Ashes In the Wind

by Christopher Bland

  John borrows Charlie’s car to go to the sales at the Curragh and then on to County Carlow and Limerick to look at more horses. He buys an unbroken three-year-old from the Kavanaghs at Borris, spends an uncomfortable night in Limerick and in the morning goes to see three horses that Charlie has strongly recommended. He agrees a price for all three. Charlie has a good eye, able to see through the shaggy coats and muddied quarters of untried horses that are at best three-quarters thoroughbred and not in any book. Two of the horses are for Billy Vincent.

  The road back from Limerick passes through Maryborough. John decides to drive straight through without stopping. Then changes his mind, parks outside the Post Office and walks around the town. He has no clear plan.

  ‘A railway station, two jails and the old District Lunatic Asylum is about the size of it,’ Charlie had said. ‘And they’ve changed the name – it’s Portlaoise now.’

  ‘I thought Mary was a Catholic.’

  ‘Bloody Mary was, this one was King Billy’s wife.’

  Maryborough is ten times the size of Drimnamore, with a narrow main street of shops, bars, offices, two hotels and the ruin of an old bastion showing above the low roof line; John goes into a little square and sits for a while on a disused cattle trough. ‘Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association’ is carved into its side. He decides to go back to the Post Office. On the noticeboard there is a Mass card, the most recent among many, for Johnnie Mannion.

  ‘Much good may it do him,’ says John to himself.

  John checks the telephone directory. There are two McCanns living in Maryborough, but only one Eamonn, at Cloonagh, Harpur’s Lane. He dials the number, but when it is answered by a male voice he hangs up. Outside the Post Office he stands on the pavement, knowing he should go back to Burke’s Fort. Instead he asks a passer-by the way to Harpur’s Lane.

  Cloonagh is a large double-fronted detached house, one of a group of a dozen similar houses in what looks like Maryborough’s best address. John parks on the far side of the road, one house away from ‘Cloonagh’, sitting in the car for nearly an hour, afraid to do anything but watch. He is about to leave when the front door opens; Eamonn McCann comes out, followed by a woman and a small boy. They both wave him goodbye. The boy runs after his father, says something that John cannot hear, then runs back to his mother.

  Grania is no longer the girl John knew in the Trafalgar Folly; she is a woman, still beautiful, even in a plain dress with a white kitchen apron. John feels a hollow in the pit of his stomach and turns his head away for a moment. When he looks back, the boy comes down the steps again onto the lawn, picks up a toy from the grass and goes back into the house. John can see that he is no more than three or four. Grania puts her hand on his head and closes the front door.

  The boy is too young to be John’s child. Perhaps Grania miscarried, perhaps their child was adopted, or handed over to the laundry nuns. John is fifty yards away from an answer to these questions. It might as well be five hundred miles. He sits in the car until his heart stops pounding, then drives slowly back to the centre of town.

  He goes into the office of the Maryborough Gazette on the other side of the street to the Post Office. It is cluttered, part editorial, part production, desks at the front, a small printing press at the back. He does some mental arithmetic, then asks the harassed young man who comes to the counter for copies of the Gazette for January and February 1925. The young man looks astonished.

  ‘Sure, we keep only the past year. The rest are thrown away. We’d have no room in the place else.’

  John leaves the office, and as he turns to cross the road his eye is caught by the display of photographs in the Gazette’s window. They are typical of an Irish weekly – weddings, a fair, a traffic accident, the local school play. And in the middle, ‘Mr and Mrs Eamonn McCann, Cathleen and Diarmuid McCann at the County Show’. John looks carefully at the photograph, the four of them in their Sunday best, smiling a little stiffly. The girl looks as though she could be five or six years old.

  The girl could be his daughter. She looks like Grania, dark-haired, dark-eyed. He feels a moment of intense happiness, then wonders whether this new possibility is better than his fear of miscarriage or adoption. Much better, he decides. He goes back into the office and asks for a copy to be sent to him in England. The young man takes his money and his Lambourn address.

  ‘He’s the town lawyer, and she’s Johnnie Mannion’s daughter. They buried him last month, God rest his soul.’ He crosses himself . ‘Are you related?’

  ‘I am,’ says John, and drives back to Burke’s Fort without returning to Cloonagh.

  He has four horses to bring back, and catches the boat from Dun Laoghaire two days later. Seeing Grania and discovering he may have a daughter have together reawakened the passion and despair he felt when losing Grania. As he touches the lump where his right jaw had knitted badly, he is reminded of Johnnie Mannion’s revenge.

  Back at Lambourn he settles into the routine of the stables. Knocknarea is slowly improving, but still confined to his box; the new horses are unridden, and it is John’s job to break them in. He continues to see Chantal, but they have changed after their brief weekend together. Chantal thinks John was priggish about the master bedroom; John thinks Chantal was insensitive.

  And John’s head and heart are still full of his morning in Maryborough. Chantal has been moved a little to the side. John has never told her about Grania, and he is not about to mention that he might have a daughter.

  A few weeks later Chantal comes to the cottage in tears. She pushes John away when he kisses her.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘Everything’s the matter. Billy’s found out about us. And I thought I’d been very careful.’

  ‘How does he know?’

  ‘He’s so bloody precise. He saw the mileage on the Rover. Fifty miles a week for six months adds up. I didn’t have a good explanation. And then he asked me whether I was having an affair. With you. And I said yes.’

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s so angry, with you as well as me. He may kick me out – he hasn’t spoken to me since yesterday evening. He’s in London today, but coming back this evening. So I need to go home now.’

  The next morning John is called into Tom’s office.

  ‘I’ve just had a call from Mr Vincent. The long and the short of it is he says you’ve got to go. Or he’ll take his horses away. He didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask, but I can make a good guess. He owns more than a third of the horses in this yard, plus two of the four you brought back from Ireland. Sorry, but I’ve no choice.’

  John begins to speak, realizes there is little point, shakes Tom’s hand and goes out of the office to Knocknarea’s box. He checks the horse’s off-fore, rebandages it, gets into his car and leaves the yard for good. As he drives away, he thinks that this is the second time this has happened to him.

  23

  AFTER MICHAEL COLLINS’s funeral, Dick Mulcahy asks Tomas to stay on as his ADC. The Civil War continues on its confused, sporadic, violent path through the rest of 1922 and Dublin returns to the uneasy guerrilla days of the Tan War. Reprisals begin again. The Public Safety Bill is passed by the Dáil, and by the end of the year eleven Republican prisoners have been executed for the new capital offence of carrying arms.

  Tomas has a fierce argument with Dick Mulcahy.

  ‘We’re no better than the British. Have we forgotten what the executions in 1916 brought on? These are our people we’re killing. How can you shoot Childers for carrying the revolver Michael Collins gave him?’

  ‘Childers is an Englishman at his core. And the rest of them only understand one thing – violence. They began the hostage-taking and the killing. Commuting their sentences would look like weakness. Michael Collins would have done the same.’

  ‘Weakness? That’s what General Macready said in 1916. It wasn’t true then. It isn’t true now. I believe in the Treaty, but not in what
we’re doing to maintain it. I have to go.’

  ‘You can’t go on as my ADC, I see that. But there’s no need to resign. We’ve set up a new department in Oriel Street – I’ll have you transferred there.’

  Tomas, still uneasy, moves to Oriel Street and is assigned to the Protective Corps, responsible for guarding members of the Provisional Government, who have been named as legitimate targets by the Republicans.

  Oriel Street is full of former members of The Squad. The Protective Corps’ duties are routine and straightforward, but it soon becomes clear to Tomas that the rest of the Gardai there are actively engaged in hunting down Republicans. And then killing them. When the bodies of three young Republicans are found shot in a ditch in Clondalkin, Tomas asks Timmy Lawlor, a former member of The Squad, what happened.

  ‘I caught the three of them putting up posters,’ says Lawlor. ‘They were shot while trying to escape.’

  ‘Like Clancy and McKee and Clune?’

  Lawlor laughs. ‘You need to catch yourself on, make up your mind which side you’re on. If you don’t like it, best get back to Kerry and your cows.’

  Tomas thinks often of Kitty O’Hanrahan. He wonders about going to see her in Cork, but remembers their last unhappy parting. And he was at Béal na mBláth when Frank O’Gowan had been killed. Frank’s wounds had been caused by rifle fire; Tomas had fired only half a dozen shots from his revolver. Nevertheless, he had been in the battle and on the opposite side to Frank. And he had shirked the task of telling Kitty the news.

  Dublin is a lonely place for Tomas now. He is an outsider in the Oriel Street headquarters. In spite of his former membership of The Squad, he is thought to be unsound. Some look on him as a potential turncoat and are reluctant to share the details about planned raids. When two Garda detectives in plain clothes are shot and killed in an attack at Ellis Quay, Tomas realizes he is suspected of betraying them. There is an internal inquiry; although it is clear that Tomas knew nothing of the men’s plans, he is ostracized in the mess.

  He and Michael McGarry, a former Royal Irish Constabulary policeman from Kildare, are responsible for escorting Sean Hales and Padraic O’Maile, two strongly pro-Treaty members of the Dáil. Setting out for a meeting at Leinster House before their escort has arrived, Hales and O’Maile are ambushed by half a dozen Republicans on Ormonde Quay. Tomas and Michael arrive a minute later to find Hales dead and O’Maile wounded. Tomas chases after the gunmen as they run down the Quay, kills one and wounds the other. The four who are left run on down the Quay, then turn and fire at Tomas. Tomas, only thirty yards away, feels a powerful blow on his right side and another on his thigh, knocking him back on the cobbles. He hits his head as he falls and blacks out.

  He wakes up the next morning in the Mater Hospital. His partner Michael is there.

  ‘You just about saved our bacon,’ he says to Tomas. ‘We’re in disgrace for losing Hales. They shot him dead and wounded O’Maile in the arm. But you plugged two of them, and the dead one’s Tadg O’Leary, who we know killed our two boys at Ellis Quay. So we won’t get medals, but we won’t get the push.’

  Tomas spends three weeks in the Mater; both his wounds are clean, and no bones or vital organs were damaged. The shot to his leg has destroyed his thigh muscles, and it is a full month before he can walk without a stick. While he is in hospital Tomas sends a letter, after many drafts, to Kitty.

  Mater Hospital,

  Dublin

  Dear Kitty,

  I was sorry indeed to hear the news about Frank. He’d been through too much to end like that, and you will feel the loss keenly. He was a real leader at Staigue Fort, and after. I will have Masses said for him at the cathedral.

  We live in difficult times, and finding myself on the opposite side to Frank, and I suppose you, is hard.

  One of the TDs we were guarding got killed in an ambush on Ormonde Quay, and I was wounded, but have made a good recovery. It’s hard to tell what the future holds, but I would like to call on you and your mother when I am next in Cork.

  Yours very truly,

  Tomas Sullivan

  PS You can write to me if you wish, care of CID Headquarters, Oriel Street, Dublin.

  When Tomas is discharged from hospital, he goes to the Pro-Cathedral and arranges for a Mass for the soul of Frank O’Gowan on the anniversary of his death for the next five years. The cost makes Tomas whistle, but for the first time in his life he has money in his pocket, even though the payments from the army are unpredictable. He is able to send money back to his mother in Drimnamore.

  On his way out he passes a confession booth, goes in and kneels down. This time he doesn’t walk out. He begins with Staigue Fort, continues with Eileen and William, Colonel Smyth, and Captain Newbury, and tells the priest he was condemned to death, escaped and is now covered by the amnesty.

  ‘Are you an Irregular? Because in October last the Catholic bishops of Ireland condemned them and their guerrilla war.’

  ‘I’m a captain in the army of the Free State.’

  ‘And did you believe that all these terrible deeds were carried out on behalf of and at the behest of what is now the Free State?’

  ‘I did believe that.’

  ‘Then I can give you absolution.’

  Tomas leaves the cathedral with a lighter step. His Catholic faith had been lost, and he had been unable to find it again, either in Cork or through Father Michael. He now feels cleansed, able to go to Mass and take Communion.

  Several days later he goes to see Emmet Dalton, who has continued to serve under Dick Mulcahy. It is a brief and unsatisfactory conversation. Tomas begins to unburden himself, and is cut short by Dalton, who replies to Tomas very formally.

  ‘Captain Sullivan, I cannot advise you what to do. Nor can I comment on what goes on in Oriel Street. You must address these problems to the commandant there.’

  Tomas stands up and salutes. As he opens the door to leave, Dalton says, ‘Maguire’s Bar, Amiens Street, seven o’clock tomorrow evening. Civilian clothes.’

  In Maguire’s Bar, Tomas meets a different Dalton. They continue the conversation about Michael Collins that they had begun on the boat carrying the body from Cork to Dublin.

  ‘It was a terrible waste of a great man. By God, Ireland needs him now. And I really loved him,’ says Dalton.

  ‘Why didn’t he drive on?’

  ‘Thing about Mick was that he never saw enough action. He had a small part in the GPO, he was Plunket’s ADC, and Plunket was too sick to do much. Cathal Brugha in the Dáil asked whether Collins “had ever fired a shot at an enemy of Ireland”. And it struck home. He doubted himself, though we never did, given the risks he took in Dublin later on. Maybe that was what all the wrestling was about. He always had to prove himself. With women too.’

  ‘He was with Hazel Lavery the night before we went down to Cork.’

  ‘So I heard – and the Irregulars tried to ambush the car on the return journey. That was your man all right. I would have followed him anywhere – except the boudoir, mind – but plenty hated him. Cathal Brugha, Liam Lynch, de Valera. Especially Dev. Dev knew what he was doing when he wouldn’t go to London the second time to negotiate the Treaty.’

  They move from Maguire’s to dinner at the Standard Hotel.

  ‘This is a temperance hotel for the Brethren, the Quakers,’ says Dalton. ‘We’ll not see many of our brother officers here.’

  Tomas talks about Oriel Street.

  ‘The Protective Corps is all right, but the rest of them seem to be carrying on like gangsters.’

  ‘Most of them are compensating because they were never part of The Squad.’

  ‘I didn’t like what we did in The Squad, but it had to be done. Now we’re killing Irishmen, men we fought alongside. And the executions are senseless.’

  ‘Tomas, I’ve tried my best. I might have persuaded Mick, although that wouldn’t have been easy. He was a hard man right enough – I’ve always thought he organized the killing of Wilson. But I’ve no
t got within a bullock’s roar of persuading Dick Mulcahy. So I’m off.’

  ‘What do you mean, off?’

  ‘I’m resigning my commission. They’ll not try too hard to stop me. I’m a former officer in the Dublin Fusiliers, and I was in charge of the artillery when we recaptured the Four Courts. That’s enough enemies for one man. And my protector is dead. They’re spreading a rumour now that I killed him at Béal na mBláth.’

  ‘For God’s sake...’

  ‘That’s what we’ve become. It’s a miracle we stayed united long enough to beat the British. Now we’re tearing ourselves apart. Sinn Féin means Ourselves Alone – I don’t have any Gaelic, but what’s the word for asunder?’

  ‘a cheile. I’m minded to resign too.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing. You’re younger than I am, and you’d be wasted on a six-acre farm in County Kerry. Oriel Street will be disbanded soon. Most of the Protective Corps will be transferred to the new Garda Síochána. They need good men, and you’d make a decent policeman.’

  The two men shake hands and part. Back in his mess, Tomas decides to wait and see whether Dalton’s forecast about Oriel Street is accurate. Ten days later he reads of Dalton’s resignation in a footnote in the Daily Orders, a brief column in the Irish Independent, attributing this to Dalton’s recent marriage.

  24

  TOMAS THINKS HARD about resigning when thirty-four anti-Treaty prisoners are shot in January. But Liam Deasy, the commandant general of the Republicans, is captured and calls for an end to the fighting, and when Liam Lynch is killed in a skirmish in the Knockmealdown Mountains in April a ceasefire soon follows.

  Oriel Street is disbanded later in 1923. Tomas is offered a job as an inspector in County Clare, based in Ennis. He has a police house, a good salary and plenty to do. Although the Civil War has ended, there has been no formal peace, and there are still thousands of Republicans in the Free State jails.