No Country: A Novel (8 page)

All this while, Fergus Murphy had been readying Blackburn as he spoke to me in a rapid whisper. He pulled out a small hip-bottle and poured it on the body, and on his groin, as if he had pissed himself. There was a strong smell of whiskey. “That will buy you more time—for who’ll care about another poor drunk Irish,” he said. “Now we’ll go out together, and turn right. Ignore the Ha’Penny Bridge. Go on to the next big one. Walk with me, neither fast nor slow.”

When we reached the broad bridge, he said to me, “Cross the bridge and go right. Keep going until you see the lighthouse. Go around it towards the left. You’ll see the ship-masts by then. Do not go too early or too late.”

“Why are you helping me?” I asked hoarsely.

“There’s nobody else. And we’re Irish, ye daft fool,” said Fergus with a small smile.

“I had meant only to frighten him away,” I muttered, almost to myself.

“Aye, I know,” he said, “but ’tis done.” I began to walk away.

“Padraig,” he whispered, and I looked back.

“You’re Alexander Blackburn now. Remember that.” Fergus whispered sternly, “Keep your wits about ye, lad. Do not write or send word to anyone at all. Remember that!”

I nodded quietly.

“Never talk about this, no matter how you’re tempted.” Fergus Murphy walked away around the corner while I waited quietly in the night. His footsteps stopped.

“Padraig?” he called out. I remained silent.

He chuckled softly. “Mr. Alexander Blackburn,” he whispered.

“Aye?” I replied.

“Na gearradh do theanga do sgornach,”
he whispered. Then I heard him walking warily back into the heart of Dublin. I walked in the other direction till I was close to the harbour and lurked in the recess of a doorway, out of sight, waiting for the dawn.

•  •  •

T
HE QUAY WAS
raucous with people, chandlers overseeing the loading and baling, men hunchbacked under grain-sacks and boxes hauled up a wide gangplank. No one took any notice of me. Officers stood by in uniform, for this was the East India Company ship. Little matter, I thought to myself, it may be any company in the world. All I cared was that it carried Mr. Alexander Blackburn to Liverpool, where once on shore, he would disappear in the crowd. Lost for a few days and this Company ship gone, Padraig Aherne would use his mother’s shillings and buy a passage, if not to Sligo itself, then to Wexford, or Galway, and walk back home, determined to forget this part of his life.

The loading of the food and materials were done. The chandlers
had filled much of the hold. I understood from their conversation that more recruits were expected when we docked. Someone in the crowd laughed and mentioned that O’Connell was in the hands of Peel’s men. Obedience to disband the meeting notwithstanding, the English were about clapping him in irons and dragging him for a monkey trial in London itself. I listened wearily and made no show of emotion.

A middle-aged man with a sheet of paper and a dangling pince-nez came over, calling out names. A bleak sun was rising. I had had neither food nor draught of water since last night, and my head throbbed with every beat of my heart. I heard one name that sounded familiar.

“Alexander Blackburn.”

I looked around, momentarily expecting to see that young man stride up. Instead the man with the pince-nez continued to look about impatiently. I stepped up, my shoes beginning to pinch suddenly, and stood before him.

“Alexander Blackburn? Why didn’t you speak up, man?” he scowled, “we’re late as it is. Get your uniform on your way in.”

From a table in front of him, a sailor handed me a bundle. As I walked up the gangplank, I could now see the harbour entire. Anchored beside us were a large number of navy ships, Union Jacks flying. Many of these were now weighing anchor, preparing to set sail. From the chatter on deck, I gathered that because of O’Connell’s meeting at Clontarf and the dread of open rebellion all across Ireland, the English had barricaded the harbour and poured Dublin full of troops. The great uprising having fizzled, the troops and the ships were pulling away.

This very ship had been delayed for days, and Alexander Blackburn, who came down to join the Company ship, had had to cool his heels in Dublin Town. So Alexander Blackburn and
Padraig Aherne had chanced to meet, thanks to the great Daniel O’Connell himself.

The sea outside Dublin was glinty in the sun, its port far grander than our Sligo. I tried not to stare or draw attention to myself in any way. ’Twas midday already. In Dublin they surely had, by now, found a young man dead by a doorstep, smelling of whiskey. Alexander Blackburn was on his ship, his name marked present on the roster. The secret was safe, for now. Fergus Murphy had given me good advice.

Na gearradh do theanga do sgornach
. Don’t let your tongue cut your throat . . . That is what happened to Blackburn, I thought grimly. I would mind mine.

•  •  •

I
COULD SEE
the receding top of the Dublin lighthouse, a white finger with a red tip. Sailors climbed barefoot, nimbly among a myriad ropes that hung overhead, tugging some, loosening others, shaking out sails. A red-faced fellow stood on the higher of two decks. Shading his eyes with one large hand, he was directing the operations with the other, occasionally shouting a word or two in a hoarse volley.

“Aye-aye, Captain,” the men among the ropes called back to him time and again, and “Yes sir, Mr. Connolly.” So this was Mr. Connolly—an Irish captain in authority, no less. I observed him carefully and with respect.

The flag of the East India Company tossed and snapped in the breeze high above—red and white horizontal stripes with a blood-red cross on its corner, close to the masthead. I could now feel the lurch of speed as the willing vessel urged forward.

Evening fell, and a variety of lanterns were strung up in different
parts of the deck. The men up in the riggings had now climbed down; they were coppery, long hair in braids, black paint on their eyelids and rings in their ears. They wore no uniform, I marveled. I had never seen men like these.

“ ’Tis your maiden voyage then?” The voice behind me was Irish and friendly-like. “This is my second voyage.” added the young man with pale brown hair with pride. “My name is Hanratty.”

Mindful of Fergus’s words, I replied briefly, “Blackburn.”

“Those are the sailors from the Indies, Muslims and Malays from India, Madagascar and Penang. They drink from their own barrel of water and eat their own food.” Hanratty wanted to show off his acquaintance with the ship and its manners. “They speak their own tongues, but our Mr. Connolly makes himself understood,” he said with awe. “He is a County Cork man and a right seasoned salt. Hindu or Malay or any man from the East Indies, no matter, he can speak their jabber.”

Hanratty was happy to talk on, “These brown fellows—the lascars—they are hardy, no matter how ugly the waves.”

All night the big deck shivered and swayed as the great Indiaman swooped and rose, headed for Liverpool.

I felt exuberant, in spite of myself. Perhaps, having lived by the frothing sea for so long, I had sea legs all along and just did not know it. Overhead the skies were scarred with racing clouds and no stars. I even remembered Mr. O’Flaherty’s classroom Latin: No star:
dis-aster
. But stars or no, Mr. Connolly knew the way to Liverpool. Then at this moment, I realized that I had not retrieved my mother’s shillings when I had hurriedly exchanged my coat for Blackburn’s. I had not a groat with me for my journey back to Mullaghmore.

Ach, I will find some way once I am on dry land!
I thought.

I planned to wear Blackburn’s clothes under the Company’s uniform—which in any case was baggy and hung about me. Once on shore, I would moult from these garments and become Padraig Aherne again. Nothing would keep me from going home.

•  •  •

W
HEN THE NEW
recruits had come to our part of the hold, we were shown where our respective trunks, which each one had sent ahead, were heaped. I waited till the others had hauled theirs to their own corners to see the last one: a small trunk marked
A.B.
I had to shake the idea of dead Blackburn watching me, but there was no help for it. I decided to retrieve “my” trunk, otherwise it would be odd indeed. It had a simple padlock. I put the trunk away, but at night I prised it open with a boathook. Inside were some shirts, two pairs of trousers, two novels, one by Mr. Fielding and the other by Mr. Sterne, and a number of embroidered handkerchiefs. Underneath these was a small oval portrait of a handsome lady of mature years, probably his mother. I felt a stab of grief for the obdurate young man and unexpected sorrow for this unknown lady. Then I thought, perhaps she is dead. But I knew I was trying to find ways to ease my burden. I dropped the portrait in the waters, unable to look at it again.

Tormented, I lay on the unfamiliar hummock among other swaying bodies. I thought of Brendan, who was surely reading into the night, as was his wont, as long as his tallow candle would not sputter out. He could never imagine what I had lived through in the last two weeks—well, in the last one day. As I grew drowsy in the sway of the ship, I thought of Brigid and our last kiss. Had
she returned to Mullaghmore? Then I recalled the trickle of blood on the pavement, and Blackburn lying dead, and became stark awake, throat dry, heart pulsing. I stifled my groan.

I could not tell when I fell asleep but woke with a mighty start and went on deck. A recruit was screaming, shaking off some that tried to restrain him. But the fellow was strong, flailing his hands and legs, and his mates fell thick and fast around him. A door burst open in the upper deck. Mr. Connolly seemed to fly down the steps.

“Tell me it ain’t so,” screamed the recruit. “I just heard we are not to stop in at Liverpool. My mother is coming to meet me there. Dammit, why go to London port direct?”

Mr. Connolly brought his hand down, and the riding crop crackled across the recruit’s face. A red slash appeared instantly on his inflamed cheek, tearing his lip down to his chin. He drew his breath in surprise and his palms came up to protect his eyes. Mr. Connolly struck him again. He fell on the deck with a wheezing cry. Mr. Connolly stood over him.

“What’s yer name, man?”

“Blegg, sir,” he mumbled through his bleeding mouth. “Walter Blegg.”

“Then listen, Blegg,” said Mr. Connolly. “Listen well, all of ye,” he added, raising his voice. “This is my ship and I command it. I answer to the Honourable East India Company and to God, in that order. No one else. I decide where we anchor. Your ma will have to forgo the pleasure of feeding her pap to you, Blegg. But first ye’ll be whipped at the mast, ye screaming monkey.” Blegg had pissed his pants, gaping with undisguised terror at the lascars standing like shadows. One of these, his long hair tied in a black kerchief above glinting earrings, smiled openly in anticipation.

I never thought I’d live to see it, my heart’s blood pounding in
my head: An Englishman was being tied to the thick mast by the command of an Irishman, whipped by a black man in full sight under a blue sky on a swift sea. I had traveled to a different world altogether. But if I were to escape and go home, where was I to do this—now that we were not to stop at Liverpool?

I could not take my eyes from the whipping, as if commanded by some dread magic. The crimson drops flew as the man deftly swung the many-stringed knotted flail. One bead settled upon my shirt, but I knew if I tried to brush it off, I would only smear it worse. It was the second time in these last few days that I’d had blood on me, Irish and English, though none of my seeking. Yet how ironic, green and eager as I was when I walked towards Clontarf and the great meeting which never was, I had been that enamoured of the idea of spilling English blood. Now I felt unable and unwilling to tell the difference.

No matter what Fergus had said, I would someday tell all this to my mother. She would understand, as nobody, not Brigid—not even Brendan—ever could. I missed her sorely, to the point of heartbreak.

•  •  •

O
N THE THIRD
night, I dreamt that under my hammock was a gathering pool of blood, and I could see the last tremor of Blackburn’s hands. I dragged myself through the following day in a stupor. In all my daydreams of glory, shed blood had the bright colours of a printed page, but the killing of Blackburn weighed me down in a manner I had never imagined. Not once did I long for a kneeling confession in our weekly church and Father Conlon’s absolution. I needed something else, but could not name it.

The following night when I lay down, I did not know what joy
and despair was to assail me. Some fickle god was at his game. I had taken my shoes off and tucked them next to my head, when I heard something shift in one of the heels. Cautiously, I looked around, but everyone was asleep; some were snoring. I took the shoe and looked closely. ’Twas well-made, with a pewter buckle, compact and with a good heel. On an impulse, I twisted the heel. As it slid open, something fell on my chest, and I put my palm down to hide it, pretending to turn in my sleep. After a moment, I looked down and found it was a gold guinea! I wanted to shout about my Irish luck, but clenched one fist in another, a-quiver with excitement.

When I had control of myself, I twisted open the heel again and there were two more, wadded in cotton. I counted them in the darkness, with my blind palms and fingers. One two three, one two three.
Aaah.
Now it was the turn for the other shoe. Again, the heel slid open at a twist, though it was not easy; it was well made. Another three coins. A sum of six. This was a great amount, no one needed to tell me. Now I need have no worry for my journey back. This was also an amount for which anyone on this ship would kill Alexander Blackburn for the second time in his young life. I hid my coins where I had found them. How easily I called them
my coins
now!

By the time we came on deck, morning had broken. The English land lay to our left like a low cloud. There were clouds aplenty above us, great piles of slate, promising a drizzle. They said that this part of England gets sodden for days. We wandered about the deck, munching our bread, and saw a number of large and smaller ships lying at anchor. I wondered impatiently when we would get ashore. Some of the crew had already spied bedraggled creatures along the quayside, brazenly waving to them. I saw that
one of them had an open Oriental fan in her hand, like a full deck of cards—and she fanned herself, while touching her bared breast with the other.