The slender barrel of the deadly Russian Armalite rifle quivered slightly as the sight came to bear on a moving shape. The man behind the telescope drew in a breath; a moment’s silence; then the weapon spoke. The sharp bark echoed off the rows of dingy houses and lost itself in the rain-sodden night.
To the young British soldier scuttling frantically for cover the sound had scarcely time to register. A giant hand swept his legs from under him as the high velocity bullet shattered bone and cartilage. For a few seconds there was only numbness. Then the first waves of agony engulfed him.
With the sound of the shot the lights illuminating the little cottages were snuffed out one by one, plunging the street into darkness. The street lamps had gone long before, their pillars making steel hurdles across the street to hinder the passage of half-track vehicles and armoured cars. They were just one more hazard for the foot patrols or ‘duck squads’ that laboriously combed the area. That and the white-washed walls which showed up the khaki pigeons to such good effect.
No one ventured into the street. The street, which like so many others, had been often breached by Crown forces, the houses entered and violated. This was an ancient conflict and the members of the patrol hugging the deepest shadows felt the hatred of the Catholic ghetto as an implacable, almost tangible force.
Down the street the sniper’s victim writhed convulsively. The thick black blood pumping steadily from the wound told him that life was ebbing away at an alarming rate. Biting his lip against the pain the soldier removed his belt and fastened a crude tourniquet around this thigh. The effort almost caused him to pass out. He glanced at the closed doors of the nearby houses with their dark, knowing window panes and felt an upsurge of desperation.
Would relief forces never come?
He wondered what had happened to the rest of the platoon. They would surely have called in reinforcements. He thought of his wife and child in England. What was he doing in Ireland anyway, fighting this crazy war? He didn’t know what it was all about. The Irish themselves didn’t seem to know. In the pubs of London, the Irish labourers were a wild and likeable lot, but here the people were different. Here in Belfast, communities were kept apart by high steel barricades dividing narrow streets. Life too, was cheap, with people buried two to a coffin, and often under cover of darkness.
The dying soldier turned as a strange sound broke the stillness.
A young girl came unsuspecting, her heels tap-tapping down the street. Looking up, he glimpsed the soft femininity of her face and the sheen of her hair.
“Are you hit?” the voice had a breathless youth in it.
“Thank God,” he breathed. “Yes, my leg.”
“British bastard! I bet Kerry he’d got you.”
The spittle struck him warmly on the cheek, then she was gone, footsteps tripping hurriedly away. As she opened a door he heard softly, from the interior of the nearby dwelling, a low murmur.
“Thou, O Lord, shall open my lips, and my tongue shall announce Thy praise.”