Page 123 of Hang on St. Christopher

“Talk to me,” I said, but his eyes were blue and fixed and dead.

I shook him anyway.

I laid him down on the ground and ripped off his chest armor. I pulled open his shirt, but his insides had been bored out by the mortar fragment. The only thing you could say was that presumably, death would have been reasonably fast, either from the impact or from massive hemorrhaging.

I grabbed the radio, but that amazing mortar round that had killed him had also sent a shrapnel fragment into the battery pack, smashing it completely.

I banged the Land Rover’s side while random tracer bullets whizzed up all around. “Is there anyone alive in here?” I yelled.

“We’re alive!” the two Special Branch detectives said quickly.

“Open the door, crawl out, and follow me,” I said.

“How do we know who you are?”

“I’m Duffy. You met me yesterday!”

“You could be anybody. This could be a trick.”

“I’m Sean Duffy, Carrick RUC.”

“I think that is his voice,” one of them said to the other. The female detective inspector.

“He’s a Catholic; he could be in cahoots with them. He could have set this whole thing up!” the other said.

Another mortar landed with an almighty flash in the middle of the road between the two Land Rovers. I ducked into the sheugh as glowing fragments embedded themselves into the turf behind me and into the Land Rover’s soft underbelly.

“I don’t know what you two are doing, but I’m going back to my lads. Preston is dead and Clare is gone. Come or stay; it’s up to you!” I screamed into the Rover.

The rear door opened and a gun barrel pointed at me.

“Good, quickly now, grab everything you can in there. Guns, ammo, tear gas—grab it all and follow me. There’s a big drainage ditch immediately to your left. The terrorists have mostly stopped shooting. They’re firing mortars now. As soon as you come out the door, down onto your belly and into the ditch.”

I took a hit of Ventolin while they gathered their gear and crawled to the ditch. They were young, scared, and badly bruised, but in one piece.

“Now back along the sheugh to the others. You’ll be okay. What are your names again?”

“Michael O’Leary,” the lad said.

“Siobhan McGuinness,” the lass said.

“Michael, Siobhan, don’t worry, you’ll be telling your grandchildren about this one day. Now, come on, stay low and follow me.”

Back through the filth of the sheugh on our bellies.

The rain grew harder and turned to hail. It wasn’t the hail that was worrying me.

“Sean? Is that you?” Crabbie said.

“It’s me.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Only two survivors?” Crabbie asked.

“Preston’s dead. Clare wasn’t with him. He presumably has gone to get help.”

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