Blackwatertown. Paul Waters
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Richard Pearce
Melanie Perry
Patrick Plunkett
Anna Richmond
Christopher Richmond
Mark Richmond
Peter Richmond
Ruth Richmond
Fiona Robb
Paul Rocks
Swazi Rodgers
Adam Rosser
Richard Rowntree
Amy Russell
Fergal Ryan
Santhi
Richard Selwyn
Peter Silvester
Robin Silvester
Rosemary Silvester
Tamsin Silvester
Parmjit Singh
Gary Sired
Liam Mark Smith
Bonnie Sneed
Anne Springer
Deepali Srivastava
Janice Staines
Trevor Tall
Alice Tamagni
David Tamagni
Emily Tamagni
Woon Tan
Beverly D Thurley
Barry Turley
Mark Vent
Julie Walker
Catherine Walls
William Ward
Aidan Waters
Andy Waters
Anita Waters
Charles Edward Waters
Clare Waters
Ewan Waters
Joanna Waters
John Waters
Lisa Waters
Orla Waters
Rebecca Waters
Sheila Waters
Stephen Waters
Tanya Waters
Chris West
Heather Willars
Michael Workman
Julian Worricker
Yanfang Wu
4
This story is set just north of the Irish border in the 1950s. It is based on events that have been recorded by history and some true stories that have not. But it’s just a story. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.
5
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
– Napoleon
CHAPTER 1
Sergeant Jolly Macken didn’t want to be a policeman any more. The butt of his hand pressed on the polished handle of his baton, not yet drawn. He felt hot despite the cool air of the Mourne foothills. He hated his job. He hated the crowd pushing at his back. He hated the string of men blocking the road ahead. All of them impatient for his signal – the ones behind muttering his nickname. He hated the verbal albatross that had been hung round his neck too. Jolly. Christ!
The stony slopes of fern and heather and gorse would usually lift his heart; the open land a refuge from complication and regulation. He’d feel the tension ebb from his shoulders. The small smile that would quietly creep over his face, unwitnessed. If Macken believed in anything, it was that there was no better place nor way for a man to be at peace than by quiet water, with a rod and line. Alone, but never lonely.
Today was different. Today he was only a hard-faced big man trapped inside a uniform. A stone bounced past his feet. The serenity of this County Down emptiness had been shattered long before. But at this moment of decision, all the shouting and jeering, the drums and the fifes, seemed to fade to silence in Macken’s mind. The violence was about to begin – the striking out at head and body with stone and bar and baton and rifle butt. And he was going to be the one to start it.
*
The parade was one of those annual territorial pissing contests. Like a dog reminding its neighbours who is cock of the walk. And just as a mutt has its regular lamp posts, so the local Orange Lodge doggedly stuck to its traditional route along the Longrock Road. It was the very long way round from their meeting hall on the Irish Sea coast at Kilmurray to their chosen church service. A long tramp through unprepossessing hill country, inhabited only by incurious sheep. But it had the merit of passing through the village of Ballydrum, which was both the only obstacle and the real objective. For what would be the point of asserting one’s inalienable right to walk the Queen’s highway if there was no one to object? For the Catholic and stubbornly nationalist residents of Ballydrum were no fans of the Orange, nor any of the other loyal institutions dedicated to celebrating the monarch and damning the Pope.
Usually, Ballydrum and Kilmurray happily went their separate ways. But once a year, every year, the Diamond Star of Hope Kilmurray Defenders, Loyal Orange Lodge No. 1598, had an irresistible atavistic urge to pay Ballydrum a visit. It would have been a dereliction of duty and an affront to the ancestors if they’d failed to remind the benighted Catholics just who was top dog in the valley, and indeed the state.
Ballydrum residents were not required to line the route, cheering for the Queen. It was enough that they tolerated the banners, the kick-the-Pope band and the walkers with their bowler hats, collarettes, furled brollies and unsheathed ceremonial swords. The marchers were content to perform to an audience of gritted teeth, closed doors and empty streets. And most years they did.
But word was it would be different this time. The band’s warm-up walk had lingered outside a Catholic church and drowned out the prayers inside with a particularly rousing rendition of ‘The Sash My Father Wore’, listing past Protestant battle victories. The disapproval that spread through neighbouring townlands had grown into defiance. Ballydrum resolved that the historic victory of King Billy over King James would not be celebrated in their village. Not this year. They fancied a wee break.
But traditions do not brook interruption. Especially new traditions. The police suggestion that Kilmurray Lodge revert to its previous, shorter, traditional route, avoiding Ballydrum, was met with suspicion and scorn. So it was, that Sgt Jolly Macken found himself the miserable leader of the Diamond Star of Hope Defenders, marching as to war.
*
Macken and his score of constables came first. Behind them swaggered the Pride of the Valley Orange band. The fifes and side drums were littered like piglets round the huge rolling sow that was Big Jim Courtney and his legendary Lambeg drum. Jim’s belly was a legend in itself, but he needed his bulk to support the even bigger drum propped vertically in front. Macken was impressed, despite himself, that such a fat, waddling figure could summon forth the strength and stamina to even carry the Lambeg, never mind beat out the dread rat-a-tat-tat on its two faces.
Following Big Jim and the band were the officers of the Lodge, and then the ordinary brethren – respectable types to the fore, bank manager, business proprietors and elected councillors. Macken suspected that many were just as keen as he was to be out of the drizzle. But it was the one day of the year they had to publicly prove their credentials.
Bringing up the rear was a rowdier contingent of younger men, boys and some women. The promise of trouble had swelled numbers. Macken knew that, if challenged, the parade marshal would describe this element as spectators or supporters, absolutely nothing to do with the official walk. But they sure came in handy in a bust-up.