Death of a Novice Read online

  And then her eye was caught by something, something that flashed in the sunlight. Something about halfway up the mainsail pole. A mirror? Surely not. No, she gave another quick glance. No, she thought, not a mirror. A pair of field glasses or binoculars. Tom Hurley had climbed up there and was following their progress.

  ‘No smoking here,’ said the officer to Raymond who had taken out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Sorry about that. I know you would be careful, Raymond, but I make it a rule to have no smoking here. We have all the ammunition stored over there, you see.’

  ‘Over there, really, in that shed in the centre?’ Raymond indicated the building.

  ‘That’s right.’ The officer was looking down at Eileen and she bestowed a warm smile upon him. ‘Now, turn here, down this little pathway,’ he said, returning her smile. ‘Come this way, my dear, and I’ll show you the tunnels. Somebody was telling the commander that they were built originally by monks, hundreds of years ago.’

  As he led the way down the path, Eileen chanced another look back over her shoulder. The glint of light from the yacht was still there. Their progress was being followed. She looked apprehensively at the friendly, trusting officer and the young soldiers smiling at her – some were blowing her kisses and she blew one back and hoped desperately that no one would be hurt in this latest enterprise by Tom Hurley.

  It was, she thought, a clever enterprise. Daring, but also very clever. While she and Raymond were being shown the tunnels, the men would dive overboard, swim to shore and wait until nightfall. The tunnels would make a good hiding place. And, of course, all of the ammunition was stored nearby.

  ‘And what do you do with yourself all day, my dear?’ The officer was only making conversation, but Eileen was instantly wary. Raymond had not mentioned her name, had introduced her as his girlfriend, but Cork was a small place and someone might have noticed her boarding the yacht at Cobh. Who knew whether their visit might afterwards be connected by the action that would take place during the night hours? She must make sure not to involve her employers. The printing works was already under surveillance and it was fairly well known through the city that they printed Republican anti-treaty pamphlets and propaganda as well as issuing leaflets and posters for small businesses in Cork. She would be a lady of leisure, she decided.

  ‘Well, what’s there to do?’ she said in bored tones. She gave a shrug. ‘Don’t get up too early in the morning,’ she said. ‘Don’t get to bed too early in the night, either. In fact, you could say that my nights melt into my mornings … And then there is shopping and hair appointments and my nails, of course.’ She thrust her hands rapidly into the pockets of her skirt. One of the problems of being a typist was that nails had to be kept trimmed to an unfashionably short length and that nail varnish was an impossibility.

  ‘So you’re one of the lilies of the field, then, are you, my dear? You toil not, neither do you spin. Well, why should a pretty girl like you do anything but look beautiful?’

  ‘Now, then, old man. Steady on. This is my girl, you know.’ Raymond had a slightly forced note in his voice, not as casual as he would like it to be, thought Eileen. She wondered if he had sensed any suspicion in the voices or behaviour of their hosts. Once more she glanced over her shoulder. The sun was momentarily behind a cloud, but emerged as she watched. Yes, that glint of glass was still there. Their progress was still being watched. Tom Hurley was keeping an eye on everything. Out in the sea, she thought she saw something move, a seal possibly, but more likely a man swimming underwater, heading towards the far side of the island. They were taking their lives in their hands, she thought with a shiver of apprehension. If seen, they would be shot, or else arrested and hanged.

  ‘I’ll just take your arm here, my dear, if I may. Very rough ground here. Just a little further, now. At least you have nice, sensible shoes. That’s it. Now here’s one of the tunnels that you’ve come to see. The whole island is honeycombed with them. They say that this particular tunnel is a couple of hundred years old. The padre from St Finbar’s came to have a look at a gold communion cup that we found. He’s knowledgeable about that sort of thing. Said it would be sixteenth century. Time of Good Queen Bess. Don’t know how he knew. Something about how the gold was shaped, I think.’

  ‘Gold,’ breathed Eileen, her voice reverential. She sounded, she knew, pretty empty-headed. Though, as a matter of fact, she was interested. The Reverend Mother would be interested, too; she made a note to tell her about it – that’s if she got out of her present situation and did not end up in Cork Gaol.

  ‘Let’s go in,’ she said. One of the officers had switched on a powerful torch that illuminated the path ahead and the stone walls. A few men had followed them in the idle way that those who had little to do would follow any distraction. It must be hard to keep the men interested and employed, she thought and wondered how long the British army would bother manning these remnants of their ownership of Ireland. Perhaps it was the memory of threat from Germany during the Great War. Otherwise she could not see the point.

  Unless there was another Great War, of course.

  ‘How much ammunition do you keep on the island?’ she asked innocently. She regretted the question as soon as it had issued from her mouth. After all, she reminded herself, she had nothing to do with the rebels now. She was playing a part to make sure that she and her mother were safe and Tom Hurley had got what he wanted, had found a means to get six men onto Spike Island. She had her arm tucked into Raymond’s and noticed how he had stiffened when he heard her incautious question.

  ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning,’ she sang.

  We’ve danced the whole night through

  And daylight soon will be dawning

  Just one more waltz with you.

  They all joined in and she began to relax. All she had to do now, she reminded herself, was, for the next hour or so, to play the part of an empty-headed society girl and to hope and pray that no harm had come to those two silly young nuns who had got themselves mixed up in such dangerous enterprises. Indeed, she hoped that no harm would come to anyone. She had not missed the flicker of satisfaction on Raymond’s face when the officer pointed out the pile of ammunition, nor had she missed the fact that Raymond had pointed his quickly extinguished cigarette at the place the officer indicated. Nor that he had stayed in that position for quite a number of minutes, commenting on the buildings and enquiring as to their history. Tom Hurley, with his binoculars, would have had a good long look at the location of the ammunition store. Surely that was the target. Six men would serve no purpose to attack a whole regiment of highly trained British soldiers.

  But the eyes of those soldiers should be kept from dwelling on the yacht moored beside the Spike Island pier. Going down a tunnel was all very well, but it meant that the troops, who were all looking at her now, would turn their attention back to looking out to sea, and probably at the stylish yacht moored against the pier. Somehow she had to grab their attention and to keep it while those six men slipped down the side of the boat and swam silently ashore. Raymond gave her a good opening when he declared loudly, ‘Well, men, you have a great little island here to live on. I must say that I envy you all.’

  ‘Ah, but what about all the wives and sweethearts waiting for them back home,’ called out Eileen. She moved away from his side and ran lightly over to the cannon, swung herself up on top of it and began to sing as loudly as she could the hit song: ‘Baby Won’t You Please Come Home?’

  I’ve got the blues, I feel so lonely

  I’ll give the world if I could only

  Make you understand

  It surely would be grand

  I’m gonna telephone my baby

  Ask him won’t you please come home

  ‘Cause when you’re gone

  I’m worried all day long.

  They all joined the chorus, of course, and then she sang it through again, grateful of the experience that she had gained in the musical society at St Matthew’s Hall. She had le
arned to enjoy an audience coming in on a favourite lyric, learned how to support and to lead those other voices, how to keep the singing going smoothly. And as she sang, she scanned her mind for a few more popular songs. ‘Some Sunny Day’, ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’ and then ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas!’ She could see Raymond looking restive. Probably thought that she was taking over from him, or perhaps he genuinely wanted to see the tunnels. In any case, she had given the men plenty of time to swim from the yacht around the corner of the island, so she ended up with another rendition of ‘Wild About Harry’ and then slid down from the cannon while they all clapped and whooped.

  ‘Now, let’s go and see that tunnel,’ she said tucking her hand inside Raymond’s arm.

  Luckily the tunnels were not too extensive, and not too interesting. The objects that had been found had been taken to Cork University to be examined there and so they did not have to stay too long. When they got back to the yacht, there was no sign of the men in the hold and Tom Hurley was sitting comfortably on a deckchair, hiding his face in a widely opened, week-old edition of the Cork Examiner. She went over and perched on a rope coil beside him.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ she asked in a low voice.

  He did not pretend to misunderstand her. ‘So far, so good,’ he said.

  ‘But my part is over and done with.’ She allowed her voice to harden. It wasn’t difficult. She knew him to be false and treacherous, outside the very narrow parameters that he had set himself of loyalty and friendship, but he valued his reputation as a man of his word. ‘You gave me a task and I did it. Far better than some.’ She gave a brief nod of her head in the direction of Raymond and saw a flicker of amusement in the grey eyes so near to her own.

  ‘You weren’t too bad,’ he admitted. ‘Nice voice, you have.’

  ‘And my mother,’ she persisted.

  He gave a business-like nod. ‘You kept your word. I’ll keep mine.’

  ‘Good,’ she said and left him with another business-like nod, a mirrored version of his own. She was tempted to say more, to ask some questions, to require further assurances, but she restrained herself. He would only take that as sign of weakness. She went and stood beside Raymond.

  ‘All right, Tootsie?’ he asked and she looked at him coldly. Tom Hurley had followed her and now stood slightly behind them. She turned back and looked at him and said softly, ‘It’s amazing that with such a big strong he-man as this available, a fella brave enough to call me ‘tootsie’, that a couple of nuns had to be recruited for delivering your letters.’

  And then she left them both. She had a bad conscience about those two young nuns. It had been a mistake to have brought them up, but her irritation and disgust at the part which she had played, coupled with Raymond’s stupidity, had made the words slip out.

  THREE

  Thomas Aquinas

  Quorum alii aliud sensibile bonum aestimant esse felicitatem, sicut avari divitias, intemperati voluptates, ambitiosi honores

  (Some people judge happiness as belonging to one gift, others to another. The avaricious place it in riches, the self-indulgent in pleasures; the ambitious in honours.)

  Reverend Mother Aquinas had been delighted with the new entrant to the convent. Sister Gertrude was twenty-two years old, mature enough to know her own mind, but not old enough to treat the convent as a last resort. She was well educated, had worked for years in an accounts department at Ford’s Factory and had an easy sense of humour which appealed to her superior. She possessed a brisk manner, spent a minimum time in the confessional box and above all positively enjoyed setting out neat rows of figures that miraculously balanced.

  And she radiated happiness.

  Her only fault appeared to be an over-fondness for explaining the complexities of double-entry bookkeeping to her superior. And a great desire for sweet food which might lead to obesity in old age.

  But she wasn’t destined to live so long.

  Not yet twenty-three!

  With a rapidly beating heart and legs that seemed to have lost all strength, Reverend Mother stood for a moment and gazed down at the dead body. Incongruous. Lying behind the door of a hen shed. Slumped there, lifeless, hands outstretched, face contorted in its last agony. Lips very blue, eyes wide and staring. Death in the elderly does not come as a surprise for someone aged over seventy, but this particular death was a great shock.

  And death in a hospital or a sickroom bed is decorous and full of care for the dying. This death here in a hen shed of a young and very healthy woman was an appalling shock.

  The building had been donated as a summer house by the affectionate father of a would-be entrant to the convent community. That particular recruit had not lasted more than three months, but the summer house had remained, unmentioned by the Reverend Mother when the suddenly cheerful girl was tenderly borne away by her father, and afterwards allocated by her to some busy hens, who devoured scraps from the kitchen and produced nutritious brown eggs to make a lunch for some hungry children – and were a source of huge satisfaction for the Reverend Mother.

  But today, when she had come out into the convent garden for a few minutes of fresh air before beginning work, she saw immediately that her hens, her pride and joy, had been disturbed. Not sitting placidly, not pecking at insects, not laying eggs as was their purpose, but rushing around the garden, perching in trees. Had their eggs been collected? It was the task of one of the novices to collect the eggs every morning and evening. The Reverend Mother remembering that the young novice had been unwell the previous evening, decided to check that the task had been done.

  The door to the hen shed had been opened and now stood ajar. So someone had come to collect the eggs, had allowed the hens out. Nevertheless, the Reverend Mother, treading carefully, advanced into the sawdust-smelling shed. Eggs there were in plenty, but they lay uncollected, and gleaming in the straw-filled laying niches. That was, oddly, the first thing that she had noticed.

  And then she saw Sister Gertrude. Slumped on the floor just behind the door, a black heap of clothes; hands outstretched; face buried in the sawdust and the egg basket beside her. The Reverend Mother bent down, touched the cheek and then moved a finger towards the pulse in the neck. No pulse. She lifted the outstretched hand, checked the wrist and then dropped the hand back again. The girl was dead. No sign of a wound. One cheek was cushioned in the sawdust and after clearing a space near to the mouth and the nostrils, the Reverend Mother held the back of her silver pocket watch to the lips. Nothing, no mist, no breath. She got to her feet and walked unsteadily back out into the open air and stood for a moment, breathing in the icy fog of the river air, holding onto the rough wood of the shed door while she endeavoured to subdue the tremble that ran through her body.

  ‘“I’m just wild about Harry!”’ sang a baritone voice. Incongruous, but welcome. The gardener had arrived. The Reverend Mother drew in a couple of deep breaths while she waited for him to wheel his bicycle down the path, and then, feeling her legs a little steadier, she advanced towards him, giving herself an extra minute while he stilled his song, snatched off his cap and wished her a good morning.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Twomey. Would you be kind enough to fetch Sister Bernadette, please?’

  Time enough to say more when she had recovered full control of her voice and her legs. She stood very still, not allowing herself to lean against the wall, but willing strength to flow back into her body, looking down on the one spinning wheel of the bicycle that had been dropped on the pathway. What had happened to Sister Gertrude? Had she been guilty of neglect by not sending for a doctor the night before? She had thought merely that the girl was mildly unwell, perhaps suffering from a gastric upset. No trace of a temperature, reported Sister Mary Immaculate. In any case, Dr Scher, the usual doctor for the convent, was not available as he had gone to Manchester to attend a family funeral. She bit her lip when she remembered that and realized that she desperately needed a doctor now. Her mind turned over alternatives as she retreated toward
s the hen shed and half-listened to the low-voiced conversation between the gardener and Sister Bernadette, the lay sister in charge of the kitchen, as they emerged from the back door.

  ‘I don’t know what she wants. “Fetch Sister Bernadette”, that’s what she said. Didn’t hang around to ask any questions. You don’t, do you, with her?’ The gardener’s voice faded away as he picked up his bicycle and retired to his own shed. The Reverend Mother heard a door bang and then the muted sound of more details about this ‘Harry’. It seemed incongruous in the face of the terrible solemnity of the death. Rapidly she shooed a couple of adventurous hens from out of the shed and shut the door to bar them from entering again. And then, although she despised herself for doing it, she opened it again and peered into its gloom. But no, she had not made a mistake. Sister Gertrude, so brisk, so lively, so very full of life, now lay silent, crumpled and very dead on the floor of the hen shed.

  Not allowing herself to stop moving, the Reverend Mother went rapidly towards the back door and accosted Sister Bernadette who, summoned in the midst of bread making, was busily rubbing crumbs of wet dough from her hands. Inconsiderate and thoughtless, the Reverend Mother told herself. Why don’t you make your own phone calls? Her weary brain searched for an explanation, an answer to that question and then, some way of breaking the news gently. But, aloud, she said, ‘I’ve just found Sister Gertrude. Could you phone Dr Scher’s housekeeper and ask her to send whosoever is taking his calls while he is in Manchester. Oh, and send for the priest, Sister Bernadette.’ And then, reluctantly, she added, ‘I think that she may be dead.’ The truth had to be told sooner or later. The poor girl could not be left there in the hen shed. ‘And ask Sister Mary Immaculate to tell the community the terrible news.’ This would occupy her deputy and keep her from arriving full of exclamations and of questions. A doctor should be got immediately, though. The matter was urgent.