The Belfast Preacher and the Black Book

By John P Bell

A young Irish-American part time preacher has a dream that he can bring peace to his birth place during its recent troubled past. Unknown to him his late father had stolen a diary from a police commander containing the names of past murder squads from an earlier age that could embarrass those now in power. Enter British Intelligence employing rogue elements to find the diary the-- Black book. Violence versus the love and compassion of the young preacher bringing comfort and hope to the bereaved using his special gifts of clairvoyance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jun 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524680794

John P Bell

Belfast born writer of many short stories included in several anthologies but this was one story on his Bucket List that had to be told.

Book preview

THE BELFAST PREACHER

AND THE

BLACK BOOK

JOHN P BELL

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AuthorHouse™ UK

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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

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Phone: [phone]

© 2017 John P Bell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/01/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8077-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8078-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8079-4 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5     The Dream

Chapter 6     The Killer

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9     The Thoughts Of William Mc Causland

Chapter 10   ‘Mr G’

Chapter 11   Charlie’s Sermon

Chapter 12   Charlie’s Kidnap

Chapter 13

Chapter 14   Bantie’s Confession

Chapter 15   The Black Book

Chapter 16   Durango Rides Again

Chapter 17   An Earlier Conversation

Chapter 18   Misgivings

Chapter 19   The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions.

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Joe Baker and the Glenravel local History Project and their research into the ‘Mc Mahon Family Murders’ and ‘The Belfast Troubles circa 1920-1923’ which I have relied on to establish a historical background to this work of fiction—my many thanks.

PROLOGUE

The time for Protestant Ulster’s very own ‘Mardi Gras’ was approaching and the colour was ‘Orange’, across the province parades were planned, a cacophony of sound; an explosion of colour; big drums; marching bands and the tramp of feet-tramp-tramp-triumphalism on parade. The marking of territory time like a dog peeing on a lamp-post, only the colour of the pee was orange. Orange from the ‘House of Orange’, the seventeenth century Dutch principality that produced for Protestant England and the Protestant people of Ulster, good King William on his noble white charger. Often depicted in murals on Ulster’s gable walls as he led them to victory over the Catholic Irish and their French allies at the Battle of the Boyne, circa 1690.

Ancient battles long forgotten by modern Europe, but not in this little backwater of an northern isle that ensured and enshrined Britain’s remaining control over this corner of Ireland. Through the ages that retention of wealth and power always the motivator, for the rewards were high and that power and control maintained through the loyal ranks and armed yeomanry of the Protestant people, from which was born the loyal orders-The Orange Order. A semi-religious organisation only open to those of the Protestant faith and the marching feet. Now the great industrial and agrarian wealth had diminished, Ulster had become a fiscal drain, a political anachronism, an embarrassment and a burden for the ruling British parliament. But the seeds of tenure had been too well sown and no one was going to uproot these loyal sons of Ulster, certainly not the Irish Republican Army, the IRA and their murderous campaign of destruction and violence. No! come what may, Orange Lilies and the flowers of Sweet William would bedeck loyal Protestant breasts for years to come.

That great religious divide always widening, Protestant against Catholic; British/Irish against Irish/Irish, in another place Hindu against Moslem; Israeli versus Palestinian; white ‘agin’ black. Different faces- different places but the same old hatred, same old prejudices, same old story.

Ulster had returned again to its very own form of insanity, its very own little dirty war, its own ‘Goodies or Baddies,’ depending on ones view point or in what ‘Catholic or Protestant street,’ fate had placed your pink little body at birth!

It was into this madness, I had travelled over three thousand miles to search for a younger brother who had gone missing even presumed dead, a brother whose big heart was only matched by his naivety that he had a message of peace—a message from God!

As I stood on that Belfast street corner, wondering where to go, what to do next, I thought Charlie boy why did you bother? if they want to kill each other, let them.

If this was dangerous for me, with my political awareness of what was at stake here, how much more for Charlie who had not a God-damned clue?

As the Royal Ulster Constabulary had recently informed me, Charles Michael Mc Bride had been reported missing, they suspected suicide, given his mental history and the fact his car was found abandoned on some cliff top. They obviously didn’t know Charlie, who often preached against suicide given his deeply held religious beliefs, a waste of God’s gift as he called it.

Charlie was missing alright and I just wanted to find big innocent delusional Charlie and get him the hell out of this asylum before he became another statistic, that is if as the RUC claimed he wasn’t one already!

CHAPTER 1

Here bigotry rules and when that is refuelled by one of the most mindless campaigns of violence against lives and property that ordinary people can endure by a terrorist organisation, the IRA whose members emanated from the ‘Other Side.’ Then that will grow feeding itself with subjective justification, one feeding off the other in a vicious circle of hate. The downtown bombings destroying lives and livelihoodsand the killing of security forces, with the members of the predominately Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary all in revenge and frustration for years of discrimination by the ‘Fixed Unionist’ i.e. Protestant majority. Police harassment and the shooting of non-combatant Catholics only recruiting more ‘Freedom Fighters’ for the IRA, or the ‘Provos’ as they were more colloquially known. Each sides latest cruel killing vindicating a reciprocal action of death in a forever spiralling tit-for-tat descent into hatred and madness. For the Provos any British uniform would do or even anyone indirectly involved. Again for the loyalist/pro-Unionist paramilitaries any Catholic or in their derogatory terms any ‘Fenian/Taig, would do including even a very very nominal one like myself.

Thankfully, the army and the police, irrespective of their political or religious leanings were keeping a lid on it, but only just. An impartial police force is sometimes better than no police at all, and the majority of officers doing their best to keep the peace. The red bricked houses looked new but the mentality remained stuck in a seventeenth century mind-warp of bigotry and hatred.

Northern Ireland unfortunately suffered from an inherent dose of fundalmentalist Calvinism that periodically threw up a rabble rousing bigot. The ‘Fifties’ and early ‘Sixties’ a time of hope and regeneration after the frugal Post-War years brought them relative properity, both religious mixing freely and socially and in marriage. Sectarian embers still smouldered yet if left unattended may have grown cold and even died out, given the indifference it deserved. For this was a time for new beginnings for reaching across the sectarian divide. A time for imagination and hope, a time for the young to lead the way towards forgiveness and reconciliation. The smouldering embers of hate and mistrust if left unattended would eventually die out, extinguished by the great healer; time itself; the great forgiver. Despite a lack of leadership from those in permanent power, those dreams were almost realised, those embers of hate almost dead–but it was not to be.

In a grey Belfast street named after a local grey mountain, that almost irrelevant Irish Republican party had displayed an Irish flag, the Irish Tricolour of green white and orange in a small premise’s window for their coming election campaign. Although it was causing no offence where it was in the strongly Catholic/ Nationalist district, but in Northern Irish legal speak it violated the then ‘Flags and Emblems’ act which unbelievably forbid such audacious displays of ‘Irishness’.

Those embers of smouldering hate had almost died but Ulster was cursed, a religious fanatic arose with a Bible in one hand and a sword of self- righteousness in the other. The personification of bigotry emerged like a Phoenix from those dying ashes to spread fear and hatred to those that undermined his Ulster and the Protestant faith. That most dangerous creature of all, the religious fanatic, who like other religious egomaniacs had formed from the deep recesses of his mind a special relationship with his god. Where there was friendship and trust he would find treason and weakness, for he alone was the self appointed saviour of his beloved Province, for ‘God and Ulster’, his slogan borrowed from his fanatical forbearers.

The demagogue demanded the flags removal, however innocuous it may have been to where it was, the Unionist government and its obedient police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, responded in their usual heavy handed manner when dealing with the Nationalist people creating resentment that only confirmed their impartiality.

The local residents perceived this as another infringement and violation of their rights and another excuse to attact their Irish aspirations, a street riot ensued.

That night the embers that had been left to smoulder flickered alive, old prejudices half forgotten now remembered, old fears whispered now spoken aloud, doors once open now closed and bolted against ‘Them’, the enemy now real or imagined now without. That night on the world’s television screens, a shocked audience saw the black shapes of Ulster’s naked sectarianism for the first time, in the riots that followed. The water cannon and the heavy batons of the loyal Royal Ulster Constabulary subduing the local residents.

That smouldering mix of religion and politics peculiar to Ulster once thought dead had burst into life again fanned by a religious fanatical fundalmentalist who would find ‘sin’ in everything and everywhere, even kids playing on swings on a Sunday, a violation of his Sabbath.

It was crazy in a normal society this guy would have been laughed at and told to get lost, but all of his ilk are powerful orators, the ability to feed on the fears and intolerances of their followers. Fear and bigotry to replace reason and logic to resurrect a doctrine of negativity to capture attention. The demogogue preached a sermon of retribution and not the one of forgiveness and compassion of the religion he claimed membership off.

This self appointed defender of Ulster like all Fascists needed scapegoats, the Irish Catholic church and its adherents with the Southern Irish government fitted that bill.

The demagogue had found an Earthly purpose for his life on Earth or as my mystical brother Charlie would put it, his Earthly incarnation, his time had come, how long had he awaited this day? Preaching fear and hate claiming ‘They were at the gates’, and ready to trample on his beloved Ulster denying them all their ‘Protestant Heritage’. Intolerance breeds extremism his powerful invective against all that showed weakness swept the moderate aside, no one was spared not even the tolerant mildly spoken and pleading Prime Minister.

As the ‘Swinging Sixties’ had produced a vibrant and intelligent youth, a vociferous youth impatient for change, unsatisfied at the injustices of a one party state they took to the streets. Copying the American civil-rights campaign with all the assured righteousness that only youth can give. No longer willing to suffer inequality in employment and housing that their fathers had stoically endured, a people also long abandoned by a pragmatic emerging Southern State. The Catholics had become isolated and alienated in a Protestant State, No! the young protesters would no longer suffer in silence and watch the decimation of their Nationalist brothers through ‘Gerrymandering’ of the electoral system and the forced emigration though lack of employment.

They had marched adopting the civil-rights song—

‘We shall overcome --we shall overcome someday’

Opposed by the demogogue and his followers and the batons of the Unionist controlled police force, who confronted these demands for equality. The demagogue in the dog-collar considered any compromise as weakness and an attack on their Protestant heritage he set the agenda of intolerance for all the world to see.

The civil-rights marchers refused to be cowed by the batons or the ‘Saviour’ of Ulster but were eventually swept aside by the intransigence of the government and the emergence of more extreme elements. The loyal Orange breathen marched as usual in all their self assured respectability with the drums beateing louder and louder. So the stones flew; the shots fired; the bombs exploded and Ulster slid and slid into its own dirty little sectarian war. I’d watched it all on the T.V. net-works in south Boston, too young to understand the tears in my father’s eyes, tears of pity and longing for a homeland he could never return to.

To understand those tears, I’d read all the books and watched all the newsreels, carrying it all into college for my studies in modern history an politics.

So here I was on a Belfast street corner smelling the real thing, this was no organised college field trip but dangerous reality, and I Joe Mac Bride would soon be known as ‘The missing Yank’s brother’.

After the long flight and jet-lag I needed to walk to stretch my legs and get the feel of the place. Walking towards the city centre and announcing my arrival at the American Consulate would be a beginning. Northern Ireland did not warrant an embassy as it was classed as provincial but they had an excellent consular who had been more than helpful on the phone. It was common courtesy to call and besides they might have an update from the police.

CHAPTER 2

‘Holy Mary-I-am dying, just one word before I go’

‘Set the Pope upon the table and stick a poker up his—

‘Holy Mary I am dying -–––––-

Hello Protestant Ulster you haven’t changed, I had stopped to listen, their rough voices more shout than song echoing off the bricked gabled walls. Walls gaudily painted in murals, in dedication to the local paramilitary battalion, if any reminder was needed to confirm into whose territory I’d wandered this was the confirmation.

I watched more saddened than bemused as they strutted in front of me in mock formation, the tallest leading the young boys, deftly tossing twirling a large stick, imitating a marching band leader with his baton. Their clothes like any others of the time, loose fitting American-cum -street -cred, the de-rigueur baseball caps, wide jeans and dirty sneakers. They could have been kids from my own block, or from any modern western city, kids that had abandoned their computer games and TV, to hang out for a bit of street fun. There the similarity ended; their song an old song from generations of hate and bitterness, sung with the gusto off young lungs that inhaled all the religious bigotry and mistrust that exuded from the very brick-work that surrounded them.

Looking at their young faces I wondered how many would escape unscathed from the restrictive chains of ignorance and hate?

Hey what are you (sic) luking at? the leader shouted over. I froze not knowing where to look. He swaggered over sensing my unease, a lad almost as tall as myself. I stood my ground he’s only a teenager, reassuring myself, but already he carried that hardened look of the street-wise. Noting my firm stance his tone softened, Any change mister? holding out his hand. Dull faces at doorways looked across, the ‘Band’ had stopped playing, I had become their new focus of attention, I felt uncomfortable coersed into fumbling in my pockets for loose change. The rest shuffled over following their leader, all eyes on my hands coupling the small coinage.

You over for the ‘Twelfth, referring to the coming annual Protestant celebrations on the 12th of July.

Are you mister? another asked, noticing my holdall, its travel stickers and my ‘Just arrived in town look’.

I nodded and they dug into my outstretched hands scattering coins on the grey pavement.

We’re goin’ to have the biggest bonfire this side of the River Lagan so we are, pointing to a large pile of wooden pallets; house junk and rubber tyres stacked high on waste ground just down their street for the celebratory bonfire. He shouted this, not just for my benefit but to anyone else who may have been ignorant of their ambitions. I had to smile at this enthusiasm but relieved when they returned to their marching, I no longer the centre of attention or the more menacing adult faces at the doorways.

New life entered their song, confident performers now rewarded and aware of their worth, they sang with greater verve, raising the pitch of the word ‘Holy’until it became a scream. The younger members although new to this old refrain, becoming more conversant with every chorus, enjoying this freedom of expression, furtively glancing at the bemused parents, smiles telling them that this was acceptable behaviour, dirty talk that was OK was something to be exploited.

I pitied these children of Ulster, bigotry was not a genetic handicap, No! that had to be taught, taught from an early age and bound by the dictates of their environment to be excorably ingrained into them.

Bigotry a mental distortion, an inability to see and know people as they really are, a subjectively twisted outlook on the world, on life itself, your neighbour, your fellow man, although I doubted if my college textbook explanations would have made any headway with these kids. But then I wasn’t here to lecture or to change opinions, I was too cynical of my fellow man to even try. No!, my younger brother Charlie had those ideals and look where it has gotten him? Yes sir! these youths had their future mapped out for them, future members of loyalist street gangs, engaged in extortion and even murder, their leaders growing fat and rich on the proceeds.

Yes!, I’d watched the newsreels and as the song goes, ‘Read all the Papers and Shed all the Tears’, saddened but not surprised at the land of my birth.

A silent thank-you to my late father for having the blessed foresight to get us the hell out of it. My father had the same pessimism as our old neighbour, Mr.Kossoff about the Nazis in pre-war Germany.

Jackboots and tolerance are not good companions, he’d say, I smelt it coming, too many flags and marching feet, so I got out damn quick.

He was a character and a survivor just like my father, he had read the signs and knew when it was time to go, and it was for the survival of his family that my father had also reluctantly left.

Well the marching feet are here, the flags are here and the reasons for hate and mistrust are here, all the ingredients for a blood bath; thankfully the army and the police, irrespective of their political leanings were keeping a lid on it, but only just. The population paying the price of a loss of freedom and movement, security taking precedence, but the majority of officers doing their best to keep the peace. The red bricked houses looked new but the mentality remained stuck in a seventeenth century time-warp of bigotry and hatred.

In my fathers youth, these same streets then cobbled with poverty, would have echoed to the same old songs and cries of misunderstanding and ignorance. Then barelegged and ragged; the bands of youth chanting their inherited bigotry, parading the same old traditions of hate.

Traditions only broken in the twentieth century by the two ‘World Wars’, when their political masters decided that the religious and political differences were irrelevant and they could all go and die together in foreign fields. Apparently after the audacious bombing of Belfast by the German Luftwaffe, Herr Hitler occupied that table poker and all!

So here I was on a Belfast street corner smelling the real thing, this was no organised college field trip but dangerous reality, and I wondered where it would all end?

After the long flight and jet-lag I needed this walk, to stretch my legs and get the feel of the place.

Walking towards the city centre and announcing my arrival at the American consulate would be a beginning. Our excellent Consular, who had asked for a contact number and the name of my hotel so that was top of my list of calls as after all a valuable source of info regarding the latest danger zones. It was common courtesy to call, and besides they might have an update from the police.

Charlie’s last call to his girlfriend Laura was about preaching at a city centre gospel hall and the many friends he’d made there. That made sense before he left Boston, he often attended local Christian services, and often preached or gave some kind of talk. Although from what Laura told me, he was made welcome until he introduced some of his new-age thinking, which did not go down well with the - - - - ‘If its not in the Bible it can’t be true fraternity.’

Charlie’s religious beliefs covered a wide spectrum, that’s what made him so tolerant of all faiths, he hadn’t a bigoted bone in his body. How he managed to get a foothold in this neck of the woods I’ll never know. Walking and thinking for me always went together, if ever I had a problem, a big problem I would grab a jacket and walk a few blocks or stroll through the park, no distractions, no TV, just me and the sidewalk. So I started walking, Laura had booked me the same hotel that Charlie disappeared from, she had made all the reservations, she was worried sick. She had wanted to come along but I had convinced her she was more useful back in Boston, the truth was I couldn’t guarantee her safely, hell! I can’t guarantee my own. As I had flown in via London, the second leg had flown me into this little Belfast city airport on the edge of the Belfast sea lough, sea gulls and all, it was only a mile or so from the city centre, real handy. So I had waved away the taxi guy and started walking and already getting an insight into this sad distorted place. As I walked the newsreels and news reports kept running through my head on fast forward, what had gone wrong? I suppose that had to do with the history of the place, these people were killing each other for Gods sake! before the Mayflower had landed in America.

History had given them all the reasons and excuses for attacking their neighbours, the morality and constraints of so called Christianity and civilisation telling them not too, but once the killing starts that becomes their reality and all sanity is swept aside.

‘We shall overcome,’— sang the civil-rights marchers, thousands took to the streets, towns came to a standstill and the world watched. Their demands were not excessive, a fairer society, more equality, one man one vote in local elections, looking back all very reasonable all very innocent.

Probably with a push and a shove from the central British government the controlling Unionist monopolists would have conceded to the demands, sadly it wasn’t to be. The world and his brother had under estimated the mistrust and the well of bigotry that this little forgotten corner on the edge of Europe still contained, and I’m afraid so too had my brother Charlie.

I pulled my collar up it was colder here than the downtown heat of mid-summer Boston, a cold wind blew off the sea lough as the sun sought to hide behind the surrounding green hills. The grey T.V. reports belittled the natural beauty of the city, its green hills and broad sea lough, it really came as a pleasant surprise, a contrast to the concrete ravines of traffic snarled Boston.

Belfast is a great city for walking, still human sized with its changing scenery at every corner, not so overpowering like a comparable American metropolis. I could see the green domes of its city hall in the distance, a beautiful piece of architecture in the pseudo classical style, which dominated the far sky line.

Belfast had kept its country feeling, an affinity with those surrounding green fields, a young city by European standards. Albeit a bit of a plain Jane, its main assets not its imposing buildings of which it had few, but its wonderful natural setting.

Interesting and manageable to walk around, the modernists and planners hadn’t ruined it yet with concrete fly-over’s and underpasses, the city had not surrendered completely to the automobile. Those pleasant green uplands of saving grace that seemed to lie at the bottom of every street.

I felt alone as only one can feel alone in a city of strangers, indifferent eyes passed through me, my relaxed walking pace foreign to their hurried strides.

Despite the urgency of my visit I had to walk, I had to think who would want to harm Charlie?

Did he know something? Did he see something he shouldn’t? A few rich industrialists had been kidnapped in the past but they had wealth, Charlie had no money.

The police said it was unusual for a likeable