Chapter 62
Northern Ireland, 1984
It was late afternoon on Sunday when Sean O’Donnell returned to Belfast. The British Army was very much in evidence on the streets of the city but Sean, being a Protestant kid from the South of Ireland, felt safe enough. He immediately headed for the Walsh’s home in the Short Strand, a small Catholic area in East Belfast.
The youth’s thoughts were taken up with the problem of his kid brother. Their uncle off to New York, Colin had taken it upon himself to visit the Walsh’s in hopes of seeing Sean. The last thing the older boy felt he needed right now was the brat interfering with his important business. He parked the borrowed ten-year-old car several blocks away from Walsh’s so Collin wouldn’t see it. He’d been forced to leave his own new car in the city when he was sent to rescue the O’Neill girl and he sorely missed it.
To the group of prowling Protestant youths out looking for trouble, it was simply inconceivable that anyone but a filthy taig could be roaming the streets of the Short Strand alone. They spotted each other at the same instant.
With a howl of pleasure the Protestant gang gave chase and Sean fled. Then from the hand of one, an illegal little black gun spoke twice. Sean stumbled briefly from the pressure of twin bullets puncturing his back but fear kept him on his feet and he continued to run.
By some justice, perhaps astonishment at what one of their number had done, the Protestant youths broke off the chase. Sean, with only several houses to go, made it as his legs grew rubbery and the burning in his chest was robbing his ability to draw in air. Then a fierce cold invaded his body and he was falling—
Colin was standing over him screaming.
“Run!” Sean gagged through the blood filling his mouth.”Go home!”
He wasn’t certain his voice was working or even if Colin was really there.
Then a number of English accents assaulted his aching head, “Who shot you?”
“Who were you with?”
“You’re Sean O’Donnell?”
Who was he? He wasn’t sure anymore. His eyes were open but he couldn’t see. If only they’d let him be. He was so cold—
“Damn! He’s going into shock.”
“Get the IV started—internal hemorrhage—we’re losing him…”
The voices were a jumble in his mind.
Mary Walsh screamed, “Leave the lad be.” Someone else yelled, “Run! Colin! Run!”
The pain! Hands were everywhere; grabbing, tearing away at his agony. Struggling to breath—something was blocking his air. A horrible pain—they were pounding over and over on his chest. “Leave me be,” he screamed, or so he thought, but only a weak gurgle, muffled by blood, had rolled from his lips.
~~~
In a moment of earlier clarity Sean’s younger brother had cradled his head and listened to his instructions. “Coli, call this number,” he forced the digits. “Give the correct time—tell them about me…”
Mary Walsh’s face paled as she pulled the youngster to his feet. “Do like he says Coli,” she shoved him. “Run!”
And the child ran. He didn’t know why he ran. He didn’t want to leave his brother. Tears blurred his vision and he stumbled as the words came back to him. “Tell them about me.”
Ducking in to the pub, he noticed the blood on his hands. Sean’s blood was drying on his cheek and spotted his shirt. Several men turn from the bar to appraise the sorry youth. One inquired, “You hurt lad?”
Colin gave a quick negative nod and headed for the coin box. Fumbling in his pocket he almost screamed for he had no coins. A man walked over and put two five pence in the boy’s hand. Colin tried to thank him but the man quickly hurried out of the bar.
Placing his call, it was picked up on the first ring. He glanced at his watch to answer, “Half-five.”
“Is it too late?”
Not understanding he began to sob and sputtered out, “I don’t know. Sean’s bleeding bad—”
“Who are you?”
“Colin, Colin O’Donnell.”
The name was repeated to someone else. This someone barked into the phone, “How did Sean get hurt?”
“He was shot—I think.”
“Is he dead?”
“I don’t know he’s hurt awful bad.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
“Only thirteen,” The man seemed to be speaking to a voice in the background that Colin could barely hear. Finally he said into the receiver, “Go back to Walsh’s. If the RUC or the Army questions you, tell them the truth. You can even give them this number. Go back now, like a good lad, you’re too young for them to pester much.” The man on the phone only knew the age not the size of the young pup that was rapidly approaching five-eleven.
Obediently Colin retraced his former path, running at first he slowed to a walk as he came in sight of Walsh’s home. Armored cars were blocking the road; several were pulled up on the small adjacent lawns. He could hear Mary Walsh’s loud protesting voice. The boy’s pace slackened to a cautious shuffle. A man suddenly noticed the boy and hollered, “Get out Colin!” And a soldier’s rifle butt slammed into the man’s chest. Colin took off.
He had only made half a block when they were on him. A muzzle driven into the small of his back sent him sprawling. Yanked to his feet, he was shoved face first into the hard cement of a building; the rough surface scratched his smooth cheeks as the terrified youngster snapped his head side to side. They were growling at him to do something. Then a rifle butt jammed into his spine pushing his body flush against the building. Brutal hands worked over his body and his legs were kicked apart.
“Clean,” someone said. He could only whimper in his fear as they drag him back along the roadway.
Mary Walsh, restrained in the arms of a neighbor, screeched, “He’s only a child!” And a loud grumbling rolled through the growing number of bystanders. Someone threw a rock. Army rifles leveled off in the direction of a rapidly growing mob. Another missile was thrown; it split the forehead of a soldier whose fingers tightened on his weapon as he ignored the blood that ran down into his eye.
~~~
“Shit,” Sergeant Darren Davis swore under his breath. Go out to pick up one little bastard named O’Donnell. What do I get, two fuckers and a bloody riot? “ ‘Old your fire!” he repeated his previous commands. Then he yelled out, “We’re only taking the lad in to find out how his brother got shot. He’s not going to be hurt.” He was aware there were new arrivals moving through the crowd. Soldiers without uniforms, he thought, but did not call attention to them as they began to whisper orders of their own and calm settled over the mob. Soon Sergeant Davis could motion for Colin to be hiked into a lorry while the ambulance sped away with his brother.
~~~
Sean O’Donnell was sure he had died—now suddenly he was alive again only he didn’t want to be. With consciousness came the horror of nothingness. He attempted to turn his head, to flex the fingers of one hand—nothing. His body did not function. His vision cleared a bit and he saw a uniform hovering above him. A British uniform. A cold sweat washed over him.
“His eyes are open. Can he hear me?” The uniform demanded.
From far away an answered, “You can try.”
A slammed door. An angry voice. “You out to finish him, Colonel? Punctured lung, bullets damn close to the heart.”
“Just give me a minute. Sean? Can you hear me? You could save your brother a lot of grief.”
“Coli,” the whimpered words came hard. “Nothing, he knows nothing.”
“We have to operate now.”
And Colonel Oliver Reed ordered, “Keep the bastard alive!”
~~~
Sunday night was winding down towards Monday morning in this first week of July. Colonel Oliver Reed was presently confronting a new dilemma as the recently arrived from London, Inspector Dan Mitchell accused, “You liftin’ children now? You’ve got the RUC about to interrogate Seamus O’Donnell’s nephew all right, a thirteen year old kid?”
“He must know something—he ran.”
“Sure,” the inspector said. “His injured brother being manhandled by soldiers somebody yelled, ‘Colin run’. He ran. You goofed. You should have put a hold on that woman until I talked to her. Mrs. Jack Walsh and young are no longer in residence. One guess where she’s headed—South.”
“We’ve alerted the border.”
“That’s as wasted as putting sun on a desert.” Mitchell’s tone was chilled with disgust. “You brutalize an adolescent who hasn’t been north of the border in several years, even the Dublin Government won’t be able to sit quiet on that one. You kill a teenage lad—”
“He’s not dead. And we have no idea who actually shot him.”
“Try convincing his uncle of that? Did you check at all before you went off full speed? Did you know Sean was only staying at the Walsh’s because he had a tiff with his uncle? Seamus O’Donnell is not just anybody.”
Reed resented being talked down too. A deep anger was building in him but years in the military had taught him to hold it in check. “Get the mighty O’Donnell on this side of the border and we’ll have him singing sweetly for the newsmen in an hour. That is if we don’t have him up on charges.”
“You really fell for that crap Hanlon fed you?” Dan Mitchell eyed the officer in mild surprise. “Though I doubt it, he could be their paymaster. But Seamus O’Donnell a mule—never. As for the bombing—that’s doubtful. With politics on the brain, he wouldn’t take part in anything like that. He condemns the army presence in the North but it’s all political show. He’s perfectly aware if the British Army left tomorrow in a few minutes time both sides would return to indiscriminately killing each other.”
“I’d still like to talk to him. On this side of the border. Can you arrange it?”
“Anything I suppose is possible.”
“When?”
“It will take some time. He’s in the States right now. I can’t walk up to him in the middle of New York City and say the Queen wants you. Undoubtedly, you think he’ll trot along like a good citizen of the Crown?” Mitchell asked with a slight grin.
Reed glared back. “Unless your reputation is faulty, I’m certain your large organization can manage to take one man into custody who doesn’t even travel with bodyguards.”
“There are ways.” Mitchell continued to grin. “There are always ways. What are your plans for his nephews?”
“I believe you are referring to our newest victims of this absurd violence? A seventeen-year-old who was shot by unknown assailants and is in critical condition in the surgery ward and his younger brother who broke his own wrist in a panic when we attempted to safely remove him from a mob of Catholics. Right now the two Protestant boys are in the same hospital?”
“No arrest records?”
“No arrests. To the Army’s knowledge. You can check with the RUC.”