Ossian's Ride (13 page)

She took me by the hands. “This is the way of it. Me heart tells me that everything between the two of us is wrong; it was all wrong from the first day.” Impulsively she kissed me. “I won’t be forgetting you, Thomas Sherwood, I shall not be forgetting what you did for me back there in the hills.”

The capricious mist was down again. In a flash she had darted away and was hidden with an agonizing swiftness. I raced after her but I was too late. I called her name but my voice was choked by the white wall.

With tears in my eyes, I continued to shout her name, running the while in the direction she had gone. Then of an instant I saw that she had the rights of the matter, and like an automaton I turned back toward the east, back in the direction we had come from. A few moments before, we had passed this way together.

The mist was now swirling in patches. Once I had a clear view to the west and thought I could see Cathleen. But I did not turn again, for the case was plainly hopeless. She had the right when she said that everything between us was wrong. On the literal plane I had still thrown away her brother’s estate—his wretched manuscript—and I had made no immediate move to save her from the torture of the canon. Back in the hills, the trumpets of Florestan had sounded too late.

Bitterly, I saw that a consistent pattern runs through all the great love stories. The heroine must never be allowed to suffer physical distress; above all the hero must be quite inept. If Orpheus hadn’t been an inept ass, if he had recovered his Eurydice, who would have had the slightest interest in their continued marital bliss? Consider the simplicity of good solid muscle men like Naisi and Tristram, tricked by the most transparent devices. Sorrowfully, I realized that my talents were more suited to the city page of the
Times
than to literature or grand opera.

Less remote ideas were crowding into my head. In response to them I put on the most tremendous pace as I ran downhill to the northeast. The sun and wind were fast dissolving the last of the mists.

I heard the helicopter while it was still some way oft. I found a space between two boulders and dived into the heather face down. With the lifting of the mist, the pilot was able to come quite low. The noise of his engines rose and fell consistently. I realized that he was systematically sweeping the moor strip by strip.

An intense roar made it plain that the fellow must be hovering almost overhead like some gigantic hawk. I made not the slightest movement. My rough clothing would blend with the heather. Reason told me that my camouflage was excellent. Emotion told me that I would stand out like a sore thumb.

The helicopter moved steadily toward the west. Now I could hear more noises and I knew that there must be more than one of the darned things at work. At length I heard distant shouts and paradoxically I felt a fierce elation. For at last I knew I was dealing with an opponent who was both clever and rational. This was not an organization of bunglers like poor Papa Parsonage. It was not an organization that could be fooled by a pinch of magnesium powder or destroyed by a pint or two of petrol.

The I.C.E. plan was clever and straightforward. As soon as the mist cleared a fleet of helicopters had landed a squad of men who were now scouring the mountainside. The helicopters in the meantime were again aloft and were presumably in communication by radio telephone with the search party. If I attempted to move I would surely be seen from the air and the ground forces would instantly be instructed to pick me up, or off.

Yet the odds were pretty even. It isn’t easy to search ten square miles or more of rough ground. And I had one enormous psychological advantage, for I must be outside the main area of the search. From the moment I had reached the eastern slope of the mountain I must have been hidden from the radar scan, and my very swift movement down the eastern flank must be unknown to the searchers. It was rather like looking for a small object in long grass—it becomes very difficult to discover if it lies not quite where one expects.

I lay still and silent, hour by hour, in a dull afternoon sun. Many times I heard voices, and twice there was the sound of boots scraping over the rocks. Probably their owners were at least a hundred yards off, but I could have sworn they were nearer. I did not look up, or behind, as Orpheus would assuredly have done. Cathleen must be caught by now in this finely spun web. I wondered how much she would tell them; probably not too much.

Slowly the day wore on to its close. The light was failing and at last it seemed safe to move. But beyond easing my aching muscles I did not shift from the safe position between the boulders. And it was as well that I maintained caution to the end, for a helicopter came over yet once more, using the very last of the twilight. It was brought home to me that I was dealing not only with a clever and powerful opponent, but with one that was implacable and entirely unrelenting.

The events of the afternoon had settled a point that had given me cause for worry earlier on. I could not understand why the frontier of I.C.E. territory was so poorly guarded. I had expected to encounter trouble even ten miles or more back from the border. But now I knew why it was made to look so easy: to encourage the unwary into an impossible position. Luck and the mist had saved me.

The advantage lay on my side, however, for I was moving back into practically unguarded country. A forced march through the night would put me beyond the range of the frontier patrols, or at least so I hoped.

The hours of confinement between the boulders had provided an excellent opportunity for putting in some serious thought on this matter of I.C.E. There were three possibilities: to attempt to sneak through the wild areas of moor and mountain; to use the main routes, depending on bluff and trickery; to attack from the sea. I had now satisfied myself that the first alternative was difficult almost to the point of impossibility. Nor had I any confidence in the second. From all I had seen and heard of I.C.E. it was plain that this particular alternative should be tried only as a last desperate gamble.

So by a process of elimination it followed that I must now explore the chance of a seaward landing into the forbidden area. This at least had the advantage that there was no uncertainty about my next move. I must drive as fast as possible to the northeast, then to the north, swing around Limerick and turn lastly to the west, to the coast of Clare somewhere in the region of Kilkee. There I could contact certain of our agents among the fishermen, agents whose names I had noticed in Colquhoun’s notebook.

But all this was still very much in the future. For the present I had a long night’s tramp ahead, which was not to be made any more pleasant by the thin, cold rain that started about nine o’clock. I will not attempt to describe the hours of slow walking, again by compass, for there was no moon or stars. It was essential to proceed with great caution. Several times I had to make detours to avoid extensive areas of soft bog. By daybreak I was still five miles or more to the southwest of Mallow.

I was sorely tempted to continue into the town, as I was now in great need of a hot meal. But this would manifestly be the height of stupidity. My boots and trousers carried certain evidence that I had just crossed the mountains and the marshes. And Mallow would be the first place where they would look for me, if indeed they were looking for me.

Soon I was to find that a search was being prosecuted with great thoroughness. A mile away I gained an extensive view of the main Dublin road, the road that Cathleen and I had driven along two days before. I had not watched for more than a few minutes before I saw that patrols were active everywhere. Cars and buses were being stopped. Every passer-by was being questioned. Possibly I could have crossed the road successfully, but the risk did not seem worth taking. The alternative was to lie up until dark.

My guess is that the search had nothing to do with I.C.E. directly. What presumably had happened with that I.C.E. had contacted the ordinary police, and the police were determined to make a real show of their efficiency.

The day was worse than unpleasant. The rain became heavy and continuous, I had little food left, and I was stiff and cold. Perhaps I should have continued with Cathleen. Perhaps I should have made a genuine offer of my services to I.C.E.

But if I’d taken a job with I.C.E. I would really have been morally bound to drop the whole business, and this I was not prepared to do. It was the intellectual problem, the problem of finding out just what it was that made I.C.E. tick, that was really driving me along. It was the determination to solve this problem that hardened me to withstand the unrelieved misery of the day and of the following night.

The road was crossed safely once darkness had fallen. At first I intended to continue right through until dawn, but a strong cold wind went a long way toward knocking the stuffing out of me. I also crossed the northern road from Cork to Limerick at a point about equidistant between Mallow and Buttevant. About a mile to the west of Doneraile I stumbled on a stretch of woodland. The partial shelter from the wind tempted me to stop for the remainder of the night, it being then nearly three of an appalling summer morning. In a hollow, well sheltered by trees, I built as large a fire as I dared.

Outside the glow of the fire there was unrelenting blackness. The police, or some curious farmer, or the devil himself for that matter, might be lurking out there preparing to seize me. The wind, shrieking in the trees, sounded like the cries of the damned, and I was insistently reminded that two nights previously I had killed three men.

The rain began heavily again with the coming of dawn. Without food I started out north toward the Ballyhoura Hills. I made no great pace as I struggled over the rough bog. It was well past midday by the time I reached the maze of small roads to the south of Kilmallock. Come what may, I was determined to seek the shelter of some wayside farm.

I had once decided that the right thing to do was to travel through Ireland like a tinker. Now I looked a tinker: wet, grimy, smeared with bog, unkempt. In truth the downpour was now to my advantage, for it provided some excuse for my appearance.

It must have been nigh on three o’clock when I came upon just the right sort of place, near a crossroads.

“Ah!” exclaimed the woman who answered the door, “and it’s yourself that looks as if you’d rolled the way through the bog from Kilfinnane.”

“My car broke down up on Ballyhourn. I tried to put it right and got all dirty, I’m afraid.”

She showed me to a small bedroom. The rain was beating a perpetual cannonade on the window.

“And have you no other clothes to put on while your things are dried?”

“I traveled all through the night, Mrs. O’Callaghan, and I’m pretty tired. So I’d be glad of a rest until suppertime. Could you dry my things before then, do you think?”

“By the saints, it’s a wonder that you young people do not all come to grief and disaster. But I’ll send Paddy up to fetch your clothes in a few minutes’ time.”

Since she took me for a scatterbrain I decided to play in character.

“I forgot my razor when I left Dublin, and I’ve had so much trouble with the old car that I haven’t thought about anything else.”

“So it’s a razor you want to borrow. Well, take good care you do not mistake it for your necktie.” And she went out with a chuckle.

Quickly I slipped the money out of my trousers and hid it between the blankets, where no doubt it would dry out during the night. It took but a few moments to strip down. Paddy, evidently the husband, collected my dripping garments—is there anything more repulsive than dripping clothes? He left shaving soap, brush and a cutthroat razor. I washed and shaved most gingerly. I was asleep almost before I tumbled into bed.

No more than a second later, it seemed, Paddy was knocking to say that he had brought my clothes and that supper would be ready in a short while.

How good it was to put on warm, dry clothes again. I made the bed carefully because of the money before I went downstairs. A shock awaited me, for it was soon apparent that I had chanced not only on a farm, but on a boarding-house. There were other guests. One indeed was in the hall, taking off oilskins and depositing fishing tackle. He was a small, stocky, humorous-looking man. And he was dressed as a canon of the Church of Ireland.

All the guests sat down to supper together: the canon, his wife and two children, two rather silent young women schoolteachers and myself.

When the introductions were made I claimed to be a research student in mathematics from Trinity, Dublin not Cambridge. There was no other alternative, for by now it would be nearly hopeless to maintain that I was from England. My accent was an obvious difficulty, but I dealt with this problem by remarking that I had chosen Dublin as a place of study to make easier my intended entry into the services of I.C.E.

The danger of this tactic was that the canon would almost certainly turn out to be a Trinity man himself, and he might trip me with some quite innocently intended question. I deliberately accepted the risk, however, because later on it was possible that I would be obliged to tell the same story to a more searching audience.

But this consideration was irrelevant, for no sooner did I mention I.C.E. than the canon climbed upon a hobbyhorse.

“I would ask you to think very carefully indeed before you take such a step,” said he.

I was a little startled by this remark: it was far too reminiscent of the false canon. I took exactly the same line as before, saying that I saw nothing amiss with the activities of I.C.E. But now I received a far more coherent reply.

“Thirty years ago a great world war was fought. And it was fought to suppress just such a regime in Germany as we have here today in Ireland.”

“There may be a parallel, sir, between the two cases, but if so I’m afraid it doesn’t seem very obvious.”