CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Fial McMurrin, Hainan McGee and Ronan Cameron were treated like royalty at the King’s Head. Publican Evan McTaggert put drinks on the house while a mass of locals chatted to the people mentioned in stories and legends. Bongo was also present and could chat openly with locals as if part of the furniture. People ran into Bongo on purpose and touched his skin to make sure he was real. No local had ever heard a black man speak English.
Stories were exchanged and exaggerations corrected. Fial heard his African crew had summoned a sea dragon and set fire to a ship sent back to England in flames that could be seen but did not burn. The story-tellers were disappointed to find the ship was set alight with Chinese fireworks and allowed to limp home. Fial was also surprised to find he had sunk over one hundred ships in Brest Harbour killing a thousand men and it hadn't even got light yet. This story came from a French horseman who actually saw it happen. Cameron and McGee wondered if they were in the same place the lady of the lake story came from.
Fial had more pressing things on his mind, such as visiting his son. He was disappointed to find the same people in the same seats, drinking the same brew, saying the same things about what they were going to do but they had done nothing. He revelled to some degree in the status quo that now existed as it showed things had settled to some length and his people could go about life with open discussion.
Finding his son proved to be a more difficult task than he had predicted. His father and mother-in-law had moved from the Ringaskiddy rectory during the period Fial was declared a pirate by the British, as they looked for his son as bargaining power. He found no one at the rectory and went to the church removing his well worn, black, triangular hat before entering. His black, baggy pants, high, leather, black boots and silk, black tunic with white trim were dirty and smelt of the well worn corridors of the Ghost. His beard had become trouser belt length and his hair was well past his shoulders.
As he stood in the aisle looking towards the altar he felt overdressed with daggers and muskets hidden about his person. The church was small, and to the left of the modest altar was a confession box; an old lady scuffled from the box passing Fial with her head down and face hidden closing the door silently as she left. He approached the box door and went to knock but hesitated. He knocked opened the door and found he had to stoop down to avoid hitting his head on the top door beam; he wrestled to sit on the bare wooden seat on one side of the box built many years before when people were much smaller. He filled the box with his person and could only just close the door. The church smell brought back memories of his childhood as he thought of what he would say.
Father Maloney heard the thumping in the box adjoining the side of the rectory office as he made notes in the church diary. He put on his neck drape, picked up his wooden cross that he had only just put down and entered the box, opening the small hatch between the two cubicles and sat down in the darkness. "Why do you come to this place?" he asked softly.
Fial recognised the voice. "Forgive me Father because I think I have sinned."
"You are not sure?"
"No."
"What is it you think you have done my son?"
"I have killed and have the blood of many on my hands."
Father Maloney was silent and stared upward into the darkness. "Who have you killed and why?"
"Most I do not know, others I do. They are many, I am ashamed in the face of God."
Father Maloney thought in silence. "Would you be a sailor my son?"
"Yes Father."
"There is a fleet of ships in our harbour. You come to me from one of them?"
"Yes."
"Which ship?"
Fial waited for a long time. "The Ghost of McMurrin."
"Would you be the captain of that ship?"
Fial slowly began to open the box door but light burst in so he had to close it again. Fial had hesitated long enough. "Yes father, I am the captain of the Ghost."
The box door opened and Father Maloney looked upon Fial for the first time in many years. He had removed his drape and briskly walked out of the rectory to the other side of the box in the church where Fial was seated. Fial’s eyes met with Father Maloney's face and he lurched out of the box hugging him in tears, he fell to his knees, picked up Father Maloney's flowing, brown gown, burying his face in it.
His raised voice was muffled by the gown. "Father what have I done! I hate who I am! The devil has taken my heart!"
Father Maloney looked down on the sobbing legend and placed his hand on his head. "What have they done to you my son?" Fial dropped his head to the floor with his face in his hands sobbing. "Rise Fial McMurrin, you are forgiven, the lord denies salvation to no one."
A young woman entered the church and walked to Father Maloney, seeing Fial sobbing on the floor in front of him she was puzzled. "Who is this poor man Father?"
Father Maloney knelt and put his arm around Fial as he looked up at the neatly-dressed young maiden. "This is Fial McMurrin, a messenger of God; he has returned to us this day to acquit his past and plan his future. He is a good man, think of him here should you consider being a legend for legends are often just stories to bolster the meek."
The young maiden looked happy and smiled as she knelt beside Fial. "Fial McMurrin the pure, I don't believe it. May I touch him Father?"
"Of course, he is just a man not a spirit or story, he is real and has suffered for us."
The maiden put her hand on Fial and he stopped crying, lifting his head and looking at the maiden’s face. "I see the stories of his life etched in the lines of his face. I must go home Father and tell my family I have touched him. I don't know what to say except thank you Fial McMurrin." She rose and ran from the church shouting. "I'm blessed, I touched him I touched him."
Father Maloney helped Fial to his feet, he looked pale and blank. He sat on the front row congregation bench with Maloney next to him. "Now you see the other side of what you have done Fial. She is like a thousand young maidens, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers of Ireland who yearn to touch the legend of the Ghost. Once a young, angry boy with nothing left, now a respected man with the world at his feet. There is a difference between sin and sacrifice. You have not sinned Fial, you sacrificed your life for us all. Would there be another persecuted boy of Ireland who would do what you have done? I think not. The Lord works in mysterious ways."
Fial gathered himself. "And what now Father."
"I'm sure Fial McMurrin knows exactly what he is going to do, he always has."
"And what of the war Father."
"The alliance will win the war with or without your assistance. You have done enough."
"My son, Father."
"Your son is fine, come we will see him."
Like father like son, William Ryan McGuire, now nearly seven, had watched his father in Bantry Bay from the hilltop above Sheep's Head on the south side of the bay opposite Rooska. Hidden in the hills of Sheep's Head with Fial’s in-laws, the Donnelly family, William had been told of his father’s adventures and witnessed the taking of the Leopard, hearing of the sighting of the Ghost and its fleet from local farmers. He waited for his father's arrival.