Ashes In the Wind (11 page)

In the evenings they sit and talk over the fire in the kitchen. Tomas gives his mother an exact account of the battle at Staigue Fort, but is much vaguer about his life on the run in Cork and in Dublin.

Late one evening she says, ‘John Burke came looking for his mother and asked me if I knew where she might be, and where you were. I said I didn’t know, that you wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.’

On Saturday Tomas walks out to Staigue Fort, the sun gleaming on the Kenmare River, the hedges red with fuchsia in full bloom. He stands on top of the fort wall, looking up at the pass where the Manchester Regiment had first appeared, then goes to the souterrain and crawls along it until it surfaces in the little wood. He looks at the site of the Lewis gun where he and Frank had killed three men. There are still empty cartridge cases lying half hidden in the grass. He picks one up and puts it in his pocket, plucks a fuchsia flower from the hedge and slips it between the pages of his missal, the bright red of the petals the colour of the blood around Seamus O’Connell’s head. He walks back down to the fort, which looks impregnable.

‘They’d never have driven us out if we’d had a machine gun and a few more men,’ he says out loud.

He ducks inside the low entrance and stops where Seamus O’Connell and Patrick O’Mahony had both lain on the grass, one dead, the other with a shattered knee. He tries to remember the Prayer for the Dead.

‘Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.’ He has forgotten the final line, and ends, ‘Rest in peace, Seamus, Patrick, Michael...’

He walks back into Drimnamore, where a much-reduced Fair Day is in progress on the green. Father Michael is there.

‘Welcome back,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you in church tomorrow. There’ll be plenty there glad to see you back.’

‘Thank you, Father,’ says Tomas, and walks on to the O’Mahony cottage, which looks out on the green. Mrs O’Mahony’s reaction to seeing Tomas is like his mother’s. He is taken into the front room; in the corner there is a shrine to Patrick almost identical to the one he had seen in the O’Hanrahan house. Only the flag is different; it is the new green, white and orange of the Free State.

Tomas picks up the Mass card.

IN THE MOST HOLY NAME OF JESUS

Patrick O’Mahony

Who gave his life for Ireland at Staigue Fort

On 14 April 1920

RIP

O Immense Passion! O Profound Wounds! O Profusion of Blood! O Sweetness Above All Sweetness! O Most Bitter Death! Grant Him Eternal Rest.

Amen – 400 days Indulgence.

Tomas thinks the words strange, finds it hard to believe they offer any comfort. He puts the card back in its place.

‘God help us, we miss him,’ says Mrs O’Mahony. John O’Mahony, who has come in off the green, nods but cannot trust himself to speak.

‘He was a good boy, a good boy,’ says Mrs O’Mahony.

‘He was a brave soldier. And he fought in a war that we’ve won. I wish he’d been here to see the end of it.’

Tomas puts on his uniform to go to church the next morning; this is the first time Drimnamore has seen the olive-green of the Free State Army. Tomas doesn’t go to confession and doesn’t take Communion. This is noticed by Father Michael, who takes Tomas to one side after the service.

‘You can’t stay away from God for ever,’ he says. ‘You carry a heavy burden. You should have the faith to share it.’

Tomas nods, shakes Father Michael’s hand, moves away and is quickly surrounded by a small circle of admirers. Some are the parents of the men who fell at Staigue Fort or who were executed later. He enjoys this sudden celebrity, and the pleasure it gives his mother, but he no longer feels at home in Drimnamore. Too much has happened to him in and after Staigue Fort, in Cork and in Dublin – these are things he cannot share and cannot leave behind. He makes arrangements with one of the Doyles to help his mother with the heavy work on the farm, says goodbye to a tearful Annie, promises to return soon, and makes the long journey back to the barracks at Ballincollig.

He sees Donal the next morning.

‘I’ve the great job for you,’ he says to Tomas. ‘You’re to march your platoon to Kinsale and take over Charles Fort from the British Army. They’re ready to leave as soon as you get there.’

‘It’s the best part of twenty miles,’ says Tomas.

‘It’ll be good for your men. There’s too much talk in the barracks about the IRA. We need to remind ourselves we’re the Free State Army now. There’s no need and no room for anything else.’

During his week’s leave in Drimnamore, Tomas has lost two men from his platoon. One has gone back to his farm in Kilkenny, the other has joined the Republican group in Macroom. To Tomas’s surprise his men are happy to leave the barracks, even for a twenty-mile march. He and Sergeant O’Connor drill them hard for an hour the night before.

‘You’ll be on show, boys,’ says O’Connor. ‘It’s a bit of a detour, but we’re going through Cork City and on down through Fivemilebridge. So make sure your boots and brasses are shining bright.’

They set off after an early breakfast the next day. North of the city they give a smart eyes right to the flag of the Free State flying above the Victoria barracks; through Cork City the cheers and clapping put a spring in their step. There are no British soldiers, no Tans, no Auxiliaries, a few policemen in the new uniforms of the Garda.

They reach Charles Fort in the middle of the afternoon. Tomas finds the British captain, salutes him and gets a reluctant salute in return.

‘There’s accommodation for you and your men in C Block,’ he tells Tomas, pointing across the central square. ‘Food in the cookhouse next door. Best if you eat tonight and tomorrow after my men have finished. We’ll be gone by noon.’

Tomas is taken aback by the size and strength of Charles Fort. It sits on the top of the bluff a mile outside Kinsale, an enormous star-shaped stronghold with two bastions facing the sea, three more on the landward side, containing buildings enough for a small village within its walls, a powerful reminder of the strength and bloody-minded will behind the British domination of Ireland over seven hundred years.

He walks around the grassy ramparts in the evening with Sergeant O’Connor.

‘You could house a brigade in this place,’ says O’Connor.

‘And most of Drimnamore. The twenty of us will rattle around like three peas in a tin bucket. It makes you realize just what we’ve pulled off. The Brits built this place two hundred and fifty years ago, and now they’re off without a shot being fired.’

‘We never sent for them in the first place. They’ll be little enough missed.’

The next morning Tomas walks around the main rooms with the British captain, who is carrying a lengthy checklist. After three hours of ‘Twenty beds, men’s, single. Forks, two hundred. Blankets, grey, fifty. Mugs, enamel, seventy-five,’ Tomas stops the captain. ‘Look, I’ll sign and trust you for the rest. The Free State will survive if we’re short a few forks. There’s more than we could ever use, and any road we haven’t paid for the stuff.’

The captain looks shocked for a moment, then laughs. ‘It’s up to you. Sign at the bottom of each page, you keep a copy, and we’ll be off. And the best of luck.’

They shake hands. Tomas brings his platoon out onto the parade ground, the Irish flag is hoisted, and the British soldiers climb into their truck and drive away. There are no cheers, no jeers, the British soldiers silenced by their defeat, the Irishmen by their immense victory. Tomas stoops down and picks a clover leaf from the parade ground grass, puts it in the lining of his cap for luck, then walks back with Sergeant O’Connor to C Block.

B
ACK
AT
B
URKE
’
S
Fort a few weeks after his visit to Kilmainham, the hunting season over, John is sitting at breakfast in the morning room when Charles says in a worried tone, ‘Sean was badly kicked by The Elector yesterday – got between him and the back wall of the stable, the damn fool. Leg’s broken in three places, he won’t be out of Navan Hospital for a month, and then he’ll be in plaster for heaven knows how long. Doubt he’ll want to be our stallion man any more.’

‘You’re not young enough to hold him,’ says Cis. ‘John’s good with the horses, and he’s strong. It’ll give him something useful to do.’

‘I’ve never dealt with stallions, only geldings and mares,’ says John. ‘But I’ve helped with the foaling at home.’

‘There’s no one else. I’d be grateful if you’d take it on,’ says Charles. ‘You’ll learn soon enough.’

Sean never comes back to the stallion yard, and John does learn soon enough. His new life revolves around The Elector, the mares and their foals, and the visiting mares who come to be covered.

The stallion looks like his ancestor The Archduke, lacking only the star on his forehead to be a living replica of the painting in the drawing room. He is a five-year-old, with the powerful muscled neck of a mature entire horse, and although not vicious – he never bites his handler or his mares – he needs care, particularly in the stable. John loves the horse, treating him with affectionate caution, taking him out to the paddock every day in the winter for an hour’s exercise, watching him canter off once released from his head-collar, neck curved, tail raised, bucking a couple of times for the joy of being free from his stable.

He spends an hour every afternoon rubbing the stallion down with a thick wisp of hay, hissing in imitation of the bedridden Sean, who has told him it soothes the horse. He enjoys the warm smell of the bright chestnut coat, and when the grooming is finished runs his hand along the powerful neck to stroke each ear until The Elector, wanting his evening feed, turns and pushes him away.

‘He loves his work,’ says Charles. ‘Eighty-five per cent fertility, and not many needing a second cover. He could handle eighty mares a year easily if we could get them.’

Charles talks John through his first half-dozen covers – the teaser stallion to excite the visiting mare, the twitch on the upper lip of the mare to help the groom to hold her steady, tail bandaged at the top and tied forward out of the way, vulva swabbed clean, a heavy leather blanket across the mare’s quarters to prevent any damage from The Elector’s forelegs as, whinnying in excitement, he mounts the mare, the massive penis – ‘You’re lucky, some horses need to be helped in. He knows what to do’ – the brief, shuddering moment as the stallion does his work.

Eleven months later the foals arrive. John brings the mares into the foaling box as soon as they wax up, and spends many nights in the cubbyhole next door waiting for the waters to break. He helps the foal out, feet first if he’s lucky, watches the foal dive into the world. John is moved by the moment when the mare turns around to lick the foal clean, the afterbirth hanging down behind her until he ties it off and cleans her up. And within the hour the foal is up on long unstable legs, nuzzling the mare to find the milk.

A new range of seasons frames John’s life. Hunting between October and March, foaling and covering in the first three months of the year, point-to-points between February and May, racing all the year round. The mares come into their stables in the autumn and are turned out in the spring onto the rich grassland, so rich that it has to be grazed by sheep before the horses can be allowed on it. The big sales are in October on The Curragh and at Ballsbridge during the Dublin Shows, the spring show in April, the main show in August.

After a probationary month looking after The Elector, John has become the stallion man. The stables are a mile from the house, three sides of a square with boxes on each side, a cobbled yard, red-painted stable doors, two large water troughs with a handpump each, a mounting block that Charles now has to use. The plain wall on the fourth side of the square is broken by a curved archway

The tack room to the left of the archway smells of leather, saddle soap and neat’s-foot oil. Down one wall hang the saddles, halters and bridles, on the opposite wall in a glass case are the yellow, blue and red rosettes from twenty years of horse shows up and down the country. There are photographs of winners being led in or jumping the last fence – a dozen horseshoes are nailed up, each marking a Classic success.

‘That’s Dublin,’ says Charles, pointing to a large red, white and blue rosette. ‘Champion Heavyweight Hunter in 1902. Long time since we had a horse as good. But we might enter The Elector once we see how you both get on.’

Behind the main stable block is the smaller stallion yard – a generous box for The Elector, smaller boxes for the visiting mares and the teaser, and a derelict two-up, two-down cottage in the corner. John asks if he can move in to be closer to the horses.

‘Fine by me, but you’ll need to make it habitable first. I’ll get the builder in from the village to help you out. It’s got electricity on the ground floor and water, but you’ll need a bathroom. The last man to live there used the pump in the big yard.’

Once he has moved in, he realizes that John Burke Esquire, formerly of Derriquin Castle, has become John, the stallion man at Burke’s Fort. He is happy about the no-man’s-land he inhabits; he still lunches with his cousins in the Big House every Sunday but drinks with the other grooms in the village snug most Saturday nights. He wears strong boots, dark brown corduroy trousers and a broad leather belt, a striped shirt with a collar stud and no collar or tie, a rough tweed jacket and a peaked cap, all bought from the haberdasher’s shop in Maryborough. He has two voices, one for Sunday lunch, one for the rest of the week.

Young Charlie Burke, his own age, is friendly enough when he comes back for the holidays from agricultural college, but has difficulty placing John in his ordered, hierarchical view of the world. The three Burkes go out hunting together, but on their return Charles and Charlie hand their horses over to the grooms, while John waters and feeds his mare, makes sure she’s dry and sound, and cleans the saddles and bridles with Michael and Sean in the tack room before going back to his cottage.

He goes to the occasional hunt ball with Charlie, almost always because a spare man is needed. The mothers of the girls he meets are cautious in their welcome. John understands this; in a universe of young men who are either at Trinity or in the army, he enjoys the look of surprise when he says, ‘I’m the stallion man at Burke’s Fort.’ The mothers don’t enquire further.