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The Tartan Army
Chapter 10


A PUMPING STATION TOO FAR; KINFAUNS
 "'S FEAIRDE BRATH A BREACADH GUN A BRISEADH"
["a quern is the better of sharpening without being broken"; i. e.  too much of a good thing]. 

For the first time since 1972,  when the Sword was taken, the Tartan Army fell into disagreement. It so happened that in between the bombing at Crook of Devon and the Government's collapse, Gerry had located another pumping station at Kinfauns on the North side of the Tay river, five miles from Perth city and fifteen miles from the H. Q. of the S. A. S.  just outside Dundee. Don, Eoin and Gerry went to have a look. Paterson dropped them off at some woods and they walked through the trees and up to the station. The security was the same as at Crook of Devon; ludicrously minimal in spite of what they had done at the Crook. But shortly after they had set it up, the new Parliament building and all had been announced. Gerry said that there was now no need; their work had been completed. Don disagreed and said what if Westminster reneged again. Then we will bomb again replied Gerry. Gerry then went down with a very heavy flu and retired to bed. Because they never spoke on the phone, Don was unaware of this and decided to go ahead himself but with yet another recruit, a loud mouthed young boozer from Ayrshire who apparently had been told by Gloria Monaghan that Don and Gerry were the Tartan Army.  He had a mouth that was too big for his brains. He had previously tried to persuade them to let him join up. Don and Gerry denied all knowledge of the Tartan Army and told him  to get lost. He had come back again and Donald, thinking that Gerry was out, took him in. 

When Gerry had recovered from the flu, he got in his car to drive over to visit Donald. Switching on his radio, he heard that the pumping station at Kinfauns had been completely destroyed. When he arrived at Menstrie, Donald told him who had helped.  McGuigan was depressed but the deed was done. Donald had made a major blunder and he would pay dearly for it.  The usual furore erupted in the media and Parliament as the news went round planet earth. Two pumping stations out of the total of five had been completely destroyed in the space of a few weeks. That other book incorrectly states that Kinfauns was blown in September 1974. In fact it was September 1975.  The police and Westminster aroused out of their slumber had to do something. They thought that they had wrapped up the Tartan Army when they put the A. P. G. in jail,  and now they were looking at two oil pumping stations destroyed within two weeks of each other. The Tartan Army was running riot. Westminster was furious. The game was over and the Tartan Army had won eight to nothing, if you include the two own goals in England. Whatever they did now was too late. There was no way that they could renege on their promise to build a new Scots Parliament on the Calton Hill. All they could do now was something that would earn them the wooden spoon. They had only one forlorn hope. As the chief of Strathtay police , Mr. Lamb,  would tell the Tartan Army in 1976 at the trial;  after ignoring George Ronald's intuition for three and a half years,  that McGuigan was behind it all, they had decided to give it a try and put a round the clock surveillance on McGuigan. 


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