Sorj Chalandon - Return to Killybegs

Then I gave up the idea of dying. And of living, too. I would be elsewhere, between heaven and earth. I’d give them all grief! The Brits, the IRA, all those men who gave out orders! I could no longer stand this war, these heroes, this stifling community. I was tired. Tired of fighting, of marching, of prison; tired of secrecy and of silence; tired of prayers repeated since childhood; tired of hatred, of anger and of fear; tired of our grey skin, of the holes in our shoes; tired of our raincoats that were wet on the inside. My brother Seánie was roaring in my ears. I repeated word for word the arguments he had given me when he called it a day. What has the Republic ever done for me? The handsome ones, the great ones, the genuine ones, the Tom Williamses and the Danny Finleys, they had all died along with our youth! Buried with our history books, Connolly, Pearse and all those men in ties and round collars! We were mimics, imitators of glory. We replayed the old songs incessantly. We were made of soul, flesh and bricks, and were up against heartless steel. We were going to lose. We had lost. I had lost. And I wouldn’t offer Ireland another life.

— Kevin? Will you serve me a last one before closing your damned iron curtain?

I went to bed drunk and feverish. When I awoke, I had decided to divert them from Mickey. I would give them a piece of information. An unimportant one, but a piece of information. Maybe I’d throw them off that way and save him. I had to do my job as a traitor. Before the day was out, I would have crossed the line. It was like taking the oath to the Republic. No turning back on this road. I had started down it and I would lose myself along the way. It was too late for questions and doubts. And too late for answers.Jack had been out of solitary confinement for a week now. He had rejoined his friends and his cell. A present from Master Waldner to Tenor, his traitor. And me, I had thanked him.

— You’re a nice guy, the red-haired handler said to me on the way back from Paris.

That was it. Maybe a bastard is a nice guy who has given up.

I gave the British 23 Poolbeg Street. I met Waldner at the cemetery. He listened to me with his back to the wall, his eyes on the graves. He had a bunch of flowers that he asked me to put on Henry Joy McCracken’s grave.

Number 23 was an occasional hiding place, almost a ruin, used to store arms and money. Four months previously, we had cleaned it out. The street was too busy, the house too exposed. Kids were getting in through a broken window and smoking on the sly. Two of our lads intervened one evening just as a youth was searching the chimney flue. He had found a gun and some ammunition. He dropped his load and scarpered.

Waldner was looking at me. He was wearing a smile I didn’t care for.

— Number 23 Poolbeg Street?

I said yes. Poolbeg, at the bottom of the Falls Road. He nodded, recognizing it. He took me by the arm. We walked across the graves, like two old companions. He told me the story of Damian Bray, a fifteen-year-old who smoked hash in the same neighbourhood, and sold it as well, to make some pocket money. He and two older friends would get the stuff from Dublin, then play leapfrog over the border with their little bars sewn into their parkas.

— Oh, we’re not talking much, you know. Eight ounces here, a pound there. It could be useful.

He stopped in front of McCracken’s grave. He handed me the bouquet.

— One day, we arrested Bray. He was so scared he vomited.

I put the flowers down, one knee on the ground.

— A very decent family, the Brays. Father in Long Kesh, brother in the IRA. True Republicans, except for him. He was one of those kids who’d write ‘IRA = Peelers’ on walls, you know the type?

I knew.

— So we gave him an ultimatum. We didn’t give a damn about his toking. Likewise his petty trafficking. But we told him that if he wanted to leave the interrogation uncharged, he’d have to give us something in exchange. A little like you, you see?

The agent had started his slow walk again.

— And you know what? He slipped us an address. I’m sure you know the one.

I kept quiet.

— He’d been looking for a corner to stash his gear and he’d come across a gun. The IRA had caught him by surprise and he’d run away. It’s mad how much these brats hate you lot!

— What are telling me here?

— I’m telling you that by taking the law into its own hands in the ghettos, the IRA has made itself solid enemies of the louts. With us they get a judge, with you it’s a bullet in the kneecap. So, in fact, the Brits are the lesser evil for them.

— Why are you telling me all this?

— Why? Because after the young lad’s confessions, we placed Number 23 under surveillance, Tyrone. We saw your guys empty it out several months ago. And since then, there’s nothing there. Nothing. A desert.

He stopped beside the gate.

— You wouldn’t by any chance be taking the mickey out of us?

— Twenty-three was never under surveillance. You’re lying. Nobody has been arrested!

— Who would we arrest? The three Fianna and the poor fucker who did the cleaning? We want to hit the IRA, not make little heroes for you on the cheap!

He slid an envelope into my pocket. I didn’t protest.

— Later, Meehan. Call when you want.

He took a few steps, then turned around.

— By the way, Mickey talked. And you know what? He gave us the name of the next screw on the list, the location of the operation, everything.

He was watching me.

— And also… I’m sorry, but he also gave us your name. And that of your bomb-maker. You know? The one who shouldn’t have been there during your meeting.

The rain started to wash the sky. He lifted his collar.

— In any case, you were right to make him leave. You have to make people follow the rules, that’s the boss’s job.

Martin Hurson died on 13 July 1981, aged twenty-five, after forty-six days of hunger striking. Kevin Lynch went on 1 August, also aged twenty-five, on his seventy-first day. And Kieran Doherty went the next day, at twenty-six, on his seventy-third day of fasting.

As for Frank ‘Mickey’ Devlin, he was tortured for five days in the Castlereagh detention centre. He was deprived of sleep and made to stand naked for hours facing the wall, arms outstretched. He was beaten, electrocuted, choked, burned with cigarettes and smothered with damp cloths. Between interrogations he was thrown blindfolded into a soundproofed room. Those who have been subjected to sensory isolation say that even their cries were muted. Europe had described these treatments as ‘inhumane and degrading’. Waldner didn’t give a damn. In his view it was necessary to make the Republicans own up. Before another shot was fired, before another bomb exploded, before another Popeye should die somewhere in the city.

Did I understand?

— Imagine I’m your prisoner, Meehan. Your best friend is in our hands. Our men want to hit him. I know where and when. What do you do with me?

I understood.

The ghetto was distraught over Mickey’s arrest. His wife came to visit Sheila. They were both crying. I made them tea and left.

— Imprisoned is better than dead, I murmured to my wife when I came back.

I didn’t like the look she gave me. She was searching for the signs that I’d been drinking, but I hadn’t. Just two pints, in a bar that wasn’t my local. I didn’t want to have to face the despondency and the sorrow.

The British had arrested Mickey on 3 August after a punishment he had meted out to a rapist. The lad was a habitual offender who had been barred from the Divis Flats area for months. He had attacked a woman on her way home, hit her in the face and tried to drag her into the bushes. He was drunk, stumbling. She escaped and ran to the Sinn Féin office to lodge a complaint and give a description of her assailant.