he'd thought the intelligence officer of Derry Brigade was just shit, all talk. Good times he'd had with Mossie. Couldn't fault him. He saw that Mossie looked the man from Lurgan straight back in the eyes.

Mossie said, "I'm not a tout."

"Did I say you was, Mossie? Did you hear me accuse you?"

"I hear you talking of touts. I's no tout."

"My position is laid down by Army Council orders. I'll quote it for you, so there's no misunderstandings. 'We wish to reiterate our stated position on informers. No matter how long a person has been working for the enemy, if they come forward, they will not be harmed. Anyone caught touting will be executed.' Be difficult not to understand that, eh, Mossie? I'm going to ask you the question…"

"Go feck yourselves, the both of you. I've had all I need of this joke.

Away and play somewhere's else."

"Just listen to my question, Mossie. You may want time to think on it, because it's just the one chance, Mossie. It's like the Army Council says, a tout comes forward, a tout won't be harmed. But the Army Council says also, a tout lies and is then found out, that tout's dead. I give a man the one chance to come forward…"

"I'll remember you, you bastard, don't think I won't."

The O.C. watched. He thought the man from Lurgan terrifying, and he saw the way that Mossie's eyes never left the face of the man.

"Haven't asked the question yet, Mossie," the voice ground softly on,

"because I'm being fair with you. Can't say I'm not fair. The chance is never offered again, that's why you might be wanting to think on your answer. I told you, Mossie, I've a nose for rats."

Mossie said nothing, only stared at the man. Tense, his fists white-knuckled. Ready to spring.

The O.C. felt the shiver in his body. Frightening to him, the tap drip of the man from Lurgan's voice. He had known Mossie since he could remember. He had been at the small kids' school when Mossie had first gone to prison.

The voice beside him was chilled, quiet. "One and only one chance .. . Mossie, is you a tout?"

"Go feck yourself."

"Is you a tout?"

"No, I'm not a tout. I'm the Intelligence Officer of this Brigade

…"

The voice beside him hardened. "You was the only one who knew."

"Not true."

"Your O.C. knew, and you knew."

"Not true."

"Who else knew?"

Mossie's finger stabbed at him. "Ask him."

The O.C. flinched.

The man from Lurgan turned slowly, precisely for a big man, towards him. "You told me it was just him and yourself. Who else knew?"

The O.C. blurted, "No one else knew."

He saw the finger again pointing at him. "You lie. What did vou say yourself? You said, 'How long was the little bastard there?' When the Riordan kid brought the tea. I've given my life to the Organisation. I's done time for the cause. Before you look to me you should go talk with the little bastard…"

The man from Lurgan spat, "You didn't tell me."

He said, weak, "I hadn't remembered…"

Mossie, shrill, "Go look at Patsy Riordan. Go look at anyone else he's forgotten."

They let Mossie go, let him walk back to his home. The O.C. talked with the man from Lurgan about the kid who was not the full shilling, who was just used to run messages, On their lips was the name and the history of the kiddie who could have been good on the gaelic team, Under-19s. Patsy Riordan.

"I had no choice."

There was wonderment in her voice. "You gave them his name?"

"I gave them his name or I was gone."

He had shouted at the little ones to drive them from the room. He had slammed the door on his mother. Mossie sat on the bed and cupped in his hands was the whiskey bottle. He felt the shake in his body.

Siobhan stood above him. He drank from the neck of the bottle.

"She's a grand woman, Mrs Riordan…"

"Gone. They don't finish till they've it out of you. You can't stand against them. Don't you understand, it's torture, it's beatings

… I had to."

"He's just a simple, stupid boy…"

"I was dead."

"He's never done you no harm…"

Slowly, trying to control the splutter of his voice, he explained to her what must be done.