The Bogside Boys Read online

  “I dunno what they’re doing here, aiming their guns at the crowd like that. I can only assume that they’re expecting some IRA action, but everyone knows they were to stand down today, surely the Paras do too?” Peter said out loud to no-one in particular though everyone heard.

  “They’ve gotta be trying to intimidate us, trying to get us to call off the march,” Mick answered. Melissa was still holding his hand. He could feel the sweat in her palm.

  A barrier lay in front of them, a few hundred yards away at the end of William Street. The lorry leading the march turned right, down Rossville Street and away from the barrier. The young men at the front of the procession, including those who had been throwing stones on Aggro Corner raced down to the barrier, ignoring the path of the march. Suddenly a hundred, two hundred, of them were down there, Paul and Noel with them. Jimmy was still on Aggro Corner, but would follow them on. Mick looked at his father. The lines of worry were starting to appear on his face. On the lorry, the organizers shouted through their loudspeakers, trying to get the stone throwers to rejoin the march, but if they heard them, they paid no attention.

  One of the organizers jumped down from the lorry to try to steer them back on course, back down Rossville Street but was ignored. More and more marchers rushed down to the barrier, which was manned by about twenty soldiers. The regular soldiers were dressed in the more usual riot gear, as opposed to the Paras, who were dressed for combat. More Paras stood a few yards behind the riot soldiers at the barrier. Waiting. They seemed everywhere, the vise tightening.

  The crowd down at the barrier was thick with people. Jimmy couldn’t find the others. He was beside one of his neighbors, John O’Neill, there with his three sons, all under ten years old. “English bastards, come out and fight like men!” Jimmy shouted, but his screams were lost in the cacophony of shouts aimed at the soldiers on the barrier. The crowd was so thick now that everyone was being pushed and shoved and crushed. Jimmy knew that rubber bullets would come soon. He intended to get one as a souvenir. An RUC officer shouted through a loud speaker, but once again no one paid any attention to his words. He may as well have invited the barrage that came as soon as his words ended. Chunks of paving stone, loose rocks, bottles, bricks, planks of wood, and whatever came to hand, rained down on the soldiers manning the barrier. The army officers took cover behind their armored vehicles. Several of the soldiers seemed to be hit, but as always most of the riot was ineffectual; for show.

  A few hundred yards back, at the turning for Rossville Street, Mick and Melissa were standing with Peter, watching the rioting. Melissa seemed shocked. Mick and Peter were calm, as were most of the marchers around them.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Mick assured her. “This is nothing unusual; this happens every day here. Sure, the army hasn’t even used rubber bullets or CS gas yet. This is nothing to get worried about.” He took both her hands. “Don’t worry, we won’t be joining in with that rubbish. We’re going to stay well away from that.”

  Patrick and the rest of the Doherty clan had moved, barely even bothering to watch the melee as it developed down at the barricade. Mick looked around. British army barricades were all over, halfway up Little James Street and on Sackville Street, forcing the marchers into a bottleneck down Rossville Street. If the Paras moved in, there would be no escape. Mick called forward to his brother, who slowed down to wait for them as they moved down Rossville Street after the flattop lorry.

  Back at the barricade, the British soldiers had moved in with the water cannon and soon the rioters at the front were all drenched in purple-dyed water. Everyone within a hundred yards was soaked and began to fall back, away from the barricade. Noel shook his head and sat down, tying his handkerchief over his face in case CS gas was next. Within seconds, there was no one within fifty feet of him. As Paul was running backward, drenched in water and purple dye, he ran into Jimmy, coming down from Aggro Corner. It was time to start exacting some retribution.

  Chapter 3

  Jimmy and Paul made their way down Chamberlain Street, lighting the CS gas canisters. Jimmy counted, one, two, three and they heaved them up and over the roofs of the houses between themselves and the soldiers guarding the barricade. The throws were good, and the crowd in front of the barricade cheered as the two gas canisters exploded among the soldiers, who scrambled for their gas masks. Jimmy and Paul ran around to survey the chaos they’d created. A thick fog of white gas was spreading over the barricade, enveloping the soldiers underneath. But the wind changed and the cloud of gas began to drift back toward the rioters themselves. Within seconds, some of the young men at the front were bent over, scrambling away through pools of their own vomit. Noel got up from his sitting position and ran backward. They all knew what was next in this game they played, and as soon as the gas cleared the first volley of rubber bullets came, answered by a hailstorm of missiles from the rioters.

  All but the hardcore rioters fell back from the barricade and began to rejoin the peaceful protesters, who formed a large majority. Noel, Jimmy, John and Paul fell back towards Aggro Corner where rioters were congregating again to attack the other barricades. But these barricades were different. Mick looked back over his shoulder at the rioters and saw the Paras, lying in their shooting positions, the barrels of their rifles pointed down at them. He saw Jimmy and the other three boys as they reached Aggro Corner and then lost them in the crowd. He looked at his father and then Melissa. The thought to go back, to warn them, came into his head, but he dismissed it. The Paras would never open fire with real bullets. The marchers ambled forward.

  Paul had been carrying a lemonade bottle, waiting for the right moment. “Watch this,” he said and left the other three standing in the middle of the crowd. Several Paras had holed up in a derelict house, long since abandoned and subsequently burnt out, the barrels of their high-velocity rifles poking through the windows. Another volley of rubber bullets hurtled down the street as Paul ran towards the derelict house. Paul had just reached the house and hurled himself up against the wall when he heard a loud bang. But this bang was not the sound of a rubber bullet. It was something else. The noise rang loud in Paul’s ears, and he grimaced in pain at being so close. As he looked up, he could see the barrel of the rifle poking out. Seeing a hole in the wall he jumped up and threw the bottle in. As he was in the air, he saw the Paras inside and saw the bottle strike one on the arm. Elated, he ran back towards the boys. More shots cracked. A crowd gathered in the middle of the waste ground, and as Paul pushed through, he heard the cries of pain. A young boy around his age, seventeen or so, was holding his leg as blood poured out through a round hole above his knee, his face etched in agony. Just beside him was a man in his fifties, seemingly shot several times. His movements were slow, his breathing checked. There were no bombs or guns in their hands. “What the hell happened?” he said out loud. “Is this my fault?”

  The main body of the march was a few hundred yards down Rossville Street when they heard the shots. Peter jerked his head backward toward the noise, wide-eyed “That was no rubber bullet. They were SLR rounds. They came from the British soldiers.”

  Melissa gripped onto Mick’s hand. “Are we safe?” She was shaking, and he put his arm around her.

  “The best thing is to stay with the march now,” Peter assured her. “I’m sure they were only warning shots. They’re not going to use live rounds on the crowd.”

  Mick wanted to believe him but knew that he didn’t believe the words himself. His eyes spoke a different truth.

  Breaking off from the crowd now might be even more dangerous. So they kept walking, down Rossville Street toward Free Derry Corner. The lorry at the front had stopped just in front of Free Derry Corner and the organizers of the march were preparing to speak the crowd. There might have been around three thousand people or so. It was hard to tell with stragglers crossing over the rubble barricade that bisected Rossville Street to join the main body of the march at F
ree Derry corner. The organizers made their speeches, the crowd reacting with roars of support and cheers. Melissa stood there rapt. The civil rights leaders were becoming heroes to her, particularly Bernadette Devlin, the youngest female Member of Parliament in UK history.

  John and Paul helped carry the bodies of the wounded men to safety. Jimmy and Noel were in the crowd, still chanting, still shouting, and throwing whatever they could at whatever British soldiers they could see. Without warning the barricade at the end of William Street opened and the Paras rumbled through in the armored vehicles they and the locals knew as ‘pigs’. The crowd ran for cover, down Chamberlain Street, down Rossville Street, toward the main body of the march. John emerged from the building where he had carried the wounded young boy. He was arrested immediately, thrown up against the wall and searched by Paras with blackened faces. Paul saw his friend being taken, and knowing there was nothing he could do, ran as fast as he could, past the troops and down Rossville Street. It wasn’t the first time John had been arrested. It wouldn’t be the last. He’d be fine.

  Jimmy ran down Rossville Street, with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others. As he looked over his shoulder, he could see the advancing Paratroopers and more getting out of pigs as they pulled up. They were swarming all over now, and another shot rang out. The boy running beside Jimmy let out a gasp and fell straight down on his face. Jimmy assumed he had been hit by a rubber bullet and ran on. Another shot and Mrs. Gilmore, one of Jimmy’s neighbors, clutched the back of her leg, screaming out, a pool of blood forming around her. The boy was dead. Someone was over his body, screaming. Jimmy stopped, and Mrs. Gilmore looked him with terrified eyes. “Get out of here, Jimmy, before they kill us all.” Another shot pierced the air, and as they looked back, they saw a Para about fifty yards away take dead aim at them. Mrs. Gilmore waved her arms, “No, no, don’t shoot, I’ve nine children, and I’m all they have!” The Para brought his rifle to his side and started to run toward them. Mrs. Gilmore grabbed at Jimmy. “Run, boy, get out o’ here.” Jimmy patted her on the shoulder and ran after the crowd down towards the rubble barricade on Rossville Street.

  Every person in the crowd at Free Derry corner had heard the shots. The organizers of the rally were telling everyone to try to stay calm. The pigs came onto Rossville Street, stopping short of the rubble barricade, about five hundred yards away. The Paras jumped out and fanned across the waste ground that made up most of the area on either side of the broad street. Jimmy was just ahead of them and made it over the rubble barricade as the Paras took up their positions, sheltering behind walls or under any cover they could find. Panic began to spread through the marchers at Free Derry corner. “What’s going on?” Melissa asked. “Do the soldiers usually come down here?”

  Mick shook his head, staring back at the Paras. “No, they don’t.”

  There were more shots, followed by the sound of shots being returned.

  “That wasn’t a high-velocity round,” Peter told them. “That was an IRA shot.” Peter had told his sons about the weapons the local IRA used, the same type that he had used in the war, almost thirty years before. Many of them didn’t work, and bullets were rare. But there was always one. Mick saw marchers struggling with a local IRA man, wrestling an antiquated rifle out of his hands. The only shots now were from the Paras.

  Jimmy saw Noel crouching under the cover of the rubble barricade, about thirty yards from where he was hiding himself. “They’re shooting!” Jimmy shouted. “They’re killing people!” More shots. A few hundred yards away a man running down toward them was flipped around by the impact of a bullet, yet still limped on. At the rubble barricade, Noel cursed out loud and stood up to look. Another gunshot shuddered the air, and he immediately fell backward, a spurt of blood coming out of his mouth as he hit the ground. He lay there for a few seconds, his chest heaving with his fading breaths, pumping crimson blood into the dirt.

  “Jimmy, I’m shot.” The words gurgled through.

  Jimmy bent down to his friend, boiling tears in his eyes, molten anger within him. “Noel. Oh, Jesus, Noel.”

  Noel went to reach out to his friend, but his hand dropped. The shrill breaths emanating from his chest slowed and stopped, and he was dead by the time the three other boys came over to take his body away.

  “Jesus, they’re firing real bullets,” Peter said, raising his voice with each word. “They’re firing live rounds, take cover, take cover.”

  Fear spread through the crowd like an infestation. Everyone around them, hundreds of people, were crouching low to the ground, and everywhere the air shook with the sound of screaming and gunfire. Mick heard a yelp escape from Melissa’s mouth as he put his arms around her shoulders, dragging her down. The organizers of the march began to scream warnings to the crowd and threw themselves down on the flat surface of the lorry as more shots sliced the air around them. Another boy went down at the rubble barricade. More and more soldiers were pouring out of armored cars, scattering across Rossville Street.

  Bullets were bouncing off the rubble in front of them, and another boy went down, about ten feet from where Jimmy had seen Noel die. A middle-aged man, seemingly the boy’s father, ran to him and was hit by a bullet in the arm. There were no weapons anywhere on the barricade.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus, what the hell is going on?” Pat yelled as he ran to where Mick and Melissa were crouching. The Paras were advancing toward them, rifles in their hands, almost at the rubble barricade two hundred yards away. “We’ve gotta the hell outta here!” He heard himself roar. Screaming marchers started to run, tripping over their own feet, bumping into one another. Some of the Paras shouted to cease-fire but still came the sounds of more bullets.

  “What the hell are they shooting at?” Peter shouted. He grabbed onto Patrick and Mick and motioned back up the street. “Let’s go.” The crowd was fleeing in every direction. Peter, Melissa, Pat and Mick ran back towards the Rossville Flats for cover. Complete chaos reigned on Rossville Street. People were leaping over the rubble barricade, bumping into each other and falling. The Paras were arresting marchers, throwing them up against walls and still more shots, and everywhere the panic spread like fire through a parched forest. The organizers of the parade were still cowering behind the lorry. Several were trying to yell at people to get down, or in some vain attempt to tell the soldiers that the people were unarmed, that this was murder.

  Jimmy and Paul, who had met again among the main crowd, ran to the right, in the opposite direction of the Dohertys. A large crowd, numbering in the hundreds, ran with them, desperate to escape the Paras’ bullets. Everywhere there was screaming, shouting, blind hysteria. Shots rang out, and another man went down, and then another and another. They ran across a courtyard, but the Paras appeared around a corner thirty yards away and immediately started firing indiscriminately into the crowd and more people dropped. Jimmy and Paul reached a wall, four feet high and took cover behind it with several others. The Paras were following about fifty yards away. Jimmy peered back. Horror overtook him as he saw a Para shoot a man prone on the ground. He got up to run. He’d barely made three paces when a shot hit him in the back, spinning him around as he fell. Paul was frozen, barely able to breathe. Jimmy squirmed and then went still. Another man got up, holding his arms in the air as if to surrender, trying to help Jimmy, who was lying prostrate on the grass about ten feet away. “Don’t shoot!” the man roared, but another shot hit him in the chest, and his body collapsed onto the grass beside Jimmy. The sound of screaming was everywhere, and the crying had begun.

  Peter, Mick, Pat and Melissa were crouching down by Joseph’s Place, a pair of small apartment blocks with thirty or forty other marchers around them. The forecourt of the Rossville flats was just a few yards away, and that’s where they saw him, crawling on his belly, a trail of blood behind him on the asphalt below his body. The man, who was in his early thirties and wore the white handkerchief of a steward at the march, had plainly been shot and was trying to crawl to safety. He was about thirty
yards from where they were hiding. Peter looked at the man, who was crying in pain. The man stopped. “Please, please, I don’t want to die alone.” He stopped as if to take a breath and then began again, his voice fainter now. “Somebody help me, God help me,” he wailed.

  Melissa was crying. “Can’t someone help him?”

  Peter bit down on his lip, anguish staining his eyes as the man cried out again. “I can get him,” he said.

  “No way, Dad, you’re not going out there.” Pat put his arm on his father’s shoulder.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Mick added. “He’s stopped moving, he must be dead already.”

  “He’s not dead, and I can get him.” Peter reached into his pocket for a white handkerchief. “If I wave this, they won’t shoot. I can get him. I can’t let that man die alone.” He pushed Pat’s arm away. “I have to do this.”

  “No, Dad, no. Don’t do it, please.” Pat shouted, as his father stood up and began to inch his way out into the forecourt. The man was lying twenty feet away, now deathly still. Mick could feel his heart thumping like a hammer in his chest and hear the sound of people screaming and more shots in the distance. Peter held up the pathetically tiny handkerchief he’d take from his pocket, which licked the back of his hand as it fluttered in the breeze. No more gunshots rang out, and it seemed like the carnage was over. But then Mick saw a soldier run to the corner of the flats, fifty yards away and kneel to shoot. Mick tried to shout to his father, but his voice was lost in the sound of the shot that thundered through the air. Peter was ten feet from the man on the ground as the bullet hit him in the head spewing blood into the air around him. Pat roared something incomprehensible. Mick jumped to his feet, forgetting where he was, and any sense of danger as Peter collapsed onto the forecourt, his legs bent underneath his body in an ugly, ungainly pose. Melissa screamed. Mick tried to run to his father, but Pat was on his feet, holding him back. “No, they’ll kill you too!” Mick tried to fight him, but Pat was on top of him, resting his entire weight on his body. Mick’s face was pressed against the concrete and from where he lay he could see his father’s lifeless, bloodied eyes and the pool of dirty crimson extending out from his corpse. The shots faded, and Mick and Pat ran out to their father, pushing through the small crowd already gathered around him. Mick fell to his knees, grabbing at his father’s lifeless body, the tears uncontrollable, the pain like nothing he’d ever thought possible. He felt Melissa clutch him, could feel her body shuddering against the numbness of his. Pat crouched down over his father’s corpse and fell on the asphalt clutching at his father’s body. A few minutes later, after the gunfire and death had finally ended, someone laid the NICRA civil rights flag as an impromptu shroud across Peter’s lifeless body.