Old Glory

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘We shall go down to Lorient,’ John Paul pronounced, ‘when the ship is ready for my, for our, inspection. I am sure the French are entirely capable of fitting out their own ships, and I certainly have no wish to batter my head against that of some chef du port. I am happy here, until I can put to sea. For God’s sake man, had you ever anticipated that a man could enjoy such luxury, such contentment, such sweetness to exist? And all paid for by our hosts?’

  ‘Such immorality, you mean,’ Harry growled. ‘And I should say, such immorality. Do you know that I have never seen any part of her.’

  ‘That is perhaps part of her charm,’ Franklin observed, gravely. ‘She could be as ugly as sin. But have you never heard the old saying, that all cats are grey in the dark?’ He smiled. ‘No, you would not have; I invented it myself. But it is very true. Besides, I have always been of the opinion that when it comes to woman, one touch is worth a thousand glances.’

  ‘You are as amoral as everyone else,’ Harry said. ‘And Catherine is not ugly. She is a very beautiful woman. I see her in public, often enough, and every time I wish to ravish her there and then. And she pretends hardly to know me.’

  Franklin winked. ‘Because perhaps she does not know you. You have only her word for it that it is Madame Falloux with whom you dally.’

  ‘By God …’ Harry looked at John Paul.

  Who shrugged. ‘I have only the Countess’ word for it, too. But at least I know that it is the Countess with whom I dally; she does not like darkness. And Madame Falloux is her friend.’

  ‘It is still the most amoral existence conceivable,’ Harry declared. ‘Every time I touch her I am shocked at myself.’

  ‘But you cannot stop yourself touching her. Ye gods! I am the Presbyterian, Harry, faced with no escape from the fires of hell. You are the Catholic, who can confess all his sins any Friday night and receive absolution. Anyway, the sins are those of the women. And I am content that it should be so.’

  Harry accompanied Franklin to the door. ‘This is setting up to be a total disaster, Ben,’ he said. ‘You do not know John Paul as well as I do. He would fight a lion with his bare hands, were he out lion hunting. But he would also spend the rest of his life wallowing in this dissipation, were nothing to come along to encourage him to action. And there is more. He still counts the cruise of the Ranger a failure, however we managed to capture an English warship. He still does not know what will happen next time he puts to sea, and indeed, does not even like to think about it. And every day that he lingers in Versailles, and drinks too much wine, and builds his life around a succession of midnight trysts, is making him less able to face that moment when it comes. We must get him back to sea, and soon. Or he is lost forever.’

  Franklin gazed into his eyes. ‘And you?’

  Harry grinned. ‘Me? I have not even the wit to enjoy the pleasures which are thrust at me. I was lost years ago. Why do you suppose I cling to him? He is my rock. I would hate to see it eroded.’

  Franklin nodded. ‘I will do everything I can, to speed matters up. But I do not agree that he is in the greater danger, Harry. As you say, he is a man of the strongest contrasts, and he takes life as it comes. But you … you can only see life as it should be, a straight and hopefully light-filled tunnel down which you must make your way. Versailles will erode that magnificent body long before it harms John Paul. I wish you had taken Ranger. Now … I doubt, no matter what I may do or say, that the Due de Duras will be ready for sea in under three months, and you have already wasted nearly a year here. It is you we must get to sea, somehow, if only for a short voyage.’

  Harry frowned. ‘You mean, enlist in the French Navy?’

  ‘No. No, I doubt that would be appropriate. We might lose you forever, and we need you too much. I meant a temporary voyage. Have you not family still living, in Ireland?’

  ‘Why, yes.’

  ‘Do you ever think of them?’

  ‘Constantly.’

  ‘And would they be glad to see you, or would they betray you?’

  ‘There is no chance of that.’

  ‘Well, then … there are still smugglers out of Brest and Nantes, who visit the south coasts of England and Ireland, surreptitiously. Of course, there is always the risk of encountering a revenue cutter …’

  ‘I have taken that risk before,’ Harry said, heart pounding.

  ‘I thought as much. And if you need to purchase a passage …’ from his coat pocket he took a small bag, which jingled attractively.

  ‘I cannot take your money,’ Harry protested, returning the bag. ‘Nor do I understand why you wish to do this for me.’

  ‘Simply to keep you sane, and yet close at hand, for our cause,’ Franklin said. ‘I would expect you to be able to arrange a passage to Ireland, and return here, within a month, and there is no hope of having a ship for you before then. But also …’ he squeezed Harry’s hand, ‘because I like you, you great hulking Irishman. I have never taken to a man more. Now, I tell you what you are to do, and this is an order from your country’s minister of state, which you will disobey at your peril.’ He pressed the bag once more into Harry’s hands. ‘I wish you to go to Ireland, clandestinely, and bring me back information of the British dispositions there. This applies especially to the south-eastern coast in the vicinity of Waterford. It may well be a suitable place for us to plan a landing. Do you accept this dangerous mission?’

  Harry hugged him. ‘With all my heart, dear friend.’

  *

  The Saltee Islands. He had never supposed he would see them again. Now they loomed out of the darkness exactly as he remembered them from ten years before; almost he expected the revenue cutter to appear from behind them, as she had done that night before he had lost control of his life.

  But there was no cutter on station tonight. ‘They worry about American raids,’ the French captain said. ‘And make life easier for us. I will set you ashore on that beach over there, monsieur; Tramore is beyond the next headland.’

  Harry nodded; he knew where he was. ‘Where will you go?’ he asked.

  The Frenchman tapped his nose. ‘It is best you do not know that. You may be taken. But I will be off this beach again this time tomorrow night. If a lantern is waved three times, I will send a boat ashore for you. But I will only wait an hour.’

  Harry nodded again. ‘I understand, and am grateful. I will be there.’

  Half an hour later he was ashore, stamping water from his shoes as he waded from the shallows and up the beach towards the dunes; Tramore was not three miles away.

  How familiar it also looked, he thought as he paused at the old bridge, and looked down the main street. Nothing had changed. Nothing? Indeed. He sought to perform a miracle, and step backwards in time, and resume his life where he had left it, so suddenly and so confidently. Bridget would be but twenty-five years of age. The full bloom of womanhood. So she would have no fine airs and she would not smell of expensive perfume; her earrings would not be diamonds and her clothes hardly satin and silk. But she would regard him as a man, her man, and not a plaything. She could be loved, and she would love back. After ten years, he wanted only the girl he had left behind.

  He skirted the darkened inn, entered by the stable. One of the horses gave a low whinny, and then there was a deep growl of alarm from the corner by the back door. For a moment Harry’s heart all but stopped; the sound had been too close to his memory of Boru. ‘Easy, boy,’ he said, as he walked towards the hound. ‘You have no quarrel with me.’ The animal rose, and sniffed, and growled once more, but was quiet as Harry came up to it. It could smell no fear sweat, and it could recognise the abnormal size and strength of the intruder. Harry stroked its head with one hand, while he knocked with the other, and again. There was no reply, but doors in Tramore were never locked. He patted the dog once more, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. Nothing had changed. Even the smells were the same. He went through the kitchen into the taproom, gazed at the counter and the bottles, just visible in the darkn
ess, then he climbed the stairs to the parlour. It wanted four hours to daylight, and he would not disturb their sleep. He rested his head, and slept himself; he had hardly done so throughout the voyage of several days from Brest, so excited had he been. And awoke with a start, to gaze down the barrel of a pistol, and behind it, the incredulous features of his brother Charlie.

  ‘Harry?’ Charlie whispered. ‘Harry! Holy Mary, I thought you a ghost. Pa!’ he bellowed. ‘Ma! Rory! Jenny! Harry’s home.’

  He was surrounded, his hand pumped, himself squeezed and huggged and kissed. ‘Oh, my darling boy,’ Sally McGann sobbed. ‘My darling boy.’

  ‘We thought you were dead,’ Seamus McGann said, holding him close. ‘And then … you’ll know there’s a price on your head?’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘For mutiny and desertion. Aye. It was forgotten when all supposed you dead. But last spring it was nailed up in the village again, after you and that Scottish pirate …’

  ‘No pirate, Pa,’ Harry said. ‘What we did were acts of war. We sail under the Stars and Stripes. The flag of America.’

  ‘America,’ Seamus said. ‘There is much for us to discuss, that’s for sure. But you … to come back here …’

  ‘I will be gone soon enough,’ Harry promised them. ‘But I had to come to see you. To see Biddy …’ he grinned. ‘I’m a few years late.’

  ‘Biddy.’ Sally McGann sat down.

  ‘Aye, Biddy,’ Seamus said.

  ‘Oh, Harry,’ Jenny cried. ‘Didn’t you know, Biddy …’

  ‘Hush, girl,’ Sally said.

  Harry frowned. ‘She’s not dead?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Gone away?’

  ‘No, no, she lies here in Tramore. But Harry … she’d not wait forever. No girl could wait forever.’

  *

  For safety’s sake, they would not let him leave the inn. His size could not be overlooked, and there was that poster; it seemed not everyone could be trusted, nowadays, not even in Tramore. ‘You’ll not believe your ill fortune,’ Seamus said. ‘Sean O’Rourke is in residence, on leave from his ship, the Serapis. It’d be best for us all if he did not learn of your presence here.’

  Harry could not argue with that. He was here to see, and remember, not cause a disturbance. But what now did he have to remember?

  She came to see him, accompanied by her uncle. ‘The lads are out,’ she explained. ‘Up to their old tricks, I guess. But Harry …’ she stared at him, eyes enormous. While he stared back. She had become a most pretty woman. But also a stranger; there was a babe in her arms, and a small child clung to her skirts. ‘He is called Harry, after you,’ she said. ‘Tom wanted that as much as I.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘My husband, Harry. Tom Pollock.’

  ‘Tom Pollock,’ he said, half to himself. ‘My old shipmate.’

  ‘He ever loved her, Harry,’ Father O’More explained. ‘But ever yielded first place to you. When it was thought you were dead … you cannot blame the girl, Harry.’

  ‘I do not blame her, Father. Or Tom. I blame only myself, for staying away so long. I wish you every happiness, Bridget Pollock. Oh, every happiness.’

  ‘Harry …’ she glanced at her uncle. ‘Will you take the children for a moment, Father?’

  ‘Now, Bridget …’

  ‘Please, Father.’

  He looked at Harry, then took the baby girl from her mother’s arms. ‘Come along, Harry Pollock,’ he said.

  Bridget waited for the door to close, then was in Harry’s arms. ‘Harry! Oh, Harry …’

  He held her hands, and herself, away from him. ‘You’re Tom Pollock’s wife.’

  ‘Do you hate me for that?’

  ‘No, I said I did not. Yet must I be aware of it. And you, too.’

  ‘I waited, Harry, while everyone was sure you were dead. I waited, while Tom beseeched me …’ she sighed. ‘Harry, I accepted his love. But I love you. I’d come with you to the ends of the earth.’

  ‘And your children?’

  For a moment a shadow passed over her face. ‘With or without them, Harry,’

  ‘And you would never forgive yourself, dear Bridget. Your love for me would turn to hate.’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘You’re Tom Pollock’s wife, and the mother of his children. There is nothing we can do to alter that, now.’

  *

  ‘America,’ Seamus McGann said, thoughtfully. ‘I doubt we hear the truth of it, here.’

  ‘Then believe what I tell you, Pa,’ Harry told him, told them all, as they sat around the parlour and gazed at him. Another dream had ended; there was only this dream left. ‘It is a great country to be sure. There is room for a man to stretch, and breathe. And you say ‘sir’ to no one not of your own choosing.’

  ‘’Tis a mighty long way from Tramore,’ Sally McGann observed.

  ‘Leave the arranging of the journey to me,’ Harry said.

  ‘I am not afraid of the journey, Harry. I meant that my mother and her mother, and her mother before her, are all buried in that churchyard. And so are your father’s father and grandfather. We are Tramore people.’

  ‘What of your great grandfather?’ Harry asked. ‘Or Pa’s?’

  ‘That is asking me to go back too far.’

  ‘Only to you. Your grandfather came to Tramore, from the north. From Drogheda, was it not? He came because it was better for him here, because here he could escape William of Orange and his Dutchmen. But to do that he must have abandoned the graves of his parents, and his grandparents. Now you can leave Farmer George and his lobsters and find a new life where they can never trouble you, just as your ancestors did.’

  ‘Can you truly say that, with the British sweeping through the colonies?’ Seamus demanded.

  ‘They can sweep all they like. They will not beat us. And soon they will cry, enough. Believe me, Pa, for they cannot beat us.’

  ‘’Tis still a mighty big decision you ask of us,’ Seamus said. ‘Too big to be taken in a single night. Must you really away tomorrow?’

  ‘I must.’

  ‘Then can you not return?’

  Harry hesitated. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I can return, but perhaps not for a while.’

  ‘Whenever you can. Meanwhile, we’ll talk, and consider, and decide. There’s time.’

  ‘And you’ll keep safe,’ Sally McGann said, holding his hands tightly. ‘No more pirating.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There is no pirating. We fly the Stars and Stripes. We call it, Old Glory. We are Americans, and we are waging war as best we can, against tyranny. But I’ll keep safe. Oh, I’ll keep safe. Until I can come home back for you, and take you to paradise.’

  *

  Lady Steyne closed the door of her private parlour, sat herself in her favourite chair, and slit open the envelope. She knew the handwriting; Annie O’Rourke had ever been a most faithful correspondent. She supposed in many ways Annie was her best friend, although they seldom met, nowadays; Gilbert had little time for country squires, or their daughters.

  But Gilbert was gone, to command a new ship, and fight the Americans. And perhaps never return? But there was treason of the most terrible kind. He was her husband, and she must be his wife. It had been her choice.

  But how she enjoyed her freedom from his lust, his arrogance, his perversions. What a pleasure it was to be able to sit in utter privacy, without fear of interruption, and read a letter from an old friend.

  ‘I hardly know where to begin,’ Annie wrote, in her huge, untidy scrawl. ‘It has been a most remarkable time here,and a sad one, too. But I knew you would wish to know about it, as you have confided to me how you once loved Harry McGann.’

  Elizabeth began to frown.

  ‘He has been here,’ Annie wrote. ‘Can you believe the impudence of the man, a wanted pirate like him, actually in Tramore? It is generally accepted that he wished to see his family, but I have no doubt he also sought Bridget O’More, to whom he was once betrothed. She is of course now married, which
must have been a disappointment to him. And has turned out to be a great tragedy.’

  Elizabeth clutched her throat, but kept on reading.

  ‘He came, and seems to have spent a day,and then left again. No one knows how he did this, and no one would have known at all, had not a secret message been delivered to our house. I cannot bring myself to set down the name of the man who so betrayed him. I use the word betray, because however Harry has turned out to be our enemy, he is also from Tramore, and I had always supposed Tramore people could trust each other. Be that as it may, the message was delivered, to my father. Papa would have done nothing about it; he is the most indolent of men, and he has always had a liking for Harry. But as fortune would have it, Sean was here, recuperating from the wound he received earlier in the year. A wound inflicted by Americans, which embittered him, and he remained embittered by the very thought of Harry McGann in any event. On the strength of the letter, he visited Waterford, obtained the support of a platoon of soldiers, and descended upon Tramore. I cannot believe there would have been catastrophe had he approached the business in a rational frame of mind; certain it is that Harry was no longer there. I have been unable to ascertain the truth of what happened, but there was a fracas, in which Charlie McGann, Harry’s brother, was killed …’

  Elizabeth drew the back of her hand across her brow.

  ‘And Seamus McGann, Harry’s father, was placed under arrest for harbouring a wanted traitor, a deserter from the Royal Navy, and many other things besides. He has been sent to Waterford gaol under guard, my dear Lizzie, and there is talk of his being hanged. I told you, Tramore is a sad place just now, with every man looking askance at his neighbour. I know Sean is my brother, but I hate him for what he has done. And I grieve for the McGanns, who were worthy folk, however Harry may have turned out. I think what saddens them most, oddly enough, is that Harry is unaware of what had happened, as he had already vanished from the vicinity before the soldiers arrived. It is an unhappy thought that he may never know the fate of his father and brother.