Dead Village Page 15

Dan decided to say nothing more about the incident, but now he could feel his confidence in Thomas growing.

  When they approached Cappawhite in their hired 4 x 4, Dan made the phone call which would have Francis run out from the church to greet them, and when they pulled up, she was there.

  She threw her arms around Dan, and for a moment they squeezed each other tightly, as though they were long lost lovers. Thomas looked awkwardly away, and coughed.

  “This is Thomas, and Thomas, meet Francis” Dan said as he introduced him.

  Francis loosely shook hands with this giant of a man, with the trusting face.

  “Hello Thomas, and thank you for coming.”

  Thomas nodded and smiled at her, without speaking.

  Then she turned once more to face Dan.

  “It’s nice to see you again Francis,” Dan said. “I just wish it had been under different circumstances. How is Tully?”

  “Come, he’s waiting for you inside the church,” she replied, pointing.

  “He can’t wait to see you again,” she added.

  Before they entered, Francis gripped Dan’s arm and forcefully pulled him back.

  Now they are going to kiss, Thomas thought.

  “Um, this creature,” Francis said. “It looked upon him Dan. And I don…”

  Francis started to sob, and Dan placed his arm on her shoulder.

  “We beat it before Francis, and we can do it again,” he bravely stated.

  Francis stared at the two men for a moment and smiled.

  “Thank you so much. You can’t possibly understand what your coming here means to us.”

  “Well, I couldn’t locate Griff, but Thomas here is…”

  Suddenly Dan stopped speaking for a moment as he reached for the big Indian’s arm.

  “Thomas here is special,” he continued. “Now let’s go and see Tully!”

  * * * * *

  As they entered the church, scraps barked and growled loudly at them, but Thomas hunkered down and held his hand out toward the little dog in a gentle manner, as he chanted lowly. The little dog stopped barking at once, and licked at his hand.

  Dan nodded wildly, as though the most powerful man in Gods creation had just entered the room.

  “How’d you do that?” Francis asked. “That’s really powerful stuff.”

  “Magic,” Dan answered.

  “No!” Thomas replied, “not magic, just really powerful honey. I had some in my pocket,” he announced, as he pulled out a small plastic bag.

  Tim forced a laugh, as Dan looked on with a bewildered countenance on his face.

  After the introductions they all sat down to talk.

  “Have you had any experience with the kind of thing we are dealing with before, Father O’Neill?” Dan asked.

  The sincere priest explained to them of the little girl, just as he had done with Tully earlier, and they floated on his every word.

  Tully pointed to the brown envelope.

  “I almost forgot, you told me you had proof of it Tim,” Tully stated.

  “Well, proof of a sort I said, or maybe an explanation,” Father O’Neill softly answered as he re-opened the envelope and removed the pages.

  “This letter was sent to me by one of the old priests I mentioned earlier, Father McAllister, shortly after I moved to Cappawhite.

  He starts off by saying that he owes me an explanation regarding the little girl who walks the lanes and roads. And at least in this letter he tries to make it clear to me as to why Alice walks at night, and why her soul won’t rest.”

  “Alice?” Tully said.

  “Yes, her name in life was Alice Boyd, and hers was a sad tale indeed. I’ll begin,” Tim said, as he looked sadly at the letter.

  * * * * *

  “Alice was eight years old when her troubles began. It was a bitter cold February night in that year of nineteen twenty one, and a couple of hundred miles away from her Northern Ireland Banbridge Town, her father, Police Sergeant Martin Boyd, of, The Royal Irish Constabulary, was making his way back to his barracks in Wexford, accompanied by six constables.

  As they drove along the dark country roads in their heavy vehicle, each man, rifle in hand, sat at the ready. Ambushes along these roads had been rife, and the Royal Irish Constabulary had lost hundreds of their men this way. The Irish Republican Army seemed to be growing in strength, and if anything had increased their campaign against the British. Sergeant Boyd though, was quite aware of these circumstances, and Sergeant Boyd always expected the unexpected. As he sat in the front cab, he held his torch tightly in one hand, his Webley revolver in the other.

  They were about four miles from the town, when the heavy open back lorry gave a splutter and ground to a halt.

  Sergeant Boyd stared at an old crack which ran across the windscreen in a diagonal line, and cursed their misfortune.

  ‘Trust us to go out on the worst lorry of the bloody bunch,’ he barked.

  ‘What the hells wrong with it now Millar?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ sarge,’ Millar, their Scottish driver replied. ‘It’s been playing up for a while now.’

  ‘Right, everybody dismount and take positions,’ the sergeant ordered.

  From some distant farm yard, the men could hear dogs barking loudly.

  ‘Activity sarge,’ Millar whispered.

  ‘Damn,’ Sergeant Boyd moaned.

  It soon became clear that their transport would need the barrack mechanic’s to look at it, so the men had no option but to walk the almost four miles to base. Each man knew how dangerous the situation was. The barking dogs had aroused someone, Millar guessed. Someone either active or sympathetic to the cause, these Irishmen were fighting.

  It would take some time though, for these people to put a sizable enough force together to attack them, he believed, and Sergeant Boyd felt they could make it back to the barracks in time, without incident, if they hurried.

  Even if another vehicle was sent to look for them, it would be unlikely they would be immediately found, because the sergeant had ordered the driver to return to base by a different route.

  Always using the same route on the main country roads, in his opinion, was plain and simple suicide. Now he was sorry he hadn’t done this. But the IRA had eyes and ears everywhere, and he had a bad feeling about this night.

  For years the sergeant had carried a strange phenomenon, of which he told to no one. He wasn’t sure if this strange phenomenon was a blessing or a curse, but he would get pains in his knees for about five minutes, when something bad was about to befall him. It had been like this since he was a child, and he had accepted it a long time ago. However, the heavier the pain in his knees, the worse it was going to be. Like the time his father died. Martin had been wakened from a deep sleep, when the sudden unbearable pain shot through his knees.

  ‘What’s wrong Martin?’ Mary, his wife had asked. Martin though, had never told anyone of this strange phenomenon, not even Mary. He just didn’t want people to have this worry inflicted on them.

  Next morning though, and as the pain increased, the messenger had arrived at his house and informed him of his father’s sudden death in his sleep.

  Now, on this country road, the pain shooting through his knees brought him to the ground, and he gripped Millar’s arm. These pains were the worst he’d ever had.

  ‘Are you all right sarge?’ Millar asked, as he helped him up from the cold mud.

  ‘It’ll pass,’ Sergeant Boyd answered.

  As the pain slowly left him, he thought about Alice, his daughter, but he tried to hide his fear lest the men would think he was frightened over their predicament.

  Alice had been very sick over the winter months, and when he left home from leave two weeks previous, her condition hadn’t improved. Only yesterday he had received word that his loving daughter was down with pneumonia, and he had made arrangements to be granted special leave, which would take effect in two days time.

  ‘Please my dearest Lord, please don’t let my Al
ice die, take me instead,’ he whispered. ‘But please don’t let it be Alice,’ he begged.

  Millar stared over at the sergeant who was trying to hide the fact that he was uncontrollably sobbing into his hands.

  ‘Jesus Christ sarge, there’s no time for this. We need to move on, right now!’ Millar’s anxious voice urged, and the sergeant nodded, his pain now gone, the sobbing stopped.

  In the distance the dogs continued to bark loudly, and a dim light appeared from somewhere over the frozen fields.

  Quickly the men moved on down the semi-dark road, which was lit up somewhat by a full moon in a cloudless sky. They were tired and they were hungry, but they marched on in silence, rifles at the ready, scanning all around as they went.

  It would take the patrol around an hour to reach the relative safety of the town, Sergeant Boyd knew, but he couldn’t think straight after his warning. He tried to figure it out. And he was certain the warning was related to little Alice. His mind was racing, and even in this cold night, a bead of sweat ran down his brow.

  Now, and at this moment in time, he was completely unfit for duty, but he owed his men some leadership, so for the time being he fought hard to put Alice from his mind.

  They had been walking for about forty minutes when the familiar sound of a lorry reached their ears. As the men took cover in the hedges, the open back vehicle with the dozen or so policemen perched in the rear, turned the corner.

  ‘They’ve come for us sarge,’ Millar shouted with glee.

  As the men stood up, lowering their rifles and waving, Sergeant Boyd stared hard at the cracked windscreen coming slowly up in front of him. Something was familiar here. The lorry, it was…It was the same bloody lorry they had abandoned.

  ‘It’s a trap men, take cov…’

  Machine gun and pistol fire broke the silence of the night as it ravaged the men. Constable Millar fell through a hedge as one bullet entered his shoulder, and another grazed his forehead. Through blind panic, pain and blood, he fired up into the open vehicle, hitting one rebel in the chest and wounding another in the leg.

  ‘C’mon you bastards,’ he yelled, as he pushed himself up from the cold ground and fired rapidly.

  Sergeant Boyd was blasting away with his pistol. He fired at the cracked windscreen, and he could see the passenger in the cabs head explode in a ball of red mist. Then a fire inside his belly doubled him over. He had been hit, and badly, he knew. He continued to return fire though, but he watched dismayed as his brave young men fell like leaves.

  Suddenly the lorry shot off down the road, and even in his pain he noticed there were badly rebel wounded and dying men in the vehicle and on the road.

  ‘Sarge, are you hurt bad?’ Constable Millar asked, as he leaned over his dying sergeant.

  ‘Alice,’ the sergeant answered. ‘He answered my prayers Millar. It is me he’s going to take this night, not Alice. Alice is all right,’ he mumbled, smiling. ‘Me, it was me,’ he repeated. ‘Thank you God,’ he said.

  Constable Millar moved clumsily back. It was obvious the sergeant’s mind had gone, and it almost frightened him. But he had no time to deal with this now. Their lives were in extreme danger here.

  There were two rebel bodies lying in the middle of the road, and one of them started to move. Millar walked calmly across, blood streaming down his face from his flesh wound, and stared down.

  A pitiful looking young boy of around sixteen years of age grinned up at him and spat. Millar picked up the boys rifle and aimed it at him.

  ‘Did your mammy never tell you not to play with guns, eh? You little bastard.’

  The boy had been shot, but it wasn’t life threatening, Millar felt. But when he looked around at his dead comrades, his anger grew.

  ‘Get out of our country,’ the boy coughed, blood spraying from his mouth, where he had landed on his face on the hard ground, breaking some teeth.

  Millar held the rifle over the wounded boys face and fingered the trigger.

  ‘Fuck you and you’re little shit hole of a country you bloody bastar…’

  ‘Leave the boy alone,’ Sergeant Boyd shouted.

  Millar spun around, rifle poised menacingly.

  ‘Don’t you give me orders, Mr Fucking Boyd,’ he barked. ‘It was your stupidity that led us into this position in the first bloody place. Taking us on a different route wasn’t so clever after all, was it?’ And now when we need a leader, what do we get? A bloody snivelling old woman, that’s what.’

  ‘Watch your tongue Millar,’ the sergeant ordered.

  Millar’s shoulder was bleeding badly and he pushed a rag inside his tunic, but winced in pain as it covered his deep wound. Then he returned to the small boy, and kicked him hard. The boy held fast though, and didn’t flinch.

  ‘How does it feel knowing you’re going to be killed with your own rifle, you little pile of rebel shit?’

  ‘I said leave him alone you bastard,’ and that’s an order,’ Sergeant Boyd threatened, as he aimed his Webley revolver at Constable Millar and held it tightly.

  Millar placed the rifle against the boys head and moved it from side to side, ignoring the sergeant.

  ‘Meet you in Hell,’ Millar scowled, as he cocked the weapon.

  ‘Nooo!” Sergeant Boyd yelled, as he squeezed the trigger.

  Suddenly Millar shot forward, crashing down onto the cold ground, as the 38 round blew out from his head in a red spray of tissue and brain matter.

  Sergeant Boyd lowered the smoking gun.

  ‘Thank you for saving Alice Lord,’ he said. Then he took one last look around. Everyone was dead, except for himself and the boy.

  He knew this boy had already had his mind twisted with hatred for him and his kind, and this was something he detested. Here’s a lad who may never grow to have a life or achieve anything, he thought.

  He looked down at this wound that had ended any future he would also have, as the blood poured through his fingers. It may have been this boy that had shot him, but he couldn’t hate him. He had wanted God to take him, and God had shown mercy to Alice. Now he had decided now that if he were going to die, it would be with dignity, and without any hatred in his heart for any man.

  ‘Are you all right boy?’ Sergeant Boyd choked, as a thick trickle of blood ran from his lips and onto his chest.

  The boy stared for a moment at this dying man who had saved him. Now his emotions were a mixed cauldron.

  The boy stuttered, barely audible.

  ‘Y-yes, I’m all right, how are you?’

  ‘I’m a goner lad.’

  ‘W-why did you shoot your own man, the soldier? Why did you save me?’

  ‘I couldn’t let him kill you in cold blood son.’

  ‘D-do you have children?’

  ‘I have a daughter, Alice, but she’s very sick. What age are you boy?’

  ‘I’m sixteen, almost seventeen.’

  ‘You don’t look as old as that.’

  ‘How old is your daughter?’

  Martin coughed. ‘Alice is eight, almost nine.’

  The boy was sobbing now, but he was still sitting upright.

  ‘What’s your name son?’

  ‘I-I’m not allowed to say my name.’

  ‘Well, who the hell am I going to tell it to, God?’ Martin laughed.

  The blood was pouring from his stomach, spreading around the cold ground, and the boy knew this brave man was dying fast.

  ‘I-I’m Fergal Devlin. What’s your name?’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Fergal Devlin, I’m Sergeant Martin Boyd.’

  ‘P-pleased to meet you, Sergeant Boyd.’

  Martin held out his bloodied hand and Fergal crawled toward him.

  As they shook hands they could hear loud footsteps, running, coming quickly.

  For one second, Sergeant Boyd thought it was a patrol, sent to rescue them, until he heard the voice.

  ‘Fergal, I must get Fergal,’ a man’s voice was shouting.

  Then they where on them, five m
en in all, heavily armed.

  ‘No father,’ Fergal shouted, as his father aimed the rifle at the wounded sergeant.

  ‘This man saved me father.’

  The man roughly picked up his injured son, cast his eye around the devastating scene, and walked briskly off. But he stopped quickly, spun around and paused for a moment, before saluting the dying sergeant.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and Sergeant Boyd nodded.

  Then he was gone with the sobbing boy held tightly in his arms.

  As the last of his life’s blood drained from him, Martin looked into the dark sky. A lone star shone brightly down, and he reached toward it and laughed. He mumbled a quick prayer, and fell back, dead.

  * * * * *

  Three women surrounded the child’s bed and wiped at her sweat with clean towels.

  ‘You’re going to be okay Alice, you’re going to beat this,’ the tallest of the women muttered.

  Alice suddenly sprang upright on the bed.

  ‘I must get to father, he needs me,’ she cried.

  Alice tried to climb from the bed, but her mother gently pushed her back onto the pillow.

  ‘No child, you must rest.’

  Alice started to shake violently, and pulled at her covers.

  Alice’s mother was very aware of the bond Alice and her father shared. Why as soon as he returned from leave, Alice and Martin would play like schoolchildren together.

  ‘Fathers coming home soon darling, it won’t be long unti…’

  ‘Noooo,’ Alice yelled, interrupting. ‘Wh-why, father, h-he’s dead, he’s been killed, shot, I must get to him. He needs someone. He’s dying alone.’

  One of the women fell into a faint at the child’s disclosure.

  Martin’s sister had been staying with Martin’s wife Mary since the child’s illness had begun and she was certain Alice just wasn’t going to make it. She had seen this before on her job as a staff nurse, and she knew it would take more than a miracle to save this child.

  ‘Don’t say those kinds of things Alice,’ her mother scolded. ‘It’s bad luck.’

  Alice was screaming hysterically now, and as the women held her tightly, she collapsed.

  Old doctor Black approached the bed quietly and bade the women move away. When he turned around, he shook his head solemnly.