"Blessed Mother, hold your tongue, Colm."
"Why?" he asked, wavering. "Shit in the byre, SHIT IN THE BYRE!"
"You can take your leave!"
"Aye, I will. I wouldn't have the half of it" — he snapped his fingers — "not the half of it."
"And don't you be crawling back!"
"Nae, I won't, not until my pals and my dog are welcome, and I'll tell you as well that Fanny O'Doherty doesn't find me all that disgusting . . ."
"Indeed!"
Brigid found herself weeping pitifully when she was alone. She was down to herself and no one else. It was so bad even Colm O'Neill didn't want her.
For a week he did no calling. Each night she walked from room to room studying the sterilized world of her creation. Thank God there was no slob about to muck things up. It could be that way for her up to the end . . . if she wanted it …
*
There was not much of a celebration when Colm and Brigid were married. The aged bachelors and those married men waterlogged with children all shook their heads with certain knowledge. Colm had won some concessions for now but how long until she began her fumigation again?
With her wedding day accomplished, she began to flirt with the idea of the glory of motherhood. Yet in all her anxieties about herself she had little anxiety for Colm. He was nearly as inexperienced as herself, as shy, and with poor little capability to adapt to the new situation.
Night followed night in which they undressed separately, one getting beneath the covers quickly so the other would not see, and they lay still, back to back, unspeaking and untouching neither having the wherewithal to do anything about it.
After a time the day's work and the evening's drink took its toll and Colm would break the tension by announcing' sleep had come with a thunderous snore.
In a few months certain things did not matter to Brigid, I such as Colm and his mongrel dog leaving their fire for Dooley McCluskey's. It was a relief, truth be known, when he left, for she would be able to prepare herself for bed without the usual embarrassment.
As various times of the year came and went without Brigid announcing pregnancy, the wise old hens of Ballyutogue clucked that the Larkin legacy had come to an end.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Shelley read the unsaid messages. She knew from past experience that Conor would soon be going into that mysterious world she could not share. The first hint was his arranging time off. The yard was still closed but he had been traveling to Rathweed Hall daily to work out with the club. He set up a three-day absence for himself, the longest he had taken.
That day and evening he avoided liquor, an indication he wanted nothing to cloud his mind. He always abstained before taking off alone.
The final clue was the way he made love to her that night. It was devoid of fierceness, a lingering state of not being awake and not being asleep, the softest kind of statement, an attempt to stretch minutes into timelessness.
The alarm jolted them into reality and they continued to loll until several minutes past their deadline, then pensively set the day into motion.
Despite Shelley's outward show of placidness they were totally into each other's minds, knowing the other's apprehensions. Conor sensed her rising fear as she waited for some kind of word.
Shelley had told him nothing of the anonymous hate letters. There had been three of them, each spewing venom and depicting her as the lowest kind of harlot for living with a Catholic. Each threatened her life for her unutterable crime.
Before that it had been the trauma of the break with the family. Apparently it had been palatable for her to carry on a years-long clandestine affair with a married man but living in the open with an R.C. was too much to bear. Morgan commanded the family not to see her and never to mention her name within his walls. Robin alone defied his father in continuing a rather mournful relationship with his sister. The others obeyed. She and Conor had moved out of his Flax Street flat to a more receptive area near the Cavehill Road but no place was far enough away within Belfast.
"I want you to stay with Blanche," Conor said over breakfast. She said that she would. "It's very important this time. I'll be away for several days. It could be a bit dicy, so let Robin know you are at Blanche's and if anything goes wrong you might have to leave Belfast in a hurry. Robin better know. Get to Dublin and go to Seamus or Atty Fitzpatrick."
She waited until he left the table to allow herself to shudder. He had never given such instructions before. Obviously, there would be great danger. Conor returned with the pistol and set it down.
"Take this thing," he said.
"Shouldn't you be carrying it?"
"Either I make it or I don't. This will make no difference."
Shelley stared at the weapon and shook her head. "You know I could never use it."
"You were certainly ready to shoot when you were sitting at my bedside guarding me," he said.
"That was different," Shelley said.
Conor shrugged and strapped on his shoulder holster. "That's the trouble with both of us, lass. I'm not sure I could pull the trigger either. My commander is fully aware of that possibility."
"I think I like you better this way," she said.
Conor looked at his watch and grimaced. "We'll most likely be leaving Belfast for good after I return from this trip. I'll be glad about it myself. Every time I come back here I have the feeling I've entered a madhouse."
Shelley had said nothing of her own recurring dream. She was all alone and all the streets were completely dark and she walked endlessly down rows and rows of red brick houses, through mazes, into dead ends without sight of human life. She would awaken knowing it was a vision of death.
Conor gulped his tea down, put on his jacket and cap and allowed himself a last lingering look. It would be good to get out of Belfast. It was no place for a Catholic man and a Protestant woman.
The Sandy Row toughs had an outstanding score to settle over the imprisonment of Vessey Bain and Joey Hooker. Talk of it never flagged at certain pubs and Orange Halls. They were no more apt to forget than they would forget the Battle of the Boyne or Derry's walls.
And Oliver Cromwell Maclvor's ladies seethed with a score of their own to settle with Shelley for the shame she had brought on her fine and pious family.
Conor and Shelley touched cheeks.
"No matter what happens, it's been all I've wanted," she said.
"No matter what," Conor said, and he was gone.
*
Long Dan Sweeney came to Belfast the instant the cable was received from Owen O'Sullivan that the guns were on the way. When Conor reported the train route, Sweeney sent for Kelly Malloy out of Dungannon.
Kelly was a rose grower by profession, a breeder of varieties of the magnificent Ulster roses that gave him a measure of note throughout the eastern part of the province. He was titular head of the Dungannon Clubs which had sprung up in the area with the Gaelic revival. They were first cousins of the Wolfe Tone Societies and other republican-oriented groups in the north.
He was also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
His business required a number of wagons as well as an intimate standing with the hill farmers in the area where he constantly tested soils, water conditions and fertilizers and used some of their acreage for growing export bushes.
Kelly reckoned he could organize the gun drop in the thirty-odd hours allotted him. It would mean rounding up enough sympathizers and finding a good temporary dump. The hills around Omagh were filled with abandoned booley houses, souterrains and mine shafts. Sixmilecross was pinpointed as the best siding in a cover of forest.
When Kelly left, Dan Sweeney found Conor in a snit.
"What's wrong, Conor?" he demanded right off.
"You ought to know. Up till five minutes before Kelly arrived I told you there was an element of risk beyond normal risk. You know damned well we may be flirting with an informer. He should have been told. I'm willing to take the chance but at least I know it exist
s."
Long Dan studied Conor, his own continuing notions about the man being compounded. Every time he wanted to promote Conor to the Council doubts crept in to qualify it. Larkin continued to evade him as a man and it could be too late to find out in a crisis situation.
"It's incumbent upon a commander to inform his men," Conor snapped. "Do you think a British officer wouldn't explain it to a patrol?"
"I told you once, Conor, we can't play by British rules. As you may have noted from our conversations, we have four members of the Brotherhood between Dungannon and Omagh. Four men, mind you. That's it, the total number. Before this war is over you're going to have to order good men into death a dozen times without their knowledge of it . . . if you have the ability to do it . . ."
“Maybe I don't."
"Maybe you don't, indeed," Dan answered. "There is only one decision to be made here, and the rest of it is useless rhetoric . . . those rifles are more important than Kelly Malloy, the men he recruits and Conor Larkin, as well."
*
Conor debarked from the passenger train in late afternoon at Sixmilecross, examined the area, liked it. Beyond the one-street town, it was completely inconspicuous and held an obscure siding surrounded by trees as Kelly Malloy had promised. The crossroad led directly into the hills toward Ballygawley and the spray of booley houses and abandoned mines.
He continued by foot toward Carrickmore, inquiring after and finding the farm of Sterling McDade.
Throughout the early evening wagons arrived one at a time from Kelly Malloy's nursery in Dungannon, from Coalisland, Pomeroy and Ballygawley. By seven at night they had all assembled. There were the four brothers and six other sympathizers in all, including Kelly and Conor, and six wagons. Crude maps were passed around pinpointing the dump locations. Sterling McDade, the ugliest of Irishmen, was the most intimate with the area, having trekked the hills for over fifty summers of his life. Specific assignments and routes to them were given over lamplight. Conor reckoned that, with the unbolting of plates and various other problems, the transfer of the weapons would take two hours. Provided the train reached the crossing no later than midnight, Sterling reckoned the dump could be accomplished before daylight.
As the planning went on Conor studied them. They were the faces of Ballyutogue, the crust and wrinkle and leather skin of men who really needed no explanation of what they were doing or why. They were the Kilty and Tomas Larkins and Fergus O'Neills of their own villages who had lived in privation in the shadow of Orange hysteria and British arrogance. Craggy specimens, the lot. They were the Irish.
By. half eight, each man in turn had recited his specific duty to Conor's satisfaction. McDade's wife, a lovely contrast to himself, and the daughters set out a spread of scroggins, a stomach-warming stew and soda bread.
They puffed their pipes and stared into the fire as the minutes to rendezvous came close. Kelly Malloy left and returned at half nine with word that the Omagh stationmaster had been telegraphed that the special Red Hand Express would be passing through around eleven. Estimated arrival at Sixmilecross, a quarter past midnight. Although the message was entirely expected, it came as a shocker. Conor allowed a few minutes for each of them to look inward by themselves and to themselves, then it was time to move out.
"Well, lads, a wee drop before facing the night," Sterling McDade said.
"No liquor," Conor snapped, then laughed. "We'd best all have a clear head. We'll do our celebrating for sure tomorrow morning."
At a quarter past ten the teams began moving from McDade's farm to an area just out of Sixmilecross at intervals of several minutes. Conor arrived first and scoured the area. It was clear. As they came in, one at a time, their wagons were moved to prearranged places of cover and the men assembled down close to the track. At ten minutes to midnight everything was in place. The horses were given oat bags to feed and assure their silence.
Midnight. Conor studied the sky, grateful that cloud cover had blotted the moon and further darkened the area. He nodded to Sterling McDade, who lit a lantern and moved down the track to signal the train.
Two minutes past midnight. Two drunks from the public house in town wove to the crossing and decided to sit and rest for a spell, then went into their repertory of song.
Conor looked desperately down the track to McDade's position, then turned to the others.
"Who knows them?"
"I do," Adam Sharkey said.
"Get your wagon, fetch them and get them out of here."
"How about my load?"
"We'll have to make do with one less. Each of you put on a hundred more pieces and two or three boxes of ammunition. Do you have it?"
"Aye," they whispered as Sharkey emerged from cover. He took the feedbags off his horses, climbed up on his rig, loosened the brake and pulled out to the road and stopped before the midnight revelers "Evening to youse Jerry Hayes, and to yourself as well, George Gleeson."
"I do believe it's Adam Sharkey or a facsimile of his ghost, and what be you doin' wandering around in the middle of the night?"
"Me and me old lady had a fierce go. She's been wearing the smile of last year's rhubarb on her face. Could I be takin' youse home and layin myself down in your byre tonight, Jerry?" he said, going down after them and pulling them to their feet. As the two headed in opposite directions with great uncertainty, Adam Sharkey steered them hard to the wagon.
The light of McDade's lantern signaled down the track!
"In with youse lads, just pile in and grab a nap . . . in with youse …”
The sound of four faint whistles reached Sixmilecross the instant Adam Sharkey moved the wagon out with the rear occupants breaking into song.
Ellen O'Connor, Ellen aroon!
Say youse love me, say youse come back soon,
The angels in their mercy to guide you o'er the spray,
To keep youse from all harm, till youse return someday. . .
"Steady, lads," Kelly Malloy whispered.
In a moment Sterling McDade's lantern swung back and forth, back and forth. The sound of the train was now clearly within earshot. It slowed under a braking. The eight at the crossing tensed. As it rounded a slight bend into sight Conor ordered the men to their wagons. The train grew larger and larger. The brake screeched and it hissed to almost stopping. McDade ran alongside, threw the Biding switch, and it inched into the lay-by.
"Let's go!" Conor commanded.
The wagons moved alongside in a line, the horses protesting the abrupt halt to their reverie and the strange duty.
"Lower the water tank!" Conor yelled up to the car. "Barren and Carberry, get them out of the tank!” he repeated their orders. "Kelly, grab your wrenches, let's get these underplates removed."
As Kelly Malloy slipped between the wheels under the car and lay on the ties, he lit his lantern. Conor jumped up to the engine for a quick exchange with the drivers.
They wore different faces!
"Scatter!" Conor screamed, leaping from the side. "Ambush!"
At that instant the thunder of two hundred pair of boots erupted as soldiers spilled out of the cars.
"You're all under arrest!"
Conor rolled below the undercarriage to Kelly Malloy. He caught a glimpse of the crossroad where a second force was converging by motor van.
"Attention! Attention!" the commander shouted over a megaphone. "There is no possibility of escape! You are under arrest! Anyone caught moving will be shot!"
"Mother of God!"
"Ambush!"
"Attention! Attention! Do not resist! Raise your hands and gather by the engine!"
The emptied train quickly threw a cordon around the smuggling party. The troops had all come out of the left hand side to the wagons. Conor elbowed Kelly and pointed and Kelly nodded. They rolled down the bed of the unguarded right side, crouched and drifted toward the end of the train and looked to a covering growth of underbrush a few yards away.
"There goes two of them!"
"Halt!"
/> "Halt, do you hear, halt!"
"Open fire!"
Just as they reached the brush the night was shattered With gunfire. Kelly Malloy screamed and pitched forward. Conor buckled . . . a queer sensation flooded him . . . his legs went awry. . . he dived for cover . . .
*
Shelley sat up and shrieked, her heart thumping and her face soaked with sweat. The door was flung open. Blanche Hemming rushed in, lit the room and threw her arms about her friend.
"Conor! Conor!"
"Get hold of yourself! It was only a dream!"
"Blanche! I saw it! He's all bloody!"
"Shhh . . . please . . . please . . . Shelley. . ."
"Get Robin," she gasped, "Blanche, get Robin … I’ve got to get out of Belfast. . . now. . .."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We waited, half out of our minds, for some kind of word from the disaster at Sixmilecross. First Shelley MacLeod arrived with her brother and I got her to a safe house at once.
Then we heard.
Kelly Malloy was dead. Conor Larkin had been seriously wounded. Sterling McDade and the hill farmers Carberry, Barren, McGovern, German, Gilroy and McAulay were in Mountjoy Prison. Over the water Owen O'Sullivan and his sons Barry and Brian and Dudley Callaghan were interned in Brixton. One of the farmers, it appeared, had somehow escaped capture. It was a shambles, an utter catastrophe for the Brotherhood.
When we read the papers a day later we could not believe our eyes. In their heady zeal, the British had made a horrendous blunder. The Crown information office boasted that they had "smashed a well-organized ring of gun runners of the Irish Republican Brotherhood which had been operating a smuggling route for months." The story went on to give a full account of how Sir Frederick Weed's private train had been used in the plot.
For years Dublin Castle had refused to acknowledge existence of any Irish Republican Brotherhood. It had been stated on occasion after occasion that there was no such organization except in the minds of a few feeble old Fenians. Well now, just how could such a nonexistent nonentity smuggle guns into Ireland? What the British had admitted in their haste to blow their own horn was that their years of customized propaganda had been a lie. Suddenly the disaster of Sixmilecross took on a different dimension. The audacity of the scheme was the kind of lunacy to capture Irish hearts and was greeted with humor that we understood and the British never would. The country erupted in one long loud laugh. Dublin Castle realized too late what they had done and their faces reddened with humiliation. By admission of our existence they had achieved a notoriety for us that we had been unable to achieve for ourselves.