Boycott

by Colin Murphy

  ‘Who are you?’ Thomas whispered urgently, staying behind the man, not revealing his face.

  The old man’s lower lip quivered as he tried to respond, but such was his shock that no words emerged.

  ‘Are ye Harris’s stableman?’

  The man breathed rapidly, and in between his desperate gasps he managed to squawk a disjointed reply.

  ‘Michael Crean…handyman…please don’t hurt…’

  ‘Shut up! Ye work for that English bastard, don’t ye? Fuckin’ traitor. Tell me who’s in the house. Is Harris there? And Burrell?’

  The old man produced several tiny rapid nods in reply.

  ‘They any friends with them?’

  ‘No, don’t think–’

  ‘Where are they? Which room? Tell me or I’ll cut your throat.’

  He shook his head. ‘Maybe the drawing room…at front.’

  A door at the other end of the stable sat a few inches ajar.

  ‘Can I get to the house through there?’

  ‘Yeh. Across the yard te the back of the house. Please don’t hur–’

  He was crying as he spoke these last words and Thomas had to fight to suppress his guilt. But he steeled himself to carry on, to see the night through. He bent and seized the horseshoe that the man had dropped and brought it down hard on his skull, sending him toppling from the stool without even a cry. He lay quite still on the cobblestones, eyes closed, lips parted as though in a contented sleep.

  Thomas looked around for a gun, but could see nothing. The only thing of benefit he found was a half-eaten apple, and he devoured this greedily, almost choking as the lumps of fruit fought against his constricted gullet. A minute later and he was approaching the rear of the house, which was in darkness. The windows offered no clue to the layout, such was the depth of blackness within. The rear door was locked. He cursed and tried to conceive a means of proceeding, trying to fight the urge to flee, finding strength in the thought of exacting revenge for all the misery he’d witnessed, and the prospect of at last finding food. As he stood there, he heard the sound of a door creaking inside the house, then footsteps. Lamplight danced to and fro about the room. There was the remote sound of laughter and then a voice calling out.

  ‘Which one did you say? Very good. Just give me a minute.’

  He heard the clink of bottles and a man humming absently. As surreptitiously as he could, he bent low and crept to the window, listening, trying to gauge where the man was, and then cautiously rose and peered over the sill. It was Burrell, the land agent’s subordinate, a man of about thirty, with oiled black hair and a wide, curled-up moustache. He was removing the cork from a bottle. Burrell began to turn suddenly and Thomas dropped low in a blink. He realised the time had come. He must make his play.

  Towards the centre of the rear wall stood a stone water trough, about three feet high, built to catch the run-off from the slate roof. He crept to the door, rapped his fist against it, then took off and ducked behind the trough, the knife clutched tightly in his right hand. He watched from the darkness as the door creaked open a few inches.

  ‘Hello? Crean? Is that you?’

  Thomas felt about on the ground until he located a small stone, then tossed it high into the yard. It landed with a sharp crack and skittered away.

  ‘What the devil? Crean? Hello?’

  The door was pulled shut again and Thomas swore. What the hell did it take to get this bastard to come out? But as the very thought was formed, the door opened again and he watched as Burrell stepped out into the night, his right arm held high, clutching a lamp. In his left hand he held a pistol.

  Thomas ducked low as the man emerged fully and looked around.

  ‘Hello, Crean? Is there someone here?’

  Burrell was about five yards away, his attention drawn for the most part towards the stable. He took another few tentative steps into the yard and stood now with his back to Thomas, holding the lamp towards the stable door, which had been left ajar. Thomas took a sharp breath, clenched his teeth, almost painfully so, stood up and darted towards Burrell. Just as the man began to turn at the sound he swung the knife in an upward arc and plunged the blade deep into Burrell’s back. The Englishman’s body arced and his head shot back as though he was trying to look at the night sky, a guttural bawl starting to spring from his open mouth before Thomas’s hand clamped tightly across it. Burrell’s lamp arm shot rigidly out to the side and the lamp went sailing across the yard, landing in a crash of flame and glass. The gun fell harmlessly at his feet as he tried desperately to claw over his shoulder at his assailant. Thomas heard a sickening gurgle and experienced the sensation of warm, sticky blood spouting from the man’s mouth; in his revulsion and his desire to see the deed ended, he pulled the blade out and plunged it in again. He heard a low, choking moan and finally felt the body go limp, felt its weight transferred to his own arms as though the man was dying from his legs up. He loosened his grip and Burrell slowly slid down his body, seemed to kneel for a few seconds, like he was making a final prayer, then fell forward and landed face down with a thump.

  Thomas gasped aloud and had to suppress the urge to sob. His entire body shook at the horror of the act he’d just committed, and still there was more to do. That thought brought him to action again and he looked towards the open door, certain that Harris would burst out at any moment, roused by the noise of the lamp, the remains of which sat in an eerie pool of flame in the cobbled yard. He pocketed the knife and seized the gun, then peered around the doorframe, the fading light from the burning oil allowing him to see that it was a large kitchen. The door at the far end remained closed and he could not see or hear any sign of Harris. His left hand was entirely covered in blood and he quickly wiped this in Burrell’s clothing, desperate to rid himself of its repulsive stickiness.

  He looked at the gun. He had little hands-on experience of guns but he knew enough to recognise it as a revolver, a weapon that could fire maybe six shots.

  Thomas leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes. He’d done it now. Stepped over the cliff edge. And no force on earth could pull him back to safety. And his task was not yet complete, for Harris was the real enemy. To truly exact some small revenge for his family’s deaths, for all the evil that had befallen his country, he would have to face the land agent and take his life also. He stepped into the kitchen and moved past a table covered in food: plates of meat, bread and fruits. Incredibly at that moment, despite the starvation that racked his body, he felt no desire to reach out and seize any of it. Yet the sight did fully restore his appetite for blood, and he steeled himself.

  Suddenly there was a voice on the other side of the door, drawing near, a cheery voice that called out in feigned irritation.

  ‘Harold, dear boy, where the devil are you? Did you break another of my bottles? Well, you can damn well pay for it if–’

  Harris opened the door, lamp in hand, and was met by the sight of Thomas, revolver levelled at his chest. He stopped dead, the smile melting from his lips as his eyes widened, his initial surprise turning to anger as he realised his home had been invaded.

  ‘Who in the name of–?’

  ‘Shut up!’ Thomas snapped. ‘Turn around, back the way ye came, slowly, or I swear te Christ I’ll kill ye the way I killed that other bastard.’

  Harris’s mouth opened at the realisation that Burrell was dead, the peril of his situation dawning in an instant.

  ‘You’ll hang for this, by God!’ he whispered.

  ‘Turn around!’ Thomas snarled.

  The land agent did as ordered and Thomas followed him along a narrow hallway that led through an open door into a large room lit by several lamps. Two towering windows were curtained against the prying eyes of the outside world. The room was luxuriously furnished with a divan and three other single armchairs, a bureau, and a table on which rested a flower vase and a lamp. Giant paintings, portraits mostly, decorated the walls. In one wall a vast marble mantel enclosed a hearth, in which blazed a turf fire.<
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  The man swayed on his feet a little as he crossed the room and Thomas guessed that he and Burrell had been drinking heavily, most likely after they’d stuffed their bellies to bursting.

  ‘Put the lamp down and sit.’

  Harris was in his mid-thirties, medium build, about six feet, with short fair hair, long sideburns and, like his dead friend, a handlebar moustache. His narrow-set eyes betrayed a mixture of fear and rage. The land agent sat in one of the leather-upholstered chairs and gripped the wooden arms.

  Thomas allowed his eyes to wander around the room. ‘Nice house. This must be what ye get for living off the backs of the starving.’

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  ‘Who am I?’ Thomas shook his head in disbelief. ‘Ye spoke te me this very day and ye don’t even recognise me. We’re nothing te ye, are we? Ye don’t even see us as humans.’

  A glimmer of recognition flicked across Harris’s face. ‘Joyce? From Tawnyard?’

  ‘That’s right. Michael Joyce was my father. He’s dead. Left te starve te death like most of the rest of my family. Murdered by you.’

  Thomas moved closer, just two yards away now, staring down the slope of his arm past the gun at the land agent’s eyes. Harris made no response, his grip on the chair arms so tight that his knuckles were bone white.

  ‘Have ye nothing te say, ye murdering dog?’ Thomas snarled.

  The fear abruptly vanished from Harris’s eyes to be replaced by defiance. He replied through gritted teeth. ‘All I have to say to you is go to hell.’

  Thomas calmly took a step backwards. He dipped the gun and pointed it at Harris’s gut.

  ‘This is for my father,’ he whispered and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet ripped into Harris’s stomach and the land agent immediately started to convulse, hands clutching at the wound, legs flailing wildly like he was doing some crazed dance, his entire body writhing as his agonised screams echoed about the house. Blood spouted between his fingers and sprayed wildly in every direction and his eyes strained wider than Thomas had imagined possible.

  ‘Oh holy Jesus!’ Thomas cried out.

  The grotesque spectacle refused to end and, desperate for release, he levelled the gun at the thrashing figure and pulled the trigger again, this time hitting the land agent in the head, all but erasing the upper half of his face. The writhing stopped abruptly and Harris fell dead, sliding downwards and flopping to the floor, his upturned head coming to rest on the bloodied upholstery.

  ‘Mother of God,’ Thomas whispered.

  And that was when the door opened and the Irish maid, in her night robe, stepped in and screamed. Thomas turned and instinctively fired from five yards away, hitting her in the throat and killing her in the blink of an eye. The young girl fell dead in the doorway.

  Thomas gasped and fell to his knees, sobbing. ‘Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! Fuck it fuck it fuck it fuck it!’ he yelled into the wooden floor.

  Slowly he rose, desperate to collect his wits, sweeping his sleeve across his eyes, realising his time was short. He had to think quickly. Other men would be coming at any minute.

  Thomas overcame his revulsion at the sight of the man he’d just murdered to reach inside Harris’s jacket. Nothing. He began to rifle the bureau and found not a farthing. He stepped over the dead girl’s body and raced up the stairs, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind him. Having located the master bedroom, complete with blazing fire, lamps, four-poster bed, wardrobe and a tall chest of drawers, he began to search wildly, finally uncovering three five-pound notes and four single notes, nineteen pounds in all, more than all the money his father could earn in two years. He’d never even seen a piece of paper money before this moment, but he knew he was holding his and Owen’s ticket to America, if they could survive that long.

  He ran down to the kitchen and found a small sack that he filled with enough bread and cooked pork for the journey, desperately stuffing handfuls of bread into his mouth as he worked. Burrell’s uncorked bottle of brandy still rested on the worktop where the Englishman had left it. Thomas took a long swig, then fled towards the main entrance.

  Emerging from the light, the darkness was intense. He strained to see if there were any witnesses to the terrible malignancy that had just transpired, tried to identify any ill-fitting sound, but his only reward was an accusing stillness, a silence that allowed the voices in his head to scream to their fullest. With the door pulled closed behind, he hastened down the track, arrived at the narrow dirt road and ran across it into the relative safety of the grass, heather and rocks of a wild, untilled field. After a few minutes of shivering, of breathing in raspy gulps, he managed to restore his nerves to some level of calm, reminding himself over and over that what he’d done had been right and just.

  The sound of distant voices stirred him to action. It was the sound of men approaching, not skulking or whispering or plotting, but talking openly and drawing nearer by the second. He turned away and fled across the field towards the mountains, towards his home, where he would restore his brother to life as he’d sworn he would to his dying father. He would feed him, clothe him, protect him and carry him to the safety of the New World, free from the baleful, vengeful hands of the English. Thomas would abandon the country he loved in search of freedom and life. And perhaps on that far distant shore the memory of this night might finally begin to recede.

  CHAPTER 38

  HOW EXECUTIONS WERE MANAGED IN THE PAST

  There was much brutality witnessed in those days with public executions, with the corpse dangling on the rope, coram populo, for 30 minutes, as required by law. I grew up in ‘a hanging country’ – in Ireland – and I have in my mind one of these hangings in triplicate. Through the swinging traps in the floor of the iron structure called ‘the drop’ I saw in my boyhood dozens take the jump into the dark future. The condemned stood with heads covered, awaiting the springing of the bolt, which was to cast them into eternity. At last the bolt was drawn, three iron trap doors swung open with a hoarse screech and the three fell, writhing and plunging in the agonies of strangulation. Warders supplemented the judicial hanging by laying hold of the legs of the still living wretches and swinging from them until the plunging ceased, and a few convulsive shudders told that all was over.

  –The New York Times, 14 September 1879

  The work of the Boycott relief expedition is completed. The Ulstermen, escorted by Infantry, marched from Ballinrobe to Claremorris, a distance of 13 miles, where they took the train northward at seven o’clock this morning. Almost before daylight, Boycott himself with his wife, niece and nephew, left Lough Mask in a covered ambulance wagon and escorted by a number of Hussars, was driven rapidly to Claremorris.

  –The Montreal True Witness, 1 December 1880

  27 NOVEMBER 1880

  ‘That was how it started, I suppose,’ Thomas said, staring at Owen. ‘I came to realise after a while that what I’d done had been the right thing to do, the only thing to do. It was our only chance to survive. As the days passed, as we walked to Westport, when I knew we were going to make it, it troubled me less and less. And I saw that the only way this country would ever be free was to do it a thousand times over, until every last Englishman was driven from Ireland. And I swore to myself that one day I’d return and carry on what I’d started. It just took me a lot longer than I expected.’

  Owen’s disquiet, his revulsion, was overwhelming. Since the day Thomas had revealed his true nature in the confrontation with him and Síomha, he had been under no illusions about his brother’s capacity for violence. Yet to hear this now, to learn that even in their first flush of youth when, as he’d supposed, their fundamental human dignity had survived the ugliness around them and they had resisted their baser urges to seek bloody retribution, Thomas had even then submitted to the darker recesses of his heart.

  ‘What about the girl, the maid? What about her?’ he whispered.

  Thomas shook his head slowly and lowered his eyes. ‘It was an
accident. I didn’t mean to…I didn’t intend…if I could have avoided it I would. Besides, I only killed three people. They killed two million. It was a small sacrifice in the name of justice.’

  ‘Justice? You bastard!’

  ‘Now why do you say that, Owen? Is it because you realise at last that you have to face the truth you’ve been avoiding all your life?’

  ‘What truth?’

  Thomas laughed mockingly as he gestured to the world beyond McGurk’s cottage. ‘All of this, this fucking boycott stuff, peaceful resistance, all that bollocks. Your entire life is founded on spilt blood. If I hadn’t done what I did, if I hadn’t killed those bastards, taken their food and money, you’d be long dead, rotting in the ground, never have seen a day past your seventeenth year. You’re alive, Owen, because I killed. Síomha? Ye would never have met her. Your children would never have been born. Tadhg, Lorcan, Niamh? They all owe their lives, their fucking existence te me. Everything you are is built on bloodshed. And, like I said earlier, ye knew all along. You knew when we were walking te Westport that the food ye were eating was “tainted”. Ye just wouldn’t admit it te yourself; ye wanted me te carry the burden of it so your damn conscience could remain clear. If I’ve any guilt on my shoulders, you share it in equal measure.’

  Owen’s mind spun as the words fell from his brother’s lips, as he desperately tried to make the pieces fit, to put some order and sense back into his perception of his own life. His emotions tumbled and tangled in an unseemly brawl, wrestling for clarity, with rage ultimately gaining the upper hand. He leapt from the chair, but Thomas was expecting him and stood up sharply, pulling his gun up in a blink, holding the barrel inches from Owen’s snarling face.

  ‘Don’t, Owen. I’ll kill you if I have te, I swear.’

  ‘You bastard! You fuck! Don’t try and make me a part of your sick world. Everything you did, you did for yourself. You know what I am?’