Once A Pilgrim. James Deegan

up close, taking pleasure in it, laughing about it later. The kudos it brought him. The pints in the bar. Being someone. Bigger, harder men scared to meet his eye, for fear of what he and his pals might do to them.

      This was very different.

      He raised the AK.

      Suddenly, it seemed to weigh a ton.

      The muzzle danced.

      He couldn’t hold it level.

      In the small part of his brain that was still thinking rationally, he heard himself say, Why’s it so heavy?

      Somewhere, he heard the snap of a round from Mick Parry’s SA80 pass close to his head, and then the whine of the ricochet.

      He could see another soldier in combats…

       And why the fuck do they wear camouflage in a city?

      …standing, rifle raised.

      Taking aim.

       He’s fucking shooting at me!

      He pulled the AK trigger.

      Four shots, all way too high, and in that half-second the magazine ran dry.

      He pulled it again.

      Heard the dead man’s click.

      Started to shout, ‘No, wait!’

      John Carr stood ramrod straight, SA80 aimed, like he was on the range at Sennybridge.

      In the split second before he gently squeezed the trigger, he recognised the man in his sights from one of the many briefings he’d attended.

      Sick Sean.

      An evil man.

      Christmas and his birthday, rolled into one.

      Casey’s brain was telling him to get down, but he was paralysed by fear, the same fear which now emptied his bladder.

      Carr’s round took him just below the nose on his upper lip, snapping his head back like he’d been smashed in the face with a steam hammer. It left only a small, cauterised entry wound, but erupted out of the back of his skull, taking teeth and brains and blood with it.

      Stone dead, he hit the ground, the AK flying from his grasp and clattering to the pavement feet away.

      Almost simultaneously, a shot from Mick Parry hit Gerard Casey in the shoulder, spinning him round and back and down to the ground.

      He lay there, winded, yelping, for a moment or two, staring at the body of his older brother.

      Then, horrified, and powered by adrenalin and terror, he scrambled to his feet, leaving the Webley on the pavement.

      Bent double, not stopping to look at Sean, he half-rolled, half-fell past the screaming woman and into her house.

      He was standing, wild-eyed in the living room, bright red blood pulsing from his wound, his brain overloaded with information and questions, when two soldiers burst in.

      Mick Parry and John Carr.

      The three men stood looking at each other, panting – for a half-second, no more.

      Then Carr stepped forward and stabbed Gerard Casey’s cheek with the barrel of his rifle, as if it was bayonet practice, breaking his cheekbone and putting him straight down onto the brown carpet.

      The soldiers stood over the young shooter, rifles pointed at his chest.

      Blood was still streaming from his wound; it would later transpire his carotid and subclavian arteries had been nicked by the SA80 round.

      His eyes were vague and unfocused.

      Parry bent down and slapped his face. ‘Wakey wakey,’ he said, with a grin. ‘It’s Para Reg time!’

      Gerard Casey groaned.

      ‘We’ve just killed your mate,’ said Parry. ‘Shot the wanker in the face.’

      ‘My brother,’ moaned the stricken man. ‘No.’

      He half-coughed, half-sobbed. A guttural sound.

      ‘Ambulance,’ he said, thickly. ‘Please. It hurts.’

      He closed his eyes, and a vivid image swam through his mind of Sean’s head disintegrating.

      He vomited and started choking on the bitter bile.

      The housewife had come in, hand to her mouth in horror, and now she raised the receiver on the telephone.

      ‘You put that fucker down,’ said Parry, getting up and pushing her roughly into the darkened kitchen.

      Carr got down, his left knee in Gerard Casey’s blood, and pulled a first field dressing from his webbing.

      Ripped open the boiler suit and tore the sodden T-shirt underneath it apart.

      The wound was pulsing red.

      He lifted the injured man slightly and felt at the back.

      No exit wound.

      Young Casey’s eyes were starting to roll back in his head, and his breathing was becoming laboured and irregular.

      Carr was applying the field dressing onto the wound on his collarbone when Parry reappeared.

      ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he said. ‘We’re not saving this cunt’s life, John.’

      ‘We’re better than them,’ said Carr, through gritted teeth. ‘He needs an ambulance.’

      ‘Fuck that,’ said Parry. He squatted down next to Casey, pulled off the dressing and threw it across the room. ‘Three of my mates were killed at Mayobridge the other day by your mob, pal,’ he said to the groaning man. ‘Young lads, blown to pieces by cowards. If you think I’m calling yous a fucking ambo you must be confusing me with somebody who gives a shit.’

      The blood was spurting more slowly, now, so Parry pressed his hand on Casey’s chest, making it flow quicker.

      ‘How does that feel?’ he said. ‘Does it sting a bit?’

      ‘He’s going tae bleed out, Mick,’ said Carr.

      ‘Yeah,’ said Parry. ‘That’s the general idea.’

      Just then, they heard a stifled sob behind them, and turned to see the homeowner standing in the kitchen doorway, hands over her mouth.

      ‘Get her back through there, and tell her to fucking stay there,’ said Parry, to Carr. ‘Then get outside and tell the boss I’m giving this wanker first aid.’

      Carr hesitated for a moment.

      Then ushered the sobbing woman out of the room and into her kitchen, and left the house to do as he was told.

      An ambulance was finally called ten minutes later.

      By that time, Gerard Casey was unconscious.

      By the time it arrived he was dead.

18.

      BILLY JONES SENIOR sat in the Long Bar on the Shankill Road, surrounded by a gang of his shaven-headed cronies.

      The TV in the top corner of the pub was on about some shooting in central Belfast, but he paid it no particular mind. He was sipping his whisky chaser and trying to decide between another pint of Carling or a move on to Strongbow, when two uniformed RUC men walked in, faces nervous, flat caps in their hands.

      Someone walked hurriedly out of the bar, head down, and through the open doorway Billy briefly saw flashing blue lights and the camouflaged tunics of a group of soldiers.

      The RUC men’s eyes swept the room and settled on him.

      They walked towards his table.