Dark Rosaleen (39 page)

He looked to Mother O'Connor. ‘You will help her?'

‘I will, sir. Just as fast as these legs will carry me.'

‘Once my men are lined up outside, you will escape through the back alleys. You will make for the port. There is a ship there named
Pegasus
. She's a three-masted square rigger, a white and black hull, moored on pier eighteen. Have you got that, Mother?'

‘I have, sir.
Pegasus
on pier eighteen. I know the way well enough.'

‘The master is Robert Howard, an Englishman, a good friend of mine and once my brother's too. He knows all about you, Kate, and you'll not want for anything. It sails tomorrow evening. Captain Howard will hide you until you're safely up the Shannon beyond Loop Head and out to sea.'

Kate said, ‘I cannot go.'

‘You must. You have no choice, Kate. I have no choice. If you refuse I must take you to Dublin. Please, you must go.'

‘I must wait for Daniel.'

‘There is no time. Say yes! Now. Otherwise I must unlock this door and take you away.'

‘I promised I wouldn't go without him.'

‘You are waiting in vain, Kate. We know where he is. The 49th has surrounded the wood he's in and there's no escape. They will burn him out if they have to. They will not stop until they have him, alive or dead. You must believe me'.

‘Why are you doing this for me? Tell me.'

‘Kate, you know why. They killed my brother. He wrote to me about you and what you had both planned to do together. He told me of the things he had seen here, all those terrible, terrible things. But I did not believe him, I could not. It seemed impossible that so much was happening, so many evils and the powerful in England were turning their heads from it. John was so disgusted by what he had seen, so full of despair and so desperate to help that he defied his own country, the country he loved. Then they executed him as a traitor, killed him in cold blood. Mown down by English rifles.

‘When my regiment was commissioned to come to Ireland I saw it all for myself. My very first duty in my first week was to protect a tumbling gang as they destroyed an entire village. I was helping them when I should have been protecting the families. I was only nineteen, fresh from England, and I saw it all, the screaming, the beatings, the children. I see it still and I cannot bear to see more.

‘Kate, if you do not go they will hang you and your child and God help me because I will be party to it and my brother's ghost will haunt me until the day I die.'

Mother O'Connor would hear no more. She pushed Kate towards the stairs.

‘No Irish babe is going to die on English gallows. You will go, Kate, even if I have to carry you away myself and I'm bloody well capable of that. Now go, get your clothes and be quick with it.'

Kate said nothing. Then she nodded and quickly climbed the stairs.

‘What will happen to you, sir?' Mother O'Connor asked the captain.

‘I don't know. I have thought it all out so carefully, every little detail except for this, the final bit. Perhaps, inside me, I never thought it would come this far, that I'd never get to her in time. I'll probably tell them you tricked me or some such story, but they'll not believe me. So now I shall do what is expected of me, surrender to my sergeant and wait for my regiment to do what it must do. The punishment will be severe, perhaps even final. I'll not expect mercy, nor should I. But it doesn't matter now, it really doesn't. Once Kate is away and
Pegasus
is out of the Shannon I shall at last be at peace with myself and with my brother. The debt will have been paid. He will have been avenged and all the wickedness wiped clean from both of us.'

Mother O'Connor said nothing more. She crossed herself, reached for his hand and kissed it.

Tomás, hidden in the garret, heard it all. When Kate had gone he sat still, listening for any movement by the officer below. Then he heard him unlock and open the front door. From his window, he saw him hand his pistol and sword to the sergeant. Then they marched him away.

The horses were still tethered where he'd left them. He whipped the lead mare and cantered away, not caring if the clatter of hooves on the cobbles as he crossed John's Square wakened the constabulary. There was no one to stop him now. Soon he would be well away from the city and deep into the country he knew so well, there to find his brother and Daniel Coburn waiting in Rathkea. It was still some hours to dawn and he knew he had done well.

The tinker family in Rathkea brought them a jug of boiled tea and they drank it scalding hot. On the horizon, beyond the layer of heavy black clouds, a thin stream of sunlight caught the treetops that outlined the distant Bansha Woods.

‘Tell it again, Tomás. As you heard it.'

‘Mr Daniel, I've told you twice already.'

‘I want it again, word for word.'

‘The officer said it was called
Pegasus
, sailing from pier eighteen. I remember that clear enough.'

‘What time does the ship sail, Tomás?'

‘The officer didn't say a time. Just in the evening.'

‘Did Kate say anything when she left?'

‘Not a word.'

‘But you're certain she went for the ship?'

‘No, Mr Daniel, how can I be sure? But the officer said it had all been arranged. He said it was well planned and the English master would look after her.'

‘And the officer was marched away by his own men?'

‘Yes! I heard him tell my mother he would surrender to his regiment and that he would be punished. I saw them march him away under guard. I saw it clearly.'

‘Did he say why he did it?'

‘He said the English had killed his brother, but I couldn't make out what that was all about.'

‘Did you hear the officer's name?'

‘No. My mother was making such a fuss I couldn't listen properly.'

‘Tomás. Close your eyes. See the dark. Think back. Listen again.'

Tomás did as he was told. Coburn waited.

‘Think, Tomás. Listen to the voices'.

‘I'm trying sir. But it's all a jumble. I was scared. I thought they'd come up the stairs. I thought they'd have me.'

‘Ease yourself, Tomás. Slowly now. Remember. You are up the stairs, listening. The officer gives his name. Now, give me the name.'

Tomás pressed the palms of his hands hard over his eyes, slowly rocking his head from side to side.

Then, ‘It's coming, Mr Daniel. I think it's coming. I remember it sounded like … Kelly. Yes! That was it. It was Kelly.'

‘Tomás. No! Think again. Would an English officer have a name like Kelly?'

‘Well that's what it sounded like. Or was it …?'

‘Shelley?'

‘Shelley? Christ! That's the one, Mr Daniel. That's the one for sure. It was Shelley. No mistaking.'

‘Thank you, Tomás. Now I understand. Now it makes sense. Captain Shelley joined the boys some years back and the English outlawed him as a traitor. When the boys raided the depot at Kinvara, the Redcoats were waiting. It was a trap. They killed the lot of them. It was Martineau that planned it.'

‘The one we hanged?'

‘Yes, Tomás. The one we hanged.'

He raised himself slowly onto his elbows. ‘Declan, get me to that ship. Get me to the
Pegasus
.'

‘You dared not go to Limerick.'

‘I know that. Find another way. There must be another way.'

‘There is only one other way, Mr Daniel.'

‘Tell me, Declan.'

‘There are the hookers, the sailing boats that bring the river pilots off the ships mid-channel of the Shannon, close to Inis Cathaigh'

‘Where's that?'

‘The English call it Scattery Island, off the Clare coast.'

‘Declan, this is nonsense.
Pegasus
leaves Limerick this evening and Clare is days away. I'll have bled myself dry with Kate already out in the Atlantic.'

‘I know that well enough, Mr Daniel. But when the sky's as black as it is now and with a southerly wind blowing, the pilot boats will tie up on the Kerry shore. They leave their moorings a good two hours before the ships come level.'

‘How do we get on to a pilot boat?'

‘I've done it before, Mr Daniel. It's a way of getting certain people out, people who wouldn't dare leave under the eyes of the English in Limerick.'

‘How far must we go?'

‘Near to Ballylongford, about fifty miles from here, maybe more, and it's rough going, sir.'

‘Then that's where we go, Declan, now!'

‘But if your bleeding starts again, Mr Daniel, how far can you ride?'

‘Never mind. I'll make it, Declan. Just get me to it.'

‘I will, sir. I will get you there.'

Father Kenyon arrived with oatcakes, a fresh bundle of moss and a small bottle of laudanum.

‘This is goodbye then, Daniel. Did we ever think it could end like this?'

‘No, Father. We once dreamt of a different ending. Can you tell me why it had to be this way?'

‘No, I cannot. Nor can any one of us. But everything that is done is done for a reason, whether men realise it or not.'

‘Even the famine?'

‘Even the famine. There is a purpose, Daniel, somewhere there is always a purpose, though I do not pretend to know what it is. Each time I anoint a dying child, or give my blessing to a good and decent man dying, I ask God, “Why?” And He never answers. It is the greatest test of my faith.'

‘Faith in a God that condemns us to this. No, Father. We are abandoned people, as helpless as thistledown in the wind.'

‘But how is that, Daniel, since thistledown's purpose is to carry its seed? All we can do is to wait for the seed to settle and prosper.'

‘You hoped it was me.'

‘Yes! We hoped it was you.'

‘Must I blame myself?'

‘There is no blame.'

‘It was the people who betrayed us.'

‘Nonsense,' said the priest. ‘Who are you to condemn them? Shouldn't we have known that a belly empty of food has no fight in it either?'

‘We came to them too late.'

‘Or maybe too early.'

‘This was not the moment to turn history and I was blind to it.'

‘Oh, Daniel! Why are men so severe with themselves? Like two sides of a coin, always at odds. Comfort yourself. You were not cast as the Great Patriot. You are a fighter and we know that the great men sit at the rear. You must now let others do the fighting and the dying.'

‘You were ever the optimist, Father.'

‘Yes! Daniel. Optimism and faith. They live together.‘

‘God grant you survive.'

‘We will. We shall survive the famine, we will outlive the fever and finally outrun the English. One day they'll be gone and we will still be here and our children will live to see our land prosper. Have no fear. This is not the end by any means. The winner will always be he who refuses to lose. And remember my words, remember them when you think of us. Never regret what is gone, Daniel. The past is just a prologue.'

‘I will remember, Father. They are wise words'.

Father Kenyon knelt by Coburn's side, leant down and kissed his forehead. Then he went quickly to the door, turned and crossed himself.

‘God speed you to the New World, Daniel, and take the love of Ireland with you.'