The War of the Flea

Since the end of the cease-fire between the British army and the militant Provisional wing of the I.R.A. two weeks ago, the Catholic areas of Belfast and Londonderry have taken on the look of small battlefields. TIME Correspondent Friedel Ungeheuer was in both cities last week as the Proves stepped up their guerrilla campaign against British troops. His report:

"The flea survives by hopping and hiding," advises the I.R.A.'s favorite tactician of guerrilla warfare, Robert Taber. On Strand Road in the Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry last Monday evening, the fleas were hopping again. I first heard the detonations coming from the dockside down by the River Foyle. Two adolescent boys and a girl had entered the Chinese Society Restaurant, shooed owners and clients out with a pistol, then hidden their timed gelignite device in the kitchen. The explosion, 30 minutes later, gouged a huge hole in the building, while a spray of glass rained down from smashed windowpanes in nearby houses. As British soldiers in bulletproof vests and blue-coated Royal Ulster Constabulary men rushed up, a single rifle shot sent them diving for cover. Townspeople cowered in alleys and shop entrances. Then another volley of shots, and a man was dragged to safety. It turned out that he was an innocent passerby, caught in the crossfire like the rest of us. Fortunately, he was only hit in the leg.

Princeton Shirt. The Bogside Provo headquarters is in a narrow lane near the gasworks, reachable via the one un-barricaded road from the city. When I arrived a few minutes after the shooting, a youth with shaggy hair, hollow cheeks and a euphoric look lay slumped and panting on a rickety old couch. A poster on the wall proclaimed END BRITISH TERROR and showed a Union Jack dripping blood on a skull and crossbones. A small table was piled with ammo clips, a Sten gun and World War II carbines. Young men, few of them above high school age, kept passing through the room during the next hour. They received their instructions, hid pistols under their belts at the small of their backs, and disappeared again through a backyard littered with hijacked cars in various states of disrepair.

The existence of this headquarters is the worst-kept secret in Londonderry; yet so far the British army has refused to enter the Bogside out of fear that innocent civilians would be killed in the ensuing street battles. Moreover, the 3,000 or 4,000 destitute Catholic families who live in the area either openly support the young men or feign ignorance. Said a neighbor: "We know what these lads are up to, but we don't want to know what they're doing."

One Provo commander is Martin MacGuinness, a 22-year-old redhead wearing a freshly laundered Princeton T shirt and the untroubled gaze of the pure in heart. Said MacGuinness: "We will now begin to concentrate on army targets and sabotage their installations. We have proved we can do what we like in Londonderry. We are sick, sore and tired of being treated by the British government as little boys." Two days before the truce broke down, he was among the six Provo leaders flown secretly to London for talks with Ulster Proconsul William Whitelaw. Now, MacGuinness vowed, "we will not stop fighting until the Protestants and Catholics can live together without discrimination in housing, jobs or religion in a social, democratic and united Ireland. Protestant workers must realize they too are Irish and not British."

In spite of the guerrilla war raging around them, Bogsiders still insist on their fun. Last week a few hundred hardy gamblers turned up for the reopening of the Brandywell Dog Track, which is located at the far end of the Bogside. Undeterred by the occasional stray bullets whizzing overhead from the "nogo" Bogside area, three bookmakers did a brisk business in totes. Out of 49 hounds needed for the meet's seven races, only 28 had made it. The others were held up on Craigavon Avenue, where traffic was delayed for two hours while British troops searched for explosives and arms.

After midnight, Bogside TV sets stay tuned for another sport: listening to British army headquarters issuing orders and receiving reports from units on patrol. The army's transmitters happen to be on the same frequency as a local TV station. British HQ is aware of this. Messages that could tip off Provo patrols are cut short by clipped instructions "to use other means" of communication. Such lapses as "We don't want another calamity like Lima's [code name for a British patrol] shooting on our own men" or "Can you claim a hit?" are met with the sort of hilarity among Bogsiders that Americans reserve for a good quip on the Dick Cavett Show.

When I arrived back in Belfast, two more British soldiers had been killed. In one battle, a Saracen armored car fired on snipers holed up behind a sandbagged wall between two apartment buildings. The snipers fled, and a few minutes later, a six-year-old girl walked among the people in front of the bullet-scarred flats playing a tape recording of the battle. "What really worries me," said one mother sadly, "is what this has done to our children."

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