The Music Makers

by E. V. Thompson

  The Scots officer looked after him thoughtfully, then called to the two soldiers who had barred Liam’s way.

  ‘You men go down to the quay and stay where you can help the Sergeant in the event of trouble. If anything does occur, be sure Liam McCabe is the first man you take.’

  The McCabe boat was secured to the quay by a bow rope and Liam arrived just as the big sergeant stepped on board. Liam was prevented from going any closer by a number of soldiers who were already on the quay.

  ‘Is this your boat, McCabe?’ the Sergeant called to him.

  When Liam did not reply, the Sergeant sighed. ‘Aye, I can see by the look on your face that it is.’ He raised his axe and Liam started forward again, but the soldiers were ready for him and he stopped with the points of two bayonets only inches from his stomach.

  As he stood there, unable to go forward and yet unwilling to walk away, the Sergeant went about his business. Each splintering crash of the axe stabbed Liam like a jagged knife. Finally, he could stand it no longer. With a sudden unexpected movement, he side-stepped the bayonet of one of the soldiers and knocked the other to the ground. It was a foolish thing to do, and other soldiers quickly rushed forward to seize him as he tried to fight his way to the quay steps, and his boat.

  Liam’s arms were pinned to his side, and the soldier who had been knocked to the ground picked up his weapon and raised it to strike the fisherman.

  ‘Stop that!’

  The circle of soldiers about Liam parted to make way for the big Scots sergeant. Behind him, in the harbour, Liam could see only the gunwale and stem of his boat showing above the water at the end of a taut mooring-rope.

  ‘Let him go.’

  The soldiers looked at the Sergeant in disbelief.

  ‘But he was going to attack you,’ said one of them.

  ‘Of course he was,’ boomed the big sergeant. ‘I’ve just destroyed his boat and taken his living from him. Now, do as I say and let him go.’

  The grip on Liam’s arms was relaxed and he shrugged the soldier’s hand away.

  ‘Come here with me,’ the Sergeant said to Liam, leading him along the quay, away from the soldiers.

  When they were out of the hearing of the others, the Sergeant stopped and turned to Liam, his aggressive authority dropping away. ‘What happened back there to your boat was not my idea. I was carrying out orders, you understand?’ He spoke in a soft Elgin accent.

  ‘You carried them out well,’ replied Liam bitterly. ‘I worked for three hard years to buy that boat.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ agreed the Sergeant. ‘She’s a fine craft. My own father is a fisherman and I have two brothers who earn their living from the sea. Destroying a man’s boat is not to my liking, McCabe, and I did not do it as well as I might. If you wait until we are gone, and get some help to pull your boat from the water, you’ll find there is only one damaged plank in her. You’ll be able to fix it in a day, I dare say. Now, I’ll away back and report to my captain. If I’m not mistaken, you have someone coming to see you.’

  The Sergeant brushed past Liam before the fisherman could reply and strode away along the quay, calling upon his soldiers to follow him. Halfway to the ale-house, he touched a hand to his tall plumed helmet as he met Father Clery. The priest ignored the soldier’s salute and hurried to Liam.

  ‘Are you all right, my boy? I was told you were in a fight with the soldiers and I hurried here right away. You are not hurt?’

  Liam shook his head. ‘I’m all right … but they have sunk my boat.’

  He looked to where the boat had been. It had gone right under now, the mooring-rope disappearing beneath the ruffled water of the harbour, strained to breaking-point.

  ‘I’ll call some of the men out. We’ll raise her straight away, Liam.’

  ‘No, she’s safe enough there for a while. We’d better be getting up to the village, Father. The soldiers are going to destroy every boat belonging to the families of the young men who were on the raid. There could be trouble.’

  ‘Dear God! What did the Irish do so bad in the past that the English were sent as a plague upon us? Come, Liam, let’s get there quickly.’

  They reached the village just in time to prevent a confrontation as a group of angry fishermen gathered to prevent the soldiers from carrying out their task.

  After some argument, the priest persuaded the fishermen to disperse.

  ‘You’ll be doing nobody any good by trying to prevent the soldiers from doing what they have been ordered to do here. Try it and you’ll be playing right into their hands. They have muskets and bayonets and are looking for an excuse to use them. Stay away. Curraghs can be built again; husbands and fathers can’t. Remember, the soldiers will be going away without any of the Kilmar men they came here to find. That is our victory. Don’t turn it into a defeat. Go on – away to your homes, now.’

  The Kilmar fishermen were not convinced, but gradually, reluctantly, their anger subsided and, although they did not all go home, they moved back from the soldiers and watched them from a more discreet distance.

  Accompanied by their captain, the soldiers smashed their way systematically through the village until they arrived at the smoke-stained cottage that belonged to Bridie O’Keefe. As the soldiers used the stocks of their muskets to smash the wooden-framed curragh propped against the wall of Bridie’s neighbour, the old harridan flung open her door and gave them the benefit of her sharp-edged tongue.

  ‘You’ll be proud of yourself, smashing the boat of a widow-woman with five young children to support?’

  ‘This is none of your business, old woman. Go back inside your cottage and close the door, then you won’t have to watch things you don’t like.’ The Captain wrinkled his nose in disgust at Bridie O’Keefe’s appearance and the smell that wafted from her.

  ‘Will closing my door make you go away? Will it leave a boat there for someone to catch fish for hungry children? Oh no, Bridie O’Keefe won’t go away, soldier. And I’ll tell you something for nothing. I’ll still be on this earth when you are long gone and your fine uniform is rotting in the ground.

  ‘Ah, you smile all you like,’ she added as the officer sniffed his scorn at her prophecy. ‘But I’ll tell you something else to take the smile from your face. There will be an English mother weeping as a result of today’s work. When that happens you’ll not smile again when you remember my words.’

  With that, the old woman pursed her lips and spat on the ground, only inches from the officer’s buckled shoes. Immediately, one of the children in the crowd that had gathered darted forward and did the same. He was followed by another, and then a third. Then one of the Kilmar women walked forward and also spat at the Highland captain’s feet.

  Liam started forward to stop them, but Father Clery put a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘No, leave them be,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘The soldiers won’t harm the women and children, and it will give our men something to smile about. Until this happened I was fearful one of them would lose his temper and do something stupid. It’s a miserable victory, Liam … but it is better than a bloodletting.’

  Liam realised the sense of the priest’s words and he watched silently as, one by one, the women and children of Kilmar stepped from the crowd to spit at the feet of the Captain.

  The officer was pale with fury, but he did nothing. To move would be to concede a humiliating defeat. He stayed where he was until every woman and child in Kilmar had expressed their contempt for the holder of the Queen’s commission.

  Not until then did the white-faced Captain order his men to move on to the next house on his list and it was here that the accident occurred which frightened the soldiers and caused the fishermen and women of Kilmar to nod their heads knowingly and whisper about the soothsaying powers of old Bridie O’Keefe.

  Earlier, when the angry fishermen had gathered, the soldiers had primed their percussion muskets ready for immediate action. When the fishermen had been persuaded to disperse, most of t
he soldiers had removed the percussion caps and eased down the hammers of their weapons. One young soldier, only recently posted to Ireland, had not. His musket was still ready for action and it was his ill-fortune to be called upon to help smash the next curragh. He struck at the timber frame of the boat only once, with the heavy butt of his musket. The blow brought the hammer snapping down upon the percussion cap and the charge detonated.

  Almost an ounce of lead entered the soldier’s body just above his hip-bone and tore its way up through the soft organs of his stomach.

  By the time his companions carried him to the shelter of a nearby shed, the young untried soldier was coughing blood. Unable to speak, he could only mouth the words he wanted to say and stare at his captain with panic-filled eyes.

  Ten minutes later the young soldier was dead and the others had lost heart for their destructive work. They had heard Bridie O’Keefe’s warning. If the Captain had heeded it, there would not be a dead soldier stretched out among the nets and ropes and floats of a fisherman’s shed.

  The officer was remembering the other half of the old witch’s prophecy and was no more eager than his men to stay in Kilmar. After the half-hearted destruction of one more curragh, the soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders were fallen in. Carrying the body of their comrade, they marched away to the beat of a muffled drum.

  Father Clery breathed a sigh of relief; he had expected more trouble from the fishermen, but when he turned to Liam he saw that he was frowning.

  ‘If it’s your boat you are thinking of, then we’ll away and find some men to raise her. The sooner she’s repaired the sooner you’ll be fishing again – but I’m not so sure about some of the curraghs.’

  ‘I was thinking more about the Feehans’ boat,’ said Liam slowly. ‘Eoin and Sean were both on the raid, yet their boat has not been touched. Wouldn’t you say that was something to ponder on, Father …?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Liam’s boat took longer to repair than the Spots sergeant had predicted. First, it took two full days to raise from the bottom of the harbour after the mooring-rope snapped. The salvage was not completed until Liam had dived repeatedly into the icy waters and managed to secure a new rope to the sunken vessel.

  Then, with a calm sea and wasted fishing days behind him, Liam had to travel the road to Wexford Town to buy a seasoned piece of timber to replace the one the Sergeant had smashed. By the time the fishing boat took to the water again ten days had elapsed and stormy weather returned to prevent fishing.

  More than the lost fishing days, it was the injustice of the soldiers’ actions that really hurt Liam. He could not understand how they had been able to come to the village and smash boats at will – with the law on their side! He had tried to stay clear of politics and the controversial issue of England’s domination over Ireland, but now he felt a burning resentment that soldiers from across the sea were able to behave in such an arbitrary manner in his country.

  During these angry and empty days Liam missed the company of Dermot, but at night, when he was alone in his room, his thoughts always returned to London … and Caroline. No matter how much he thought about his other problems, she always seemed to be on his mind when sleep eventually came to him.

  Norah McCabe’s concern was far less divided. As the weeks went by without news, she became increasingly worried about Dermot. Tommy Donaghue did not help. The old fiddler came to the house for a meal most evenings and his talk always turned to Kathie and the way she had left her old father with no one in the whole world to look after him.

  Tommy Donaghue had resumed his drinking habits, but as he seemed able to draw nothing but dirges and heart-rending laments from his fiddle he received fewer drinks than before. On fine days he helped Liam in the boat, but his palsied hands proved to be something of a liability when handling nets. He was happier when Liam was able to send him to Gorey market with a cartload of fish.

  Liam had expected Nathan Brock to return to Kilmar and tell him where Dermot and the others were in hiding, but the weeks went by and still the ex-prizefighter had not put in an appearance.

  Then, in early March, Eugene Brennan returned to Ireland. There were no mammoth meetings on this occasion, no spontaneous gatherings of Irish workers anxious to catch a glimpse of their hero, no crowds straining to hear the words of the man who had fought for Ireland’s identity since the abortive rising of 1798.

  Eugene Brennan arrived in Dublin on the night tide and by the time the sun began warming the city’s sprawling grey streets he was well on his way to Kilmar.

  Liam was shocked by the old politician’s appearance. Gone was the dynamic fund-raiser he had known in London, the astute lawyer with the ability and rhetoric to cow a hostile audience. Eugene Brennan looked old and tired – and totally defeated. When Father Clery saw him, he was reminded of the man who had been released from prison only a few months before. But on this occasion there was no all-consuming cause to take his mind off all else. The Irish cottiers were still dying in their thousands, but in future the assistance given to them by County Wexford’s MP would lack much of its fire.

  Sir James Graham, Home Secretary in Sir Robert Peel’s Tory government, had called Eugene Brennan to his office and spelled out what the future would hold for the old Irish MP if he held any more mass meetings, or if any of his supporters broke the law. The Coercion Bill had been hurried through Parliament despite the noisy and concerted opposition of the Irish MPs. Sir James Graham told Eugene Brennan bluntly that the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland would not hesitate to use his new powers and throw him into prison if he believed it to be necessary. It was made clear to Eugene Brennan that, once in prison, he could never expect to walk the roads of Ireland as a free man again.

  Much as the Government would have liked to wash its hands of the starving cottiers and their problems, Sir James Graham told the MP he was prepared to ship three thousand tons of Indian maize to them – but only if he had Eugene Brennan’s word that the All-Ireland Association would cause him no more problems. Thus, the Tory Minister laid the responsibility for the lives of thousands of cottiers squarely upon the old Irish politician’s shoulders.

  It was useless for Eugene Brennan to point out that he could not possibly be held responsible for the hot-headed young men in his association. They had become frustrated by the lackadaisical attitude of the English Government toward the desperate plight of the Irish people. If they decided to take matters into their own hands, who could blame them? Eugene Brennan left Sir James Graham’s office with the knowledge that in the future the Home Secretary would lay the blame for much of the crime in Ireland upon the All-Ireland Association,

  After fifty years of fighting for the things in which he passionately believed, Eugene Brennan had been beaten into submission by a strange mixture of blackmail and legislation. His situation at Westminster no longer tolerable, he returned to Ireland, an old man going home.

  As he sat in Father Clery’s house, telling Liam and the priest of the Home Secretary’s ultimatum, tears rolled unchecked down the politician’s cheeks.

  ‘So God help Ireland now,’ he ended brokenly. ‘For there is no one in England who will.’

  When the terrible winter of starvation finally drew to a close, Liam hoped that, around Kilmar at least, it would be possible to feed the cottiers from the increasing catches of the fishermen. At this moment of hope, a new and terrible affliction fell upon the children of St Patrick.

  Black fever.

  News that the terrible lice-spread disease had reached Kilmar was brought by Tommy Donaghue. He came to the McCabe cottage unusually early one morning, and was invited to share breakfast with Liam and Norah McCabe.

  ‘No, thank you. I rarely feel like eating this early in the day, and this morning I have had an experience that might well put me off my food for a whole week.’

  ‘What is it this time, Tommy?’ asked Norah McCabe. The old musician had not been short of problems, both real and imagined, since his daughter had gone away wit
h the young men of the All-Ireland Association.

  ‘It’s some cottiers up on the hill. They took over an old place behind my cottage a week or two ago. There has been a baby crying there for two nights now but I haven’t seen a soul out of doors. Last night the baby was crying and whimpering so piteously I hardly got a wink of sleep. This morning I went up there to find out what was wrong….’

  ‘And …?’ Liam prompted,

  ‘I didn’t go inside,’ Tommy Donaghue confessed. ‘There was such a foul stench coming from the place that I turned around and came down here.’

  ‘That’s not like you, Tommy. We’ve been inside some pretty unwholesome places taking food to the cottiers.’

  ‘But there was never anything like this. Another step closer and I swear I’d have heaved my heart up.’

  ‘Drinking has weakened your stomach,’ snapped Norah McCabe. ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘It was still crying when I left.’

  ‘Then there will be no breakfast in this house until we learn what is wrong with the poor little mite. On your feet, Tommy Donaghue, and show me the way.’

  ‘You had better stay here, Ma. There is no telling what might be inside that cottage. I’ll go up there with Tommy.’

  ‘No one is stopping you – but I am going, too. Neither of you has the hands to tend to a baby. Come on, now. There has been enough time wasted already.’

  Norah McCabe put her shawl about her shoulders and ushered Tommy Donaghue out of the house before Liam could slip a jersey over his head.

  The roof of the old cottage on the hill had collapsed at one end and the door hung on only one rusty hinge, but as the three approached the stench coming from inside drove away all other considerations. It was appalling.

  ‘You had better stay outside, Ma,’ said Liam. ‘Let Tommy and me go in first.’

  ‘We would all do better to stay outside,’ replied a grim-faced Norah McCabe. ‘I would recognise that smell anywhere. There is black fever in that cabin.’