Further along, Finn was meeting another British Challenger at the corner of the farmhouse, with soldiers putting fire past him on either side. He drove him back out of sight. James did not go over. Finn did not need him.
By eight o'clock the Spire had the eastern road, Saoirse's group had the river crossing to the west, and for the first time in two days the formations south of Dundalk could talk to each other.
---
It got harder near the junction.
The British had put everything they had into the last three hundred metres. There were sandbags across the road and men at every window of the two-storey building. More were behind the burnt-out vehicle the Irish had pushed there themselves.
And there was the man with the waves.
James saw him before the first wave came. He was standing back among the British vehicles north of the junction, his right forearm strapped, his left hand out.
The wave hit the farm wall the Irish were moving up behind, and a section of it came down.
