Dark Rosaleen (34 page)

‘It is betrayal. He obeys his Italian master and deserts Ireland. Every priest is pulling away from us now.'

Coburn had summoned O'Brien and Meagher to meet him in Wexford. Kate sat, as usual, at Coburn's side.

‘Are the priests that important to us?' she asked.

‘By doing nothing they do us much harm.'

‘Maybe they'll keep their silence.'

‘Silence too is damning.'

‘What do we do then, Daniel?' Meagher asked.

‘Father Kenyon says we should bide our time. Wait another year.'

‘It will give us time to prepare ourselves better,' said O'Brien.

‘People will be stronger then,' Meagher added.

‘Only if there's food,' said O'Brien.

‘And what if there's not?' asked Daniel. ‘Do we fight the bloody British Empire with an army of skeletons?'

‘Our revolution then hangs on the potato,' Meagher said.

‘It does,' Coburn answered. ‘If this famine stretches further, and there's not a decent crop next harvest, there'll not be an Irishman alive left to fight.'

‘Then we have no choice,' O'Brien said. ‘We do it now or we never will.'

‘Kate?'

‘You've always said that no one person can decide it, Daniel.'

‘Tell me then, all three of you. Do we go or do we not?'

There was a moment of silence as if each was afraid to be the first to lead in such a decision. To do nothing would be tantamount to surrender. But to fight and lose? It was O'Brien who spoke first.

‘We've come this far after a year of talking and a thousand meetings. If we go away from it now, will we ever return? It's with God now. We rise and win. We rise and fall. There is only one honourable course.'

Meagher stood up. ‘I remember you saying, Daniel, that we must fan the embers of the fire. Leave it a year and that fire may well be out. I'm for it.'

Coburn clasped his hand. He looked across at Kate. She nodded.

‘So it is then,' he said to them. ‘We do it now or we will never do it. Are we agreed?

‘We are agreed,' they answered together.

‘Then send your men out and get the people on the streets. Target Kilkenny, Callan and Carrick. Have them out and the green flags flying. We'll have two last rallies. Cashel is your town, William.'

‘Indeed, Daniel. It's been O'Briens' for five hundred years.'

‘And Waterford is yours Meagher. Arrange both meetings at the same time on the same night. Get out there and excite them. We have to make the people believe we can do it. Kate and I will come to both.'

‘Is that wise, Daniel?' she asked. ‘The military will be there.'

‘So will our people and a thousand of them will give us cover enough. I have to be among them. They have to see me and hear me this one last time.'

‘And what then?' Kate asked.

‘Then we'll go at them ever so slowly, ever so carefully, attacking them in pockets. They are too big and we are too little to face them full on. But we'll hit them in small places, again and again, biting them like a thousand thunderflies.'

‘Should we go for the railways?' asked Meagher.

‘We will blow the lines,' Coburn replied.

‘And the ships in Cork Harbour?'

‘All targets now.'

‘They'll up their patrols,' said Duffy.

‘We'll make them helpless, however many troops they ship in.'

‘This will be a different kind of war, Daniel.'

‘It's the only one we're capable of fighting', he replied. ‘We will be like the will-o'-the-wisp, moving at night, invisible by day. The English have their cannons but we have a better weapon. We have surprise, we have the unexpected. They have an army but we have patience and sufferance. Wars need not always be fought on battlefields; that much we have learnt. No soldier, no politician, no landowner will feel safe. They'll ever be looking back over their shoulders. We will snipe at them, have them jumping at every shadow. It's the fear that will get them, that little bit of constant terror. That's how it'll be. We'll fight them with terror! We will be terrorists. They will never have had to fight an enemy like us before.'

The Rock of Cashel sat above the town, a towering mass of limestone crowned by Cormac's chapel in the cathedral ruins. It was once the shrine of ancient Ireland and the stronghold, five hundred years before, of Brian Boru, King of Munster and William O'Brien's ancestor. The moon, white and fully round, lit up the mass of stone, making it appear translucent. Below spread all of Tipperary.

O'Brien thought he had prepared his rally well. Messengers had been sent ahead days before with instructions to bring the townspeople to the foot of the rock, light watch fires and fly their green flags high on poles. He remembered his early time as a Young Irelander, those thrilling days of idealism and revolutionary fire. When he had dreamt of entering his ancestral home to be greeted by columns of sturdy men preparing for war. In his vision, carts would be ready laden with supplies, blacksmiths would be hammering shovels and hoes into weapons, old men would straighten their backs and women would throw off their aprons and together pull the wreckage from their tumbled homes and build barricades with the debris. Even the children would be little mercenaries come the day of the great insurrection. Such were once his dreams and now they were an age away.

He rode in at dusk with thirty men and halted within the ruins just below the peak of the Rock. He saw no watch fires, no sentinels. No green flags flew from poles, no candles flickered from any window. The town below him was silent and still. He beckoned the nearest rider.

‘Do you know O'Connor's house?'

‘I do, sir.'

‘He has the big corner one on the square.'

‘I know it well.'

‘Go down on foot and be careful. If the military are there they are well hidden. Daniel will be coming any time now and it's him they'll be after. Find out from O'Connor what it's all about. We'll not move until you signal us with a light.'

They watched him go down. There was no sound, no shouts or calls from sentries. They waited.

‘Should one of us follow, sir?'

‘No!' O'Brien answered. ‘If he's caught, they'll have you too. We'll hold here longer.'

They moved deeper into the shadow of the chapel ruins.

‘They say there are tunnels under here, Mr O'Brien.'

‘And they're right. A great maze of them. I know them well.'

‘We are safe here then? If the Redcoats come?'

‘We are,' O'Brien answered. ‘Now let's stop the talk.' He was anxious. Soon Coburn would come riding in with Kate and they would be expecting crowds. They were to be their cordon of safety. Without them they would have no protection.

‘There's something going on down there, Mr O'Brien.'

There was a single dim shaft of light from the centre of the town.

‘It's in the square. Must be O'Connor's. Our man's made it, thank God. We'll wait until he calls us.'

Suddenly there was commotion. More lights shone out. A man was shouting, then more shouts were heard and women were screaming. A shot was fired, then four, five, six muskets were firing together.

In the moonlight they saw soldiers running through the streets, some holding torches, spreading out from the town, left and right. At that moment O'Brien turned at the sound of hooves and saw Coburn and Kate galloping towards him. His own horse reared.

‘Get away, Daniel,' he shouted. ‘Go off. We're betrayed. They've been waiting for us.'

But Coburn did not turn. He brought his horse to a halt between the pillars of the chapel, out of the moonlight, and dismounted.

‘Are they around us, William?'

‘I don't know. But there's nobody above us yet. We've just come from the peak. Daniel, you must go while you've time.'

‘William, I have all the time I need now. There is no hurry any more.'

‘Why do you say that? What's happened? What news of Waterford?'

‘I've heard nothing from Meagher.'

‘And Kilkenny?'

‘Empty except for Hussars.'

‘And Callan?'

‘Every door was shut. No one dared come out for fear of being shot. There was some fighting in Carrick but what could three hundred men with pikes do against three thousand Fusiliers. As soon as the shooting began they threw down their pikes and ran. The towns are silent. Youghal, Cork, Dungarvan, Limerick … They've all been scared off the streets. The army is everywhere. It's over for us, William. Over, even before we've begun. All this time they've had their own people inside ours. They've been too clever for us.'

‘Mr O'Brien, sir, there are horsemen.'

A column of riders was coming towards them from the town, six Hussars in a single line. The leader was holding a white flag. The night air was clean and crystal clear and their tunics shone bright in the moonlight. They trotted slowly, almost casually, as if they knew there was no threat to them.

O'Brien held Coburn's arm. ‘Daniel, go! Now! Kate, take him. It's him they want.'

‘Daniel.'

‘No, Kate. We will not leave. They've not come to take me, at least not yet. Not with six men. They've come to talk and I think I can guess why.'

The riders halted some fifteen yards away. The leading officer lowered his flag as the others brought their horses level with his in a line. He shouted.

‘May I talk with Mr Daniel Coburn? I believe he is with you?'

‘He is here. Speak and he'll listen.'

‘Is that you, Coburn?'

‘It is. What is it you want?

‘I must tell you first that Thomas Meagher has been arrested. By the time the few came to listen to him, he was already in chains. Your people tried to stop us and barricaded the bridge but with good sense he stood on his carriage and forbade them to try to rescue him. It was wise. We have three warships in the harbour ready to reduce that pretty town to rubble within minutes. He is presently on his way to Newgate Prison to join your man Duffy. Within the week they will be transported on the convict ship.'

‘I expected to hear no less,' Coburn replied. ‘This is not our night.'

‘Yet it may well still be, sir. I am instructed to make you an offer. It seems that my government does not want you alive or dead. Neither you nor your mistress. My government fears that killing you by English bullets or hanging on English gallows might well incense people who until now have remained mostly subdued.'

‘Not subdued,' Coburn shouted back. ‘Starved to submission.'

‘As you wish, sir. But the offer remains. Would you hear it?'

‘I'm listening.'

‘It comes from the very highest office, from a gentleman whose word is final. To his mind, the Atlantic is more of a barrier to your mischief than the Irish Sea and he would prefer to export it elsewhere. There is a ship presently anchored on the Shannon soon to sail. That is our offer. Safe passage to America. I hope you agree that no pair of traitors can ever have expected such a generous settlement. And please do not expect help from the townspeople. My soldiers have orders to shoot on sight anyone who dares open their door.'

O'Brien leant towards Coburn and whispered, ‘We could shoot them now and be done with.'

Coburn did not reply to him. Instead, he looked to Kate. ‘Safe passage, Kate? To America. Is it a bargain? Nod if you think we should go the English way.'

Kate did not nod. She did not speak. Coburn waited. Kate shook her head.

Coburn urged his horse forward.

‘I see you are a captain and a very young one at that. Well, tell this to your gentleman, whose word you say is final. I reject his generous settlement. Tell him it settles nothing for me or my people, for such I believe them to be. You say you will shoot them if they come to help me and I believe you. You offer me free passage to America but I'll not take it because I do not believe it to be an honest proposal. Nothing has ever come freely from you English except from the barrel of your muskets. Tell your master that we are defeated tonight but we will fight again another time and when we do, we will decide the place of it and the nature of it. You have been here for five hundred years but one day you will be gone and we shall still be here. Then you will understand why we hated you so much. And when you have gone we will hate you less and you will also know why.'

‘A pretty speech, sir, and I appreciate your dilemma. I do. But the offer stands. Refuse it and you are drafting your own death warrant and that of your mistress too. Must you do that to her? Reject this and you are a selfish fool.'

‘But not a trusting one.'

‘You have weapons?'

‘We are not fools enough to come here naked.'

‘It doesn't matter. You are surrounded. Accept the offer. Agree and you and your mistress will be free to leave Ireland. Refuse and you both die.'