When the trays had been stacked by the tent opening and the children dressed for play outdoors—it was a fine day—Fiona made up Megan’s bed and stacked her things in a neat pile. Someone would come for them later today. She wished she had a paper and pencil to write an encouraging note for her but she would just have to send mental well wishes and hope that Megan felt them. Congratulations, darling girl. How I wish we could all be there to praise her and you. How my heart breaks that you won’t feel that.
“Fiona?”
Catriona stood by Megan’s empty bed, a worried look on her face. Catriona glanced over her shoulder and when Fiona followed her gaze, she saw Hannah look away.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona asked.
“Eloise had other news,” Catriona said. “She told Hannah.”
“And Hannah told you?”
“I’m not friends with her if that’s what you mean,” Catriona said. “But she’s not heartless and she needed to tell someone.”
“Tell someone what?”
Catriona looked around the tent. Fiona watched the girl’s eyes stop at Nuala who was tying her lads’ shoes. Before Catriona even spoke, Fiona knew.
Abby.
“Nuala’s sister was found this morning,” Catriona said in a low voice.
Fiona nodded, her heart plummeting in anticipation of the coming words.
“In the trough behind the cook tent.”
Dear God, pray for us now and at the hour…
“She drowned herself.”
Chapter 18
Mike stood beside the Jeep and gazed down at the city of Dublin before him. Just a few months before, he’d driven here with Sarah and stood at this exact spot when they set out to find their lost lads. At the time, he’d marveled that there was nothing moving on the streets of the once vibrant city. Today, expecting to again see no activity below, he was astonished to see a long line of trucks snaking their way through the heart of the city.
“Where are they all going?” Gavin asked as he leaned out his window. He’d sat in the back with Carey for the three hour drive to Dublin. Jaz had slipped off into the bushes to relieve herself.
“I have no idea,” Mike said. He glanced at Carey and raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know,” Carey said. “They are going in the opposite direction of the work camp.”
“Perhaps they have nothing to do with the work camp,” Mike said. “Maybe they’re something else entirely.”
“I bet they’re heading to the mines,” Carey said. “Either dropping off men or picking up ore.”
Mike glanced up at the sun which had fallen quickly since they’d left the M8. He reckoned they didn’t have much more than a couple of hours of daylight left. That suited him just fine. The real problem was that the Jeep was almost out of gas. Although he was happy to drive it until it stopped, he’d prefer to choose the moment when they had to abandon it.
“How much further to the work camp?” he asked.
Carey cleared his throat. “It’s on the edge of town. About thirty minutes once we’re inside the perimeter.”
Jaz returned from the bushes and sat back in the front passenger seat.
“Anybody else?” Mike asked, but the two in the back shook their heads. “Right.” He slipped back into the driver’s seat. “Let’s get ‘em back.”
The plan was simple. With Carey’s help, they’d find their way to the work camp, then do a circuit of it and meet back up. Once they knew the lay of the land, they’d find a way to go in on foot. It hadn’t taken long to convince Carey he was better off on their side.
Anyone could tell the lad had made some poor choices in the last few years—but then Carey had had little help in deciding the right thing to do. All of them had done things they weren’t proud of in the years since the bomb dropped. The lad’s willingness to help them recover their men went a long way toward redeeming him in Mike’s eyes.
They drove silently into town. Mike was aware that the insignia on the side of the Jeep announced them to any of Dublin’s citizen who saw them. To hear Carey describe it, the New Black and Tan was a rogue militia band of opportunists and sadists. No wonder they didn’t see anybody on the streets as they drove down the main streets.
“What kind of mine is it they force them to work at?” Jaz asked. “Diamonds?”
“You wish!” Carey said with a laugh. “Nah, it’s something to do with batteries or the like. Jimmy said the government sells it to other countries seeing as how we don’t need it.”
“That’s bollocks,” Mike said. “Ireland needs it more than the lot of them. That’s just a crooked government taking advantage of a nightmare situation.”
“What this country needs is a revolution,” Gavin said.
“Steady on, lad,” Mike said. “We’ll just get in, grab our blokes, and get out. Ye can’t change the world. Especially now.”
“What if they come back?” Gavin asked. “Have ye thought of that? I mean, they know where Ameriland is. What’s to stop them from coming back?”
“One thing at a time,” Mike said. That question had ricocheted around in his brain from the moment Carey told them why the compound men were taken. The government knew exactly where they were. And the government had shown itself not to be a friend to Ameriland.
They drove in silence until the Jeep began to lurch for lack of fuel. Mike steered it onto the side of the road and let it die.
“We’re not far now,” Carey said. “Ten minutes on foot.”
“Aye,” Mike said turning to face them. “Jaz will come with me, you two scout the perimeter. Untie him, Gav.”
Gavin cut the rope around Carey’s hands and then hopped out of the car. Before Carey got out, Mike put a hand on his knee.
“Help us get our lads back,” Mike said, “and you’ve a home with us back in Ameriland.”
Carey nodded, his eyes glistening with emotion. “Thank you. That would grand.”
Mike and Jaz got out of the Jeep and joined Carey and Gavin on the sidewalk.
“It’s a long walk home,” Jaz observed. “Especially if some of the men are hurt.”
“They won’t be,” Carey said grimly.
When Mike looked at him questioningly, Carey said, “They don’t keep ‘em if they can’t work. If they’re hurt, they…I don’t know, they just don’t keep ‘em.”
A sickening feeling roiled in Mike’s gut at Carey’s words.
**********
The entrance to the work camp looked very much like what it had once been—a small reservist base for the Irish army. A guardhouse stood to one side by a manual stop bar. The wooden walls around the camp were topped with coils of barbed wire. Mike and Jaz knelt in the bushes thirty yards from the entrance. Mike could see a soldier inside smoking and staring down at something in the booth as though reading a book. Mike knew it might also be a surveillance screen although neither he nor the lads had spotted any cameras. Even so, the army had electricity and at least some working electronics. But that assumed this was an army operation. He couldn’t see the man’s uniform and there were no markings on the gate to identify what kind of facility it was.
“There they are!” Jaz whispered loudly. Mike was frankly surprised that the guard didn’t jerk his head up at her loud attempt at covert communication. Carey and Gavin ran bent over to make themselves less obtrusive until they reached Mike and Jaz.
“Well done, lads,” Mike whispered. “Anything?”
“It’s a big bloody camp, I’ll say that,” Gavin said. “We didn’t even go all the way around.”
“Any breaches?” Mike asked. “Or obvious ways in or out?”
They both shook their heads.
“But it was dark,” Gavin said. “Maybe in the daylight…”
“We can’t wait until daylight!” Jaz said. “Carey will bring us in the front gate like we planned!”
Mike put a restraining hand on her shoulder. All afternoon her energy and impatience had been pinging off her like a hailstorm. After searching
for so long she was finally close. It was all Mike could do to keep her from jumping up and running through the main gate.
“Oy!” Carey said, “a truck’s coming.”
They all squeezed further back into the edge of the woods as a large transport truck appeared on the road and rumbled toward them in the direction of the gate. Mike tried to imagine why they would be coming at this time of the night to the work camp. It was well past seven o’clock and had been dark for two full hours.
As the truck passed, Carey patted Mike on the shoulder and pointed past him.
“That’s him,” he said breathlessly. “That’s the guy we bring the men to. Captain McKenna.”
The truck slowed and then stopped outside the work camp. In the light of the streetlamp beside the guardhouse, they watched as a beefy man, a cigarette dangling from his lips, got out from the passenger seat and spoke to the guard, then got back in the truck. The guard stepped out and lifted the cross arm out of the way and the truck rolled slowly into the camp.
As the truck moved forward under the streetlight, Mike could see into the open interior at the back of the truck, where at least two dozen men sat opposite each other on benches. So stunned by what he saw, Mike didn’t even react until Carey was on his feet and running down the drive toward the camp.
“Help me!” he screamed. “I’m Liam Carey from the New Black and Tan and I’ve brought ye more workers!”
Chapter 19
The stench of burning hair permeated the cottage walls. Long past morning sickness, Sarah still used her pregnancy as an excuse not to go outside while Archie and Sophia worked on the carcass. She caught a glimpse of Sophia standing helplessly by the center campfire where Archie had dragged the hog. He was showing her how to scrape the hide but so far she hadn’t reached for the knives to actually start work herself.
Sarah knew Sophia was struggling to do her best in her new family but she also knew that the girl had done very little real work in her life before marrying Gavin. She may have had an abusive father, but in some ways he was bizarrely indulgent with her. It was to Sophia’s credit that she tried her best to pitch in. Usually.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah noticed movement that made her look toward the front gate in time to see John and Regan returning with a small herd of pigs. They both had their arms full of squirming piglets. Sarah couldn’t help but smile. They were laughing, but even from this distance Sarah could see a cut on John’s forehead. He cranked down the front gate, then picked up a stick laying on the ground to herd the five pigs and their young toward the compound sty behind the gypsies’ old shacks.
Sarah picked up a large bowl of stale bread soaked in bacon grease and stepped out onto the porch. “Regan!” she called. “Come take this for the pigs.”
Regan walked over to her.
“Were they hard to find?” Sarah asked. “How did John get cut?”
“Not hard,” Regan said, taking the bowl. “Wily as shite, though. Once we found ‘em, we had to convince ‘em to come with us. John did a nosedive into a tree trunk trying to convince ‘em. Sure he’s fine. Sturdy as an oak is our John.”
There was a different look to Regan these days, Sarah noticed. If not exactly wholesome, the affect was at least very different from the first day since Regan arrived. Now she looked nearly radiant, grinning and suntanned, her long hair tied carelessly behind her.
Could it be that the girl just needed work to sort her out?
“Well, after you feed them, come get washed up for dinner. Tell the others too, please.”
Sarah went inside to check on the rolls baking in the oven. Ellen was in the living room. Sarah had taken her to the outhouse twice since they’d returned from looking at the ruined planting field. Otherwise, the woman hadn’t moved.
“You okay, Ellen?” Sarah asked as she walked by. Ellen smiled but didn’t respond.
In the kitchen, Sarah opened the door to the cook stove and pulled the rolls out. She’d just placed the hot pan on top of the stove when she heard the screaming.
Startled, she whirled around, knocking the pan to the floor, and snatched up the rifle by the kitchen larder she kept loaded and ready. Not bothering to look out the window first, she lumbered back through the living room as quickly as she could.
“Stay inside!” she shouted at Ellen and then stepped out onto the porch.
Not far from the cottage, Archie was standing between Sophia and Regan, and gripping each of them by the hair. The bowl of hog fodder was smashed on the ground. Sophia continued to scream. Regan was slapping at Archie’s hand and roaring her own form of displeasure.
Son of a bitch. Sarah stormed down the stairs as John came around the corner, a look of concern on his face.
“Go wash up!” Sarah shouted to him.
He shrugged and walked past her up the cottage steps. Sarah went to where Archie stood shaking the two girls like rag dolls.
“I’ve had enough of this shite!” he roared, “And I’ll not have it another minute!”
“What happened?” Sarah asked.
“This horrible…horrible girl—” Sophia began.
“Not you. I want to hear it from Archie.”
“Sure does it matter?” Archie said, giving the girls a last firm shake before releasing them. “One of ‘em said something to the other and that one returned the favor. Then the other commenced to slapping the other so’s the bowl broke—”
Regan rubbed her scalp and scowled at Archie but she spoke to Sarah. “The bitch said she poured honey in me bed!”
“That is absurd, Regan,” Sarah said. “Mind the accusations you hurl. And you broke the bowl! That is very serious.” But Sarah caught the expression on Sophia’s face. She reached out and grabbed her arm.
“Tell me you didn’t pour honey in her bed.”
“If you only knew what I am going through with this wretched, wretched girl!” Sophia said, not looking at Sarah.
“You are seriously telling me you wasted good food in this way?” Sarah felt a vein in her forehead throbbing.
“I told her she’d be switched for it,” Archie said as he turned back to the smoking hog.
“This cannot be true, can it, Sarah?” Sophia asked fearfully.
“That you’ll be punished for wasting food?” Sarah sputtered. “Of course you will.”
“Ha!” Regan said, clapping her hands on her hips and smiling at Sophia.
“However, lucky for you, I do not believe in physical punishment.” When Sarah saw Sophia’s sigh of relief she tightened her grip on the girl’s arm. “Be glad Mike isn’t here. He has a different philosophy about such things.” She turned and glared at Regan. “You had a part in this, so don’t think I don’t know that. Clean up this mess, then go wash for dinner. Now.”
Regan grinned at Sophia and then knelt to pick up the sticky bread pieces. Archie handed her a handkerchief and she filled it.
“As for you, Sophia,” Sarah said. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that you could do such a juvenile thing.”
“I am so sorry—”
“You’ll clean Regan’s bed—to my satisfaction—and when your other chores are done, you’ll replace the honey you wasted.”
“Replace?” Sophia said with dismay. “How I am doing this?”
“How do you think, Dago?” Regan said as she stood up with her sopping food bundle.
“Regan, go feed the pigs,” Sarah said between clenched teeth. “First things first,” she said to Sophia. “Go clean the bed.”
She spoke to Archie. “Are you ready to stop for dinner?”
He nodded.
Sarah looked back at Sophia who was starting to cry. “After dinner,” Sarah said to her, “you’ll continue assisting Archie in the hog skinning.”
“But it is reee-volting!” Sophia wailed, tears rolling down her face.
“Trust me, I know. Did it once occur to you that Regan shares that bed with her mother?”
“I am forgetting,” Sophia said meekly.
As Sarah and Archie watched Sophia flounce back toward the cottage, Sarah muttered under her breath, “I’m not sure I shouldn’t have just shot them.”
“Might come to that,” Archie said with a grimace.
Most of the rolls for dinner that had fallen on the floor were salvaged and the rest went to the pigs. Sophia, gloomy at the prospect of tackling the hog again after dinner, was silent as she ate. Regan, by contrast was talkative and cheerful. It occurred to Sarah that this might be one of the few times in Regan’s whole life where she wasn’t the one held wholly accountable for bad behavior. It was a nice change. For everyone.
After dinner, Sophia trudged off with Archie to finish up with the hog, and Regan surprised everyone by settling her mother outside on the porch with a rug across her lap and a cup of tea. She sat at Ellen’s feet and pointed out the stars to her. Ellen even appeared to be enjoying herself.
Sarah felt the baby kicking and massaged her lower back. Maybe a little exercise would quiet him. A little exercise that would serve another purpose as well…
“Show me the hogs,” she said to John. “I want to make sure they’re settled in for the night.”
John picked up a lantern but hesitated before leaving the porch. “You guys going to be okay?” he asked Regan.
She looked at him and grinned. “We’re grand. And Archie’s right over there in plain sight.”
It was true that Archie and Sophia were clearly visible by the fire. Sophia stood next to him, her shoulders slumped in obvious dejection. They could hear Archie talking to her but his words didn’t carry.
John and Sarah walked down the path toward the back of the compound. This time of evening was decidedly creepy and because they hadn’t lit any of the marker torches, the path was darker than elsewhere in the camp. If it weren’t for the fact that Sarah really wanted to have a private word with John—and there hadn’t been a better moment during the day—she wouldn’t have suggested the walk.
“Why do we keep them so far away?” she asked, as much to distract herself from the moving shadows that seemed to track them as they walked.
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 59