Free Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland by Ed Moloney Page B

living-room window. I was taken to a house, my cousin’s house, just a couple of hundred yards down the street. And the next thing Gerry [Adams] came into the district. The artery had been severed. But it was the ‘Big Effort’, Gerry, who organised the doctor, brought him into the area, fair play to him. I have to give that to him. It was ——, the heart surgeon. But he had no equipment with him so my cousin got a needle and thread and —— sewed me up. There’s a wee lump still there where he inserted tweezers, pulled the artery down, tied it in a knot to stop the bleeding, and then he got a needle and thread and sewed it up. I didn’t realise how much blood I had lost but it was an awful lot. Gerry may well have saved my life by bringing the surgeon in because the blood was pumping out. The Brits were still driving round, and I remember the doctor sewing it up while the Saracen was passing the door. You know, Gerry did that but he didn’t have to. We were close at that time and I think there was a genuine thing there. He didn’t have to come into the area, he could have sent someone else in, but he did come in. I didn’t want to leave town – you know, ‘the true soldier’ – I didn’t want to leave Belfast but Gerry insisted, he ordered me out. And I went to Dundalk and booked into a bed-and-breakfast for a week but I just couldn’t wait to get back .
     
    Gerry Adams had talent-spotted Brendan Hughes, realising that he had great skills conceiving and planning operations. When Adams was made Commander of the Second Battalion, he persuaded Hughes to join him on the Battalion staff as his Operations Officer, and it was after this that the Second Battalion took the lead role in Belfast. Hughes didn’t want to leave D Company, but he did. And he came to regret the close ties he was to forge with Gerry Adams.
    I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to be promoted. I didn’t want to leave the Dogs, no, I was quite happy there, I was content there. Every day there was something going on … three or four operations, maybe we were robbing a bank or putting a snipe out, putting a float out, planting bombs in the town. You were at that every day, seven days a week, you were on standby. It wasn’t a romantic lifestyle, adventurous more than anything else, I would say … the D Company that I was O/C of was a very, very young crowd; there were kids there, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, in the Fianna. They couldn’t get into the IRA but they wanted into the IRA, really, really keen. And every one of them were used to their full potential. This was a rundown area. Try and picture it – derelict houses all over the place. We had to use different call houses but there were houses we did constantly use, 39 Theodore Street, for example, Annie Walsh’s house; 9 Gibson Street, Mrs Maguire’s house, both constantly used. Twenty-four hours a day we were in and out of their houses. They were cooking for us, feeding us, letting us sleep there and moving out when we needed them to. And many a time the houses were raided. I remember one time, 9 Gibson Street, Mrs Maguire’s house, the Brits raided and the two twins were there, big George and Frank Gillen, both twenty-seven, twenty-eight stone. Frank’s dead; George is still alive. The usual escape was out the back, over the yard wall. This particular time, George couldn’t get over the yard wall and I was helping him – everybody else was gone and I was helping George and he’s up and away and over. A Brit charged into the backyard armed with his SLR; he was an ordinary wee guy, only eighteen or something, and he had the rifle pointed at me, just on his own. And I was caught; I put my hands up and he came towards me. He was really nervous and he knew who I was. I mean by that stage they all had my photo and he was shitting himself, shouting, ‘Sarge, sarge, sarge, sarge!’ and he was really shaking. So I tried to calm him down. I made a move towards him and I pushed