To that end he’d spent the drive to Dublin continuing to grill Carey. Mike had to admit the lad had been extremely helpful and even seemed contrite toward Jaz—although the lass wasn’t anywhere near in a forgiving mood.
“Have you not heard anything about a work camp for women?” Mike asked.
“For lasses?” Carey scrunched up his nose as if the thought was repellent. “What kind of work? Oh! You mean sex?”
“I don’t mean anything,” Mike said gruffly. “But if our men were taken to a work camp in Dublin and our women were captured at the same time…”
“Nah, I’ve not heard anything of the like,” he said. “We were told to find men—strong ones and young ones. Nothing about taking women.”
“So that wasn’t your lot?” Mike asked.
“The ones who raided your fort? No, that’s not how we work.”
“And that is?”
“We lie in wait and waylay ‘em, like,” he said shrugging. “As they come down the road.” He paused. “When I say it out loud like that, it sounds bloody rotten.”
“It is bloody rotten,” Jaz said earnestly. “It’s despicable. How old are you?”
“Twenty. You?”
“Feck off.”
“Never mind,” Mike said with a sigh. “When we come back this way we’ll be needing to ask around the villages to see if anybody heard or saw anything. Ye can’t steal away seven grown women and their children and someone not have heard something.”
Carey reacted as if he’d been slapped. “They took the kiddies, too?”
“Aye. Although maybe we should thank them for keeping them together.”
“Do you have kids?” Gavin asked suddenly. Mike knew Sophia had been on his mind today.
Carey snorted. “No, not at-tall. But me sister does and I’m grand with them. I wonder…I wonder where they are now.”
“How did you get separated?” Mike asked. His tone non-interrogative for the first time since he’d spoken to Carey.
“After the bomb, you mean? I was at a swim meet at school. Me Da was to have picked me up so of course he never came. We lived about twenty kilometers from the school. Over by Ballylickey. I’d begged them to let me go there. It’s not in our district but they had a better swim program.”
“You’re a swimmer?”
“Oh, aye. Well, I was. My coach thought I might have a chance at 2014 in Nanjing.” He shook his head. “We never even got to watch it on telly after all that, let alone compete.”
“You must have been really good,” Jaz said.
“I was. I guess.”
“And you never made it back home?”
Carey shook his head as though in a fog, as though he was seeing in his mind that twenty kilometer walk from his school to his house. “I didn’t.”
“What happened, lad?” Mike said kindly, his eyes alternating between the road ahead and the rear view mirror. He saw Gavin and Jaz were both listening intently.
Carey took a long sigh. “I met up with some tossers on the way home. They beat me pretty solid. Broke my collarbone. It never healed right. Even now it pains me almost all the time. I guess I was in shock after it happened. They said I was.”
“Who said?”
“The people who found me.”
“Would that be your cousin Jimmy?” Mike asked.
“Aye. Only he’s not my real cousin. But he took care of me. Once I was healed, we went to Dublin, lived on the streets for a year and got recruited by the New Black and Tans.” Carey looked out the window at the passing scenery of bright green pastures and fieldstone walls.
“I ate decent for the first time since me mum’s cooking.” He cleared his throat. “But I never found me way home again and now…now I’m afraid to.”
“Afraid you’ll find your family dead?” Jaz asked in a whisper.
“Nay, lass,” he said sadly. “Afraid they’d wish me dead when they see what I’ve become.”
Chapter 16
The furrows in the field were ruined. Sarah stood in the half drizzle after the big storm and surveyed the damage. The mud stretched as far as she could see—all the way to the horizon. What had once been neat rows ready for planting corn and potatoes was now a field of mud liberally sprinkled with downed branches and tree limbs.
“Is none of it salvageable?” she asked bleakly.
“As you see,” Archie said. “Two full days of backbreaking work, gone.”
“Do we just do it again?”
Archie made a noise of exasperation.
“I’m a fisherman, Sarah.” He put a hand out to steady her as she sidestepped a large mud puddle.
Her panicked beginning to labor had been a false start. After an hour of listening to the storm pound on the roof of the cottage, the contractions began to fade and then stopped altogether. When Sophia joined them to wait out the storm, Sarah found herself praying for labor—or a lightning bolt—anything to blot out the constant bickering between the two girls.
“Should we wait for Mike to come back and tell us?” she asked.
Archie ran a hand across his face in defeat. “No, sure it is he’ll just tell us to do it all again.”
“Is there straw or something we can use to weigh it down once we put the seeds in so this doesn’t happen again?”
“And why wouldn’t the straw just take flight with the seed with the next spring storm?”
“I don’t know, Archie, “ Sarah said tiredly. “I know less about this kind of thing than you do.”
“And I’ll be reminding you, lass, the plow’s got a broken blade now. There’s no way to plow save with shovels and the sweat of our backs.”
“Well, was there ever any other way but the hard way? What’s involved in fixing the stupid plow?”
“We need a blacksmith.”
“And we need a corner Home Depot too but, failing that?”
“We have the farrier’s equipment. I could try it, I suppose. But I know feck-all about it.”
“Just do what you can. It’s all any of us can do.”
The sound of a single gunshot rang out. Sarah grabbed Archie’s arm as her knees gave way.
**********
John stood over the carcass of a large hog. By the time Sarah and Archie found him in the woods, Regan and Sophia were already with him, drawn by the sound of the gunshot. It occurred to Sarah that both girls had reacted the exact opposite of how they should have responded when they heard a gunshot. Instead of battening down the hatches and attempting to defend themselves in the compound, they went out looking for the source of the noise.
Sarah couldn’t help feel a little proud of both of them.
“Mom!” John called to her as she stood panting next to a young sapling tree twenty yards away. “We found the hogs! And they had babies!”
Sarah only nodded until she could get her breath back. She motioned Archie to go on ahead.
“Did she attack ye, lad?” Archie said as he knelt by the carcass.
“No sir. She was injured. Compound fracture.” He glanced at Sarah as she made her way over to the group. “I didn’t think we could fix it.”
Sophia glanced around the clearing. “Where did the others go?”
John pointed into the woods. “They split when I fired the gun.”
“How in the hell can we round them up?” Regan said, eyeing the carcass with revulsion.
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, “but we need to try somehow.”
“Yay, bacon,” John said with a grin. He glanced at Regan and Sophia. “One of you come with me to look for ‘em and the other can help Archie drag this bad boy back to the compound.”
Sarah was surprised to see John take control of the situation. Not only had he made the decision to put the hog down without asking an adult first, he smoothly took the lead on the follow up steps too. She knew he was growing up fast—he’d proven that many times in the past four years—but until now she hadn’t seen the leadership vein in him.
“I’ll go,” Regan sa
id quickly.
“No!” Sophia said, “I was just going to say that!”
“But you didn’t,” Regan said smugly, moving to stand next to John.
“Sar-ahhhhhh,” Sophia said in a loud whine of frustration.
“Hush,” Sarah said. The break from the girls’ squabbles and been blissful and way too brief. “You need to give Archie a hand.”
“I don’t need help dragging it,” Archie said to Sophia, “but you can help me skin it.”
“Santa Madre,” Sophia said and looked unhappily at John and Regan’s retreating backs as they disappeared into the woods.
Sarah sighed. It was true the spring garden was destroyed, but the hogs were found. And while Sophia and Regan continued to fight constantly and loudly, Ellen was showing signs of coming out of her fog. Maybe that was what life was going to be like from now on. Receiving with one hand and having it snatched away with the other. As long as it was just storms and runaway hogs, bickering and unpleasant work, she could live with it.
As she headed back to the compound, the troublesome thought that had been needling its way into her brain came back to haunt her.
Mike and Gavin had been gone three days.
Chapter 17
Megan screamed.
The sound jolted the entire tent into wakefulness. Fiona’s first thought was that the rape team was coming for them. She wasn’t the only woman in the tent with that particular nightmare but she was the only one who hadn’t had real life experience with it.
A long moan slithered through the air from Megan’s pallet. Fiona put a calming hand on the two little girls in their bed next to her. “Whisht,” she said, “go back to sleep. It’s nothing.”
By the time she went to Megan, Julie and Nuala were at Megan’s side.
“Remember to breathe, Meggie,” Julie said. “It’ll ease the pain.”
Megan began to cry. “I’m not ready! Please don’t make me do this!”
Fiona glanced at Hannah who was already standing by the tent door. It hadn’t taken long for everyone in the tent to realize that Hannah was the designated snitch in the tent. Even knowing that, she wasn’t shunned by the women—her own pregnancy and how that happened was all too real—but neither was she brought into confidences or befriended.
“Give her an hour before you tell them,” Fiona called to Hannah.
Hannah, a tense girl with long blonde braids, looked nervously from the tent entrance to Megan writhing on her bed.
“They want to know as soon as it starts,” she said in a low voice.
“And we’ll do the same for you,” Fiona said firmly.
Hannah hesitated and then nodded. She pulled a chair up to sit by the door. When it was time, she’d light the lantern to signal the sentries that one of the women was in labor.
“Will I ever see you again?” Megan whimpered as she clutched Fiona’s hand.
“Of course you will,” Fiona said. “Nuala, get a bowl of warm water and a cloth.” Nuala jumped up to obey.
Megan tensed up again and grabbed for Julie’s hand. “It’s coming again!” she squealed.
“Let it take you, lass,” Julie said soothingly. “Don’t fight it. Blow out!”
Megan began panting and blowing and gave a small scream at the end as the contraction pulled her over the edge.
“Can you stand, Meggie?” Fiona asked as Nuala came up with the bowl.
“I don’t think so,” Megan said and started sobbing.
Fiona gave Julie a desolate look.
“Meggie, darlin,” Julie said, reaching for the damp cloth and stroking Megan’s forehead with it. “We’ve got a tried and true method of getting this over so much faster for ye, but you must listen to us, eh?”
“I’ll try.”
“Let’s upsy-daisy, lass and take two small steps—”
“It will hurt so much if I do!”
“No, Meg,” Fiona said, “I promise it won’t hurt a bit more than it is.”
Julie gave her a wry smile. “That’s certainly true,” she said.
In that instant, Fiona felt a rush of love and connection with these women, all of them sharing centuries old sensations of women everywhere. Nuala took the cloth from Julie and dabbed at Megan’s face with it.
“Come on, Meggie,” she said, “the sooner it’s over, the sooner you’ll meet your little one.”
Fiona wasn’t sure that was the kind of motivation Megan really needed—to be reminded that she might well never meet her baby—but it had the desired effect. Megan swung her legs out of bed with a groan and, clenching Julie and Fiona’s hands tightly, pulled herself to a stand.
“If she has the baby in here, I’ll get in trouble,” Hannah said, her voice wobbling.
Nuala snorted. “Do you mean they’ll hold back that extra serving of pudding for ye?” she said.
“Leave her be,” Fiona said. “We’re all doing what we can to survive.”
“Aye,” Nuala said, “only some of us are doing it on the backs of our friends.”
“They’re coming!” Hannah said loudly. She backed away from the entrance as Sinead and Dr. Mac pushed their way into the tent. Sinead was wearing a long robe and her riding boots while Mac had taken the time to pull on jeans and a t-shirt. Even Fiona could see what Sinead saw in the man. The t-shirt accentuated his toned torso.
Sinead delivered an ugly look to Hannah that had the same effect as a slap. The girl cowered and slunk into the depths of the tent.
“We saw the light,” Sinead said, nodding toward the lantern Nuala had lit to prepare the water bowl. “I hope you ladies weren’t thinking of trying to deliver this baby yourselves? That is a very good way to kill both the baby and your friend.”
Dr. Mac went to Megan who was staring at both him and Sinead with unabashed fear.
“Hello, lass,” he said easily, slipping a strong arm behind her to support her. “Ready to have this baby, then?”
“It hurts,” Megan said as she looked into his eyes.
Fiona had to hand it to him. He looked like he cared about the girl. It was hard to believe it was only about the money with him. But that’s exactly what made him and Sinead so evil. Regardless of how they looked, they didn’t care about Megan. They only cared about the fifty thousand quid that was about to emerge from between her legs.
Fiona wanted to stop them but knew that would be a waste of time and only serve to upset the children. Even now she could see Nuala’s two lads were awake and watching everything. She reached out and gave Megan’s arm one last squeeze as she passed her.
“You’ll be grand,” she called as Dr. Mac led Megan from the tent. Sinead let them pass before turning and scanning the tent’s interior. Her eyes passed over Fiona and settled on Julie. It didn’t take a medical intern to figure out that Julie was next to deliver. Sinead smiled and left.
Morning brought the breakfast wagon and the rich aroma of toast, sausage and strawberry muffins. The driver of the wagon was also the cook, Eloise. She had become friendly with some of the non pregnant women who were expected to work when they weren’t being inseminated. Eloise wasn’t the smiley type, Fiona noted, and she also didn’t appear to be in the camp under duress. However unlikely or believable, it seemed that this was a paying job for her and she was welcome to stay or leave as she liked.
Many of the women denigrated Eloise for willing working for Sinead instead of reporting what was happening at the camp. Fiona wasn’t completely sure there was anyone to report it to. Plus, Eloise was generally sympathetic to the camp women—all of them, expecting or not—and she always put aside treats for the children.
It could be a lot worse. Today, Eloise had pulled her food wagon to the front door early. This wasn’t unusual. The pregnant women, whose nutrition was high priority, were always the first stop. Later in the morning Fiona would often smell coffee—something unavailable to the women in the pregnancy tent—wafting over the fence from Eloise’s visit to the non pregnant women.
“Good morning, ladie
s,” Eloise said as the women lined up to receive their trays of eggs and muffins. “As usual, stack yer trays outside the tent when yer done. Congratulations, by the way. Young Megan gave birth to a little lass. Mother and daughter are doing well. Megan sends her love.”
After Fiona and Nuala got the children settled with their breakfast, they sat with the others and had their tea.
“At first they used to let us help,” Julie said, “which made sense. Not that we’re midwives or anything but if you’re surrounded by friends, it does make it go easier.”
“Why did they stop?”
“It wasn’t just the mother screaming in pain and begging ‘em not to take her baby—which was a bleeding nightmare, sure it was. But you couldn’t help but be reminded that it would be you there soon enough—screaming and begging. I guess they figured it didn’t do for morale.”
Hannah was sitting with the group drinking her tea with downcast eyes. Fiona felt sorry for her. Fiona had a family here in the camp—a tribe of six other women from the compound—sisters in a very real way. She had a real family, too; Declan, Mike, Sarah and Gavin and John. It wasn’t possible to imagine a world in which she would betray her friends. But if she hadn’t had the family she had? If she were as alone in the world as poor Hannah was? Perhaps an extra serving of pudding would help make a difference.
Fiona was glad Megan’s trial was over—at least the first part. She wasn’t sure how long they’d let the poor lass rest before “insemination” attempts began. Her face must have telegraphed her feelings because Julie leaned over and patted her on the knee.
“She’s young. She’ll be back here in no time.”
“Sure, you’re right,” Fiona said. And you and I will be gone when she does.
Fiona felt a rush of urgency at the thought of this nightmare happening over and over again—with the same result.
We’ve got to get out of here. Somehow, with babies strapped to our backs and little ones attached to every hand, with half of us heavy with late stage pregnancy, somehow we have to find our way out of here.
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 58