Liam could have felt sorry for the young officer’s predicament had it not been for the purpose of his visit to Ventry.
‘I will have to report this incident to my commanding officer, Mr McCabe. You are obstructing an officer of the Queen in the execution of his duty.’
‘I too, will be making a report – to the Prime Minister. Now, I suggest you leave while the cottiers are still peaceable. I have work to do – and hungry mouths to feed.’
The young dragoons officers still hesitated, but Liam had already turned away and was speaking to the fishermen.
‘Get these boats into the water. We have fish to catch and few enough hours of daylight left to us.’
As the boats were being manhandled into the water, the soldiers rode away and Liam breathed a sigh of relief. He had been by no means certain that the young officer would see sense and leave. Returning to his commanding officer and reporting his failure would not be easy for him.
Before another week had gone by, Liam found himself in conflict with Sir Richard Dudley yet again. It was becoming increasingly obvious that the fishermen would not be able to bear the burden of supplying food to the thousands of cottiers who were flocking to the coast. Another source of food had to be found.
For some time, rumours had been circulating that the main Commissariat depot at Limerick, to the north, had been stocked with grain brought in by ship from England. It was said that when the order was given by Sir Richard Dudley this depot would despatch grain and meal to all the other depots on the west coast. So strong were the rumours that even Harvey Gorman, the magistrate, was convinced they were true. He gave Liam the names of two ships in which, it was said, grain had been brought in for the depot.
Armed with this information and faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation among the cottiers, Liam rode to Limerick and called upon the Depot Officer to throw open his gates to the cottiers.
The Depot Officer refused, saying that he was following Sir Richard Dudley’s instructions.
‘Damn Sir Richard Dudley!’ Liam flared. ‘People are dying, and I refuse to stand by and do nothing. Either you open your doors or I will have the cottiers do it for you.’
Liam took the arm of the reluctant Depot Officer and led him to the window. Word had gone round of Liam’s arrival, and a huge mob of cottiers was gathering outside, calling for the gates to be opened to them.
‘Do you see that? Open the gates yourself and I will be able to control the cottiers. We will keep a record of the amount of meal issued and you will be paid by the All-Ireland Association. Force me to order them to break down the doors and there will be no holding that crowd. They are so hungry they would strip the depot within hours.’
Liam released his grip on the man’s arm. ‘Well, what is it to be?’
The Depot Officer knew he had little choice. ‘I will fetch the keys.’
‘Good!’ said Liam jubilantly. ‘I’ll arrange for men to come in and help you with the issue. We will bring our own wagons and take meal and grain away for distribution. I want to get some food to the cottiers in the hills as quickly as possible; they are in a particularly bad way. Let me see, now….’ Liam made some rapid calculations. ‘I will need about thirty tons for this first issue.’
The Depot Officer gulped in alarm. ‘You can’t take that much….’
Liam rounded on the man angrily, but the junior Commissariat official added in a strangled voice, ‘I only have a total of twelve tons in stock – and it is all last year’s meal.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Come with me, I’ll show you.’
Eagerly, the Depot Officer reached down a ring of keys from a nail in the wall of his office. His disclosure of the state of the depot stocks came as a great relief to him. He, too, had heard the rumours and the burden of his own knowledge weighed heavily on him. He had lived in fear of the day arriving when news of his actual stockholding became known. He felt sure that angry cottiers would smash down the doors and take what they could, while it was still there.
Liam walked around the almost empty depot and plunged his hand into one of the sacks of meal. Sniffing it suspiciously, he tasted some on the tip of his tongue. It was stale. Here, in one of the biggest Commissariat depots in all Ireland were twelve tons of stale meal to feed all the starving cottiers of west Ireland.
‘Start unlocking those doors,’ he said to the Depot Officer. ‘Give away all your stock while it is still eatable. I am going straight to Dublin to see Sir Richard Dudley. I think it is time he and I had a talk.’
Chapter Forty-Five
If Liam had any doubts about the course of action he was taking, he would have lost them on his two-day ride to Dublin through the dying heart of Ireland.
Before he had covered half the distance, the sight of death had become so commonplace that when his horse shied at the body of a cottier lying across the road Liam did not waste time dismounting. He reined his horse around the withered corpse and continued on his way.
But Liam could never get used to seeing starving children. He wept to see so many tiny bodies wasted and distorted by hunger. Their deep-sunk, dark, hopeless eyes haunted him every mile of the journey. They never said anything to him, and he was glad, for there was nothing he could do for them. He was of the living. They already had one foot over the threshold of death.
Hunger had reached Dublin now. True, there were carriages filled with well-dressed happy people rumbling along the cobbled streets, and the shops displayed a wide variety of foods. But the price of foodstuff put it beyond the reach of many of the working men. Now they, too, knew something of the hunger felt by the cottiers.
Liam thought he would have to wait, perhaps for days, for an interview with Sir Richard Dudley, but within minutes of outlining his business to a stoop-shouldered clerk he was being ushered into a large and comfortable office.
Sir Richard Dudley stood across the room, his back to a crackling fire. He appeared smaller and more slightly built than ever before, and Liam had to remind himself that this thin-lipped man held the lives of a great many people in his hands.
‘You have a damned impudence coming here to see me, McCabe. Your interference with the Army at Ventry could land you in jail – and probably will.’
‘So could emptying your Limerick depot of meal,’ retorted Liam. ‘But it is done, and a few cottiers will live longer because of it.’
‘You did what …?’
Liam had travelled faster than the Depot Officer’s letter, and the Commissariat Inspector knew nothing of this latest incident.
‘I took all the near-mouldy meal from your depot and distributed it to the cottiers – for whom it was intended. Your man holds my receipt. The All-Ireland Association will pay more than a fair price for the full quantity.’
‘You have gone too far this time, McCabe.’ Sir Richard Dudley spluttered his anger at Liam. ‘That was government property. You will not get away with this.’
‘I put the meal to the use for which it was intended. Stale and weevilled though it was, it has pushed starvation a few days farther away for some. I doubt if you will have me arrested for doing something you should have ordered weeks ago. If you do, I will ensure a public enquiry is held into the reason for all the west-coast Commissariat depots being empty. You know as well as I that if the cottiers learn the true level of the stocks in your depots there will be rioting in every city and town throughout the land. There will not be a landlord’s store left standing. No, Sir Richard, you will not run such a risk.’
‘Don’t be so cocksure, McCabe, The policy is Trevelyan’s, not my own. I am paid to see it is carried out – to the letter.’
‘That may well be so, Sir Richard, but would Charles Trevelyan admit that to a board of enquiry? I think not. He demands total loyalty from his paid men. I would ensure the board knew of your involvement in the trumped-up charges against Eugene Brennan and myself, and of your using your influence to send troops against my brother. I think the obvious conclusion w
ould be that you allowed your personal feelings to affect your judgement. I am quite sure Charles Trevelyan would endorse such a finding.’
Sir Richard Dudley looked at Liam with a new and grudging respect. He conceded that he had seriously underestimated him. But he also believed Liam was bluffing.
‘You would not dare give evidence against me to a board of enquiry. If you did, your own career as an MP would be over and every door in London would be closed against you.’
Liam smiled. He and Sir Richard Dudley lived totally different lives. Neither would ever understand the other.
‘Being a Member of Parliament doesn’t matter very much to me. I was happier as a fisherman. I became an MP only to help the cottiers. I believe I will be able to help them as much outside the House of Commons.’
Sir Richard Dudley saw that Liam was in earnest. Being an MP really was unimportant to him.
‘Does Lady Caroline’s reputation also mean so little to you.’
‘It means a great deal – to both of us, albeit for rather different reasons. Let’s stop playing games with each other, Sir Richard. You will not have me arrested, but even as we are talking people are dying. What are you going to do to help them?’
Sir Richard Dudley shrugged and moved from the fire to stand behind his desk. The light from the window was behind him now and Liam could not see his face so clearly.
‘I can do nothing. Yes, the depots are empty and Charles Trevelyan is fully aware of the fact. My colleague who is responsible for the south-east depots was foolish enough to call Trevelyan’s attention to the matter. He was told in no uncertain terms that it was none of his business and he was exceeding his duties. I have no intention of making a similar error.’
‘Rather than risk a rebuke from Charles Trevelyan you will allow the cottiers to starve?’ Liam looked at Sir Richard Dudley in disgust.
‘The cottiers are born to poverty and exist in squalor. They live from day to day, with little thought of the morrow. Their standards are no higher than those of the animals with whom they share their homes. Are you asking me to put my career at risk for such people? The majority of them would be better dead. However, be that as it may, what are you prepared to do for your precious cottiers, McCabe?’
‘Do you want me to list all the schemes I have begun—?’
‘No,’ Sir Richard Dudley interrupted. ‘I asked what you are prepared to do. I even have a suggestion. If you agree, I might be able to persuade Charles Trevelyan to change his policy and send corn and meal to the depots here in Ireland.’
Liam became instantly suspicious. The baronet would do him no favours and he had just admitted he had no sympathy for the cottiers.
‘What is your suggestion … and what part do you want me to play?’
‘The part of an honourable man, McCabc. Stay away from my wife and still the wagging tongues.’
In any other circumstances Liam would have told Sir Richard Dudley to go to hell. He had long ago lost all feeling of guilt about cuckolding this man who had never been a husband in the full sense to Caroline.
But circumstances were far from normal. The lives of tens of thousands of cottiers were at stake. Their fate would be determined by the whims of this one man.
‘You feel you could save lives … yet you impose conditions?’ Liam fought desperately hard to control his temper and hide his contempt for the baronet. ‘If you can obtain food for the cottiers, then for the love of God get it for them.’
‘Ah, I am afraid you have misinterpreted my words, McCabe. I said I might be able to change Charles Trevelyan’s policy – given sufficient incentive, of course.’
Sir Richard Dudley smiled mockingly at Liam. ‘Now you are in a position to do something for your starving cottiers, McCabe. What a pity you will not be able to tell them of your decision. You could become the greatest hero since Brian Boru.’
The baronet had neatly passed responsibility for the fate of the cottiers to Liam. Not to see Caroline again was unthinkable. But if the alternative was to see thousands of cottiers die …? Sir Richard Dudley had presented Liam with a fait accompli. There could be only one answer. Liam could not bring himself to admit it, here and now, but as he turned to go the baronet called to him.
‘Don’t take too long to reach a decision, McCabe. You know just how much time your precious cottiers have left to them.’
When Liam had left his office, Sir Richard Dudley rang for his clerk.
‘Where is that report I wrote describing the situation of the west-coast cottiers?’
‘On my desk, Sir Richard. I have copied it and it is now awaiting despatch to London.’
‘Bring it here, to me. I am going to hold it back for a while. Instead, I want you to prepare a short dispatch to Trevelyan. Tell him things are serious – but not yet out of hand. When you have it ready bring it here for my signature.’
The clerk looked bewildered. ‘But your report says it is most urgent that meal is obtained—’
‘I know what is in my report. Do as you are told. Bring the report to me then write that note.’
Another letter also went to London that day,
Liam walked aimlessly through the streets of Dublin, his mind on his own troubles until he was accosted by a beggar-woman with two small and very dirty children clinging to her skirts.
The incident brought him to his senses. Returning to the room he had booked at an inn, he sat down and penned a long letter to Lord John Russell. In it Liam painted a vivid word-picture of the plight of the people of Ireland’s western seaboard. Liam doubted whether the letter would serve any useful purpose, but it was a last desperate attempt to ward off the decision that had to be taken.
Chapter Forty-Six
Liam returned to Kilmar without first calling at Inch House. There would be time enough to see Caroline when his thoughts were in some semblance of order. He found the fishing village seething with excited gossip over the belated news that Eoin Feehan had been murdered.
It seemed Eoin Feehan had told another of the Drum Inn’s potmen that he was from Kilmar. The recipient of the news was himself from Waterford and had called at Kilmar on his way home for a visit. He had delivered his grim news, assuring the interested fishermen that the hangman had settled Eoin Feehan’s debt for him.
Norah McCabe was as full of the news as any other villager.
‘There are those in Kilmar who say they could foresee such a violent end for Eoin Feehan from the time he was a small boy,’ she said to Liam. ‘There’s no doubt he could make enemies wherever he was.’
Liam said very little in reply. He dreaded the day when Kilmar received its first letter from the young exiles in America. He was certain it would tell that Dermot was not there with them. Then the whole village would know who had killed Eoin Feehan – and who had been hanged for his murder.
Liam was relieved when his mother’s chatter turned to other matters.
‘We’ve had fever break out among the cottiers up on the hill again. A small child died and two others in the same family are still ill. But we have been lucky. I am told there are villages where there is hardly a soul who isn’t racked with fever. I don’t know what the country is coming to. Mind you, things would be a lot worse hereabouts if it wasn’t for Lady Caroline.’
Liam jumped at the sudden mention of her name.
‘Yes, to be sure. Tommy Donaghue says that poor girl is working herself into an early grave. Tending the sick, running a soup kitchen, and then dashing off to Dublin, London and such places to raise more money for relief work. Tommy says—ah! But you wouldn’t be knowing. I let Tommy go off with the horse and cart to help Lady Caroline for most of the week.’
Norah saw Liam’s surprised expression.
‘Well, it takes Tommy’s mind off Kathie, God rest her soul, and it makes some use of the horse. There’s nothing else for it to be doing here. Nobody is catching enough fish to send to Gorey. There’s enough to eat and a little over to salt – and that’s the whole of it. If there is any
to spare, it is given to Father Clery. He is trying to keep another soup kitchen going up on the hill. Besides, Lady Caroline keeps the horse fed and that saves us money.’
‘I must go and see Lady Caroline while I am home,’ said Liam casually.
‘Of course you must go and see her.’
Norah McCabe made a lot of noise chopping a turnip for the cooking-pot.
‘That girl deserves more from life than working herself to death for ungrateful cottiers. If every land-owner worked as hard as she does, there would be no hungry cottiers and Ireland would be a land flowing with milk and honey’
Liam had never before heard his mother speak of Caroline with such enthusiasm. He had always believed she disapproved of his relationship with the Earl of Inch’s sister. The thought brought his mind back to what he had to say to Caroline and he sat through the remainder of Norah McCabe’s gossip wrapped in a morose silence.
Liam set off for Inch House the following morning, telling his mother he would not return to Kilmar but would journey on to Kerry.
Caroline’s new house was nearing completion and, although much smaller than Inch House, it was still an ambitious project. Liam stopped to admire the house and chat to Nathan Brock, who was supervising a veritable army of workmen.
Nathan Brock greeted Liam warmly, but his delight was not only at seeing an old friend.
‘Perhaps now you are here Lady Caroline will stop work for a while,’ he said to Liam as they walked from room to room of the new house. ‘She is doing far too much, Liam. Shelagh and I are worried about her. I sometimes feel the cottiers could do more to help themselves, but when I look about me here and see how hard they will work when given the opportunity I know their troubles are not of their own making. Ordinarily, this house would have taken twice the time to complete – even with a work force of this size. All the cottier needs is enough money to keep his family with full bellies and he is a happy man. You should see them in the evening, when Tommy Donaghue is up here with his old fiddle. They would dance all night if he could keep going.’
The Music Makers Page 41