Ossian's Ride (6 page)

He took a smallish notebook from his pocket. “This book has to be got into the hands of the best man left. We’re nearly wiped out, but a few pockets are still intact here and there, particularly to the west. These must be reorganized immediately. Information, names, codes are needed. They must reach the right man without delay.”

He tossed the notebook at me. “I can’t move meself, and I can’t send any of the boys, because the guards are certainly on the lookout for ’em. That leaves you, Mister Cocksure. You are to deliver that little book to Shaun Houseman, who keeps the Unicorn Hotel at Longford. I want it there within twenty-four hours. I can have a car ready for you at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. You say you have a good memory—Houseman, the Unicorn Hotel, Longford.”

I put the notebook on the table. “See here, Colquhoun, we’d better understand each other a little more clearly. In the first place I have explicit instructions from London not to get embroiled in your affairs.”

“That may be, but this is the gravest possible crisis, and the unwritten law is that we must all do what we can to safeguard the others, just as I stayed here at my post to safeguard you.” There was now very little trace of the Irish in Colquhoun’s manner of speech. This was not his real name, I had no doubt. Morally he seemed three times the man he had been before. Whether this was really so, or the effect of a liberal dosing with Power’s whiskey, I couldn’t say.

“And although I might be able to deliver the notebook, I certainly couldn’t guarantee to do so within twenty-four hours. Your idea of a car is ridiculous anyway. I’m here in this country ostensibly as an impoverished student, and I’ve no business to be found driving a car. If I were stopped by the police I should be under immediate suspicion. And if I were not stopped—well then, you might just as well have sent Liam instead.”

I never learned Colquhoun’s reply to this argument. We were interrupted by a furious pounding of feet on the stairs. The Irish stage character erupted into the room.

“They’ve taken Liam,” he gasped.

“Where?” demanded Colquhoun.

“Coming down Thomas’s.”

The only thing to do, and that quickly, was to get into the area of the docks. I grabbed the whiskey bottle and emptied half its contents down the side of my coat. Then I took a small device from my pocket, one that I had made up earlier in the week at the Trinity Chem Lab. It was a long time since I had played with such a thing, not since my school days in fact. I cursed myself for studying mathematics; if I’d done experimental science instead, I’d have felt more confidence in the damned thing working properly. It was bound to be a dud, I thought gloomily as I primed it.

Seamus Colquhoun had drunk too much to be capable of swift action, so I left him to fare the best he could. In a few seconds I was in the street again, trotting as fast as I dared (for the night was dark) in the direction of Cork Street. Soon there was a narrow opening to my right. If I could get through to the canal without meeting a patrol there was still a chance.

I suppose the distance was only about a hundred yards but it seemed much more before a wide space opened up in front of me. There were moving lights to the right and on an impulse I walked toward them, instead of away.

Evidently a posse was searching along the canalside. It would be better to take the initiative by walking right into them, rather than be trapped by a couple of patrols in the streets. Obviously all the approaches to Marrowbone Lane would be blocked.

I lurched forward with unsteady gait, singing but not too raucously.

“Hi there!”

I went on without pause. The challenge was repeated in a louder voice. I stopped uncertainly and glanced around in a vague way. A bright light flashed in my eyes.

“Hey, whashamatter?”

Hands patted my hips and then moved swiftly under my armpits. Who would be fool enough to carry a gun? Liam, I supposed.

“It’s all right. The feller’s stinking.”

Which was perfectly true. The smell of the whiskey was strong, too strong really if they had had the wit to notice.

“Better be on the safe side and take him in. Kevin and Paddy, you go, and get back again as quickly as you can.”

We stumbled along to the end of the dock, each man gripping me tightly by an arm. There were three powerful cars. I was pushed into the back of one and one of the men got in beside me. We had gone maybe a couple of hundred yards in the direction of the castle when I remarked, “Shtop. Want to be sick.”

The driver slammed on the brakes—no one likes a vomiting passenger. In a trice he was out and had the door open. His companion forced me onto the pavement.

“Now bring yer insides up, damn you.”

I had managed to pull the little package from my pocket, so even though they held me by the arms, I managed to flick it down on the ground as I staggered to the front of the car. Although my eyes were tightly shut the sudden flash almost blinded me. It took but a few seconds to dive into the driving seat, start the engine again and pull away from the dazed guards. I had about five minutes’ grace, two or three minutes while Kevin and Paddy recovered their sight, and another couple before they got back to the cars.

I parked in St. Stephen’s Green, wiping the steering wheel carefully, and the door handles inside and out, the gear shift, ignition key, and the light switch—there seemed nothing else I had touched with my hands. By now the pursuit would be on, but it would be well-nigh hopeless.

I had only a hundred yards to go when there was the rattle of an automatic rifle. It seemed to come from the west, very likely from the area of Marrowbone Lane. Poor old Colquhoun! Arms were nasty things. Much better to rely on a bit of magnesium flash powder. Lucky the thing had gone off.

There was one more obstacle. I still had to climb into college. One of the lads had shown me the way, and I hated it. First an easy gate, then a stretch along a moderately difficult roof, and lastly a beastly medieval sort of railing with revolving spikes at the top, where the only safe thing to do was to take the whole weight on one’s hands. By a kind dispensation I got over it without endangering the next generation of Sherwoods.

To calm my nerves I brewed a pot of tea and consumed a few slices of bread and marmalade. The situation needed close review. I had washed my embarrassingly alcoholic jacket. In an hour or two all excessive traces of whiskey would be gone. It was true that I had been seen, but only in a very poor light. Assuming that the police found no mention of me at Marrowbone Lane, it was highly unlikely that I could be traced. If Colquhoun were taken alive it was doubtful whether he would peach on me, and even if he did it was doubtful whether his information would add up to very much. My impression was that he knew nothing of my mission, nothing of where I was staying, not even my name.

I had the money. I had something else besides. In the moment of crisis I had foolishly snapped up the notebook. Now I was morally committed to visit Shaun Houseman.

It was perhaps a little odd that I should have slept well. By the time I had shaved the following morning it was fully eleven o’clock, too late for breakfast in college. So I revisited the cafeteria in Grafton Street, stopping to buy a morning paper on the way. There was small comfort to be gained from the account of the “Death of a Guard,” as the
Irish Times
described it:

This paper has had occasion to emphasize only too often in recent months that the ordinary law-abiding citizen of this country is now surrounded by a rising tide of violence. Scarcely a week passes by without some new outbreak manifesting itself, much as an ugly rash may presage the onset of some dangerous disease.

In the early hours of the morning a desperate action took place between the guards and a gang whose headquarters were discovered nearby the docks in the Old City. It is with great regret that we announce the death in this action of Guard Paddy Kilpatrick. Although the desperadoes immediately responsible for his death have themselves paid the ultimate price for this appalling crime, it is understood that one member of the gang managed to escape during the confusion. It is confidently stated, however, that his capture can be at most a matter of hours.

Poor old Colquhoun! Was he really a desperado, or was he a patriot living dangerously for his country, dying fighting for his life? Not for the first time I realized that there are questions with no real answer. I couldn’t help wondering how logicians ever came to believe in the principle of the excluded middle. There are so many common examples to refute it.

The bit in the paper about myself was plainly absurd. Such statements are made only if the police do
not
expect to make an arrest; I suppose in the hope of scaring their man into making some false move.

I was more worried by the death of the guard. Had he recovered his sight properly after the magnesium flash? Of course Paddy is a common name, and it might not have been the same fellow.

I intended to travel from Dublin to Longford by a tolerably complicated route. I had no intention of rushing the journey, as I had told Colquhoun in the plainest terms. The wisest plan was to stick to my student pose as long as I reasonably could. My behavior during the past week suggested that I had become greatly interested in the history of Ireland. Very properly this interest could take me to Armagh, where St. Patrick built his cathedral—or, to be less ecclesiastic, where Deirdre of the Sorrows is said to have spent her youth. True, a journey to Armagh would carry me away from Longford, but this was scarcely important compared with quitting Dublin safely, and with gaining some knowledge of travel in the interior of Ireland.

My first experience came as a surprise. I had decided to use buses, since they gave the most frequent and varied transportation, especially in remote districts. I dropped into a bookstore to buy a timetable, only to be asked for my permit. I looked blankly at the girl. “I’m sorry, but do I really need a permit in order to buy a bus timetable?”

“Oh, yes, sir! We should be having all the rag, tag and bobtail coming in to buy timetables if it weren’t for the permits.”

“Then I must acquire a permit, I suppose. Where can I get one?”

“At any Guard Station, sir.”

My first impulse was to go to a Guard Station, but on second thought I decided that the slight risk was not worth the gain. I had no wish to meet Kevin again, remote as the chance of recognition might be.

Besides, I had a better idea. I am ashamed to say that I simply purloined the Trinity Library copy, along with some half a dozen maps of the west. Surely if one needed a permit to buy a timetable, nothing less than special dispensation by the government would suffice for the purchase of a map.

Actually these restrictions were well conceived by the authorities. I found later that there was no hindrance to local traffic. At whatever place one happened to be, information was always available about the local bus service. The genuine resident was therefore put to no inconvenience. It was rag, tag and bobtail like myself who were embarrassed by the restrictions, which I suppose was only right and proper.

After lunch, dressed in cap and tweed jacket, I set off to the bus station, rucksack on back again. I must have seemed a fair approximation of the typical Irish student.

When the bus pulled out of the city into open country I had a severe shock, for the road became truly enormous, a dual carriageway stretching far into the distance, fully a hundred yards wide. It was enormous, judged even by American standards, and it brought home more forcibly to me than anything I had yet seen how great must be the power that was driving this Irish economy.

It struck me that the roads a nation builds provide a fair estimate of that nation’s faith in the future. The appalling road system in Britain makes no sense at all, either in terms of economics or convenience, except on the supposition that civilization itself is on the brink of collapse. The bus, too, was huge by any standard I had seen before. It managed the journey to Armagh comfortably within the hour.

I was lucky to get a room in a small hotel. Before starting on my tour of the town I dropped into a cafe for a pot of tea, it being then about 4 P.M. I mention this detail because a curious incident occurred, one that had a considerable bearing on later events. At a table two places removed there was a group of three: two hard-faced cases, maybe forty years old or thereabouts, and a fresh-faced, pleasant-looking lad whom I took to be about three years younger than myself. The oddity of their association struck the eye immediately. They finished before me. The boy moved first, going over to the pay desk. Really I am exaggerating when I describe the incident as curious. All that happened was a flicker of expression that crossed the faces of the older men, once the younger one had left them together. I couldn’t put a name to that expression, but it was an expression that emphatically I did not like. I watched the three climb into a Chevrolet car parked immediately in front of the cafe.

Alas, there is no sign any more in Armagh of Deirdre, or of the Knights of the Red Branch. Yesterday they proudly walked the earth, alive to the warmth of the summer sun, to the scent of new-mown grass. But they are gone now with all their troubles, gone with their loves and their hates and fears. Soon time’s mad, headlong rush will stream past us too, and in our turn we shall be enshrouded in the black obscurity of the past. Soon, you businessmen who walk the pavement beside me, soon you will have wasted the brief flash of life, wasted it in your frenzied concern for pounds, shillings and pence. Soon, you girls, it will be of no concern to anyone whether it is Dick you marry, or Harry, or Tom. Soon, Thomas Sherwood, soon you too will be like a castle in the sand, obliterated by the onrushing tide of life. Soon our whole generation and age will be gone without trace—no, not without trace, for here and there an idea will be preserved and will become a part of the human heritage down the centuries.