The Immortal Irishman

by Timothy Egan

  Shortly after the election, MacManus put into play the plan for freedom he had mentioned to Meagher at his wedding. He had gone on the lam, sheltered by sympathetic free settlers. He emerged as a sick man in a hospital, bedridden, unable to move. Denison sent a doctor and police to check up on him, with orders for an arrest to follow. But the sick man was an imposter, with a remarkable likeness to the Irish broker from Liverpool. As Denison’s doctor was fussing over the presumed felon, the real MacManus was making his way at night to a little port on the north shore. He was taken from there to a trading ship, the Elizabeth Thompson. He sailed to Hawaii and then to San Francisco, arriving on June 5, 1851. In the gold rush boomtown, chock-full of Irish miners, MacManus was greeted like a hero. At a reception that included judges, a senator, and members of Congress, San Francisco Mayor Charles Brenham offered this toast to the fugitive: “Ireland gave him birth, England a dungeon; America a home, with a thousand welcomes.”

  The escape was thrilling news to Meagher, and infectious, when word finally arrived more than six months later. His itch to flee, to get on with a life where he could have some impact, had to be scratched. He didn’t hide his feelings from his wife. They could never have a proper family, he argued, living under sentence, their children doomed by the stain. He was offended to see the cold stares directed at his lover, wife of a convict. “I had not been four months married, when I saw that she had to share the privations and indignities to which her husband himself was subject,” he wrote. “A prisoner myself, I had led another from the altar to share with me an odious captivity . . . this I could not bear. Hence I came to the determination of breaking loose from the trammels which bound me to that hateful soil.”

  Catherine O’Meagher was a free citizen. She could come and go as she pleased, anywhere in the British Empire. But there was a problem: Bennie was pregnant. This only hardened Meagher’s resolve. No child of an Irish patriot would reside in the oppressor nation’s confinement. Because of her fragility, Meagher was convinced that Bennie should not travel until the baby was born. He would get out first; the family would follow, traveling in style with Meagher money. When they next saw each other, God willing, they would be new parents to a freeborn Irish child.

  Coordinating an escape from a base in New York, and with the elder Meagher in Waterford, was no easy thing. A letter sent at Christmas would not arrive in Ireland until April. A ship had to be in place at the right time, the captain paid off and sworn to secrecy. It could all go wrong so quickly; witness the betrayal of a hired mariner in the Smith O’Brien debacle. Following the MacManus breakout, the governor had tightened his control of the state’s prisoners. Although it was clear, with the election results in Van Diemen’s Land and a change in the political winds in England, that transportation of convicts was headed for history’s attic, Denison made life worse for those still tied to life sentences. Anyone trying to escape would be shot.

  Meagher took up the challenge with relish. “Could you bring a gun?” he wrote O’Doherty in one of his last notes to a fellow exile. “I intend to go armed to the short collar—a brace of pistols, the rifle . . .” And there was the odd code to which Meagher adhered: he had given his word of honor, after all, that he would not flee, a word that meant something to Victorians of standing.

  A few days before the new year, he took Bennie down to her family home and said goodbye. The plan: when she got word of his whereabouts, she would travel first to Ireland, to be with the elder Meagher in Waterford. Then they would reunite in America. She should prepare to be separated from her husband for up to two years. Back at Lake Sorell, Meagher stocked up on provisions: dried food, hardtack, extra clothing. After spotting the fire lit by a supporting family—the signal that all parts of the escape plan were in place—he said goodbye to Egan; enjoy the fruits of their labor. On the morning of January 3, 1852, Meagher sent a note to the magistrate of his district, for same-day delivery—the strange formal act of transition from gentleman’s oblivion to gentleman’s escape.

  Sir:

  Circumstances of recent occurrence urge upon me the necessity of resigning my ticket of leave, and consequently withdrawing my parole.

  I write this letter, therefore, respectfully to apprise you, that after 12 o’clock tomorrow noon, I shall no longer consider myself bound by the obligation which that parole imposes.

  In the meantime, however, should you conceive it your duty to take me into custody, I shall, as a matter of course, regard myself as wholly absolved from the restraint which my word of honour to your Government at present inflicts.

  I have the honour to be, Sir, with sincere respect, Your obedient servant,

  Thomas Francis Meagher

  With those words, the exile hoped never to encounter the British Empire again as anything but an equal. Within minutes of receiving the note, the magistrate dispatched a heavily armed patrol up to Lake Sorell. One of the constables, an Irishman, refused to go, and was replaced. The order to police was explicit: if the convict resisted, they should kill him.

  8

  * * *

  Flight

  One last look, and quickly: the books, companions through the loneliest months, would have to stay, same with the gifts of fellow convicts, the walking stick from O’Doherty, the letters of support, scented and unscented. He needed his cache of food, a hat to shield his face, clothes, clothes, clothes, stuffed into a bag. He shut the cottage door and took the first step outward—his feet, his horse and the wind to carry him with luck more than halfway around the world, to freedom. It was seven o’clock on Saturday evening when friends on horseback arrived with news that constables were on their way to seize Meagher. The Irishman and his coconspirators, neighbors who had agreed to help, crept 300 yards away to a wooded hideout. He heard the approach of the police and waited, voice muffled, in a crouch. Word came from one of his supporters: they are in your house. He sprang up and mounted his horse, moving into the dying light of a Tasmanian summer day, January 3, 1852. Now he revealed himself, rising in his stirrups, hat in hand, face visible. He gave the British Empire one shot at him. Now he would perform his gentleman’s duty and be done with his captors.

  “I am O’Meagher!” he shouted. “Catch me if you can.”

  The police had only that glance of a defiant equestrian, for he was off with his posse as soon as the last words left his mouth—done a bolt, as the locals called it. They went into the bush with a shout, “Hooooeeeeeeeee,” followed by cheers. At a full gallop, they dashed along a path around the rim of Lake Sorell. He knew this part of the island better than his pursuers, could ride it in the haze of dusk, knew the dips and turns, following a barely visible trail. They stopped at Cooper’s hut; Meagher’s friend was asleep. Startled, he came out with just a nightshirt on, asked who was calling and if there were women present. Meagher identified himself. He paid the old shepherd for past kindnesses, all the times he’d opened his shack for a gathering of exiles.

  “Goodbye, Cooper. I’m off.”

  They raced upward, through the Western Tiers Mountains, toward the coast, in darkness, pushing the pace. At the hut of a shepherd named Job Sims, Meagher dismounted and went inside. There he shaved off his mustache. He could count on support from many of the Irish, Welsh and English convicts living in the wild north of the island, and could have hid out there for weeks. But Meagher was eager for open water and beyond, to get to the shore and a rendezvous, 140 or so miles away, as quickly as he could, even if it meant exhausting his mounts or risking accident. All night they moved across the island, cresting the Tiers, downslope to the northeast coast.

  Sunday was hot, buggy, exhausting. Meagher wrote a short summary of his escape for publication in a local newspaper, and included the names of witnesses who could verify his account should someone challenge his word—to prove he had acted honorably. After a change of horses, he pushed on in great haste, refusing to rest, not with guards in pursuit. The chill, the fright, the uncertainty of moving through Ireland four years earlier in the la
st days of the uprising, came back to him—daylight hours in Munster haylofts, nights moving in the shadows.

  That Sunday morning, Governor Denison got word of Meagher’s escape. He cursed his name and accused him publicly of breaking his word. It was one way to hurt him, should he get away—sully the reputation of the great orator. The other way was to catch him. And if so, Denison had already planned a punishment. He announced that he would ship Meagher to the hardest of the hard labor camps still in operation on the island, Port Arthur—its walls spattered with blood from the backs of men shredded with cat-o’-nine-tails, its timber crews chained while felling trees, its isolation a punishment in itself. “I will send him to Port Arthur,” the governor announced, “and make him a bottom sawyer under a very good top one.” The implication, of rape and work that would break or kill him, was lost on no one.

  By Sunday evening, the escapee was in Westbury, north of Lake Sorell. There were not many people in the region, but enough Irish settlers and paroled convicts that Meagher did not have to hide. He found shelter for the night, a meal and hearty encouragement to make it off the island. The next day, new volunteers offered to ride with him, following the Tamar River as it widened and spilled into the sea in a northern heave. His destination was Waterhouse Island in Bass Strait, the big sea-lane separating mainland Australia from Van Diemen’s Land. It was a shipping channel linking the Indian Ocean to the Pacific through the Tasman Sea, a useful shortcut for traders and raiders, pirates and ferrymen, the currents swift. Two fishermen had been paid in advance to take Meagher to the island. From there, he would catch a ship—the Elizabeth Thompson, the very vessel that delivered MacManus to freedom a year earlier. Everything had to line up with precision. Communication was by signal flares, handkerchiefs and shouts. If the timing was off, it would doom the escape; Meagher had just one chance to catch the ship. The details had been worked out over months, which meant much could have been lost as the plan passed from hand to hand. Was the vessel to meet him Tuesday or Wednesday? Was it the south side of Waterhouse Island or the north? Would the captain wait if Meagher didn’t see him at first? And what about betrayal, as happened to Smith O’Brien on Maria Island? A setup?

  Late Monday afternoon, Meagher reached Bass Strait, at the mouth of the river that drained the northeast corner of Van Diemen’s Land. He said farewell to his companions on land, thanked them for aiding his liberation attempt and took up with two brothers for hire, the Barretts, fishermen with a small open boat they had built themselves. The craft did not look seaworthy. Waterhouse Island was about two miles offshore, flat-topped and cliffy, a barren, treeless squat of sand. To get there, the convict and the fishermen had to row along the coast for almost forty miles and then cross the two miles through open water, with the hard currents and chop of the strait, surf breaking over the bow. They paddled under the summer sun, fighting strong northwesterly winds, and had trouble staying on course; the strait ran almost like a river between the ebb and flood stages of the tide. When the winds calmed, the water was clear enough to see dark images lurking just below the surface: the shadowing of sharks. Makos were the most common species, up to ten feet in length, the fastest of all sharks—flashes of gray in the shallow waters of the strait. Those fish the Barrett brothers could club away. What they feared were the great whites prowling these waters, twenty feet long or more, with a slashing maw of razor teeth.

  The wind galloped, the sea rose. Meagher was ordered to lie at the bottom of the boat, as ballast. Waves of two feet, four feet, six feet, fifteen feet. Head down, Meagher faced the faded canvas of the boat bottom, full of patches; it had ripped before, clearly, and the passenger wondered whether the pull of the sea would tear it wide open. Meagher popped his head up to get a look.

  “Any danger?”

  “Too late for that.”

  The fishermen wrestled with the surf, leading their craft up to the crests of waves, then plummeting down, the stern buried in water before it reappeared. As the boat rode the bucking sea, the oars flailed in the air. When Meagher popped up for another look, all he could see was foam and froth. The wind screamed for two hours. Meagher was terrified. Finally, in late afternoon, the speck of Waterhouse Island came into view. It was not even a square mile in size, barely a bump of land sheared off at the top of ragged cliffs. They found a cove and beach and went ashore, dragging the scuffed-up skiff to above the tide line. Meagher saw no trace of human activity save the shell of a shipwreck decomposed by sun and surf. Exhausted, the men fell to the ground and rested till dark. A meal of smoked herring and biscuits, washed down with sherry, served as dinner revival. With pieces of the wreck they made a fire. The carrion of the ship was also scavenged for shelter: scraps of sail were wrapped around the broken mast, making a tent of sorts.

  On Tuesday morning, day four of the escape, Meagher scanned the strait for his rescue ship. The news of his flight was out, and two Tasmanian newspapers were openly rooting for Meagher against the Crown—“here’s to every success and a continuation of freedom,” wrote the editors of the Hobart Town Guardian. On this day, a feral dog, a black and tan Newfoundland, had found the sun-blasted crew on the beach. Don’t say anything to it, the fishermen warned; it was a ghost on four feet, an evil spirit haunting the island. But Meagher took to the stray, soon to be his only mate. The day passed without anything to give him hope. The strait kicked up with the afternoon winds. Nothing appeared on the water.

  Wednesday, same thing—all day squinting into the sun, looking for large sails, the white clouds of rescue, chatting with the fishermen brothers. On Thursday, they ran out of food. The Barretts had anticipated a trip of no more than two days, and had taken just enough rations for that spell. They had no choice but to return to Van Diemen’s Land and leave Meagher alone on his pancake of sand. He understood: they had done all they could for him. And in case anyone doubted their duty to the escape, or if he were to die and they would be accused of foul play, he would vouch for them. Here . . . he’d put it in writing. Meagher crushed a tin drinking cup, flattening it completely, then blackened it over a fire. On this dark surface, he used the tip of a knife to write a primitive letter telling of his position, requesting provisions, and an explanation: the Barrett brothers had done their service for Ireland in the strait separating the Australian mainland from Van Diemen’s Land. The fishermen rowed away. “I was alone on that morose island,” Meagher wrote.

  He was hungry, unable to forage much from the tiny wasteland of Waterhouse Island. Any food would have to come from the sea, at low tide—what could be chipped from rocks and cracked open. It was hard work, his hands bloodied, and for little protein. He followed the patterns of birds, their feeding habits, where they ended their days, where they delivered food. He found nests in the cliffs, climbed up, and there reached for eggs. It was not enough, and meant a dangerous struggle with protective avian parents. He would starve to death if he couldn’t find other sources of food. Or he would die of thirst. He had enough water, if rationed wisely, for another week or so, but that was it. The island had no fresh water of its own. Meagher would need to capture rainfall. But in summer it could be a long time before anything fell from the sky. At night, the biggest fear was what slithered along the ground—big, fully-fanged black tiger snakes. Of all the Tasmanian exotics that frightened exiles in the penal colony, tiger snakes were the worst, at least by reputation. They crawled in the darkness, impossible to see, leaving a signature in the sand. Their venomous bite killed more humans than any other creature on land. Carnivores without discriminating taste, they attacked by flattening the body, lifting a swollen head up and then springing on prey with a quick stab through the air. Venom from the bite caused instant numbness, followed by shortness of breath, gasping and death. If Meagher kept a large enough fire going, perhaps the heat would keep the tiger snakes away. But it would also attract the police, on patrol offshore.

  On day seven of the escape, Friday, Meagher took up position under the unreliable shade of his ripped sail. He saw on
e passing ship, far out in the strait. Joy! Could this be the Elizabeth Thompson? He threw timbers of the shipwreck onto his smoldering blaze, stoking it to bonfire size as a signal. He jumped up and down, waving his coat, shouting, screaming into the strait, the wind grabbing his voice and tossing it away, up toward the Tasman Sea. This went on for some time, but the ship did not appear any larger on the horizon. It shrank and then slipped away entirely. The next morning, a week and a day into his penal colony break, Meagher spied a second ship. Again he built his fire to a height that rose above the flat of the island; again he jumped and shouted and waved his coat like a flag.

  “Here! Here! Over here!”

  But this ship disappeared like the other one, northeast with the winds, in the direction of New Zealand, more than 1,200 miles away. Meagher was left with his feral dog and the longing—what it might be like to snuggle in bed with his bride tonight, to be cooking lamb chops with Egan, watching the last light on Lake Sorell, a book to read, poems to write, songs to sing. Better to keep the mind on Bass Strait, on transport. It had all been arranged, after all, half of it paid for in advance. And this captain was reliable, yes? MacManus had been delivered to a joyous throng in San Francisco. Imagine, then, what reception awaited Thomas Francis Meagher on the other side of the Pacific—that ocean of no end, that leviathan of water.