Allegiance: A Dublin Novella (17 page)

“I’ll bring them back,” he said, and ran out of the alley.

William raced down Wicklow Street as fast as his feet would carry him, heading toward the column of thick black smoke rising against the morning sky. He ran through the neighborhoods he had called home for the past four months, their street corners and store fronts now crowded with onlookers, familiar faces blurring as he passed. The sound of clanging bells and shrieking whistles grew louder with each passing block, until he turned a corner and The Four Courts spread out before him. He stopped where he stood, his mouth falling open.

The sun had risen over the quay, piercing through the layers of smoke and glinting off shards of broken windows. The Four Courts were scorched and battered, four black blocks against the morning sky. The garden in the square was gone, trodden flat under the tracks of tires and feet; the benches where ladies once sat had been overturned and piled together into spiked barriers around the plaza. The buildings appeared empty, but their upper windows bristled with the points of a dozen rifles. The square had gone deathly silent.

There were barricades across Church and Chancery – giant, jagged stretches of rubbish and brick and broken furniture. Smoke hung in the air, but not the thick clouds of a fire; this smoke was thin and hazy, hovering just at the broken windows of the records office and municipal building – the acrid, lingering smoke of gunfire.

The police had already sealed off the square; they ringed the barricades with lines of men on horseback, shouting at the crowd to stay back. A mass of people surged against them, some trying to get a closer look, some jeering and waving their fists. The air seethed with tension – from the crowd, from the police, from the black hulks of the overrun buildings. William heard taunts and curses carried back on the breeze, sounds he recognized with clear, stinging familiarity. He shaded his eyes against the sunlight. The store awnings fluttered in the wind.

I know that something larger is coming.

“No,” William said.

He ran forward into the street. He had spent most of his life evading unwanted attention; it was second nature for him to slip through the crowd unnoticed. His ears picked up snatches of conversation
—

“
—how many inside?”

“—
said they’d blow the place up first—”

“—
police’ll call the Brits—”

—
while his keen eyes searched every face he passed. He recognized scores, but among them he found none of the reckless fools he sought. At last he came around a back alley, dodging a small group of policemen on horseback, and leaned against the wall to catch his breath before looking around again. He saw nothing – but a heartbeat later he heard an unmistakable voice.

“Let go of me, you bastards!”

They were at the other end of the alley, crouched behind a pile of crates at the corner of the eastern barricade. The crowd was sparse on this side of the street, as most of the action was focused at the front of the Courts and the Free State policemen attempting to keep order there. Shane Kelly peered over the edge of the wall, poised like an animal stalking a long-hunted prey; beside him, Andy and David were trying to pull Adam down as he attempted to climb over the pile of jagged wood.

“Stop it, boy, you’re not getting yourself killed.”

“
Let go of me, David, I swear on my mother I’ll
—
”

William heard nothing else beyond the sound of his feet on the cobblestones.

Adam saw him first; in his surprise he lost his hold and fell back to the alley floor, knocking Andy and David over in the process. They turned just as William dropped to his knees beside them.

“Glasgow, what the hell are you doing here?” Andy said.

William shook his head. No time. He could feel it in his lungs, memory and intuition mixing into something close to panic, ratcheting his pulse with every breath.

“You have to get out of here,” he gasped. “Now. You can’t be here, you’ve got to
—”

“Who the fuck are you to tell us what we can and can’t do?” Kelly’s face had gone mottled with bloodlust. “Why don’t you fuck off back to Scotland and mind your own—”

David grabbed his arm. “Knock it off, Shane. He’s here to help, like we all are.”

“No.” William spoke as quickly as possible. “You’ve got to listen to me. We have to get away from here
right now.
I don’t have time to explain, just please—”

Andy swore beside them; Adam had bolted again, leaping forward to scramble up the pile of crates. Andy seized him round the waist and dragged him down bodily
—
“
Do that again and I’ll lay you flat, love”
—
and then turned to William.

“He’s got a mate in there. We’ve been holding him back all morning. Sure we all want to fight, Glasgow, but we’d prefer not to be fish in a barrel.”

Adam was looking up at a window high in the records building, where a dark shape could be seen hovering just out of sight of the police rifles.

“We were at school together,” he said. “I didn’t even know he was with
…”

“Listen to me, Adam.” William saw all their faces turn toward him, but he could no longer afford to keep up appearances. The tone in his voice was one none of them had ever heard from him, and he put everything he could muster into it. “Listen. You can’t help him. We don’t have time for this, we have to get out of here right now. They’re coming.”

From high above came a sudden cry: “Adam!” They looked up to see a pale face in the records office window, smudged with soot and blood, eyes huge with fear.

“Cory!” Adam shouted.

“Adam, get out of there, they’re bringing in the—”

The last of the sentence was drowned out by a deafening burst of gunfire. Women screamed and the crowd began to flee as a dull roaring grew louder in the streets behind them. Three tanks emerged at the edge of the Courts and Free State soldiers poured in from all sides. The crowd parted before them, some running for cover, some stopping to throw rocks and bottles. Those nearest the front pulled out their pistols as rifle fire erupted from the windows of the four buildings.

They ran, dragging Adam behind them, who turned with a final cry of “Cory!” before a shell hit the bricks and sent them all diving for cover. William pulled them together and led them down a small side street, then a side alley, his eyes sharp for the quickest exit, his panic dissipated by the impulse to protect. They ran away from the chaos as fast as they could, and the sounds of the battle began to lessen as they turned around the next corner.

“Stop!”

There were at least ten of them, crisp green uniforms, guns at the ready, blocking the only exit.

“Stop there,” called the officer. “Hands up
– slowly now.”

William stepped forward by instinct. He moved in front of the others with his arms spread, palms up. From the corner of his eye he saw Kelly flip his jacket open an instant before ten rifles raised and cocked as one. He leapt forward. “No!”

“Young? Young, is that you?”

William squinted in the shadows. The British officer was backlit, his features obscured by the glare; he walked forward and came into focus, and William’s throat went dry as he recognized the face beneath the officer’s cap.

“Aye, it’s me.”

The officer lowered his gun and his face broke into an incredulous grin. “Good God, Young! What the devil are you doing here? You nearly got your fool self killed!” He spoke absently to his squad: “Stand down, men.” The rifles lowered, but the faces on both sides of the alley remained deathly tense.

“I haven’t seen you in
– Christ, must be nine years now. Not since we left training in London.”

William felt the air grow cold behind him.

Please,
he thought,
just let us go. Just let us go.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here? Are you on assignment?”

There could be no other answer now, if he wanted to save their lives.

“Aye.”

A group of police on horseback galloped past the alley. Fires could be heard crackling in a building behind them; shots rang out somewhere on the other side of the square.

“Look, you’d better get your men out of here now, Young. Our orders are to shoot first and ask for identification later. You’re damned lucky it was me that saw you or they’d be shipping you back to Glasgow in a box next week.”

“Is there a way out of here?”

“Go back east. The army’s cleaning everything up by the river and the Courts. They oughtn’t to stop you going the other way. Just get out of here, man, now.” The squad stepped back at his gesture and opened a path to the street.

They hurried through the exit, one man at a time. William paused at the end and put a hand on his old classmate’s shoulder.

“Thank you, Oliver,” he said.

“Take care of them, Young,” the captain replied, and stood aside to let William pass.

The noise grew muted behind them as the five men rushed back toward the pub. They rounded a corner into a tiny side street; no one could be seen in either direction. William looked behind to see if anyone had followed them – there was no one, and his breath came a little easier. He turned back just in time to meet the full arc of Shane Kelly’s swinging fist.

Lights exploded behind his eyes; he barely had time to hit the pavement before Kelly hauled him up and slammed him to his back against the wall. His forearm crushed against William’s windpipe, choking off his air – a second later the barrel of a pistol cut into the soft skin below William’s chin.

“You fucking English bastard,” he spat. “Fucking knew it, blow your goddamn brains into the fucking gutter you lying piece of shite.”

William braced himself against the wall, gaining a foothold against Kelly’s unstable balance. He took inventory of weight, leverage and distance, even as black spots began to dance before his eyes. One hand clutched at Kelly’s arm against his throat; the other began to inch toward the pistol in his belt.

“Shane, stop it!” David yelled. “Let’s get out of here before they come this way!”

“Fooled them all, didn’t you?” Kelly’s spit hit William’s face in tiny drops. “Yeah? But you never fooled me, did you, Prod? No, you never did. Been waiting for this, I have.”

William’s knees buckled; he used the shifting angle to brace himself for the sudden push. His heartbeat roared in his ears, growing louder and louder as it began to slow and his vision ebbed gray at the edges. His fingers curled around the grip of his pistol and tightened.

“Stop.”

Kelly didn’t blink. “Fuck off, Elliot, he’s not your chum anymore.”

Adam appeared at his elbow and spoke again. “Stop.”

He’s a fucking spy, man! He’s with them, didn’t you hear it?”

Adam did not move. His features had turned to smooth stone; he did not look at William but kept his gaze fixed on Kelly as he spoke a single, quiet sentence.

“I will deal with this.”

Kelly hesitated, scowling, then stepped back and withdrew his pistol. William coughed and retched and spat a thick glob of blood onto the pavement; as he gasped for air he looked up at Adam, not yet able to speak.

Adam stared into William’s eyes for the space of one heartbeat. His face was a blank mask, and his eyes were flat and dull – but beneath them kindled a cold light that made William’s bruised throat tighten. Adam gave no further response, to him or to anyone, before he turned around and walked out of the alley.

21.