Ossian's Ride (16 page)

I could not restrain a cry of astonishment. The object Colquhoun held in his hand was a portion of a watch. The metal had partially melted, but an imprint of a crown could still be distinguished. Colquhoun clicked his tongue in a deprecating fashion.

“What would you do without your nursemaid, little feller?” he said. “I had to remove the metal frame of a rucksack from that fire, one that was made in England. The guards might have been a wee bit curious about that rucksack.”

He roared with laughter, for I suppose I looked uncommonly like a stuck pig.

“But ...” I began.

“How did I find out? Your young lady friend, of course, Mr. Know-it-all. She got in touch with me after that business back at Longford. Unfortunately she wouldn’t wait to have me join her before she was after trying to hit Houseman for six, and got herself caught for her pains. I had to follow on several days behind, but I kept your trail all right.”

“Did you expect me to head in this direction?”

“Don’t flatter yourself that I’m consumed with interest about what you may be doing, although I’ll allow that I’m a bit curious to know how you managed to split that feller’s headpiece.”

“And I suppose you know what happened to Cathleen?”

“She’s gone to take her brother’s place behind the barrier. And would there be anything else you might want to know, me infant prodigy?”

Was this possible? Did these people spend the whole of their lives living some part or other?

“I suppose you’re trying to pull together the remnants of your scattered organization?” I asked.

“And by what mighty mental process did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“I didn’t, I’m asking.”

“Then you may ask.”

I moved over to the car, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The engine isn’t firing properly.”

“I’ll bet it isn’t, and not only the engine if you ask me.”

“I’m not asking,” grunted Colquhoun, waggling his spanner in a hopeless fashion.

I got to work on the machine. Some minutes later I straightened my back, now rather stiff from the rowing, and said, “It’s no use, your voltage regulator has gone.”

“What does that mean, Jacko?”

“It means that you’ll have to get a new one and get your battery charged; it’s hopelessly flat. And it means you’ll have to walk. Got any dry socks?”

“What should I be wanting dry socks for?”

“You’re not, it’s me that’s wanting ’em.”

Colquhoun complained so strenuously throughout the walk into Kilkee that his sentiments became quite contagious. In spite of the socks, I was quite tired by the time we arrived there. During the last mile or so my companion became silent, however. With complete assurance he strode into the little fishing port. Although to my eye an incongruous figure, he seemed to attract no notice as we walked through the groups of men and animals that thronged the streets. An occasional lorry or car hooted its way through the melee. This was plainly the Ireland of old. Only a few miles to the south, across the estuary of the Shannon, lay the most modern industrial development that the world had yet seen.

Colquhoun turned down a side street, took a crooked path to avoid dogs lying on the pavement, and stepped inside an open door. Although I didn’t realize it explicitly, I must have allowed him to take the lead, for I followed him without question. It never occurred to me that the guards might be waiting for us.

They were not, but our entrance into the house nevertheless had a small touch of drama about it. A powerfully built, dark-haired young fellow, obviously a fisherman, was at a very late breakfast. A good-looking girl seemed busily engaged at a fireside oven. We were greeted with looks that might possibly be translated into these words: “The past is back to haunt us. Dear God, must we go on being persecuted forever just because we were once foolish enough to make a small wee mistake?” Manifestly, Colquhoun and I were not welcome.

I took no immediate part in the following conversation, which at the same time proved to be both animated and disjointed. Stripped of the unnecessary verbiage that appeared to be inseparable from any talk with Colquhoun, the situation was plainly that Mike and Mary O’Dwyer—husband and wife—had worked for Colquhoun in the past, but now were anxious to break an embarrassing association. Indeed they had been hoping until our arrival that the connection had come to an end in a natural way with the disintegration of Colquhoun’s band. Colquhoun for his part was anxious to reforge his chain, and O’Dwyer was a necessary link, for it appeared that O’Dwyer was the acknowledged expert at getting agents into I.C.E. territory. In short, O’Dwyer was exactly my man.

It wasn’t difficult to understand O’Dwyer’s point of view. He owned his boat, and there was a ready market to the south for all the products of legitimate fishing. He could be entirely prosperous without risk. Indeed it was obscure why he had ever become involved with Colquhoun in the first place. Maybe that was how he came to own the boat, or maybe it was the excitement.

At all events, the excitement had no appeal now for O’Dwyer.

“I tell you it just cannot be done, Mr. Colquhoun,” he exclaimed repeatedly. “It’s not like the old days when I could take the boat into any beach or cove. Every place is now watched by electric waves. Even at night, the patrol boats are able to hunt down anybody who comes within five miles of the shore. And there are submarine nets across all the bays, so that underneath the water there is no way either.”

I thought it time to join in. “This is all true except in heavy weather. When the sea waves are high they reflect the radio transmission like a whole mass of little ships. Then it’s quite impossible to separate a true ship from the sea waves. That’s why an attempt from the sea is much more likely to succeed than one from the land—always provided it’s made in bad weather.”

“Is it that you’re supporting his argument?” exclaimed Colquhoun.

I felt that much more of this sort of remark would drive me straight to the madhouse, for one simply could not discuss any question with Colquhoun in a normal way.

“I’m not supporting and I’m not denying an argument,” I exclaimed with some exasperation. “I’m not concerned with argument. I’m
telling
you what the situation is.”

Mary O’Dwyer set an appetizing plateful in front of me, and I realized that at any rate a part of my irritation was probably due to hunger.

“Maybe what you say is right enough,” said Mike, drinking tea from a large mug between his words. “But who is to take a boat in heavy weather into such a coast? Nobody but a madman, I’m thinking.”

“Could you manage to carry a small motorboat without its being seen?” I asked.

“It might be done.”

“Then there’s one way in which the business could possibly be managed. Instead of carrying a passenger right in to the coast, you might set him down at sea in the motorboat, maybe four miles or so out. Then you would simply leave it to the passenger to find his own way safely.”

O’Dwyer looked curiously at me. “All very fine, except for one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“The sea. Do you know what bad weather on the Irish Coast is like? Two winters ago a lighthouse keeper was drowned, washed by a wave off the rocks at a place certainly 150 feet above the normal sea level.”

“Then we’re talking at cross-purposes. I’m not asking for a storm, with waves fifty feet or more in height. Waves of about fifteen feet would hide an ordinary fishing boat from the I.C.E. radar. Waves of as little as six feet would hide a small motor-boat.”

O’Dwyer was still not convinced.

“It would be very risky for a stranger in a small boat to attempt a night landing, even with the sea calm.”

“
You
wouldn’t be taking the risk.”

“That is true, but I see the danger. And where would I be getting the motorboats? Every time a new one would be needed.”

“That’s Colquhoun’s business. If he wants your help, he ought to supply the equipment.”

“And isn’t it nice,” Colquhoun broke in, “for me to have me affairs all fixed and decided by a young cock sparrer? So I’m to supply the equipment, am I? And what are you going to supply, Mr. Smart-Wits?”

“I’m going to take the risk. If you’ll get the motorboat, and if Mike will take it on, I’ll undertake to see whether this business can be managed or not.”

“And now I know how a toy soldier gives his orders, just like little Mr. Twopence-Ha’penny here.”

I don’t often lose my temper, but now I quickly leaned across the table and banged the inner edge of Colquhoun’s plate with my fist. The plate rose, turned over in the air and deposited the food down the front of his suit.

“If you’d really like to learn how I split that fellow’s skull, I’d be happy to give a demonstration,” I said.

Colquhoun’s dislike of me was, I thought, the dislike of the professional for a cocky amateur. And he was smarting sufficiently under recent reverses to be glad of some showdown that he might hope to win, for I had no doubt he was pretty handy with a knife. But O’Dwyer gave him no chance.

“I’ll have no brawling in the house,” O’Dwyer roared. He was big and active enough to beat the daylights out of the pair of us, and I couldn’t help wondering why Colquhoun’s sudden appearance had disturbed him in the least degree. How does an Intelligence Service keep its agents?—through the fear of being denounced?

I stood up to go.

“Thank you very much for the meal, Mrs. O’Dwyer. I’m sorry I made such poor use of some of your food.”

“And where would Mr. Suck-and-Blow be going?”

“To buy a couple of pairs of socks,” I answered, biting back an obvious retort.

I bought the socks and a bag of apples, which I munched strolling about the pier looking over the fishing boats. Except for riding a real storm they appeared eminently seaworthy. There was a seat against the sea wall. Before I realized it I was asleep in the sun. A somewhat unkempt figure placidly snoozing would hardly excite any grave suspicion in the breasts of the local constabulary, not in this corner of Old Ireland, with its mingled scent of fish and horses.

I revived some three hours later, feeling that I needed to stick my head under a water tap. The first thing to do, I thought as I strolled back along the pier, was to get a job on one of these boats; not likely to be much difficulty in that, because there was a shortage of labor everywhere, so much was being absorbed by the industry to the south. Perhaps I should try O’Dwyer first. At least there’d be no danger of his giving me away to the police. In any case I must return to his home to pick up my things.

When I got back to the O’Dwyer home I found that Colquhoun had left—an indescribable relief, for I was really very tired indeed, what with only one proper night’s sleep in an extremely trying week. It worried me out of proportion that I couldn’t return the socks.

“Would you be needing a new hand, Mike?” I asked.

“And what would I give out about ye?”

“That I’m a student from Dublin, working on a summer job for a few weeks. Name, Thomas Sherwood.”

“How d’ye do, Tom me bhoy. Any experience?”

“Very little, I’m afraid; a few trips out from Bideford.”

“Well, well, that will not be unlike a student from Dublin,” he said with a chuckle.

“Old Slugeamus has a spare room where ye can sleep. Ye can trust him with the life of ye. I’ll be after showing you the way to his cottage.”

“Ah, he cannot go there,” objected Mary O’Dwyer. “They say the flies is as big as bees around his cottage.”

“Away with ye, woman. He’ll be as right as rain,” answered Mike.

Seamus McCarthy, known as “Old Slugeamus,” turned out to be a more or less permanent member of O’Dwyer’s crew, a fellow who managed to fish all night and drink all day in a most amazing fashion. At first I thought that he never slept, but later I discovered that even in sleep he did things to excess. When the weather was bad, he would often sleep the clock around, twice. His cottage was in indescribable confusion, a pulsating scene to which a vociferous parrot made due contribution. In the two weeks I spent at Kilkee I managed to get no more than a superficial semblance of order into the place. In any case I suspect that the task would have proved rather like painting the Forth Bridge: that a stage would have been reached where Slugeamus spread wreckage and destruction as fast as I was able to establish order. This stage was never reached, Slugeamus always being several orders of magnitude ahead of me.

In appearance he was fairly tall, stoutish, sandy-haired, with complexion to match. He wore a huge black sweater, rubber boots and a cap. I suppose he had a shirt too, but I never saw it, since the roll of the sweater came high on a short neck.

I must have made a great hit with him. One evening, in his cups, he produced a small waterproof canister.

“Taken from a stiff,” he announced proudly.

“Who, what, and where was this stiff?”

“Santa Maria, hear him talk, like a powerful great book. This feller was all swelled up by the sea, been bobbing and floating out there a dozen Masses, no less.”

“He means that the corpus had been afloat for nigh on two weeks,” translated O’Dwyer.

“Bobbing like a wee porpoise between the rocks,” agreed Slugeamus, “grampus-like.”

“And what was in the canister?” I asked.

“Aren’t we waiting to hear what the professor has to say?” This seemed a cue, so I managed to open up the thing. Inside was a small roll of paper. Written on it was a short cryptic message:

The only twin helices I could think of were the helices of the Crick-Watson theory of DNA. But why should a “corpus” be bobbing around the ocean carrying a message that related to the structure of nucleic acid? In any case the statement “Senses opposite” was obscure. This seemed to be just another of those minor mysteries of life that one is not destined to solve. But in thinking so I was wrong.