Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Mind you, it’s hard in the winters,’ Palmer confessed. ‘Oh, aye, bitter cold, sometimes. But we know it’s coming, and we survive.’

  He expressed his political opinions as and when he chose. ‘In Ireland the magistrates would have the lobsterbacks about you for that,’ Harry told him. ‘Don’t they have the king’s soldiers in America?’

  ‘Sure they do,’ Palmer said. ‘But they mind their own business, if they have any sense, and we mind ours. They’re here to protect us against the French and the Indians. That’s what we pay our taxes for. Now there ain’t any French and Indians troubling us, we ain’t paying any taxes, any more, and the devil take German George.’

  ‘But the French and the Indians are still out there, aren’t they?’ Harry asked.

  ‘A long ways away.’ He pointed west. ‘Beyond the Sound.’

  ‘And nobody takes exception to your politics at all?’

  Palmer grinned. ‘There’s too many thinks like me, McGann. Oh, sure, there’s those thinks otherwise as well, and swear that German George has the right to do as he chooses and we all bow to the ground, just because he happens to be a king. That’s not my way of thinking. You mark my words. One day, one day soon, we Americans are going to tell him to take his taxes and his soldiers and skeedaddle home.’

  ‘And you reckon he’d do that?’ Harry asked.

  Another grin. ‘Well, now, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?’ He took down his rifle from its rack on the wall, and sighted lovingly along the barrel. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’

  My God, Harry thought, this man is openly talking revolution. There were whispers of revolution from time to time in Ireland, but nothing ever came of it.

  ‘And when that day comes,’ Palmer went on, ‘It’d be mighty reassuring to have you at my side, Harry McGann. What d’you say? I believe the Lord decides what happens, even if you are a Papist. You just walked out of those woods, and here you are. So where have you got to go? Here’s employment, all you can eat and drink, a roof over your head … and maybe more than that, if you turn out to be the sort of man I reckon you are.’ He allowed his gaze to drift, lazily, to his eldest daughter and then back again. ‘I’ve talked with my wife. We’d give a son-in-law a share in the farm, that we would.’

  Almost Harry felt a burning sensation in his eyes. Here was genuine friendship, being offered to him. And it was a temptation. A temptation to turn his back entirely on the world, to grow sleek and fat here in this paradise, with the right, it seemed, to blow the head off any aggressor who might approach. Temptation indeed.

  And abandon all his ambitions? Of ever seeing Elizabeth Bartlett again, with money in his pockets? But he had more noble ambitions than that, and now was the time to remember them — and perhaps build on them.

  ‘That’s the finest offer I’ve ever had, Mr Palmer,’ he said. ‘And I’m grateful, believe me. But I’ve a family and a betrothed waiting for me in Ireland. Mind you … if I were to talk them all into shipping over here with me … you reckon we’d be welcome?’

  Palmer’s teeth flashed in one of his grins. ‘You’d be welcome, Harry McGann. Oh, you’d be right welcome.’

  ‘Then expect us. But first … I have to get back.’

  ‘Aye. To do that you’ll need to reach New York. So do as I tell you. Keep to the west coast of the island, going south, and that’ll take you right down the Sound to the river. There’s a ferry service across to Manhattan Island from there. You tell him John Palmer sent you, and that I’ll settle up with him when next we meet. But Harry … New York is a hellhole. Go easy there.’ He clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Not that a giant like you has much to fear. My wife will fix you up some vittles to take with you. Must keep those muscles filled out. But boy …’ he shook Harry’s hand. ‘You come back, with your family. Your kind are what I want as neighbours.’

  *

  It had been like waking up from a long sleep and finding himself back in Tramore. Only the Palmers had been better than Tramore could ever be. Not only because Tramore people were inclined to look suspiciously on strangers, but because Tramore people, like everyone in Ireland, indeed, were afraid of the immense power that lay across the water. Here, perhaps, because there was a good deal more water to cross, there was a total absence of fear. At least on Long Island.

  And ift New York? He stepped ashore from the boat, shook hands with the ferryman, who was obviously a good friend of the Palmers, and gazed at the village which clung to the tip of Manhattan Island, which thrust out into the centre of a large bay formed by the discharge of two sizeable rivers. The sea was several miles away, he estimated, just visible between two headlands, and between it and the harbour there were several small islands, the whole helping to form a large sheltered area of water. Which was well used; there were several ships alongside and more anchored off in the roads. But the town itself, if it could be called a town, was hardly half the size of Waterford, and suggested a curious impermanence. There were one or two brick built houses further inland, and a street of sizeable warehouses and stores just behind the waterfront, but generally the building was in wood in the quickest and cheapest fashion.

  Not that he was there, he reminded himself, to admire the beauty, or lack of it, with which he was surrounded. He needed to find a ship, and quickly, because on the passage across the East River he had made out the Spirit of the West anchored off — and from the fact that she had obviously already been unloaded, as her boot topping was several inches higher out of the water than when last he had seen her, she must have come into port almost at the same time, three days earlier, as he had encountered John Palmer. While almost the first thing he saw on landing was the sign: BARTLETT’S GENERAL MERCHANDISE, above one of the very largest of the shops. If any report of what had happened on the voyage had been spread about, he had no time to lose; people were already starting to look twice at him because of his size.

  He made his way directly to the waterfront, aware that the passers-by were now looking at more than just his size, because Mrs Palmer, however skilful with her needle, had yet not made his shirt to fit very well, while the shoes they had given him were clearly also homemade. ‘What’s this?’ asked a well dressed young man he passed. ‘The wild man of the woods come to town?’

  Harry ignored him as he approached two obvious sailors, standing on the hard close by the water. ‘I seek a ship, sailing east,’ he said. ‘Can you direct me?’

  The two men looked at him. ‘Passages cost money,’ one said.

  ‘I will berth as a foredeck hand.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ asked the other. ‘And do you know one end of a ship from the other, bumpkin?’

  ‘Better than you, I’ll wager,’ Harry said.

  The men exchanged glances, and then looked him up and down again. But clearly he was not a man with whom they wished to come to blows. ‘You’ll want to see Black Jack O’Hare,’ one said. ‘He’ll know what ships are sailing, and whether they need men.’

  ‘And where can he be found?’ Harry asked.

  The man pointed. Harry read O’HARE’S INN, over the door of a very decrepit looking building across the road from the dock. ‘My thanks to you,’ he said.

  He crossed the road, pushed open the door, and stepped into an alcoholically damp and gloomy atmosphere after the bright sunlight outside; the tap room was crowded, with women as well as men. New York waterfront was not so different to that of Nantes or Waterford, after all.

  ‘Well, here’s a big boy,’ said one of the women, detaching herself from the arm she had been holding and approaching him. ‘What’ll it be, handsome?’

  ‘I seek O’Hare,’ Harry said.

  She made a moue and pointed. ‘That’s him.’ The innkeeper was behind his bar counter, and the reason for his nickname was immediately obvious; he wore an immense black beard, which effectively hid almost all of his face and left no clue as to his age. He was a big man, too, but Harry towered over him.

  ‘A passage east,’ O’Hare said,
stroking his beard. ‘Well, now, that can surely be arranged, for a fellow Irishman. Where would you have come from now, lad?’

  ‘Boston,’ Harry said without hesitation. It was the only other town he knew of, in America. ‘I’ve been seeing the country. But now I’ve a hankering to get home.’

  ‘And home would be where?’

  ‘Tramore, near Waterford,’ Harry told him. ‘I thought it would be. Your dad would be Seamus McGann, innkeeper?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ Harry said. ‘Do you know of him?’

  ‘Know of him? Why, lad, Seamus McGann and I are the oldest of friends. I thought I recognised you, the moment you came through that door. Now, you’ll be hungry and thirsty, and more than that. You’ll eat and drink, and take your pick from my girls, eh?’

  ‘I’ve no money,’ Harry protested.

  ‘What’s money between friends? You’re Seamus McGann’s son, and that’s good enough for me,’ O’Hare declared. ‘And while you eat, I’ll set about finding you a ship. If you’d a mind to stretch out now, there’s room upstairs. One of the girls will show you.’

  Not for the first time since landing in America, Harry felt close to tears. ‘Mr O’Hare,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to express my gratitude.’

  ‘Then don’t bother to try,’ O’Hare winked. ‘Us Irish must help each other, eh? It’s a hostile world.’ He looked around the room. ‘Mary! Fetch yourself here.’

  She was a pretty little thing, not all that much older than himself, Harry estimated, with reddish brown hair and pert lips, and a good deal of body beneath her skimpy gown. ‘You’re to eat,’ she said, and placed a plate of steaming bacon and beans on a table. ‘Sit yourself down.’

  Harry obeyed, while O’Hare clapped him on the shoulder and hurried out of the room.

  ‘And drink,’ Mary said, placing a mug of ale beside the plate.

  Harry suddenly realised how hungry he was. And thirsty. And happy. He fell to with total enjoyment. ‘This place,’ he said. ‘New York, all America … why, it’s like a dreamworld. The people are so friendly, so eager to help …’

  Mary smiled, and sat beside him. ‘That we are,’ she agreed. ‘Especially nice boys like you. Do you like my tits?’

  She leaned forward so that he could look down the front of her gown. They were the largest breasts he had ever seen.

  ‘You can try one for size,’ she suggested.

  He drank some of the ale, put his hand inside. The flesh was soft, but the nipples eager, rising to scrape his palm. How he wanted. Elizabeth Bartlett had titillated him too often, and now the food and ale and the feeling of relaxation was taking possession of him.

  ‘Ain’t they sweet?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ he said. ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘Then finish your meal and let’s away upstairs. I’m keen to see just what you have in there.’ She squeezed the front of his breeches, and gave a giggle of delight. ‘Lord, love a duck, you’ll have me stuck on the ceiling with that thing.’

  ‘I’ve no money,’ he reminded her.

  ‘It’s on the house. Besides, you’ll pay me back, somehow, some time.’

  He crammed the last of the food into his mouth, washed it down with the remaining ale, and let out a hearty belch. Mary held his hand and led him to the stairs.

  ‘Be sure he don’t squash you flat, Mary,’ called one of the other girls, and the customers guffawed.

  ‘They’re coarse as hell,’ Mary commented. She led him along a corridor, looked into the first room. ‘Oh, beg your pardon, Mr Paul.’

  Harry looked over her head at the couple in the bed. The girl was unmemorable, small and dark and thin and nervous, but he found himself staring at the man who Mary had called Paul. He was also somewhat small in build, although there was ample evidence of strength in his naked body. But it was his face which caught Harry’s attention. Not the least handsome, and indeed possessing somewhat disjointed features, it was built around a pair of burning blue eyes, which almost seemed to score Harry’s flesh with the intensity of their gaze.

  ‘Then get you gone,’ Paul said, his voice a rich Scottish brogue, but containing a similar almost menacing tenacity as his eyes.

  Mary closed the door. ‘He’s no man to cross, is John Paul,’ she remarked, and opened the next door. This room was empty of people, and was furnished exactly as the first, with bed, washstand, basin, ewer and bucket, and not a thing else. Nor were there any covers on the mattress. It was a room with a purpose.

  ‘Now let’s have you,’ Mary said, at the same time stepping out of her gown; she wore nothing underneath, and possessed hips to match her breasts, but supported by surprisingly slender and attractive legs. A pouting belly and a great bush of red brown pubic hair completed a most inviting picture. He went to her, slid his fingers over her shoulders and down her back to her buttocks, coming back up her front to hold her breasts, while she released his breeches and thrust her hands inside to find what she wanted. ‘Oh, you’re a big one in truth,’ she said, kneeling to use her lips to make him ready. But that was no difficult task. ‘Now that’s a ram,’ she said. ‘I want to feel him right inside.’

  She threw herself on to the bed, on her back, her legs opened and raised. Harry had never enountered a whore with quite such an enthusiastic approach to her work. But he needed no second invitation, even if he found himself imagining Elizabeth in that posture — supposing a woman like Elizabeth Bartlett would never dream of assuming such a position. He was inside her in seconds, and spent a moment later, all the suppressed sexual energy aroused by Elizabeth’s memory bubbling out of his system.

  ‘There’s my boy,’ Mary said. ‘Oh, you wanted that one. Now, why don’t you just lie down and close your eyes. I’ll stay right here with you. And when you wake up, why, you’ll be ready for another.’

  The idea sounded good. The whole day had so dramatically turned into one of the best of his life. To have so entirely fallen amongst friends, and indeed countrymen, with a man who even knew his own father … it almost made the misery of the voyage worth while. And he would know more about what he was doing on the way home. More important, there would be no Elizabeth Bartlett to bedevil him. If she had saved his life, he had no doubt at all it had been less through gratitude than for her own amusement. His brain drifted away into a sleep of perfect relaxation, his arm around the girl … but his eyes opened in alarm as the door crashed open and he gazed at four red coated soldiers, and Jack O’Hare.

  ‘There’s your mutineer,’ O’Hare said. ‘Gave me his name and all, he did.’

  Harry sat up, throwing Mary to one side, his belly seeming to fill with lead.

  One of the soldiers levelled his musket. ‘Move slow,’ he commanded. ‘Or you’re a dead man. Put on your breeks.’

  Harry stared at O’Hare. The alcohol and the sleep still clouded his brain; what was happening seemed incomprehensible after what had gone before. ‘Is this how you treat the son of an old friend?’ he asked.

  ‘Friend?’ O’Hare demanded. ‘Who’s your friend, then?’

  ‘You know my father.’

  O’Hare guffawed. ‘Your father? I never heard of the scab until James Passmore gave me his name. And yours. They knew you’d come here, some time, if you’d made the shore. All sailormen come to Black Jack O’Hare. And you’re worth money, boy. Oh, yes. Valuable, you are. Bartlett’s offering ten pounds for you.’ Anger bubbled through Harry’s system, and he tensed his muscles, then looked down the barrel of the gun. He had trusted, yet again, when he should have known so much better. Did that mean that John Palmer would also have handed him over to the lobsters if he had known there was a reward out for him? He could not believe that. But he had to believe this.

  ‘Slow,’ the soldier said. ‘Real slow.’

  Harry glanced at Mary. ‘You too?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I does what I’m told to do, big boy. And wasn’t it sweet? Least you’ll die happy.’

  Harry got out of bed, pulled on his breeches.


  ‘He’ll not give us any trouble,’ said the soldier. ‘It’s not the size that matters, O’Hare. It’s the mind to use the strength. This lad don’t have that, yet.’

  ‘And you’ll turn him off before he does,’ O’Hare reminded him. ‘I’d not want to encounter him on a dark night.’

  ‘No fear of that,’ the soldier said. ‘No fear …’ he gasped, as a sword point pinked the back of his neck. The musket clattered from his hands and he turned, his companions following his example, while O’Hare flattened himself against the wall and Mary screamed and rolled off the bed on to her hands and knees.

  ‘Have at you, you red devils,’ shouted the man Mary had called John Paul, thrusting with his rapier to turn aside the musket of the second soldier and wound him in the arm. The man gave a squeal of pain and fell across the bed. ‘Assist, lad, assist,’ Paul shouted.

  Harry picked up the musket dropped by the second man and swung it, catching the first soldier across the back of the head. He pitched forward and hit the floor with a thump. The third soldier promply fired his piece, filling the room with acrid smoke fumes, but certainly not hitting anyone, and he too gave a scream of fear and pain as Paul lanced him as well.

  ‘Mercy,’ cried the fourth, dropping his musket and rasing his hands.

  ‘Pick those pieces up, boy,’ Paul commanded, ‘or they’ll be potting at us through the window.’

  Harry scooped the four muskets into his arms, and backed towards the doorway with his saviour.

  ‘Now listen well, lobsters,’ Paul said. ‘Show a face at that window and we’ll blow it off. Watch the steps, boy.’