A Gruesome Discovery Read online

  He knew what it was, of course. No unbaptized infant could be buried in the licenced graveyard. The church did not admit the possibility of their future admission into heaven, but condemned them to an everlasting limbo. But the mothers, most of them, wanted some sacred site for their dead baby’s resting place and this ancient place, hallowed in the past, provided this.

  But not all was ancient here. As he pondered on the sadness of those grieving parents, Patrick raised his eyes and saw, beyond the trees, a new building. He went closer and examined it. Made in the cheapest and ugliest fashion from shuttered concrete, flimsy and garish, it clashed with the quiet dignity of the ancient stones. There was more concrete on the ground, probably encroaching over and across the ancient graveyard, and a large tank filled with a foul-smelling mixture, a terrible smell of dung and urine and the sharp, acrid stink of dog droppings. In smaller tanks, raw hides, with skin and blood still adhering were piled in heaps, interlayered with the peaty dust from turf sods. The stench was worse from these and no doubt infested with vermin; Patrick saw a rat slip past stealthily.

  He walked away briskly. The cathedral bell was sounding the hour of eight o’clock. Not too late to see the grieving wife and family.

  But as he walked down the steep pavement, his mind was busy with the mothers of the infants buried in this ancient and holy place. What did they think of the man who had brought his noisome trade to such a sacred spot?

  FIVE

  W. B. Yeats

  ‘Do not wait until the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.’

  Everything looked different when Eileen came panting back down towards the shore. Even from a distance she could see how all the donkeys and carts of the fishmongers from the surrounding villages were moving sharply away, the owners standing up, sometimes in empty carts, and urging on the unfortunate animals with voice and whip. Although it was now getting late, the small fishing boats seemed to be moving away from the harbour and pier, turning to cross over to the other side towards Cobh or to take refuge in Mahon. Something was happening.

  There was no sign of Fred, at first, but then she saw him on a rowing boat, tied to a mooring post by the pier. There were three people in the boat. Two men, and Fred himself. Not one of the three took any notice of her, after a quick glance. All of them were looking in the opposite direction, focussing on the water, hands shielding eyes. The fog had died down and there was a low sun in the west that dazzled the eyes. And then a cloud came over the sun and Eileen saw what they were looking at. In the distance, was a large fishing boat: a trawler. Its deck was covered with a seine net. Her long-sighted eyes could make out a glint of silver from it, mackerel, she thought. By the morning they would be piled up on the market stalls. But there was another boat going behind it. In pursuit, she thought. Flying a flag. More of a ship than a boat. Loaded with men. The tricolour of the Free State flew from it. She gazed at it fearfully. The gleams of sunlight picked out glints of metal; these men were holding guns in their hands. Not aiming at Fred and his two friends, but pointing towards the fishing boat.

  There was going to be trouble in a few minutes. Eileen had been in enough skirmishes to know that. She cast another swift glance at it. No time to be lost.

  Without hesitation, she thundered up the pier, grabbed the rope post and leaned down into the boat. ‘Fred, give me back that three pounds,’ she said. ‘I need it badly. My bike. It broke down. It’s the carburettor. I need that three pounds. Give it back to me, it is mine, you know.’

  He looked at her then, looked at her furtively and gave a nervous laugh, glancing at the other men for approbation. It infuriated her.

  ‘Give me back my money, Fred,’ she hissed and put a hand on the gunwale of the small boat. Her eyes were on his breast pocket. He had shoved her wallet in there when he had demanded it from her. With determination, she reached into the boat, letting go of the rope in order to grab his coat. He shrunk back, but she got her free hand into his pocket, felt the wallet and shouted, ‘Thief! You’re just a bloody thief! Give me back my money!’

  And then with a scared look, he stopped resisting. ‘Always a bit of a mammy’s boy, our Fred.’ Eamonn used to say that when she and her friend Áine shared a Republican safe house with six young men. ‘First to talk and last into action.’ Danny used to say that. Now he tried to shrink back when he felt her fingers on the wallet in his pocket.

  But then everything began to go wrong. The boat rocked violently, almost leaped in the water. One of the men had started up the outboard engine. In a second’s time, Eileen had lost her balance. For a moment she wavered over the water between pier and boat. The man holding the tiller looked back and swore. Then his friend grabbed her firmly by the wrist and pulled her. She staggered, almost lost her balance, but after a minute, she found herself seated on one of the cross planks. There was barely room for her, and she swore aloud, as much from fury as from fright. He put one of his hands over her mouth and the other clamped her wrist.

  ‘Looks like you are coming with us,’ he said in a whisper. ‘Now keep your head down like a good girl and don’t say a word, will you? There’s a bit of trouble going on, but we’ll try to put you on shore before things get serious.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Eileen, wriggling free from his hand. She still had hold of Fred’s pocket and she was going to keep it that way.

  There wasn’t any need for silence, in any case. The outboard engine had exploded into a series of ear splitting bangs and thumps. The small boat leaped in the water. Eileen’s fingers felt something in Fred’s pocket. He was looking over his shoulder. In a moment, she retrieved the wallet and thrust it deep into her own pocket.

  ‘It’s mine,’ she said, more as an explanation to the other men than addressing Fred. ‘He took it from me,’ she added and then looked all around her, wondering how to get back to shore.

  Fred did not protest. It seemed as though he hardly noticed her action. His eyes were fixed on the two boats further along the Douglas Passageway. Someone was shouting into a loud hailer from the ship filled with Free State Army soldiers. The new government in Dublin had plenty of soldiers, many of them inherited from the English army, but so far they had no navy. That ship was no warship, it looked quite like a passenger ferry. But it was every bit as deadly. Every man on it was armed with a gun and there was a small cannon on the deck. The fishing trawler abandoned all pretences of fishing and leaped into action, speeding through the water. The path to the outer harbour was blocked by the Free State ship and so the fishing trawler had turned back towards the land. Eileen looked at Lough Mahon. The trawler was making for there. She could see guns now in the hands of the men and the net with its glistening mackerel was thrown overboard.

  But then a shot rang out. The Free State Army boat aimed directly at the fishing boat. Another shot. A return shot. Several shots. The mackerel trawler lurched. It had been hit. It was easy to see the ragged hole in its side.

  ‘Stay right where you are; don’t move. We’re coming on board,’ came the voice. A Dublin accent, thought Eileen. Another few shots were fired from the trawler. On its far side a dingy was lowered. She could see that men were streaming off the trawler, diving from the prow. It wasn’t going to work though. The Free State ship was full of men. Coming from the large island of Haulbowline, in the outer harbour, she guessed. Ireland had no navy, yet, but they had a troop of soldiers on Haulbowline and soldiers, on a ship handled by professional sailors, was just as effective as any navy, or so she had been told.

  In any case, the Republicans seemed to be getting the worse of the encounter with the Free Staters. An effort to unload another dinghy from the trawler had failed. The boat was already riddled with holes and now it was bombarded. It lurched dangerously and the bows began to sink. The few men left on it were galvanized into action. A small lifeboat was launched over the side. It hit the water with a tremendous splash and then righted itself. The men already in the water swam towards it and a box was lowered down to them, and then anoth
er box.

  ‘The weapons!’ said Fred and instantly the man at the propeller started up the little outboard engine. Shots rang out and Eileen crouched at the bottom of the boat, pulling a tarpaulin over her head. Let me not be shot, she prayed earnestly. It was cowardly, but life was good at the moment. She was having fun. She didn’t want to be killed.

  There was a scream and the boat rocked. The man at the engine slumped into a heap.

  ‘He’s got a bullet in the stomach,’ said Fred, his voice shaking and then there was a splash. The man had been thrown overboard. Eileen gulped. Cautiously she unfolded a corner of the tarpaulin. Had he been still alive? No word had been spoken and the action had been almost immediate. Had it been Fred who had done that? She thought it had been Fred. The outboard engine was still running and the boat was being steered in a zig-zag way in order to avoid shots. The man at the tiller was still at his post. No, it had been Fred who had thrown the wounded man overboard.

  And then a savage whisper from the man at the tiller. ‘Dive, it’s our only chance! They’re getting too near us.’

  Two splashes.

  The engine spluttered and then died.

  Eileen was left alone on the little boat.

  She glanced around. Boats were a new thing for her. She had never, during her eighteen years in a coastal city, even seen the sea. Could she manage this boat on her own? They could not be too much different from motorbikes, though, and she had mastered her motorbike with a couple of half hours of tuition. She edged up towards the prow of the boat, pulled the cord of the outboard motor, holding it in one hand and the tiller of the boat in the other. Cautiously and keeping the engine speed to a low level she began to move away from the boats on Lough Mahon and down the narrow channel past Passage West.

  She would, she thought, avoid the place of action. She knew what was going to happen. The Free State soldiers were going to be victorious in this action. Fred and his two companions would not do much, she thought dispassionately, about delaying the inevitable outcome for the men in the fishing trawler and for the goods that they carried in those heavy wooden boxes. Guns, she thought, thinking of Fred’s feverish gabbling. She knew where she would go and how she could wait out the conclusion of the battle.

  There was a voice in her ears. A voice from the dim and distant past when she was only about eight years old. The voice of the Reverend Mother telling the children the story of the famous Englishman, Sir Francis Drake, who was desperate to escape from the Spaniards. He had sailed into Cork Harbour, knew it well, said the Reverend Mother; sailed up through the outer harbour, the Spaniards close behind. He had reached the spot where the Owenbue River discharged its waters into the harbour. ‘Cleverly knowing,’ had said the Reverend Mother to her eagerly listening class, ‘the exact spot where there was a deep pool.’ He had cast his anchor there, and waited, knowing full well that the tide was ebbing and that his enemies’ large ships would be stranded useless and sunken into muddy sand.

  And now more than three hundred years later, that same place might save her life. The tide had turned. She could see how the water ebbed out towards the outer harbour, towards the sea. It was going to be difficult for that warship to get back out, unless they came quickly, but Eileen was well ahead of them in her rapid little boat and she would get to safety before they spotted her.

  Eileen knew the Owenbue, well. The river flowed through the valley at Ballinhassig, below where the Republic safe house was located that she and Fred had shared not so long ago. Looking across, she could now see where it reached its destination, the place where fresh water met salt water, the small channel that led up to the small seaside town. She tried to picture the atlas, tried to remember her Geography lessons. She had got a first-class honours in Geography. Yes, she remembered now. It was Carrigaline. She would take advantage of her education and of her teacher’s gift for telling interesting stories and she would follow the example of the sixteenth-century hero/pirate from Elizabethan England and make for Drake’s Pool. She would spend the night there, and then when dawn rose, she would cautiously negotiate her way back, hopefully to Douglas and pick up her motorbike. At least now, she had her money back. She imagined herself, nonchalantly telling the story to Jack at the printing works and imagining his horror that she had got herself involved in such a dangerous operation.

  And then a shot hit the water in front of her. She had been too confident. She should have stayed where she was until darkness fell. Even then, she should not have switched on that noisy and intrusive outboard engine, but should have endeavoured to move the boat, slowly and cautiously, with the aid of those oars that she could dimly see, lying in the bottom of the boat.

  Still, there was no good wishing the past undone. Now was a moment for boldness. Eileen opened up the throttle to full speed and made the little boat leap through the water.

  Another shot was fired. It split the water next to the boat and a fountain sprang up, and almost swamped her. She could not change action now. She was right in their sights. There was only one thing that she could do and although she slightly despised herself for thinking of it, she snatched off the leather helmet that she wore on her motorbike and allowed her very long, black hair to blow, like a sail, behind her.

  The shots stopped. That was a surprise. It had been an act of desperation, but it had worked. As she sped through the water of the channel, the little boat cleaving a passageway almost like a knife through butter, Eileen prayed that it might last. She had her eyes on the Owenbue River and her faith was firmly in that story, told so very long ago in that classroom.

  And then there was another shot. Not at her, this time, but at the men with the boxes of rifles. Another and another. She saw the man who had pulled her aboard the boat when she had been rifling in Fred’s pocket, trying to get back her wallet. The man who had told her to keep her head down and to be a good girl. He would never say that again. She saw the shot that hit him, saw his hands go up into the air, saw him topple over and fall from the boat and into the harbour water. The top of his head had been blown off.

  Don’t look, her mind whispered that to her. There was no point. No point in trying to be heroic, trying to help, trying to rescue. There must be about ten men there, all in great danger. The chances were that few of them would be alive in the morning. She fixed her eyes on the group of trees near to the shoreline and drove her boat at full speed towards them. Drake’s Pool, her mind said as she steered adroitly away from the scene of action.

  There was a small island in her sights, not a real island, more like a piece of higher ground in the harbour, perhaps a cluster of rocks that had accumulated sand and debris. There were some tall reeds growing there, no longer flourishing and green, pale straw in colour, but standing up tall and straight, about six foot high, she reckoned. She drove her boat to behind them and then slowed almost to a stop, the tick of the engine seeming almost quieter than the thud of her heart.

  The battle, skirmish or whatever one could call such a one-sided affair, seemed to be almost over. The man with the Dublin accent was bawling down the microphone, and there were no more shots. How many were now left alive, she wondered, but dared not move in order to look. Had Fred been taken, or was he still at liberty? Perhaps she should try to search for him, but somehow she did not want to. She did not want to have anything more to do with Fred Mulcahy. She shuddered a little when she thought of his strange confession. If he had really killed his father then he would be hanged, if found.

  And she? She had taken no part in the battle, but even so. She had been in the company of Republicans. Once arrested, she would be recognized, identified, tied in with that daring prison break. She would be lucky to escape with a short prison spell, but she did not want that, not for Fred Mulcahy, who had robbed her and involved her without scruple when she had saved him from arrest. She moved the boat carefully, reaching out and clutching bunches of reeds, one after the other and moving the boat by that means. Without the noisy outboard engine or the splash of oars,
the boat glided along almost soundlessly. Any sound from the reeds could be from some of those long-legged birds. She moved on until she was just at the end of the shelter and peeped around cautiously.

  The fishing trawler was now on its side. Some ill-advised men, who had lent their boat to the Republicans, were now going to be without means of making a livelihood. It still held some guns, though, in their long boxes and these were being handed up into the Free State ship. Eileen could hear the shouts of the sailors beckoning the soldiers to get back on board. And then she noticed something. The Reverend Mother’s story was right. The tide was ebbing fast. She could see how it was dragging some clumps of dead reeds and even an empty bird’s nest, in a fast swirling track of water out towards the sea. And, yes, she thought, the level was definitely sinking. She would be safe. They wouldn’t be able to approach her now. There was not enough depth of water left for a ship of that size.

  The ship was moving out trying to catch the tide. It blew its horn and under the cover of the noise, she risked starting up her engine again. She needed to get down that estuary. She could see lots of boats moored there, yachts with white and coloured sails. Rich men’s toys. Eamonn had said something like that once. But if she could get amongst them she would not be conspicuous, and, even if the soldiers spotted her, they would not risk injuring a rich man’s toy.

  And so she took a gamble, opened the throttle, went recklessly at full speed in that direction. The water was ebbing fast out of the estuary. The anchored boats and yachts swung on their ropes. Most were heavily tilted to one side. It would be hours before they could take to the sea again. Still her boat was very small and shallow. She would perhaps be able to make her way to the village beyond.

  But not immediately. There would be troops all around. An unknown face coming ashore from the battle. She would be questioned. Where was Drake’s Pool?