Shamrock Green (28 page)

Fran had been in Kaygan's company for two solid days. Kaygan was a blather and a bit of a show-off but he possessed a press card that allowed him to cross the lines without impediment and together they had spent the latter part of Sunday night in the Hudson guiding the brewer's dray, one that Charlie had supplied, around the town.

The drayman was utterly trustworthy, of course, and they had worked hard to clear all seven dumps of guns and ammunition. The two Clydesdale stallions in the shafts of the dray had strained against the loads that nestled under the tarpaulins, movement about the streets had been slow and the tour hadn't finished until the sun was up and the first platoons were beginning to assemble. Fran had handed over the arms to the deputy commandant of the Citizen Army and had headed back in the motor-car to Endicott Street to clear up his personal business and snatch a couple of hours' sleep.

The cash, in English banknotes, was housed in a scuffed black leather portmanteau. He would have left it in the account until last thing if Monday hadn't been a bank holiday.

In the flat high up in the Endicott Street tenement he had extracted thirty pounds from the twenty-eight hundred in the bag and had wrapped them in newspaper, and at ten thirty on Monday morning had left his eyrie for the last time, carrying nothing but the portmanteau and the packet of cash.

At the foot of the iron staircase, he had turned to the left and let himself into the room where Pauline and her babies slept. He had stepped over the sleepers on the floor and found Pauline on a mattress in the corner by the window, a baby in her arms – his baby, as it happened, not a cast-off. He had looked down into her blue eyes and touched her lips with his fingertips because he didn't want her to say anything. He had placed the package by her head and had kissed her, then, clutching the bag, had left Endicott Street for the last time.

It would be Tuesday afternoon or even Wednesday before Flanagan discovered that the Mercantile account had been cleaned out and was as empty as the priest-holes where he had stored the arms for the uprising. And by then he would be safe aboard the
Empress of India,
sixty or eighty miles out into the Atlantic, beyond even John James's reach.

On Monday the portmanteau full of cash had never left his sight. He kept it on his knee while Kaygan drove him round, leaned his notebook on it while he recorded the words and deeds of the men who mattered, slept with it for a pillow in the motor-car in the warm evening after the Post Office had been taken and Pearse had declared the republic. He even ate with it clenched between his knees in Rossiter's public house before he joined Kaygan in the newspaper office across the street from the castle, from which vantage point rebel snipers were making things hot for the British.

Fran was not stimulated by gunfire or the rumours of Citizen gains. He was excited by the words that formed in his head, for words would shape the events in which he was involved, words would separate him from all he had done and disengage him from all the women and the girls he had known in Ireland, Pauline and Sylvie among them. He had become so preoccupied with the voices in his head that he was almost indifferent to the outcome of the rebellion and suspected that something so spacious and sublime in concept would be reduced at the last to murderous pettiness.

Kaygan passed him the bottle.

Fran wiped the neck and drank. Whiskey had always helped sharpen his sense of reality. He drank again. Seated on a desk in the editor's room, away from the snipers at the front of the building, Kaygan chewed on a dead cigar and watched him anxiously. Kaygan was married with three daughters and a little garden villa on the Dormanside Road. He was a reliable political journalist and a stringer for several English newspapers. He had smooth cheeks and an aquiline nose and if he had been taller might have cut a handsome figure, Fran supposed.

Kaygan chewed on the cigar. ‘Don't go drinking it all now, Francis, since it is the last bottle we have, unless you're for raiding the Vinery or Patsy Dene's to top up the supply, and I've a fancy that half the citizens of our fair city will have got there before us.'

Fran took a final mouthful. ‘You're right, Kaygan. Besides, time I was on my way before my head splits with this noise. I can hardly hear myself think.'

‘Are we for the south side, for the canals?' Kaygan said. ‘I reckon that's where we'll find most activity.'

‘I'm headed for Watton's.'

‘Sperryhead?' Kaygan retrieved the bottle, corked it and put it inside his coat. ‘What's doing at Sperryhead that might be worthy of a line or two?'

‘If the British want a back door to the quays – I'm certain they will – they'll have to close off Sutter Street and the Sperryhead Road and isolate our positions this side of the river.'

‘Is that not clever now?' said Kaygan. ‘Would it be some Whitehall pundit who would be dreaming that up, or some general fresh from Flanders?'

‘What would you say, Kaygan?' Fran asked him.

‘I would say it was shrewd on somebody's part to occupy Watton's, that's what I would say. How many men are there, Francis? Have you any idea?'

‘Charlie expected fifty to turn out this morning.'

‘Citizen Army?'

‘Brotherhood of Erin.'

‘Ah, young McCulloch's stout brigade. How did they shake off damned old Daniel then? Did they screw him into a barrel?'

‘I think he went to the races,' Fran said.

There was a lull in the firing at the front of the building.

Kaygan raised an eyebrow enquiringly. ‘Tea-break?'

‘I doubt it,' Fran said. ‘Perhaps they've run out of ammo.'

‘Already?' Kaygan said. ‘I thought we delivered enough to storm Ypres, let alone the castle.'

As if to answer the journalist's question the lull was broken by a furious burst of rifle fire. The sound of shattering glass was followed by the boom of a shell exploding nearby. Kaygan clutched a hand to his heart, to the whiskey bottle in effect, and pulled a long face.

‘What the devil was that?' he said. ‘Surely the British can't have gunboats in the river already?'

‘Field gun,' Fran said.

Another bark and boom prompted the men to step hastily away from the window. ‘Holy Mother of God!' Kaygan said. ‘Should I wave my
carte blanche
at them, do you think?'

‘Wave your ding-dong at them if you like,' Fran said, ‘but I doubt if it'll serve much purpose.'

Kaygan did not smile. ‘So they've moved in artillery, have they?' he said. ‘Don't they care about Dublin?'

‘Did they ever care about Dublin?' Fran said. ‘Say farewell to the boys out front and let's get out of here. Are you coming to Sperryhead, or have you other fish to fry?'

‘Don't you have a wife down that way?'

‘Don't I have wives everywhere?' Fran said.

‘Will she conjure us up a bite of breakfast, do you think?'

‘I imagine she might,' Fran said and, pressing the portmanteau firmly to his chest, ducked out of the doorway and scuttled down the steep back staircase with Kaygan hard on his heels.

*   *   *

Schools were closed, no bread was to be had and there were no deliveries of milk or mail. Maeve cared not a fig about such inconveniences.

She struck out for Sutter Street at eight o'clock with the sack of potatoes that Jansis had lugged up from the cellar. She carried the sack on her shoulder and was forced to rest now and then which gave the neighbours an opportunity to question her.

‘What have you heard from that man o' your mother's?'

‘If you mean Mr Hagarty,' Maeve replied, ‘I have heard nothin' but the best of news.'

‘Is it true the volunteers have took the whole town?'

‘Aye, that's true,' Maeve said.

‘An' thousands o' Germanians have landed at Kingstown?'

‘True an' all, every word.'

She re-gripped the sack, slung it up. It thumped against her spine, almost knocking the breath out of her. It had been careless of Charlie not to take food into the warehouse. At least there were no snipers in Sperryhead Road yet, though Jansis said – and Jansis had been out very early – that down beyond the laneway a handful of British soldiers were marching up and down with rifles on their shoulders waiting for an officer to arrive.

‘I hear the cavalry's lined up for a charge at the Post Office?'

‘The lancers, aye,' Maeve said. ‘They've been told to spike everything that moves, startin' with the women and children.'

‘Have they really now?'

‘Aye, they really have,' Maeve lied, ‘really.'

She went on around the corner into Sutter Street where half a hundred angry warehouse employees had gathered outside the gates. They were arguing with her Uncle Charlie. To give himself stature and a view of the crowd Charlie had climbed up on one of the bales that formed part of the defences. Turk and a handful of other men in uniform, all armed to the teeth, stood outside the warehouse's sliding doors.

‘You can't keep us out, McCulloch. We work here.'

‘Aye, no work, no pay.'

‘You've a damned, blasted cheek raidin' Mr Watton's warehouse.'

‘We're not raidin' anywhere,' Charlie shouted. ‘Calm down.'

‘Calm down! Calm down, he says!'

‘Where's Mr Watton anyway?'

The crowd stirred and a few among them squinted suspiciously at Maeve as if they thought she might have Mr Watton hidden in her sack. She put the sack down, folded her arms and listened to the shouted questions.

‘Where's Mr Giles, where's Mr Ottway?'

‘Where's Mikey Lamb too?'

‘They'll be hidin' away from the trouble.'

‘Or fighting,' Charlie shouted. ‘Perhaps they've got more sense than you have an' they're out with the brigades fightin' for our cause.'

‘Our cause? By God, it's not our cause. I'm not for your daft rebellion.'

‘Nah, nor me.'

‘Don't you want to be rid of English oppression?' Charlie shouted. ‘Don't you want to rule your own destiny?'

‘I just want t' get paid.'

‘Me too, me too.'

Charlie made a gesture of disgust and spat on to the cobbles. ‘You sicken me, so you do. Call yourselves Irishmen. You're just toadies to the wage packet.'

‘It's all very well for you, McCulloch, you an' your bottled stout. You can afford for to play at soldiers wi'out your family starvin'.'

Her uncle was close to losing his temper. ‘You've no idea what sacrifices I've had to make to stand here before you.'

‘Bugger your sacrifices. Let us in, let us in.'

‘I'll let you in,' Charlie yelled, ‘only if you want to join us in the fight.'

A large woman, a year or two younger than Gran McCulloch, threw herself against the ironwork and screamed abuse at Charlie while the men around her shook and rattled the gates.

When the crowd surged forward Maeve was left behind. Lifting herself on tiptoe she heard the sound of gunfire in the sultry air. She tried to catch Charlie's eye, to signal that she had brought food and ask what she should do with it. But her uncle was preoccupied. He was howling at the mob now and dancing up and down like a little monkey on top of the bale, then he tripped, flailed his arms to regain his balance and toppled head-over-tail to the cobbles, the sombrero tipped over his eyes.

The big woman brayed with laughter and everyone brayed with laughter at her uncle's misfortune. Maeve couldn't stand to see Charlie being treated like a clown. She elbowed a path through the crowd.

‘What's wrong with you?' she cried. ‘Are you all bloody deaf?'

She slapped down the potato sack and plastered herself against the gates.

Charlie struggled to his feet, the sombrero hanging round his neck. Turk unholstered his big revolver and held it up like the starter of a foot race, the lanyard making a heavy elegant loop in the air. He looked grim, grim and heroic, Maeve thought, and she would not have wanted to cross him at that moment.

Maeve shouted, ‘Listen, listen. Can't you hear it?'

And, miraculously, the warehousemen, carters, cleaners and even the skittish young girls who did the invoicing listened because she, Maeve McCulloch, had told them to. Rifle fire had crackled throughout the night, of course, but they were listening now, all of them, to the boom of the big guns shelling the city.

Maeve shouted, ‘Do you know what that is? That's British soldiers blowin' up our town. Try tellin' them you just want to earn your pay.'

‘Who the hell is that girl?'

‘One o' the McCullochs.'

‘Is she right, though? Sure an' she is right?'

‘It is artillery. Is it comin' this way?'

‘I think maybe it might be.'

‘Where's Mr Watton? He should be here t' talk to them.'

‘He'll have run off to his big house in the country.'

‘Is that a fact?'

‘'Course it's a bloody fact. If you had a big house in the country, wouldn't you be runnin' off to it?'

‘The dirty coward!'

They dispersed quickly, breaking away from the railings until only a handful remained, stubborn and scowling. The big angry woman put a hand on Maeve's shoulder and pushed her back against the gate. Turk stuck the barrel of the revolver through the railings and in a quiet, Wexford voice said, ‘Lay a hand on her, missus, and you're dead.'

The big woman lifted her hand from Maeve's shoulder and held it up placatingly. ‘Sure an' you wouldn't shoot me, would you?'

‘By Gad I would,' Turk said, ‘if you come between me an' my breakfast.'

‘Is it food she's got in the sack?'

‘It is,' Turk said. ‘Now go home, missus, go back home an' look to your children. It'll be over soon enough.'

‘I need the work,' the woman said. ‘That's all it is – the work.'