When Shadows Fall (34 page)

And that was the end of the conversation, for Duffy promptly closed up his mouth in the presence of the two women.

Adam was restless. He simply had to know more, yet how?

At Kent Station in Cork City, he watched in dismay as Duffy bid him a slurred good-bye, gathered his suitcase, and waddled off onto the platform.

“Mr. Duffy!” He went after him.

“Mr. Bowen.” Duffy blinked. “Was there something else?”

“Not at all. But you forgot to take the office details. You know, for your little land problem.” Adam handed him a card with the firm’s name, address, and telephone number. “Call any time.”

“Ah. Thank you indeed, sir. I hope we’ll be in touch with each other very soon.”

Adam watched him go. “Me too, Mr. Duffy,” he murmured, “for I’d like to get to know you a whole lot more.”

There was a two hour wait in Kent Station for the connecting train to West Cork. A thunderous downpour drummed on the corrugated roof, and Adam withdrew into a deserted café where he was served some dubious tea and a soggy meat pie. For a time he stared through the window and watched the misty sheets of rain rolling over the tracks. A bell tower rang out somewhere in the city and the day darkened. He thought of Clinton Duffy, heading for his hotel with his clever plans in play.

Wiped out overnight.

Duffy was right. Without the funds that Collins was able to raise, the movement was finished. No money, no guns, no hope.

The connection to Bantry left behind schedule. The day was drifting towards bleak evening as the train chugged west over the Chetwynd Viaduct into sodden, shadowed countryside. Adam slumped inside the empty carriage, beginning to doze as darkness fell. Hours slid by. There was a lengthy delay when a herd of cattle broke a fence and strayed onto the tracks.

It was almost eight when a hand grasped his shoulder and shook him awake.

“Your stop, sir?” The attendant gestured outside to a tiny, barren platform. In the shaky lamplight, Adam made out a sign that read “Bantry.”

“Yes. Thank you.” He blinked a few times, yawned, and went to fetch his case.

Outside, the rain had eased but a bitter gale howled through the station. The lamps guided his way down a grassy path to a gate swinging noisily in the wind. A single car was parked opposite by a quay wall, its canvas hood closed and its engine running. Adam hesitated; the car’s lights flashed once and then a man climbed from the driver’s side.

He came forward a few paces and tipped his hat. “Adam Bowen? You’re late.”

“The
train
is late,” Adam corrected him.

“One hour and forty-two minutes, by my watch.”

“A scandal, to be sure. And you might be?”

“I’m Feeny. I’m under instruction to drive you out to your lodgings. Come on, get yourself out of the cold and hop in.”

The road took them to the northwest around Bantry Bay, the famed scenery of the region now invisible in the darkness. “It’s a farmhouse a few miles outside Glengarriff,” Feeny explained in his soft-tumbling West Cork accent. “The word from Dublin is that you’ll be training our lads?”

“That’s my understanding too,” Adam said.

“By Jesus, you’ll have your work cut out for you.”

The car bumped on the rutted roads as they negotiated several twists and turns, some of the tracks so narrow that the briars on each side scraped the panelling. They were on gradually rising hillside now. In this black countryside Adam doubted that Feeny could even know where he was going.

But eventually, after negotiating a few perilous stretches of cliffside, Feeny steered the car between two concrete gateposts and pulled up outside a farmhouse. The house was of cut stone and slate with a small shrub garden in front, looking oddly picturesque in the wildness of its environs. There were candles lighting in the windows and smoke billowed out of the chimney.

“Ah. They’ve waited up for you,” Feeny said.

“Who are these people anyway?” Adam asked him. “It would be nice to know whose hospitality I’m going to be imposing on.”

“Go in and introduce yourself.” Feeny turned the car and gestured for Adam to climb out. “See you soon, Bowen.”

As the car rumbled back out of the yard, Adam walked to the front door and knocked. The door opened into a well-lit hallway, and a bald man with thick, black whiskers peered at him in wonder.

“Ah, welcome,” he exclaimed. “It’s Adam, isn’t it? I’m Ambrose, Ambrose O’Dowd. We’d almost given up on you. Come in, come in.”

He ushered Adam into a large, beautifully furnished drawing room, a fire blazing in the hearth. The air was heady with turf smoke, but even more overpowering was the fragrant musk of perfume.

“My wife, Mrs. O’Dowd, and our twin daughters Deborah and Adele,” O’Dowd introduced them. “This is Mr. Bowen, who will be staying with us for a short while, as you know.”

For a moment Adam didn’t know who was who. There were three females sewing at the fireside, each of them auburn-haired, striking of face, and willowy of body. The three heads lifted to smile sweetly at him, though with a certain mischief in their eyes. He bowed.

“Ladies, a pleasure. Sorry about the late hour.”

“Mr. Bowen.” One of them rose from her embroidered armchair.

“Call me Adam.”

“Adam. You’re more than forgiven. And you must be hungry after your journey?” She had a fine, angular face and eyes of glittering green, and the graceful touch of maturity to her features made Adam realise that she must be the mother, though she had to be at least a decade younger than her husband.

“Thank you, Mrs. O’Dowd, but I’m perfectly all right. I’ve imposed myself enough in taking your bed—er, your guest bed.”

The twins glanced at each other and giggled. Adam felt his cheeks redden.

“Nonsense, Adam,” said Ambrose O’Dowd. “We’ve already eaten, but something hot can be rustled up for you. In the meantime, let me show you to your room.”

The room was high up in the loft, but it was warm and clean, and there was a chest of drawers in which to store his clothes. He could hear the wind whistling around the eaves, the barking of a dog on some distant farm. He removed his shoes and wristwatch and sat for a while on the bed, stiff from travel and his eyes heavy with tiredness. The straw bed was more comfortable than it first looked, enfolded in a thick patterned eiderdown, and he couldn’t help but lay back and rest his head on the pillow, feeling the aches and strains flow miraculously out of his body.

He must have dozed, for he didn’t hear at first the sound of feet clambering up the ladder, and when he opened his eyes fully he made out the silhouette of a slim, long-limbed body, dress belted round a narrow waist and hair tumbling over shapely shoulders.

“Huh?” was the only sound he could muster.

The girl stopped, turned, and whispered down the ladder. “He
is
awake. I told you.”

More feet scrabbled up the ladder. Adam sat up, groggy and confused.

“
I’ll
carry it.”

“No, I’ll carry it.”

“I had it first.”

“Well,
I
made it. Give it to me.”

They almost upended the supper tray in their eagerness. Two grinning faces appeared over his bed and Adam edged away.

“Whoa, thank you, I—there was no need, really.”

“There you go, Mr. Bowen,” one them said, boldly wresting the tray from her sister. “I made the soup.”

“And
I
made the sandwich,” declared the other.

They were about seventeen years, identical in every feature except that one was slightly taller than the other, and their bumptious energy made Adam nervous. “You’re very kind. Both of you. I’m afraid I don’t know who’s who.”

“I’m Adele!”

“I’m Deborah!”

The replies came simultaneously and he nodded. “Well, thank you, ladies. Please convey my gratitude to your parents once again.”

Adele was the taller girl, and she had a cocky glint in her eye as she draped one hand on her hip and regarded him. “Have you met Michael Collins?”

“Mick Collins? Yeah, a few times.”

They exchanged glances, impressed.

“Is he married?” asked Deborah.

“I don’t believe so.”

Now they were positively beaming. “Are
you
married?” Deborah asked him. “Only that Adele wanted to know.”

“No, I didn’t,” Adele hissed indignantly, giving her sister a cuff on the arm.

Heavy boots stomped up the ladder then. Ambrose O’Dowd emerged into the loft and snapped his fingers with a growl. “You two, out. Now. Let Mr. Bowen enjoy his meal.”

Glowering at each other, the two twins departed, and O’Dowd lit an oil lamp on a hook in the rafters. “The toilet is in the outhouse below. If there’s anything else you’ll be needing . . . ”

“Not at all. And I do appreciate this hospitality,” Adam said.

“Well, I admire what you’re doing, helping our people down here. And it’s going to take courage, for Britannia has left many bloody footprints in this land. But do you know what? The Englishman is a classic example of one who has the utmost faith in his own purpose and destiny, and as a consequence, he always overreaches himself and ends up toppling from his lofty perch. You remember that.”

He didn’t seem to require an answer, so Adam nodded politely.

“You’re going to train the local boys?” O’Dowd asked him. “That’s what has been said.”

“My duties should become clear soon enough.”

“I look forward to the day when you lead those boys into open battle. I have no doubt but you will emerge victorious.”

Adam gave him a wry smile. “Thanks. Your faith is cheering.”

“Don’t mention it.” O’Dowd patted his shoulder and then climbed back down the ladder.

Grateful for the peace at last, Adam applied himself to his meal, a bowl of vegetable soup and a sandwich of ham, onions, and cheese. It tasted delicious on an empty stomach, and there was a mug of small beer to wash it down.

His fatigue returned, more overwhelming now with his belly full. He closed the hatch over the ladder, turned out the lamp, undressed to his underwear, and climbed beneath the eiderdown. His last conscious thought was how wonderfully warm the bed was.

A hand gently nudged him awake a little after dawn, though it seemed to Adam he couldn’t have slept at all. He opened his eyes to find Ambrose O’Dowd’s black-whiskered countenance grinning down at him. O’Dowd laid a cup of coffee on the bedside locker and said, “You’d better get up, Mr. Bowen. There are some men looking for you outside.”

When he went out, he saw a car parked in the yard and two men leaning against it. One was smoking, a short, whippet-like figure, and he tossed aside his cigarette as Adam appeared. “Bowen?” He shook Adam’s hand briefly. “I’m Kieran MacBarron, brigade commandant in this neck of the woods. I understand you’ve been sent to me by the big fellow himself?”

“Mick said you fellows were looking for men with military experience.”

“We are. We’ve had a flood of recruits the past six months, but hardly any of them have ever held a rifle before, much less shot it at someone. And the Brits have been making mighty sport of us hereabouts. You haven’t come a moment too soon.” He indicated the other man nearby. “You met Feeny last night?”

Adam nodded. “He was kind enough to drive me out here. Thanks for these lodgings, by the way. Such pretty surrounds.”

“That’s all right. Now come on. We’ll be away from here and go meet the lads.”

A half hour later, Adam got out of the car on a stretch of hillside where the fields were separated by a rough scattering of stone walls. There were no houses visible and only a single road ran beneath the dour sky. In the cover of a copse of trees, several dozen men had begun to assemble at the sound of the car. Some looked young, too young to have even held a razor to their cheeks, while others must have been at the latter end of their fifties. Most had the ruddy complexions of bog cutters and ploughboys.

“I know they don’t look like much,” MacBarron sighed. “West Cork is not Dublin City, Bowen. It’s poor country out here. Every young man has his eyes on the road out, while every older man has a stretched household, a loan drawn against the harvest. All of them need reassurance, you see, reassurance against their own island’s history. And you’re here to help me with that.”