B00EF19YY8 EBOK Read online

  Chapter 1

  Oh, Mary, this London's a wonderful sight,

  With people all working by day and by night.

  Sure they don't sow potatoes, nor barley, nor wheat,

  But there's gangs of them digging for gold in the street.

  At least when I asked them that's what I was told,

  So I just took a hand at this digging for gold,

  But for all that I found there I might as well be

  Where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.

  Percy French

  Jack

  Cork

  I was both terrified and horrified when I saw ma and da murdered and then a white rage took over me and I would have raced out with the small, wee knife I held in my hand and killed this Arthur Beauregard. I suddenly felt Caitlin’s hands grip me and she hissed, “No! We can do nothing for them. Open the back window.”

  The house had but one door and the rear window was really just a board to keep out the wind and to let the smoke from the fire drift out. As I was opening it and Caitlin was grabbing the few belongings, we had I heard a voice from outside. It was the voice of the man who had shot my father. “There are two more in there; their children.”

  I shall never forget the icy English voice which snarled, “Set fire to it and throw in the bodies of these two. Hurry up and don’t get blood on my breeches!”

  “What will I use to start it with?”

  “Here. Use the brandy. Pour it on their bodies and then throw them inside.”

  “What if the children try to run?”

  “You still have a pistol and I have two. It matters not if they die inside or outside.”

  Without the need for further urging, Caitlin and I threw ourselves through the tiny window. We ran directly for the ditch which marked the far edge of what had been our land. Our home hid us from view and we lay in the ditch catching our breath. We were able to see the huge overseer throw, first my mother and then my father, through the door. The red coated Englishman then fired his two pistols and there was a flash of light. The house began to burn fiercely. They watch to make sure that it caught all the way around. Satisfied that their work was done they mounted their horses and watched as the house became a raging inferno. We lay as low as we could as they trotted along the track which led to the village. They passed within five feet of us as we hid in the boggy bottom of the drainage ditch.

  “What about the children?”

  “They were probably hiding. It doesn’t matter. They could not survive that blaze. Back to the hall I have had enough of this bloody country and I need my nose looking at.”

  When we knew that they had finally gone, we rose from our place of concealment and walked back to what had been our home. The fire had been so intense that the roof had fallen in and completely destroyed everything within the walls.

  Caitlin took my hand. “We can do no more for them Jack. The house is their grave and we must save ourselves.” We both bowed our heads as we each said a silent prayer.

  There was a grim determination about my older sister as she led me down the track which led south and away from the hall and the hated murderers, the Englishman and his lackey. But the memory was burned, like my home, forever in my mind; it might take some time but one day I would have my revenge. I had seen their faces and I knew their names. I would never neither forget nor forgive. After a mile or so I ventured, “Where are we going?”

  “Cork. We can try to get some money there.”

  Cork! It was a place I had dreamed of visiting but not like this. “How will we get money?”I was already thinking how little we had. My rabbit skinning knife and my slingshot were my most prized possession.

  Caitlin stopped and I noticed that she had a Hessian sack over her shoulder. She reached in. “Here.” I saw that it was da’s best jacket. “It might be too big but it will keep you warm. I have ma’s coat and her necklace from Nanna.” She shrugged. We might be able to sell it.” I gave her a horrified look. “Don’t look at me like that. We need to eat. I am the head of the family now and will be making all the decisions.”

  I glowered at her. “Sure and I am the man of the house now. I’ll not be taking orders from the likes of a girl.”

  The slap she gave me made my teeth rattle and I saw stars. “I’ll tell you when you are a man!” I found myself crying. It wasn’t the pain it was just that I suddenly realised that we were alone. Caitlin, too, began to weep and she put her arms around me. “You have to trust me Jack. We have no time to argue. Now, come along, step lively and we’ll be in Cork by the morning.”

  Caitlin had a great way with words. Her cheerful voice seemed to diminish the pain and loss I knew we both felt. It would be hard but I was in no doubt that we would manage. My mother had always been positive and cheerful. Whenever I brought home a scrawny bunny she would treat it as though it was a side of beef. Caitlin was just like ma; she had her looks and she had her ways. Between the two of us we would survive and then one day, I promised myself, I would find this St.John Beauregard and kill him and the Andrew Neil who had shot my father. I spoke not a word to Caitlin but I made that promise to myself and those are the kinds of promises we all keep. I was to discover that many years later.

  After two days of begging on the streets of Cork, we were so hungry that I did not see how we could last a third day. We had had little to eat before that. Caitlin had tried to get work but each time she failed and I could see that even my cheerful sister was becoming increasingly depressed and disconsolate. Finally I resorted to theft. When I stole the loaf of bread from the delivery boy I was just glad that my mother was not there. She would have been appalled at the crime but we needed the food. It staved off the hunger for a little while longer. We had managed to find a loose plank in the stables and, each night we would enter and climb to the hay loft where we would burrow beneath its warmth. As we shared the bread Caitlin looked at me with a look I had never seen before. It was almost a look of doubt. Perhaps our dream of a new life was a vain one.

  “Look, Jack, we need to leave Ireland. I was talking to some of the others and they say that there are many boats leaving every week and America is a land paved with gold. Why you don’t even need to dig the gold; it lies there on the top of the ground just waiting to be picked up.” For the first time in my life I doubted my older sister. The ‘others’ were street urchins like us and I wondered why they had not sought their fortune in America. “I think I know where I can pick up a little work.” She looked down at the bread she was eating and avoided my gaze. “You go down to the harbour and find the names of the ships going to America and I will try to get this job. I’ll meet you at the quayside at noon.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “Oh some of the girls told me of a place which needs hard working girls.” Her eyes blazed defiantly as she looked at me again, “And I will be the hardest working girl they have ever seen.”

  I hated it when we were not together. I was not a child but I felt lonely without my big sister close by. We were almost the same height even though she was three years older than me. There had been another baby my mother had carried between Caitlin and me but she had died and with the dead brother and sister, we were all we had. I watched her as she waved goodbye and headed into the busy town. I strolled down to the quay. It was a busy place filled with sailors coming and going as well as the fishermen mending their nets or landing their catches. It was a noisy place with the constant sound of screeching seagulls which wheeled overhead desperate for scraps. We had fought them off to get some of the discarded fish heads on our first two hungry days.

  I found a quiet corner of the quay to count the ships and to identify any which might cross the Atlantic. It was deserted or almost so. There was just a one armed fisherman mending his nets and I felt safe.

  I peered at the boats and ships in the harbour. When the fisherman spoke I jumped. He had a voice cracked with the pipe he had stuck between his teeth. As he talked to me I could see that he had mor
e gaps than teeth. “And what would a young farmer’s boy be doing watching the boats?”

  I was curious. “How did you know I was a farmer’s boy? I could have been a sailor?”

  He laughed and it crackled and croaked. “With your pale skin and the peat in your face and your hands what else would you be?”

  I must have looked angry for he held out his good hand, “I meant no harm. I am Stumpy Lannigan.” He held up his stump. “You can see how I got the name.”

  “How did you lose it?”I realise now that an adult would not have asked such a rude question but children know no better.

  “I served in Her Majesty’s navy and a damned slaver slashed it off with his cutlass.” He grinned. “Mind I took the bugger’s head off so I reckon we are even. So why are you looking at the ships?”

  “Me and my sister are orphans and we want to go to America.”

  He shook his head. “Fearful expensive that is. Have you money?”

  I was suspicious. We had met many thieves since we had arrived in Cork. “Not a penny.”

  He seemed satisfied with the answer. “Then you’ll have to work your passage but not your sister. Sailors are superstitious. Women on ships are bad luck.”

  “I am not leaving without my sister.”

  He looked at me with a sad expression on his face. “Sometimes we all have to make decisions we don’t like.” I looked sullenly out across the harbour trying to see which ships were transatlantic. He sighed, “Well there are two big ones there. They have the red flag with the union flag within it. They are British ships and they carry passengers. You could sign on as cabin boy or a sailor. That’d get you over.”

  I pointed at another ship, slightly smaller. It did not appear to have a flag or if it did it was so dirty and tattered as to be indiscernible.”What about that one?”

  “He is a bad ‘un. That is Captain Black Bill Bailey and I would steer clear of him and his like.”

  My eyes lit up. “Is he a pirate?”

  “Not so as you would know but he trades in some mighty funny places. He goes across to America but he does it at night, if you catch my drift.”

  “Smuggling?”

  “And other things. The one next to him is safer.” I followed his gaze and saw a ship with white stars and blue and red stripes. “An American, Captain Adam Lee. A fine sailor and a fair man. You could do worse than him.”

  I spent the next couple of hours listening to Stumpy’s tales of the navy and the sea. He made it seem a comfortable place with good mates, as he called them, and exciting times. He also shared his food with me, bread, cheese, some cockles and small beer. I learned much about life at sea and the perils of signing on. By the time I heard the church bell ring twelve, the sign to meet Caitlin, I felt better than I had before I met Stumpy. He smiled at me. “I’m always here. I can’t do much with one hand but I can still mend nets and I am not beholden to any man. That’s important, young Jack. Always be true to yourself and ask charity of no man. If someone offers you charity that is one thing but do not beg. I hope you and your sister have more luck. But it is a cruel and heartless world we live in and a man makes his own fortune.”

  I ran to the church where we had arranged to meet. It was a safe and busy place. Sometimes the nuns and the priests would slip us a little food as they left the church. We had grown up Catholics but our little village church was not a fine building like the one in Cork. Caitlin looked almost tearful when I met her. It contrasted with how happy and excited I felt. Typically, Caitlin asked after me first. “Have you eaten?”

  “Aye. I met a fisherman mending nets and he shared his food with me.”

  She seemed relieved. She took my hand and led me towards the bread shop.”Well I have a job now and I have a little money. We’ll buy a loaf of bread and a jug of small beer. I had an advance on my pay. After a week or so I may be able to afford to rent us a room somewhere.”

  Caitlin could never hide her thoughts from me and she was keeping something from me. I could tell that she had not lied to me but she had skirted around the truth. When we had bought the bread and the ale we headed for the green mound near the Sallybrook Road, overlooking the wide river. It was a pretty place and as it was not raining the perfect spot to sit and avoid attention. Neither of us had forgotten that the estate manager would, on occasion, visit Cork and he would recognise us. We had witnessed murder and we were under no illusions; we were disposable and, until we left Ireland, in great danger.

  After we had eaten Caitlin lay back and looked up at the clouds scudding around the sky. “Do you think ma and da are looking down on us now?”

  I had avoided thinking of life after death. I knew that the priest said you had to have absolution to get into heaven and neither of them had had that but I did not think that God would refuse to let them enter. “I hope so.”

  Suddenly Caitlin rolled over and began sobbing in my arms. How had I said the wrong thing?”They will be in heaven! Honestly; I know it! They were good people! It is those two murdering bastards who will rot in hell and I will send them there!” They were brave but empty words but I just wanted to make my sister feel better.

  She rolled off me and I noticed for the first time that she had red on her lips and blue on her eyes. I had not noticed them before but before I could ask her why she blurted out. “I don’t want them to see me. I am a bad girl and sinful girl and I will be the one to rot in hell!”

  The look in her eyes worried me. “Caitlin. What is this job you have?”

  I held my breath for I had an idea of her answer. She looked down at the grass, twisting clumps of it into tiny strands.”I work in the alehouse.”

  I was relieved and then heard the deception in her voice. “Serving tables?”

  “Serving tables,” then she looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears, “and the men.”

  My voice was so quiet that I barely heard it myself, “You are a whore?”

  She nodded and threw herself back onto the ground. “I will rot in hell.”

  Suddenly Stumpy’s words came back to me. Better that I work, and my sister be saved the indignity and shame of whoring herself. “I will get a place on a ship and I will earn enough to take you to America.”

  “But we would be separated! I should be there to look after you.”

  “If you are lying on your back letting strangers take you then you will not be looking after me.” It was a cold brutal statement and I had made it without thinking.

  For the second time she rattled my teeth. “You may be speaking the truth but I’ll not be having my own brother talk to me like that. What else could I do?”

  Both of us fell silent. She was right. The world was cruel to the Irish poor and we had been little better than slaves on the land. Now we had no rights and could be hurled into the street or put in the poorhouse if we were discovered. There we would work all day for a bowl of gruel with no hope of a life outside the grim walls of the institution. I stroked her hair. “You are right and I am sorry. This is better than the workhouse and I will see if Stumpy will teach me to mend nets. That way we will have more money.” I held her chin so that she was forced to look at my eyes. “But I will go to sea and I will take you to America.”I held her face in my two hands. “I swear you will not suffer this long.”

  She threw her arms around me and held me tightly. “So long as we have each other, brother I can endure all.”

  Years later I reflected on my vain words; I was young and I was foolish and I had many lessons to learn before I could call myself a man.

  It was late when Caitlin returned to the barn. Her face was drawn and I saw specks of blood on the edge of her dress. Another would not have seen the marks against the many other stains she had but I knew every inch of her and knew that she had an injury. I waited for her to tell me. She gave a wan smile and held out a jug of beer; this was not small beer but the one the men drank. “Here. I have had a jug myself. It will help you to sleep.”

  I noticed that she did not sound
as she normally did. My mother would have been shocked for she had never drunk anything stronger than small beer and tea. It had been many years since we could afford even a corner of tea. Caitlin was drunk! I took a swig of the ale and found it sharp and bitter but if my sister had drunk some then so would I. She lay in the hay with her eyes half closed. “Was it … bad?”

  “I survived… I survived.”

  I could not sleep for hours, despite the beer. Those words haunted me. Was this our future? My sister whoring until she was of no further use and me living off her meagre money? I resolved to ask Stumpy for help the next day. I would not ask for charity but I would seek his advice.

  Although I had not said a word to him Stumpy gave me a sad and sympathetic look. “Now then young Jack and how are you on this fine morning?”

  The words belied his looks. “Not so good Stumpy.” I had known him less than a day but I felt that I could trust him. As I grew older I learned to trust my instincts. They rarely let me down. I told him everything.

  He nodded as he carefully mended the tear in the small net he was repairing. “Now don’t be hard on yourself or your sister. We do not choose our own lives; they come to us and we have to make the best of them. Just because she’s… well she is still a good girl for she is doing it for you. And you,” he stopped for a moment and he said quietly, “what would you have of Old Stumpy?”

  “Could I work for you? I am a hard worker and I learn fast.”

  “I would love you to work for me. You are like the grandson I never had but there is barely enough work for me. This time next year my eyes will have gone and it’ll be the workhouse for me. No Jack, you need a job.” He stroked his stubbly chin with his stump. “I’ll ask around and see if I can find a berth for you.” His eyes twinkled. “I still know a fellow or two.” He looked down at the rocks below. “What you can do if you want food and maybe a bit of money is to scramble down to those rocks and collect mussels. You can eat them or sell them.” He looked me up and down. “In your case I would eat them.”