A Winter of Spies Read Online Free PDF Page A

violence then.
    â€˜What answer is there to that class of thing,’ she’d demanded one night when Mick had had a few drinks, ‘only to pick up a gun? You did it yourself, Mick, in the Rising – or did you shoot it at all?’
    She knew she was being cruel, but she couldn’t help herself. Balbriggan wasn’t far from Dublin. It was just beyond Skerries, where she’d been with Da on summer outings . Mick had friends out that way. Twenty-five houses had been burned in Balbriggan, and several people bayoneted to death. The people of the town had slept out in hedges and ditches in the open country, fearful of the Tans’ return. Worse things had happened down the country , of course, but this was right outside the city itself.
    â€˜How many did you kill in the Rising, Mick?’ she’d taunted him again. But this time Mick had reacted in a strange way. He’d turned white, his face hardening until it was an ugly mask.
    â€˜I killed one that I know of for sure,’ he’d hissed in a strange voice, not like his own at all. ‘It was enough for me.’
    Then he’d stormed out, and hadn’t come around for the rest of the week. Sarah had been frightened of the change she’d made in him. The hard, white face staring at her hadn’t looked like her uncle Mick at all. The hissing voice had sounded like something from a ghost story. Sarah hadn’t teased Mick since. But it was soon after that she’d found the prospect of a new game – because in a way all of this was really only a game for Sarah. She knew that herself. It was a game, and at the same time it wasn’t a game. She didn’t know what the right word for it was.
    The idea had struck her when she heard the young men, Mick’s friends, talking one night. They’d thought she was paying no attention. Da wasn’t there, and they were discussing their business, a thing they very rarely did under the Conways’ roof. If Da had heard them he’d have thrown them out straight away.
    Someone they knew had been found with a gun and arrested. He’d only been moving the gun from one place to another, but he’d been caught by a random search.Martin Ford and Simon Hughes were discussing the best way to move guns. Women were less likely to be searched by soldiers, they reckoned, and children – especially girls – were the best of all. Even the Tans hardly looked twice at a young girl. Sarah, listening, had smiled to herself in a superior way. It was like she’d heard Da say: the military mind had no imagination.
    Afterwards she’d offered her help to Martin Ford.
    â€˜If you ever need a gun moved,’ she said, ‘then I’m your woman.’
    Martin Ford looked horrified. ‘You’re what?’ he said.
    â€˜I’m your woman. If you want a gun moved.’
    â€˜Your father,’ Martin Ford pointed out, ‘would skin me alive.’
    â€˜My father,’ Sarah said, ‘needn’t know.’
    Sarah hadn’t actually considered what might happen to her if she was caught carrying a gun. But she didn’t like to think about her father finding out. If that happened she’d be in real trouble. She’d rather face a lorryload of Tans than face Da in a temper.
    Anyway, Martin Ford had resisted her offer, though she’d repeated it several times. He wouldn’t even let her talk about it. Until this morning, when he’d been desperate . He’d met Sarah in the street and told her Simon was trapped in the lanes. The three of them had spent the night in Phelans’, and had been caught out by a surpriseraid. Byrne and Martin had got out through the lanes, but Simon hadn’t made it in time. Now they expected the lanes would have Tans in them, and Simon might have to choose between surrendering and shooting it out. It wasn’t much of a choice.
    Without a gun, though, there was a chance that Simon might walk away