Chapter 1
Belfast 1942.
Foggy night. Fat amphibian fog, slick everywhere Sean could see.
like you're pawing through a closet full of heavy coats, bumping past things that smell of others
about to die from frustration and suffocation, if you were out in it. A creeping state of air known to every northern Irishman plotting to be free.
Still, Sean could see the dog.
A skinny white dog sniffed the gutters and the piss-stained corners of everything in the square below Sean's window watch post. Sean heard another noise, then a softer curse from the floor below. Working fast made mistakes, Sean's da always said.
Not fast enough for Sean, though. Which is why he'd joined up to fight. Tonight he had the window. Tonight the window was the fight. Watching a tame, stupid square and the alleys intruding. Mother, they couldn't have picked a worse person for the job, I'm sure, because Sean never could sit still an hour his entire short life. And now was not the exception. Sixteen years so far you're counting. His short life.
The last few weeks had been more interesting than the earlier stuff, the rest though. Had to be said.
His hand drummed his trousers, so quiet only he could hear it. Inside his heavy right work shoe, toes tapped to the fiddle music he still heard from the night before. At the hall. Fast. Ominous. Getting faster music. A drum beating urgently.
Sean dutifully stopped his toes. Nothing for it: nought else he could do. Wait. Still. Wait. Quiet. Watch. Watch. Watch. He sure couldn't.......