The Green Platoon Read online

  Mr and Mrs Murtagh emerged from their adjacent front door. They had been watching through the parlour window and would not leave their friend in distress any longer. Mr Murtagh climbed awkwardly over the metal railing, right leg first so his bum was to the media. When his left leg had cleared the obstacle, the bulky Mr Murtagh took up nearly the entire width of the narrow path. He moved forward, arms outstretched down the path like a snow plough, clearing reporters. A nimbler Mrs Murtagh meanwhile slipped over the railing to embrace her neighbour and prevent her from toppling over.

  Commandant O’Mahony had experienced the glare of the media on the Irish Army during his thirty-year career. There had been, for example, a long-running saga concerning the deaths of two privates in the Lebanon in the eighties. That tragedy seemed to resurface every three to four years as the alleged perpetrator went through various stages of a deportation prosecution. On a less serious note, there were also some good news stories around lending a hand during snow storms, bus strikes, refuse-collection mutinies, etc.

  O’Mahony had never experienced a media shit storm like this before, though. He would have loved to hide behind the cathedral-like walls of McKee Barracks, but there was no possibility of that. The minister had him virtually holed up in Government Buildings while a legion of suits formulated the best media spin.

  But the Irish were behind the black ball on this one. NBC, Fox, Sky, BBC, RTÉ were all in frenzy mode. Some of the Saturday morning soundbites:

  ‘Irish platoon captured in Israel.’

  ‘One soldier missing, presumed drowned.’

  ‘Outrage at no search undertaken for missing Irish soldier.’

  ‘Israeli Ambassador summoned to Department of Foreign Affairs.’

  The Irish Army chief of staff together with the minister for defence and the hapless Commandant O’Mahony had been debriefed by Sergeant Kevin Doyle. Doyle was flanked by the Mayor of Bethlehem who had laid on as secure a Skype video link as the Palestinian administration could execute. Doyle took full responsibility for the loss of Private Fionn O’Toole.

  When asked about a search and recovery mission, the mayor had been adamant: ‘My friends, regrettably the Dead Sea will be a swarm of Israeli naval vessels.’

  If that wasn’t problematic enough, there was also the matter of six captured Irish military personnel, together with one Jordanian naval pilot. Even the best PR person that the Irish Army or the UN could buy would struggle to spin this situation.

  Certainly, the first Irish Army press conference on Saturday afternoon was a disaster. The UN headquarters in New York was a long way from both Dublin and Palestine. It was the weekend, which for New York was as good an excuse as any to say nothing. The message was: hang the Irish out to dry. The Irish government had made the strongest representation for the release of its six detained military personnel, given the difficult circumstances of a missing comrade. The statement was delivered from the steps of the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Department of Defence was ruled out as a venue for two reasons. One was that it was a shabby building outside the city centre. The second reason was that there was known to be a few headcases working in Defence. You couldn’t risk some gormless-looking soul skulking around in the background in camera shot.

  The normally coherent government press officer was struggling on, trying to make the Army look competent. Credible would be a bonus. Serious matters concerning Irish society often have a nasty habit of descending into farce, and this farce kicked off in spectacular fashion.

  No sooner had the press officer stopped talking than the screen switched to Tel Aviv. The caption at the bottom told the viewers that Ben Dannell, a member of the Knesset, was speaking. A single red Fox microphone indicated somebody had an exclusive. Member Dannell looked and sounded about as conciliatory as a bulldog.

  He had not been sent to win friends and influence people. Hard-line and all as he came across, the Irish had given him plenty to fan the flames with.

  ‘It would seem that the Irish government is having some difficulty with its counting. We have, in fact, yesterday detained seven Irish military personnel, who I might add were illegally attempting to enter the State of Israel.’

  ‘The Irish Army has admitted that seven personnel were detained including one Jordanian national,’ the interviewer contributed.

  ‘I say again, we have lawfully detained seven Irish military. How difficult can it be to count?’

  Member Dannell held up his two hands to the camera and in a mocking gesture began to count using his fingers.

  The Irish public were outraged that a search of the Dead Sea had not been undertaken. Joe’s dad had been foremost in the call for one to take place. Dermot didn’t particularly want to stand in front of an RTÉ camera but felt he would do it to represent his friend Margaret’s voice. Neither the media nor the army had yet confirmed the name of the missing soldier.

  When the Knesset story broke, on Saturday evening, it turned the whole situation on its head. It was a hugely unexpected lift to all after twenty-four hours of despair. The three parents had stayed together in Margaret and Fionn’s house on Friday night. They had very little sleep.

  The arrests on the Dead Sea had taken place in the early hours of Friday morning. Mr Dannell’s interview was repeatedly replayed on Sky News all Saturday evening.

  ‘What the feck is going on?’ was Dermot’s repeated refrain. It wasn’t anger or frustration anymore; now there was hope in him. Dermot would have loved to have been able to contact his boy with the news.

  Joe had been better able to come to terms with his feelings by talking to Eleanor over email. He had based himself in the relative calm of an internet alcove in the Saint Gabrielle lobby. Joe was using Eleanor’s Gmail replies to soothe his own anguish.

  ‘You know, they cover this in training – losing a comrade and still having to move on, like if you were in a battle. But it’s all just shite. When it actually happens, your legs are jelly and your head is a mess.’ Joe was typing with his eyes watering. He rubbed them so he could see the screen.

  All the lads had been thinking and talking over their bond with Fionn. The ‘miracle’ story was never meant to be shared outside of the eleven who had been in Imaal. Now it was all over the place. The lads wanted to talk over what was it about Fionn that was different. Like a wake, talking about him dulled the pain of losing him. Taylor was now over-the-top sorry he had made such a song and dance about the antibiotics in the desert. Even Mark was feeling meek. He had made a habit out of baiting Fionn, albeit unsuccessfully. Now the locals were lauding him as a hero and that was kind of down to Fionn.

  Joe was emailing Eleanor: ‘He wasn’t so much a stand-out but a standalone boy, like in the way he would call out bullies in school. But in the army, he’s been way more different. He leads, and maybe the sergeants try and disguise their regard for him. They’re probably confused, wondering if he is their missing lieutenant, never mind their missing corporal. But the things he has done. Eleanor, I was there in the Glen in Wicklow. We were still trying to make it out to be a lucky coincidence, surviving the explosion. And he’s done other things, maybe not as spectacular, but you should have seen the reverence that a Bedouin tribe showed to a twenty-year-old Irish boy.’

  Eleanor replied: ‘Joe, I only met him that night in the mess with the wine. That was good all right, but he was very withdrawn after that.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s my point. When he does these unusual things, they seem to suck the energy out of him for a while. Then he’s grand again, one of the lads, well maybe a better version of one of the lads. I can’t believe he’s gone, Eleanor.’ Joe was glad she couldn’t see him crying.

  ‘Is he gone, though?’ Eleanor replied.

  ‘Eleanor, I was sitting beside him when the Israeli gunboat searchlights came on us, and then he was gone into the water.’

  ‘No, Joe, that’s not what I mean. There’s some mad-lo
oking guy on the TV, a politician from Tel Aviv. He’s smirking and counting on his fingers. The caption underneath says, “Israeli Naval personnel have detained seven Irish UN soldiers for illegally entering the State of Israel.” The maths is wrecking me head. Does that not mean …?’

  Joe spoke out loud the words he was typing, not caring who was listening in the hotel lobby. ‘Oh God, could it be another Fionn trick?’ To Eleanor, he sent: ‘I’m going to sign off for now, love. We’re not meant to be in contact with home but I’m going to borrow a mobile off Mohammed behind reception and ring or text the aul’ fella whether it’s allowed or not.’

  Sergeant Doyle hadn’t been able to openly express himself to his own commanding officer, simply because the Palestinian hosts were always present on the Skype calls. Doyle now saw that the observer mission was always going to fail, and his growing suspicion was that that was what the Palestinians wanted. It was possibly what the United Nations wanted as well. A publicity stunt. If an Irish soldier’s death served their agenda, all the better. It dawned on Doyle that the two troops the platoon had split into were never going to reach Bethlehem unscathed. The real mystery was how even one of them had made it at all, travelling through the disputed territory between the Dead Sea and Bethlehem. Doyle could see that strings were being pulled, but he didn’t know who the puppet master was.

  Joe caught Sergeant Doyle out of the corner of his eye as he entered the hotel lobby. He looked like a man on a mission to round up his soldiers and bring a bit of order before the good people of Palestine got his lads imbibing more than was good for them. Joe approached him.

  ‘Sarge, I need a word. There’s some great breaking news.’ Joe outlined the recent twist to Doyle. Hardened old army hack or not, a lightness spread over the beleaguered sergeant’s face.

  ‘You’re sure?’ It was as if he was thinking, If Fionn is alive, if Fionn is alive.

  Joe let the man gather his thoughts. ‘Do ye think the Palestinian boss men have heard the news?’

  ‘Son, they know all right, to be sure. They know more than they’re letting on. Now, Private, gather up the lads. I want to stop them drinking and, thank God, brief them on the latest situation or miracle or whatever you want to call it.’

  Chapter Nine

  Jerusalem

  The Israelis boarded the captured vessel and wasted no time in terrorising its occupants. The pilot was slammed in the jaw with the butt end of a compact sub-machine gun. Soldiers or not, fear is fear, and in the starkness of the glaring spotlights, Sergeant O’Brien was feeling his men’s fear and trying to suppress his own. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ came a voice beside him. O’Brien was further disorientated. Fionn had just spoken. He’s not in my troop, is he? O’Brien thought. He was desperately trying to get his thoughts straight in a moment he knew could change things for ever.

  The other Irish lads were trying to toughen it out as the Israeli soldiers roughly pushed through them, having demanded that they raise their arms in the air. The Jordanian vessel suddenly had a claustrophobic feel about it. The five-man boarding party meant that there wasn’t enough room to swing a cat.

  Fionn was the next man to get a rifle butt in the jaw, in recognition of the fact that he had shown no interest in raising his arms at all. Private Larry, the man from Donegal, had been standing beside him, arms compliantly raised. He suddenly brought his forehead down full force on the bridge of the nose of Fionn’s assailant – quite a feat given that the Israeli was wearing a combat helmet. Obviously, Larry had completed that manoeuvre before.

  The backlash was swift but it wasn’t inflicted upon Larry or Fionn but on the Jordanian pilot. Maybe a young Israeli soldier had seen a chance to make a name for himself. In an act of savage retaliation, he smashed the butt of his rifle into the small of the Arab’s back. The crack was audible. The pilot’s head was now looking up at the sky at an impossible angle given that his body was now draped over the steering wheel of the vessel, with his hands still clutching the wheel.

  All was suddenly silent. Martha was the first to drop her hands and move. She pirouetted to the side to vomit aggressively into the sea.

  The second person to break the paralysis was Fionn. He removed his hand from his own jaw, revealing a small smattering of blood around his mouth. He went over to the pilot, who was moaning in pain. He moved to the front of the wheel, facing the Jordanian. No one stopped him. He had to throw his leg over the steering column that filled the space between the wheel and the windscreen. Still silence – a human life destroyed, an incident that would inevitably be dismissed as an act of defence. A dismissal might not even be required if the attack didn’t generate any media coverage. For the soldier who had committed the crime there would be life-changing consequences of a different kind. He could either toughen it out and justify it to himself as a necessary act of heroism in defence of Israel. Or he could crack and let his demons make him admit that he had made the mistake of his life and ended another.

  Fionn, unimpeded, cupped the back of the pilot’s head with his left hand and slipped his right hand under the pilot’s shirt, seemingly feeling for the wound on the Jordanian’s back.

  An Israeli captain made eye contact with Sergeant O’Brien. Military men knew instinctively who was in command, irrespective of uniform.

  ‘What is your private trying to do here, Sergeant? Straighten him, is it?’

  Maybe the two men had different experiences of the savagery of combat. The sergeant knew he had to respond assertively for the sake of his men.

  ‘Quite probably, Captain, quite probably,’ the sergeant replied.

  The boat was mostly still, moored to a much larger gunboat, about twice the keel.

  Fionn was now effectively hugging the Jordanian pilot whose name he didn’t even know. The hug was almost pathetic to look at because of the awkwardness of the steering wheel between the two.

  The audience, Jews and Gentiles alike, knew that they wouldn’t qualify as human if they couldn’t at least acknowledge and permit the comfort of human contact being offered to a wounded soldier. The pilot was now perfectly upright.

  Fionn leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘Ahmed, you will walk again.’

  The whole scene was static, as if the sea had suspended its gravitational relationship with the moon. Maybe nature’s forces were temporarily being used for an alternative purpose.

  None of the Israeli soldiers were speaking, neither the boarding party nor the contingent six feet above, who were peering over the side of the frigate.

  Fionn’s whispered voice and the name Ahmed echoed in the still air.

  Ahmed moved slightly. His whisper was just about audible. ‘Bring me to Al-Quds in order to give thanks.’

  The Israeli captain was the first of the boarding party to react: ‘Secure the prisoners on board and make sail for Kalia Beach. It will be getting light. Full speed.’

  The troop were encouraged this time, not manhandled, to clamber up the six feet using rope ladders. They managed a recovering Ahmed with a bit of ingenuity. Michael was a big lad who might have spent a bit of time in Tralee rugby club judging from the manoeuvre he managed.

  ‘Peter and Larry, would you scale the rope supporting this man on either side. I’ll have me shoulders between his legs, to push him along. He won’t fall, but sure don’t worry if he does – we’ll just get Fionn to do another job on him.’

  That’s the Irish for you: a near-death experience one minute and cracking a joke the next. Seeing that the Israelis had lost their appetite for smacking anyone else was a bonus. Even Private Martha had recovered sufficiently to utter a few words. She hadn’t heard Michael’s light-hearted jibe.

  ‘Jaysus, don’t drop Ahmed, if that’s what his name is, boys, or he’ll definitely break his back this time.’

  It might have been funny under other circumstances, but no one responded. The lads, and particularly Michael, were strugg
ling with the weight of the plump Jordanian.

  Fionn was equally silent and looked like he barely had the energy to hoist himself up the ladder. The Israelis weren’t up for helping either.

  What amazed Sergeant O’Brien was that the Israeli lads were completely deflated. He thought they would have been relishing the kudos of detaining a United Nations taskforce. And what was this guy Fionn? He certainly was unlike any soldier O’Brien had ever commanded.

  The sergeant was the last to board the boat. He was afforded that dignity, at least: the men first, the commander last was the protocol. Addressing the sergeant, the Israeli captain said only, ‘You and your men will be interrogated when we reach Jerusalem.’ The pilot craft was cut loose and quickly drifted off against a brightening sky.

  The early Friday morning for the detained seven was initially not unlike the experience of the six escapees. The gunboat made good time to a beach, where inflatables to get ashore and a fortified transporter awaited. It looked like a standard vehicle for transporting convicts. It seemed strange to Sergeant O’Brien that if his friend and colleague Sergeant Doyle had made it to shore, then he would be travelling, at this time, by road to Bethlehem. As it was, he was on the road to Jerusalem, only thirty kilometres north. What type of country was this, he wondered.

  The vehicle had benches on each side, facing each other. There was an internal light on because the narrow-slit windows did not allow for much natural light to enter. The road signage they glimpsed made it clear they were en route to Jerusalem. They also knew they were passing through Palestinian territory because of the massive walls on either side of sections of the motorway. These walls were festooned with any number of inward-looking cameras. Having been ushered through two armed checkpoints, they entered a motorway tunnel.