Dancing With Mortality Read Free Page B

a little, the import of what had transpired
just a few hours previously hit him hard, like a punch to the stomach. He put
his head in his hands, taking long rasping breaths, waiting for his body to
find some equilibrium again.
    After five or so minutes, when his breathing became more
regular, he stood up and went over to his horse. He stroked its neck and head
softly, whispering calming words in its ear.
    ‘Listen with me.’
    Horse and man stood stock still, sensing their environment.
Michael could see the track by which they’d negotiated their way, winding
through the fields down to the road, which was no longer visible. His eyes and
ears were sharp with the aftermath of adrenalin. The green of the countryside
below him and the birdsong of the morning were crystal clear. He knew that the
horse was more sensitive to disturbances than he was, but the animal seemed
calm enough. He relaxed a little more.
    He started to try and piece it all together. Someone must
have informed on them. That was always a danger, but he thought this particular
event had been kept well under wraps. Obviously not. Then he thought of the men
who, to the best of his knowledge, must all be either dead or captured. He knew
three of them personally, but the men on the boat had to be taken on trust.
Could one of them have been an informer?
    Once the arms were unloaded the plan had been to transport
them to arms dumps in the South Armagh region, but he’d intended to hold a
dozen rifles and ammunition back. He and Tom O’Brien were to load up the two
horses and ride to a deserted farmhouse further south, the theory being that it
was always useful to have a private stash available just in case.
    Now Tom was lying dead on the beach. They’d known each other
since primary school, and lived on the same street in West Belfast. Their
friendship had jelled and grown as they rode shotgun for each other to and from
school. The sectarian divide was literal enough, you knew where you could and couldn’t
go. But at times there were trespassers from the Protestant side, and it was
best to see them first then fade into a side street.
    As adolescents, and having witnessed some savage attacks
instigated by both factions, they’d stopped avoiding trouble and actively gone
looking for it. Everyone knew someone or had a friend who’d suffered from the
unpredictable violence. People would get shot on a whim. There was both fear
and anger in Michael, and he directed it back at the bastards who’d been
grinding the Catholic population of Belfast down since before Cromwell’s
arrival in Ulster. And relentlessly ever since.
    He was a well-built lad, even at 16, and wasn’t afraid to
fight. But sometimes his anger would predominate over a rational assessment of
the odds in these encounters. Tom, who was just as angry but more level headed,
had helped him out of some nasty confrontations simply by calming him down. Had
saved his life effectively.
    He remembered 1968 when the Civil Rights movement came to
Belfast, with its demands for fairer Catholic treatment. And what had happened?
Just an appalling escalation in violence, especially in the following year when
houses were burned, and people were killed or driven out of their homes.
Shortly after that the British troops arrived. And we were grateful for them
too, he thought ruefully. How that changed.
    At the same time, the Provisional IRA came into being as a
result of a split in Republican ranks over participation in the political
process. The faction that became the Provos had been embarrassed at how
unprepared they were to actively defend Catholics during the Belfast and Derry
riots. Now they intended to redress that error by resorting to more traditional
tactics.
    Michael hadn’t thought about joining the IRA in ’69, because
they weren’t seen as an influential force at that point. Although his daily
life could be punctuated by violence, his plan to cope with it was to do well
at secondary school, go to Queens