The Sword And The Dagger

CHAPTER TWO

  It was early on Saturday the thirty-first of December 1796, Fial was having breakfast with his mother and father when a pounding on the door of their stone farmhouse was followed by an ominous cry. "In the name of King George the Third we command you open the door!" Ryan McMurrin hastily hid Fial in a hole in the floor under the slate put there for this very purpose adjacent to the wood stove where no one could walk. He gripped his son’s hand and smiled before he replaced the slate tiles concealing the cavity. He opened the door and British soldiers burst in. Fial could not see the attack but could hear the conversation. Four soldiers in red tunics carrying flintlock rifles stood around the edges of the small kitchen making way for Lieutenant Bovrington, who, quite outstanding in his gold braid epaulets, ducked as he came in the door to avoid removing his well proportioned triangular black hat. He wore a long curled blonde wig and had a small tufted beard and looked at Ryan.

  "You are Ryan McMurrin?"

  "I am."

  "I am Farnsworth Bovrington of the King’s Infantry, Haulbowline Barracks Cork. We have been given information by an Irish prisoner you are a member of the outlawed Society of United Irishmen. What do you say to this accusation?"

  "Would it be making a difference what I thought?"

  "Dammed impertinence man; take him outside and half hang him." Ryan struggled as two soldiers dragged him outside. "Prepare the woman, I will go first, call me when she's ready." Bovrington walked outside and supervised the lynching of Ryan McMurrin on the back of an army horse cart in the yard; they left him till he was nearly unconscious and cut him down. He screamed as a soldier slashed his stomach open to draw his insides out; he could hear his wife screaming as she was stripped of her clothing. Ryan McMurrin died and was thrown on the cart with several other bodies. Bovrington disappeared into the farmhouse kitchen closing the door. Fial could hear his mother moan and scream as she was repeatedly raped by Bovrington and the soldiers. An hour passed and all was quiet as the army cart took Ryan McMurrin's body to Cork for public display. Fial had been in the floor cavity for what seemed an eternity when he heard a familiar voice calling from outside the farmhouse around the yard.

  "Fial boy, are you here? Fial it's me, William Maloney!" The calls got louder and the door opened. "Oh mother of God!" William covered the body of Fial's mother with her clothing; she lay on the kitchen table where her throat had been cut. Fial pushed the tiles with all his might and they made a grating noise. William heard the noise and dragged the tiles from the roof of the cavity, helping Fial from his curled, cramped position, supporting him while he straightened up. William herded him from the kitchen to the yard bringing him some water. Fial told William of what he had heard, sparse but enough for William to stop him from going on.

  William left Fial in the barn aside the homestead while he buried Fial's mother in the grounds on a hillside under an oak tree. He covered the shallow grave in rocks and put a makeshift cross of sticks tied together with twine at the head of the grave. He had Fial gather his things. Fial made sure he took the sextant, maps and charts left to him by Louis Belgarde with his few items of clothing. William took him to his mother's grave before they left.

  "Your mother is here. Your father's body has been taken to Cork where they will display it to discourage our independence. One day lad you will return to this grave and proudly put your mother’s name to it." Fial was numb and stared at the pile of rocks that was once the hub of his life. He said nothing but inside he could hear his mother talking as if she was there.

  She had always been scared by what had happened to many young Irish souls in the war and the words she uttered as he left for school every day echoed in his mind as if she was talking from the grave. "You are off to learn the ways of the wise, do what you will but don't waste your life. With wisdom and courage you will find your destiny."